#i don't actually read ya contemporary but | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

sneezemonster15 · 7 months

Note

I'd give you an analysis, but frankly from what I've seen from your own "analysis" you're not very good at reading

also if you'd be so kind to tag this as mha spoilers, or screenshot this ask and put it under a read more so i dont spoil anyone who's interested in reading mha. it'd be greatly appreciated

(also thanks for getting rid of anon, this time i will include pics !)

anyway, this is the "straight dude who is having a typical cutesy high school het romance with a girl in a taken for granted het world." you're talking about;

also i wont lie, calling mha a het world when these are real dialogue is highkey stupid:

and i know the topic at hand is s/n/s and bk/dk but lets pivot to tg/chk bc theyre more relevant to what im saying

theres a lot to say but honestly, the manga speaks for itself :)

oh and also, you're right, bk/dk has no romantic subtext - it has romantic text. no subtlety needed! :) that is, if you have read the manga - my favourite example is this:

and then shgrk then proceeds to kill bkg, who "dies" (sort of) thinking about izuku in his final moments:

and then izk loses control when he sees bkg "dead" on the ground

and these are from recent chapters! imagine the rest of the series, ey

well! that got long. i'd tackle your crappy assessment of deku's character, but then I'd be here all day!

anyways, if i were you, I'd reread mha and really really understand the text you're reading. you might end up seeing something you missed at first!

Aiyyo someone got triggered! Hehehe. Ah it was inevitable that the moment I talked about MHA and rejected shippy head canons from the show, some delusional hardcore shipper would get all up in arms. Sigh.

You think what you wrote is analysis? Hehehe.

So just some random panels and chapter covers from the manga prove Bakugou or Deku is gay? Lol. I have seen fans like you in Naruto fandom as well. But you are right, I am not as invested in MHA, because it just doesn't have the versatility and genius of Naruto and Shippuden, it is actually quite a straightforward story and I don't need to burn a lot of my braincells to 'get it'. Lol. I am not saying it's bad, but as compared to its contemporary mangas, it just isn't at par for my tastes. It's good for entertainment but it doesn't affect me like other mangas that it takes inspiration from. Some silly shipper telling me I can't read, I would tell you my credentials but nah, too much work for disproving silly ass headcanons.

Fans make comparisons between Naruto and BNHA because Horikoshi is inspired by Kishimoto, definitely some similarities are there, but it misses on the most crucial point. Naruto and Shippuden are love stories. BNHA is simply your typical shounen manga. Naruto and Shippuden use the narrative tool of subversion to tell a love story in the restrictive genre of shounen. It has multiple layers and you need presence of mind to see them. Naruto is gay and you see comphet in his character, his interest in Sakura looks superficial from the beginning and then in kage arc, it is concluded as a mere cover to run from confronting his dilemma, and closetedness. His character is consistently shown as having an internal fight, a dilemma. Sasuke is just on your face, he is clearly shown as having no interest in women, but with Naruto he is especially intimate on his own accord. Ya know, using random panels ain't gonna help, you need to establish it in the narrative. Headcanons are all nice to entertain when that's all you watch media for, shipping. But please to be showing more maturity and media comprehension when sending me an ask, I am not very sympathetic to gaslighters whose heads are filled with shippy shit and cheap self gratification. When I talk Naruto, I make comparisons with other clearly gay media, and point out the common tropes, it's a result of expansive research. Not just random panels that prove nothing. Little one, you need more than that to prove your theories. I have watched a wide range of media, including gay media, your ask is just representative of your ignorance and lack of knowledge about how storytelling and character building works. Heh. Or do you think BNHA has its own concept of homosexuality, its own private language that cannot be compared with how other media establishes homosexuality in a given universe? Yeah, solipsistic ideas like that cannot be taken seriously.

Conformity is one of the pillars Japanese society is built upon, so it's not surprising that Japanese media talks upon how anything that doesn't conform to the norms is rejected. Their media is representative of their society. Mha also touches upon that and there's no surprises there, but again, you need more than that to prove it in the course of plot building and narrative. Some random out of context panel about some character saying something about conformity proves your point? You need to SHOW it and not just tell. But where other mangas, great mangas, popular and critically well acclaimed mangas have explored this idea in detail, MHA is just touch and go. It doesn't entertain a balanced proper discourse on it. It is truly shounen in that sense. Again, I am not saying it is bad, it is just more age appropriate. Which is totally fine. Do you know how heteronormativity is established in the narrative? Like this. Show me where this happens in MHA. Lol. Sweetheart, if the writer had made any attempt to write this world as heteronormative, where gay characters face challenges, I would have seen it. But mha is just not that deep. Sorry to burst your bubble. But that's just a fact.

Seriously, you are going to give me the example of Toga? I haven't gone through the recent chapters yet. I have only watched the anime. But it is clear that, that girl is medically insane. Her idea of liking someone is to kill that person and drink their blood, for her own pleasure. She ain't a homosexual, more like hemosexual. Hahaha. Again, you gotta show me the trajectory of her character, start with the base and show me how it escalates, how does she learn better about herself, her own feelings, the world from her perspective. No character is isolated, any writer who is talented enough to write multimillion franchise knows that. Don't project your assumptions on the story and the characters, work with what you have and draw the meaning from what's given, not the other way round.

There is no doubt Izuku and Bakugou have a strong relationship, even if it is mostly rivalry. But one can see that Bakugou cares about Deku and vice versa. Before telling me how to read, perhaps you should have done it yourself. Lol, I see this type of behaviour a lot from typical silly shippy shippers. "What, did you just say my ship makes no sense? 🤬"

Read.

Do you even know what subtext or text is? Hahah. This is text and subtext. So just because Bakugou and Deku talk about their rivalry in their vulnerable moments, that the audience knows as congruent since we have already seen they have a hot and cold relationship but that they are friends nonetheless, that proves they love each other romantically? You obviously don't know how romance tropes work. The dynamic between two men who respect and admire each other is always shown with a lot of empathy in Japanese media. It is one of the founding pillars of shounen, a genre meant for teenaged boys. They are certainly closer to each other than they are with women they are interested in, but a lot of fans such as yourself misinterpret it as romantic, because headcanon goggles. No, you gotta have more than that. Where Naruto and Shippuden have it in truckloads, none of that in BNHA. Deku is heterosexual af. If he is so interested in Bakugou, how come he reacts the way he reacts to Uraraka? Where is his conflict? Where is his dilemma? His affection and romantic interest in Uraraka is genuine and sincere, not a cover to hide his more private feelings. Unlike in Naruto's case. Kishi uses clever narrative tricks and tools to tell his love story in shounen and he does it skillfully. His motives and intentions are clear as water. He uses inventive smokescreens and red herrings to escape from being too controversial and colour inside the borders of shounen, nothing like that in BNHA. To begin with, Horikoshi doesn't even delve into the sexualities of his characters, because his story is not about that. There's no context, no set up, nothing. His worldbuilding is simply conventional, by which I mean heteronormative, there's no talk about sexual orientation of characters. You see the usual shounen perviness by Mineta and Kaminari and typical straight girls going kawaai over good looking boys like Todoroki, what impression does that give? If Horikoshi wanted to establish his characters being gay, he would have set up the context mindfully and carefully, like Kishi did. Gay relationships and characters can't be shown so explicitly in shounen as that would jeopardize its distribution in the west. Reason? Censorship. That's why Kishi had to be so careful, his target audience might not get it, but the adults do. Well, unbiased adults do, at the very least. So the boys in bnha are gay just because? Because you want them to be? Storytelling and character building doesn't work like that.

Seriously everything you think works as 'analysis' isn't even valid. I honestly didn't even want to respond to this ask, given it's so surface level and ridiculously simple minded. Perhaps you are a tween or teen who thinks every time two boys or girls smile at each other or rescue each other, they are gay and in love. Lol, watch gay media. Like actually watch it and see where your arguments stand in the scheme of things. I will tell you, nowhere. Juvenile kiddy stuff. I won't entertain anymore asks like these, they are a waste of my time.

#bnha #naruto #sns #my hero academia #ask #sad anons #mha spoilers

35 notes · View notes

mermaidsirennikita · 2 months

Note

Ok, so maybe this question is too broad. But what are your hands down favorite sex scenes in contemporaries? Just the scenes you return to again and again?

Sex scene questions are NEVER too broad. The depiction of sex in media is one of my favorite things to talk about, for srs or for "YOU GOTTA SEE/READ THIS" purposes.

Soooo lol I left a few Sierra Simone books off the "angstiest contemporaries" list because while they are not paranormal or whatever, sometimes her New Camelot-verse books feel too... intense? But whatever they're contemporary and these books have some of my favorite sex scenes ever so YA GETTING THEM.

(Among, as it turns out, many other scenes from many other books.)

New Camelot:

American Queen--Embry deflowering Greer which has a) surprise virgin b) possessive dark Embry content, which is some of my FAVORITE content in that series; the whole "talking to my groom on the phone while riding the best man's face and listening to him jack off and we're actually all kinda sad about it" scene--Ash giving Embry to Greer as a wedding present is SOOOO FUCKED but SOOOOO GOOD; the wedding night scene with the first threesome hell fucking yeah

American Prince--Ash and Embry's first time in the flashback with all the blood and the "you look beautiful in the moonlight"-ing; Embry and Greer's hardcore CNC scene where it begins as like, therapeutic playacting and evolves into it being THEM and one of the central conflicts of the series (Embry and Greer love Ash but are both so devoted to Ash that they also, especially Embry, resent his presence because they need their own space together) and then at the end he sees her in the full light and like gasps in horror because she's covered in bite marks and bruises and she's like :D about it because Greer is a freak; the "blindfold you with a Mt. Rushmore tie and blow you to express my eterrrrnal gratitude scene; the "let's make Greer feel better" kinda fucked up green apple scent threesome; the "Ash is very sads because his first wife died so he shows up in the rain and fucks the shit out of Embry to cope" flashback; Greer thinking that Embry Cheated On The Polycule and being like "WELCOME HOME CHEATER" and asking him if Abilene's pussy is as sweet as hers before he's like "THERE'S NOBODY SWEETER" and drops to his knees to eat her out while she's standing.

He's my faaavorite.

American King: OBVIOUSLY, the "it's a very sad occasion and The Polycule Measure Is Being Threatened So We're Gonna Have A Threesome For Three Chapters" scene, AMAZING, shoutout for Embry being balls deep in Greer and before Ash can put it in being all "I THINK WE SHOULD DISCUSS OUR RELATIONSHIP AND ITS BOUNDARIES" and Ash being like "are you fucking kidding me" before just forging ahead, one of the funniest things I've Ever read; the Greer/Embry reunion sex where he comes inside her super quick and is like "WHOOPS SORRY" and eats her out immediately after; the "Embry Lost So He Gets Mild CBT" scenes which fr is one of the filthiest things I've EVER READ; the "Ash Lost So He Gets Face Fucked" scene, largely because of "the might Maxen Colchester has a gag reflex" ugh kill me; the "Embry fucks Ash with a dildo in the sex club" flashback; Ash and Embry's Last First, CRYING TEARS.

Writing all that out (and look dude, when I say I reread those scenes a lot, I AM SERIOUS) I realize there isn't a single solo Ash/Greer scene, and it's not that I don't love them, but they have the least FRAUGHT sex scenes so it's less memorable. Like, my favorite Ash/Greer sex scene is in American Queen after he finds out Embry had sex with her first and he's super jealous of both of them (and she doesn't... fully realize that yet) and fucks her being like "AND DID HE DO THIS??? AND THIS?????". It's great love that content.

Salt in the Wound: the scene where Mark takes Isolde's virginity with fingers on and is like "LOOK AT YOU DOING SO GOOD" while she cries and fully realizes that she is a true masochist, 'twas very hot

Salt Kiss: obviously, the entire "deflowering of Tristan" saga lmao, but ESPECIALLY when Mark is like "Tristan I've fucked you like twice in the last hour I'm not gonna fuck you again" and Tristan goes ":(" only for that sentence to end with ".... so instead you get to eat my ass while I sit on your face, LUCKY YOOOOOOU". I also really love the scene in the mini short "Beg Me" where Mark makes Tristan fuck a pocket pussy (while being all "IF I HAD A WIFE I WOULD LOVE TO WATCH YOU FUCK HER AND IT WOULD BE AMAZING AND GREAT", a fact??? Tristan??? Super????? Misses out on???? When it turns out Mark DOES have a future wife????) before he fucks Tristan and continues to talk about how great it would be if there was a wife here lmao; I also reeeeally love the scene where Tristan and Isolde fuck in that yacht chapel thing. SO. GOOD. SUCH. ANGST.

Obviously, I love many scenes from her Bell Brothers series; the altarfucking scene in Priest; the "holy oil as anal lube" scene, also in Priest; the "let's have anal sex for the first time in a convent" scene in Sinner; the "let's pretend I'm a naughty monk and you're tempting me" outdoor blow job in Saint. All great content. Love it. Amazing.

ANYWAY. NON-SIERRA. Sierra is just the queen of sex scenes, I'm sorry.

I looove the scene in Give Me More by Sara Cate where Hunter, Drake, and Isabel finally have sex after Hunter's admitted that he loves Drake in a romantic manner. It's super hot and also weirdly sweet.

Kristen Callihan's Game On series is REAL GOOD in terms of sex scenes. There's a great scene in The Friend Zone where the heroine is like, taking care of the hero because he's typically been a real caregiver in his family. First of all, she greets him wearing a fake jersey that says "nothing's getting past my tight end". He's a tight end, and I personally think that's love. And then she fingers his ass during to climax and he's super grateful about it because nobody has ever done that before and he felt very loved lmao.

Act Your Age by Eve Dangerfield has SEVERAL very good scenes where they're roleplaying stepfather/stepdaughter stuff, but I think the scene that really sticks out to me remains the first scene where they're in the dark and she doesn't know it's him (and he doesn't know that she doesn't know) and she's going down on him and starts calling him "Daddy" and he like. FREEZES lol.

Reckless by Stella Rhys has an amazing scene where the hero and heroine are boss/employee but also best friends, and he's been helping her get through her realization that her fiance cheated, which has caused a lot of sexual tension... And then in his OFFICE one day, he's just like "use me" and BOOM FRIENDSHIP CORRUPTED. There's also a later scene where he has a very bad work call and she like, undoes her top and is all "you may use my tits to help yourself recover from the manpain you're experiencing right now". Like they're his pacifier. I was... about it.

Minx by Sophie Lark has a scene I read like thrice where the heroine is blowing the hero and then begins fingering him and he's like "nooooow I get why women like to be penetrated". There's also a scene I love where she's like "oh no, I'm on my period" and he goes "DON'T CARE". He might even go down on her.

The All the King's Men Duology by Kennedy Ryan--the scene where he gets her off by sticking his head under her sweatshirt and going to town on her nipples while her coworkers are on the other side of the wall; I mean, I hate to continue... to show my hand.... with this lol, but also the scene where she's blowing him and gives him the ol' bonus pleasure (a finger in his ass)

Mercy by Sara Cate--the pegging scene. That is all.

Possession by Adriana Anders has an amazing scene where the hero kidnaps the heroine (with her consent beforehand) and spit roasts her with his ol' buddy ol' pal. There's also a deleted short about them where he brings in like... three other buddies.... and they all go at her at the same time. AMAZING.

Managed by Kristen Callhan--the whole scene where after they have this really passionate sex he pushes his cum back in her

Lead by Kylie Scott--the scene where they're all "it'll be fine if we just get it out of our systems!!!" and he fucks her on a table while she's wearing like, a FUCKIN BOOT FOR HER BROKEN FOOT LMAO (she broke her foot trying to kick down a door dramatically); and the scene where they have emotional missionary sex and kiss for the first time

Deep by Kylie Scott--the hero finds out the heroine, pregnant with their one night stand baby, has been masturbating a lot and is all "I AM RESPONSIBLE FOR TAKING CARE OF YOUR NEEDS FROM NOW ON" and fingers her to orgasm lol

Preferential Treatment by Heather Guerre--the scene where they play chess while he's inside her and she's in his lap facing away from him, and if he comes he loses or something lol

Heated Rivalry and The Long Game by Rachel Reid--the scene where Ilya's won player of the year or something so after he drinks vodka while watching Shane finger himself; the "I want to look at you during" sex scene where Ilya uses endearments during and Shane is like "OH NOOOOO HE'S LIKE FALLING IN LOVE WITH ME??? ABORT!!!"; the scene after they actually say I love you. SUCH EMOTIONAL SEX SCENES. Oh wait also the scene where Shane is on the phone with his BFF and Ilya is like "I'm just gonna blow you during carry on".

And in TLG, the "I'm fucking a king in his throne room" scene because sometimes you've just got to fuck the confidence back into someone.

#romance novel blogging #romance novels #book recs #like 50 deranged sex scene recs

8 notes · View notes

not-poignant · 5 months

Note

very, very late question to an old work and I will perfectly understand if you don't want to reply to this and prefer not to bring the discussion toward your old works.

out of curiosity, how much did the hunger games, divergent, maze runner or other dystopian YA works of the time influence TGATNW?

the curiosity stemmed from the fact that while my initial perspective on your works were that they were a complete divergence from mainstream media due to its rawer, kinkier nature, a thought popped up that your works might have (purposefully?) satisfied the trends of the times they were created. the golden age (and fae tales soon after) was an appropriate dystopian rebellion story in the midst of the YA fever in 2014-2015 containing similar tropes.

On the other hand, falling falling stars and other efnisien centric works which address mental health and recovery more heavily than other works were published in the present day while shows on mental health discourse (for instance sex education and euphoria) are increasingly more popular. there are definitely exceptions, but those mentioned are some of your most prominent works.now that I think about it, my question might actually be: if at all, how do current trends influence your narratives? I think I remember a mention of these works' influences being old tales, so it would be interesting to hear how contemporary works have inspired you as well if it all.

thanks Pia! even if you don't reply, thanks for all the time and effort you've put into these works. they mean a lot and so much more to a many people.

This one is easy to answer:

my question might actually be: if at all, how do current trends influence your narratives?

So the TL;DR upfront -> I don't read, and often don't know about current trends. I have zero interest in writing to market. I hadn't read any of those books you mentioned when I wrote The Golden Age that Never Was with the exception of The Hunger Games, which came out over half a decade beforehand (except for the last installment in the trilogy, which was my least favourite lol).

In more detail:

I was inspired to write The Golden Age that Never Was - I can't believe I'm saying this - based on a dream I had in August, 2015.

I read Divergent for the first time in 2016 (er, so after I'd started TGATNW). I read book 1, gave it 2 stars, and don't remember anything about it. I haven't read Maze Runner and I know nothing about it.

Going back through my Goodreads account in 2013 and 2014, I read what looks like almost no books actually published in those years. I read books on cod (literally, the nonfiction book Cod, it's really very good), I read Manna Francis (defo not YA), I read nonfiction books on trauma, I read a bunch of Tricia Owens (M/M not YA), I read Eleanor & Park (YA but contemporary), I read a bunch of M/M, Hagio Moto's Zankoku na Kami ga Shihaisuru manga took over my life for a few months, and then I read a bunch more BL manga (none of it recently published that year) for consecutive months and checked out of anything written in the western world for almost half a year.

I got back into M/M at the end of / beginning of 2015 and it looks like that was all I was reading through all of 2015 with very few exceptions (one more Rainbow Rowell book, Station Eleven by Mandel, and nonfiction). I read no dystopian YA in the 2 year lead up to writing The Golden Age that Never Was. Not a single title. Out of like 200 titles. I didn't even read historical dystopian YA. I think we can safely say that was in no way a direct influence and I can bet you around $500 I had no idea it was a trend lmao.

I do not know exactly how to convey how little I give a shit about reading or responding to publishing trends. I don't care and have never cared. No, wait, I think I attempted to care for about 2 months after seeing a Facebook post about it and then was like 'wait, this is extremely demotivating' and stopped. There are some - few - absolute favourite authors who if they release a book, I will read it that year. (Like the latest Murderbot by Martha Wells). Otherwise I prefer generally not knowing what the trends are, and I don't read author blogs etc. that keep me updated on this. New genres rise and fall and by the time I hear of them, they've either already vanished, or new names have been invented for them.

I feel the same way about music and a lot of television as well. I started watching True Detective for the first time this year. A lot of the music I've listened to and discovered didn't release that music this year. And while I have watched and listened to things that did release this year, it was less because it was 'trendy' and more because they are musicians I've always listened to (Manchester Orchestra) or TV shows I would have wanted to watch anyway.

Also The Golden Age that Never Was isn't dystopian YA. But I wasn't reading much by the way of any dystopian romantic science fiction anyway (and certainly nothing released in those years), and no space operas or anything like that. If TGATNW synced up with any trends at all, it was a happy coincidence. But given I don't think it's YA, if people who only wanted to read dystopian YA found it, they were going to be really disappointed! Lmao.

Around 2013 I also just stopped reading anything heterosexual because I had a choice in the moment and exercised that choice. And I tell you - it's low key hilarious how much you get locked out of almost all the trends (certainly almost 10 years ago) anyway, if you exclusively read same sex.

I also just have general disdain for the idea of purposefully satisfying any kind of fiction trends in fanfiction. Like, no, that's not for me. I think that's a waste of my time, and it's not why I write fanfiction. I write fanfic for fun, and to me, looking at trends and writing to trends is one of the least fun things I can actually think of doing.

(Re: Your Sex Education / Euphoria example, I had to laugh. I haven't seen the latter, and the former I only watched for the first time late last year, when I'd already finished Falling Falling Stars.)

No trend has ever inspired anything I've ever written. And no book / show has ever directly inspired anything I've ever written too. I definitely have inspirations - everyone does - but like, yeah no, one of the reasons I let other people rec works similar to mine is because I can never think of any, because I write because of a perceived vacuum providing what I want to read. If what I want to read is already present and there's a lot of it, I won't write anything, because I don't need to. I am the opposite of an 'adding my book into the pile of a trend' author, like literally, that's a reason to not write for me.

I write what I don't see in the world, and it's pretty much that simple.

#asks and answers #personal #pia on writing #the golden age that never was #like i get that other people write trends very successfully #i hate doing it and i hate even knowing what the trends are #it never lasts and it leads to a bloat in that arena #and honestly anon most of that stuff is still painfully heterosexual #so it's not what i want to read anyway #reading almost exclusively m/m locks me out of almost all the trends #because this world is still heteronormative and writing trends #are still saturated in bigotry #it's gotten better slightly but not a great deal #there are also trends in M/M that i don't particularly care about either #like mafia romance being the rage for the last year or so #in dark m/m romance #like good for them if i feel like writing a mafia romance one day #it'll have nothing to do with what's trendy #will that lose me readers? probably #i can't remember what divergent was about but my review was very scathing and i didn't read any future books fsdalfkajsd

11 notes · View notes

noveldivergence · 4 months

Text

top reads of 2023

I read roughly 118 books this year, but many didn't stick with me (and some I probably should have marked DNF earlier). However, I gained some new ones that I really enjoyed!

Our Share of Night by Mariana Enriquez - I really love stories about the occult, cults, strange beings, etc. and Enriquez is an incredibly gifted writer, who really make this absolutel doorstopper of a book fly quickly.

Chlorine by Jade Song - Love a queer coming of age horror story!! Song did wonderfully with metaphor and visuals, really making me feel viscerally uncomfortable and almost pained at points when working through the body horror that defines the story.

In the Dream House by Carmen Maria Machado - Anything but a fun read, this incredibly creative and well crafted memoir about Machado's toxic and abusive relationship with her unnamed ex-girlfriend inspired me to get very experimental with some of my own writing.

Mary by Nat Cassidy - This one was just a fucking fun horror debut from author and comedian Nat Cassidy. Despite being what I'd consider a fun horror story, it definitely isn't a cozy read. The relationships in this book are often uncomfortable, but in a way that is necessary to the story. I also really loved how Cassidy followed through with the menopause as body horror extended metaphor.

The Spirit Bares Its Teeth by Andrew Joseph White - I normally don't read YA--nothing wrong with it, just aged out of it myself--but this one is absolutely stunning in the darkness of its plot and arcs. Definitely not for the faint of heart or anyone with legitimate triggers in fiction, but a wonderful story following a trans autistic protagonist through a twisted journey.

Don't Fear the Reaper by Stephen Graham Jones - A strong second act in the three part Indian Lake trilogy. Cannot complain about pre-ordering a signed first edition copy, and absolutely cannot WAIT for the final act of this horror trilogy releasing this year (Angel of Indian Lake).

Out There Screaming: An Anthology of New Black Horror edited by Jordan Peele - There were so many good stories in this anthology, I couldn't possibly name them all, but lets just say the women authors really brought their A game to this book!

A Memory Called Empire and A Desolation Called Peace by Arkady Martine - This sci-fi duology with incredible world building and conlanging of English as it might be imagined in the far future genuinely inspired me so much that I started getting off my ass to write my own sci fi story.

Pilgrim at Tinker Creek by Annie Dillard - Another piece of literature that inspired me to write this year, this one is a collection of Dillard's thoughts organized into not-quite-essays but not-quite-anything-else. If you read any chapter from it, read chapter eleven. Genuinely made me reevaluate the role of life in the universe.

If We Were Villains by M.L. Rio - Dark academia's favorite contemporary novel, and I finally read it this year. I fell utterly in love with it--the characters, the foreshadowing, the us of allegory and archetypes and metaphors. I actually wasn't convinced upon reading Act I that I would enjoy it at all, but I'm glad I stuck with it. It's rocketed it's qay up to being possibly one of my favorite fiction novels of all time.

#books #literature

8 notes · View notes

tm-trx · 3 months

Text

currents.02 [2024]

[listening]

"Watch It" / The Boyz

"Strings" / SF9

"Stay for a Night" / Minho

[loving]

"I don’t think a lot of thought was put into writing this, but I can’t stop reading it. This is why soap operas do well." - Lee Do Hwa, Extraordinary You, episode 26

You hit the nail on the head, kid.

[reading]

Seoulmates by Susan Lee - YA contemporary romance - pretty good for the genre; I'd read more by this author

[watching]

Extraordinary You - This was a fun teen romance kdrama with a fantasy twist. It's a "comic characters become aware" plot and I thought it was interesting that the characters didn't try to actually leave the comic and instead just tried to change their 'setup' (fate), with varying levels of success. I enjoyed it a lot.

For Him - This episode fell so flat for me. I loved the girl squad. I liked the two friend groups teaming up to get their respective friends talking again. I loved how how firm Nail still is with Te's 'flirting.' He's not giving Te any reason to think he has a chance and walks away the first chance he gets. But nothing happened and the plot didn't move forward until the very end, so yeah. Flat as a pancake. And I don't like pancakes.

Pit Babe - I love this show and I love Charlie and Babe so much. I find it amusing that the Mama/Papa kinky talk has now morphed into pet names. I didn't quite expect the level of Way's desperation that was made clear this week, but I'm here for it. I honestly didn't think the show would go that dark (despite the extremely dark premise), but all the actors did an amazing job. Pavel is a stand out and once again he sold the emotions fully. He's so good.

The Sign - Another great episode from the Thai BL-sphere this week. But has anyone else noticed the 3D filter on all the CGI flashbacks or is it just my old eyes? It makes all those scenes slightly blurry so I basically check out of all those scenes, and unfortunately there was a lot of it this week. Apart from that, it was a whump-tastic episode that I thoroughly enjoyed, starting with Phaya's dream and ending with Tharn devastated at the side of the river. Both actors did an outstanding job selling their respective scenes without going over the top.

previous Currents posts

#pit babe the series #the sign the series #extraordinary you #for him the series #ql drama #kdrama #thai drama #the boyz #choi minho #sf9 #book rec #tmtrx currents #tmtrx watches dramas

12 notes · View notes

yellow-yarrow · 5 months

Text

I have a friend whose taste in books is very different from mine (she reads ya romance novels, I read like, skandinavian contemporary novels and philosophy) and it's very nice of her to gift me books( she gave me a copy of a book she accidentally ordered twice as an early Christmas present) but how am I supposed to actually read this 400 page romance about japanese men, that has "boys love" written on the cover, and was written by a hungarian woman & it has sentences like "thank you nee-chan!* *Nee chan means sister in Japanese". It starts with a sex scene that gets interrupted. I feel like I'm reading fanfiction(the bad kind) (not because of the sex) (because of the writing style)

On the other hand I'm surprised by how fast I'm reading this. The writing style is simple and very predictable. I almost forgot what it feels like to read something where I don't have to think

#ough #last time she got me the novel based on the Prom Broadway musical #eugh american teenagers and homophobia #i only got like halfway through #its just not my taste at all......#even in fanfictions i dont like to read about these type of characters #she was showing me a book summary that was about a girl falling in love with a punk girl #but it was written by the person who wrote that red royal blue or whatever the fuck that book is called #i don't want a neoliberal take on lesbian punks #to be fair she occasionally bought me books on art

8 notes · View notes

gothicprep · 5 months

Text

was killing some time and stumbled onto a subreddit for teachers, and someone opened up a thread about why some school districts don't teach to kill a mockingbird anymore, and why it's being replaced with more contemporary books that the OP isn't as satisfied with teaching. the example she brings up is "dear justyce" by nic stone, which is a contemporary novel that came out in 2020. and basically her question is, if the intention is to teach a book that deals with racism in america, why not go for something by toni morrison instead? the answers broadly split into two general categories: that white conservative parents are throwing a hissy fit because they don't want anything to do with their kids being taught a novel about 20th century american racism nevermind they were probably taught tkam themselves. the others are saying that it's white savior trash, and some people are echoing that and being like "look at all those people who are calling it white savior trash"

i think it's probably fair to guess that the exact answer is going to vary a lot depending on the school district that's opting out, but these explanations seem a bit too culture war-y, which makes me a bit suspicious about how accurate they are. the triggered conservative parent would probably have more of an ax to grind with something like dear justyce, and the white savior thing doesn't answer her question about why something like "beloved" isn't chosen instead. they're kind of non-answers. and stuff like this basically relates back to why i think viewing everything through the lens of political polarization is such a neurotoxican.

because i'm not an english teacher and don't have insider insight, i can only speculate, but i think what's actually going on here (at least on a macro sense, not related to regional specific school board scraps) boils down to competing theories about what the purpose of an english class should be. it's been a long time since i was in middle and high school, but i remember our reading assignments being basically supplemental material to our history lessons. and from multiple vantage points too – we were assigned tkam and huck finn, but also a raisin in the sun and their eyes were watching god. and even though i didn't ~love~ everything we had to read, i definitely feel like i retained a lot more than i would have otherwise from both classes because the material was working in tandem. history sticks a bit better when you also have some context of the type an era is producing. at least it did for me.

but around the time i left, i remember there was a bit of debate popping up in the culture around whether an english class should be something like that, something that was hyper-focused on literary devices and analysis, or something that was more designed around contemporary YA type books in order to encourage teenagers to develop a relationship with reading.

i'm not so naive to think that none of the changes in curricula are completely separate to the politics, i think it's probably more that the attitude of what these sorts of classes is moving away from "we're learning about mccarthyism in history. we're being taught the crucible in english" or "you can pass this class by plagiarizing sparknotes" models to the "hopefully the kids don't find their assigned reading to be a total slog" one in the last decade and change.

that's my best guess, anyway. surprised i didn't see anyone raise this point.

13 notes · View notes

elivenya · 1 year

Text

The issue with Shadow and Bone

is that is represents everything what went wrong with the american education and mindset. Sometimes it's a bit ironic... Selfproclaimed wokeflakes and worldsaviors are starting witch hunts because of every damn little thing these days, sometimes they are even inventing problems, but if something has some actual problematic ideology, then they are taking a blind eye on it. Even if it is right in front of their faces. Often they aren't even able to spot it at all. I am tired of explaining to americans why Alina is the problematic Paul Atreides of the story. I am tired to explain basic history stuff and i am tired to explain why the story is a trivialistion of fascism and ethnical cleansing.

And i can't even blame the people for it, because their whole society is based on anti-intelectualism and internalized colonizer mindset. And they don't care to learn anything. Not even from the people who actualy belong to the specific culture or from people who know stuff about how oppression works. And this attitude is also brought up.

So we could say S&B is just a silly fantasy story and it maybe would be if the fandom would deal different with it...

The other thing is that i could write an complete essay about how contemporary YA literature in general inreased the issue with adapting to low reading levels and spoonfeeding everything what people are supposed to think and feel. And all this in combination with not teaching very much about the world or just oversimplification of things...

#shadow and bone #grishaverse #leigh bardugo #ya books

33 notes · View notes

clairelsonao3 · 5 months

Note

Happy STS! Today, I'm pulling away from characters (finally 🤭) and asking about influences. Who are your literary influences? Can you see specific influences coming through in some of your specific works?

Happy ST(T)! Thanks for ask, Tori!

Back when I was doing my MFA and writing more literary fiction, I used to cite Margaret Atwood as a major influence, which is probably still true to some extent, in terms of her writing style and because her best-known work is dystopian fiction. At least one person (hi @tabswrites) has compared GSNBTR to The Handmaid's Tale, even though I was definitely NOT thinking of that when I conceived of it.

I'd actually say some of the biggest influences on GSNBTR were the modern slavery AU fanfics (and some original fics) I found on Ao3, which gave me an idea of what was possible with that trope. That said, I think of GSNBTR as sort of the love child that gets conceived when a slavery AU fanfic meets a contemporary M/F romance (peppered with mystery/thriller elements and other weird/nerdy stuff unique to me, of course). However, I don't pick up that much contemporary romance these days, just because so little of it tends to satisfy my, uh, very specific tastes. Two that I did get into in the past few years were Hard Time by Cara McKenna (a standalone that I wish was a series) and the Devil's Rock series by Sophie Jordan, which although I didn't love everything about them, definitely helped familiarize me with many of the conventions of contemporary (spicy) romance, which absolutely have filtered their way down.

When it comes to the mystery and thriller elements, I would be remiss not to admit my fondness for Pretty Little Liars, which I was a fan of despite being already well out of my teens when it was popular. I actually deliberately set out to read it after deciding to write a YA thriller and realizing that I hadn't actually read any YA in years😅. Obviously, that was probably more of an influence on The Adored. More recently, I've probably taken more from the twisty, intricately plotted adult thrillers of Harlan Coben, Karin Slaughter, and Lisa Gardner.

Of course, speaking of very specific tastes, as time has gone by and I started getting more and more into the Tumblr whump community, I can definitely see some of the wonderful stories I've read here filter their way in as influences, as well. Thanks, friends!

#sts #asked and answered #my writing #gsnbtr #wip: the adored

5 notes · View notes

5chatzi · 6 days

Note

Okay I'm going to send you some partly-solicited recs for queer literature and classics because I have a decent amount of exposure to both~~

My qualifications include a degree in English and now being halfway towards my MLIS lol this is what I was made for

For queer lit, sometimes it depends heavily on your own orientation, like bi people want to read books with bi representation, etc. But those preferences notwithstanding, here are some generally quality titles:

Zenovia July by Lisa Bunker: A trans girl solves a cyber crime. Mystery, YA, contemporary setting, trans rep

The House in the Cerulean Sea by TJ Klune: a gay man who lives a boring government-worker life travels to an island in order to monitor the family of magical children who live there. Fantasy, found family, adult fiction (it has some kid's book vibes but does contain mild sexual content and mild swearing), gay representation.

Ace by Angela Chen -- nonfiction, part memoir exploration of what it means to be asexual, for the author personally and for society generally.

Last Night at the Telegraph Club by Malinda Lo -- a Chinese-American girl in 1950s San Francisco comes to terms with being a lesbian. Historical fiction, adult fiction (or might be YA?? There is what I'd call mild sexual content), lesbian representation, AAPI representation

Jeanette Winterson is a queer author whose work I generally like!(don't have specific title recs though) (I have read The Passion, and she has a couple biographies shelved in the queer library in which I volunteer. The Passion is not very explicitly queer from my memory but it is very good regardless.

For classics, here are titles that I personally Actually Enjoyed Reading and found relatively accessible:

To Kill a Mockingbird (and I also like the film-- I should have added that to my answer to your ask)

To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf is my absolute favourite classic novel, but I won't pretend it's for everyone, or that it's especially accessible. It's written in a heavily Modernist style that involves a quite lyrical, non-linear plot. But the prose is breathtakingly gorgeous and it has a really moving anti-war message.

Also, Orlando by Woolf as well, and this one is also queer! Features a genderqueer/trans/otherwise gendernonconforming character.

The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins is very long, but it's a mystery, and I found it engaging. The section narrated by the character Marianne is the best, and I headcanon her as asexual or possibly a lesbian.

The Color Purple by Alice Walker is what I would call poignant, and it's fairly short. Be warned that it contains some SA content, racism, and AAVE dialect that could be hard to understand.

Macbeth or Twelfth Night or King Lear are my favourite Shakespeare works to recommend. But with Shakespeare, it's better if you can see a film or live performance, since just reading the script can be difficult to follow.

Little Women!!! God, I love Little Women. Honestly not sure how that wasn't the first one I thought of.

Oh thanks so much for the thorough response!

I’ll admit most of these are wildly outside my normal genre, but I’m always willing to try new things.

I have read Macbeth in school but it’s been ages and I am pretty sure I’ve read Little Women but I can’t remember it would have been a long time ago. Oh and To Kill a Mockingbird. I think everyone has read that in school but don’t think I’ve read it since.

I’m gonna write them down and check them out and see how it goes. I pretty much exclusively read non fiction so should be interesting 😅

#meg answers mail

2 notes · View notes

corneliushickey · 1 year

Note

i don't understand people who specifically choose to sugarcoat abusive relationships and turn them into some tepid ship-slop that retains zero character. don't get me wrong, i love glorifying violence myself, but what's the point if you just remove/ignore all the *violence*?

i'm not sure which ship this is about if you have a specific one in mind but i can tell you that it applies to all the ships that i personally have feelings about lol

i think this is, in general, a part of two common fandom phenomena that i think have the same root

1. people want to engage, not in canon, but with a distorted facsimile of canon that is generally simpler, happier, funnier, and trope-ier.

"coffee shop aus" are a common symptom of this and a common way of maligning this. idek if coffee shop aus are popular anymore? i feel like fandom generally moved on from them as more people a) experienced the reality of customer service labor and b) became embarrassed of them because people made fun of them

but i still regularly see high school aus, modern (as a shorthand for contemporary and mundane) aus, flower shop aus, etc. which are all basically the same thing

i can't tell you what the appeal is of wanting to engage with a story by sanding off all of its features and using the actors in it as face claims for your YA origfic, because i do not feel it myself

and

2. the specific and overwhelming desire/tendency for fandom to latch onto villains (or morally complex/grey characters), turn them into featureless grey blobs full of generalized anxiety disorder, and then slowly nurse them back to health at their teat

i have no idea what the appeal of "woobifying" villains is, especially since every single villain gets woobified the exact same way, so really, it's more about picking an actor you want to have sex with and projecting the same sad kylo ren backstory onto them

BOTH of these things come from, in my humble opinion, the fact that most people who are very into fandom, are actually more interested in Fandom than in the source text of whatever fandom they are in

i don't want to speak in a way that makes it sound like i, tumblr user cornelius hickey, am somehow uninvolved in fandom or better than people who are

i think it's very clear that fandom is one of my primary hobbies. it is how i enjoy spending my time and it is a space where i enjoy creating my work (primarily writing and meta)

but i have always personally felt disappointed by the (now predictable and expected) experience of going into a space where people claim to be discussing [thing i have watched/read recently and become obsessed with] and find that instead it is more of the same featureless blobs doing the same featureless blob things they have been doing since i was ten years old, and since god only knows how long before then as well

all to say that if you would ever like to glorify some violence, you are welcome and encouraged to do so in my ask box

#ask tag #anonymous #fandom

19 notes · View notes

starswallowingsea · 2 years

Text

I've been thinking about this because of the shitty ads for contemporary YA romance going around and the way books are marketed using an extreme amount of fanfiction tropes and almost nothing else. Like yes tropes ARE a part of literature and can be used to help catalogue books and movies in archives and such but they aren't supposed to be supplements for summaries and plot.

Like if you tell me something is contemporary YA which follows a businesswoman struggling at her job and trying to figure out why she's unhappy slowly getting closer to the local cafe barista when she stops in over the course of the novel and she goes on a journey of self discovery and etc etc that would at least tell me what the book is about. I probably wouldn't read it or like it if I read it because I don't like contemporary YA romance but I at least know what it's about and would be able to recommend it to someone if they were looking for something similar.

But if you took that same book and ONLY told me it was contemporary YA romance, slowburn, and coffee shop, that doesn't really tell me anything about the characters or why I should care. These are original characters I can't just look at ao3 tags and be like "oh yeah I like these characters already I want to see them in this specific scenario" these are original characters and you have to give me a reason to care. When I'm looking for a book to read I'm looking for a book, not a fanfiction for something I already like. If I wanted to read fanfiction I would read it. Publishing fanfiction doesn't not make it fanfiction and describing books exclusively in fanfiction tropes and nothing else does not a good book advertisement make. They are not a replacement for an actual summary, they are a tool that can help quickly identify books in a catalogue or archive if someone is looking for something to read.

This isn't to dunk on fanfiction! I write and read fanfic but it's more akin to the junk food of the literature world. It's good and yummy and can fill in a specific niche in internet communities, but it shouldn't make up your entire literature consumption, yknow?

Also for fucks sake, stop describing classical literature with fanfiction tropes you are doing a severe disservice to them and completely missing the point of literally all those books. If I have to see one more person describe Pride and Prejudice as "enemies to lovers" I will scream.

#shay speaks #bookblr #booktok #using both those tags bc i think this is a discussion that needs to be had #tropes are things in books and same with character archetypes #HOWEVER book tropes and fanfic tropes are not the same thing #books have tropes based on their genres like femme fatale for example #like they're not a wholly bad thing its the oversaturation of them in the market and advertising that i think is the bigger issue #it also feels like when this happens to books the books themselves dont have much of an identity outside of those tropes #bc they feel like they have to fit them instead of taking a chance and breaking them or doing something new with them #its very cookie cutter writing i think (having read several of these books. they're pretty much the same thing slightly reskinned)#also im not saying this is like THE take on tropes if you have different thoughts i'd love to hear them just #be respectful? and i will return it. i think these topics need multiple viewpoints and aren't wholly black and white #okay im done tag rambling now #ok2rb

53 notes · View notes

stormblessed95 · 2 years

Text

Disability Pride Month

Did you know July is actually Disability Pride? And did yall know I'm Disabled? I have multiple Invisible Disabilities. Meaning that if you met me in real life on any regular day, there is a good chance you would have no idea that I can't remember the last time I wasn't in pain. How we probably have very different definitions of the word exhausted. So I hope everyone will take the chance to just do a little something for the month of July to increase your own awareness. Especially if you are able-bodied. Look into ablism, learn about the Spoon Theory if you don't already know it. (Highly recommend that one! Would be willing to talk about it with yall if you have any questions!) Try to be a little more conscious of how you never know what someone is dealing with and don't judge someone for using mobility aids, even if it doesn't look like they should need it. Or "you don't look sick." Or for someone who parks in a handicap spot but isn't in a wheel chair. And for anyone else who is disabled here, I hope you take pride in who you are this month too. Every part of you! And I'm willing to talk about it if anyone wants to 😊💜

And on that note! I'm actually here to celebrate just a bit with yall in my usual way when I make posts not about BTS. By sharing books!! So here are some books that I've throughly enjoyed that have Disability Representation in them!!

1. Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo

Fantasy thieving crew heist novel. Rep includes Chronic Pain, Mobility Aid Use (cane), PTSD, Dyslexia and Addiction. It also is now a Netflix show! You should read the books though!

2. Sick Kids In Love by Hannah Moskowitz

YA Contemporary Romance novel. Rep includes Rheumatoid Arthritis and Gaucher disease. (Made me cry in a good way!)

3. One For All By Lillie Lainoff

Historical gender bent three musketeers Retelling. Rep for POTS.

4. Get a Life Chloe Brown by Talia Hibbert

Romance fiction, rep for fibromyalgia

5. All the Right Reasons by Bethany Mangle

YA Contemporary Romance. Rep includes EDS. (Haven't read this one yet, but on my TBR!)

6. The Bone Houses by Emily Lloyd Jones

YA Horror Paranormal Fantasy with Zombies. Rep for Chronic Pain

7. Iron Widow by Xiran Jay Zhao

YA Sci-Fi/Fantasy as a Mecha Retelling of the rise of the Chinese Empress Wu Zetian. Rep includes Cane and Wheelchair usage.

Thanks for letting me share! Happy July Everyone! I hope you all have a wonderful weekend! And if you have any good recs for me, please feel free to share them as well!

#books with disability rep

68 notes · View notes