Third time’s the charm!! Hi Resbang Book Club participants! Here’s the list of the lovely individuals who went above and beyond in this year’s Book Club season. Great job to all participants who submitted! Without further ado, the winners are:
2018 Resbang Book Club Grand Champion: @infantbluee with 14 Bookclub Resbangs reviewed, yahoo!!!!!!!
Next up, @infantbluee, @kallie-flower, @nori-wings and @thiefofblood (Souly on Discord) came to answer questions and spread the love for their Resbang, Unrequited! Here’s some of what went down:
Q: How did you guys come up with this idea? I remember you threw a ton of ideas around and settled on this one. Can you take us through the process? >:)
kallieflower: Oh god. We went through SO many different ideas. We wrote like what? 40k for our first idea before we scrapped that?
b l u e: Then like 30k for the next one that we also scrapped.
kallieflower: WE KEPT TRYING TO WRITE SHORT THINGS BUT IT DIDN’T WORK. Soma just does not work as shortfic.
b l u e: Even our final bang ended up being a 40k two-shot lmao.
Q: So what was it about this final idea that made u guys decide, YES, this is it???
kallieflower: The first idea was a Madoka Magica AU that exploded into a mess because magical girl worlds take a loooooottttt of work. The second fic also exploded into something big.
b l u e: We were going to stick with it though. We were. We had it all ready for check-in and everything. But then like two days before, kallie went, "okay so I love our fic idea and all but what about this." Me, on three hours of sleep: "I effing hate you." Then we stumbled through our first 3k and sent it to the mods like the gremlins we are.
kallieflower: We didn’t expect it to get so big either but c’est la vie. Chloe almost killed me like 48293783 times during the process but I think we managed alright.
b l u e: You're lucky I love you so much.
Q: Did you guys start writing straight from the beginning of the fic or did you write a specific scene first?
kallieflower: Actually we didn’t start from the beginning haha! Or well, our idea didn’t start from a plot. We just wanted to write Maka cursed. We wanted to write her with no inhibitions in love, like she might’ve been had she not been so hurt by her parents’ separation. And since there are witches in the SE universe, we had fun with that instead of making it an AU.
Q: Do you write linearly at all or did you jump around a lot?
b l u e: Surprisingly yes. Aside from my dream sequences.
kallieflower: Your dream sequences were our pit stops. We just had to actually do the writing to get there.
b l u e: Hahaha our writing process was.... Unique.
kallieflower: That’s one way to put it lmao.
nori-wings: It was a mess, but we love it.
b l u e: WE are a mess so it's just us in fic form.
kallieflower: God yeah. For one thing, this fic was like 90% chloe with me just making her do crazy things I wanted to happen.
nori-wings: And 5% of what the artists wanted to happen.
b l u e: YEAH hahaha that was kallie too tbh. She was like, "me as a witch would not understand anything about my magic at all and would curse people for kicks, so let's do that."
kallieflower: We would have a general plot of how we wanted to go and what points we wanted to hit. Chloe would start to write it, but then I would be like “WAIT WHAT ABOUT THIS.” And then she would pretend she thought I was a total nuisance but we all know she’s too soft and sweet to ever say no to anything. Also our artists were such a LOVELY help too.
b l u e: We wanted as much of their input as possible and we wanted to make this as much of a collab as we could. The train scene at the beginning of the third chapter was all nori because she was mad at us for only torturing Soul and wanted Maka to cry too.
Q: Nori/Souly did you have a favorite piece of art to make?
the monkey chain (soul): The skating scene was my fave. I also accidentally changed the part in the fic with the skating since I didn't ask what kind of skates they were supposed to be kfljgdf.
b l u e: LMAO it's our fault though!!!! We were Too Slow.
nori-wings: Black*Star dragging Soul and Maka is my favorite, it was super fun to draw.
b l u e: When you sent the first wip of that, I think I cried for days. It was better than my dreams. You were both so fast GOD, it takes me seventeen years just to sketch a pic.
kallieflower: For real tho. We don’t deserve artists.
nori-wings: They are exaggerating, it was a quick sketch that I made on a post it lol. It took me a week to draw it in digital.
the monkey chain (soul): I had free time since we moved and were without internet for a night so I had a ton of time to finish my pic.
Q: Did you have trouble meeting the deadline?
kallieflower: Trouble is putting it lightly lmao. We died. Many times.
b l u e: I don't trust fast writers. Clearly they are superhuman. It wouldn't have been hard if we didn't spend so much time drowning in memes and shitposts that we neglected to write.
kallieflower: I blame the internet.
Q: Were there any scenes that you guys really struggled with writing?
b l u e: The beginning, definitely. Everything else flowed out pretty quickly, but the beginning made us want to cry into our pillows and smash our keyboards.
kallieflower: I think there was a period of time where Chloe was like, “I will physically pay you money to write this scene so I don’t have to.” But yeah, the beginning scenes were definitely hardest to write. I think we rewrote them like a million times.
Q: Nori and Souly, was there a part of your art that was trickier to do?
nori-wings: I think painting Soul and Maka's kiss, because I wanted to use as few colors as possible and I played a lot with shading, or at least I tried haha.
the monkey chain (soul): Uhhhh not really for me? My pieces were relatively simple and probably the most issue I had was drawing Maka's skates and figuring out what Soul would be wearing.
b l u e: I cried when we got paired with souly.
kallieflower: Chloe literally fangirled to hell over getting souly as our second artist. And we were very lucky to get nori as our artist too because we already became really close friends through the zine and talked all the time. Our resbang just gave us an excuse to move all our blabber to a personal server lmao.
nori-wings: Yeah, they asked me to be something like a beta but I ended up being their artist.
kallieflower: We joked about it beforehand too and were SO happy it happened. We were so blessed with support and love this year. We never would’ve finished without the help of our artists and betas.
nori-wings: They are making it sound nice, but we wouldn't let them drop out.
kallieflower: LMFAOOOOOO. Nori likes to be sassy but she’s one of the softest of us all
b l u e: We legitimately would've dropped out if not for our artists.
kallieflower: “Do it for our artists” was our mantra through the whole process when we wanted to quit. Peer pressure makes diamonds, maybe.
b l u e: I mean, it didn't feel like that when we were bullshitting our way through our next 5k before each deadline, but it be like that sometimes.
Q: What was your favourite scene to write?
b l u e: My favorite to write was definitely the nightmare demon scene.
kallieflower: Because she’s a sadist and likes angst. Chloe likes to make people feel pain so her favorite scenes were definitely the angsty ones.
b l u e: FDSJFKDSF
Q: For errbody: what do you feel like you improved/grew in this resbang, writing and arting-wise??
kallieflower: For me, I definitely grew in writing skills even though I didn’t end up writing much of this bang (chloe, bless your soul for carrying me this year lmao) because chloe is SO GOOD at writing that it made me want to be better, learn better, do better.
b l u e: Kallie made me work harder than I ever have my entire life and it paid off SO MUCH. I very much only ever write ventfics.
the monkey chain (soul): I feel like I Peaked with Maka's outfit in the skating picture, like I don't pride myself in outfit design much these days but Maka's outfit came out so good. I didn't expect it.
Q: Were there any parts of Unrequited that really pushed you out of your comfort zone?
b l u e: Writing with someone else was such an experience.
kallieflower: We definitely had to compromise a lot in terms of writing. Like I wanted Soul to walk in on Kid touching Maka’s scar and Chloe immediately said “fine, but only if we make Kid a gardener” and if that isn’t a super fair trade off, idk what is. Chloe and I work so well together so that was easy. And we like a lot of the same things.
b l u e: There was a little adjustment [with adapting to different writing styles] but not much, because despite what kallie says, she's actually so freaking smart and talented it actually makes my eyes water.
Q: If you had the time to do something differently, what would you do and why?
b l u e: Everything. Jk no but really. There's just a lot I wish we could've elaborated on. And more suffering to be had of course. I just wish we had more time to elaborate on Spirit and Maka's mom.
kallieflower: Oh god yeah. Maka did not get enough of a backstory in the manga or anime and that makes me sad always.
Q: What made you both decide on the outcome of the curse? Did the witch know how it was going to affect Kid?
b l u e: We actually knew the outcome from the very beginning when we decided what kind of curse it was.
Q: Okay SO one last question for the crew. What is next!!!! >:)
nori-wings: Next collab is me writing and Chloe as my artist. (She just doesn't know it.)
b l u e: FDHDJFKSDDSF
kallieflower: OMG PLS HAHAHA. I’d be all over that collab. Chloe is working on a soma longfic she won’t let me beta because she’s Secretive. And I am trying to work up the energy to use my keyboard again after the hell that was finishing Resbang.
Thanks to the crew for stopping by! Stay tuned for more transcripts!
AMA Transcript: And They Were Roommates (Oh My God)
Next up, @karmahope came to hang and talk about her Resbang, And They Were Roommates (Oh My God). Here’s some of what went down:
Q: Where'd you get the insp/idea for this Resbang?
karmahope: Yeah so I really had absolutely no idea what I was doing going into this year, so it was actually based off that one tumblr post like 'you've heard of unrequited love, how about requited, unwanted love? Where both sides are like, you??? really???' and it kinda grew from there until it doesn't really resemble that prompt anymore.
Q: What was the hardest part to write?
karmahope: [The hardest scenes were] definitely the emotional moments. My draft had a lot of notes like "insert emotional cheezewiz here' and some of the really domestic parts too. Also like ... that kiss scene at the party?? bc I got so flustered writing even just that much.
Q: Did you have any tunes or playlists while writing the thing?
karmahope: I did! I think I wrote to the 'sad indie' playlist on spotify: https://open.spotify.com/user/spotify/playlist/37i9dQZF1DWVV27DiNWxkR?si=iA1NVyqASTuJHMsZNzAacw. I was writing my BNHA fic Limerence at the same time to this same playlist, and I wanted to emulate that same sort of feel, a little bit. A little longing, a little melancholy.
Q: Do you have any weird/lazy food things you do like soul eating cereal from the box and drinking milk from the container like a heathen?
karmahope: Uhh I didn't know where the bowls were the other day so I made myself cereal in a Tupperware.
Q: Did you have a favorite scene to write?
karmahope: It's been so long, but honestly I loved writing the 4am scene where Maka catches Soul in the act of being a heathen. Also the bees scene. And, also, the party scene... even if it was hard.
Q: Are you a linear writer or do you sorta write things as you come up with em and quilt them together later?
karmahope: I'm so fucking linear. Like, how can I write scenes out of order when one scene affects what happens in the next? Especially as they kind of write themselves as I go. Like I might skip over sections in a scene, but I've gotta know how it ends before I move on.
Q: Do you like writing from Soul's perspective more or Maka's? Because I know you did both.
karmahope: Honestly Soul. He's a Pining Broody Boy. Maka has her shit together just a little bit more so it's harder.
Q: When you were doing the thing, did you have like, set wordcount goals or just kinda blorged it when you could?
karmahope: I was just desperate to get the 10k honestly. There was one check-in where I just wrote a whole lot of bullshit that had nothing to do with the story banking on the fact the mods didn't actually read it. Sorry mods. This year was such a struggle for me. Like in the past I've written like 40k, 20k fics but this year was a whole lot of nope. At least I finished, I had to drop out last year.
Q: Does writing emotional parts make u emotional? Asking 4 a friend.
karmahope: Sometimes!! It depends on the moment tbh. Writing this fic definitely got me into a wistful kinda way.
Q: When you're writing, do you usually have a strong idea of where you're going or something a little more open to changing/building as u go?
karmahope: I think I'm a little more open. I have a very basic outline (Maka moves in, Maka up late at the library, Soul's car breaks down, Party, Soul's parents come to drug test him), and then what happens beyond that happens. A lot of the short shenanigans scenes weren't originally planned.
Q: Was there anything that changed while you were writing?
karmahope: hmmm... I know I definitely added some stuff, I don't think anything in my outline really changed. I'm finding that basic outlines really help. It doesn't have to be anything detailed.
Q: Was there anything that you outlined that didn't make the cut?
karmahope: Here it is .... The Outline:
karmahope: Okay so points 4 and 5 changed a little. They never danced with someone else and Maka didn't yell at his parents in her underwear. She should have, but it ended up not working out that way. It's okay, she yelled at them in Soul's pants instead. I didn't plan for Wes. He just kinda showed up and threw himself over the furniture.
Q: Who is your favorite side character to write?
karmahope: I really like Kidd, but he wasn't in it much. My favorite side-character moment here was Black Star and Liz when Soma kissed. I have a type tbh. Kidd. Todoroki. Kyouya. They're just such Good Boys.
Q: What are you working on now/plan to work on next?
karmahope: Well, I only really write SE for Resbang so uh. Yeah. I'm working on Limerence, a kacchako fic. Also a kacchako road trip AU. Also my FMA fic. Uhhh ... a collab with ohmytheon for TodoDekuOcha. I've also got an ML fic I haven't abandoned yet. My FMA fic is an OC fic I started writing years ago that's a rewrite of a 160k fic. I started writing when I was ... shit, 14? Now I'm 22. [And] I already know what I'm doing for next year's Resbang so there's that to look forward to.
Thanks to karmahope for coming by! Stay tuned for more transcripts!
Hello and welcome back to Resbang season! While the writers and artists are hard at work creating the content we will soon consume, we Bookclub Mods have some info for you about this year’s Resbang Book Club!
Who are we? What do we do?
For anyone new to Bookclub, our mission is to read all participating Resbangs. We do this with your help! Everyone who joins this year will be randomly assigned three fics that don’t contain any of the squicks/triggers you ask not to receive. From there, you just read and review those fics (or more, if you’re ambitious!) and submit the reviews to us to be counted towards our Resbang Hall of Fame, where those people who read and review the MOST fics are celebrated!
We also run AMAs (Ask Me Anything) for any participating Resbang Bookclub author who wants a chance to talk about their work live with Bookclub readers.
What’s new this year?
Based on feedback we got from you guys last year, we’re changing a few details in how we run Bookclub! This year, we reduced the number of required fics from five to three, because even though 65% of survey respondents said that five was a fine number, we also had comments saying it was too much when also trying to write/art for Resbang, given the timeline we were on!
That said, we’re also changing the timeline this year. We’re trying to give everyone a breather after the final posting day and when we start AMAs so that people have more time to read long fics before AMA scheduling begins. More info on the exact schedule to come!
AMAs are also different. This year, we are requiring that all authors who wish to have an AMA first submit at least one review before they get scheduled. One commenter in our survey asked, “Why make authors participate to do AMA?” and we thought it was important to address this!
The point of Bookclub is to bolster the community that fandom needs in order to thrive. If you are only here to advertise your own work, Bookclub is not for you. We feel very strongly that fandom needs active participation by both readers and content creators (who are often readers themselves) to function at its best, and we do not think that reading and reviewing one fic is too steep a price for the time we put in to hosting and recording the AMAs. If you have any questions about this, feel free to send us an ask or email us at [email protected].
Awesome! How do I sign up?
This year, signups will open on December 1, 2018 and close on December 14, 2018 at midnight EST. We’ll send out more info on how to sign up when it gets closer to the opening date!
hello! this is my first year as a resbanger and i signed up to do reviews, but i was a little confused on how to actually submit our reviews. do we email you with our reviews? & all at once or one by one? is there a general guideline to how we should fill out our reviews? can we just scream semi-coherently at you about how amazing the fic we read was? thank you! (i've looked around your blog for an answer to this but was unable to find one; if i've just missed it, please direct me to the post!)
Hi anon! We haven’t yet made a big fancy review submission post yet, so thank you for giving us an opportunity to do so! To answer your questions above specifically:
Do we email you with our reviews? Yes, please email us at [email protected] to submit your reviews! You may either submit them via screenshot or via a link to the review itself on AO3/FFN. Feel free to email us or hit us up in Discord if you have questions or aren’t sure how to do those things.
All at once or one by one? You may either submit them all at once or one by one - whatever works for you! We will keep count and log everything if you choose the second option. Do whatever helps keep you motivated!! :) The only exception is that Resbang authors must submit one review before they are able to schedule an AMA, so if you are a Resbang author, please send us your first review ASAP!
Is there a general guideline to how we should fill out our reviews? There is no ~official~ guideline. The only requirement is that you must write a review on AO3 or FFN or wherever the fic has posted. However, there are definitely specific things to do when writing a review that you might want to keep in mind! Check out our post here on good reviewing practices.
Can we just scream semi-coherently at you about how amazing the fic we read was? Again, an actual review on AO3/FFN is required, but we highly encourage semi-coherent screaming in the Discord channel!!!
Hope this helps, anon! Happy reviewing <3Love, The Mods
Hello hello Resbang Book Club participants! Here’s the fancy list of the fantastic folks who went above and beyond in this year’s Book Club season. Great job to all participants who submitted... and see you next year!
2017 Resbang Book Club Grand Champion: @jaded-envy with 15 Bookclub Resbangs reviewed, yahoo!!!!!!!
Next up, @blinkfl0yd, @ahshesgone and @innocentcinnamonbun stopped in to answer questions about their Resbang, Leap Year! Here’s some of what went down!
*Please be advised that this AMA contains one (1) small spoiler for the unpublished part 2 of Leap Year :)*
Q: My first question is for Inno and Ash! How did you choose which scenes you wanted to draw! :)
Inno: Ahh I usually like to draw scenes that have a big emotional impact or are just really funny (Which a lot of scenes in Blink’s story made me laugh out loud pretty hard) I also like to make book cover-like pieces for Bangs I do.
ahshesgone: Ohhhhh I was so in love with that first scene with Spirit and Maka, I HAD to do it, because it set the tone so perfectly for both of them. Then it was mentioned that Blair babysat Maka and I Had To also, bc that right there was a dream I had and I realised it when I read it, and Stein and Marie were just impossible to pass up. Blink writes so vividly, I would draw forever if I had the time.
Q: What was the inspiration behind this story? I always love stories about the adults and we get them so rarely!
BlinkFl0yd: Honestly I just really like the adults haha, I just thought they needed some love. I'd been playing around with a college AU for the adults probably since before Resbang was announced, but I think the biggest thing that kind of inspired where it was going to go was probably learning about anesthesia awareness?? Which is pretty much exactly how it sounds and is actually really terrifying and made me think of Spirit and Stein which is pretty much what kickstarted that whole plotline. So that was sort of the basis for the whole fic. After that it was just... coming up with different shenanigans. The horse head was totally a spur of the moment thing.
Q: This one is for everyone: did you guys have fun working together? Was there a lot of communication? :D
ahshesgone: I really liked working with both Blink and Inno!! They're the awesomest. I guess we could do with more similar timezones though, tbh.
BlinkFl0yd: Oh gosh seconded. ash and Inno are so cool and so talented and it was so much fun working them them.
Inno: I had such a blast working with ash and Blink ;;;u;; <333
Q: Was there anything that you wanted to add but couldn't? Or anything that originally wasn't going to be there that ended up going in?
BlinkFl0yd: So the thing is, as a result of splitting it up for Resbang, I now get to sort of rework some concepts that I had to originally cut out because of the time crunch. I think the biggest thing is that I originally had a whole plotline planned out for Medusa and White Star that I had to cut out or rework for sake of time, but now I get to add it back in and I'm really excited.
Q: bb Maka is SO CUTE AND I LOVE HER, how did you go about characterizing her?
BlinkFl0yd: Oh gosh yes, baby Maka was fun but difficult. I have no idea how children work so…
Q: Yeah like, you didn’t make her too babyish which is a problem I see a lot when people write kids.
BlinkFl0yd: I am honestly not very good with kids, but yeah, it does irritate me when people write kids super babyish, I deadass once read a fic where a ten year old was still making baby sounds and even I know that that is Not Right. I think that's the one thing that helped me with baby Maka and the rest of the kids.
Q: Favorite character to write and favorite scene to write?
BlinkFl0yd: It was a lot of fun to get into Stein's head, and I also had a lot of fun writing Blair's appearances. I also enjoyed Sid a lot more than I thought I would, and Nygus.
Inno: You wrote Stein so well, it made me cry tears of joy.
ahshesgone: Omg I loved them both so so so so much. [And] OH MY GOD Azusa.
[there is much joyful screaming about Azusa]
Q: Artist chans, what was your arting process like once you decided what you wanted to art? I think you both did digital, but I bet there are a lot of differences in how you work!
ahshesgone: Hmmm well my process for these ones was pretty all over the place. They were all started around the same time but I finished all of them at different times so I think all of them came [out] looking pretty… dissimilar? I wish I had made the Blair one look less digital because I think that's what I needed for my art for Leap Year, for it to look??? tactile?
BlinkFl0yd: I honestly cried a little when I saw the first draft of the Spirit and Maka picture.
Inno: Ahh I lay out a gesture sketch, then a normal sketch, then I lineart the sketch, fill the whole canvas with a color that pertains to the mood of the piece and use a low opacity brush to lay in colors then just start blending colors from there to form lighting and shade. After that I sometimes air brush some more color into the piece. :,) Other pieces I just color in the lineart and add basic cell shading :,,) I hope I answered right :,)))
BlinkFl0yd: BOTH OF YOUR ARTS MADE ME CRY A LITTLE.
Inno: Couldn’t have made it without such an outstanding source material blink ;;u;;;;
Q: For all of you, do you think Resbang helped you hone any skills/get better at something, maybe something you decided on trying to work on or something you surprised yourself with?
BlinkFl0yd: Honestly, yeah. I've never never actually worked with other people before for a fic, I've never even had a beta before until Resbang? So that was new.
ahshesgone: Oh, I used a really weird way to sketch the steinmarie thing which I was very impressed with myself for. I think I crosshatched the silhouettes and then just erased where I needed lighter areas?
Inno: I've been trying to get better with perspective and comics as well as drawing backgrounds and resbang definitely helped out getting my butt into gear to practice drawing those things. I did pretty well too on it.
Q: Do you feel like your writing has changed or improved at all during the course of writing this? I'm just curious if you felt that your techniques or style had changed at all.
BlinkFl0yd: I'm not really sure if it's changed much? I think if anything I’ve gotten better at working under a time crunch. I'm kinda a perfectionist, which does not go very well with Resbang, so I guess if anything I've gotten better at just word-vomiting first and editing later.
Q: Were there any particularly difficult scenes or roadblocks you needed to work through?
BlinkFl0yd: Hmmm. I think some of the trickiest scenes to write were the ones with Shinigami and Kami. We know so little about [Kami] so she was probably the hardest one to write. I was coming up with a full-on backstory and personality for her as I was writing, so that was both kinda fun but kinda difficult. And Shinigami is… Shinigami.
ahshesgone: OH BUT THEY WERE SO GOOD. I was shaking when I was reading that fight in the car.
BlinkFl0yd: oop. SPOILERS.
Inno: LOL.
ahshesgone: SORRY.
BlinkFl0yd: That's one thing that'll be in the next parts haha.
ahshesgone: Oh my god sorry I read so many versions of it I’M SORRY.
BlinkFl0yd: It's fine! Lol, call it a teaser.
ahshesgone: t-tt-tadah!
Q: Totally not rushing you, but do you plan on posting some of part 2 soon???
BlinkFl0yd: Hopefully soon. School has actually been horrible.
Q: After this, do you have any other projects lined up? And artists, what're you working on next? >:)
