#and like i KNOW it's not the same book i KNOW multiple copies were published

[avocad1s]

Pen and Paper

Requested By: Multiple anonymous users.

CW: Slightly suggestive. It mentions authors writing nsfw fanfic

Note: You all are crazy 💀 I got like seven requests for a part two ever since I posted about character’s writing fanfic about the creator. Most of them were the same so I decided to combine them.

Based off this post, but can be read as a standalone post

As established in the first part, people enjoy reading fanfics about you. However what we didn’t talk about are the authors of these books.

I think you already know but there are three known authors who write books about you, Yae Miko, Xingqiu, and Albedo.

All of them have their own way of making their writings unique.

Xingqiu writes platonic Creator fan-fiction, some people want to imagine you as their best friend or even as their parent. Having a familial connection to you is what some readers strive to have.

Albedo is the only one including art in his books, kinda like the pov fanarts you’ll see. Only problem with this is Albedo doesn’t make many copies of his books so getting your hand on one is a feat in itself. They go for lots of mora, very few people can afford it and they people who can, hoard them. (Ehem, Ninnguang, Ayato and Pantalone 💀)

Yae runs a publishing house and is the editor for many people’s work. So if anyone has an original idea for a story, it would be her. She is also the one everyone sends their work to so it can be published.

The Archons are a different case. They don’t have to read self-insert stories about you because there are definitely people writing Creator x Archon stories. Some of them are horribly out of character since not many people have interacted with their Archon and only have other writings to go off of. But that doesn’t stop them from getting the books. Ei, Zhongli, and Venti like reading romantic books about you. Nahida doesn’t read fanfics about you often, but when she wants to know more about human nature, she’ll read some about you being her parent.

Now onto what everyone requested. You reading these fanfics.

Like I mention before, once you arrive to Teyvat there not going to try and hide these fanfics from you. They just doesn’t expect you to see them.

But you do. In fact, you read them.

To make matters worse you read them in public. Out loud.

Once the acolytes notice what you’re reading out loud they’re mortified. We’re you punishing them? Or do you find humor in reading these? Many characters are ready to get on their knees and apologize for reading these books, they don’t want you to be disgusted with them or get on your bad side. They’d be so sad!

If the authors of these books caught wind that you’ve read their books, they’ll be slightly embarrassed as well. It feels sacrilegious to think of you in such a manner but can you really blame them?

If you ask them to stop writing, they’ll stop publishing the fanfics… what you don’t know won’t hurt you :)

If you don’t care or even encourage it, then many more people will begin writing fanfics. Mostly with the hopes that you’ll read it. Perhaps if they pour their feelings onto paper you’ll notice how they feel for you?

Albedo would ask if you would model for one of his books. He’s drawn you multiple times but if you’re right in front of him, he knows he can make it more accurate. (Please let him, he’s begging with his eyes)

-

Slight nsfw behind this point, if that’s not your cup of tea, you may take your leave.

-

Of course if fanfics exist, so does nsfw fanfics.

You know how in the bookstores they have adult books wrapped in plastic? Yeah, the nations would also put their own barrier so the wrong audience don’t end up grabbing it.

These are the books they do not want you finding. Just imagine the look on their faces if they see you with one of those books.

Before you descended finding these books were almost impossible, many people weren’t sure what you looked like. All they had were scriptures of what your heavenly form looked like and ancient drawings of you that was hard to get your hands on unless you had some kind of power in the nations.

However once they get to see you with their own eyes…

Yeah they’re horknee 💀🙏

Having you in such a provocative way is something for their wildest imagination, so they will use these books to fill that void.

Dom Creator, Sub Creator… you name it. You can find it.

These books cannot be checked out at any library. No one wants a sticky book returned, have some mercy on your librarian.

I apologize for that sentence above 😭

Anyways, could you imagine finding your favorite of age character reading one of these books? They’ll try to quickly hide it a dark blush on their face as they apologize to you for reading such content.

But what makes them blush even darker is when you offer to recreate whatever they’re reading in real life. They’re stuttering and their bodies are trembling, but they aren’t going to deny such an offer from their dearest Creator.

© avocad1s 2023

#genshin cult au #sagau #genshin cult #genshin impact sagau #genshin sagau #sagau x reader

[nobodysuspectsthebutterfly]

Ok, so, this is probably ridiculous, and I can't believe I have a House of the Dragon theory before it even airs (I can barely believe I have a HOTD theory at all), but...

Since the release of The Princess and the Queen in 2013, and through everything published about the Dance of the Dragons since then (TRP, TWOIAF, F&B), it's known that Daemon and Aemond Targaryen have a lot of parallels. Besides the most obvious point of their names (just move the D, lol), they're both hotheaded, vengeful, kinslayers, brutal and ruthless, excellent swordsmen, more martial and physically active than their kingly older brother who they were nevertheless devoted to... culminating in their final showdown in the Battle Over the Gods Eye, the aging older model vs the would-be "new hotness". Though a major difference is that fandom tends to treat Aemond as far more of a pretentious wannabe, a bad Xerox copy with his marysueish sapphire eye and ooh so hardcore dialogue, generally disliked while Daemon is beloved (or at least opinions are far more split), the Darkstar to his Oberyn.

As for HOTD -- though we have yet to see how normie fandom and newbies will react to these two characters once they both start doing their thing, one thing I've noticed from the trailers is that most new people just cannot tell them apart. I have a friend (with no interest in ASOIAF but who's seen the ads multiple times during his shows) who thought Aemond was Matt Smith in an eyepatch. And Matt and Ewan Mitchell do look remarkably and surprisingly alike.

That same flat square jaw from the front but cut cheekbones from the side, similar noses and lips, even when in costume the same lack of eyebrows for goodness sake... Well, maybe this is just highly similar Targaryen wigs and makeup, maybe it's just good casting, following the evident show-Targaryen family look. Maybe the showrunners just chose a young actor who looks a bit like Matt Smith and costumed him similarly as a way to hammer home the parallels between the characters. But. What if this casting and costuming means something... more?

We know that one of the in-world text sources of the Dance is the scurrilous Testimony of Mushroom, which claimed that Alicent was no virgin when married, having previously slept with Viserys and even senile King Jaehaerys (which I most thoroughly doubt, that's just Mushroom's typical slander). We know that Otto Hightower detested Daemon, all the sources concurring, if no reason given except perhaps "Lord Flea Bottom"'s known behavior. We know that per interviews etc, in the show Daemon is said to have a complex relationship with his brother Viserys, loving yet jealous. We know that, well, HBO is HBO, as bad as Mushroom, and loves to add sexy scandalous scenes for water-cooler and social media buzz, even if they're claiming it won't be so bad and blatant as GOT with HOTD. So... what if, in the show, there's some kind of... incident, between Daemon and Alicent, a seduction or maybe, um, not the greatest level of consent, and then a little bit of time and Alicent tells Viserys she's pregnant again? Perhaps there won't be anything overt, nothing ever said, just implied via nasty looks and snatches of dialogue... but what if? There's no Maury Povich or DNA testing in Westeros...

Mind you, a big flaw in this theory is that in the books, Daemon was absent from court from late 105 to 111 AC, either on Dragonstone or in the Stepstones, and Aemond was born in 110 AC. But we already know that HOTD's adaptation is playing a bit with timelines, making Alicent and Rhaenyra about the same age whereas Alicent was 9 years older in the books. We don't yet know how they might tweak the ages of their children -- though from the trailers and behind-the-scenes videos, Aemond seems to be far closer to the ages of Jacaerys and Lucerys (in the Vhagar incident scenes they all look 10-12-ish, rather than 10, 6, and 5, and the actors are 12, 13, and 8). And imagine-- the parallels (not just between Daemon and Aemond, but Alicent and Rhaenyra), the greek tragedy levels of irony... it would be amazing.

So. I suppose we'll see. This could be completely crack, based on nothing more than the somewhat similar appearances of actors cast as uncle and nephew. But if it does go down that way, if show-Daemon has a son he could never ever acknowledge... don't say I didn't warn you.

#house of the dragon #hotd #aemond targaryen #daemon targaryen #matt smith #ewan mitchell #the dance of the dragons #house targaryen #asoiaf #asoiaf parallels #hotd theories #hotd spoilers #hot d indeed #i might be crazy (i'm definitely a bit crazy for posting this) but what if i'm not #also this theory has been peer-reviewed by an asoiaf history podcaster and the world's greatest daemon stan and they think it might be true #so... #always sunny conspiracy meme.jpg #viserys: you are not the father!

[ernmark]

Who was in charge of marketing for Harry Potter?

(This isn't about She Who Must Not Be Named or her bigotry. This is purely about the business of bookselling.)

If you were a YA reader at the time, or you're into fandom history, you might know the story: July 16, 2005, in the wee hours of the morning a car pulls up to a bunch of teens and children standing outside a bookstore, and some jackass shouts at the top of their lungs: "Snape kills Dumbledore!" and then speeds away.

That story was infamous. THE biggest plot twist of THE biggest book series in the world, spoiled before anyone could even crack the pages.

Which is... actually kinda weird, right? How'd they know?

Had they read an advance copy? Did they stand in line since like 4 PM to get their hands on the book, and then the second they got their hands on it just frantically start skimming the last hundred pages or so until they found a particularly devastating bomb to drop? (Trolls being trolls, this was not considered particularly extreme behavior).

Or were they paid to do it?

This is adult me with conspiracy goggles on, but consider: The message that was sent is not that a character killed another character, but that no matter how hard you try to avoid spoiling your favorite story, some bad-faith actor is going to jump out of the bushes and do it anyway. There's no time to wait for your library's copy to be available, no time for your friend or your sibling to finish and hand it to you-- you have to buy your own copy right the fuck now.

And everybody and their sibling (literally, people were buying multiple copies per family) around the world buying the same book in the space of the same two weeks? That is how a book guarantees a spot on every international best seller list for a long ass time.

The thing is, whether this was a deliberate move or an amazingly convenient and lucrative bit of trolling does not matter. Regardless of the source, the marketing department pounced on an opportunity. Every brick-and-mortar bookstore left had piles of bookmarks and buttons, posters plastered on the windows, dividing readers into one of two teams: either "Trust Snape" or "Snape is a Bad Man". People wearing those pins sparked conversation and debate in real life, to say nothing of what was going on in the forums. Essays and treatises and manifestos were written. Books were published-- both officially licensed materials and unofficial ones full of theories and details.

When that next and final release was coming out, you bet your ass everybody on the planet was going to be there (or risk another drive-by spoiler). When the next movie was released that November, it didn't matter that what had come before was kinda iffy in quality-- people were showing up in costume.

Even before The Drive By Spoilering, the marketing team was honestly the stuff of legend. Gorgeous hand-illustrated covers and chapter header artwork, branded title fonts that could be recognized from a mile away in the dark, big fancy displays present in every single school book fair, and then that website-- the official website was a thing of absolute beauty, especially in that time. It was colorful and had a million moving parts and secrets to uncover, it was updated frequently and with a lot of little secret extra tidbits on the character and world, and oodles of essays from the author herself that were often very endearing to the readership. It was a gathering place for fans as much as the fan-run websites.

(I should point out that with marketing this robust, I have no doubt in my mind that all those tidbits and essays were themselves run past the team for approval, to make sure nothing particularly egregious slipped through the cracks. But that kind of editing isn't cheap, and I suspect it would only really have been employed during the Important Years for the franchise.)

I remember wanting to be a writer as a teenager, embarking on that career as I got out into the world and started querying books I'd written, and for every single one of us in the writing community, that kind of marketing was the dream. The midnight releases in full costume, the gorgeous custom covers, the posters in every library and bookstore, the breathtaking website. But all of those things turn out to be heinously expensive, and for every franchise that returns on that investment, there were dozens, perhaps hundreds, who didn't make back enough, or cover their expenses at all. And that's where you get to the point where querying authors were advised to establish massive followings on social media in order to demonstrate that they were a safe bet, that half the work was already done if the publishers would just give us a chance-- and sure, for some of them that effort did get them publishing contracts. At which point, even if the publishers felt inclined to spend more than a pittance on promoting new authors' work, there wasn't any point in doing so to the degree that the Harry Potter books received. There's little room to stand out in a saturated market; a flash in the pan is only impressive if the pan isn't already on fire.

These days there's little hope of any one new author rising to that kind of fame, though with self-promotion and self-advocacy, a lot more diverse authors are starting to carve out places for themselves. But marketing yourself is exhausting, and it's expensive, and it makes you vulnerable to all sorts of stupid blunders and career-ending missteps.

I'd rather stay indie. But I wouldn't say no to that marketing team.

#harry potter as a cultural phenomenon #the business of writing #writing woes

[ebookporn]

Because wire fraud and money laundering are now also book terms

Books have always played a role in politics as a way to get to know the candidate, outline their vision, and set the record straight after they have left office but political books can also be weaponized and not always in the way you might think. Recently Harper accidentally released metadata on a James Comer book called ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MONEY due to release on September 10th, strategic timing for a close election. Comer quickly denied he has a contract for a book but Harper wouldn’t have this data in their system if they weren’t already working on it. The ONIX feed is now been refed listed as UNTITLED by Anonymous. Shopping a book deal at the same time that he is leading the Biden impeachment probe, is obviously not a good look for Comer. Sure this is a way to throw chum the water and try and smear the other candidate but I live in Baltimore and another concern comes to mind. With a bankrupt Republican Party, it might be very important to watch just who is buying these books.

In 2019, just before Covid, Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit wire fraud, conspiracy to defraud the United States, and two counts of tax evasion in what has become known as BookGate. Pugh and her long-standing legislative and campaign adviser, Gary Brown fraudulently sold self-published Healthy Holly children's books to local nonprofit organizations in order to obtain more than $800,000 to fund her campaign and enrich herself. These were cheap and poorly written books riddled with errors and spelling mistakes. Holly, the main character’s name, was spelled differently throughout the series. Tens of thousands of books sold to organizations and intended to be distributed to children ended up piled in warehouses and were never delivered. They were however resold multiple times. Significantly more books were sold than were ever printed. But this wasn’t just about selling crappy kids books. The buyers didn't care, they bought anyway.

CNN reported that during BookGate the University of Maryland Medical Center spent $500,000 to fund the purchase of some 100,000 books from Pugh’s company, Healthy Holly LLC. The former mayor also received about $114,000 from healthcare provider Kaiser Permanente for some 20,000 books from 2015 to 2018 and an additional $80,000 from the public foundation Associated Black Charities, which said it bought some 10,000 copies of Pugh’s between 2011 and 2016. All of these groups worked with and lobbied the city. 

Catherine Pugh was sentenced to 3 years in prison and ordered to pay $411,948 in restitution and to forfeit more than $600,000, including a property in Baltimore and nearly $18,000 from her campaign account.

Sound familiar? It is openly acknowledged that this is precisely what is going on with Donald Trump’s self-published bible. High-velocity sales of an objectively poor product are hard to hide and easier to subpoena and trace as people notice. Now if you can put a legitimate business between you and the questionable product all the better. We can see that with Trump’s media company now listed on the New York Stock Exchange. 

In the post-Trump world, it is no longer just monitoring institutional sales and people trying to game the bestsellers lists. Trade Publishers and retailers like Amazon, Walmart, and Barnes & Noble need to be extra careful and pay attention to just how and to whom these books are being sold lest they get caught up in an FBI investigation because wire fraud and money laundering are now also book terms.

~eP

#political books #money laundering #bookgate #book publishing #bookstores #retailers

[booksandchainmail]

re: recent posts, would you recommend starting Guide now or try and catch up to Pale Lights?

That depends, how much do you like reading a serialized work as it publishes?

I really enjoy getting weekly chapters, and the way a serialized release schedule builds investment. But I also have friends who really dislike having to wait for more every week, and won't read a serial until it's complete.

Pale Lights is currently in a place where there's enough of a backlog that there's an initial binge to get you deep into the characters and world, but IMO not so much that it's too intimidating to catch up. Book 1 wrapped up a few months ago with ~300k words, and book 2 is only around 10 chapters in. Despite the lengths, I find web serials really manageable to read as they come out: keeping up with ~6000 words a week isn't a huge timesink.

On the other hand, PGTE is around 3 million words, which is a hefty chunk of time to commit. Those words are absolutely worth it, but it does take a while.

From a story perspective:

PGTE is rougher at the beginning, since it's the author's first work. It's also more accessible to get into, since it's built on top of a standard fantasy world template, so there's less immediate worldbuilding to wrap your head around. It has a single protagonist, plus frequent interludes from outside perspectives. Pale Lights throws you into the deep end a bit in terms of setting, but also more meaty worldbuilding in a way it takes PGTE a bit to work up to. It has multiple POV protagonists, but no regular outside interludes (aside from an epilogue).

Practical Guide takes place in a world built on deliberately-generic high fantasy tropes, and then plays around with them and builds on top of them. It features a lot of battles and army movements and fights between people with vast amounts of personal powers. Pale Lights is a much weirder setting, has less outright fights, and features more small-scale conflicts (so far) between characters closer to baseline human with one specific power each.

tldr:

My personal advice would be to read Pale Lights first, if only because it's the one where when you start reading matters now. PGTE isn't getting any more or less finished, so if you read it a year from now you'll get the same experience. I think PGTE is an amazing piece of work, but Pale Lights has the potential to be even better, and is currently a smaller commitment to start with. Practical Guide is one of my favorite works of all time, and I've probably spent more time thinking about it than any other work. I can't say Pale Lights has reached that level yet, but I think it will given more time.

That said, they are very different in setting and premise, so I'd recommend reading the little summary blurbs for each, and seeing if one really grabs you (since I think those convey genre well).

blurbs and a few extra notes under the cut:

the one caveat to "PGTE is complete" is that it's currently being rewritten on an app called Yonder, which is unfortunately paywalled and on a weird subscription model. Hopefully we'll get the complete rewrites of individual books available for purchase at some point, but who knows. It will also theoretically get a webtoons adaptation as the rewrite goes, but no details have come out yet. When this was announced it was also said that the PGTE website would be taken down, but that decision was postponed, there's no new deadline, and if it does go down there are... ways to acquire a copy.

PGTE blurb:

The Empire stands triumphant. For twenty years the Dread Empress has ruled over the lands that were once the Kingdom of Callow, but behind the scenes of this dawning golden age threats to the crown are rising. The nobles of the Wasteland, denied the power they crave, weave their plots behind pleasant smiles. In the north the Forever King eyes the ever-expanding borders of the Empire and ponders war. The greatest danger lies to the west, where the First Prince of Procer has finally claimed her throne: her people sundered, she wonders if a crusade might not be the way to secure her reign. Yet none of this matters, for in the heart of the conquered lands the most dangerous man alive sat across an orphan girl and offered her a knife. Her name is Catherine Foundling, and she has a plan.

PGTE prologue epigraph:

In the beginning, there were only the Gods. Aeons untold passed as they drifted aimlessly through the Void, until they grew bored with this state of affairs. In their infinite wisdom they brought into existence Creation, but with Creation came discord. The Gods disagreed on the nature of things: some believed their children should be guided to greater things, while others believed that they must rule over the creatures they had made. So, we are told, were born Good and Evil. Ages passed in fruitless argument between them until finally a wager was agreed on: it would be the mortals that settled the matter, for strife between the gods would only result in the destruction of all. We know this wager as Fate, and thus Creation came to know war. Through the passing of the years grooves appeared in the workings of Fate, patterns repeated until they came into existence easier than not, and those grooves came to be called Roles. The Gods gifted these Roles with Names, and with those came power. We are all born free, but for every man and woman comes a time where a Choice must be made. It is, we are told, the only choice that ever really matters.” – First page of the Book of All Things

Pale Lights series blurb:

Vesper is a world built on the ruins of older ones: in the dark of that colossal cavern no one has ever known the edges of, empires rise and fall like flickering candles. Civilization huddles around pits of the light that falls through the cracks in firmament, known by men as the Glare. It is the unblinking stare of the never-setting sun that destroyed the Old World, the cruel mortar that allows survival far below. Few venture beyond its cast, for in the monstrous and primordial darkness of the Gloam old gods and devils prowl as men made into darklings worship hateful powers. So it has been for millennia, from the fabled reign of the Antediluvians to these modern nights of blackpowder and sail. And now the times are changing again. The fragile peace that emerged after the last of the Succession Wars is falling apart, the great powers squabbling over trade and colonies. Conspiracies bloom behind every throne, gods of the Old Night offer wicked pacts to those who would tear down the order things and of all Vesper only the Watch has seen the signs of the madness to come. God-killers whose duty is to enforce the peace between men and monsters, the Watch would hunt the shadows. Yet its captain-generals know the strength of their companies has waned, and to meet the coming doom measures will have to be taken. It will begin with Scholomance, the ancient school of the order opened again for the first time in over a century, and the students who will walk its halls.

Pale Lights book 1 blurb:

Tristan Abrascal is a thief, one of many making their living under the perpetual twilight of the greatest city in all of Vesper: Sacromonte. Quick wit and a contract with a capricious goddess have always kept him one step ahead, until one night he crosses a line by accident that burns all the bridges he had left. But not all is lost, for his mentor offers a way out of peril that turns out to be more than a simple escape. It is also an opportunity to get even with the infanzones, the nobles he’s lived under all his life, and it so happens that Tristan has a full ledger’s worth of scores to settle with them. Lady Angharad Tredegar has fled halfway across the world, leaving behind a ruin of a life: her family butchered by a ruthless enemy, their estate torched and their nobility revoked. Yet no matter how far she flees the blades of assassins follow, and she finds herself growing desperate for any protection. She has one relative left to call on, her estranged uncle in Sacromonte, but she finds that the safety he offers comes at a cost. Angharad has sworn revenge, however, and her honour will allow for no compromise. She will do what she must to survive so that one day bloody vengeance can be visited upon her enemies. The paths of the two take them to the doorstep of the Watch, but for desperate souls like them enrolment is a lost cause. They will have to do it the hard way instead, by surviving the trials on the isle known as the Dominion of Lost Things. Where every year many go, and few return.

#pgte #pale lights #practical guide to evil #erraticerrata

[eisforeidolon]

So I came across a meta post based on screenshots [X][X] of the list of book titles shown in 4x18 that Chuck published. There's a discrepancy where only 24 titles are given when there are 60 tv episodes across that span. Now not only did the meta author skip right past the possibility that since novels are generally longer than a tv show episode, books might generally cover multiple episodes? As well as the even more likely possibility that whoever was typing up the list for the props department got lazy?

The post directly jumped right into full on stan conspiracy-think of how this must be why all the fans in the SPNverse are Sam girls because Chuck purposefully omitted all of Dean's best episodes! Naturally this gets built on in the replies & comments, with even more conspiratorial leaps about how the writers were trying to make fans in-universe love Sam and think he was a hero because nobody does in the real world (snort) yadda yadda Chuck won theory is true yadda yadda D/C was silenced *sob* yadda yadda the story was writing itself without the permission of the writers writing it [crazy eyes].

My other glaring issue - aside from the obvious of what an absurdly biased load of batshit all of that is? I just do not understand why someone trying to suggest a genuinely legitimate theory about a show spanning fifteen years and many different writers? Wouldn't consider for a hot minute before running full tilt with an idea: Hey, this is one random-ass prop screen from one episode that Sam scrolls by fairly quick, does this actually line up with how much of the story we're shown the in-universe fans getting elsewhere? Spoiler: No.

Let's ignore that Chuck specifically mentions the ghost ship from Red Sky at Morning, which isn't on the list, in that very same episode. He could be getting visions of stories and not writing them - unlikely but possible. No, lets jump to Crowley using the books in Clip Show to track down and kill "everyone [Sam & Dean have] ever saved". He says he's able to do it because he has "his sources and a crack research team" as he's shown with a pile of Chuck's books as he's saying it [X]. It's unlikely he would have found Sarah from Provenance through another source besides the books, but theoretically possible.

What you can't use handwaves to set aside, though? Is that as the scene continues, he holds up a copy of what is clearly A Very Supernatural Christmas [X], which is not on the list. It's shown again as part of Metatron's library in Meta Fiction, along with Tall Tales [X], also not on the list. These are direct in-universe physical books shown onscreen. While we're at it, there are a couple of times fan characters make it clear in dialogue other episodes/books exist. In The Real Ghostbusters, Demian and Barnes walk by Sam and Dean playacting a scene directly from Hunted about John's last order regarding Sam. Same episode, Becky tells them about Crowley getting the Colt from Bela, specifically citing the title of Time is On My Side. Last one, in Fan Fiction, Marie immediately jumps to knowing what a tulpa is and says, "Well, in Hell House, Sam & Dean-". None of those three books are on that list. So that list is NOT a comprehensive one for all the published books in-universe.

Part of me really wants to go on an even more extended rant here about fixating on one blink-and-you'll-miss-it detail and imbuing it with six metric tons of meaning without even once seeming to consider if it's actually remotely significant or, y'know, put in with legitimate intention. Even if the meaning being projected isn't completely bonkers. Seeing this done over and over again by people latching myopically onto whatever random tidbit will let them jump to the conclusions they already want ... sigh. Like, this is not how you come up with a good theory, starting from an utterly rotten base!

#spn discussion #pedantic #bad meta #long post

[mermaidsirennikita]

No please talk about how people are weird about Manacled because I see this too and yet nobody seems aware of this?

--I see multiple big name book bloggers refer to this as one of their favorite "books" when it is literally, in no way, legally or in the simple conventional definition of a book, a book. Like, I am literally this close to unfollowing someone whose recs I sometimes like because they also proudly own a professional bind-up of this book.

--Speaking of bind-ups (and when I say "professional"... book binders should not be binding fics; they are potentially opening themselves up for legal trouble, and I know that when someone offers to pay you hundreds of dollars for a bind-up of a fic it's gotta be tempting, but for the love of God do NOT do it and also don't request one, because you are also opening yourself up for some quagmires, and you do not want to get into it with JKR or her publishers or for that matter Margaret Atwood/Hulu/whoever currently has control of The Handmaid's Tale because this is in fact a fic of two different things) I personally find it incredibly wasteful to bind a fic, but that's just my personal snobbery. I cannot IMAGINE paying that much money for a bind of something I can read for free on my phone.

Like... I have respect for book-binding, it's a beautiful art form. I've seen beautiful binds of that fic. But beyond all of the risks I mentioned above, it's just honestly such a goober thing to do in my mind lol. You can spend your money how you want. I totally get why people re-bind their old copies (or new copies) of paperbacks they own and love... for themselves. And do not sell them. (Honestly, don't really know how that would work for the fic--binding it yourself and not selling it could be okay?) If I could do it, I would.

But for the love of God. I am begging people to get real with themselves about what fic is and what fic isn't.

--I really don't get how this is going to work as a reworked fic, tbh. One of the reasons why I do respect the process of converting a fic to a book in many cases, and consider that a valid form of getting a book... is that for all intents and purposes? The vast majority of these fics were essentially people writing original works and slapping vague physical features and names onto their characters. The Love Hypothesis has absolutely nothing to do with Reylo in terms of world or character development. As much as I loathed Wallbanger as a book--that is not Edward and Bella. To me, it sometimes feels like these AU fic writers wake up and go "oh, I wrote a book?"

And there is still work that goes into reworking. I read the fic that was the original form of You, Again by Kate Goldbeck. Honestly? You can see the rewrite in a big way. She did the work.

Manacled basically took a huge chunk of its world DIRECTLY from The Handmaid's Tale. And that's fine! For a fic. The fic is not an "all normal humans" AU. It's not a historical AU. It's not even a high fantasy AU. These people are witches and wizards and Voldemort won and there is a Handmaid's Tale angle. I do not know how she's going to take that into a completely different place without essentially just writing a new book lmao.

Which is the one issue I do have with fic to books, and there's no way of getting around it, and it's not immoral, it's just irritating that we dance around it in these conversations, and it is especially irritating when you get the "dur dur fic is better than original books". A hit fic does not require the same amount of effort that a hit original book does. When you read the fic you think is better than book... 9 times out of 10, you are reading it because you are a part of that fandom. You are receptive, preemptively, to that world. In fact, I would argue that you are probably more inclined to like it, subconsciously, because you are sliding into something that is familiar, or is coded to be familiar even when it's an AU.

This isn't to say that there isn't art to writing a great fic. It's not to say that there isn't a true accomplishment to writing a fic that really sticks with your audience. But the reality is that you did have a pre-set audience, "bought" by the original work that created your fandom, and that is something a truly original book does not have. When a truly original book (or, I'll give, a book based off a more obscure fic that doesn't tout itself as fic to book--and a lot of people did not do that as much back in the day, because of stigma surrounding it) hits big... That's because it did the original seduction of the audience. The author did the promo. The premise got people to open it. The book was good enough, or at least had enough "it factor", for word of mouth to kick in. I will ALWAYS give that credit to popular original books, because it is not easy to make an original work hit, and while it may not be easy for fics to hit, it is easier. And that built-in audience does travel to known fic to books.

So, because Manacled is so dependent on that HP/Handmaid's Tale world, the author is going to have to really go in on tearing it apart, and I wouldn't be surprised if it's pretty unrecognizable. It should be. And the only reason why the Manacled label will remain is that built-in audience. Which is technically fine, and I guess I should hate the game versus the player here. But it gives me the ick, I guess.

There are gray areas, I guess. I liked The Hurricane Wars, and that does owe more to SW than The Love Hypothesis or You, Again. However, I do appreciate a lot that Thea did make clear changes, and did curb the world around culture influence Southeast Asian influences. That last part especially is a big distinguisher even though a lot of the fans don't seem to acknowledge it at all but whatever.

I just don't get it, tbh.

#romance novel blogging #sort of #i guess weird fic stuff blogging lol

[the-musical-cc]

FRANKELDA AND HER GHOSTS 1. (Part 2)

Seeing how more and more english-speaking audience is apparently watched Frankelda now, I feel like it's a good moment to post the translation transcript I did of the first live event with the Ambriz brothers, 'Frankelda y sus Fantasmas'. Posting on parts for easy reading because it's over 20 pages long. These are basically Q&A of making-of aspects of the series, going from concepting and design to even edition and post-production, going through Voice-acting and even trivia. They do sometimes comment some lore, but are restricted in how much they can talk about it as it would apparently spoil upcoming things. Latter episodes have some guests, including Mireya Mendoza herself (Frankelda's VA both in english and spanish) Kevin Smithers, who composed the score and songs in the series and even the edition team in the most recent one! (It honestly gives me life to see how much Cinema Fantasma values the whole team.)

It's fair to warn you that it's probably better to have watched the entire first season before checking it out, as it contains commentary on things that might spoil you if you haven't. It's also worth noting that this one was recorded on November the 26th in 2021, back when we had no word of the film being made or the new dub and USA release. Some additional notes:

-El Coco and the Boogeyman are both used for the same character in this one because it's how they do it in the dub. -Something happens in there that I cannot describe with the screencaps alone and the transcript would feel naked without, so description is provided. It's magical, you'll see.

Arturo Ambriz: Good, let’s move to this question which is also really nice- well, we already replied to Val Guerrera’s question, which is: ‘Are you thinking about publishing a book for the show?’. Well, that one’s already settled. Let’s do… let’s move to the next one, which is: ‘Is there one puppet per character and a lot of changes, for instance, mouth, eyes, etc.? Or are there multiples and a lot of changes?’

Roy Ambriz: They’re one-of-a-kind.

Arturo Ambriz: Ah, wait. The question is by Bailey Val… Bailey Valquion.

Roy Ambriz: All the characters are unique, they’re priceless, they have a personality and that’s why there’s only one for each… no, but seriously, yes, there’s only one, because…when you watch the ‘Nightmare Before Christmas’ making-of and you see there’s ten Jacks or something like that, I don’t know when- sorry, how many. We… I reiterate, being a Mexican production, new, and the such, we obviously didn’t have the budget to make a thousand copies of each character. So, what we did was make them the smart way in the puppet wing, so that we could fix them, and we had a very talented and… arrrgh! Super strong and buff puppet hospital team, just constantly fixing them again and again. Frankelda… yeah, there’s two Frankeldas, which is… something we hadn’t mentioned up ‘til now. There’s two Frankeldas because she was the character who had the most animated minutes on-screen, and the cool part is, if you look really closely, you can actually tell which is which, and that’s something we love.

If you watch the original ‘King Kong’ movie, the one from the 30s, there’s like three… the King Kong puppets were hand-made, they didn’t even cast them, Ray Harryhousen made them with wet cotton on latex and built them over… over skeletons he made…

Arturo Ambriz: Willis O’Brien.

Roy Ambriz: Ah, my bad, Willis O’Brien. I said Harryhousen but it’s Willis O’Brien. And he made them by hand. So, they’re not identical and there’s like three King Kongs, but it doesn’t matter because the illusion of life is there and, and you know it’s real. But, yeah, the hardcore ones, which I think is all of you, can figure out which one’s Frankelda mark one or mark two. But really, she’s one and the same, don’t worry, she sometimes just… likes to do her hair a little bit different, or arrange her dress some other way, because Frankelda never sits still and her… her spirit can take any shape she wishes to.

Arturo Ambriz: Next question… and it’s from Noemi Juárez… I wanted this one to show up. ‘¿Did you use the same figurine for Frankelda’s grandma and Magali’s hen witch?’ Let’s see, we can answer this one very plainly.  It’s not that it’s the same figurine, it’s not that it’s the same puppet. Could it be that perhaps, perhaps, it’s the same character…? Anything you’d like to add?

Roy Ambriz: Well… Frankel- I mean. Frankelda, her stories, to write them she has to base them off her own life because, and this is a tip I’m giving you, we’re giving you, if you want to tell your own stories, write about what you know. Write about what… what you’ve learned, what you like…

Arturo Ambriz: What you’ve lived, what hurts you.

Roy Ambriz: But this doesn’t mean it has to be hyper-realistic and like… a copy, an exact replica of what is. You can tackle it from fiction, fiction can help to make-up and transform, because you can transform yourself. So you can create characters from an aunt you knew or your friend’s mom who is really interesting, and you can create… and that’s what she does, and so, ask yourselves why Frankelda drew inspiration on her grandma, right? To… to make the witch- who, by the way, her name’s Totolina.

Arturo Ambriz: Good. Next question… ‘What was the production process for the songs? Did you guys make the concepts for the lyrics?’ Alex Rosas asks.

This question is really interesting, we’re definitely inviting Kevin Smithers to one of these, he’s the composer of our songs and our orchestral pieces, and we’ll be able to talk more about this. But look, here’s a really fun little history tidbit… originally, we’d only planned for one song in the whole series, and it was El Coco's.

It was the very first one we wrote, it was the very first one that got recorded. Actually, that one… the Boogeyman’s story only exists because when we… I think it was literally the day we got greenlit to produce this, Roy and I were talking about what we wanted to see on-screen and we said: ‘Ooooff… this hobo monster, El Coco. All scruffy and ragged… in an alley in Coyoacán… playing a thousand instruments and flying ghost kids out of his hat and forming a dead kids orchestra.’  We were like: ‘Yes! That’s what we want to do for this season of ’Frankelda’’. And we started working on the story, we started creating everything and that’s when we made the lyrics for what at the time we still called ‘The Boogeyman’s Waltz’ …

...and here’s El Coco dropping by, and- hang on, let me get this out of the way… we started to work on the Boogeyman’s song. Sergio Carranza sang it, it turned out amazing, it turned out absolutely breath-taking, and, well, we realized...

[Here Hernevalito hilariously falls off Herneval's arms and Roy tries to silently non-react to it...]

...maybe it was worth it for the whole series to be a musical and have one song per episode. Why? Because we love musicals, because at the end of the day… think about this, I mean, each song… and here’s a little tip in case you like to write songs… each song is a poem.

[Roy then discreetly sits Hernevalito on El Coco's horn.]

Each song is actually a poem, that’s why Herneval tells Francisca ‘Hey, why don’t you read me that poem you just wrote?’

[Success! No one saw that, right?]

and it’s a sung poem. Well, songs are poems, right? I don’t know if it’s our way to put in a little bit of… creative, poetic and philosophical writing into the show, on top of it making it a lot flashier, making it more memorable. You listen to the song and it reaches faster. So what we worked on with Kevin was, while we worked on the lyrics…

Roy Ambriz: Specially him.

Arturo Ambriz: We kept working them, writing them, and like… turning them over, looking for… concepts, which, come entirely from the scripts, because the scripts were there first, and once we were clear on which ones they were- what it was we wanted to say and how it could have a nice ring to it- it was then that Kevin Smithers got involved and he helped us to, well, create the music proper, and there’s some… some texts that got edited, and some got longer or got shorter, and it was a very organic process where we included parts of the script, the poetry part, the conceptual and musical part, and everything got combined. And, believe us, we’re really glad to see you liked the songs, you’ve sang them, you’ve posted videos, you know the lyrics. That’s a dream come true for us.

Roy Ambriz: Besides, soon you’ll be able to sing with Frankelda or Herneval. So stay tuned to our Tik Tok channel on the next weeks.

Arturo Ambriz: Yes. Yeah, that’s right.

Next question… ah, this is a good one. ‘Will new kids inspired on your crew show up for the next episodes?’ Danitza Rivas asks us.

Roy Ambriz: Yes! We’re really excited, we have a lot if ideas, we want to see them already. I really like how… I want to clarify, just because they’re based off… as a fun little nod, from- the characters, it doesn’t mean they’re, like… exact copies, right? Of… I mean, they’re fictional characters, that should always be clear.

But yeah, we’re really, really excited about getting to include more kids. Tormenting even more characters; because a writers job is always to torment their characters, that’s how you put them to the test and depending on how they face the challenges you make for them, that’s how you discover what their nature is like. In this case, we like how… they don’t make it, and it’s something really fun to do because there’s a nice little reflection in there. But yeah, there will be many other children- but also expect to catch a glimpse of old acquaintances, of old friends in there, for sure.

Arturo Ambriz: And… I was precisely trying to look for the question to see who made it a while ago… the truth is I lost it, hope someone can help me over here…

Roy Ambriz: Tinta Invisible.

Arturo Ambriz: Someone… no. Someone was asking how we got the idea to use members of the Cinema Fantasma team to be the inspiration for the kids. And yeah, that’s the reality, not everyone may know this but, all the kids that app-

Female background voice: Daniela Herrera.

Arturo Ambriz: What? Daniela Herrera? Daniela Herrera was asking this just a while ago. And we realized  we needed a bunch of kids and we didn’t want them to be generic. We wanted each one, even the ones in the background, just walking by, to have something unique to them that took a step away from cartoon stereotypes, where you always have… the chubby one, the red-haired one, the goth one. I mean, those stereotypes get on your nerves, right? So, we wanted everyone to be a combination of very particular elements, and we were like: ‘Well, people who work in Cinema Fantasma are visually fascinating, it’s like a whole new range of personalities, of shapes, of colors, of voices, everything.’

So, that was the best inspiration because it really is also an homage for our team, they do so much. I mean, this, the stop-motion, the series, the movies, it’s teamwork! And for the next seasons, we’ll keep using people from the team and new people too, people who’ve joined this crew to create more and more characters. I mean, this is part of ‘Frankelda’s DNA and will always be.

Roy Ambriz: Mm-hm.

Arturo Ambriz: OK. Let’s see… ah, this one. Go on and answer this one, Roy. It’s a question from Valeria Palacios: ‘Do people turn unto Spooks when they die or are Spooks born some other way?’

Roy Ambriz: No, a normal person doesn’t necessarily turn into a Spook when they die. It’s actually quite strange but, there’s Spooks who want to be human, like the Gnome- the Gnomes. They want to be human because they don’t like the… the place they were assigned to as Spooks. There’s Spooks who are fascinated by humans, like, from an anthropologic point of view. Like the Boogeyman, who loves to study them and has been doing it since he was… his dad used to bring him to watch him work when he was a kid.

Arturo Ambriz: Don Coco!

Roy Ambriz: Don Coco would bring him to watch him work, and he’d be gawking at them, and he loved them, and he’d say: ‘I just don’t get them. They’re so fragile and so… so stupid…’

Arturo Ambriz: ‘So temperamental!’

Roy Ambriz: So, they loved that. There’s Spooks that absolutely loathe humans, like the Mermaid, who used to have control over the territory and was worshiped as a goddess and now she hates that no one is even aware she’s there, and on top of it they polluted her world, and her pyramid lays forgotten. It’s undiscovered, it’s in Xochimilco but no one’s discovered it yet, it’s underwater.

And then there’s humans who want to be Spooks because they aren’t happy with their lives. Like Tamazola, Tochina and… which one am I missing?

Arturo Ambriz: Totolina.

Roy Ambriz: Totolina! Who are the three witches. In order to become Spooks, they had to figure out a lot of things, I can’t really give away too much because it’s a spoiler. And they had to perform a ritual which they’d been constructing for a long time before they could actually do it, and they hadn’t accomplished it until Magali came along… but there’s a reason they have so many caged animals in their kitchen, y’know?

Arturo Ambriz: You touched upon one of the questions someone… someone else made. This one’s by Alexa Casas: ‘Will we be seeing Don Coco in the next seasons?’

Roy Ambriz: Don Coco! Who can say?

Arturo Ambriz: What do you guys think? A bit of homework for you, you’ll see.

Next… ah, this one’s great: ‘Why did Herneval’s attitude change so much when he became a book?’ Picture this. You guys are maybe, I don’t know…

Roy Ambriz: No spoilers!

Arturo Ambriz: Yeah, no spoilers. You guys are… I don’t know if in middle school, high school, college or already graduates. What were you like five years ago? Picture yourselves ten years ago, the kind of personality you had, the way you spoke, OK? It’s been a hundred and fifty years. That’s all I’m saying.

Roy Ambriz: But, Herneval aged, didn’t he-? ahhh.

Arturo Ambriz: Spoiler! Spoiler, spoiler, spoiler… soc! OK, next question. Ooff, no, I’m not answering this question because it would be a huge, huge, huge spoiler…

Roy Ambriz: Let me see, what is it?

Arturo Ambriz: I’m gonna skip it.

Roy Ambriz: Read it and I won’t… they’ll just see my expression.

Arturo Ambriz: You sure?

Roy Ambriz: Yeah.

Arturo Ambriz: They’re asking, and there’s actually more than one person asking: ‘Whatever happened to Francisca’s body?’

…next question…

Roy Ambriz: Tinta Invisible.

Arturo Ambriz: Yes, yes, next question: ‘What’s Herneval’s biggest fear?’ by Meru Chan. Look how- this is a really nice question, it’s true, Spooks have fears too, right?  I mean… specially Herneval, Herneval shows himself as… fragile, vulnerable despite… he’s such a good… I was going to say ‘Good person’, but, let’s say he’s such a good Spook, and…

Roy Ambriz: A handsome lad.

Arturo Ambriz: And a handsome lad.

Roy Ambriz: The fussy book.

Arturo Ambriz: He’s gentlemanly, he’s kind, he’s passionate… but I definitely think that… not to give away to much: Herneval is very scared of loss. He’s afraid of having- people he loves and…

Roy Ambriz: Ah-ah! Erm…

Arturo Ambriz: OK. Yes. Yeah, that would have been a spoiler.

Let’s see, this question has no, no, no spoilers at all, and it’s… they’re asking… ‘What can I do if I want to learn animation but I’m already studying for a different career?’ Paulina Cortés is asking.

Roy Ambriz: I think this question might also be exemplified better along the next sessions as we get more of our friends parading here, who also created ‘Frankelda’. But in order to animate, to make an animated production, you’ll need lots and lots of different talents and abilities. It’s really funny because sometimes we get called ‘Animators’. The two of us. It’s like- that’s not true, we don’t animate. Well, I animated… a couple of things, but we’re not animators per se, we’re directors, were writers, we’re sculptors. So, an actual animator and with a big range too… I think that might be… too much, and it might be- what’s that word again? Like, overwhelming. Right? Like… too much. It’s… when, really, when you shred animation into tiny pieces, you realize you need someone who knows how to write, someone who knows how to administer a project, someone who can paint, someone who can draw well, and design. Someone…

Arturo Ambriz: Book-keeping.

Roy Ambriz: Book-keeping! You need a musician, or someone who knows about music, you need actors and voice actors. It’s endless, right? Someone who knows about tech, someone who knows about IT, someone who knows computer programming, who can do motion-controls. Who can do post-production-

Arturo Ambriz: Social-media.

Roy Ambriz: So… college is always a starting point, and this is something we always say, from experience. We graduated more or less, ten years ago, give or take. College is a starting point, it’s not that you have to stay there just because you got your degree in that area, it’s a starting point you chose for… a project. But from then on, it’s up to you and your guts, and your continued studies of many other things you didn’t really see in school, and to living, it’s up to you where you lead your life to and where you want to go, and whether you achieve that your calling is… aligning what you want to do for work, with earning money, and on top all of this, with your reason to live, because it’s your life project; and this is how you feel accomplished, and this is how you know you can do some good in the world, and if you manage to align all of that, it’s beautiful. We’re very happy we’re able to do this for a living, but it implies a lot of work and for you to move to where you want to be.

Arturo Ambriz: Next, it’s a question by Bets Chan Ching, and it’s: ‘What is the Spooks’ life cycle and is it the same as humans?’

Roy Ambriz: Hmmm…

Arturo Ambriz: This question is a really good one, such a good one, it’s something that will be gradually answered as the next seasons roll by. What we can say is, it’s definitely not exactly like a human being’s. But I think you can reflect on, I don’t know… have you realized there’s times you don’t want to do a specific homework, you’re scared of doing it because you’re convinced that you’re going to mess it up? And maybe if you’d done it immediately you would have spent half an hour doing it and then you’d be done, but because you didn’t do it during the week, well, it just keeps getting bigger and bigger in your mind, and it’s gigantic by Saturday and it’s even bigger by Sunday? And by Monday at four AM this homework, this fear of doing homework is just massively huge and it’s crushing you? And now something you could have gotten done in half an hour ruined your entire week? I think if we understand, like… fears, we can get a better idea of what the life cycle of Spooks is.

Roy Ambriz: ‘Anything? Heeheehee…’

Arturo Ambriz: Yes, exactly. It’s a very, very interesting question, but… actually, if we tried to completely explain it right now, it wouldn’t make any sense to you, you have to see it, you have to watch it happen little by little in the next seasons.

Ah, this question is really nice, Mansand Saga asks: ‘Did you have any problems with friends or family when you picked your career and to pursue your passion?’ …no. We happened to be in luck…

Roy Ambriz: In our specific case.

Arturo Ambriz: The two of us, specially, were lucky to have our parents, our friends, our family always supporting us. We specially got a lot of artistic stimulation- and corporate as well, from our parents, that’s how it’s always been. Our mom always made us draw, made us sculpt, made us get our hands dirty… I’m even exposing her a little bit here, but my mom would sometimes even let us skip school so we could go to an amusement park, or to the movies, or because- I don’t know, maybe even something like the weekend’s game got a bit too long and we wanted to finish it properly, like, we had those kinds of permissions.

So, it did help us big time to have that kind of help. In conclusion, if you see one of your friends wants to do this for a living, support them, cheer for them, because yes, there is a professional life for arts. Now, obviously, we’re aware that not everyone has this kind of family support, we have a lot of friends who experienced rejection in their homes in order to be able to make a living with this. But what we’re saying, the best message we can send about it is episode four of ‘Frankelda’s Book of Spooks’. That’s why we created the El Coco, that’s why we created Tere, that’s why we created these ghostly children who dance and make music, it’s because we’ve watched a lot of our friends and acquaintances get their passion stolen by the Boogeyman…

Roy Ambriz: And they just settled…

Arturo Ambriz: They settled, they dedicated themselves to something they didn’t even want to do, and suddenly it’s been ten, fifteen years, and they’re like: ‘Oh, my God, I wish I could turn back time and give myself unto the things I’m passionate about.’. So to keep that from happening to you guys, we made the Boogeyman and Tere.

Roy Ambriz: Play it for your aunts and uncles, the Boogeyman episode, when they get on your case.

Arturo Ambriz: Oooh, this one’s really, really good, only detail’s that the username of the asker is JICJ2442. They’re asking in Tik Tok, and it’s… ‘Will we see…?’ ah, we’re mixing our sources for the questions from all the social media, eh? They’re asking if we will ever see the Spooks’ world.

Roy Ambriz: Tsss… it’s what we want to show you the most!

Arturo Ambriz: It’s not so much the world, it’s the Kingdom of Spooks.

Roy Ambriz: Herneval’s Kingdom, y’know? And that of his parents, hm? So… that’s what we want to show the most. That’s where Francisca’s headed to right now, Frankelda, and, well, we hope we get to show it to you.

Arturo Ambriz: Alright, Camicatura is also asking when they’ll get to watch the series if they’re in Spain. This is a very, very good question. Look, there’s no precedent for this kind of series made in México or Latin-America, like… a stop-motion, horror musical, and one of such a high quality. I mean, it’s like a very odd mixture of elements, and there’s definitely plans for the international launch, so it can be watched all over the world, but that’s something we’re going to achieve little by little.

For us, the ideal scenario would be to get to a point where… where season two can launch simultaneously in every country that has HBOMax. But it’s a matter that’s not really in our hands, rather, they’re completely strategic on the part of HBOMax and Warner Bros.

Roy Ambriz: Now, if you want to watch it, you can write to HBOMax’s social media about wanting it to also arrive on Europe, and that would be great help, y’know? If more people around the world start requesting it, there are more chances that it’ll be authorized for more countries.

Arturo Ambriz: Great. Herneval’s little wing is covering your face quite a bit. Let’s see, you’re going to love answering this one, Roy, I’m sure. It’s: ‘Do Spooks only haunt kids or adults too?’

Roy Ambriz: They haunt everyone. Really, I think… children can get a better grasp of what a Spook is, and humans… they look for another explanation…

Arturo Ambriz: Adults.

Roy Ambriz: Adults. Like, children will see them as Spooks, and adults will too, but the Spooks won’t… won’t allow themselves to be seen quite as easily, because Spooks live anywhere you look, but you can’t see them for lack of knowing to look.

Arturo Ambriz: Great. This question is very nice, asked by Axel Imanol and it’s: ‘What was your inspiration for making ‘Tinta Invisible’? Honestly, I love that song a lot.’ Look, the lyrics to ‘Tinta Invisible’, like we said just a while ago, are a poem. It’s literally a poem, its inspiration comes from what writing implies, what making fiction implies. For instance, this line about… it’s one of the lines we like the most, it’s: ‘Reading, you inhabit the hidden.’ Picture it, right? If I have my ‘Harry Potter’ book here, well, it’s just an object, it’s like some sort of brick, right? A paper brick, my ‘Harry Potter’ book. But within those pages lies in hiding all of Hogwarts, and all of Diagon Alley, and it conceals… I don’t know, Azkaban Prison within. And it hides… the Weasleys with all of their kids.

So, within a paper brick, there’s this whole world, hidden. So, when you read it, when you read a book, when you read a story, you inhabit the hidden. Because, I swear to you, I’ve been in Hogwarts- because when I read Harry Potter, I picture myself walking around and climbing the magic stairs, and getting into one of the rooms… I don’t know, the classroom for Potions Class with Professor Snape. I mean, I’ve lived in Hogwarts by reading fiction. That’s what ‘Frankelda’ is about, that’s what ‘Tinta Invisible’ is about. ‘Tinta Invisible’ is a song that pays homage to the art of writing and fiction. If you analyze each line, it becomes very clear… well, not all that clear but all of the… the symbolism of what writing and creating something that doesn’t exist is hidden there.

Roy Ambriz: Here’s Frankelda’s ‘Harry Potter’ collection.

Arturo Ambriz: Oh, that’s so cool!

Roy Ambriz: The books.

Arturo Ambriz: Where did that come from?

Roy Ambriz: Walmart.

Arturo Ambriz: I’d never seen it. It’s really cool! Ahh, goody. Well, let’s see… ‘Frankelda and Herneval’s personality, did you plan it in advance or did you base it off someone?’

Roy Ambriz: Yes… our task as writers is to plan out the personality of each character, it’s… when you write a character, it’s like you’re living it, it’s like you’re placing yourself in their shoes and seeing the… I mean, you’re within their perspective and looking at the world from their eyes. Counterweights start emerging, right? And Dramatic Orchestrations, as they’re known, start emerging, like… Herneval, you’ve seen it yourselves. Young Herneval with Francisca isn’t the same as…Herneval-libro with Frankelda, and it’s not the same as Herneval-libro with Procustes, right? I mean, he changes, depending on who he’s with. Why? Because that’s life, you’re not the same when you’re alone with your friends to when you’re in a Christmas dinner with like family members you rarely see, you only meet them once a year, or when you’re in class. It changes.

So yeah, each personality and each character has to be written, has to be pondered, has to be rewritten, has to be erased and… and raised again, and gradually discovered. And, obviously that process starts with writing but is run by character design, art design, animation, run by voice actors, who also permeate it, and the character is uncovered throughout all of these processes.

Arturo Ambriz: Very good. Also… that’s the thing, I mean, you guys can see that so many of the characters we’ve seen in TV or movies are opposites, aren’t they? And Frankelda and Herneval-libro, spending so much time together on-screen, well they had to be opposites, right? One of them is red and the other is blue, it’s that simple, I mean, it’s a visual-psicological-narrative codification. Frankelda is an optimist, Herneval’s a pessimist. Frankelda’s cheerful, Herneval’s a grump. Frankelda always moves in circles, her hair has circular curls, her hand movements are circular; and the book is a small square, and everything about him is a square, right? So, this is a good tip for writing characters, thinking about opposites, thinking about complements, thinking about the Ying and the Yang.

Next question… this question is Meru Chan’s: ‘What made you change Herneval’s appearance from the Pilot?’

Roy Ambriz: It was a… that���s a rather interesting question. As we’ve said, when we made the season as opposed to the Pilot, we agreed that we had to improve everything. And the Pilot- we didn’t really wonder about that many things because it’s a Pilot, y’know? Obviously, we’d gotten less time, and the top priority was to show that the series could be great, so what we did when they greenlit the season was to think better about the characters. At some point, as you’ve seen in the concept art, Herneval was thought up as more of a demon, but it was way too obvious, and it could also have religious connotations we really don’t want there to be, so, we decided to ponder it. He’s not the Demon Prince, he’s the Prince of Spooks, I mean, he has to be a Spook. What’s a Spook? It’s something new.

So, we started to ponder and around this time, Ana Coronilla, who is the art director, had the idea- she was like: ‘I kind of see him as an owl.’ Because with Herneval, in order to make him princely, we kept thinking and got- we were creating with the Awesombrosos, trying to make him more reptilian, or some other thing, and when we said ‘Owl’, it was like ‘Wow, he looks amazing!’ and on top of that, he has to… like, the personality we want, and that’s when we said ‘It’s just, if this were a live-action, he’d be played by someone along the lines of Timothé Chalamet-‘ not sure I’m saying that right.

Arturo Ambriz: Timothee.

Roy Ambriz: Timothee Chalamet, so… well, we said ‘Him, plus owl, plus some other elements.’ And, well, we got hunk Herneval, and then we saw the book and the character progression made no sense anymore, the one from the Pilot, because he’s more snakelike. So it was like ‘OK, how are we going to rebuild the character so he still has Herneval’s essence that we’ve already gotten to know from the Pilot, but make it make sense that this character turned into the book?’. And that was the ruling on which we decided to make… to change the Hernevals.

Arturo Ambriz: Well, next question, by AB_8A_7: ‘If Herneval used to be the Prince of Spooks, does that mean the King will show up in a flashback?’

Roy Ambriz: Oooh…

Arturo Ambriz: You’re getting close to the… the heart of the matter. Definitely, obviously, we’re going to meet the King of Spooks, we don’t want to disclose anything else about him, but… but props to you guys for realizing it, right? If there’s a Prince, then who’s the King?

Roy Ambriz: Besides, somewhere… well. Nope. I was just about to spoil it!

Arturo Ambriz: No spoilers.

Roy Ambriz: But that’s the thing, it’s… how cool is it to think, who is Herneval’s dad? Why… why does Herneval have to go to the human realm? Why wasn’t he in the prologue? That is, why was he with Procustes and not his father? So you start to… to develop and sprout a lot of fun things…

Arturo Ambriz: Why is there an hourglass that’s close to the limit?

Roy Ambriz: No one’s talked about the hourglass, have they?

Arturo Ambriz: I haven’t really seen that much…

Roy Ambriz: Hmmm… go figure.

Arturo Ambriz: Anyway… well. This one was by La Reina Cuervo, who we’re already familiar with because we had an interview with her this week, real fun. She’s asking how much time Frankelda spent with Herneval before they got trapped. And that question, well, can’t be answered because it’s something we’re going to see in the next seasons, what happens during this process. That is, once they cross that threshold at the crypt, at the graveyard, what Herneval and Francisca had to do, how they got to where they are right now. For sure, it’s in there, this story that’s still going to develop further.

Next question… ah, well, this one’s really simple. 199501 asks: ‘I don’t know whether you already answered this one, but what are the three witches’ names?’ And, the witch who speaks the most, the one that turns into a hen, the one that sings, her name is Totolina. We just barely realized we never had them mention their names, but in production her name was always Totolina. Then, the witch that turns into a toad, her name is Tamazola, and the witch that turns into a rabbit, a hare, her name is Tochina. Yeah?

Next question… ‘Does Herneval have some sort of power?’ question by Blackroses.

Roy Ambriz: Well, you saw that already, he does, right? And… his power is used three times along the first season. We can’t say more, but he definitely has. Well, he’s the Prince of Spooks, he has to have something special to him.

Arturo Ambriz: OK, next question… ‘Why does Tere play the theremin?’. Question by Lagunas X. Look, we realized long ago that… the theremin is like, the musical instrument of ghosts. The theremin, in every B-movie in Hollywood where there’s ghosts or aliens, zombies, it’s like… a sound that doesn’t seem to belong to this world, because it’s really similar to a human voice. But at the same time it sounds like the mix between a robot and a… a howl. So, it’s like, hard to decipher. So, the theremin has this whole symbolic weight which we love, ever since we created this studio ten years ago, the bumper of the intro we had, which was the Cinema Fantasma bumper, you can hear a theremin. So, for us it’s always been like the theremin is the Cinema Fantasma musical instrument. Personally, it’s my favorite musical instrument.

So, when we started to unravel this episode which I’ve told you about a while ago, that we wanted to get to this big moment of the orchestra in the alley with the dead children and the Boogeyman dancing, we start to realize we needed, like… a character who wanted to make music in order to get to this moment, and we realized it would be very original to have her play the theremin, because we’ve seen a million boys and girls who play the violin or the guitar, even Coco and Book of Life have this, right? You can always look for something different to… to give the show a unique flavor.

Moving on, Yara Edith asks: ‘Why is Frankelda from Hidalgo?’ And, get this, originally, this was only going to last one hour and we’re at, I think, an hour and a quarter. Let’s… let’s answer a few more questions and we’ll call it a day, also so you guys can have a nice Friday and not just sit there listening to us. Right, so let’s go back to Yara Edith’s question. Why is Frankelda from Hidalgo?

Roy Ambriz: Because, well, something both of us really wanted to do is… make something that felt… a series that felt Mexican but by someone who actually lives in México, y’know? Like, for there to be these little elements no one else who didn’t live in México could have, and it’s mixed in with experience. One of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been to is the Panteón Inglés. I love it. One of my best friends hails from there, from Pachuca, but she’d take us… back in college we went a lot of times, to- Hi, Rosa, if you’re watching.

Arturo Ambriz: I don’t think she is.

Roy Ambriz: I don’t think so because I didn’t even give her a heads-up, but OK. But we traveled a lot, and we made a lot of- she’s a photographer. And we did a lot of photography exercises at Panteon Inglés, and it’s just gorgeous. And… truth is that when we were framing this series, we said: ‘It just would be so cool that she was a Victorian ghost, right? In this big house.’ And back at the Pilot we couldn’t really get into it, show it, how we want to break away from that cliché, I mean, she is Victorian, and she is from that period, but it’s not in Europe, it’s in México. Because mixing in with history -which is something we also love, like, mixing in bits of truth- it’s around this time that the British arrived in there to, well… care for and extract from the silver mines, they brought in a lot of things, right? Soccer, the pasties, which turned into pastes, and whatnot. We figured it’d be really nice if Frankelda’s house is European because his dad is British, but he’s a British man who fell in love with a Mexican woman, and Frankelda’s born from that union.  Why? Because Frankelda- as you know, well, in México we’re a mixture of the European and the Mexican-origin, and, and we’re not- it doesn’t matter anymore, to us, origin doesn’t matter anymore, just that we’re Mexican, and that’s very Mexican.

And so, Frankelda is Mexican. She makes her stories up with the mixture of things, of elements within her head, and what better place than… I mean, if this beautiful place that actually exists in real life inspires us, well, we wanted to also pay homage to that place, and even though it’s not exactly identical, it is a rather latent inspiration for us.

Arturo Ambriz: Alright. Now, Emily Delgado asks us whether we’re giving some kind of courses or bachelor, and, yeah, actually yes, we’ve given several of them. Next year, we’ll reactivate our section called ‘Cinema Fantasma EDU’ which is where we give our courses, bachelor degrees, workshops, conferences on stop-motion. That’s a great way to learn. Stay tuned to our social media, cause that’s where we’re giving notice. Thing is, between COVID and all the work we had with ‘Frankelda’, we had to put this project on hold, well, this whole year. But we’re eager to get back into it and get it done. This is something we love, and we’re exploring other options, really cool ones too, with a certain… how do I put this, brand that makes online courses to make a very specific kind of thing. Really cool, we’re working really hard, I don’t want to spoil that either, because it will be announced in due time, but we’ve got more options coming up so we can talk and we can try to impart some of the knowledge we’ve been saving up all these years by making these productions.

Roy Ambriz: Good.

Arturo Ambriz: Very good. And… I think this will be our last question.

Roy Ambriz: Last question!

Arturo Ambriz: Let’s see… I’m looking for one that’s real good.

Roy Ambriz: Yeah, close it up with some meat, go on.

Arturo Ambriz: Something that makes fans speculate?

Roy Ambriz: Yeah.

Arturo Ambriz: …there’s just so many good ones. Let’s see, for instance… ah, look, this one’s nice because it additionally comes all the way from Chile. Sent by Gabriel Beltrán, and it’s: ‘Are the Spooks’ stories told on the show based on real legends or inspired on something of the sort?’

Roy Ambriz: And, well… it’s a mix of everything, right? We aren’t basing them on anything specific per se. I feel like we’ve already seen so much in México, in Mexican adaptations about Mexican legends. Which is really cool, but it’s already been done, even in animation. So, we wanted to do new ones. There’s characters like, for instance- in the… originally in the pitch, back when we hadn’t thought so much about it, the witches… the original concept art is somewhere around, they were more… European, more classic, or United States-like, with the hat and the broom and the stockings. And we were like: ‘No, we want it to be…to feel more like… witches who have somehow been living around a lot of places in México or Latin-America for a while, and who, as luck would have it, right now are living around Colonia Roma maybe, or La Condesa, something to that effect. How do we make it feel specific?’

So… it obviously comes from, well, people- we can’t say ‘We invented witches, we invented mermaids.’ Or anything. But they’re more like… characters and archetypes we take and resignify to things we’ve lived through, things within our imagination, and things we want to see. Maybe the one that’s more inspired in an existing character which we felt had barely even gotten representation in Latin-America is El Coco. The Boogeyman, always-he comes from… our mom always tells us this story, we’d mentioned it a couple of times, but my grandpa used to say to her, because we collected toys, and back in the nineties they were all monsters and stuff like that, really cool stuff. And my grandpa used to tell my mom: ‘Why would they ever be afraid of the El Coco if they have that kind of toy and aren’t scared by it?’. So, this Boogeyman character, like… a bum, or, just something that’s not exactly what we have in the collective imagination, but we had that idea floating around, and, well… we decided to capture it. And I hope we can see more of the El Coco in the future.

Arturo Ambriz: Totally… well, I think we’ve reached the limit with this session. We’re obviously absolutely thankful to you, this is why we want to keep creating these opportunities to chat. We know there was a lot more questions but, think about it, we’d be here for five hours. We’d be happy to, but we also don’t want to ruin your Friday, so I think the good stuff has to be, like… like, in moderation.

We’ll also take this chance to tell you that we seriously are on the constant lookout for everything you’ve posted on social media- look, for example, I have a physical fanart right here, and it’s so cool! But trust me when I say all the digital ones, all the ones I’ve found, I’ve shared them on my Instagram account and I’ve been saving them. I feel like it’s like I’m filling up my Panini album, I’m logging in all the time to see what I can find and save it. And something we would love to do here in Cinema Fantasma, we’d just have to rearrange the space, is to print all the fanart you’ve made, print out all the fanart you’ve made and post it over a wall in Cinema Fantasma even just a small print. Because, trust me that, for both of us as well as the whole crew it’s mind-blowing to see you liked what we worked so hard on, what we toiled so much to make. Right now, we’re seeing some of the fanarts we love on screen…

Roy Ambriz: Just not Tik Tok because…

Arturo Ambriz: Uh-huh, not Tik Tok.

Roy Ambriz: Because we’re… on a different one.

Arturo Ambriz: But it’s not that…

Roy Ambriz: Look how gorgeous! Wow!

Arturo Ambriz: It’s not that we’re only seeing the ones we like the most, y’know? We like all of them, it’s just that we did a quick search right now and these are the ones we had close-at-hand to show, but really, we love all of them, and all of them have their charm.

Roy Ambriz: Yes, and they’re beautiful, thank you so much. We’re very, very, very grateful with all the Fankeldos and Fankeldas…

Arturo Ambriz: Or Spooks.

Roy Ambriz: Or Spooks, or…

Arturo Ambriz: The Owls.

Roy Ambriz: The Owls and the Writers.

Arturo Ambriz: The Quills.

Roy Ambriz: Anything you like, thank you so much because Frankelda is alive thanks to you. Something we can say is… ‘Frankelda’ is a celebration of fiction. So although there’s a… an official storyline which comes from us and Cinema Fantasma, Frankelda, the thing she likes the most is to be alive. So, consider the stories you make for her, when they’re in your minds, in your hearts, to be canon as well. To you, to the one reading right now, it’s real, because Frankelda is alive. So… draw her, write her, think about her. It's so nice to see it, really, we’re super thankful. It’s… this is the best possible present for us after… for the whole team, after… such difficult years in order to keep it afloat, where we had to, well… work so much, sacrifice some things in order to get it out there. So, this is super gorgeous, and we’re sending hugs to absolutely all of you guys and… an announcement. A fun one.

I think it should be up by now, a new filter that you can find, called ‘Frankeldízate’. If you want to turn into Frankelda or in… if you want to be real Fankeldos and Fankeldas, you can use that. Please, use it, it’s really fun. You can use it to sing, you can use it to write, for anything you want, it’s up. Start using it. Tag us, please, we love to see everything you make.

Arturo Ambriz: Something very important we nearly forgot is… we have a little surprise giveaway, OK? We have 5 posters, signed by the whole team. By the team who made ‘Frankelda’s Book of Spooks’, the Cinema Fantasma team. And we’re going to give it to the first five people who answer the following question and sent it to our mail, [email protected].  Repeating the address, [email protected], OK? First five people to send the answer to this question, we’ll get in touch with you through the mail to see about sending it. If it’s within México City, it will be through our messenger boy, our dear Arturo, but if you’re not in México City, well, we’ll look for a way to get it to you through national or international mail. OK? So, the mail is [email protected] and here’s the question, OK? And it’s: How… where does-? We mentioned it a while ago. Where does Herneval’s name come from?

Roy Ambriz: Go!

Arturo Ambriz: There it is, we went into it in detail a while ago, so if you paid attention, you can answer that question. And we’ll look for a way to make… make some other dynamic so we can give away this kind of things. Is there anything else you want to add, Roy?

Roy Ambriz: Well… please use the #Frankelda. You can use the other ones, they’re really cool. The ‘Que Listo Sos, Herneval’ one, all the ones you’re making up, but also use the #Frankelda on its own, because that way we can get everything thrown together and it’s like evidence for us to show the producers of you wanting a second season. Be insistent. If you wish, insist at the Cartoon Network LA and HBOMax LA social media accounts in your different kinds of posts, but use… flood them with requests for ‘Frankelda’s second season because that’s the only way we’re getting it. So, if there’s a massive second season bombing, it’s way easier, I hope no one kills me for saying that, but it’s the truth and I have to ask. So, well, I think that’s all for this session. If you liked it, expect more. We’ll be announcing the date for the next one along with our guest star soon.

Arturo Ambriz: Also, believe us when we say, as Roy did a while ago, if we can talk for a bit about what ‘Frankelda’ represents, well, we highly, highly, highly recommend for you to read. It’s never too late to get close to literature. We already made it easy for you, why not start with ‘Frankenstein’ by Mary Shelley? I’d be very surprised if you didn’t love it, truly, it’s fascinating. It’s a beautiful, philosophical, horror, science fiction book, it’s got everything, y’know? It has family drama, it has traditions, it has murder, it’s an incredible book. Read. Write. That’s something I struggle with a lot regarding my students, as we’ve mentioned, we teach in a handful of classes, and I do see sometimes how they lack… reading, and this is also why we were so insistent on the main character of the show being a writer.

So, well, we’re finishing up and, I just read a great suggestion and it’s that we should leave but first we should put Herneval and Frankelda together, and we should leave them like that for a minute, leave them like this for a minute… and leave. Thanks, goodbye.

Roy Ambriz: Goodbye!

Arturo Ambriz: It’s been great.

#Frankelda #Sustos Ocultos de Frankelda #Frankelda's Book of Spooks #Cinema Fantasma #cc translates #And now you know why the latam fandom makes so many jokes about Hernevalito falling on his face

[greaseonmymouth]

my copy of A Power Unbound (Illumicrate edition) arrived today and so I am going to ramble about 💫book production💫 and ✨special finishes✨!

(in case this breaks containment, I work in publishing though not for Freya Marske's publisher nor Illumicrate, and I have been terminally online in fandom and writing spaces for 20+ years)

when I heard about Marske's book deal it was both through tumblr and professional channels, and since I already liked her fanfiction I decided to Watch Out For Interesting Things, because I wanted to see how tradpub was going to treat a fandom-originated author - not the first one in tradpub by any means, but one I knew writes unabashedly queer stories and I wanted to see how that would play out in a world that had only just started making mainstream queer media

so, book 1, A Marvellous Light. I preordered the Waterstones special edition because there was a Waterstones special edition and I hadn't expected there to be

the finishes on this book are:

wibalin case (or arlin, or any other imitation bookcloth paper, brand is irrelevant) with matt varnish

title printed on spine

dustjacket with matt lamination, spot uv and embossing

sprayed edges in one colour (pantone or imitation pantone - this is different from 4 colour)

this is very neat and a bit splashy, but not so splashy as to break the budget - this is a reasonable amount of splashy for a debut author that the publisher is planning to push hard/has expectations to sell well. I personally expected this to sell really well also, for multiple reasons I won't get into here, and that as a result we'd get more fun finishes on the next book in the series

so, book 2, A Restless Truth, the Waterstones special edition which i again pre-ordered

everything about this book screams 'book 1 did really well so let's RAMP UP THE FANCY we can afford it now!

the finishes on this book are:

wibalin case

title printed on spine

dustjacket with matt lamination, spot uv, embossing, and foil

sprayed edges in one colour and a digitally printed fore edge in 4 colour

two more expensive finishes added! the retail price on this was £2 more than for AML, which let me tell you, those extra finishes do not cost that much lmao, at least not at the printers my company works with, but 2022 saw prices go up everywhere. so ehh fair's fair.

and this brings us to book 3, A Power Unbound, which didn't get a Waterstones special edition which I was upset about for SO LONG because a) I wanted one to match my existing set even if the two editions didn't match to begin with as the finishes were different and b) I was worried this was a sign that book 2 hadn't performed as well (or just not performed to the publisher's expectations, which is not the same) and the publisher wouldn't justify the cost of doing another special edition - considering book 2 was sapphic that was a real worry as historically they don't sell as well as gay books. but book 3 got an Illumicrate edition instead

without writing an essay, in simple terms there's no difference between a Waterstones special edition, an independent bookshop special edition (not covered by this post) or an Illumicrate (or other boxes) special edition as they all have extra finishes and they all TCM, meaning sales are registered and counted towards bestseller lists. however there is a perceived difference for many consumers that Illumicrate editions are specialer than Waterstones or indie because they are exclusive (so are Waterstones and indie), and often are only available through mystery subscription boxes (you don't know which book or items are in the box, only the theme) or semi-transparent boxes (title is known, possibly some of the finishes, none of the items) or through single purchases of a limited nature (finishes often not revealed), which this one is.

so to sum up, the Illumicrate edition is functionally the same, but it has a different status, and perceived higher value, attached to it. considering the RRP was £23 for the Illumicrate edition but only £18.99 for ART and £16.99 for AML, this adds to the perceived higher value/status. With me so far?

the finishes on this book are:

matt lamination case (cheaper than wibalin), however printed in 4 colour

dustjacket made of some kind of plastic (I can't tell from touch which kind), which, at the printers my company works with, costs about 10-15%, of what a dustjacket of say 125gsm coated paper with matt lamination finish would cost

title digitally printed on the dustjacket

no spot uv, no embossing, no foil

sprayed edges in one colour with a digitally printed fore edge in 4 colour

does this look cool as fuck though? yes. does it look expensive? not if you know how books are made and what they cost to make. I expect this was cheaper to print than ART because dropping foil, spot UV and embossing alone is a huge saving. and ngl I was expecting the same kind of finishes on APU as for ART, perhaps with all 3 edges digitally sprayed instead of just the fore edge, perhaps with the title foiled on the spine instead of printed on. maybe it would even have endbands. so to open the parcel to see this instead was a delight, because it's different. you can see the case underneath the dust jacket! you get a fun 3D effect with the plastic overlay!

I'm not saying that the Illumicrate edition is cheap garbage, the point I'm making is manifold:

moving away from Waterstones special edition to Illumicrate special edition will make a lot of consumers thing this book is The Shit

the Illumicrate edition indeeds Looks like The Shit

you don't always need expensive finishes to wind up with a Cool end result

in conclusion: Illumicrate call me I want to talk business

man I do wish my copy of AML had a cooler fore edge though so they could all match

#personally the only thing I dislike about the Illumicrate edition is that I don't like touching plastic #so I will be leaving the dust jacket off while reading it #(I do that anyway so the jackets don't get damaged but in this case leaving it off will make the book look like a misprint bc no title!) #and before anyone asks: no I will not be decorating that fore edge myself #my bookbinding skills do not extend to fore edge painting #I have done a few solids but actually drawing patterns? nope nope nope #a marvellous light #a restless truth #a power unbound #freya marske #book production #books

[literaticat]

I don't see anything in my contract about how I get paid for library ebooks and audiobooks. I know those are sold to libraries at a different rate/a certain number of borrows. Is it covered under some other umbrella I should be looking under, or called a different name than I'm expecting, or do I maybe get paid the same percentage as I do for a regular consumer copy so it isn't in there at all?

Very Basically: The latter is correct - you get the same percentage if a library buys the book/ebook/audiobook/digital audiobook as any other sale in that format, so it isn't differentiated in your contract.

Slightly more info without getting too deep in the weeds: When a library adds an e-book (or digital audio) to lend out, obviously they aren't buying one copy for $25.99 or whatever and renting it to patrons until the cover falls off as they do for a hardcover. Instead, they are buying a LICENSE to essentially "rent" the book for a specified amount of time. So they pay, let's say, $50 -- and then can lend the book out for a year, or for 50 downloads, or whatever. If they want a "perpetual license" for a book that they know will be checked out forever and ever, it costs even more. (These are made up numbers, every publisher is different, it's just a for-example!)

And when that term runs out, they can either license it again, or decide to remove it from the collection. From the publishers perspective, this is "equal" to what a library would have to spend on physical materials -- if you planned on lending out a physical book 100 times, you'd almost certainly have to buy multiple copies (according to Mr Google, on average, a library book can be circulated 25 times before it's nasty), and there would be a point at which the copies were no longer viable.

(Again, different publishers "calculate" this in different ways, librarians have a lot of feelings about it, and the pros and cons of each way is beyond my pay grade for real - I'm not arguing that any of this is GOOD or BAD, I'm just telling you *sort of* what happens!)

Now back to your contract. For a hardcover or paperback (at major publishers) you're probably getting a royalty that is a % of the retail price. If the book costs $20, and you get a 10% royalty on the retail price, you are getting $2. for every book sold. Makes total sense.

However: For ebook and digital ebook, you are probably getting a royalty that is ON NET rather than retail. Let's say you're getting 25% "on net" -- that means you are getting 25% of what the *publisher* gets paid. So if Amazon sells an ebook for $9.99., the publisher gets some fraction of that, just like if a library buys a license for an ebook through OverDrive for $50, the publisher gets some fraction of that -- and you get 25% of whatever is publisher gets, which is determined by whatever their agreements are with Amazon or OverDrive.

Make sense? Here's an article from the New Yorker with a lot more info if you are still interested in knowing more about libraries and e-books.

[worstjourney]

Help! Where Are The Books?

It’s been a very exciting couple of weeks – we launched, we signed, we were featured in The Observer, and we sold out our first print run. Great news for publishing, rather iffy news for anyone who wants to buy a book!

It was very hard to know what kind of demand there would be for a graphic novel adaptation of a hundred-year-old travel memoir. We were fairly confident it would appeal to polar nerds, and to fans of graphic novels, but how many people is that, and how would they even find out about it? When I was originally looking for a publisher, Worst Journey‘s resistance to categorisation was a liability – how do you sell a book when you can’t narrow down even which shelf to put it on? Is it children’s or adults’? Science? History? Travel? But precisely this quality has turned out to be a strength: I have had people tell me they got one for their adventurous grandson, their nerdy niece, their comics-loving brother-in-law, and their history nut great-uncle – and all these people were confident that it was just the thing for their intended recipient. We had started with a print run of 1000, just to see, and with people buying multiple copies for a wide range of people in their lives, we’ve ended up more or less selling out, in just under two weeks! Never could have guessed.

I’ve had a number of people asking me how to get hold of copies, so if you’ve come here looking for the same thing, here are some answers which I hope will help:

Where can I get a book, like, NOW?

Currently, the gift shop at The Polar Museum in Cambridge has the most copies in stock. If you can get to Cambridge (Wed-Sat 10-4), your chances of being able to walk out with a book are pretty high. (Please also visit the museum, it’s extremely cool!) Should they run out before the next print run is delivered, you will get a voucher which you can exchange for a book when they come in. Mail order is technically possible, but they have limited staff, so be patient.

Cambridge is dead to me; can I go somewhere else?

The Children’s Bookshop in Muswell Hill and Ink@84 Books in Highbury are our partner bookshops in London. At the moment of writing, I don’t believe they have any copies in stock, but they are filling online orders as soon as a rogue copy appears. If you place an online order then you will be prioritised when the new shipment arrives, and if you’re going to be in London you can probably arrange to collect your book rather than have it shipped.

Why privilege the Southeast?

Because we’re still waiting to get processed into the catalogue of the main book wholesaler in the UK. One we’re in with them, any shop in the country can order copies, as well as places like hive.co.uk and bookshop.org where you get Amazon-like service while supporting high street booksellers. The places selling Worst Journey now are places with which either I or Indie Novella have existing relationships, and by necessity we both live in the Southeast. If you’d like your local bookshop to stock Worst Journey, why not put them in touch with Indie Novella and see if they can’t order a few copies? Not right now, because there aren’t any, but when we get some more.

So what’s this about a second print run, then?

We ordered 2000 more copies on Tuesday! They’re expected to be delivered on 20 December. I acknowledge that this is very, very close to Christmas. It’s unlikely that your order will actually reach you before Christmas Day, if you’re having it shipped, even if you’re in the UK. But it will arrive not long after. We’re really scraping in under the wire for getting it before Christmas at all, but it can only happen because the book gets printed in Norwich rather than China. You’d be waiting upwards of six weeks otherwise! Hurrah for local businesses.

Can I get a signed copy from you?

One of the reasons I partnered with a publisher, instead of self-publishing like the cool kids, is so that they could handle the commerce while I got on with making Vol.2. At the moment there are no copies to sign; when we get some more, I will be signing more for The Children’s Bookshop and will be having events at Ink@84 and Jam Bookshop (details TBD). You will be able to order signed copies from them. I have also left a number of signed copies at The Polar Museum (see above). If you’ve already ordered a copy and you want it signed, please bring it to one of the events! I am really looking forward to signing a loved copy of the book.

I’m not in the UK; do I have any hope at all?

Yes! Indie Novella, The Children’s Bookshop, and Ink@84 Books all ship overseas. It’s expensive, but it’s a flat rate, so you’re better off clubbing together with other people who want copies and splitting the cost.

If you’re in the EU, don’t mind waiting a bit, and are OK with getting the book in German, you’re in luck! A super deluxe German edition will be on sale most likely in the spring. Other languages may happen if it does well enough.

Elsewhere, our long-term plan is to partner with small presses in different countries to distribute the book locally. If your country has an independent publisher who you think would be a good match for Worst Journey, please let us know via the form on the Contact page! It always helps to have a personal recommendation.

I’m a bookseller abroad and I don’t want to wait for you to find a distributor in my country. Can I order some books directly?

Yes; get in touch with Indie Novella and they will be able to sort you out. At the moment we are limited by having no stock, and when we do get stock we will need to prioritise existing orders, but the backlog will clear eventually and we’d love to get you some books.

If you have a further question, please do not hesitate to use the Contact page to ask it!

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[heartman]

Ok so I have a coworker who is nice we get along and work well together but I've started to notice he doesn't treat my other coworkers like he treats me (when I asked my other coworkers they all said he doesn't talk to them or is rude to them/basically doesn't give them the time of day or listen to them if they give him a job to do. He's on probation before the library decides to keep him on. He's been here two months I think, and I've been there a year.)

And he's always jumping to help me with my work or dropping what he's doing to try and help me. He'll get me paperwork I need before I even get up from my chair and recently he literally got up from the far side of the desk (it's a long desk and we were sitting at opposite ends) to come over, reach between me and the computer (I had the paperwork I was working on sitting on the keyboard) and go file it away before I was even done with writing it out. The space between me and the computer was small so he had to get very close to reach his hand in between to grab the papers and the desk is just below waist level so it was very close to an uncomfortable spot, but thankfully not touching anything.

He's just constantly in my space even after I spoke with my supervisor about it and he stopped for a little bit but he started doing it again. He stares at me when I'm looking up a patron who says they have a boo on hold and he waits by the shelf to grab it before I can even get up.

He ignores patrons to help me with my work and I've had to tell him multiple times to leave it be and help the person waiting because I don't want to make people wait for no reason if someone is available to help. He purposefully clears his throat and makes noise to talk to me or get my attention when I'm trying to do any work I have to do at all (I don't mind talking while I work but I always make it clear I'm going to do what I need to do while we're talking so I apologize if it seems like I'm ignoring you.) I have to constantly tell him to face the door in case someone comes in, don't turn your chair to face me instead. Yes, I like unsolved historical murder mysteries too but the extent that he talks about them has my other coworkers worried.

I was doing a library card and before I could even get out of my chair he was standing there handing me all the paperwork I needed and I got so overwhelmed my supervisor had to walk me through the process because my hands were shaking. During my break I went to the break room and cried because I was so embarrassed that I couldn't handle something I knew how to do a thousand times over.

We were talking about books and movies and actors that we liked and recently he lent me a book he wrote because I mentioned I liked the genre and he also gave me a list of other things he wrote to pick from with his email and told me to pick one and email him so I could read it and give him feedback.

I don't mind sharing/giving feedback on writing pieces and at first I did ask if it was on good reads to see if I could pick up a copy of his book at a library if the one we work at didn't have it and he was like oh no I never published it officially it shouldn't be on good reads at all and I was like oh okay and then the next day he handed me the book and now I don't know what to do because I know I originally said I would love to read it but with his recent behavior around me and my other coworkers telling me he doesn't do the same with them I don't know what to do.

He tried lending me a book all about unsolved serial killer cases and I flipped through it at the desk, gave him back the book and said thanks but I'll look at it on my own time- I wanted to see if they had Happy Jack (Jack the Ripper wannabe who was very short lived and never caught but his motif was a smiley face) listed in the book but they didn't and he proceeded to tell me about how most of the crimes listed in the book were sexual in nature. One of my other coworkers said he writes really weird stuff that makes her uncomfortable just to think about. Another coworker has to redo all the work he does because he does it wrong and is rude to her when she asks him to please fix it.

He asked what I was doing over the weekend as just a general question which is fine and I mentioned I was going to go out with my boyfriend. He proceeded for the next few days to talk about a girl he was talking to online and showed me this ring he has that's supposed to represent he's single and looking to date or sometime that.

He's never touched me or been rude to me but he gets in my space so much even after the supervisor spoke with him about it. I have not kept a written record of anything because I didn't think about it at the time and I don't know how to breach this topic without upsetting anyone.

#sophia talks #work stuff #i just don't know what to do anymore #i'm pretty sure if i get asked about his behavior again i'm gonna cry #delete later #personal

[orcboxer]

I would like to hear you ramble about math 👉👈

La Biblioteca de Babel (The Library of Babel)

La Biblioteca de Babel was a short story by Jorge Luis Borges, published in 1941, and it's more or less a thought experiment about a world that takes the form of a vast library that consists of a shit ton of hexagonal rooms, each of which contains, well, the necessities for human life of course, but also lots and lots of books. Each book is 410 pages long, making use of only 25 possible characters (22 letters, plus the period, the comma, and the space), and no two books are the same, and altogether the library contains every single possible sequence of those 25 characters that can fill a 410-page book. Each book has 410 pages, each page has 40 lines, and each line has 80 characters, so the total number of characters within each book is 1,312,000 -- just over one million -- and each character can be one out of 25 possible characters.

So the approximate number of books in the Library of Babel would be 1.981x10¹⁸³⁴⁰⁷ or to put it another way, it's "1981" followed by 183404 zeroes. (continued below)

A vast, unthinkably vast majority of the books in this library would be utter gibberish, just meaningless sequences of letters and punctuation. Any book you pick up is just as likely -- as far as you know -- to have true information as it is to have untrue information. So... Net zero information.

This story has been alluded to in quite a few pieces of media, including Terry Pratchett's Discworld series and Christopher Nolan's Interstellar (2014).

Now what really fascinates me about this thought experiment is that the library includes every single possible sequence, which means that it would contain every book ever written and every book yet to be written. But more than that, it also includes every possible permutation of those books with small errors. Imagine rewriting Hamlet but you only change 1 letter. Now imagine doing that with a different letter every time and not stopping until you've done every possible version once. That's just the tip of the iceberg.

Accounting for differences between the Spanish and English alphabet, this post you're reading right now is somewhere in the Library of Alexandria BABEL, multiple times, in different books. There is a perfect 410-page memoir of your entire life in the Library of Alexanwwdria BABEL There is also a book describing you reading this book on the computer or on your smartphone. There are books that describe you reading them, books that describe what happens when you finish reading, and you have no way of knowing which one is true.

The wild thing is that the library is finite. It does end. There are no copies. But it is so vast that to us it may as well be infinite. And if you were to pick up a book, there is a non-zero chance that it will seem to be talking directly to you. And I have to wonder how I would respond to that. How many people would think a god was talking to them through the texts? What kinds of social structures would we create in there?

#orcspeak

[protoindoeuropean]

I am ambivalent towards the internet archive lawsuit. On the one hand I recognize that the wayback machine, old radio and other projects are very important for the very existence of Wikipedia and of the internet (besides the huge data leeches like Google and Facebook). On the other hand there is a very serious piracy problem on the website that cannot be condoned... we can be hating on Disney because they retain copyright on some *1909* stuff, but people are uploading books that were published less than 5 years ago, and this severely damages authors. So yeah, it sucks. Thoughts?

I may be the wrong person to turn to because I support piracy on principle lmao Like I remember having read most of the books during my childhood by using the library or borrowing from friends (or cousins; or friends' cousins; or cousins' friends; etc.). I have a hard time separating that experience from what happens in the online world. The way the internet facilitates that, enabling far more widespread distribution, does create a tricky situation, but in tackling that I lean towards changing how authorship and copyright is treated rather than limiting access (I won't pretend I know how exactly it should be done, but that's what pirate parties have been thinking about and working on for much longer than I (could) have).

What the lawsuit in question seems to be about, afaics, is the change made in 2020 when the pandemic started and the Internet Archive allowed its registered users to borrow (for a limited time ofc) books not one after the other (always only one copy at a time as it did before, like other online libraries), but multiple copies at the same time, citing the fact that during the pandemic most rl libraries had to close. As indicated above I don't have a problem with that.

I know that, personally, if I couldn't have borrowed all of those books when I was little, they certainly wouldn't have been bought, I'd just read less lol Obviously things are different now that I have money of my own, but to a certain extent the same principle applies. Which is why I'm always doubtful of how these damages because of piracy are estimated, since in my experience, I've made use of ebook copies of books I physically owned and was reading, just because unfortunately Ctrl+F doesn't work on paper. Or because I had the physical copy at home and didn't bring it with me to the dorms. Or other similar scenarios, for which the alternative would've been ignorance, not buying another copy.

#like idk how to solve the problem #but i'm always gonna side with free information #there should be a culture tax to pay writers artists etc #j #ask #mlem-wooloowoo

[lemon-ren]

Some things that I learned as a fan fiction author:

1. Leave space in between different characters interacting with the other.

2. Don't write in first person, unless you are dedicated to write with only one characters point of view, don't.

3. When writing an introduction to a character, don't describe them in full details, or the place they were in, reveale bits and pieces about them over the chapters.

4. When writing scenes that are supposed to convey multiple emotions in a few lines of text, try and keep in mind how the character is feeling, are they confused and angry at the same time? Do they fell happy but also angry because of the one thing they witnessed? It can get you a long way.

5. Try to stick to two or more emotions you are willing to show during a chapter (This counts solely for fan fiction since the chapters are shorter, however for a full length book, a chapter should convey 5+ emotions in my opinion)

6. Think of a character under one personality trait you associate them with. It helps writing your character in the same format throughout the entirety of the story.

7. Do not give yourself goals you are not sure you will achieve, would you believe me if I said that Journey in time was supposed to be only 5 chapters long? Well it was, but after chapter three I knew there was no way to finish it in 2 more so I made the final chapter unmarked until recently.

8. If a character is experiencing something they thought would never have to again, they are not gonna stand stiffly. They might stiffen up, but shaking of the eyeballs and body are also conveyed if someone is scared of this thing.

9. Emotions are not conveyed with JUST the face, a normal person uses their body language to convey emotion as well.

10. If you are not sure of the word auto correct is giving you, go to google dictionary and find the meaning of it, if It's what you're looking for, congratulations, you didn't write some stupid word that doesn't mean what you wanted to type.

11. It might sound like a meme, but Grammarly is your best friend, be it just the online extension to crome or the program itself, it shows you which words you don't need, need and or are wrong, just the free version is fine, but the payed version has more helpful features (I personally use the free one because I have no money)

12. When writing a scene that is supposed to make people cry, re-read it to yourself on occasion as you continue writing the chapter, if it shoot up an emotion equal to one you wish to convey, you did it right.

13. When designing a character, keep in mind their family history, what role do they play in the story and which country or part of world they live in.

14. If you know that the currency used in the place the story takes place, do not replace it with your native currency, it's stupid, you also don't need to write how much that is in your currency, there is most definitely going to be a person who doesn't know how much your currency is in theirs,

15. If a character has a characteristic in their appearance that is unmistakable, don't remove it or replace it. You can exaturate it, for example, Midoriya Izuku from My Hero Academia has 8 freckles in total, I like to make it more, but I'm not getting rid of them.

16. When writing, keep in mind that the setting you're writing in is not the same to the world you live in, be it a different world or time, you will not write it as a copy of the world you know. If for example, heroes existed, and there was not much on the law surrounding the heroes or the powers the world possessed, make your own, make rules that will follow the reality of THAT world, not a rule that will match your own, but theirs.

17. Finally, have fun! Experiment, chose your own writing style and so on, there is no reason for you to not do so. You can alleways come back and edit the words you wrote, you are not publishing them to local book stores (unless you are writing a book), are you?

So yeah, if these tips give you some idea on what to do and not do in writing, good, if you already knew this? Great! You learned this with experience or from someone else!

#ao3 writer #fan fic author #bnha #fan fiction #writing tips