#sovinly

[theladyragnell]

Thoughts on being a hater?

Sometimes you just need to be a hater! But my thought is that in 90% of circumstances, one should be a hater in private and among trusted friends, both because it's kinder and because it's less drama that way.

I also think hating on things can be useful! I've learned a lot about crafting narratives from figuring out why I hated the things I hated.

So hate away, but hate away kindly and productively, I guess!

[samyazaz]

What's your favorite jam?

I meannnnnn

But to answer the question you probably meant: raspberry freezer jam, my beloved!! There’s a reason when I gifted some to my coworker, I prefaced it with “I have to apologize, because I’m about to ruin you for all other jam”.

But even leaving homemade freezer jam aside, raspberry has always been my favorite of the jams.

Honorable mention to: peach-thyme freezer jam, my beloved.

[pilferingapples]

@sovinly replied to your post: @subsequentibis replied to your post “#the Les...

This whole discussion is just such a delight

Please feel free to join in :D

[et-in-arkadia]

I TOO WILL NEVER BE OVER TOM STOPPARD'S ARCADIA; YOU HAVE VERY GOOD TASTE.

THANK YOU FRIEND. ARCADIA CAN NEVER BE RECOVERED FROM: FACT

DO YOU EVER THINK ABOUT HOW A YOUNG RUFUS SEWELL ORIGINATED THE ROLE OF SEPTIMUS HODGE ONSTAGE BECAUSE I THINK ABOUT THAT EVERY SINGLE DAY OF MY LIFE 

[fixaidea]

Oooh, tell me a plant story?

Anton wasstaring at the alien monstrosity in the living room. Whatever it was, it lookedlike a mouldy, hairy starfish that crawled into a pot and died there. It alsosmelled exactly like that.

Without aword he turned and marched into the study, hoping to find his partner. Sureenough, the man was in there, bent over a manuscript, seemingly unaffected bythe awful stench the – plant? dead thing? whatever was giving. Anton, after acouple of minutes of unsuccessful looming, tried to get his attention byclearing his throat. Still nothing. When Ali was gone, he was gone.

Running outof other options, Anton leant forward and tapped the man on the shoulder.

‘Ali. Ali?’

The man inquestion stirred, blinking owlishly up at him.

‘Oh, hello!Sorry, I didn’t see you there, I was…’ he waved a hand over the stack of paperson his desk.

‘That’sokay… What’s not okay, however, is that abomination out there’ said Anton,jabbing a finger in the general direction of the living room.

Ali lookedup at him, somewhat sheepishly.

‘…You meanthe Stapelia?’

‘I mean thedead, hairy starfish, whatever it’s called.’

‘So theStapelia. What’s wrong with it?’

‘Whatisn’t? It’s horrid, it reeks, where didit even come from?’

‘Oh, youknow that flat we investigated yesterday? That’s where.’

Antonshuddered. Being a part time paranormal investigator took you to strange,creepy and sometimes downright disgusting places. You always had to be preparedto face off against actual demonic forces, but more often than not, just likein this most recent case, the solution to the mystery were edgy teenagers whothought animal cruelty and spray-painting pentagrams were cool and sufficientlyoccult.

Now thatAli mentioned it, Anton did vaguely remember seeing the terrible plant in oneof the tiny windows of the miserable flat – which also happened to contain adead, weeks-old goat, so the Stapelia’s stench obviously didn’t register withhim right there and then.

‘I couldn’tjust leave it there’ said Ali, raising his hands ‘The boys won’t be returningthere, no one will look after it! It would die!’

Anton wastempted to say ‘all the better’ but chose to just sigh and pinch the bridge ofhis nose.

‘Does it atleast eat flies?’

‘No’ saidAli, standing up. He took Anton by the arm and led him out into the living room‘It attracts them for the purpose of pollination. Isn’t it fascinating? See howperfectly it mimics the colour and texture of rotting meat?’

‘…And itssmell too.’

‘Exactly! Isn’tit wonderful?’

Anton sighed. He was defeated. The damn plantwas staying. 

[theladyragnell]

Fucking congrats! on the draft! :D In celebration thereof, thoughts on (parental, if you'd like to be more specific) reconciliation/redemption narratives?

Okay, everyone, indulgent original work posting incoming! (With some comparisons to other media.)

So, one of the central questions of this book is, essentially, "who deserves redemption? Under what circumstances? And what does it even mean?" And in reality, obviously, I am pro-redemption simply because the world's a better place if people are allowed to change their tune and become kinder, and they're more likely to do that if they get support to do so.

But I think the key of this book, and the thing I think some redemption stories miss out on, is that sometimes redemption isn't, can't be, about getting the forgiveness of the people you hurt. That does happen in this book, at least the very first tentative steps of it, but the important thing is that sometimes, the first step to becoming a better person is getting out of the circumstances that enabled you into becoming a bad one, and getting away from the people who will reinforce negative views of you, INCLUDING THE PEOPLE YOU HURT.

Xena Warrior Princess! I think it's really easy to forget that Xena is a spinoff, and early on especially, it's about her really grappling with the harm she's done in the past. She has to confront a lot of people she hurt, and at some points people who helped her hurt others, that's an aspect of things, but she also has Gabrielle, and Joxer, and others. People who know at least some of what she did, and who don't excuse it, but who love her because she's never hurt THEM, because she's earned their love. It's such a good and necessary part of redemption arcs for me, that the person who did a shitty thing gets to build something new, something free from that history, so they have a solid foundation when they do try to make amends. And it means that if they can't make amends, if there are people they hurt too much to get forgiveness from them in specific, that doesn't mean there's no good they can do in the world! They have a new community to try in!

And that, I think, is the key of why so many parental reconciliation stories don't work for me? Like, as I have said many times, the constant hammering on parent reconciliation after truly heinous behavior is one of my least favorite aspects of 9-1-1, and I think it's because the way the show does it, the way MOST shows and books do it, is by making the estranged child go "well, but they're trying NOW" or worse "I have learned that parenting is hard and thus this behavior was understandable" or even worse for some fucking reason "well, they haven't done anything to earn this but my kids deserve grandparents more than I deserve boundaries." But none of those parents have, as far as we've seen, proved in other circumstances that they're capable of unconditional love and support! They haven't backed off, rethought their lives, and put themselves in circumstances where they can be kinder! None of them think they've done anything wrong! Which is why the parents in the space books don't get redeemed--Embren a little, but the others don't understand that they were bad parents, let alone try to take a step back and really work on it.

[theladyragnell]

Top 5 romance cliches/story beats

The Confession!!!! I want a huge dramatic speech, I want explanations of when people fell in love and when they KNEW they were in love, I want it all, this is catnip (and this is very funny because somebody has already asked for my top five confessions).

The Hand Touch or equivalent. The small moment when there's a moment of chemistry that the participants can't take further but that is nonetheless Very Charged!

To drill into a specific beloved romance trope of mine, I am a sucker for the marriage of convenience constant pining of "well, just because we are MARRIED doesn't mean they CARE about me, I don't want to PRESSURE them," it's very fun.

Rescues! Love a romance novel where someone gets imperiled and their love interest has to save them, it's a banger every time. Much prefer when they are being Menaced rather than when it's a shenanigan that the person has somehow inflicted on themself.

To deepen #2, I also love the moments where they're touching way more seriously but still pretending it's not romantic. Especially domestic touches! Hair washing, corset lacing, other kinds of dressing and undressing, all of it's so good for me.

[theladyragnell]

*deep breath* 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, & 38?

Fun facts, Sovin asking me if it was cool to send this ask is what made me realize that I fully forgot the number 38 on this list, so I should have been asking for numbers 1-39 instead. Whoops!

But this is the House of Karn series, the sci fi romance series that is my "obligatory original space blorbos tag" and which I am going to try my damnedest to self-publish someday! It is five novels and a novella, about six siblings, and my Modern Publishing Industry Pitch for it is Succession Meets Bridgerton. I started the first one in November 2019, and I'm onto second drafts (just did a second draft of #36 at the start of this year, planning to do #34 (that one's the novella, which was written and will be released slightly out of order) this summer).

But, in series order, a little detail about each one, in a slightly blurbier way than I've been doing for this meme.

Under the cut!

Book 1: The Salvage Point

Odinie Karnisan doesn't want to be her mother's heir. She almost managed to get taken out of the running of the competition of her eligible siblings three years ago by betrothing herself to the heir of Pess Station, only for her future wife to be killed in transit to their wedding. Now, with her grandmother getting more ill by the day, she's beginning to feel more hemmed in. When she takes her troubles and fears to her fiancee's grave on the icy planet Pess orbits, she finds herself kidnapped by ice smugglers, only to be rescued days later by someone she never sees.

Left with questions, Odinie starts looking into the ice theft and her rescue, and finds answers she never could have imagined.

(Got to workshop this blurb, it fails to capture how much of a ruthless nightmare Odinie is, what an unreliable narrator she can be, and how much of this book is a love letter to competent assistants.)

Book 0.5: The Blue Solution

Imander Karnisan is ready for answers. Her mother's competition for which of her children will rule Karn after her is stagnating Imander's military career, and Imander is itching under the ambiguity and frustrated every time she tries to grow in her career by supervisors who insist on her safety over making use of her competence.

When her ship responds to a natural disaster that has trapped miners inside their mine, she's determined to show that competence, and she does so, but at the cost of falling victim to a collapse and having to go on medical leave to recuperate.

While on leave, she connects with the mine's administrator, Eusta Kale-Na, and begins exploring what her future could look like if she stopped basing it on what other people want for her.

(This is the novella I'm planning to edit this summer! It's actually set before book 1, but makes the most sense after one has been introduced to the world, so will probably be released as a companion or reward or something for book 1.)

Book 2: The Four Welcomes

In Karn, the ruler, and thus the heir, must have at least two spouses: one for domestic alliances, and one for a foreign alliance. Tesma Karnisan, newly named heir after his grandmother's death, has had the domestic alliance (and two children to prove it) for years, but he and his wife Adit can't put off searching for a new spouse any longer.

Their choice settles on Sershi Rannelau, a prince of a polity Karn was at war with two generations ago, but not before their safely popular family starts losing public favor after Adit is caught on camera in an altercation witha journalist. Sershi is charming and willing to bring his terraforming expertise to reinforce the terraforming on Karn's planet, but the public immediately turns against him, remembering the war.

With Karn seemingly against them, Tesma, Adit, and Sershi must learn to work together and unravel who wants Tesma off the throne, who wants Sershi gone, and whether those people are the same at all.

(The only book in the series that's diced up into multple POVs! The others are all one POV with interludes in other ones, but this is in thirds, starting with Adit, moving to Sershi, and finishing with Tesma.)

Book 3: The Cost of Will

Madis Karnisan lost. He lost the heir contest, and he lost his family in the process, though he's also been confronted with how little he had them in the first place. Now in quiet disgrace, he takes the first escape hatch he can find: marriage to Hasi Kastina, heir to Matrei Fleet, a relatively new polity where Madis can reinvent himself and take a new name, a tempting offer that outweighs his fear of the void.

Hasi proves to be a kind husband with a kind community around him, and Madis tries his best to settle in and assimilate and find a new purpose, but Hasi is hiding news that is going to change Matrei's place in the larger galaxy and catch Madis between who he has been and who he is now. Even after he changes his name, adopted by a new parent, he'll always be a Karnisan.

(This is good blurb practice, I am so bad at blurbs, please forgive me for this. Anyway, I love my feral cat son so much, I feel like 60% of my space blorbos tag is just text posts about this man.)

Book 4: The Weight of Stone

Eshrain Karnisan has been watching their siblings' marriage choices and seeing their own options for alliances dwindle. Karn's empire is in three parts, and while two of their siblings have allied with the moon and the planet, nobody has allied with the station, and despite being a sculptor who works in stone, Eshrain is determined to let their younger sister Gavie make a true choice of spouse, which means they're going to pick a spouse from the station.

Their obvious choice is Sita Zene-Ki, son of the station's governor, but they take an instant dislike to him and try to give themself other options by hosting a marriage party where eligible people can mingle. When Sita is murdered, though, that gives them a whole party--and then a whole station--of suspects to look into, with help from Sita's cousin Jaiar Zened.

(My murder mystery! I love Eshrain dearly, I'm looking forward to editing this one when I've got the brain for it.)

Book 5: The Mooring Tree

Gavie Karnisan is the youngest and least important of her siblings, especially as she's only a child of the empress's marriage, not blood related to her. That means she had the flexibility to choose to train as a pediatric nurse instead of a more glamorous career, and it means she's unimportant enough to spend the summer as a nurse at a camp for children recovering from a recent war in a different polity.

The war isn't quite done with them, however: on a hike with several campers and a counselor named Deino, Gavie is taken hostage by a group of squatters in the woods, former military from the space station that made up half of the conflict. With Deino at her side, she has to find a way to survive and escape her captivity, survive the journey that follows, and then find a way to get them both home.

(Truly the first half of this book is just a survival thriller, then there's politics and Gavie solving problems and such in the second half.)

And that's the House of Karn series! I was sooooo restrained in these blurbs, I didn't even bring up all the worldbuliding details and sibling dynamics and so on.