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sjw-publishings · 1 month

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Hey Everyone,

I don’t tend to write these kinds of posts on my tumblr page, however I feel this is necessary.

In the event you are not aware, Dumb and Jocked, the main person I do collabs with, and also who is someone who most people might consider to be one of the backbones of the Tumblr TF community, has deactivated his account and left us last week.

Most of the people and I do not know exactly why or how this happened, but it's the reality of the situation unless he somehow does return in the future.

Some tumblrs might still have some of his stories reblogged, including mine, however some of which cannot be accessed as they are stuck at the ‘read more’ page. Notably his longer stories ‘Branded’ and both parts of the major collaboration we did together in ‘Narrow residences’.

If anyone has any of these stories saved somewhere, it would be great if you could either link it to me or post it on Tumblr.

Below will be my farewell to him, in the event he ever does somehow read it. This probably is not the best farewell letter, but it's the best I could do in such short notice and also posting it publicly. —————————————————————

Hey Dumb and Jocked,

Thanks for reading this, and I'm sad to see you go.

We’ve worked on various collabs together and it was fun throughout the years discussing various ideas here and there with you.

Unfortunately, after you left, it just feels really upsetting looking at the stuff you wrote. Even those that were saved from reblogs and reposts from other blogs. While I do want to keep them for memories and also because I did collaborate on some of them, it just feels much sadder trying to indulge in your stories or continue in sequels of it.

I was shocked that you would leave us out of the blue, however a part of me anticipated this.

I'm mostly speculating, but this is a hobby that can be rather controversial and you contributed a massive ton, likely without any compensation. You were quite private in general and talked about stories and bounced off my ideas now and then.

You sort of have a clean gateway if you decide to ever leave for good, as you probably are not really close to anyone here other than writing TF stories.

Some of us hoped that you might return, and speculated maybe it's tumblr accidentally banning you and you would get your account back, but as the days went by, it only reaffirmed that my anticipation was likely correct.

I myself mostly continued on tumblr for you, and I'm not sure if I would continue now that the main reason and person I stuck around for has left without letting any of us know. It is something I will have to decide for myself in the future.

If you ever do return to Tumblr or decide to message me privately to talk about things, that would be great. I do hope you return, even if you don’t write stories that frequently or even at all, so we could talk for a bit.

However I know that I won’t wait forever.

That’s all I will write in this letter. It was fun writing and discussing TF stories with you while it lasted.

-Sjw Publishings

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rustbeltjessie · 2 months

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Big news, everyone! This April, I will be doing a 30/30 on the Tupelo Press website!

I almost always participate in a 30/30 during the month of April—but I don't always post each poem publicly, and the poems I do post wind up on my personal blog. This year, I decided to recommit to my poetry practice and to sharing my 30/30 publicly, and helping Tupelo Press while I'm at it.

This month, I, alongside several other fine poets, am writing thirty poems in thirty days, and sharing them on the Tupelo Press website. After the month is over, these poems are ours to edit and submit as we wish (meaning: they won't be up on the site forever, so read them while they're 'hot off the press!'). We are doing this both to share our own works and practices with the world, and also to ensure Tupelo Press can keep publishing beautiful books featuring an impressive array of diverse poets.

My goal is to raise $350 this month, though any amount beyond that would be even better. I am offering some incentives for those who donate:

For any donation $10-$35, I will send you a postcard featuring an original tanka (written by me) + my original artwork.

For any donation $36-50, you will receive the postcard + have the opportunity to help select one of my poems each week, which I will then incorporate into a video featuring a reading/performance of said poem.

For any donation $51 and above, you will receive the postcard, the input on the videos, and at the end of the month I will send you a mini-zine/chapbook featuring a selection of my poems from throughout the month.

I will make a new post on April 1, with a link to where you can read my poems. I will also post regular updates on this project (and others) throughout the month. In the meantime, please consider helping me kickstart my fundraiser. Every dollar gives me confidence to write more, and helps the press place more poems in gorgeous books. Help me to help this distinguished press, and to recommit to my poetry practice. Thank you, and I'll see you again in April!

#jessie lynn mcmains #writers on tumblr #spilled ink #poetry #30/30 #tupelo press #fundraiser #napowrimo #napowrimo 2024

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urmoonstone · 2 years

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a fresh start~!

welcome yall!

im so excited to see so many people already showing up! i consider anyone who found me through twitter to be what i call:

~ the real ones ~

you've stuck through thick and thin and i truly appreciate you giving a shit about me that much to follow a little link to a whole ass other place to keep in touch! that really means a ton to me.

seriously, i have been so disenchanted with twitter and general public spaces for.. a while now! for a couple reasons - mostly personal. i don't think i've talked about this much publicly and since we're.. looks left looks right ~ the real ones ~ here... i figure i'll talk about it a bit

a couple things on why i've been so quiet in places lately. i plan to talk a LOT on tumblr so.. get ready LOL

another me & frozen time

thousands of people found me through videos that i don't want to be associated with anymore. i had my twitter account for years but it never surpassed a couple hundred. it was mostly just friends and people i knew from early abridged series days. that all changed when my twitter handle was blasted on videos that literally a million eyeballs have seen. at that time i was coming off of the actual lowest point of my life. i really wasn't ready to be in front of so many people publicly like that, but situations played out a certain way and i took a leap and went for it.

because i was still so mentally rattled, i put on this performer face that was full of energy and ready to be interactive and reactionary so that, well, the hundreds of thousands of new eyeballs on me would like me. i didn't want to let them down. this was a huge opportunity after all and i did have a natural performer presence already. i just kinda, dialed it up a ton because a camera was on. and what do you know, it worked! people liked my stupid shit. they liked my banter with others, and it all worked out. for a while. keeping on that mask takes a lot of energy. i'm not naturally that extroverted. i think so few people are. but, the impression was already set in people's minds. i was "salty" and "annoying" at my worst but a chaotic spaz who injected fun at my best.

people captured this image of me in time that they can constantly replay and it's a version of myself that i despise. a fake hyperbole that's farthest from genuine imaginable. so when people followed through to the thing in those videos, my twitter, they expected that same person, that same version of myself and.. well they would rarely get it. keeping up that "bit" forever wasn't feasible for someone like me. and i frankly can't keep up at something like that. it made me more depressed trying to meet up to certain expectations, and the volume of critical and downright hateful messages really took a toll on me.

not to say that all of them are bad! i've met so many amazing and wonderful people through those videos. i don't regret doing them. but after they're published, what the world does with them is out of my control. and they kind of exploded in a way that i really didn't expect. and so people look for this thing from me, they don't get it, and they move on. but some of them still followed me on twitter, and it kind of inflated that number to a point that stressed me out constantly. i can handle eyes on me, but.. how many of those eyes were on the real me? not a ton. most of them were looking for another me. the one frozen in time in youtube uploads, always making the same jokes. a caricature on display.

and so i tried to be more human.

public venting & the timeskip

on some videos i let slip that yknow, i had depression and anxiety. people heard about this and asked questions. as the numbers grew i started to feel like my voice was more and more legitimate, that i had something to say that people should be listening to. and at the end of the day i wanted to be a voice that could lift people up and encourage others. i wanted to be a teacher, dammit! but really the motivation was always helping people. so i tried to a bit of that on twitter, in, well, maybe not the best way.

i treated twitter like a journal. i was extremely open about my struggles throughout the days. at 2 am i would post about how miserable i was, but how grateful i was to have people in my corner. and sure enough a ton of people would send in a bunch of kind messages my way. they were genuine and encouraging. i had open DMs and broadcast to people: "hey! if you need someone to talk to at 3 in the morning cuz you're goin thru it, i'm here to listen"

and i was!! there were hundreds of people that messaged me and i did my best to listen and to offer advice if i had any. some just sent in their own kind words and that was always sweet. some of them we had a longer back and forth talking through situations and they thanked me afterward. i got a DM the other day from someone who messaged me years ago to say thank you for hearing them out back in 2016. that really made my day.

but it was really difficult keeping up with all of that, and throughout all of this i wasn't in therapy myself. my messages became growingly personal on twitter to where a couple of my friends would approach me and say "you probably shouldn't be so open about this on twitter." and i ignored them!! looking back on it they were right. there were people who thanked me for being so open about it and said that my openness showed them that they weren't alone in what they were dealing with. which is its own comfort. i'm really glad for that. but finding that next step to improving on things is where the action is. and i couldn't be that. i'm not a therapist or a counselor. (honestly i would like to be but... maybe that'll be later in life!)

for a time this would go on though. i would vent on twitter, being way more open than i probably should've been, people would reply in kind, and it would repeat. i knew things couldn't keep going this way, and so i sought the help of a therapist. this was at the start of 2020.

do you know who else needed therapy at the start of 2020?

my mom everyone!!

everyone was stuck inside. so many people realized they had the same problems i did. and now they were online more than ever to post openly about their struggles, to vent on twitter, to add to the chorus of complaints. sometimes it's good to complain. sometimes it's good to vent! but there needs to be something in place to help you figure out where to go from there, and so many people would just circle the drain of depression, never moving forward, commiserating forever.

this, my friends, is ~the timeskip~. a lot of people are upset. the world seems scarier than ever. i won't pretend a lot of it isn't scary! and that venting isn't okay! but it was just.. too much for me. after pursuing therapy and making fundamental changes in myself, i decided that i wouldn't broadcast all my negativity on twitter. i saw what was happening and wanted to be a happy, positive, genuine voice to lift people up. i was already working on my game development project and so i tried to encourage others to pursue their creative endeavors, doing literally anything other than festering on the negatives. because that will only make everything worse!

sometimes depression and anxiety doesn't give you a choice on how to feel, but you have a choice to get on twitter & contribute to the cacophony. i choose not to! and even now i feel like saying something like this is BAD because...

public enemy

i'm not about to say my depression is "cured," but therapy has helped more than ever to get my depression in a manageable spot. i don't feel helpless. i know that i can figure things out. i've made it through worse! but what still creeps its ugly head from time to time is...

anxiety

i'm a perfectionist and always have been. i didn't understand until the past couple of years that anxiety and perfectionism are basically the same thing! scared of failure, imagining the worst possible outcome and becoming paralyzed by indecision. what if you do the wrong thing? what if you say the wrong thing..??

and this fear has kept me from saying.. basically anything online!

i see my almost 30,000 twitter followers and would think "all it takes is to say something wrong for that ONE person and i'm done." Even now i'm sitting here like, "why even bother saying this?" but i'd rather get this out there for ~ the real ones ~ (and i need the writing practice!).

i'm not about to complain about ~ cancel culture ~ but i can't pretend that being someone with that many eyes on me hasn't made me clam up more than ever.

i see other creators with hundreds of thousands of eyes on them who keep their head buried in their creation and their public presence to a minimum. and i envy that. i want to do that more and more. i would rather that my creative works speak for themselves and people can enjoy and interpret the art i make. i know i only have the smallest percentage of publicity as someone like toby fox, but i get why you'd want to stay more anonymous with how mean some people can be online. even typing these words i think "i'm sure someone's gonna be mad about this" and you know what?

fuck em~!

i know that i'm not a bad person. i want to help people. i have only ever wanted to raise people up and encourage them to do their best. and to be the best they can be!

i think a lot of people are scared to be honest about things, and i can see why. but i want to be authentic.

i want to be myself.

i am cringe.

but i am free.

and all of ~ the real ones ~ will be getting nothing less than that! i hope you will be your cringe ass as well.

in conclusion

i'm grateful for the opportunities i've had and things i've been able to do, but i'm ready to make a solid foot forward establishing my identity as who i really am, not as some caricature. i'll still be doing goofy gameplay videos with Grant here and there because we've known each other forever and he's my best friend and i love him! but my main focus is definitely making this card game and video game and other creative things!

thank you so much for stopping by and sticking with me. i know i may not be exactly what you expected when you first followed, or however you found me. maybe i'm exactly what you expected! in which case... oh no... i have to dial the cringometer at least another 10 notches...

i really enjoy writing like this and haven't had an outlet for it in some time. expect to see more like this as well as some gamedev / game design posts from meeeee. i'm excited to see all the artists on here and to post my own cringe ass art stuff soon too!

have a good one. much love to yall.

おやすみ～

#cringe #lol

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pochapal · 1 year

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I don’t know if you’ve been asked this before, but what was your experience with detective mystery novels before umineko?

i've always gravitated towards stories with mysteries or something obtuse to puzzle over and figure out but i'm not actually that versed in detective fiction at all haha. the genres i'm normally into lean more towards horror and speculative/literary and also everything that homestuck is so while a lot of stuff i read does have central mysteries guiding their plots, the specific construction of detective mystery isn't something i am incredibly familiar with on the whole.

my closest experience to detective mystery fiction was actually when i was super into danganronpa as a teen and i ended up trying to write my own original killing game fan story. i never finished it and it's kind of cringe looking back at it but i did spend several years of my life trying to construct solid "hard but fair" murder mystery cases (i still have a bunch of files on my hard drive from when i planned it all out lol) that i think taught me a lot about the experience of a murder mystery from both the perspective of the writer and the reader. a lot of that was making up a guy in my head and imagining them trying to catch me out based on where their thinking would likely be at each stage. so then i was also thinking of my mystery but also how to throw this hypothetical guy off the scent while still making something solvable. the writing process was very much like chessboard spinning but if you put the chessboard in a 1 million rpm washing machine and turned into a weird psychological game of cat and mouse between me and a person that didn't necessarily exist.

the mysteries i published were kind of not that great (their conceits were "how can you find *the* culprit when the culprit is actually two people in tandem" and "an incredibly obvious case that becomes complicated by everybody else's assumptions and overthinking") since i wrote and planned them out when i was like 17 but the later cases i never got around to doing when i hit my stride and sketched out the rest of this story would have been way cooler (one murder was going to hinge around a really nasty wordplay trick to do with the time of death that technically wasn't a lie but was incredibly misleading and deceptive and another was an elaborate cause-effect chain involving a publicly witnessed indisputable suicide as the trigger) if i'd gotten around to completing the story. i will forever be haunted by this one particular locked double locked room murder i spent six months of my life sketching out down to the minute by minute positioning of the characters. it would have had the 2018 fanganronpa community trembling in their boots if i had ever realized my vision lmao.

anyway i guess my experience with detective mystery fiction is coming more from the position of a writer than a reader which i think comes through a little when you examine some of my thought processes (my approach at times is very much "if i was writing this story right now what would i do here" and then i search for evidence to try and back that up) even if i'm not super well-read or familiar with the genre outside of like one vn series lol. i know about making fiction and i know about keeping people guessing via revealing and concealing information and past a certain point most fiction operates under similar principles so that's how i got into understanding and approaching mystery. i think it's a fun genre, both to produce and to read now that i'm reading something that is more seriously presenting itself as a piece of detective mystery fiction! umineko is good because it really is scratching a specific kind of itch i never really address in my own writing these days because there's a specific time and occasion to produce these kinds of mysteries. hope this illuminates my understanding of/relationship to this genre a little more!

#nauseating-nostalgia #i always think writing detective/mystery fiction is fun and i should do it more but i never really get the chance haha #oh i also know vaguely about that infamous 'rules of detective fiction' list (i think it's also referenced in a zero escape game?)#specifically the 'secret doors/passageways are signs of a hack mystery writer and should be avoided at all costs' rule #which made me super mad when i was planning my danganronpa story because i did in fact have a secret passage plot point #and ended up scrapping it because i was afraid these detective fiction rules were taken seriously and everyone would trash my story lol #can't remember any of the other like million rules that were there except for that one that made teenage me feel SO insecure lmfao

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scifrey · 1 year

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I JUST realized why, for the first time in forever, I'm SO engaged with writing a fanfiction and posting it as I go, and why I keep rereading and rereading and rereading the amazing comments and tags.

The last longform fanfic I wrote was in 2015, and it was To a Stranger. I've written some loosely connected drabbles based on Alice Rovai's beautiful art since, but in terms of fanfic, that's all I've done in 8 years.

I used to write and post fanfic constantly. I'd been creating, and posting, and sharing in all sorts of fandoms and communities pretty much continuosly since 1991.

What changed?

Well I became a professionally represented writer. I had a literary agent, I had contract deals, and I had deadlines. And don't get me wrong, I LOVE IT. It's fantastic to be able to write and share my original stories with the world.

But it meant that all of my creative brain and time was taken up with original stories instead of fanfic. And I was fine with that, I was getting to create. I wrote stories, and people reviewed them well, and my editor and my publishers adored them.

But my relationship with my literary agent began to break down pretty swiftly, and I spent a lot of time being talked over, ignored, misunderstood, and misinterpreted as a result.

I pitched a bunch of books she didn't want, and wrote a few others that she didn't understand or know how to sell. Some are still just rotting on my hard drive to this day. We parted ways in 2020. In order to query for a new agent, I began work on a novel that I've been thinking of for at least a decade.

It took me 2 years to write that book, and I've been querying it for a year. I've had over 130 rejections at this point, because it is a difficult, weird book with a tone that purposely doesn't match the themes, and it is absolutely on the too-long side of market wordcount preference.

I understood that this would be a hard slog when I decided to use a book like this to query. I knew that finding a new literary agent would not be easy, and that going out into the world with probably one of the hardest books I've ever written would not lead to a quick and easy new professional relationship.

But goddamn does it feel awful to spend half a decade being told no. It is not doing good things for my mental health or my confidence as a creator.

My beta readers love the book. But besides those three people, I have heard nothing but negative things about my writing for YEARS.

Which as you can imagine does not inspire me to sit down and try to write anything new. I probably should let this book rest. I should be putting it in a drawer and moving on to the next novel, trying to write something a little more palatable, and going out on query with that. But I just don't have the heart to create something new, AGAIN, knowing that it's probably just going to tip into that same black hole of non-response, misunderstanding or indifference that's swallowed up the last handful of projects I've worked on.

And then I thought, maybe it's time to write something for fun again.

I was struck with a cracky idea for a fanfic (though in typical J.M. Frey style I seem determined to make my readers cry) and I decided to try writing it.

Normally I would write the whole story and then post it when it was finished. But I am genuinely afraid that if I started it that way, if I didn't talk about it publicly and nobody knew I was doing it, my interest would fizzle out and my ennui about creating would take over and it abandon it. (The same way I have the last two novels I tried to start in the past few months.)

So I did the thing that I have been terrified to do since I first became a professional writer: I've started posting the fic AS I write it.

And holy crap am I inspired to continue. It's a shame that my day job is in the way because I just want to sit and write and write and write and write and write.

This hasn't happened to me in YEARS.

And it's because of you people.

It's because, for the first time and half a decade, people are saying nice things about my writing. People are responding positively to my stories. And I didn't realize how much negativity I was internalizing with the query rejections. I didn't realize how much the repeated "no"s were dragging me down.

Hopefully one day soon I'll get another literary agent and I can start hearing great things about my writing again from The Biz.

But honestly, I'm starting to think that that doesn't matter.

Right now, I am ony knees with tears in my eyes THANKING YOU.

Thank you all for reminding me why I do this: to make readers feel something, to engage readers minds and hearts, and to put good stories out into the world.

So thank you so much for letting me know you enjoy them. Thank you for helping me believe in my work again.

#jmfrey #am writing #creative writing #writing #writing community #writer #author #fanfic #fanfiction

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thecarnivorousmuffinmeta · 2 years

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Why u change you mind? You posted the other day how Lily was just on a short break—now it’s just gone??

Initially, I had sent out initial pages of manuscripts to agents and was still waiting on a response. I had hoped that I could argue with them that a) the fic is good advertisement b) hurts neither my sales nor Harry Potter's and c) the Russians have probably scraped it anyway.

I had every intention of continuing to update while I waited.

They hadn't gotten back to me yet, so I started looking seriously into self-publishing just after I made that post. And I thought, for a bit, I could perhaps keep it up as they are markedly different.

However, as I was formatting the first ten or so chapters I had an "oh fuck" moment.

To self publish there are automated checks to see if there's any matching text on the internet. There are large differences, but there's also things that are the same (specific quotes, some descriptions, etc.) And as far as I can tell there's no place to easily comment "Hey, I know this is a thing, I promise it's not a free version floating on the web/I didn't steal it and I can prove it, please publish."

In order to publish, I have to make inaccessible publicly.

Now, why I didn't come out and say it is that I've been Wattpad poached in the past where people have PM'd me asking for permission to post my fics (as is, not translations) on Wattpad in order to get money. I have always said no, but with no competing official version I can point to, and with this being publicly accessible, I'm afraid that leaving it easily downloaded for too long will result in it immediately going straight up on Wattpad or else somewhere else.

I also hadn't realized people were honestly still that interested. Either people had downloaded it and read it ages ago or else were never interested.

It's a very old story with a reputation (some people love it, some people hate it, some people wonder what the fuck a Wizard Lenin is). It's been around forever though and my thought was "well, if they haven't gotten to it already, they were never going to and they'd certainly have no interest in a book version."

And, well, here we are.

My hope is that, after publishing and automated checks are done, giving this all about a month or so after publishing when a human could start looking, I can keep the Ao3 back up until the second book needs to come up and we go through this whole deal again until the whole thing is done and we can have both versions on the net. However, I can't make any promises about that, so I won't try to. (The argument for this being a problem is if the distributor then finds it, I get to prove I own the fic, and then says they want it taken down anyway because they decide there's too much in common + fanfiction nonsense that always makes people quake in their boots and then there's nothing I can do).

I realize this is very sudden news, that I hadn't realized was as sudden as it was because I'm an idiot who thought people read all my posts and realize "oh trying to make a novel" means "may have to come down".

Ultimately though, the fic does have to not be publicly accessible for at least a little while, which means off the internet it goes...

#lily and the art of being sisyphus

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words-writ-in-starlight · 6 years

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reading part 1 and like, it feels silly to go ‘dang nice first line’ when you clearly worked hard on the first line, you know full well it’s nice, but still. nice first line. drops you right in the world, has that ring of myth but also of urgency, explains right away what the problem is, and also now I’m overanalyzing but it does start things right off by making sure you don’t trust Crispin, don’t trust what he appears to be no matter what. it puts you on edge, on guard, making sure you assume

he’ll lie to you (well, to Brenneth). And like. I know what the original story is, it’s not like I needed the reminder, but the sharp sense of unbalance and distrust that you get right at the start of the story is quite good. ++ Funny - I realize suddenly that I don’t actually know what Crispin looks like. I know you’ve described him somewhere, but it didn’t stick, or maybe you just didn’t mention the hair. I don’t remember it being red-gold.

(the hades and persephone au)

Fun fact, I scrapped THREE, count them, THREE intro scenes before I settled on this one, so no, you are no over-analyzing. Some fragments of the other intro scenes wound up elsewhere in the story, but mostly? I just chucked them wholesale and started from scratch. So, like, yeah, I’m really glad that one works out because I was rapidly running out of good places in the story to pick up the action. Also, this is both a nod to the actual intro to the novel and wildly at odds, because on the one hand, it does open with a mysterious individual who has, presumably, broken into Brenneth’s home, but it’s also all trust all the time with Crispin from the very first line of the novel, so.

Yoo the season thing is tight, that is the good stuff, and by saying it’s jarring you make it into a bad, unnatural thing, not a thing of wonder as it would be in most stories. Nice. ++ “mundane lightning, if such a thing even existed” Interesting. Not even sure why exactly, just.. interesting. ++ I like that he stabs her xD ++ “her best emotionless expression” NICE I like how this shows, without explaining why, not only that she’s upset somehow, but that it’s a big deal (her BEST such

expression, this is a big effort she’s making). It suggests a personal connection, which, ok, I know she has one bc I know Alleirat, but this is fanfic, that’s allowed. Anyway it’s a very economical way of showing it, so nice job. ++ “the snarl evaporated into a smile” Huh. He trusts her, in a way, even if only in that he thinks he knows her well enough to know what to expect. ++ "If you wanted to talk” I wonder if he really does think, even for a moment, that this is just personal.

Crispin…like, to be completely honest, he’s not completely stable at this moment–I was going to say “not completely himself” but that wouldn’t be accurate–and he wants to force Brenneth into saying out loud what’s upsetting her. Largely because it will upset her to say it out loud. It’s a cruel jab, to do it in a way that reminds her that they’re friends, but he’s also trying to drive her into lashing out and, quite frankly, attempting his execution then and there, so he goes for cruelty over efficiency.

"gentle note of menace” Interesting. What menace does he threaten? What can he threaten, here? Or is it just generalized menace? Maybe he’s just a menacing guy. ++ "glittered like a jewel in a setting” An unusual metaphor for a person. I like how it makes him hard and sharp, and fey in how he glitters, and trapped, like jewels are by their settings. ++ Brenneth is very polite. I think I like that about her. I think she does it because she’s solid, steady. She knows who she wants to be, and she’s

not about to be any less than that, even in the little things.

Brenneth is one of those people where a short temper that tends to flare hot and spectacular but largely harmless, which I think is a satisfying contrast with Crispin, who’s slow to lose his temper and coldly precise but absolutely lethal when he does. And above anything else…she’s sad, I think. Brenneth doesn’t like admitting it, in any universe, but she’s sad about a lot of things, a lot of the time, and that makes her a little more likely to offer civility to someone trying to hurt her. Not invulnerable to snapping and getting violent, but it buys

++ @the shards in his eyes: holy shit that’s good imagery. it’s a common enough concept but you’ve phrased it so poetically that it gains new strength ++ god that conversation’s intense. I like that she was mortal before – grounded in the world, in a life, in mundane mortality. And he emerged from a storm, no connections to anything, not even kin, not even parentage. His first memories a furious and beautiful destruction, chaos given

form. And he’s the one who’s Spring, and she who’s Death. ++ "His hands were burned badly across the palms” Good way to keep her fire in the story, even with her being Death and not anything typically considered fiery. Interesting that his hands are burnt where he touched her, but no part of him is burnt from her touching him, not even his chiton. ++ Shiko is bound to a task Brenneth set her, one that benefits Brenneth’s kingdom, and can only leave at her express will, yet Brenneth doesn’t think

of her as a servant, is even uneasy at the thought. I wonder how she does think of Shiko. It doesn’t seem to bother her that Shiko calls her ‘my lord’. (Incidentally I like the Lord thing. It’s a little weird at first but it works. Not sure how to really interpret it yet, if at all - guess I’ll know later in the story - but I like it.)

First of all, I use and abuse a lot of misapplied titles in this, and I would say “lord” is probably the most common one, for a number of reasons. The primary one is probably that Brenneth was introduced into the pantheon as a mortal, which already put her at a disadvantage, so her use of “lord” is making a very clear and specific point about her rank. There’s that quote re: the Tortall about Alanna making a point with “sir” and Kel making a different point with “lady,” and Brenneth is making the former, whereas Krei eventually makes the latter.

Second of all, Brenneth’s whole stance on Shiko is very conflicted. On the one hand, she saved Shiko from an eternity of torment, absolutely and without question, but she did it by basically chaining Shiko to the ferry unless she’s specifically sent on an errand. Shiko has known her longer thank anyone and more completely than anyone with the possible exception of Crispin, so Brenneth thinks of them as equals, but Shiko is acutely aware that her existence as someone not being tortured is entirely dependent on Brenneth’s good will, and Brenneth is aware of that as well. And, of course, Brenneth killed Shiko, and it was Shiko’s actions that resulted in Brenneth’s appointment as the god of death. There’s a lot of baggage there.

++ ‘“Well,” Shiko said, and abandoned the sentence.’ And my, what that says about how Brenneth is treated, and what Shiko thinks of it, and what Brenneth thinks

of it. I may be reading too much into it, but after what Crispin said, I don’t think I am. ++ She doesn’t mind thinking of Rada as a servant. Is it the choice? It sounds like though she could compel any shade to serve her (like one from Tartarus), she doesn’t, and they know they have a choice. But Shiko is bound to obey her, so Brenneth is uneasy about it?

Yeah, basically. Shiko has to serve Brenneth or her shade will be banished to the Fields of Punishment, whereas allowing shades to serve in her palace gives them the chance to wait for their family. It’s a kindness she’s offering them, at its core level, whereas Brenneth sees Shiko’s task as the lesser of two fairly serious evils, even though it doesn’t bother Shiko overmuch, and she has a hard time living with having done that to someone who she feels was used and misled, rather than causing problems out of malicious intent.

++ “seeking something to consume” How odd that this is how it manifests. "her godhood was screaming for it” Ok now that’s intriguing. Does

she often get the urge to kill people? Is it only people who ‘should’ be dead? By what measure of ‘should’? ++ I wonder if she only breathes out of habit, from when she was mortal. I wonder if all gods breathe, or if they only bother occasionally. I wonder if Crispin’s heart has ever beat.

Gods’ hearts don’t beat, as far as I’m concerned. If they even have hearts, I guess, I’d be hard pressed to make that call on the spot. Brenneth, basically, kept her mortal body and froze it at the moment of her apotheosis, so she doesn’t need a heartbeat or breathing, but she does them out of habit and as a sort of self-soothing pattern. Oh, and I’d say that speaking with a throat does require breathing regardless of whether the oxygen is needed, on a purely mechanical level, so for those purposes all gods breathe when they’re speaking aloud.

Also, I’d say that it’s rare for Brenneth and her “god-self”, as it were, to be in direct conflict, but gods kill people for disrespect. Brenneth does not. This is her primary conflict with the part of her that operates as a deity first and a “self” second.

++ I think it means Rada’s brave, that he didn’t even back away when his form started to fall apart from her leaking rage. Or that he trusts her, or both. I like him. Witnesses, she asks for. What for?

What did they witness? Does she want to hold a trial? Or does she mean his victims? She can have her pick of those, I think. So many of them work in her palace, and many more are doubtless crowding her kingdom. She could probably just walk out and shout, “who wants to talk shit about the god of spring,” and she’d get like fifty volunteers in 2 seconds flat.

ok I think I’m gonna sleep. also, amusingly, I have now sent you enough asks that I have to prove I’m not a robot to send any more.

Rada is my BEST BOY and I LOVE HIM. He worries SO MUCH about his boss. In canon, he was Brenneth’s third in command when she was hunting Crispin, Torei’s most trusted subordinate, and he was EXACTLY like this, eternally fretting over people’s wellbeing and how seriously Torei was injured and whether or not Brenneth had remembered to eat. He’s a GOOD BOY. DOING HIS BEST. His family is from the south of Alleirat in canon, which means their coloring is a lot like Brenneth’s and she reminds him of one of his younger sisters, so he’s particularly protective of her.

And yeah, everyone’s very eager to talk shit about Crispin. Rada has exactly NO trouble finding volunteers. He just wanders into Asphodel and goes “hey who wants to complain to the Lord of the Underworld about that fucker” and has a line OUT THE DOOR.

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literaticat · 4 years

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Sorry to write again - my last ask was in parts and confusing. I was the girl who was raped by an agent a few years ago (not mine). Ready (I think) to query others, but I’m scared to speak up about him. And my only other options are to give up on being published, or to be part of an industry where he is well-respected. I feel like no one will believe me, and I'll be known as either a victim or "liar." I want to be known for my writing, not for being raped. I'm lost and I hate this so much.

First of all: I’M SORRY THIS HAPPENED. I don’t know any details obviously, but I feel like the first and most important order of business is to TAKE CARE OF YOU. Have you spoken to anyone about this, gotten therapy if needed? Do you have friends or family you trust to confide in? This is no doubt traumatic and taking care of yourself and your mental and physical well-being is priority number one.

Regarding publishing -- you present the options as you see them:

* Give up on the idea of being published, walk away

* Pursue publication, but speak up - the risk being that people perceive you as “victim” or “liar” and that affects how people see you/your work

* Pursue publication but don’t speak up - the risk being that you have to see this asshole/criminal swan around being lauded, traumatizing on several levels

I can’t agree that “give up” is a valid option if, indeed, writing/publishing is your dream.

I do understand that you might feel scared to come forward publicly right now, as a newbie/unknown writer - and I get that. I mean - I do KNOW that tons of people would believe you and be on your side -- but also, I concede that the notoriety that would accompany any public statement would be at best, an awful distraction from your work and goals, and at worst, potentially harmful to you personally/professionally.

But this is also a big burden to carry alone. Would you feel comfortable saying something anonymously, without having to make a big statement with your name on it? If there ARE other people he has preyed on who are also scared, maybe that would be empowering to them to come out as a group and say something? Or at least, I don’t know, potential people that might be harmed could know?

I feel that there MUST be a way to thread the needle between the two options here and move forward - take care of your own mental health, pursue your dreams, keep yourself insulated from negative attention, compartmentalize/avoid this person forever, and when/if you are feeling in control, tell people anonymously/privately OR publicly - however you feel comfortable doing so.

I really don’t know if this is the right advice. I’m really sorry that this happened and that you are feeling like you are in an impossible position. I hope that smarter people than myself can chime in and give resources that might be of use to you!

#predators in publishing

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dictacontrion · 7 years

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Hello, this is the anon who asks about Any Instrument. I've actually given the fic more thoughts after I sent you those asks, and I understood a little bit the reluctance of Ministry's side in contacting other parties about the experiment, much less Draco. Reading Croaker, Robards, and Percy basically told me about how the Ministry feels about the experiment and Draco--and I'm so excited when I read that your answer (thanks so much for it btw!) confirms it. (1)

I guess I came reading the story a bit biased, because tbh, I've never read stories where Harry is This passive. So when I read your answer explaining that the Ministry doesn't have an understanding about Draco like Harry has, and thus is reluctant to include him in the project sooner, I was like "this is like the most obvious answer, why didn't I think about it sooner?" But then I realized that it's because I was too used to the stories in which Harry takes more control in the general (2)

scheme of things. Does it make sense? Like, unconsciously, I understand that other people don't trust Draco. It's something that can be considered a common point in HP fanfictions. But usually, in other stories, Harry headbutts his way through and Make people trust Draco. No matter how strong their distrust is, Harry is stronger, so usually that distrust (unless it comes from Harry) is not the biggest point that moves the plot. (3)

The fact that the answer didn't occur to me in the first place just shows how "out of the place" and "wrong" your Harry is, but in such a subtle way that you feel something is off yet you can't pinpoint exactly what is---just like what you intended the story be. I hope you understand what I mean, I'm not good with words, but you have to know how Thrilled I am upon realizing that your writing is so /moving/. Moving, in a way that you make me emotional in particular scenes, but also in a way (4)

that you managed to tune me in to your story really well. When I read your story, I was practically Draco---couldn't believe how the Ministry could have done that "moronic" experiment, suspicious of everyone's sincerity, frustrated with Harry's odd behavior and wanted to blow his mask off, to push all his button until it breaks and the true Harry comes out. And like I said in the previous asks, I also came to love the characters and understood them (mostly) around the time Draco did. (5)

And I really, really love and respect you for that. I know that it's difficult to write--- much less to write in a way that your readers' tone can match with your story's, to set the readers' mood so that their thought process move in tandem with your characters'. Again, thank you so much for writing the story. It's a bit difficult for me to find a story that can move me like yours does. Even authors with famous published works rarely manage to truly tune me in to their stories, (6)

so I really appreciate that you did. It was a great experience for me, and I'm looking forward to find more of it in your other works. Thank you for writing the amazing piece, and even sharing it for free... I would totally buy your works had they been commercialized, they're totally worth it! I hope that you keep finding things and meeting people who can inspire you, so you can continue writing and inspire others ❤ (7)

Anon, this is one of the coolest asks of my fic-writing tenure and I’m mostly answering it publicly so I can tag it and keep it forever. Also so you know that it blew me right the fuck away and that I appreciate it immensely. Thank you for all of this; it was an incredible gift to read.

#fave #nice anons #any instrument #that thing of getting readers to tune in like that is always one of my top 3 writing goals and it's just really fucking incredible to hear t #and you articulated it really well!!#thank you a lot for this anon #yay asks!

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