#year end writer's roundup 2020

[redgoldsparks]

August Reading and Reviews by Maia Kobabe

I post my reviews throughout the month on Storygraph and Goodreads, and do roundups here and on patreon. Reviews below the cut.

Heavyweight: A Family Story of Holocaust, Empire and Memory by Solomon J Brager After listening to this excellent interview with the author on the Gender Reveal podcast, I was very excited to pick up Solomon Brager's hefty nonfiction comic about family history, Jewish identity, the Holocaust, and empire. This is an incredibly well researched and thoughtful book. The author grew up with outsized family stories of a Jewish boxing champion great-grandfather from Essen who punched Nazis, and a great-grandmother who carried her children across countries and mountains to escape to the US. But these stories became much more complicated when the author started digging for receipts. One factor is the immense financial privilege of the family which already had bank accounts and significant savings in New York. Another factor is the layers of violence and empire that build up the power of the countries fighting on both sides of WWII. The author's quest to research the family story is a major thread in the story itself and I am absolutely awed by the amount of work that went into uncovering and shaping this story.

My Dearest Patrolman vol 1 by Niyama As a delinquent teen, Shin was mentored and protected by a friendly patrolman, Seiji. Having one supportive adult in his life completely turned Shin's life around and he also decided to become a patrolman. Years later, Shin and Seiji meet again, and Shin decides to confess the feelings he's been nursing for a decade. Lighthearted dating hijinks ensue! Strikes a nice balance between silly, sweet, and spicy.

Go For It, Nakamura! by Syundei An extremely silly and cute high school rom-com. Shy Nakamura has a massive crush on his classmate Hirose. Despite the fact that they see each other every day, Nakamura has never introduced himself. What will it take to get him to finally speak up and try to befriend his crush??

Something Not Nothing by Sarah Leavitt In 2020, Sarah Leavitt's partner of more than 20 years, Domino, died with medical assistance after years of severe chronic pain and a rapid decline at the end of her life. Leavitt, a cartoonist and writer, tried to make sense of this decision through comics and abstract watercolor paintings. The result is a gorgeous, heart wrenching, deeply human meditation on love and loss. There were pages that lifted my spirits and pages that pierced me to my core. I sobbed through the majority of reading it, but couldn't put it down. Leavitt's mapmaking of the landscape of grief is a gift to us all.

Assassin's Fate by Robin Hobb read by Elliot Hill What can I even say about this, the final novel of a 16 book fantasy series, which I have been reading and re-reading now for twenty years, other than holy shit??? I can't believe I've reached the end of Fitz's journey at last. This book is SO long (nearly 1000 pages) and much of it is brutal to read; characters we love are beaten, abused, tortured, and left in pretty hopeless situations for much of the novel. I think Hobb's insistence on revisiting almost every single character from the Rain Wilds and Live Ship sub-series expanded the first third of the book more than needed; had I been editing it, it would have been shorter. And yet! And yet! I was riveted by this too-long book, devouring it in big gulps, scream-texting about it to several friends who were reading the series along with me. The ending hit SO HARD. Its PERFECT, TERRIBLE, WRETCHED, one of the cruelest endings for several beloved characters and while also giving them a kind of grace and eternity I did not see coming, but should have. This book fulfills the themes of the entire series so well, completing repeated patterns, showing cycles that ripple through three generations, while also leaving a door open for the future that I'm already daydreaming about. Literally how did Robin Hobb come up with all of this. Its flawed but its perfect. I am in awe.

BL Metamorphosis vol 1 by Kaori Tsurutani translated by Jocelyne Allen An older woman picks up a BL manga by chance at a bookstore and discovers a new fandom late in life. She ends up befriending a shy high school girl who works at the bookstore and also loves BL, but has no one to talk to about it. This is such a freaking cute premise and I love the loose sketchy art style!

BL Metamorphosis vol 2 by Kaori Tsurutani translated by Jocelyne Allen Unlikely friends Urara, a shy high schooler, and Ichinoi, a widowed calligraphy teacher, bonded over their love of a BL manga series. Now they're heading to a doujinshi event to try and meet their favorite author. This brought me right back to my early days of visiting cons and meeting authors for the first time!

BL Metamorphosis vol 3 by Kaori Tsurutani translated by Jocelyne Allen Urara has been reading and loving BL manga years, but it takes a push from her older friend Ichinoi before Urara considers the idea of possibly drawing her own. Can she find the time to write and draw a story around her cram school schedule? This series PERFECTLY captures the BL reader to BL writer pipeline, I'm so charmed.

BL Metamorphosis vol 4 by Kaori Tsurutani translated by Jocelyne Allen Urara applies for a table at a comics festival, so now she has a deadline for her first original comic. Can she get it done in time? Ichinoi is there to cheer lead and support in every way she can (finding a printer, sewing a table cloth, agreeing to work the table, packing their lunches) but only Urara can get the comic done. This book contained one of my very favorite exchanges of the whole series, when Ichinoi asked "Is it fun to draw manga?" and Urara responded honestly, "No. It's hard to look at my own art for so long. But it feels like I'm doing what I should be doing."

BL Metamorphosis vol 5 by Kaori Tsurutani translated by Jocelyne Allen Urara and Ichinoi struggle through a long, slow day of trying to sell an original comic at their first ever comic event. Unbeknownst to them, their favorite author is there as an attendee. This book felt like one of the most relatable portrayals of the early days of a comics career I've ever seen. I'm obsessed with this series and definitely want to watch the live action movie adaptation!

The Spear Cuts Through Water by Simon Jimenez This complex fantasy novel weaves together a multi-strand narrative of violence, love, and the end of empire in an original world of old gods and talking animals. In the main thread, two warriors carry the corpse of an almost-dead goddess across the country in a five day dash from the mountains to the sea. The goddess was once the Moon, torn out of the sky by her own desire for immortality. Her children became the despotic Moon Throne, a cruel dynasty which has repressed and punished the people and elements. The Moon Thrones' heirs, three brothers with extraordinary powers, chase the warriors and hunger for the last dregs of the fallen Moon's power. In another thread, an unnamed protagonist watches this drama unfold as a play being performed in a dreamy underwater sleep realm, while recalling the stories their lola told of the old country before the war. This novel is often compared with NK Jemisin's The Fifth Season in terms of scope, literary prose, and ambition and I can see why. This novel employs some very creative and unusual writing choices that make it more rewarding to read in print than to experience in audio. I had a content warning for gore and cannibalism going in, so I was prepared for the violence of the middle section. I really enjoyed this novel and I can tell I'll be thinking about it for a long time.

Horse by Geraldine Brooks read by James Fouhey, Lisa Flanagan, Graham Halstead, Katherine Littrell, Michael Obiora This book follows multiple different story lines, some of which captured me much more than others. In Kentucky in 1850, an enslaved black boy watches a new thoroughbred racing colt's birth and begins a lifelong relationship with the horse, who will go on to be one of the most well-known champions in the history of American horse racing. In New York City in the 1950s, a gallery owner known for her modern tastes falls for an equestrian portrait of the great Kentucky race horse, Lexington. And in 2019, in Washington DC, a Nigerian-American art history student and a Smithsonian scientist dig into the mystery of an unlabelled horse skeleton in the museum's collection- and its possible connection with several paintings by a Civil War era equestrian artist. I admired the amount of research that went into this novel, and the way the paintings of Lexington tied the different timelines together. However, I really struggled with how the interior emotional lives of several of the Black male characters in this book were portrayed by this author. When Jarret, the enslaved Black groom, is separated from Lexington and forced into plantation labor temporarily, Brooks writes of him gaining a depth of spirit and understanding for the human condition from this experience. This felt deeply weird to read from a white author! I'm not really the right reader to say whether Brooks did a good job or not, but it put me on edge. When the final climatic moment of the novel read like a heavy-handed lesson in how Black men are still at risk of police violence even in 2019, I wondered who exactly that point was supposed to be for, and if Brooks is the one who needed to make it. So, I felt very mixed as I finished this book. There's a lot to admire craft-wise, and I can understand why so many readers were impressed by it. But I honestly I don't recommend it, unless you want to read it in a book club setting and have a nuanced discussion about what works and what doesn't in this novel.

The Summer Book by Tove Jansson A young girl named Sophie spends her summers on an island of the coast of Finland with her very present grandmother and her rather absent father. Each chapter tells of an incident experienced through the eyes of the very young and the very old- the growth of mosses and wildflowers on the island stones; boxes and bottles of flotsam and jetsam washing to shore; a great storm; an adventure in trespassing; an unexpected visitor; a night spent outside sleeping in a tent. Without much of an overarching plot this book is still a moving picture of living very close to and in tune with the seasons and elements in a very specific part of the world. It's brief and open ended but I really enjoyed it!

Delicious in Dungeon vol 14 by Ryoko Kui As the smoke clears after the explosive ending of the previous penultimate volume, our heroes gather themselves, check on the survivors, and set out on the most collaborative challenge: cooking and eating an entire chimera body. This is a satisfying and in some ways gentler ending than I expected from this series, but I really enjoyed it!

Notes from an Island by Tove Jansson and Tuulikki Pietilä translated by Thomas Teal  In the autumn of 1963, Tove Jansson, her partner Tuulikki 'Tooti' Pietilä, and their taciturn friend Brunström set about trying to finish a small cabin on a tiny Finnish island before the onset of winter (and possible legal delays of building permits). Tove and Tooti spent their summers on the island for the next 3o years. This book contains excerpts of journal and introspective writing on the nature of the island, the sea, the changeable weather, the futility of human efforts to shift the natural environment. These writings are paired with delicate prints Tooti made of water, stones, and ocean views. I read this directly after The Summer Book and after listening to a short biography of Jansson- this made a good companion to those other texts, but might have been a bit spare on its own.

[dnfao3tags]

Monthly Fic Roundup - May 2023

ok look man this is the third fucking time i've had to redo this entire post i dont give a shit anymore i hate tumblr i hope it and i die a very painful death does anybody have any idea how hard it is to edit these things with the shittiest site and shittiest laptop in the world

anyways. nobody reminded me i forgot about mays roundup. betrayal. leave all the writers here a warm kudos and comment :]

— find me here by womanhunt (mat. | comp. | 9k)

Dream and George through various phone calls across time.

— All paths lead to you by Simplysmitten (teen | comp. | 28k)

When George is stressed, he has nightmares, and when George has nightmares, he sleepwalks. In a subconscious search for relief, George sleepwalks to the safest place he can find- Dream's room. Dream finds out more than he bargained for when trying to decode George's nonsensical sleep-talking, but he struggles to make conscious-George as comforted by his presence as unconscious-George.

— i want you, and that’s the way it is by pondsofkoi (gen | comp. | 4k)

Sometimes George combs his hair with enough force Dream thinks he’s trying to yank his scalp out. “Dude.”

— a wish, a child by heartinhands (teen | comp. | 3k)

George wants a child. If he and Dream wish hard enough, there's a chance.

— every sunset by indigoh (mat. | comp. | 10k)

when George goes to sleep, it’s June 2020. When he wakes up, it’s 8 years into the future.

Part 2 of the past, the future, and everything in between

— what a childish thing by tippysleeps (teen | comp. | 7k)

“What year is it,” George repeats. “Um,” Dream frowns. “It’s 2020?” George just stares at him. “It’s 2027,” he says, finally. “2027.”

Part 1 of not afraid of living on a faultline

— Some Other Beginning's End by Scoops (consciousness_streaming) (expl. | comp. | 5k)

George's family takes a holiday to Orlando to visit Disney. Just before George is set to meet Dream, disaster strikes in the form of a werewolf pack taking over Florida, and maybe more of America. While George struggles to survive, scavenging for food and materials for the few survivors, and at the end of his rope--a miracle happens. He might get to meet Dream after all.

— falling in love in the cruelest way by twostorms (teen | comp. | 7k)

Dream can't remember a time where he wasn't at least a little obsessed with George.

— Maw by shrewtz (expl. | comp. | 1k)

To combine their two selves in one way or another, to blur the line between hunger and arousal, to consume a piece of his lover— would it not be the most romantic gesture possible?

— when you kiss my lips, you'll make it stick by demonstars (mat. | comp. | 6k)

Dream's hero's (MUA) journey.

— Can you make it feel like home (if I tell you you're mine?) by JanetBaby99 (expl. | comp. | 19k)

Dream and George go on a road trip together and the tension between them becomes too much. Eventually, it snaps, and they can’t keep their hands to themselves any longer.

— unbreakable heaven by furculaed (teen | comp. | 5k)

“I didn’t mean for it to get so messy,” she breathes, “I thought we could, I don’t know, just do whatever and we’d be okay. I can live with just this, I promise. I can do with nothing, even. I don’t know. Just don’t ask me to stop.” Dream’s breath stops right at her chest. “Stop what, George?” “You know,” she whispers. George looks at Dream, beautiful and breaking at the seams. “Don’t make me say it, Dream. You know,” George begs.

— fall into me by havocrat (teen | comp. | 7k)

Handing the tube back, Georgina smacks her lips together, and they make a little pop sound. It’s a weird feeling, a little sticky, but she kind of likes it. She wonders if it’s anything like kissing Dream for real. “Nice chapstick,” she says, and her voice comes out a little hoarse. Dream’s throat bobs, and she wets her lips again. “Yeah?” “Yeah. Tastes good, too.” She’s aware she sounds like an idiot, but this is the only coherent thought in her head right now, the only thought that isn’t about Dream’s lips and Dream’s mouth and indirect kisses and direct kisses and– God. She needs to get out of there, before she does something they both regret.

— right through your bones by dizzy (teen | comp. | 3k)

George tries to kiss Dream, and it doesn't go as planned.

— tall man’s burden by alreadyhateyou (expl. | comp. | 4k)

Clearly Dream is tall, clearly Dream is taller and bigger than George, in a lot of ways. Clearly, George is really into this. First it’s Dream’s hands, then his shoulders and chest and thighs. Soon it’s everything. Soon George finds out Dream is big everywhere.

— what a fucked up reality show by brokenlikeastitch (teen | comp. | 13k)

“Have you started studying for the map quizzes?” George asks, shoving some of her stuff over to clear the table in front of the chair next to her like she’s making room for Dream. It’s bizarre, and Dream is caught off guard at the sudden conversation. She’s not sure what exactly she was going to say to George, but now she’s even more unsure what to say. “Not yet, I don’t really like thinking about that class.” George giggles, pushing a loose strand of hair back behind her ear as she does. “Me neither, but I don’t want to fail them because I think I’ll jump off a cliff if I have to take this class again, so.” The giggle makes Dream feel a little faint, and she sits down in the offered seat just to make sure she doesn’t accidentally actually fall out in the library in front of everyone.

— This Ambiguous Edge by Amoxil (expl. | comp. | 21k)

Dream and George don’t care about the label. For months, they do everything that couples do. Everything but sex. George is patient, but Dream’s beginning to skirt the line. George wants to see how far he can push him.

— it isn't new (but it's still you) by mocharex (teen | comp. | 15k)

The slow shift from friends to fiancés to having a family together may take years, but, luckily enough, Dream and George have all the time in the world.

— Reasons Not To Be An Idiot by VicIsWriting (expl. | comp. | 30k)

Dream and George– they used to be friends. Sandbox besties, cradle to grave, ride-or-die kind of friends. Now they’re nothing, just strangers on a college campus who barely look in each other’s direction as they pass by, neutral recognition in both their eyes. When their friendship is revived, something new develops too.

— get busy waiting by alreadyhateyou (expl. | comp. | 17k)

Dream claims he wants to wait until marriage, and while George does his best to respect his wishes, it seems like all Dream does is make them both so, so horny.

if you want a rec of your own on next month's roundup, send it in!

[hedgiwithapen]

Dammit Hedgi Day BEGINS

Prompts are now OPEN Until the 24th of September I’ll be taking prompts, and as you all voted, beginning on the 23rd (saturday) and continuing till the 25th the EIGHTH anniversary of my first Dammit Hedgi (courtesy of Mosylu on Can’t Live in Dreams, I'll be posting them for your suffering and enjoyment

What prompts am I accepting? Originally an ANGST fest, it can get a bit more broad especially in recent years, so: Many!  I reserve the right to ignore shipping requests and just write gen, DHD is a smut-free zone, and it’s my day so  I will write about characters with my viewpoints so prompt with caution if you like a character i do not :)  you may rig your prompt for fluff, but do not count on it. like I said, Angst. and it's Dammit Hedgi Day, not "awww Hedgi that's so sweeet" day.

Dammit Hedgi started with The Flash, but yeah I quit watching that at season 6 and i don't wanna think about anything past like... season 5 maybe. Send me Flash stuff anyways, but let's stick to the roots. same with young justice (i did NOT watch s4) and of course the LoT and early Supergirl characters live in my heart. Big clinging to Stargirl, though, and I'm currently loving My Adventures With Superman, getting more comfy writing Leverage characters...

Y’all know me, you know my fandoms, and what I’ve been watching so as always, go nuts! Can’t promise I’ll fill it all (last year I had 65! prompts! and did fill them all so...) prompts for my RPG characters, for my shows, for the wild crossover of ur heart (Old Guard/ Flash crossover? why not. Leverage and Shazam? Sure!  Stargirl and the Librarians, heck yeah.) Feel free to send shit in, and I’ll either do it or I won’t, that’s DHD babes. I’ll try, anyways!

New to Dammit Hedgi Day? All I need is a character or two/ fandom and a dialog or narrative prompt!

You can send me a couple characters and an angst prompt from a list like  this one or This one,  Or this ….or  if there’s a whump post out there that grabs at you, you can use that.

You can send me an episode and a character for me to do a reaction fic or introspection, like Jax at the end of White Knight (LOT) or Beth in Stargirl: Summerschool episode 11. 

If we've chatted about an Au? send it! if there was a prompt from past years you liked and want More Of? (roundups for 2020 , 2021, 2022) hell yeah!)

canon stuff? post canon? pre canon? for want of a nail because canon is fake? go for it.

Canon suffering!! aus make everything worse!! you can ask for missing moments, or whatifs. We’ve had 7 (good lord you guys) of these now, you know the drill.  go for it.  I may not get to all of them. but I’ll write a lot because  now it’s a challenge! Current aus and hiatus fics are hella open to be extra angsted upon.  Any angst potential posts you’ve seen from me, canon angst that the writers ignore! Prompt away!

 HELL YEAH SMORES PARTY IN HELL! WHOOOO!!!! (join the Discord!)

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

Well here's a fucking Chortle headline for the roundup:

Holy fuck. I cannot believe that. Never for a moment did it cross my mind that this might happen. It's been nearly ten years since he left, and this never once seemed like a possibility.

I remember exactly when he left. I know it was announced in February 2015, because I was sitting in my bedroom in the city where I lived in 2015, where I'd moved to join their bigger and more impressive sports team and ended up just being miserable and lonely for two years because I did not have any of the skills required to fit in there. Anyway, it's fine, not the point of this post. The point is I know it was 2015 and I know it was February because I vividly remember sitting in that bedroom and scrolling on Facebook, and seeing a mock Valentine's Day card that said "May Jon Stewart be the only man to break your heart this week." And that's how I found out he'd announced he was leaving The Daily Show.

I know when he actually left, too. It was August 2015. Because Donald Trump walked down that fucking escalator in June 2015, and announced he'd be running for president. I remember watching The Daily Show that night, and Jon Stewart, incredibly pleased at the comedy gold mine that was about to befall all political comedians, looked into the camera and said to Donald Trump: "Thank you for making my last six weeks the best six weeks." Then he stayed on for six more weeks and made Trump jokes every night, then he left, and the world immediately ended. Looking back with a bit of perspective, Jon Stewart really did happen leave the show right as the Western world was on a precipice of having the norms as we thought we knew them all crumble at once. I'm thinking of that timeline that says 2000-2015=nostalgia, 2016-2019=2016, 2020-present=plague. Those are pretty much my life's eras. And Jon Stewart was there for a hell of a lot of that first one. (Not actually the first era of my life, there is also 90s=childhood, but I'm pretty sure everything was fine then, right?)

It's a bit weird to me now to see Jon Stewart as having an individual career, if that makes any sense at all. If you'd asked me in 2009 who my favourite comedians were, it wouldn't have occurred to me to say Jon Stewart or Stephen Colbert, even though I watched them both every night and loved those shows. I hardly even though of those as things that people had to make by being comedians and writers. They were just fixtures. Part of the landscape. I was so confused when he left the show, I didn't think it could exist without him. It didn't really feel like television could exist without Jon Stewart coming on at the end of the night. I remember learning some time ago about Marc Maron's feud with Jon Stewart over their days on the comedy circuit, and that was so weird. Jon Stewart didn't have days on the comedy circuit. He didn't have a career you could object to or admire, or opinions you could agree with or disagree with. He was just a fixture in the landscape.

I remember the first time I saw Jon Stewart. I think it was probably 2006, maybe 2005. I was really into Rick Mercer, this Canadian comedian who did TV shows where he made fun of the news. My mother put on a TV show, pointed to the guy behind the desk, and said, "That's Jon Stewart, he's like an American Rick Mercer." It only occurred to me relatively recently how funny it is to call Jon Stewart "an American Rick Mercer". But anyway, I watched that episode with my mom and then I kept doing that every night for many years.

I remember watching his final Daily Show episode with my mother, in August 2015. Bruce Springsteen came on live and played him out. My mother and I both got fairly emotional.

I kept watching The Daily Show for a long time after Jon Stewart left. I even followed a lot of the similar spinoff shows by its correspondents. I watched Full Frontal with Samantha Bee, and The Opposition with Jordan Klepper, and Larry Wilmore's The Nightly Show, and Hasan Minhaj's Patriot Act, and Michelle Wolf's The Break. Obviously, I followed John Oliver to Last Week Tonight (and would also if necessary follow him to the ends of the Earth, but that's beside the point).

I quite like Trevor Noah too; when he took over the show I read his autobiography and watched his stand-up specials and the documentary about him. I even saw him live in 2019. So I wasn't one of those people saying the show could never recover from Jon Stewart leaving. I watched a lot of the Trevor Noah years, and only dropped off from following it so closely fairly recently. It was around 2022, I think, when I just stopped keeping up with it. I had so much Britcom going on, and the world was so fucking depressing, getting all my news from actual news sites (as everyone should always always do, do not get your news from comedians, use political comedy as a way to lighten the mood of the regular news that you should first get from actual journalists, for the love of God please do not let the industry of actual journalism be steamrolled by entertainment) was stressful enough and I didn't want to keep having this other way of going over it.

So, those are a few disjointed memories that came into my mind when I saw that story this week. Here's another memory: I remember reading an interview with Jon Stewart from just after he left The Daily Show, in which he was asked if he would ever watch Fox News again. He replied that if he were ever in some post-apocalyptic scenario where Fox News was the only way to find out where to find vital life-saving information, he still wouldn't watch it. Because doing that job that required him to watch so much Fox News had destroyed him mentally and he could not wait to never ever ever ever ever do it again.

I was one of those people, after he left, saying, "I get it, it's high-pressure and difficult, I see why he wants to move on and have a break. But I would pay to have Jon Stewart just broadcast once a month in his sweatpants from his living room couch. He can't just be gone. He needs to keep telling us about the news, what will we do without him?"

We did do without him for nine years, and the world we thought we knew has crumbled around us in about twenty-five different ways since then, and I have absolutely no idea how the fuck Jon Stewart could fit into the landscape as it exists today. Like. I don't know what to do with this information. It wasn't on my radar. It's like finding out they're rebooting Buffy with the entire original cast and writing crew. Or if the girl I had a crush on from the ages of 9 to 14 showed up and told me she was in love with me. Of course it's what I wanted, but... what? Really? Why? Why now? Do I even still want this? You mean everything pre-2016 wasn't just a dream and we still technically exist in the same world as that one and the things in it are still out there and could just come back?

...There are people like @lastweeksshirttonight who actually know things about the US late-night comedy show scene, who have always understood that Jon Stewart is a person with a backstory who entered and then left an industry that also had a backstory and those things affected each other and this will have a significant effect on the ecosystem. Those people will have intelligent takes on what's happening right now. But I do not. Jon Stewart was on TV when I was in high school. He can't be on TV now because I am no longer in high school (even though I was 24 when he left in 2015). What the fuck?

[coreancitizen]

2022 Year in Review: My Korean drama recommendations

2022 went by so quickly, and I think that's partly because almost every week I had new episodes of shows to look forward to. I'm a bit of a contradiction: I don't have the patience to wait for a new show to be completed so I could binge it, but I (maybe not-so) patiently wait for episodes every week, haha. TBH, I find I'm more invested in a show and its characters when I watch a drama weekly. And there were so many characters worth the investment in 2022: Woo Young Woo, Queen Im Hwa Ryeong, the Oh sisters, Kim Yumi, Jin Do Jun and Jang Uk, to name a few.

I just want to make clear that, as in previous years, this is by no means a list of the best Korean dramas of 2022. These are merely my favorites among the ones I watched that premiered in 2022 (or ended in 2022).

You can find my previous roundups here:

2021: Year in Review 2020: Year in Review

YUMI'S CELLS 2

New season means new love for Kim Yumi (Kim Go Eun) as she begins a romance with co-worker Yoo Babi following her breakup with video game designer Goo Woong. TBH, I wasn't quite sure how I'd feel about the new pairing — I have a soft spot for Ahn Bo Hyun — but Jinyoung charmed me even before the series started. He and Go Eun have a sweet and natural chemistry that made me root for Yumi and Babi, even knowing how the relationship ended in the webtoon. Another thing I love about the series is its portrayal of Yumi's pursuit of her dream to be a writer — from the frustrations of earlier rejections to keeping it positive while faced with criticisms and the satisfaction of another job (book) well done. That shot of her jumping on the bed toward the end of the series was cathartic and the perfect cap to Yumi's growth. (Viki)

LITTLE WOMEN

This is NOT Louisa May Alcott's famous novel though it does share some themes and puts sisters at the forefront of the story. The Oh sisters — In Joo, In Kyung and In Hye — just want to live a life not steeped in poverty. So when 2 billion won falls on In Joo's lap, their problems are over, right? Nope. A multitude of troubles arrive as the sisters get entangled with a rich, powerful and corrupt family with a lot of unscrupulous allies. This series got me on the edge of my seat from the very first episode and the thrills and tension never let up until the end. I absolutely love how messy and chaotic the sisters and their relationships with each other are. They love but they also fight, annoy and block each other, LOL! Now please cast Kim Go Eun and Wi Ha Joon in an action comedy series or film and give them the ending on the sunny beaches of Greece that their characters deserve. (Netflix)

BULGASAL: IMMORTAL SOULS

This is the first drama that caught my attention last year, a fantasy with monsters, past lives, immortal love and families. It's the story of how the lives of a man (Lee Jin Wook) who was turned into an immortal monster 600 years ago and a woman (Kwon Na Ra) who has been dying and reincarnating for centuries have been intertwined. The world building is quite interesting and the central mystery keeps you guessing until the very end. Keep an eye out for familiar faces as people from the past emerge in the present. (Netflix)

A BUSINESS PROPOSAL

This romcom is adorable with a capital A. Shin Ha Ri (Kim Se Jeong) shows up to a blind date pretending to be her best friend and does her best to turn off a potential match by behaving outrageously. It's a schtick she and her chaebol best friend had cooked up a long time ago to discourage suitors. Unfortunately, the blind date turns out to be Kang Tae Moo (Ahn Hyo Seop), the young president of the food company where she works. And even more unfortunately, he's interested and now wants to marry her! Hilarious chaos ensues, abetted by the couple's adorable best friends (the second couple), her zany family and his kdrama-loving grandfather. You'll never look at an archaeopteryx (bird-like dinosaur) the same way again. (Netflix)

TOMORROW

This is a lovely, heartbreaking, oftentimes cathartic drama about people desperate enough to consider taking their own lives and the team of resolute grim reapers who work very hard to prevent their deaths. Comatose Choi Jun Woong (Rowoon) is the newbie in the Risk/Crisis Management Team led by Koo Ryeon (Kim Hee Sun). Lim Ryung Gyu rounds up the team. Head of the Soul Collection Team Park Joong Gil, despite being a fellow grim reaper, is a thorn on the team's side — he has a special animosity for Ryeon that may have something to do with the past. Fortunately, the team has a stalwart supporter in the Jade Emperor (Kim Hae Sook). (Netflix)

MILITARY PROSECUTOR DOBERMAN

Legal action drama with a touch of comedy is probably the best way to describe this series and it's the perfect leading man vehicle for Ahn Bo Hyun. Do Bae Man passes the bar with basically just a GED and so finds himself unable to find a spot in a decent law firm until he gets an "offer he can't refuse" from corrupt lawyer Yong Moon Go: Serve in the military for five years as a prosecutor and then join his prestigious firm after. The plan is going swimmingly until he crosses paths with another military prosecutor, Cha Woo In (Jo Bo Ah), who is targeting some members of the military brass for revenge after her beloved father's suspicious death. After long-buried secrets begin to emerge, Do Bae Man finds himself reevaluating what it is he really wants to do with his life. (Viki)

EXTRAORDINARY ATTORNEY WOO

Woo to the Young to the Woo! The series follows Woo Young Woo, a young lawyer on the autism spectrum. She's got a brilliant legal mind, able to see different angles of a case but struggles with day-to-day interactions. Fortunately, she has the people looking out for her, like her dad, her boss/mentor, her law school friend and, of course, the handsome support team member who might just have more than friendship in mind. Park Eun Bin is brilliant as Woo Young Woo, she truly gets you invested in her challenges and triumphs. The legal maneuverings are fairly interesting, especially when they involve a rival law firm and somebody from WYW's past. (Netflix)

ALCHEMY OF SOULS

In the land of Daeho, an assassin trapped in a blind woman's weak body encounters a young lord from a powerful family who needs help to unlock his powers. Interesting lead and supporting characters, solid world-building, fantastic sword and sorcery action? I was sold from the very beginning. At the end of the second ep, I was absolutely in love with the feisty Mudeok and her rather bratty young master/pupil Jang Uk who just wants his gate of energy opened so he can do what everybody can — cast spells and use a sword. There's a twist at the end of the 20-episode first season, and I guess your enjoyment of the second season would largely depend on how much you accept the change. But in both seasons, the crown prince remains quite the scene stealer and he's possibly my most favorite character of all. (Netflix)

UNDER THE QUEEN'S UMBRELLA

A truly female-driven drama — from the queen and the queen dowager down to the concubines and, yes, even the court ladies. The series begins with Queen Hwa Ryeong's biggest problem being the four grand princes' rather relaxed approach to their education, lagging behind the other sons of the king via his numerous scheming concubines. But tragedy strikes and the queen and her sons suddenly find themselves fighting to make sure they don't lose not just their positions but their very lives. Kim Hye Soo makes it so easy to root for the embattled queen who wields her position and her eyebrows skillfully to thwart ministers, concubines and her mother-in-law, the queen dowager. I also love that her sons, the four grand princes, are unlike other royal brothers in sageuks — they are close, affectionate and loyal, leaving the dirty tricks to their half-brothers. This series probably has the most satisfying ending among the ones I watched last year. (Netflix)

REBORN RICH

Yoon Hyun Woo is a hard-working, loyal, no-questions-asked employee of the powerful Jin Family, which controls the Soonyang Group. One day, on an overseas errand to retrieve some secret money, he is betrayed by someone in the family and murdered — but promptly finds himself "waking up" in the body of the youngest grandson of the Jins, back in 1987. How, you ask? I finished the series but that part is still unclear. What's clear is how charismatic and believable Song Joong Ki is as the twentysomething investment whiz Do Jun. And what an amazing actor Lee Sung Min, as Soonyang chairman and patriarch Jin Yang Cheol is. The push-pull in their relationship is what made the series work for 15 episodes. Not that the supporting cast members are slackers. This is one of the best ensembles I've ever seen, the actors really working to make these characters ones you'd love to hate. Some of the business stuff might put off viewers but I found the whole thing fascinating and easily understood. I cheered when Do Jun/Hyun Woo used his knowledge of the future as well as his relatives' greed to take pieces of Soonyang. I'm recommending this series but with a caveat: I found the ending a bit of a mess and rather unsatisfactory. BUT the previous 15 episodes are fantastic and definitely worth a watch. (Viki)

Bonus recommendations

I recently started dipping my toes into Chinese dramas, even though I'm still intimidated by the episode count. "Love Between Fairy and Devil" is sweet and hilarious and has fantastic special effects. (Netflix and Viki)

But my heart truly belongs to Li Wei and the sixth young prince of Xin State as they figure out family, politics and love as their "New Life Begins." (Viki)

Last but certainly not the least, "Pachinko," which even though it stars some of the biggest names in Korean entertainment is not considered K-Drama by its creators. Based on Min Jin Lee's critically acclaimed novel, the series — Youn Yuh Jung, Lee Min Ho and Kim Min Ha are key parts of the ensemble — follows the trial and tribulations of a Korean family over four generations. The story begins in Korea, moves to Japan and eventually spreads to the United States. The story is rich and emotional, the direction precise and the acting superb. It has been recognized in a lot of year-end lists and recently won the Critics Choice Award for best foreign language series. (Apple TV +)

[badboyportrait]

10 year ao3 anniversary!

i joined ao3 on may 1st 2014, and posted my first fic may 2nd 2014. i figured i'd do a roundup of my own stats in the last ten years and see how far i've come! come join me!

(post dividers by saradika-graphics)

the hard stats

most popular fics ever

take my hand (kiribaku, bnha. 2016. 42 comments, 662 kudos, 139 bookmarks)

I need your warmth, you know (hiroaki, kyoukai no kanata. 2014. 2 comments, 241 kudos, 20 bookmarks)

sidetracked (sarumi, k project. 2014. 9 comments, 205 kudos, 21 bookmarks)

top fandoms

a3! (18 works)

ensemble stars! (8 works)

mahoutsukai no yakusoku (6 works)

top ships

kurokei, enstars (7)

bantaiju, a3! (6)

bradnero, mhyk (5)

top tags

character study (9)

fluff (8) || fluff without plot (8)

pre-slash (7)

numbers breakdown

ratings

general audiences (40)

teen and up (11)

mature (5)

explicit (3)

over the years

2014: 10 fics. knk, kagerou project, k, free!

2015: 1 fic. haikyuu!! x k

2016: 7 fics. knb, mikagura, bnha, enstars

2017: 5 fics. enstars

2018: 4 fics. enstars, k, a3!, idolish7

2019: 7 fics. a3!

2020: 4 fics. a3!

2021: 4 fics. a3!, mhyk

2022: 9 fics. mhyk, prsk, yakuza, lost judgement

2023: 4 fics. trigun, a3!, persona 3 portable, mhyk

2024: 4 fics (so far). prsk, a3!, one piece live action

chef's recommendations

most well-written imo & most satisfied with

death, reversed (2023. bradnero, mhyk)

chiaroscuro (2024. juaka. a3!)

infinite/infinitesimal (2022. kanamafu, prsk)

[__] (2019. banju/bantaiju, a3!)

i'm really happy with all of these! these are the ones i'd use to show off my technical skill (structure, language, etc), but it's also a damn good showcase of the themes i'm best at.

personal favs

nuit blanche (2022. kuwana, lost judgement): i wrote this one fast and furious. all passion, didn't look back. it turned out GREAT.

【 ✦ — ACTOR'S CAFE OPEN! ⋆ THE CHUUNIBYOU CLASH OF LIFE AND DEATH! 】 (2021. itaru, kumon, taichi, tsumugi. a3!): super experimental. i think i pulled off the style imitation really well, characterization didn't falter even with the new style, and hit a lot of good humour beats too. i don't often write this kind of style, but i think i'm pretty damn good at it anyway.

personal milestones

position zero (2019. bantai, a3!): the fic where i really started interpreting characters with my own ideas instead of bandwagonning fandom!

>>the death of hyodo juza (2022. bantaiju, a3!)<<: my ultimate goal as a writer was to 1. get really good at character studies, 2. write a 10k oneshot. i accomplished both with the death of hyodo juza!!

what's next

my main goals as a writer have been accomplished!!! i want to set another one to strive towards! one day i'd like to finish a full draft for nanowrimo! i'm not a 50k novel kind of guy, so i'm striving for something that passes all my personal checks within the time limit.

this is lesser on the priority list, but i think it'd be so damn cool to finish one of those month-long challenges. kinktober, writetober, what have you...a full-fledged 1k+ fic for every day of the month. it sounds impossible, but i'd feel so good about doing it!

for 2024, here's what i've got:

match the number of fics posted in 2014 (10). that 10-year parallel is deeply satisfying to think about!

join kanamafuweek!

complete soundtracks: ensemble!

finish at least one more wip from my drive!

and as always,

keep writing (the more the better!)

keep improving (as long as i write, i'll improve!)

like i say at the end of every a3 fic i write: thanks for reading! see you next fic!

[galadrieljones]

Year End Writer’s Roundup 2020

Thank you for the tags @thevikingwoman @luzial and @a-shakespearean-in-paris. I got tagged in two different versions of this, so I tried to combine them. 

AO3 name: galadrieljones

Fandoms: Red Dead Redemption 2, The Last of Us, The Walking Dead, Dragon Age: Inquisition

Number of fics: This year, I worked on six total fics for fandom: four chapter wips, plus two one-shots.

Word count for the year (published/unpublished): I won’t count my unpublished words lol. That would be hard, as they’re spread all over, like in my notes on my phone, on my old computer, every which where. But published word count is:

~122,000

I wrote a lot of words this year, though not as much as last year. That said, I wrote for more fandoms this year! Last year, I wrote only for RDR2. This year, I was a little more...distractible lol.

Magnolia (Daryl Dixon x Beth Greene, TWD) - 20k 

As You Were (Joel Miller x OC, TLoU) - 47k

The Lily Farm (Arthur Morgan x Mary Beth Gaskill, RDR2) - 30k

That he may hold  (Arthur Morgan x Albert Mason, RDR2) - 21k

“Grand Junction Wine” (Joel & Ellie, TLoU, one-shot) - 1200

“A Festive Sort of Place” (Lavellan x Abelas, DAI, one-shot) - 550

Fic I spent the most time on: Probably As You Were. That was my main project all summer, until Beth Greene and Daryl Dixon.

Fic I Spent the Least Time On: The Lily Farm, sadly. Well, both of my RDR2 fics, but in relation to its length and scope, The Lily Farm got the least amount of love this year. As a story it is extremely ambitious. It was never supposed to get this big!! Finishing it would be a massive feat for me.

Favorite thing I wrote: My favorite thing I’ve ever written at any moment is usually the thing I’m writing RIGHT NOW, which is Magnolia. My favorite part of (published) Magnolia so far is probably Chapter 6: “Bullseye”, as Daryl realizes that he is in love with Beth, and it is solidified via the fact that she is just like extremely good at scavenging supplies from post-apocalyptic Target. I mean, it’s more than that, but it seems to me that love can become real in weird, little ways that seem inconsequential until they’re not. I wrote the little Target bit as a way to almost kill time several chapters back when they were escaping Atlanta, and I was excited to give it so much value. I mean, the chapter title itself, “Bullseye,” is a nod to Target, as well as to Noah’s observation that Daryl must be in love with Beth, which is a straight up “bullseye" in and of itself, and also the fact that Daryl is fletching arrows for a great deal of the chapter. I really enjoyed writing this chapter, because I got to dig into Daryl with a lot of might.

Favorite Thing I Read: Winter in the Blood by James Welch. It’s a beautiful book.

Writing Goals For Next Year: I know better than to set any sort of longterm goals for myself. My values as a writer are just too chimeric. Though it would be nice to finish The Lily Farm and That he may hold. The latter is much, much closer than the former. I’d also like to just keep writing Magnolia and shipping Bethyl with all my might. The Walking Dead will be back in exactly two months and I am READY. Just more canon for me to fix, as far as I'm concerned. And honestly this probably sounds insane given where I was at a couple months ago, but I literally can’t wait to write Negan, rofl. In fact I can’t wait so much that I put a sneak peak of good ol’ Negan right toward the end of Part 2 >:)

Fic I want to rewrite/expand on: I would like to expand Magnolia and As You Were. The Lily Farm and That he may hold are in kill instinct territory. No more expanding. Only finishing. 

Share a bit of a WIP or story idea you’re working on: 

"You gonna be okay?"

“I'll be fine," said Noah. "You go on up there. Give this to Daryl for me." He handed Beth the dandelion.

She twirled it in her fingers, brought it to her nose. "These things always smelled like feet to me."

"Yeah, me, too," said Noah.

Tags! I don’t know who has done this already, so I’m sorry if you’ve already been tagged. No pressure, only if you’d like: @idrelle @shallow-gravy @midnightprelude @justaconsequence @commonevilmastermind @heysales @salexectria @darylbeth @ocean-in-my-rebel-soul @redinkofshame @roguelioness @buttsonthebeach

[mostlysignssomeportents]

All the books I reviewed in 2021

This is more-or-less my last blogging day of 2021 (I may sneak a post or two in before the New Year, but I might not), so it's time for my annual roundup of my book reviews from the year gone by. I've sorted this year's books by genre (sf/f, other novels, graphic novels, YA, nonfic) and summarized the reviews with links to the full review. Here's last year's installment:

https://pluralistic.net/2020/12/08/required-reading/#recommended-reading

As ever, casting my eye over the year's reading fills me with delight (at how much I enjoyed these books) and shame (at all the excellent books I was sent or recommended that I did not get a chance to read). 2021 was a hard year for all of us and I'm no exception. I ended up whiffing on so many astonishingly great and highly desirable books this year and I feel awful about it, to be honest.

I know what it's like to launch a book in a pandemic (I had four books out in 2020, ugh), and I so want to get those writers' and publishers' books into your hands. I might actually start an aspirational "books I wish I was reading" monthly or quarterly list for 2022.

On the subject of book publishing a pandemic: last year saw the publication of the paperback of my novel Attack Surface, the third Little Brother book:

https://craphound.com/homeland/2021/10/05/the-attack-surface-paperback-is-out-and-a-once-in-a-lifetime-deal-on-the-little-brother-audiobooks/

There's still signed stock at Dark Delicacies, and depending on the postal service, it's possible that if you order one (or the other signed books of mine they have on hand) that you'll get it in time for the Christmas break.

https://www.darkdel.com/store/p1840/Cory_Doctorow_-__Attack_Surface_HB_%26_TPB.html#/

And speaking of 2022, I'll be publishing the first of seven planned books for 2022/3/4 in September: "Culture Heist: The Rise of Chokepoint Capitalism and How Workers Can Defeat It," comes out from Beacon Press in September. It's a book on monopoly and creative labor exploitation that I co-wrote with Rebecca Giblin and it's excellent.

Now, onto the reviews!

Science fiction/fantasy novels

I. Situation Normal, by Leonard Richardson

Technically, I reviewed this in 2020, but it came out *after* last year's roundup. Richardson's second novel is a droll, weird, fast-moving space-opera with a gigantic cast, myriad subplots, and fascinating premises – a novel so brilliantly conceived that it runs like precision clockwork.

https://pluralistic.net/2020/12/14/situation-normal/#more-constellation-games

II. Rabbits, by Terry Miles

Miles' debut novel is a taut, conspiratorial thriller with overtones of PK Dick by way of Qanon and Dark City, a supernatural tale that illuminates the thrill and terror of ARG-like groups.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/08/leona-helmsley-was-a-pioneer/#rabbits

III. The City We Became, by NK Jemisin

A magic realist novel of New York City that is both a fantastic contemporary fantasy novel and a scorching commentary on the infantile nature of the racist dogma of HP Lovecraft and his ilk.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/01/09/the-old-crow-is-getting-slow/#i-love-ny

IV. When the Sparrow Falls, by Neil Sharpson

A tense dystopian thriller about the unraveling of a paranoid hermit kingdom established as a final redoubt against humanity's ascent to the cloud. Sharpson's debut is a claustrophobic nightmare of transhuman refusal and authoritarianism.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/07/01/basilisk-tamers/#rage-against-the-machine

V. King Bullet, by Richard Kadrey

The final Sandman Slim novel was more than a decade in the making, and it is a triumphant capstone to a supernatural noir series that transcended the tropes of both noir and the supernatural with a tale of personal transformation, redemption, revenge and sacrifice.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/08/17/king-bullet/#sticking-the-dismount

VI. Hench, by Natalie Zina Walschots

This debut novel is fantastic, funny, furious and fucking amazing. It is a profound and moving story about justice wrapped up in a gag about superheroes, sneaky and sharp.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/08/19/failure-cascades/#natalie-zina-walschots

VII. The Every, by Dave Eggers

The sequel to Eggers' 2013 techno-dystopian satire "The Circle," and it's a deeply discomfiting, darkly hilarious, keen-edged tale of paternalism and its discontents.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/10/05/masha-rides-again/#everywhere

Novels (not sf/f)

I. Scholars of the Night, by John M Ford

The first in a long-awaited, storied and fraught reissues of the works of the brilliant and versatile Mike Ford - a cold war thriller without peer.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/09/26/mike-ford-rides-again/#cold-war-zeitgeist

II. This Thing Between Us, by Gus Moreno

Gus Moreno's debut novel, "This Thing Between Us," is a genuinely creepy supernatural horror novel, a book that made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up and prompted me to turn on the nightlight at bedtime.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/10/12/no-criminals-no-crimes/#cuycuy

III. LaserWriter II, by Tamara Shopson

"LaserWriter II" is Tamara Shopsin's fictionalized history of Tekserve, NYC's legendary Apple computer repair store. It's a vivid, loving, heartfelt portrait of an heroic moment in the history of personal computing: a moment when computers transformed lives and captured the hearts of people in every field of endeavor.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/10/29/norwegian-potato-flour-enchiladas/#r2r

Graphic Novels

I. Streamliner, by Fane

STREAMLINER is the story of a secret outlaw jalopy hotrod race that plays out with so much fucking noir it's practically vantablack, in a way that makes it clear why STREAMLINER and its creator Fane are great heroes of the French comics scene.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/03/15/free-markets/#streamliner

II. Cyclopedia Exotica, by Aminder Dhaliwal

An alternate world in which another race of hominids – cylcopes with one eye and one breast – have existed alongside us "two-eyes." Their relations are presented as a series of lighthearted gags, many of which made my literally cry with laughter. It's an incredibly, admirably sneaky way to tell a profound story about race and gender and class.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/05/11/uniboob/#one-eye-and-three-dot-dot-dot

III. Bubble, by Jordan Morris et al

Bubble is a comedy/sf story about a distant outpost on a hostile planet where human colonists live under armored domes that keep out the hostile, overpowered critters that live on the surface. It's a wildly improbable artifact – a graphic novel adaptation of that turns podcasting into a visual medium.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/08/21/podcasting-as-a-visual-medium/#huntr

Books for young adults

I. Permanent Record, the Young Readers Adaptation, by Edward Snowden

Snowden's sprightly prose, his deep technical knowledge, his superb knack for explaining complex matters, his ability to articulate principled action all come together in a book that is, if anything, better than the adult version. Books for teens cast a long shadow. They can alter the course of a person's life. I was permanently affected by the books I read as an adolescent.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/09/permanent-record/#ya-snowden

II. The Halloween Moon, by Joseph Fink

In "The Halloween Moon," Welcome to Nightvale co-creator Joseph Fink brings his superb, unmatchable gift for balancing the weird and the real to a spooky middle-grades novel that echoes such classics as Neil Gaimans Coraline.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/09/23/remedies-beyond-antitrust/#creepypasta

III. Victories Greater Than Death, by Charlie Jane Anders

Anders' debut YA novel is superb – an exciting, engrossing book that captures everything great about young adult tropes while deftly subverting the problems those tropes present, without ever losing sight of the reason we love YA and space-opera: majesty and sweep, good and evil, bravery and sacrifice, treachery and danger.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/11/08/tina-v-tapas/#the-chosen-ones

Nonfiction

I. The Data Detective, by Tim Harford

This should really have been entitled HOW TO TRUTH WITH STATISTICS - it goes beyond debunking bad stats and instead shows how stats can be part of how we discover truth. It presents a 10-part method for avoiding statistical pitfalls *and* doing *good* statistical analysis.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/01/04/how-to-truth/#harford

II. Food and Climate Change Without the Hot Air, by Sarah Bridle

Bridle's clear, nonthreatening, technical language, brilliant data visualizations, and examples grounded in our daily experience make this a powerful read. It comes to a devastating conclusion: our species' survival depends on eating more plants, with more centrally (and efficiently) prepared meals.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/01/06/methane-diet/#3kg-per-day

III. Competition is Killing Us, by Michelle Meagher

Both an account of how Meagher rebuilt her understanding of markets, law and economics, and a smartly argued, fast-moving history of the neutering of monopoly law, a plot hatched and executed by the Chicago School of neoliberal economists. The Chicago School put competition enforcement in chains. Meagher's book shatters them. It's proof that this world is neither inevitable nor immutable, but rather, something that we can and must transform.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/01/08/competition-is-killing-us/#borked

IV. Monopolized, by David Dayen

Dayen weaves explainers and personal stories together, unpicking snarled knots of bullshit and laying them straight to reveal them for the turds they are; then showing how we're personally drowning in crap. From pharma to aviation, airlines to newspapers, Big Tech to Big Funeral, Dayen connects the scams that picks our pockets, robs us of dignity and life chances, and laugh in our faces.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/01/29/fractal-bullshit/#dayenu

V. Broad Band, by Claire L Evans

More than a celebration of the hidden woman heroes of the computing revolution – also an epitaph for all the people whose talent, aptitude, dreams and contributions were squandered by a system based on mass exclusion. It's proof that the differences between fields are socially – not biologically -determined.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/02/13/data-protection-without-monopoly/#broad-band

VI. Prisoners' Inventions, by Angelo

A for-real version of those neo-neolithic Youtubers who show how to bootstrap advanced tooling from raw materials; a physical version of the beloved first-person accounts of daring feats recounted in the pages of 2600. This is true adversarial interoperability – treating the environment as a puzzle and a challenge, to be deconstructed and reconfigured, overcoming user-hostile designs and armed enforcers.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/06/09/king-rat/#mother-of-invention

VII. Jackpot, by Michael Mechanic

A pitiless – but empathic – look at the lives of the (mostly) American super-rich: the transactional relationships, the paranoia and fear, the greed, the lavish goods, the rootless pingponging from one home to another, the feuding, ruined offspring, the constant preoccuptation with accumulation… It's ghastly. Legitimately horrible.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/04/13/public-interest-pharma/#affluenza

VIII. Mutual Aid, by Peter Kropotkin, David Graeber, and others

Painstaking researched and beautifully argued, MUTUAL AID reveals the scientific fraud of "social Darwinism," and its claims that hierarchy and exploitation are evolutionary inevitabilities baked into our very nature. This is a gorgeous illustrated edition with a new introduction by David Graeber.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/09/22/kropotkin-graeber/#against-just-so

IX. Savage Love A-Z, by Dan Savage

Come for graphic sexual content, stay for thoughtful and well-thought-through philosophy. Savage's latest is an illustrated, alphabetical tour through the concepts and tropes of his decades-long corpus of sexual wisdom, humor and learning.

https://pluralistic.net/2021/10/04/avoidance-is-evasion/#ggg

[tabbyclaw]

A writing retrospective

2021 was a surprisingly productive year for me! I managed to finish six fics, which is a lot for me, and what better way to commemorate that than with a roundup? Below is a rundown of everything I posted in the past year, along with a little bit of writer’s commentary for each one.

Untitled Hitman ficlet - The Hitman games passed me by entirely somehow -- yes, even with as long as I’ve been subscribed to Outside XBox; I don’t know how that happened, either -- but once the teasers for 3 started trickling out to places where I actually noticed them it was a very short road from “Oh, this is a thing with enough meat on it to actually get fannish about?” to “Oh, I am invested.” I am all about weird and complicated loyalty and trust, and good lord do Diana and 47 deliver on that front. I like morally dubious characters being aware that their debts are going to come due one day, and I like intelligent people being wrong in unexpected ways, so this was a perfect confluence, and an idea that hit me at a time when I was very open to inspiration because I was in dire need of something quick and emotionally satisfying (see below). Whether or not inspiration will strike me in this fandom again remains to be seen, but I’m glad of the people it brought to my attention via bringing me to theirs, and I enjoy poking my head in occasionally and watching y’all have fun.

Valentorn - This right here? This is my current pride and joy. It’s the reason I only posted one short thing at the beginning of 2020 and the reason I needed that break that led to the Hitman fic, because it took all of that time to write this and then edit it. (Editing alone was three months. My beta has the patience of a saint. And also came up with the “polka-ball” pun, which is why I love him so much.) Valentorn was born from a lot of things, most notably Gabriel and Nathalie being my catnip -- see above re: ‘weird and complicated loyalty and trust’ and then add my love of both pining and cartoon villains in love -- and finding the perfect setup to make them the heart of a ‘monster of the week’ plot. (His whole thing is sensing wounded hearts. There’s a broken one standing next to him every single day. Come on, canon!) And it might not be obvious because I haven’t written one since Ex Libris, but I love supernatural monster of the week/”let’s make this feel like an episode of the show” fics, especially when canon’s ‘monsters’ are people. I love figuring out who caused this and why, what the rules are, and how to fix it. It’s just that Ex Libris also took me a whole year to write, so the idea for one has to really grab me by the entire heart and brain before I’m willing to dig in and commit to trying to finish it. And this one super did, and I do not regret spending as much time as I did on it.

Some little fun facts about this one:

Marinette is the only character of the main four not to appear in civilian form.

I chose a bird of paradise purely for reasons of aesthetic and vibes, but according to various flower symbolism sites it stands for freedom, joy, magnificence, and fidelity, which all fit perfectly.

There was a version of the story in which Chat Noir managed to talk Valentorn down and she surrendered her akuma willingly, but it felt both narratively unsatisfying and just unfair to Nathalie. She’s distressed enough at the end because she lost the fight; it would have been so much worse if she hadn’t fought at all.

There is also a scene in my head in which Hawkmoth decides he needs to deal with Valentorn in person and slams into that barrier between them so hard that it knocks them both back. I have considered writing it down and posting it somewhere as a sort of DVD extra, but it would almost certainly not go well. Neither of them is ready for that conversation, especially at the point in canon where the story is set.

Breathe Easy - My Drakken/Shego lobe can lie dormant for ages, but as soon as something kicks it awake it’s immediately firing on all cylinders again. And that fanart kicked it hard for both comfortable domesticity and a little bit of whump, which is a combination those two are well-suited for in my brain. And, much like the Hitman fic, this one brought a lot of positive attention in both directions because I forget sometimes that 90% of my contribution to the ship was pre-Tumblr and I don’t always know where to look for it anymore. There’s not a lot more to say about this one, which is deliberately short and simple, but Shego getting squeamish is a nod to a very old and half-joking headcanon of mine that she has a Thing about blood and gore, which is why she only ever reaches kids’-show-appropriate levels of violence despite how clear it is that she could do much worse if she wanted.

Gin and Bear It - The other crown jewel in this year’s collection. The drunken piggyback in “Sect Appeal” was one of the big “Oh, I guess I ship this now” moments, and it was because Corazon was so calm about it that it had to be something he was just used to by now. Which was fertile ground for any number of other ‘comfort the weepy drunk warlock’ shenanigans, and all of that flowed right into this story. It’s been a long time since I got to write ‘jerks having feelings and being really cranky about that fact,’ and these two hit that sweet spot by basically being my good old ‘cartoon villains in love’ despite being in the wrong medium and also the protagonists. There’s also not much to say about this one because it really did all end up on the page, but I will tease that there’s a sequel in the works because I couldn’t just leave it like that. It just might be a sequel that takes forever and a half to appear, because if these two are good at anything it’s adamantly refusing to make things romantically easy for themselves.

Protective Camouflage - This is in the same ‘saw the art, had to write it’ category as Breathe Easy, but obviously different because it’s a fandom that’s brand new to me rather than the oldest one of my heart and a narrative voice unlike my usual one. I am, overall, pretty damned proud of how I wrote Murderbot and its friends and I love the response it’s gotten so far, and if anyone who’s gotten this far in this post is now wondering what the heck this canon is I would love to shout at you about it some.

Backwards In High Heels - Who doesn’t love a good dance around the office? This really did just start with that mental image as something fun and cute, tied to my frequent wondering about just what their working relationship was like Before All Of This. And it probably would have stayed just a cute little mental image in my head if the title hadn’t come to me, and hit me with how perfect a metaphor for who these two are and how they relate to each other, and then I had to write it. It’s been on the back burner for a good while now, and I finally finished both it and Protective Camouflage in November and then let them sit for a while before editing. During November I got a kick out of the fact that I was writing stories for two canons about as far apart as they could be from each other, but with the common thread (hah) that I didn’t know enough about clothing design to write either story properly. There are times when choosing a viewpoint character who probably knows as little as you do is a tactical decision...

And that’s how I spent my 2021! On to the new year, and what absurdities will I pull out this time?

[clonetrobed]

✨ 2020 FIC ROUNDUP ✨

hello, wonderful followers! so, this is a bit last minute, because i’ve never done a fic roundup in any other fandom before, but i’ve seen some of my fellow writers posting their own roundups and thought, why not. finding community and this fandom and writing fic was a little beacon of light during this dark, dark year, and i want to bestow millions of thanks on all the friends i’ve made here, mutuals even if we never speak, and anyone who’s ever read and supported my writing, it honestly means the world. ❤️

uh anyway, that’s enough of me talking, now for the actual fics:

lights, camera, action (e, 10k)

Meeting Abed had helped him with that tremendously. Falling so deeply, purely, inextricably in love had really chipped away at the notion that his feelings were wrong. With their first kiss, it had started to crumble, and their first “I love you” demolished it entirely. He couldn’t deny himself what was, and still is, so good and so right.

He’s never realized it before, but something inside him itches to show that off.

In as many ways as possible.

or: how Troy and Abed become a camboy couple.

basic heartbreak repair (e, 24.8k)

After a life-changing realization while sailing the world, Troy is convinced that he’s missed his shot with the love of his life. But when the Greendale gang reunites for a very special wedding, he might get to learn a little something about second chances.

nothing to be afraid of (even when the night changes) (g, 1.1k)

Troy needs to be cuddled. That's about it.

remedial breakfast in the modern marriage (g, 2.1k)

It's a special day, and Troy deserves a special breakfast.

cardiovascular endurance and the art of recovery (t, 2.8k)

Troy finds out how Abed got so athletic.

my my, how can i resist you? (t, 1.6k)

One year ago today, Abed boosted him up to a window so he could save himself. To be the first black man to make it to the end had been a convenient excuse, but not the real reason. Troy knows that now, and some part of him must have known it then, because he knew that the potential last thing he was ever going to say to Abed had to be the complete, absolute, devastating truth.

or: what should've happened after epidemiology. shameless halloween fluff.

intro to resolution (m, 2.1k)

(And Troy knows now that love is even more powerful than he’d imagined it to be. After all, it can resurrect the dead.)

or: It takes Troy 3 years to sail around the world. Here are 3 points in Troy and Abed’s relationship. Spoiler alert: it comes full circle.

[doggernaut]

Top 5 of 2020

Rules: it’s time to love yourselves! choose your 5 (ish) favorite works you created in the past year (fics, art, edits, etc.) and link them below to reflect on the amazing things you brought into the world in 2020. tag as many writers/artists/etc. as you want (fan or original) so we can spread the love and link each other to awesome works!

Taking a cue from @foryouandbits, I’m doing this for my favorite works I’ve written this year. To be honest, I wasn’t even sure if I had five works to choose from this year. On top of, well, everything, I got laid off from my part-time retail job and then unexpectedly got a full-time job in my actual field. So getting in the right headspace to write, or do anything else, has been a challenge. At any rate, I appreciate the readers who have stuck with me and read, commented on, and shared my fics even when I haven’t been very active. It’s been such a bright spot in a sucky year.

Here are my top five, in the order in which I published them:

Careful Fear and Dead Devotion I wrote this for @happyzimm for the Bitty’s Valentines event. They had asked for a Jack character study, and this was the result.

I'm Telling You I'm Lonely Too My entry into the genre that might be known as “Quarantine Fic.” It's laughably optimistic about when and how this would end, but I still like to think it’s a sweet story about two lonely people connecting during a hard time.

Special Delivery I did not think this AU, based on the @shitty-check-please-aus prompt “jack is bitty’s mailman and bitty’s 6 yr old is in love with jack and always wants to greet him when he delivers the mail. recently divorced bitty has to pry his daughter away most days, even tho he himself feels the same,” would be my most popular fic posted this year, yet for some reason it is. Maybe we all just needed a little bit of fluff.

Slow Show This was written for the @jackzimmermannturns30 event over the summer. My prompt was “No graduation kiss, still BFFs.” It’s Bitty and Jack, stuck in a vacation home during a storm, finally confronting their feelings for each other. 

Picture Us Together This super short (841 words) little thing came from a Tumblr prompt. Takes place during Jack’s visit to Madison during the summer of 2015.

(I’m not going to tag anybody, but I always love to see how others respond to these end-of-year roundups!)

[bettsfic]

march pinned: ending the sex project

in the march edition of my lowkey writing-related newsletter, in addition to my writing-related post roundup and upcoming consultation availability, i have personal essay recommendations and a segment on the definition of a project!

for more information on my creative coaching services, check out my carrd.

if you want to receive my lowkey writing-related newsletter directly, you can subscribe here.

full newsletter below the cut, or you can read it here.

fuck february, amiright?

i thought january was bad. but february. february was the stuff of nightmares. my cousin passed away from covid (you can read about her here; she was really an amazing person and i feel so lucky to have known her). i was finally formally diagnosed with PCOS (bittersweet, i guess). my car broke down. i took two (2) days off and it took me two and a half weeks to get caught up again. i can only hope march treats us all a little more gently.

the good news is, i finished revisions on my short story collection to send to my agent, finished workshop submissions for the semester, and now i can return to my first love, fanfiction. that i am constantly working through original fiction to return to fanfiction has been making me think a lot about the nature of a creative, capital-p Project. so, this month’s BTALA (been thinkin a lot about) is going to inspect the concept of a “project.”

new resource

last month i unveiled a folder of my favorite short stories which i’m pleased to hear several of you have perused and gotten some inspiration from. this month i’ve compiled my favorite personal essays. there are fewer essays than there are short stories because i’ve broken them into two groups: personal and craft. next month i hope to have the craft essays compiled.

i’m always looking for more things to love, so if you have recommendations for your favorite short stories and essays, i’d be happy to hear them!

writing-related posts

how to physically maneuver the revision process

the difference between M and E ratings of fic

resources for worldbuilding (check out the reblogs for more!)

a couple syntax/prose book recs

how to break a long work into chapters

march availability

unfortunately i have to cut my coaching hours down a bit, so i don’t have any openings left in march, but i have some availability in april. if you’re interested in a writing consultation, please fill out this google form!

you can learn more about my services on my carrd.

what i’m into rn

for the past year, i’ve basically been trapped in a 10x10 room, and my health is definitely reflecting that, both mentally (does anyone else feel like they’re living in groundhog day? just, every day being exactly the same except fractionally worse than the day before??) and physically (i reorganized the kitchen and could barely move for two days).

reader, i have discovered something called “walking,” in which i put on real human shoes and go outside. it feels strange, bestial. neighbors wave hello to me. a harrowing experience.

while doing this, this walking, i’ve been listening to the lolita podcast which a friend recommended to me, a ten-episode series that dives into everything lolita: the novel itself, its context, adaptations, greater cultural responses, and — as a sticker on my laptop says — vladimir “russian dreamboat” nabokov. as far as i can tell it seems well-researched and presents the many perspectives of lolita in a fair way. i’m only a few eps in, but i’m entranced so far. highly recommended if you, like me, have a complicated relationship with lolita.

i’ve also found myself mildly addicted to a mobile otome game called obey me, which. look i know it’s like the definition of cringe but it’s also mind-numbingly fun and if i want to spend my minimal free time pretending 7 demon brothers are all vying for my affection then that’s between me and god. it’s a lot of what i loved about WoW: frequent events, bright colors, a daily to do list of simple but satisfying tasks, many many rewards, and it doesn’t take itself very seriously. and if i have 4k fic written of mammon/reader that’s nobody’s business but mine and my longsuffering ao3 subscribers.

i’m telling you this because i don’t know anyone else who plays it and am desperate to trade headcanons. so if you play, or start playing, hit me up!! i will give u mad tips and daily AP.

been thinkin a lot about

the project. the project. even the word “project.” PROject (noun). proJECT (verb). what is the project? “project” comes from the latin pro and jacare which means “to throw forward,” or projectum which means “something prominent.” a projector throws forward an image. to project onto something means to throw your perspective onto something else. to embark on a project is to make something prominent in your life. the concept of “the projects” comes from public housing projects, the government throwing forward affordable housing.

what is the project? in joseph harris’ essay “coming to terms” he says that “to define the project of a writer is…to push beyond his text, to hazard a view about not only what someone has said but also what he was trying to accomplish by saying it.” harris’ perspective is that of an english teacher encouraging his students to read critically, not just to summarize a text but to find its project, its greater purpose. and while i first read this essay in a seminar on composition pedagogy, it stuck with me as a writer. it made me reconsider the greater nature of the creative project.

how many of us, if asked to describe our writing project, would begin with a plot or character premise, the nuts and bolts of a specific story? maybe even the working title? but i wonder, is breaking out the plot really the project? is the discipline of sitting down and typing really the project? and when the story is finished, is the project over? what is the project?

in 2019, i wrote 86k words of a novel. i began revising that novel last fall, and i’m finding that i’ll probably keep maybe less than 10k of that initial draft. i’m not bothered by that. the novel i wrote before that started at 125k, then i rewrote the entire thing to 200k, then i whittled it back down to 160k, and next i’ll be tasked with paring it back down to 80k. i’m not bothered by that either. in the past five years or so i’ve written about 2 million words, and i’ve only published 20k of them. only 1% of what i’ve written, i’ve published. in the words of lauren cooper (catherine tate), i’m not bothered.

i used to see publication as the birth of the project, and writing it akin to a long gestation period. then i saw publication as the death of the project, and its life was lived in its drafting. now, publication seems irrelevant to the project. the confines of a story and its many revisions are also irrelevant to the project. the beginning of a story is not the start of the project and the end of the story is not the end of the project. the project is larger than the story, its revisions, its publication, and its eventual readership.

i think it took me so long to see this because for so many years i was still in my first project, the sex project, an exploration of trauma and sexual identity, which began in 2014 with destiel fanfiction, endured through many fandom shifts, my MFA, years adrift as an adjunct, all the way through 2020 with the completion of my short story collection. i used to wonder how anyone could write about anything other than sex. to me it was the only topic worth my attention. i was certain that i would spend my entire life being a sex writer and i’d never find fulfillment writing a young adult sci fi adventure or a highly literary novel about complicated family dynamics. i was baffled by people who were interested in other things, who could write entire novels without using the word “cock” even once.

then my sex project ended. i don’t know when exactly it happened or why, but suddenly i realized i never wanted to write another artful description of an orgasm or find a tactful euphemism for a vagina ever again (personally i prefer “wet cunt” because not only is it blunt, i find it phonetically pleasing). obviously i’m still writing explicit fanfic but it doesn’t feel the same as it used to. sex feels more sidelined to me, even if it’s still the center and drive of a fic. i no longer get any personal satisfaction from writing it, although i do get satisfaction in sharing the work for readers to enjoy.

it’s like i’ve somehow solved the biggest puzzle of my life. or i guess made peace with my meanest monster, that extremely complicated double-mind of desire that some non-sex-repulsed asexuals feel: you want to feel desire you can’t actually feel so you write it into fiction, to try to understand this thing you can’t have and which society tells you you’re missing, and you don’t even know if you don’t have it, because you still feel desire for affection and intimacy, and maybe even a desire to be desired. and for those of us who are asexual and have c-ptsd, sex you don’t actually want (but don’t know you don’t want, because maybe you’re ambivalent and mildly curious and touch-starved) and an unrelenting drive toward people-pleasing can be a dangerous combination. how can you ever know what consent is if you always put other people’s desires above your own?

maybe i’m alone in this. maybe i’m not. maybe for most people, wanting sex is a light switch: yes i want it, or no i don’t. but for me, i had to write a whole lot of words to figure out things like desire, consent, intimacy, forgiveness, the shape that good love takes. the lengthy theoretical flowchart of “i might be interested in having sex if this and this and this and this and this happens in this exact order and under these exact circumstances.”

it was hard to write something into reality that i have never seen except in pieces, in subtext i clung to with no lexicon to give it shape and meaning. te lawrence in lawrence of arabia. some of tarantino’s early work. the film benny and joon. and weirdly, the star wars prequels (that one’s hard to explain; i’ll spare you). i don’t think the sex project was about coming to terms with my asexuality as much as it was trying to organize my thoughts and feelings by continuously rendering my own experiences within a greater, shinier ideal — like how you sometimes have to unravel the entire skein of yarn to find the loose end, and only then can you get started.

i guess i’m in the infancy of the power project now. i’m moving toward themes of control, infamy, greatness. the exact circumstances in which atrocity occurs. how people rise into leadership and fall from grace. the consequences of success. i don’t know why this project has come to me, or what, if anything, it has to do with me. i’m not famous and have no intention of becoming famous; i don’t have social power or influence, at least not beyond my little corner of fandom, and i’m not interested in having it. and yet, here we are, already hundreds of thousands of words in.

my fics digging for orchids (tgcf) and a standing engagement (the hunger games) deal with the detriments of fame. and even float (breaking bad) to a degree is about the aftermath of being so close to power. my novel cherry pop, loosely based on macbeth, is about an ongoing power exchange between two teenage girls. my other novel, vandal, is about a girl who believes she has magic powers and casts a spell on her neighbor to fall in love with her. and i’m in the very early stages of a novel called groundswell, a cult story i’ve been wanting to write for years. i had no idea why i couldn’t write it until i realized it wasn’t yet my project. i’m not even to the stage of developing characters, let alone a premise or plot. i’m still just building my aesthetic pile (i discuss the aesthetic pile here, as well as vandal in more detail), watching documentaries on cults, reading books, finding inspiration, marking down ideas as they come. it may be years before i’m ready to sit down and write it.

now that i know what the project is, i have more patience with myself. it doesn’t bother me to rewrite a novel from the beginning, or to scrap novels altogether, because the story isn’t the project. the project cannot be diminished by cutting words, sentences, paragraphs, entire chapters. the project does not have a product. the project cannot be published. the project is in the practice, in dragging the impossibly large into clear, acute existence, so you can see it. so you can see the very center of what you thought was an unknowable thing.

[ahappydnp]

2020 Fic Roundup

This feels weird and I know I’m not new and I don’t write anything ~groundbreaking~ or long and I don’t do chaptered fics, but I did manage to crank out 30 pieces this year which I will allow myself to feel moderately proud of considering *gestures vaguely* so uhhhh...anyway here 

Magic Soup -The Howell Lester household is ill and Kath comes to the rescue

Cruel Summer- kickthesticks  “They’ll make jokes and it’ll be fine and he won’t look over at Phil and Dan with a white hot rage because they flaunt everything he wants but can’t have.” Italy, 2011

Home Alone -  Dan is in LA and Phil has the house to himself

Surf’s Up -  Phil has a specific birthday request

Photobomb -  “If Dan moves over to the table towards the end and accidentally slips into frame, well that’s just fine. If people see that he’s with Phil’s family this close to Christmas and make their own assumptions about what that might mean, then so be it”

Somewhere Beyond the Sea -  Aquarium dates and thoughts about the future

Swipe Right -  Dating apps, first dates, and knowing what you want

No One Else - A fic about saying what you want and who you want. “he’s almost annoyed at the accusation. Surely he knows how deep Phil feels this. How every single aspect of his life feels heightened when it comes to Dan.”

Manchester -  13 March 2010 @amazingphil- “Looking at apartments in Manchester:]”

Tiny Love -  Based off the song “Tiny Love” by MIKA

Different -  “And yeah, there were rumors. Whispers about the way that tall weird girl was just a bit odd.”

Tourists - Dan and Phil visit Abbey Road, and Dan has thoughts

Time For A Change - Phil gets a new filming setup

Hometown Pride -  Dan takes Phil around Wokingham

Deep Breath - Dan and Phil visit the Isle of Man to finish TABINOF

Lockdown Live - Quarantine liveshow featuring a surprise guest

Nana -  “The thing is, coming out to his family proved to be the easy part. It’s what followed that’s been difficult, more emotionally draining, more vulnerable. It’s like the invisible wall that’s been between them now has physical form. It has a name now. “

Cheers -  Phil and Zoe have a tipsy chat in America. Phil says a bit too much

Duo - “I may have told them we were like...a package deal. ”Phil has a srs bsns meeting in London

Have The Courage to Exist - “Failure is not fatal, it is the courage to continue that counts” Based of “If U Love Me Now” by MUNA

To Build A Home -  Dan spends a night in the valley and thinks back on the last year

Phil After Dentist -  Phil gets his wisdom teeth removed

Bi Boy -  Phil comes out to Dan

CTRL+ALT+DELETE -  It stings. Of course it stings to erase a part of their history. But it hurts worse when the same words he said out of safety and comfort are thrown back in his face with the sole purpose of mocking him. Mocking them.

Bad Day -  What happens when Dan and Phil are both in need of support

Crush -  very tiny fluffy drabble

phil is not on fire -  Phil edits a video

Young - "Can’t you see all I wanna do is get a little wild, get a little high. Kiss a hundred boys and not feel like I’m tied to them If you wanna judge me, then go and load the gun. I’ve done nothing wrong. I’m young." Based off Young by Sam Smith

Ball Lightning -  Don’t get caught up in caution when love exists

Native Tongue -  on love languages and learning

This year has been challenging and turbulent to say the least, but this community and particularly the comments and responses to my fics have meant more than you’ll ever know. Thank you to everyone who has left a kind message. It really does mean the world :) Especially when I’m not a particularly popular writer and not someone who can do long form. Writing brings me joy (most of the time) and I’ve really appreciated learning this new form of expression. Hopefully 2021 will be even better! Thank you to everyone who’s stuck around and made me feel welcome <3 

[bex-pendragon]

Bex's Book Corner # 15

Hello again - I'm back with another monthly roundup of recent reads!

February saw me reading a mix of genres: fantasy, sci fi, contemporary, and romance. And I also encountered the book that I'm declaring my favourite of the year.

1. The Worst Best Man by Mia Sosa

I loved the concept of this story - a wedding planner left at the altar has to work with the man who convinced her fiance to dump her. But then she starts to catch feelings for him. It’s a recipe for maximum drama!

I didn’t totally feel the chemistry between the two leads, but it was still an enjoyable read. This book has also been optioned for film and I’ll be very curious to see who ends up getting cast in it.

Popsugar Reading Challenge: a romance novel by a BIPOC author

Similar Books: Make Up Break Up by Lily Menon

Content Warnings: sexual content

2. Vespertine by Margaret Rogerson

This is my third book by this author. It’s been amazing to see Rogerson grow as a writer between Enchantment of Ravens, Sorcery of Thorns, and now Vespertine. She’s really honed her craft with this spooky fantasy niche.

Vespertine is perhaps her most unique premise yet: Artemisia is a young woman from an order of nuns. They’re charged with caring for the dead and protecting vengeful spirits from rising up and possessing the living. She has a painful past, so the scene is set from some angst.

But then, something really wild happens: she ends up bound to a revenant - a powerful type of spirit that only an elite few can withstand coexisting with. I’ve seen the relationship between Artemisia and the revenant compared to the symbiotic relationship in the movie Venom. I haven’t seen Venom, I think it’s an apt comparison based on what I’ve heard through the fandom grapevine.

Vespertine takes its time to set the stage before going full-tilt. Rogerson lines up the dominoes and when they start to fall, the fallout is SPECTACULAR. I can’t wait to see where the next book goes!

Popsugar Reading Challenge: a book about the afterlife

Similar Books: Sorcery of Thorns (also my Rogerson), Grave Mercy by Robin LaFevers, Truthwitch by Susan Dennard.

Content Warnings: fire, self-harm, death, blood, vomiting.

3. Written in the Stars by Alexandria Bellefleur

Imagine the Pride and Prejudice relationship dynamic… but in a contemporary romance with two girls, then add the fake dating trope to the mix. That’s the basis for Written in the Stars: Elle is a bi disaster who gets off on the wrong foot with awkward lesbian Darcy. With the holiday season coming up, they end up in a fake dating relationship in order to avoid their families’ questions of why they aren’t in relationships. You can guess what happens: they really fall for each other.

There are threads of P&P throughout, but it’s more inspired by the Austen classic than a direct retelling. Elle’s relationship with her family is more fraught: she was in grad school studying astronomy, but she was miserable. Eventually she quit and started her own astrology business. She’s been very successful, but because she left school, her family doesn’t really get it. They think it’s just a frivolous hobby. There’s a moment at Thanksgiving when Elle announces an important business deal she’s just landed, only to have her younger sister steal her thunder by announcing her engagement. My heart broke for Elle, but I was also reminded of the OG Lydia Bennet and her complete inability to read the room.

This was such a cute story! I think sapphic retellings of Austen are an untapped market. I’d love to see more.

Popsugar Reading Challenge: a book with a constellation on the cover or in the title

Similar Books: The Love Curse of Melody McIntyre by Robin Talley and Everything Leads to You by Nina Lacour

Content Warnings: sexual content

4. The Unexpected Everything by Morgan Matson

Another instance of my third book by the same author, having previously read Since You’ve Been Gone in 2020 and Save the Date in 2021. I’m working my way through Matson’s back catalog, slowly but surely! I think she had a new one out last year as well, so I still have some catching up to do.

In The Unexpected Everything, Andie Walker’s regimented life is thrown into chaos when her congressman father has to step away from his job due to a scandal and her summer internship falls through. She ends up in a summer job she never expected: walking dogs. She has the most awkward (but sweet!) meet cute with a boy who turns out to be a writer with writer’s block. And she gets to reconnect with her dad.

There were a couple of twists that I saw coming - in a good way. I love it when an author drops hints and then picks up on them later.

The upheaval in Andie’s friend group was realistically done - it reminded me a lot of Since You’ve Been Gone.

Popsugar Reading Challenge: a book featuring a party

Similar Books: Since You’ve Been Gone (also by Matson) and Yes No Maybe So by Becky Albertalli and Aisha Saeed.

Content Warnings: underage drinking

5. Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao

Technically I started this at the end of February and finished it on March 1st, but I’m including it in my February roundup because if I don’t talk about it, I’ll BURST.

This book, y’all. There’s been a ton of hype surrounding it. I’m here to tell you the hype is 1000% deserved. I was in awe. What Xiran Jay Zhao accomplished here is OUTSTANDING.

First of all, this book has been billed as The Handmaid’s Tale meets Pacific Rim. HOW? You may ask. Those are two completely different pieces of media!

Allow me to explain. In the world of Iron Widow, girls live a carefully subjected life. Humanity is threatened by monsters and the only way to stave them off is to send boy-girl pilot teams to battle them in giant mechas called chrysalises. But the girls are often sacrificed in the process because piloting the chrysalises drains their strength. The male pilots get all the fame, and only a few girls in balanced matches survive.

The anti-heroine of the story is Wu Zetian - inspired by the famous Tang dynasty empress. Her older sister was killed by a pilot, and now she’s out for revenge. When she finally gets into a chrysalis, she overpowers the boy in charge, earning the title of Iron Widow.

From there, it’s a wild, brutal ride. I can’t even put it into words. It’s got battles. Revenge. A polyamorous love triangle. And some plot twists I didn’t see coming. The author sets up the plot dominoes and smashes through them like a wrecking ball. It was incredible to witness.

I’ll caution readers to be aware of the content warnings for this one. There are a LOT.

You should also check out Xiran Jay Zhao’s YouTube channel - they have some excellent videos, including a two-part history of the actual Wu Zetian.

Popsugar Reading Challenge: a book with a character who uses a mobility aid and/or an #ownvoices SFF.

Similar Books: there aren’t any, tbh.

Content Warnings: misogyny, sexism, femicide, rape mention (off page), abuse (physical and mental), suicidal ideation, alcoholism, murder, torture, foot binding, gore, needles, violence, and injuries.

That wraps things up for February! So far Iron Widow and Vespertine are my faves of the year. Maybe it's early in the year to make that declaration, but that's too bad because these books were AMAZING.

[kunstpause-archive]

Writer’s Round-Up, 2020

Cutting it really close - there have been so many lovely people tagging me and I only now got around to it. Thank you @in-arlathan @barbex @coffeebird-eccentric @wardenari and @cartadwarfwithaheartofgold

I had little motivation because of an ongoing slump. Many of you on my dash have been present for the absolute mess that was October and November in a certain fandom and you know what I’m talking about.

That said, I did still write a lot this year. I moved a bit away from DA and wrote some entirely new things. And I am damn proud of it and no stupid anons or throwaway accounts can take that away from me. So here’s the pure numbers:

Co-written with my writing wife:

@elveny and I wrote A LOT together, and we are not stopping anytime soon. (if ever!) ❤❤❤ Let them be mad in 2021, we’re doing out thing.

One shots and stand-alone things I wrote on my own:

And I started two little series, both of them are ongoing, but the single stories within them are all finished and can stand alone

All in all, just for my solo stuff I wrote about 200k (some is yet unpublished) and another whopping almost 400k with Elveny together. Not the most unproductive year by far! 

Most of this is on my Ao3, the FFXIV-Write is here.

Now as for favourites and whatnots:

New things I tried this year:

I switched up writing styles for different pieces, experimented with other tenses and dipped into a whole different set of character dynamics for the first time. I’ve had a general idea about an enemies-to-lovers thing that I felt I couldn’t write properly for the longest time but this year I simply tried and so far I am liking the results a lot. (All the things you shouldn’t do). I also built a whole new playground in a ffxiv au together with my usual partner in crime and writing-wife and 3 other friends that is as elaborate as headcanons can be and that I absolutely love writing for.

Fic I spent the most time on:

Precipice of Change, hands down. It’s a behemoth of a story that takes a lot of my attention - and that we will hopefully finish on a very high note in 2021.

In a smaller instance: Don’t Break. I spent about three nights in a row on that, just trying for hours on end to get the nuances just right. And ngl, I was low-key terrified that I wouldn’t be clear or on point enough and people would misunderstand and accuse me of the go-to glorifying abuse and whatnot - which is so not the point of that story. But once you got burned by fandom drama you tend to assume the worst. I can luckily say that all of my hand-wringing was unfounded and I got nothing but great feedback for it.

Fic I spent the least time on:

The Long Way Home, that was written in a fit of feels after 5.2 and took me about 30 minutes.

Favourite things I wrote:

Gotta go with Don’t Break again. I am incredibly proud of getting onto paper what I had in my head for this and thought writing it was exhausting it felt amazing to bring all the pieces together. 

It’s also definitely the solo-written thing I’m most proud of this year.

Second: Getting to the third and last part of our shared long-story. After all this build up and planning, writing towards the resolution has been amazing.

Favourite things I read:

I read very little this year I have to admit. I couldn’t focus on much and my brain wouldn’t let me. And there was some good fic I read on the side, I know as much, but I can neither remember titles nor authors.

What I did read and enjoyed immensely were some FFXIV entries on my dash and some great writing from my friends. @elveny s prompts and her wonderful kinktober one shots,  @allycryz wonderful Mass Effect story and her newer ffxiv stories were amazing. @elfyourmother gave me all the feels, the whole spectrum really, from spicy how to the most wholesome cat-induced fluff. @alamhigyoooo ‘s ffxiv Fray prompt still lives rent-free in my head.

Of, and @blarfkey s absolutely fantastic ACO story, A trick of light that I am so not over yet! (got read that, its amazing)

Writing goals for next year:

- Finish Precipice of Change - Finish the giveaway fics for the 3 winners @coffeebird-eccentric​ @charlatron​ and @ashalle-art​ - thank you for bearing with me during the mess and my subsequent slump so far! ❤ - I have an Althea/Zenos multi-chapter story planned that I am really excited about that includes sort of a road trip and a constant struggle between redemption and corruption - More ffxiv writing in general, Cassia’s ot3 turned into an ot5 so I have things to do... 👀 - get together with @elveny and figure out completely new ways to break people’s heart

Another thing I did this year:

I learned how to pose, more or less, mostly by trial and error. And I’ve been using it for shippy things and edits and often to get matching nsfw pictures to go with my smut.Some people may have seen the one or other link to my twitter. For those who are interested: Here is an album with most of the nsfw-screenshots I posed this year. And here is another one with the sfw parts.

I have lost track of who has done the roundup, I am just tagging off the top of my head and pleas tag me back if you feel like doing this

@elveny @elfyourmother @allycryz @sharkapologists @jellysharkbat @curiousthimble @exposed-whimsy @midnightprelude @blarfkey @queen-kass-the-writer @snippetsrus @tishinada @okami-zero @pookydraws @schoute @marimbachica @ashalle-art @solas-dreadwolf @jacklyn-flynn @heroofshield @jennserr @starsandskies @tightassets @visceralcoma @lynmars79 @5lazarus @caffeinatedrogue @thelittlestfische @kemvee @irlaimsaaralath @cornfedcryptid @zuendwinkel @kittimau @fandomn00blr​ @charlatron​ @anchanted-one​ 

[jamgrlsblog]

2020 Fic Roundup

When I started 2020, I had no idea I would write as much as I did! I was starting my first Ineffable Wives fic, which became a theme of the year 😂. When I finished District of (un-)Certainty in 2019, I thought that would be my last idea (except for a sequel I started and never finished: whoops). Instead, I completed 8 fics and 2 podfics and wrote a little more than half of an ongoing WIP I still haven’t finished. That’s a total of 11 works listed under 2020 on AO3! (And 130k words.) Here’s a roundup ☺️.

Peaches, Apples, and Other Forbidden Fruit (Fic & Podfic) 

55k, E

This was my first wives fic and started with a prologue that just popped into my head one night. I really wanted to write about what it was like to be a woman, with all those little vanities and insecurities that complicate self image, and with a deep connection to classic books about women influencing and shaping how she might interact with the world. And then I made it Southern and threw Aziraphale into a sorority with Crowley 😂. And it became about internalized biphobia and about unlearning biases and about love formed of long time friendship and deep knowing.

I decided to podfic it as I was writing because I wrote Crowley as dyslexic and I decided, out of honor for her, to make a more accessible version of the fic 😅. This was a total whim- I had no idea what I was getting into, but boy did I learn on the job! I read the entire fic in a Southern accent and had a lot of fun. I also drove my spouse crazy because I made him stay quiet while I was recording, but he bought me a “how to podcast” book for Christmas, so maybe you’ll get more podfic in the future 😉.

I made friends, thanks to this fic, including @miss-minnelli and @tawnyontumblr, who I can’t imagine not knowing now! I also made friends with @leoswork, who made 3 art pieces inspired by this fic, which I am still amazed by!

Oil Paint Stains

498 words, G

This was written for a “Name that Author” game in the Good Omens Events discord server and was such fun! I hardly knew anyone at that time and threw myself in anyways. It was a great way to get started making friends and a great little challenge to write a fic under 500 words! This, I think, is when I firmly established myself as a Wives writer 😂. 

Class Action

500 words, M

Listen, this was another “Name that Author” game, and I wanted to try a new pairing to change things up (I knew if I wrote wives again, I would be known) and I wanted to try writing exactly 500 words as an extra challenge. I didn’t know I would post it. I certainly didn’t know it would have the most kudos of 2020. Literally just a silly Warlock/Adam thing.

Strawberries Aren’t Forbidden (Fic & Podfic) 

8k, E

This is a companion piece to Peaches, Apples, and Other Forbidden Fruit about just how Crowley was doing all that time that Zira was pining 😂 (hint: she was also pining). Writing this on the side tempered my writing of the first fic by helping me remember how Crowley was feeling the whole time! This is pretty angsty, tbh, but we’ve got a fun and happy ending. I podficced this because I had to to keep with the first one! This one is in Crowley’s valley girl accent (aka, mostly just how I usually talk 😅.)

Summer Swims and Strings

5k, M

I wrote this for @suvroc as part of the Wives October gift exchange. This was my first exchange and I was so nervous about my giftee liking it! I really enjoyed writing reconnected lovers. The general tone and feel of this fic was heavily influenced by Folklore, which I was very into when writing this, so we’ve got a calm, reflective, and full of love lakeside fic!

Frights and Feelings

4k, T

This one was for @sk3tchid, also for the Wives gift exchange! I got to do something spooky and Halloweeny, which I was thrilled about. I took a big risk with this fic- I wrote two stories in one fic. I decided “ooh, what if they are watching a spooky movie!” so I could somehow fit spooky and cozy homey feels in one fic. And it worked? I guess 😂. Regardless, it was lots of fun!

cowgirl like me

6k, T

This fic started as me shouting about Evermore on the Wives discord server and I happened to mention that cowboy like me was giving me ineffable spouses feels, and being on the wives server, I got the response of wives? Wives! And I was like, nah, I don’t have time. And then I thought, well, and I wrote this fic over the course of one weekend. @tawnyontumblr made it readable 😂.

lover

4k, T

This was a companion to cowgirl like me. I had just gotten married and was having feels about Crowley and the late husband I invented for the first fic (which is Eric the Disposable Demon! So cute!) and also feels about marriage in general. So I wrote this little vignette thing, and my first f/m fic! I didn’t think anyone would read it, but @tawnyontumblr encouraged me to write it anyways ☺️. She really made this readable. I gave her a skeleton of a fic that she encouraged me to actually flesh out!

Star of the Wooded Mountain

WIP, 46k+, T

Listing this one last, even though it was 4th to start posting and the 2nd to start writing. I started posting this in June!! I actually believed that I would be able to write and post my entire summer camp fic during the summer and it would be like “ooh, seasonally appropriate!”. Lol. I’ve got 6/10 chapters up currently.

This is part of the Good AUmens event and how I was introduced to the Good Omens Events discord server!! I’m so glad I signed up for this event because this server has become such a huge part of my life and has been a place where I’ve made so many friends!

I signed up for the event saying I was going to write a wives fic, as was my 2020 theme. But when I actually sat down to write, I started writing Crowley as a non-binary/agender character instead. This fic became an exploration of gender and identity and navigating early adulthood. I met @parmejeannecheese thanks to this fic, who stepped up, never having sensitivity read before, and has put so much time and thought into helping me with this fic. I cannot overstate how amazing they are and how lucky I was to find them. 

I have learned so much writing this fic!! And it has become so much bigger and better than I could have imagined. I’m excited to keep posting this one into 2021 ☺️.

And that’s all my fics of 2020! I hope some of you have enjoyed them or might enjoy them in the future! Here’s to what may come in 2021! Maybe I’ll write a husbands fic again one day? Literally wrote none in 2020 😂.