#and it should not be treated as a genre like fantasy or horror

[fastepp]

i need YA to be better written and I need full grown adults to stop recommending me YA. these two things are related.

[welcometothejianghu]

Welcome to another round of W2 Tells You What You Should See, where W2 (me) tries to sell you (you) on something you should be watching. Today's choice: 킹덤/Kingdom.

Kingdom is a 2019-2020 Netflix series set in Joseon-era Korea, following the collaborative adventures of an exiled prince, a country doctor, and a scrappy mercenary who's pretty much the only one in this entire zombie outbreak who has a damn gun.

I have very complicated feelings about zombie media. See, in case you hadn't noticed, horror movies are never actually about what they're about. And a whole lot of modern zombie stories wind up being a) metaphors for fears of immigration by mindless subhuman hordes hell-bent on infecting the good, pure people, b) white male fantasies about how the downfall of civilization will put them back on top again and then all you DEI people will be sorry! and/or c) ways to let your protagonists just kill the shit out of a whole lot of humans but it's okay because they're not really human. Soooo yeah. A lot of zombie-flavored things I like, I have to like them despite all that.

But Korean zombie media tends to avoid a lot of these issues. (Maybe because Korea's experience with invasion is less Fox News Lies About Scary Brown Migrant Caravan Again and more [long list of actual historical incidents]? Who can say!) Kingdom is no exception. It's smart zombie fiction, where the zombies are mostly here to make the already-complicated mundane geopolitical situation just that much more of a fucking nightmare.

This is a bloody, violent, grimy, often downright gross drama, so if you're squeamish, you may want to pass on this. If you're into horror, though, and into zombie horror especially, go on and sink your teeth right into these five reasons I think you should watch it.

1. No one here has ever seen a zombie movie

You know how one of the frustrating things about watching a zombie property is seeing a bunch of otherwise competent, regular people act like they had all their cultural awareness of zombies surgically removed, down to making up cute words that aren't "zombie" to keep from saying the word "zombie"?

Everybody in this show has the excuse that they are living several centuries before even the possibility of zombie movies.

This story starts out pretty standard for a historical drama: a sick king, a pregnant queen, a crown prince in a precarious position, questions of succession, accusations of treason, wealth and class dynamics oppressing the poor, shady backroom politics -- you know, the usual stuff. And it never stops being about all that! It just also has zombies. Evil bastards don't stop being evil just because decomposing hordes are breaking down the door. In fact, that just makes them worse! And our heroes are at ends because they have no natural immunity to the genre they've walked into.

Sure, there are some moments of comic relief, but for the most part, Kingdom plays its premise absolutely straight-faced. How would 17th-century Koreans deal with a bunch of walking corpses? With period-appropriate tools, tactics, and mindsets!

In your standard modern zombie setup, everybody has guns, and then some special badass rolls in with a katana and everyone oohs and ahhs. In Kingdom, the wealthy have swords, the common folk maybe have farm implements, and there's one measly matchlock rifle in the party. For a few lucky headshots, you've got archers. For everyone else, things are about to get real up close and personal.

The characters also have period-appropriate worldviews that both inform their reactions to the problem and are frankly bizarre by modern standards. What if you had to deal with zombies in a place with cultural taboos against dismembering or burning dead bodies? What if people felt compelled to treat the corpses of peasants differently from corpses of nobles? What if the scholars won't act in their own defense because it's insulting to ask them to wield weapons? What if you can't ask certain important people certain questions because it's literally treason to do so?

The real moral of Kingdom is that there's not a situation so bad that devotion to Confucian principles can't make it worse.

2. That scrappy bastard

I'm not going to play favorites here-- Wait, what am I saying, of course I am. It's Yeongshin.

You know how, in any given zombie movie, your hapless protagonists survive because early on they find a party member who's about ten levels higher than they are? That's Yeongshin. He's cagey as hell about his shady past -- to the point where we don't even learn his actual name -- but he's going to come in real handy here, because he is also the aforementioned only guy with a gun, and he fucking knows how to use it.

And okay, I'm exaggerating about the gun shortage, but not by much. Firearms are rare, you need training to be able to operate them, and no matter how good you are, they still take time to reload after each shot -- if they even fire at all. (Also, ignore the part where everyone's aim is far better than shitty matchlock rifling should allow.) Guns are not the go-to weapon in this zombie situation. You can't just shove a bunch of pistols in everybody's hands and count on at least a few lucky shots. You could amass all the period-appropriate firepower you wanted, but without specialists, it'd be useless.

Yeongshin is fueled by some very reasonable guilt, since, uh, a nonzero amount of the shit that goes down is kiiiiiinda his fault. But I love that instead of giving him a death wish, it makes him even more determined to survive and do what he can to mitigate the fallout of his unintentionally terrible decisions. He knows he's far more useful alive, so to hell with taking the easy way out. Whether his opponents are living or undead, he's going to make them wish they hadn't messed with him.

This is a good place to note that the whole cast is great, from the thunder-voiced head of the evil family to the prince's wife-guy manservant to the doll-faced bitch queen. And obviously Ju Jihoon and Bae Doona are captivating every second they're on the screen, because they are absolute acting powerhouses and I love to watch them work. His Prince Lee Chang and her physician Seobi are compelling, memorable main characters who perform the important zombie-movie function of being the people you care about when they get put into dangerous situations.

But I walked away from this unable to stop thinking about Yeongshin. Bare-headed in a world of very meaningful (and often very silly) hats, he's feral and bitey and completely unfit for polite society. So of course he's going to wind up side-by-side with the second most you-need-to-be-respectful-to-him guy in the land.

More than anything, I love watching him work. He's a very physical character, but all his stats are in speed and agility, so he will just literally throw himself full-body against doors or into fights and let his momentum do the work. His actor, the handsomely exhausted-looking Kim Sungkyu, brings such a great physicality to the role. Yeongshin may be the Gun Guy, but he's not sniping from the back row. He's right there on the front lines, pulling off stunts none of the other characters would dream of trying. I cannot stress enough what a delight his action sequences are. It's such a good visual counterpart to the zombies, who also have no sense of bodily self-preservation.

And speaking of the zombies...

3. Zombie rules

I find that Korean zombie properties are the best in particular at zombie physics. Their directors seem very interested in pondering exactly what the weight of that many bodies would do. The answer is usually pretty gruesome and visually fascinating!

Kingdom's main use of zombies is by volume. While there are a few (memorable!) one-on-one scenes, the show delights in seeing just how many zombies it can fit in the frame. The danger is always from the sheer number of hostile bodies. You can use those numbers against them, if you're clever, but wait too long and you run the risk of being completely overwhelmed.

I've seen some people criticize the zombie extras by accusing them of not moving like zombies, which is the kind of nonsense you say when your only exposure to zombies is Slow Zombies. Kingdom's zombies are Fast Zombies -- they don't shamble, they swarm. They all just plow on full speed ahead until something stops them, and they definitely don't watch where they're going. Those extras do some incredible work flinging their bodies over obstacles and into solid objects. I sure hope one of the benefits of all that voluminous period-appropriate costuming is how much good padding you can probably stuff under there.

Continuing the thought exercise about what a 17th-century zombie outbreak would look like, Kingdom does some clever things with putting humans and zombies alike in situations you wouldn't find in the modern world, ones made possible only by the time period. I really like that it never forgets that part of the fun of this whole enterprise is making the best of the social and technological concepts that would have been present then. It doesn't feel like a modern zombie movie with incidental hanbok -- it actually makes the most of what a rural medieval setting both gives and takes away.

The rules Kingdom makes for its zombies are also an interesting take. You, the modern viewer, know how zombies work in general, but you don't know all the quirks of these zombies in particular, so you're learning at the same time the characters are. And sometimes you learn wrong! Sometimes you have to rewrite your whole strategy because you realize at a critical moment that both you and the characters misunderstood something very badly.

...And yeah, okay, it plays a little fast and loose with those rules sometimes, but so what? You know how this works! You know that the lead actors will dodge more and get bitten less than the random extras will. You know that named characters will last longer than their NPC counterparts. If you're going to hold that against it, maybe horror movies aren't the thing for you. Go do a Rubik's Cube or something.

4. The parts without zombies

Plenty, plenty of people have made the Game of Thrones comparison, which ... yeah, sure, I can see it. It wouldn't have been my first thought, but I get where people are coming from. And you know what, if you're a Game of Thrones enjoyer, you'll probably like this too. It hits a lot of the same beats and has a lot of the same vibes. It's kind of like if you shrunk Game of Thrones in the wash, until there were only two warring families and not a conlang in sight.

This show isn't historically accurate to the letter -- think of it more as AU Joseon-Era Korea, where specific people are fictional but the larger context is more or less the way things would have been. You never get given a specific year, but from technology and various context clues, you can kinda narrow it down to the 1600s. It never commits to a single year, though, which dodges a lot of nitpicks. Its fictional aspects are nice, too, because that means you don't have to know any real history at all. The show will give you all the information you need to understand the campaign setting, just in case your knowledge of medieval Korean dynasties is not up to snuff.

The conceit of the series is that some very specific devious political backstabbing and corruption has been happening since before the show began, making everything vulnerable to catastrophe. Unsurprisingly, the sudden appearance of zombies does not magically mend those rifts and make everyone come together! In fact, the reason the zombies are happening at all is related to these treasonous power plays, and while we never learn the full story (see my later note on the drama's ending), we get a whole lot of it. And it's a good, complicated reason! Here we return to the idea that zombie movies are always metaphors for something else. Set against the backdrop of multiple Japanese invasions during this period, Kingdom sure does have some things to say about the dangers of considering certain lives disposable in the service of the greater good.

I will be the first to say that IT TURNED OUT MAN WAS THE REAL MONSTER ALL ALONG storylines are tedious, so I'm glad Kingdom didn't decide it needed to beat that drum. The truth is, nobody's surprised when the bastards who have treated other people like shit all their lives continue being bastards in a crisis situation. It's the Joseon Dynasty. Everybody's locked into a rigid neo-Confucianist hierarchy. They don't need an apocalypse to reveal how much the people at the top would sell them all for a single corn chip. They've been clear on that one for a long time.

What this means is, if you're not traditionally someone who goes in for zombie horror, but you like a good political thriller and can roll with some supernatural elements, you might consider giving this one a shot anyway! It's not some hugely complicated and sophisticated plot, but it's still plenty to chew on. (See what I did there?)

5. Time to spend that Netflix money!

This show is gorgeous. It looks beautiful and it sounds beautiful. It's shot beautifully against beautiful sets and even more beautiful landscapes. Everyone's wearing beautiful costumes. What little CG there is is even beautiful. It's just visually a treat.

Light is such an important part of the show that I can't not comment on Kingdom's use of it, production-wise. The show is often shadowy as hell, but in a high-contrast way, as opposed to the awkward near-blackness of so much prestige TV. Even when it's dark enough that faces and details are obscured, there are still light sources that provide visual interest. Besides, I'll cut it some slack because it is a horror property. You should be watching it in a dark room anyway! And sure, there's some awkward day-for-night stuff, and transitions around sunset can be downright goofy, but if that's the worst of the jank we have to suffer through, it's fine.

As beautiful as it is, it's also very ugly. The story takes place over a period of time so short that barely anyone has time to change their clothes, much less take a bath. The grime just accumulates: sweat, dust, mud, sewage, smoke, spit, and all kinds of blood and viscera. By the time the story's done, everyone looks realistically beat to shit. (Bless those poor makeup artists, having to keep such close track of all the damage characters have suffered.)

I feel as though I should note for context that while I'm a horror movie fan, I'm still pretty squeamish when it comes to gore. I made it through Kingdom okay, but there were definitely parts I had to watch through my fingers. It hits the realism middle ground that gives me the wiggins, where it's neither absurdly chaste about bloodletting nor dumping comedic buckets of corn syrup on the actors. It suits the tone of the show perfectly! Just, you know, if you're a little tender (like I am), be ready to look away from the screen sometimes.

Korean historical dramas sure do have a real advantage on the wig front, in that most everyone is wearing some kind of historically appropriate hat or headband that covers the places their wig joins. And then you have Yeongshin, who looks so good all shaggy because that's clearly at least mostly Kim Sungkyu's real hair.

I've seen a lot of shitty low-budget horror in my day, sure -- but I've also seen a lot of shitty high-budget horror, where a production has a lot of money and spends it all on exactly the wrong things. Kingdom uses its funds wisely. It's not extravagant (except for the queen's amazing outfits). There are practical effects aplenty and some beautifully framed shots. It gets a little gimmicky with the camera work in season 2, but you know what? It's fun! The gimmicks are action-movie fun, and I will not criticize something for having fun in the midst of some otherwise grisly subject material.

It's also got great rewatch value. There are just enough secrets running throughout that going back for a second viewing makes a lot of things make more sense -- in, of course, a horrible way! But that's just the way we like it.

caveat: Beware of cliffhangers

The show is two seasons long, and it's clearly set up in expectation of a third season ... which never happened. What did happen was a separate, largely unsatisfying movie that tells the backstory of the cool character you meet in the last ten seconds of the last episode.

But that's it. There was also a prince-focused prequel planned, but that got scrapped before production even began, and that was four years ago. I'm not holding out much hope that we'll ever get anything more from the Kingdom universe.

I am not super-bothered by this, though, and here's why: The two seasons are enough to wrap up the main political plot. Most of what's left is zombie lore, and I am so bored by zombie lore. Still, would I have watched these characters roll around in that zombie lore for another six episodes? Without question! Are there loose ends I wish had gotten resolved? You better believe it! Do I want to know what the super-duper secret behind the zombies is? I sure do!

But I also don't feel like I got cheated out of an ending. Those two seasons hang on a story that's 90% the political succession crisis and 10% figuring out where on earth this whole zombie thing came from. That means what you get feels like 90% of an ending, which is pretty damn good by my standards.

Still, it's enough of a bummer that I feel I should give a little heads-up about it -- working, as I always do, on the principle that something can't disappoint you if you know it's coming. If you go in with the right mindset, you can be happy with what you get while not being sad about what you don't. And what you get in Kingdom is, in my little horror-loving opinion, worth it.

(Also, am I giving it extra credit points for how it did not sink my ship? Buddy, you better fucking believe I am.)

Ready to watch?

Netflix money means Netflix. It's got two seasons, and then you can make the decision about how much you care about the movie. I found it mostly disappointing with a few really cool moments, so it's your call if that's enough to justify your watching it.

The series itself is a pretty quick watch, too -- twelve episodes total, all 30-50 minutes long once you skip the opening and closing credits. You can blow through the whole thing easily in a single weekend, which is not something you can say about your standard Korean television season of sixteen hour-long episodes.

And then pretty please come back and do fan stuff for it! I couldn't find exactly what I wanted so I had to write my own. One Quiet Night remains one of my comfort fics that I self-soothe by rereading, which may be a weird thing to say about a smutty gay fanfic about a violent zombie drama, but hey, we all make our own fun.

Also, I know I usually end these with a cute behind-the-scenes photo, but this promo video is too adorable to leave out, so we're going with it instead. It's slightly spoilery for season 1, but not in a way that makes sense out of context. And if you didn't have a crush on Kim Sungkyu already, well, you will after this!

[goodluckclove]

How I Critique Writing (A Loose Collection of Tips)

Someone asked me for insights into my methodology when it comes to giving feedback on writing and I realized I had way more than I could say in a reasonable amount of private messages. Are you someone who I've spoken to about their writing? Did someone send you their work and you don't know how to respond? Maybe this will help? Based on how people react I feel like it might be controversial but it seems to work.

When someone sends me their writing, no matter the size, subject or genre, I:

Take it seriously. It's a generational epic about the Vietnam war and its effects. It's a cute, young adult romance. It's Zim and Dib from Invader Zim realizing they've always been in love with each other. All of these things can be written with earnestness, strength, honesty and skill. It's fucking hard to write and if someone writes a single sentence that wouldn't otherwise exist its worth holding in your hands and examining with the same eye as if you were taking an interesting book off the shelf.

Respond with curiosity. It's common for critiques to follow a theme of ambiguous disdain. This doesn't work. Delete this. Bad. No. Gross. Guess what? That's not helpful. If you got that feedback, even if you followed it, you wouldn't be thrilled about it. Oftentimes you can take a line that makes you want to say Bad and ask something else. What is this supposed to express? What were you trying to do here? Am I supposed to feel happy/sad/uncertain when I read this? Curiosity can reframe something that you don't think works as a reader and turn it into an opportunity for the writer to look inward and solve their own problem. They might explain what they were trying to do, and if you were to say that it didn't pan out for you they're way more likely to tweak things themselves and feel like they still have control over their project.

Give comments. I've started giving more in-depth comments on the writing people give me depending on how anxious they are about it. If you're a pretty confident writer I'll give a summary of what I gained and what I was left wondering, what I thought and what I felt, what associations it made me think of in terms of tone and other forms of media - stuff like that. For newer writers, especially those who are far more doubting of their own abilities, I go buck wild. And in my opinion notes should be less like Good! I like this! Wow! Nice! (What are you, grading my book report? No thanks), and more like what you think when you're reading a book you're truly invested in. Make jokes about the characters (Not mean ones. I will send bugs to you in the mail.), chart exact lines that provoke physical reactions, even a small one. Can you imagine reading someone treat your work like it has its own fandom on Tumblr? You can do that for someone else.

Fucking have some fucking awareness of the fact that it might not be for you and that doesn't mean it's bad. I'm angry about this one considering the novel a friend sent me last night that they've been too terrified to try and post online, despite it being fucking brilliant. I'll try and calm down. Listen - you read what you like. I mainly read literary and experimental fiction, some poetry, horror and some sci-fi. Not a lot of genre fiction. But I will always be down to read someone's high fantasy story, because even though I don't really like fantasy I know what the good ones sound like. I've forced myself to gain a sense of what someone else would like, even if I don't like it. And I can still critique it. If I'm a builder and I see a house that's painted a shade of green I find sinful for a home (i.e. mint), I can look past that and focus on the state of the walls and the stability of the foundation. You aren't a reviewer, man. You are neither Siskel, nor Ebert. They write for readers, you write for writers. So you don't like historical fiction? Cool, man. Congrats. If someone trusts you enough to give you some to read and critique, you should still do so objectively. If you give it an automatic F because you wouldn't buy it, then you are legally a stinky little trash man. That's just the law.

Ask them what they liked to write and what was the hardest. There's apparently a weird trend on online writer communities that say there are specific rules that all writers need to follow. This is not true. It just isn't. If the dialogue in a story you read is weak, and the writer says they hate writing dialogue and really struggle with it, maybe tell them they don't have to use it. You might change their entire life.

RESPOND WITH CURIOSITY. You see the Ask games where people try and get more detail on the WIP of certain authors. If you have a WIP and I ask you a worldbuilding question that doesn't relate to the direct plot of the story as it exists now, I bet you'd like to talk about it. If I ask if you were inspired by a certain tone or movie, you might know the work I was talking about and feel happy. Or you might not know it, look it up, and feel inspired. I don't think people realize that a critique of new/unfinished writing is not a one-and-done exchange. You are taking part in an isolated process in a way few other people on the planet will. It's not homework. It's. Not. Homework. We spend so much of our time alone just fiddling our hands and making our magic, and in instances like these we share something in one of the ultimate forms of artistic trust. They're taking you into a world that hasn't fully formed yet. Is it cool? Can you tell me about it? Can they?

Be nice. Storytime, friends. In the way early 2010s, there was something on the internet called sporking. It was pretty much a line by line roast of someone's writing - typically fanfic. And I hate to say this, but I read a lot of it. I was 13, somehow untreated and overmedicated, and I was miserable constantly. Just cold in my chest. At one point I had the chance to critique a stranger's story - probably another child - and I essentially mocked the whole thing. They ended up deleting the story off the website. I cannot begin to describe to you the shame I feel about doing this, even ten years later. It burns in my heart and makes me sick to my stomach. If you are a serious writer, especially a young writer, and you insult another writer's craft to their face just as they're getting started - you will regret it. I promise you that. You will think about holding something alive and full of potential in your hands and squeezing your fists until it is just flecks of meat and crushed bone. It will haunt you. Maybe only a little, but constantly and for the rest of your life. So don't do it.

Wow what a grim note to leave on! That's essentially my philosophy on writing critique, do with it what you will. Want to send me some writing to receive this kind of excessive treatment? Cool! I have an email in my pinned post and I'll do that! I'm also down to chat if anyone wants to send me asks or DMs on writing/writing struggles/publishing tips.

[windvexer]

In the moment i'm just learning about magic, reading different books and stuff. More on the theory side. (Both because I know very little but also because I have no materials, like not even herbs lol). In this case do i also need to do some protection work or is not necessary?

I also got recommended the book 'psychic self defense" by dion fortune. Do you know if its any good and trustworthy?

Good morning!

I do not believe that studying occultism should necessitate magical protection for anyone.

The idea that researching occultism, looking at sigils, reading barbarous words, or saying spell incantations out loud, will ✨do magic✨ and immediately put that person at some level of risk, is silly beans, and I think an idea mostly espoused by horror movies and urban fantasy genre television shows.

I don't think it puts you at any level of risk. Even people who decide they want to be witches and put serious effort into casting spells and interacting with spirits may struggle for a long time to "break through."

There is no reason to think at all that coming into contact with occult texts, in and of itself, is a danger.

I read Psychic Self-Defense some time ago. I don't recall it a whole lot except that A) I thought it was interesting and B) I didn't think it was very applicable to me or modern sorcery.

I got a lot of utility from Protection and Defense Magick by Jason Miller, but it's important to read with a critical eye regarding cultural appropriation (IIRC he trained under multiple closed schools and tends to treat them as open to anyone as long as someone agrees to teach you), and if research is your game, then separating his theory from his 'Hekatian Grimoire' is a good way to analyze the book.

[alpaca-clouds]

Solarpunk as a Storytelling Framework

I will be honest: Yes, right now I am mostly writing Fanfictions set in somewhat medieval fantasy settings. But I really do want to write more original stuff - especially Solarpunk fiction. I talked about my idea of writing a Solarpunk horror story two days ago. And I promise you that I will write more about that during the next few weeks.

Something else that I have talked about before is the fact, that there is not yet a lot of solarpunk fiction. And part of that is that Solarpunk is inherently anti-capitalist and hence a lot of big media conglomerates do not want to tell those stories. But another part is, that people treat Solarpunk too much as a genre on its own, but do not know what kind of story a Solarpunk is actually telling.

And here is the thing: You gotta realize that technically Solarpunk mostly describes a setting - not a type of story.

See, here is the thing: This is actually true for a lot of "genre fiction". Fantasy technically also does not tell you what kind of story it is, only that it takes place in a sort of fantastical setting, where there might be magic, fantasy creatures, or maybe stuff like elves and dwarves and what not. And sure, most folks hear "fantasy" and think "adventure", but if you consider this you will realize that for the most part fantasy really does describe the setting - and adventure is the actual genre.

Same can be said with SciFi. In both Fantasy and SciFi you can technically tell a romance, an erotic thriller, an adventure, a murder mystery, a philosophical story about the meaning of life, a political drama, and a ton of other stories.

And the same is true for Solarpunk. You can tell all sorts of stories within a Solarpunk setting.

And sure, some of the other punk genre tend to be more pegged in with their actual genre. Like, most Cyberpunk tends to be mystery-based with a heavy helping of noir. Most Steampunk tends to go into either some adventuring direction, or deal with mystery as well. And even as small was Whalepunk is, most Whalepunk tends to be horror-themed.

But rather than be alienated by the fact that Solarpunk does not yet have a hole to be pegged in... We should rather enjoy this fact, don't you think?

[littleplasticrat]

Writer Interview Tag

I'm grateful to have been tagged by @tellmeallaboutit, @my-favourite-zhent and @beesht. Sorry it took so long for me to get around to. Honestly I am blown away that anyone would put me in a 'writer' bucket with the other word crabs

Tellmeallaboutit's interview

My-favourite-zhent's interview

Beesht's interview

My answers below the cut for some NSFW discussion

When did you start writing?

The most recent bout of writing started in December 2023 and was prompted by being insatiably horny for Gortash. This is the first time I've written fanfiction.

I wrote a short novel from 2012-2013 and would put that in the fantasy YA category about a magician who falls in love with a phoenix.

As a kid, I wrote a lot, up until around the age of 16 or so when I realised that I didn't want to live the life of a struggling artist and so set my sights on getting work with more consistent pay than writing books.

I actually do quite a lot of writing for my current job. It's industry-specific instructional writing but I feel that some of the meta-skills are applicable between the two genres.

Are there different themes or genres you enjoy reading than what you write?

I really only read horror short fiction recreationally, and I've only written one horror story - which I found super challenging and wouldn't really want to tackle again. Luckily, I'm able to excise the horrors by running TTRPG games and thus don't have to deal with the difficult challenge of making something sound scary.

Is there a writer you want to emulate or get compared to often?

I haven't been compared to any writers - I simply haven't written enough stuff that isn't solid filth XD

Can you tell me a bit about your writing space?

Up until I moved house last week, I had a dedicated home office with a large drawing tablet and my mother's boarding school desk from the 1960s. Until I can get an office set up in the guest bedroom of the new house (I'm in no rush), I'm on my laptop at the dining table downstairs or a local cafe.

What's your most effective way to muster up a muse?

I try to preach that a hobby should be treated like self-care and so not be a source of stress, but I have the heart of a procrastinator and the bones of a perfectionist; if I waited for the muse to strike me with creative stuff, I wouldn't get anything done.

So, if I'm feeling wigged out about life, I'm not going to force anything, but otherwise I have a 'smash it out' approach of breaking down the work as much as possible and going from there. Any writing I do therefore starts life as a series of bullet points of what exactly I want to happen and in what order, and I build out methodically from there.

Are there any recurring themes in your writing? Do they surprise you?

The thrill of fancying someone a lot? Horniness? Butt stuff? LOL

What is your reason for writing?

I want to be the freak I want to see in the world.

Is there any specific comment or type of comment you find particularly motivating?

Any comment I get is like JAZZ HANDS. Seriously! It's so flattering to have someone slow down and look at my stuff, let alone acknowledge it.

How do you want to be thought about by your readers?

I once read a shitty horror novel where the villain was able to destroy the protagonist's life, because she'd read all his books and so knew him. That rattled me so hard! There's no way I'm skillful enough to develop an authorial voice that isn't my own. So, like, don't think about what my disgusting fanfics say about who I am as a person please [jk]

What do you feel is your greatest strength as a writer?

I'd say the action is pretty clear, and I can crack a joke at the right time. What more could a reader ask for?

How do you feel about your own writing?

I would like there to be more of it but my art will take priority for now <3

I think most people I know write on here have already been tagged several times, so I shall not tag further.

[authoralexharvey]

INTERVIEW WITH A WRITEBLR — @multi-lefaiye

Who You Are:

Multi/Xavier || They/he

I'm a 23 year old aspiring author who loves to write stories exploring grief, trauma, and mental illness! I love horror and anything spooky that makes you think and leaves a lasting impact on you.

What You Write:

What genres do you write in? What age ranges do you write for?

Adventure, comedy, fanfic, fantasy, horror, paranormal, psychological, romance, thriller, and tragedy. Young and new adult, and adult.

What genre would you write in for the rest of your life, if you could? What about that genre appeals to you?

I would love to write horror forever honestly. Horror appeals to me because it examines what scares us and why, and I feel like horror gives us a real look into what makes us who we are like no other genres do. My favorite stories are ones that explore humanity through having it face The Horrors.

What genre/s will you not write unless you HAVE to? What about that genre turns you off?

I'm really not a fan of realistic, slice-of-life type works. Sometimes it can be fun, but I don't like works that are purely realistic without anything funky going on. I do have one WIP that comes close to slice-of-life, but that's probably the one exception haha!

Who is your target audience? Do you think anyone outside of that would get anything out of your works?

My target audience is honestly myself. I write the kinds of stories that I wish I could've had growing up, and if anyone else gets anything out of them, then that's just a bonus.

What kind of themes do you tend to focus on? What kinds of tropes? What about them appeals to you?

I focus a lot on grief and trauma and how they impact people. I love to explore the psyche of a character that's gone through hell and how they come with it, and I love recovery narratives. I don't really know how to explain what keeps me coming back to those sorts of stories again and again.

What themes or tropes can you not stand? What about them turn you off?

One thing I really dislike is when stories make a character's trauma an afterthought or otherwise don't acknowledge or explore it. I understand that not every story has the place for that, but at the end of the day, I think more of them should explore how their characters are affected. I also really dislike recovery narratives that treat it as a linear process with no bumps in the road or pitfalls. Recovery is messy, non-linear, and difficult, and I want to see that reflected more.

What are you currently working on? How long have you been working on it?

I'm working on quite a few things, haha! I like to joke that I have a very short attention span, and I do genuinely struggle to focus on one WIP for an extended period of time. One that I keep coming back to is called For We Are Both Fragile Things--a romance story featuring themes around mental health, grief, and trauma, ultimately ending in tragedy.

Why do you write? What keeps you writing?

Sometimes I feel like I have all these stories in my heart that I'm just bursting at the seams to release, and if I don't write them, then they'll rot away inside me forever. I have to write, because I don't know what else to do.

How long have you been writing? What do you think first drew you to it?

I've been writing stories since I was about six! What first drew me to it was a desire to tell my own stories and share them with the world, even if "the world" was just my friends and family.

Where do you get your inspiration from? Is that how you got your inspiration for your current project? If not, where did the inspiration come from?

I get inspiration from a wide variety of sources! Admittedly, I get a lot of inspiration from the media I consume and enjoy. For We Are Both Fragile Things is inspired by a few different things, but a big inspiration was my desire to tell a story that the reader knows will end in tragedy but still keeps them invested anyway. I think it's impressive when writers can pull that off, and I want to give it a shot!

What work of yours are you most proud of? Why?

Gosh, that's a hard choice! I think… one thing I'm really proud of is Vultures Are Holy Creatures, a character study centering around my OC Roach. It's incredibly personal to me in many ways, but more than that I think it's one of my most emotional pieces of writing.

Have you published anything? Do you want to?

I have had a couple of short stories published in school literary magazines, but nothing more official than that. I'd certainly like to, but I've been making my peace with the idea that not everything needs to be traditionally published.

What part of the publishing process most appeals to you? What part least appeals to you?

I honestly just love the idea of holding a physical copy of one of my books in my hands someday. I think that would be a really good feeling. However, I hate the idea of trying to interact with a traditional publisher and being forced to tone down aspects of my work, especially how queer my characters are.

What part of the writing process most appeals to you? What part is least appealing?

I just love to write! I love to write and see where things go. Not that big a fan of planning, though, if I'm honest. It can be fun, but outlining especially tends to bore me and make me lose interest in a project if I spend too much time on it.

Do you have a writing process? Do you have an ideal setup? Do you write in pure chaos? Talk about your process a bit.

My writing process is messy. I struggle to find motivation to sit down and write most days, and when I do, it's usually when I actually can't for one reason or another. Something that's been helping me, though, is roleplaying! I've done quite a lot of that over the years, but recently it's been helping me a ton with finding the energy to write my personal projects. In terms of my actual process, I suppose I'm a bit of a plantser--I don't do well with no plan, but planning is hard and I prefer to go with the flow.

Your Thoughts on Writeblr:

How long have you been a writeblr? What inspired you to join the community?

I've been a writeblr for about a year! I actually tried to join the community in the past, but I was too nervous to reach out to anyone! I'm a lot more comfortable now, though. I was inspired to join because I wanted to not only share my own work, but see others' as well!

Shout out some of your favorite writeblrs. How did you find them and what made you want to follow them?

Oh, I have so many favorite writeblrs that I don't think I can list them all here! Off the top of my head… @writeouswriter, @albatris, @nicola-writes, @wherearetheplants, @jezifster, @kingkendrick7, @gailynovelry, and @funky-writer-man are all absolutely delightful!!! I'm sure I'm forgetting people unfortunately, but if we interact regularly on writeblr then trust me, I'm a big fan of yours. (I also want to give a shoutout to my lovely partner @skitzo-kero, who may not be strictly a writeblr on their main but has absolutely incredible work!!)

What is your favorite part about writeblr?

I love the community that people have built and how much people support each other. It warms my heart to see people sharing their work and lifting each other up.

What do you think writeblr could improve on? How do you think we can go about doing so?

I think writeblr has quite a few problems it needs to reckon with. Namely, ableism and racism are huge issues that I feel too many people on writeblr are content to sweep under the rug and ignore rather than address directly. I'm white so I don't want to speak over any people of color, but I think the issue late last year with a particular user who refused to write people of color spoke volumes about how prevalent this issue is. Discussing racism in good faith is not "petty drama," and I think there are conversations that need to be had. On a similar note, I feel like ableism in writeblr is massively under-recognized. Many people don't take accessibility into account with their posts and rely on ableist tropes and language, and once again it's considered "petty drama" to bring it up. In general, I think people on writeblr should be more mindful and listen to each other--don't be afraid to ask questions to those who have said they're willing to answer, and be willing to accept good-faith criticism about your work and depictions of marginalized characters. I also think writeblr should have more of a focus on uplifting disabled writers, writers of color, queer writers, and other marginalized groups rather than complaining about drama.

How do you contribute to the writeblr community? Do you think you could be doing more?

I try my best to contribute to the writeblr community by uplifting those around me and supporting their work! I may not be super big or active in the community, but I love to support people and share their incredible work around.

What kinds of posts do you most like to interact with?

I love interacting with anything people post, but I love seeing excerpts especially!!! Any amount of writing people are willing to share, I am there for it.

What kind of posts do you most like to make?

I like to make silly in-universe jokes about my WIPs, most of which make no sense out of context.

Finally, anywhere else online we may be able to find you?

You can find me on ao3 and deviantart as multilefaiye! :D I use that username or variations of it basically everywhere.

[quietbluejay]

The Buried Dagger 1

OKAY mortarion time ….i forgot this was the book with purple prose and i had to go back in terror to make sure I didn't accidentally buy a McNeill novel again i did not, this is thankfully (?) someone else

I'm trying to figure out what about this pushes it into "Wow Edgy" rather than being genuinely compelling well actually this isn't too bad, to be honest, it's really the next bit which is that the population of ynyx (and WHAT a name) doesn't have mouths "the cold ember of his familiar, obdurate resentment" I feel like I'm being unfair to the book by feeling bathos instead of pathos but i think it's that everything is so over the top

wait what year was this written Mortarion is literally breathing in the chemicals 2019 I'm now going to suffer from the belief that the writer of this was listening to Radioactive (due to this plus some other things) and now I've got it stuck in my head

i want to take this seriously but i just can't, I'm sorry no one understands meeeeeeeee owo uncomfortable memory surfaces

i will say this, the prose is quite evocative

ok so mort has a giant chip on his shoulder and is an enormous misanthrope but just about every single person who has ever been in a position of authority over him DOES just use him as a tool

boy did he choose the wrong side of the war

tumblr has poisoned my mind regarding "the horrors" so it feels like "every day mortarion gets emails" mortarion: hm maybe i should get rid of the daemon and also all the stuff i used to summon him and go back to normal warfare

holy shit holy shit he really is his father's son also hey uhhh mortarion do you remember that whole slippery slope speech you gave at Nikaea about literally this exact topic

the irony is killing me you're killing me, Reaper of Men, and I'm not even a man the manreaper of….justice (????) is unisex oh yeah i forgot to bring it up but Mort calling Magnus an "arrogant braggant" fills my salty soul with glee

morty continues to try out for that fantasy villain role i think i'm warming up to the prose though

im breathing in the chemicals- im breathing in the chemicals- im breathing in the chemicals-

i think swallow's cd kept skipping while he wrote this

this is the third time he's breathed in the chemicals

it's totally not a ritual, honest! okay, this is a cool fight scene mortarion can be cool in a fight, as a treat

lmao

yes. this is funny to me. Mortarion is just so done with this whole thing Mort: why did i get sent on this sidequest rip typhon killstealing

mortarion would really like to be starring in a different genre oh no cursed idea my thought was "what genre would be funniest to put him in" which was followed by "this is our get-along harem protagonist" but it's mort and rob idk at the end of godblight they got yeeted my next thought was magical girl anime he's the dark magical girl's mascot creature he is having friendship! just hdu call him and the magical girl friends

typhon plotting out how to ambush mortarion with a hug

uhhhhhh

typhon: yeahhhh better not bring up the Fallen honestly typhon feels like one of the most intelligent characters in the series! ….huh why weren't the dark angels at Terra

dude and then typhon internally cackles evilly like a kids show villain everything is going according to keikaku does your brain on nurgle turn you into snidely whiplash?

Mortarion what the heck

normal behaviour to go along with the poison drinking or breathing in the chemicals and breathing in the chemicals- and breathing in the okay i'll stop

literally everyone on the ship is choking but typhon that was fast owo flashback time

okay so his evil dad (the first one) sent him out with golems to fight other golem things from other evil overlords as a test of some kind this is just his entire life, huh

oh lovely like wow the only reason mortarion's alive is that he's a primarch the abuse is kind of getting to ridiculous angst-fic levels and yet the way it's written is genuinely compelling? probably because he's not actually a normal human so it is survivable and not ridiculous but it is kind of walking on that line thrown to starving dogs when he was a toddler like

this really is his entire life huh

annnnd also Necare experimented on him with poison what next did necare give him a dog and then kill the dog in front of him we're starting to get into bathos here

the last bit of this scene is, yeahh

a bit. on the overwrought side.

The book is tap dancing on the line which is to be honest, making me sad i really want this to be good :/

if it's going to go all the way into goofy, i want it to go all the way so i can mock it if it's going to be half hard hitting and half goofy it feels like im pulling back to punch a small child this book also unfortunately has some kind of subplot on earth with a bunch of rando characters and also, unfortunately, Garro

oh this is i guess foreshadowing for what's going to happen to the death guard? so garro's friend got hit by an evil knife and unlike guilliman he did not have plot armour

so garro is working with a bunch of other dudes who defected from the traitor legions secretly working for malcador oh, and a psyker ultramarine

oh wait psyker ultramarine met garro on calth??? what??? how did he get to calth and back what is a timeline (i should be fair and stop banging on about this since i have not actually read the relevant books. at least I assume this has to be covered in a book I didn't read)

oh yeah sure let's undress the catatonic chained up woman oh she's a sister of silence my beloved

okay so context she had her name and serial number tattooed under her collarbone so. i guess that was more important??? apparently??? they did not take off the chains they just snapped them off of the wall and basically pushed her to start walking you couldn't just. pick her up??? wouldn't that be faster?? okay this was funny malcador sends an illusion of himself across the planet

I'm rolling my eyes

this is the guy running the imperium

does he have nothing better to do also why give them the job in the first place if he's not going to trust them not to "creatively reinterpret" his commands

oh we're back with Teen Mort and he keeps a diary ohhh a bunch of humans are rebelling and attacking

oh it's Teen Typhon meeting Teen Mort

psychic powers time

this is not the time to get angsty also he is kind of a grimdark rapunzel huh

back in the present and apparently mort broods a lot in his room and if you interrupt him he yells at you because of course he does you're interrupting his linkin park listening bluejay note: i love linkin park so i am allowed to make this joke annnd typhon is setting up the navigators on the ship to take the blame oh he just killed them all that was fast and now they're all trapped blind in the warp and typhon is being obviously evil and according to keikaku which is visible to everyone but Mort well tbf to Mort, he's very angry at Typhon for killing the navigators so he's probably missing stuff

typhon: this lifeboat is full of leeches just trust me typhon: throws it overboard

back in the past, Mort successfully rescues the spunky teens but his dad is coming so he tells them to get out while they can and then has his disney princess song realization that it's time to stand up for himself and he'd do it all again! and face his dad! and dieeeee okay the last bit isn't disney princess …ah

ah mort: wait, that's an option??? rip his hair is getting in his eyes i hate when that happens

okay this is a cheesy line but it's working here

okay i made the joke before about mortarion being the kind of guy who likes to stand on cliffs/balcony edges and look down but i DIDNT KNOW IT WAS LITERALY DONT STARE INTO THE WARP YOU IDIOT

i. oh boy we get to see an emperor-mort interaction

i think the emperor is….actually trying here? but what the emperor is trying to say here is not what mort took from it

[britcision]

The number of people who seem to think that it’s good and normal for them to want to personally approve of any piece of art for it to exist are fucking baffling to me

“Oh I don’t condone incest ships so no one should be allowed to write them”

Do you condone war crimes?

Do you approve of violence and oppressive governments?

Do you approve of torture and whump?

Do you fucking approve of teenage bullying?

We’d lose ALL MODERN MEDIA if we only ever told stories about things that are pure and good and clean, and the queer community would never be a part of it

Gay people HOLDING HANDS are treated like they’re fucking in the street by conservatives

You will never be pure enough, clean enough, respectable enough for the people who want you dead

Alan fucking Turing, without whom the Allies never would have won World War II, was chemically castrated because he happened to be gay as well as a genius

He killed himself

He was a hero by every single measure of the word, and he was driven to suicide because nothing else he was, nothing else he did, mattered to the people that were so sure homosexuality was wrong

Why the hell would being a milquetoast little queer who never consumes questionable content, never even glances at anything that makes them uncomfortable, save you?

He was an influential cis white man who fucking saved the civilisation that decided being gay made him a danger to kids, and he could not be allowed to just live his life

People like dark shit

Being taboo is literally part of the thrill, because it’s something that people don’t fucking go out and get in their normal life

There is no line in the sand that you can draw and say “this type of content is always bad and has no place in society” that will not immediately be used to silence minorities first (and usually only)

Spend a damn week enforcing the same purity standards on all your entertainment that you do on fic

Hint: you’ll never watch Game of Thrones again. Or 99.9% of historical fiction or fantasy. No war movies, which actually do have a negative effect on people

No more cop shows, procedurals, murder mysteries, and oh, if you like horror? Whole genre’s gotta go

The world has fucked up shit in it, and people will create and consume it in media. All you’re doing by trying to personally fucking judge the standards of fan content is making yourself look like an asshole

No one’s grabbing you by the fucking neck and making you read fic you don’t like

Show the same courtesy and keep your damn hands to yourself too

It’s none of your business what other people like until it affects you personally, and all this “fiction affects reality”? If you truly believe that aim your ass at Hollywood and Disney, the biggest creators of the most fucked up fiction

They never do

Just target fan communities and creators that they think they can bully into obeying

Not a single one of their actions would be allowed in the pure fiction utopia they want to police us into

[astorythatwritesitself]

Re-intro time? Re-intro time

About Me & This Blog:

• Paine. Queer, 30, any pronouns. I follow back from dr-paine; and you'll never guess what my AO3 username is.

• Writing for 20+ years in some capacity

• Genre of choice is Fantasy. (High, low, slice of life or ungodly horror, mixed with sci-fi or the most classic Medieval sword and sorcery bullshit, I just need a touch, even if only implied, of magic.) I don't delve much into NSFW but it may come up; in any case: please only follow if you're 18+, and treat this blog with the mindset of 'creator chose not to use archive warnings'.

• I crave interaction, especially via tag/ask games - seriously. I reblog a lot of them. Do Not Hesitate. (And I always try to send an ask if you reblog any from me!)

• Hobbyist writer - I'm not aiming to be published, but I do want to improve my skills and eventually like... 'win a NaNo' in the sense of writing a complete, longform story one of these days. But also having fun is a priority, and ADHD + work is a cruel mistress, so I'll jump between WIPs on a whim, or just. Drop shit for months on end lol.

Vague List of Active Projects

While I have a ton of ideas, these are the ones that actually have like... any sort of substance to them, whether it's actual words or just a solid outline + desire to work on it. Each will eventually get a dedicated links/resource post, but for now, here's the basics!

Relentless As The Tide

(Mass Effect fics (roughly) following canon events/characters)

Adrian Shepard has been primed for heroism her entire life. Her first chance ended in a tragedy, one neither she nor the Alliance has ever properly owned up to. Saren's betrayal and the beacon's vision offer her the chance to atone for her failure at Akuze, and she'll do everything in her power to do so - even (and especially) if it kills her in the process.

Or so she believes - but uncovering the truth means looking for allies, and the more she gathers, the harder it becomes to believe that her death should - or can - be the end; and that perhaps heroism is just a means of distraction from confronting her own demons.

Unnamed Pokemon Project

(Loose follow through/retelling of Pokemon: Soul Silver)

Giovanni Rossi, former leader of the Viridian City pokemon gym, has confessed to heading the infamous Rocket organization, whose poaching and illegal trade has devestated the Kanto ecosystem for the past twenty years. However, he claims it was all for a good cause - just prior to founding Rocket, Giovanni had been part of a team trying to create artificial pokemon... and their most viable subject escaped. Rocket existed for the sake of tracking down and eventually overpowering this creature, but now... well, he wishes those in the Kanto and Johto regions the best of luck.

Following a break in at the New Bark Town lab, an assistant to Professor Elm - a reclusive young man named Linden - tracks down the suspect, only to find it's none other than Silver Rossi, Giovanni's own son. The boy claims he wants to take down the creature his father helped create and clear his own name from the scandal... and Linden has reasons of his own that make him want to see how things play out, even if it means he must shadow Silver's journey by embarking on one of his own.

Unnamed OC Project

(Original fantasy work)

In a world of faded magic, Elora Ryba cares little for talk of soon-to-come saviors or the sightings of dragons. No, she has other things on her mind - return to the town she was forced to leave over ten years ago, and steal its most precious treasure. And, ideally, marry her, as Elora promised that night she was forced to flee.

Which is why Elora's spent the past month searching for a priest corrupt enough to join a pirate's crew, but not corrupt (or worse, moral) enough to turn her in, and she thinks she's finally found one.

And the big list of fandoms/shit I like!

[moonshynecybin]

do you have any books recommendations? 🙏

okay usually i like to know a general vibe for recommendations bc this is INTIMATE!!! and im actually in a weird place in my reading journey where im trying to branch out and try a bunch of different books in a bunch of different genres bc i got lowkey sick of what i was reading all the time so this is all over the place. whatever fuck it. here are some recent ones in no particular order that ive enjoyed OR at the very least found interesting. most of these are pretty famous i'll be real im not breaking the wheel here. under the cut bc she is long

our wives under the sea by julia armfield. was this book good hmm i dont know. was it kind of fucked up and interesting. YES. some of the prose is legitimately sooo gorgeous and the portrait it paints of the central relationship is intimate and oftentimes heartrending i still think about it which is kind of what you want from a story tbh... a really slow plot (kind of nonexistent) thats frankly more about grief than anything. theres some spooky body horror here so beware

slaughterhouse five by kurt vonnegut. shes a classic for a REASON. do you ever pick up a book that is very beloved and famous. and then get genuinely and pleasantly surprised that it actually rules. happened to me. legit kind of life changing and also made me laugh out loud. if you havent read it get on it

the kingdoms by natasha pulley. read this over the summer and i vividly remember sitting in the basement at my job hiding so i could read one more page i was RIVETED!!! its historical fantasy its time travel its amnesia it is. on a boat. basically like what if fucked up gay love and also magic made france win the napoleonic wars would that be crazy or what!!! and it was!! also read some of her other stuff which is VERY similar and it was like. fine to good. but i LOVED this one

carrie by stephen king. read it around halloween and i enjoyed it more than i thought i would ! some category 5 stephen king sexism but its an interesting 200 page scifi novel with epistolary elements and some great characters i can see how it launched his career into the stratosphere... really good one to start off with reading stephen king if you wanna dip a toe in but are wary of the 1000 page doorstop novels. i say give it a try !

demon copperhead by barbara kingsolver. recent pulitzer prize winner. its a retelling of david copperfield with a distinctly southern appalachian lens which im always interested in because i am from southern appalachia and frankly the way we get treated in fiction is wild. like hillbilly cannibals who are illiterate coalminers wild. if i ever catch the guy that wrote hillbilly elegy we are throwing hands. but i liked this ! the region does have a long history of poverty and it was interesting to think about that in conversation to the social commentary with a victorian vibe from david copperfield. i mean this is decidedly unvictorian but that was floating in the back of my head at all times reading it so it made me THINK.

giovanni's room by james baldwin. another one where i was like do you see this shit?? this shit is crazy. and the shit in question is one of the most acclaimed and beloved novels of all time. anyways another life changer get on it.

even as we breathe by annette saunooke clapsaddle. another southern appalachia moment ! this one rings VERY true for me actually, despite being a historical novel... written with a lot of love for the area and made me cry a bit cause i was homesick at the time... great mystery and cool local history. also! one of the better representations of the cherokee people ive seen in fiction. which usually im hesitant to like. pin that as a THE major reason you should read it bc the story is ALSO very good but its a central theme of the novel so i thought i should mention it. plus the author is cherokee so she's coming at it with knowledge and care

in memoriam by alice winn. recommendation from a tumblr mutual so i thought id continue the tradition! read it in literally a day so im fuzzy on the details but its about rich eton style english schoolboys getting their spirits basically destroyed in the trenches of ww1... also a gay love story... lots of poetry very tragic but not overly so and certainly very readable... a competent historical gay romance if thats ur thing youll probably enjoy it

the poppy war by r f kuang. interesting bc it initially feels like a historical fantasy novel with a young protagonist going to a magic school and overcoming the odds slash beating the evil enemy story thats been done one billion times. but it is DEEPLY not that. takes the conventions of the genre and kind of refuses to make them reducible or easy to package. deals with war (read the warnings etc). deals with genocide. deals with race. wrestles with the ethics of all of its characters and comes down with some nuance. kind of a slay

and then here's some all time faves that are just GOOD and im reasonably sure anyone would have a good time with:

jane eyre. i have quoted this enough on this blog cmon. also if youre following me youre probably a fan of fucked up relationships so you should go. be with the OG. fly. like its foundational to the GENRE babyyyy

dracula. yayyyyy epistolary novelssss... another "fun" classic along with dorian gray... read em both they slap

the book thief. took me a year to read. made me cry lots.

daisy jones and the six. look at me look AWAYYY from the amazon series look at ME. this is a fun book. and if you are in a reading slump i frankly HIGHLY recommend it bc it is done in the style of like. a documentary autopsy on a fleetwood mac esque band implosion so its told in 100% dialogue as if they are being interviewed. you can read it in a DAY and its FUN and sometimes they CONTRADICT each other which i LOVE

the queens thief by meghan whalen turner. GOD!!!!! all time. all time. straight relationships in fiction that make you crazyyyyyyy and also genuinely delightful twists at the end of each book i LOVED them. i read them all in the pandemic they slayyyy

howl's moving castle. delightful. if you like a silly time in a fantasy world that makes you laugh a lot i would recommend. also the sequel its fun

any terry pratchet novel thank you goodnight

[destinyc1020]

Challengers is going to be such a stepping stone for Z. Like both Mike and Josh are unknown actors ngl so the pressure is on for her marketability international to sell seats. My production is the film is going to make 400 million. What do you think? Also, what are your opinions, especially after taraj p henson's outcry about black actresses not getting lead roles and studios' opinions that black lead films do not sell well outside a franchise. The last black actor I could thibkvof that had that universal appeal was Will Smith.

Yes! I'm excited Anon!! 😊

FINALLY!! A film led on her own on the big screen. 😁🙌🏾 I'm actually glad that Z went the more gradual route and honed her acting talent for years on TV (with Euphoria) and doing several smaller parts as a costar on the big screen in large films before tackling a huge film on her own where she's the lead.

I think that was very smart and strategic imo.

As far as box office numbers? Ooof....I honestly don't know girl lol. I'm the worst person to predict that.... Especially since it's not often that we see a woc in a role like this opposite TWO white men lol 😆

Roles like this USUALLY go to white girls, so I'm honestly not sure what the box office numbers will do tbh. 🤷🏾‍♀️ But Z has a HUGE fanbase, so I def don't think it will be a "flop".

That film "Anyone But You" seems to be getting butts in the theaters (at least, around my area 👀), and Sydney and Glen are not huge box office draws on their own. I think people just like the plot premise and want a light hearted rom-com. 🤷🏾‍♀️

I can see similar audiences being interested in "Challengers" as well, especially if they market the film right.

Re: Taraji....

I def think Taraji was speaking TRUTH. Hands down. There is a lot of inequality in Hollywood.

On one hand, YES, I DO think that some black films DO have a hard time getting worldwide appeal just simply due to racism factors, and society in general. Another issue too though is that a lot of Hollywood studios just don't spend the same kind of money on Black actors and Black films when it comes time for promotion, sooo how are Black films supposed to do well overseas when you're barely sending them overseas to promote, and are barely spending money to generate hype for the films??

Yes, Will Smith had crossover appeal, Denzel had/has crossover appeal, etc... But one of the reasons why Will has crossover appeal is because look at the types of films he's been doing in his career. For many years he was in large films that had a diverse cast that would have gotten a lot of attention and promotion anyway. Plus, he's charismatic asl! Say what you want about Will Smith, but it's undeniable that he has a charm and an energy about him that's larger than life. Def "movie star" energy. That also helped his worldwide appeal.

This is a very deep question Anon, because on the other hand, I honestly don't think that Black films CAN'T do well overseas/worldwide (look at "Black Panther" and "Get Out" for example).

But I def feel like it depends on many various factors....

The film genre

The cast

The money to back up promotion

The plot of the film

HOW the film is marketed

One of my biggest issues sometimes with HW is that they've made films with a predom. Black cast into a term called "Black Films", as if they should be a genre in their own right, when in reality, they're just FILMS that just so happen to have a predominantly Black cast, and should just be treated like any other film out here imo. 🤷🏾‍♀️

There shouldn't be one way to market one film with a certain race of cast members, and a separate way to market films with another set of cast members. 🤔

Another gripe is that a lot of films that are catered to us usually focus on struggle, racism, slavery, etc.... and while there's absolutely NOTHING wrong with films like that, sometimes it's nice to see a predom. Black cast in a film in a genre like adventure, fantasy, sci-fi, light-hearted rom-com, horror, ROMANCE, thriller, action, etc. 🤷🏾‍♀️

Not all of us (even as Black people) want to see struggle in the screen all the time. Many people go to the movies to ESCAPE.... not to be reminded of how awful life is lol. 😅

I def feel like well-written, well-acted, and well-promoted films can do pretty well regardless of the cast demographics.

That's one thing I've been appreciating about A24.... They've been taking risks, and things have worked out pretty well for them. I look at films like "Everything, Everywhere, All At Once", and "Moonlight" for example. Both smaller, indie films, but both had Oscar appeal and won Academy Awards for Best Picture.

So, films with a Predominantly Black cast CAN succeed, even worldwide, I just think that there are a lot of factors that have to be in place, and one additional factor is people of other races needing to be more OPEN-minded and willing to watch more films with predom. Black actors.

Jmho 🤷🏾‍♀️🤷🏾‍♀️

[anhed-nia]

BLOGTOBER 10/1-2/2023 - BLACK SUNDAY (1960), THE LONG HAIR OF DEATH, NIGHTMARE CASTLE

“Don’t be deceived by her face, look at her body!”

So one of the things that dragged me off my usual Blogtober course this year was a major project on Michele Soavi's DELLAMORTE DELLAMORE (1994), whichis sort of a gift that keeps on giving because there are so many layers to it and so many available interpretations of what it contains. For this work I had to dig a lot deeper into the topic of doppelgängerism than I usually do; this is not a subject I've thought a lot about, maybe because it often breaks down into an Id vs Ego "duality of man" thing full of inevitable conclusions that I don't find that interesting to explore. I like the folkloric notion that if you encounter your own doppelgänger, it's a harbinger of your imminent demise, that's pretty scary. But most of the characters in DELLAMORTE are duplicates of other characters, to more and less obvious degrees--the clearest example of which is Anna Falchi as an unnamed woman who reappears in new incarnations throughout the movie. Because that movie is often identified as the Last Great Italian Horror Film, and is thus understood to survey historic achievements in the genre (while still maintaining its own incredible originality), I thought I should go back and look at the famous doppelgängers played by Barbara Steele in some of her early, influential roles. I mean let's be honest, it would be easy to just accuse Antonio Margheriti's THE LONG HAIR OF DEATH (1964) and Mario Caiano's NIGHTMARE CASTLE (1965) of riding the admittedly inviting jock of Mario Bava's indispensable classic BLACK SUNDAY (1960), but if we treat the continuous duplication of Barbara Steele as an archetypal fantasy worthy of address, that makes for a better conversation.

The superior BLACK SUNDAY concerns the 17th century vampire-witch Asa, who returns to life two hundred years later to usurp the life of her identical descendant Princess Katia. In THE LONG HAIR OF DEATH, a 15th century woman is burned as a witch, and her daughter Helen (Steele) is killed for trying to expose the corrupt underpinnings of her mother's execution. Helen's young sister grows up the plaything of the evil regime whose reign of power is only interrupted when the mysterious Mary (also Steele) arrives at the castle to make trouble. I find the convoluted plot of this movie especially hard to repeat, so I hope I'm getting it right! NIGHTMARE CASTLE doesn't involve anything like reincarnation, which makes it slightly easier to discuss: An evil scientist murders his conniving wife Muriel (Steele) so he can take everything she has, only to discover that she left it all to her identical stepsister Jenny. His plot to drive the fragile Jenny insane and take over the estate is foiled by Muriel's ghost, naturally. In DELLAMORTE DELLAMORE, the self-replicating Anna Falchi signifies that the stunted protagonist is hopelessly deluded by his neurotic frustrations with women; he sees females as being "all the same" because he's blind to anything other than his personal projections, and he cyclically pursues the same drama with every woman he meets. One can't expect that level of psychoanalytic critique from these earlier films, of course, and while there is a lot one can say about the self-replicating Barbara Steele (including just how marketable she was), it's interesting to look at these stories in light of the tendency to identify mind with body.

Each of these movies has some great dialog that (at least in the english translation) has some very amusing things to say about the body and I tried to write them all down. The horror here may stem from the fact that while a woman's true value is in her physical appearance, that appearance can be a source of torment for presupposing men. NIGHTMARE CASTLE's Muriel makes the curiously-worded threat, “You can kill my body, but I’ll never leave you in peace!”, and in THE LONG HAIR OF DEATH, Helen's mother uses similar language in her last words at the stake—"Your bodies will be tortured like mine has been tortured today!” At LONG HAIR's climax (spoiler alert I guess, but this won't make the movie less confusing to the new viewer) the mysterious Mary reveals that she is really Helen with this wonderful body-centric speech about the complicated scam she and her little sister Lisbeth have pulled on the corrupt royal family:

"That’s my body. Death can often reinstate life, but it’s not like that with Lisabeth as she is not yet dead. Now do you understand Kurt, this was planned by us to vindicate our mother... You went to the extreme—murder—all for the sake of possessing me. It’s a pity that you did everything for a body that’s dead. Well Kurt, look at that body. Look well at the body that is really me!”

"Look well at the body that is really me" is something I am tempted to say all the time now, but this is all topped by Asa's triumph over the identical Katia toward the end of BLACK SUNDAY:

“You did not know that you were born for this moment. You didn’t know that your life had been consecrated to me by Satan. But you sensed it, didn’t you? That’s why my portrait was a constant temptation to you, why it frightened you! You felt that your life and your body were mine. You felt like me because you were destined to become me! A useless body without life... Now you shall enjoy a beautiful life of evil and hate—in me!”

There's something interesting going on in all these cases about how personal essence, or at least a person's destiny, is tied inextricably to the body. And actually, another of my distracting October projects focused on Michele Soavi's THE SECT (1991), an exceptionally weird movie by anyone's standards that involves a cult that appropriates other people's faces. I discovered that the film is kind of an adaptation of Gustav Meyrink's 1915 novel The Golem, which is a doppelgänger narrative par excellence, telling its disturbing tale from the point of view of a person who is himself a kind of doppelgänger. The narrator has a kind of transient consciousness that transplants itself into other people, but other doppelgängers exist as well: A lascivious young prostitute is said to be the child of a neighborhood predator, but as the story unfolds, it comes out that she is identical to her mother, who was identical to her mother before her, and there is no actual certainty about the paternity of any of these women. They form a collective, self-perpetuating threat whose weapon is a specific reoccurrant appearance. I don't know exactly what kind of conclusion I want to draw about this hydra-like archetype, but you may have guessed by now that my work on Soavi's filmography has caused me to start seeing doppelgängers everywhere I look, so you can bet this won't be the last time I talk about them!

[heathersproship]

On anon because I'm actually so embarassed, but I need to ask someone-

Is it okay to read (not watch - only written works) porn including elements of noncon, dubcon, and stuff like underage / incest / [insert societally frowned upon thing here]?

I read dub/noncon stuff but draw the line at underage stuff and / or incest (because "that's wrong!!")

But proshippers say that it's okay because it's just fiction, right? I know it's bad in real life and I don't support it in the slightest. It's just written works.

Sorry this is so long, but I've been feeling really guilty about this for several years, and I really need to know if I should keep staying away (am I a bad person for being into that kind of stuff?), or if it's okay to indulge in it through fiction.

Thank you in advance. <3

Anon, it is absolutely okay. If you like it, if it interests you, by all means, read it. Or write it if it doesn't exist yet! You'll be making someone very happy, and it's perfectly fine if that someone is you!

Fiction and reality are two distinct things; that's why we have two separate words. Each can affect the other, but they're not the same as each other.

Reading about X isn't the same as doing X. Reading about murder isn't the same as actually killing someone. Otherwise, the murder mystery and horror genres wouldn't be as popular as they are. Agatha Christie and Stephen King would not be celebrated authors. Official IPs like Game of Thrones, Euphoria, Dexter, or 50 Shades would not be as popular as they are. If we are complicit simply by watching or reading about fictional people doing questionable things, the landscape of media would be very different.

Thoughtcrimes aren't a thing. We don't live in the oppressive regime of Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four where Big Brother is watching us always so we must be on our Best Behavior. What you think about in your own head stays in your own head unless you decide to voice them. And even when you voice them, there's an audience for everything. Rape fantasies are incredibly common, but no one actually wants to be raped.

So long as you understand the difference between fiction and reality, and you don't treat real people as less deserving of respect than fictional ones, you have nothing to feel guilty about. Read all the porn your heart desires and enjoy the everloving fuck out it.

Hope this helps! <3

[goldkirk]

Greetings!

1, 2, 3, 6, 8, 11, 14, 15, 25, 29, 52, 60, 63, 76, 95, 97 and 99?

P.S.: I read your tags, so thanks for the compliment! :-D

oh my god this is so many, you're a riot hahaha! thank you for sending this in!

Most favorite activity?

This is so hard. I love so many things. I guess my best effort to sum a lot of things up would be "hoarding and organizing information in my notebooks), a beloved pastime from about age six to now lol.

2. Least favorite one?

Either brushing my teeth or touching wet dirty sink dishes while needing to hand wash them or load a dishwasher.

3. One activity you really hate?

I've been trying to think of one but I'm drawing a blank. I guess cleaning dog poop out of my shoes after someone has left dog poop on the sidewalk or another walkway.

6. Do you have any idols?

Nah I don't go in for that these days. I definitely have some people I admire or look up to. Not to any level I'd say idols though.

8. Favorite music genre?

Dance! I love all types of genres but I listen most often to dance music.

11. Which kind of animal are you most afraid of?

Hmm. AFRAID of...jellyfish.

14. Do you think there’s a higher species than us humans?

Nah, at least not on our planet. But I don't think we're particularly high among all species, I think we're just particularly unique.

15. Do you believe in ghosts?

As a weird subjective phenomenon some of us experience in our lives? For sure. As "ghosts are the unfinished-business spirits of human dead people", no.

25. Can you dance? Is there any dance you want to learn someday?

Not well anymore, but I'm working on it. I was in love with ballet and wanted to do it forever. I'd like to get back into ballet classes, for adults this time. It's still the way my body most wants to dance. I took a ballroom dancing course for a hot minute. We were allowed to do swing dances when I was homeschooled, so I got pretty good at swing dance and some swing dance tricks.

29. Good memory from your childhood you keep remembering?

The first time I saw a snake in real life and it was a woman in public wearing a snake while walking down the street and she didn't get mad I was interested, she totally treated me like a Small Human Being and answered my questions and LET ME HOLD AND PLAY WITH IT MYSELF. I was like 7 and this was a core memory for me, much to the horror of my poor family members who were with me at the time when I dead-stopped us all in a state we didn't live in in a city we didn't know to talk to a strange woman and bond with her over a huge larger-than-adult-size-feather-boa-scarves snake lmao.

52. Do you think there are some breathing beings on earth contained behind ceilings or walking amongst us somehow with special abilities or powers? (as in most sci-fi and fantasy books, comics, movies)

Man this would be cool but unfortunately no lol

60. If you would have the money to donate what would you donate for?

Oh god I literally have a list about this! I'd donate all over the place, but the first few donations would definitely be to a few grassroots charities I care about and the all the local food pantries and education nonprofits that I can.

63. On your opinion, what should people do about climate change?

Force industry regulations, despite all the kicking and screaming the firms and their political-system lobby groups will throw at all of us about it.

Create a fast-moving national campaign of interconnected state and local ecosystem experts that can partner with local landowners all over their area and any municipalities they can convince to help to rewild as much land as possible with the actually-native plants. MOST PRIMARILY IN THE BREAD BASKET. The soil has GOT to be replenished, and the native grasses store at minimum roughly two times as much carbon underground than any of the cash crops or hay or weed grasses do.

Seriously invest right now, immediately, right away, in any adaptations your area will need to make in order to cope better with the changing and intensifying storms, floods, water level rises, droughts, wildfires, deep freezes, heat waves, etc., anything and everything that your area will for certain have eventually impact it.

End unethical overseas labor systems and the cobalt mining/electronics burning/etc. markets that exist because of the inequity and greed at every level and continual corruption not being overthrown.

Drastically reduce all western meat culture and industrial farming to the normal, sustainable levels of meat eating human families averaged until the very recent past.

Actually stop the driving forces behind systemic mistrust, conspiracy rabbit holes, and succeptibility to misinformation.

And do anything possible to slow tropical deforestation and invest in antibiotic research as fast and effectively as possible. We're already far behind the enemy because it hasn't been profitable to research antibiotics in the eyes of the pharmaceutical companies. With the climate and ecosystem shifts, we're going to have a wild ride with both insect bugs and bacteria bugs, I'm sure.

76. What’s the most romantic thing you ever have done for someone?

Oh man, I can't answer this one, I'm sorry. It's not that I wouldn't like to, I just don't know if I've ever tried to do something truly romantic, because I'm still not sure I understand what romantic most accurately means, so I'll have to get back to you on this one.

95. What’s something you really want to do some day with your/a partner?

I never thought about this until you asked it just now. I guess...maybe...............go overseas and explore some part of another country? My brain keeps giving me blanks, I don't know if it knows how to think about this yet. I'll keep working on it. But it does sound fun to go with a partner on a sort of few-places trip of random interest events or something.

97. Worst catchy song you ever heard?

"Blurred Lines".

99. Does it matter to you there is no 100th question in here?

Hahahaha! It does kind of bug me, not gonna lie, but I chose to embrace it as a rounder, artistic, more organic experience of the concept of an "ask game 100 questions list", like an art exhibit

Thank you for the questions!! Hope you're doing well! <3

[swordofsun]

While I'm thinking about it the main problem I have with the idea that Jack is just a wee baby and should be treated like a toddler* isn't even that it's ignoring what we're shown on the show. It's that it's ignore a long standing genre trope with a ton of history.

This is a thing that sci-fi/fantasy does. Like all the time. To the point where there are multiple versions and variations on this trope. It's just deciding that Supernatural shouldn't follow the rules of it's genre. Supernatural is a fantastical show with fantastical elements and treating it like it's not does both itself and your attempts at analysis a disservice.

Refusing to acknowledge the genre and conventions therein just makes it look like you don't actually understand what's going on. You can't judge a romance by dystopian standards. You can't watch a horror movie and get upset when people die. And you can't try to analysis Supernatural like a prime time drama series.

It's horror fantasy. And fairly often in fantasy a character is born yesterday and an adult and is treated as such. This is a thing that happens. You don't have to like the trope, but pretending it's something it isn't just makes you look stupid. Frankly.

Sorry to be mean, but it's the truth. Ignoring genre conventions when doing media analysis just makes you look like you don't know what's going on. Jack isn't a child. He may have been born 2-4 years ago (depending where in the series your talking), but he's not a child. He was born an adult and is treated by the narrative as an adult and the genre conventions say he's an adult. Most importantly he never expresses a desire for a childhood he didn't have, as is standard with these types of characters.

*not talking about baby!Jack fic here, or at least mostly not about baby!Jack fic