[ SECRET POST #3021 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #3021 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 04 pages, 093 secrets from Secret Submission Post #432.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 1 2 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[lb_lee]

I actually got a bit sore with a post like this on tumblr (focus was on queer characters instead). I DO have series where pretty much all the main characters are queer, but I don't do it to "spite" anybody. I don't believe that writing to spite my own fanbase is good for me personally OR financially, and kind of resent being told how to be a good queer by other self-righteous queers. (Well, if they even see me as properly queer; I've been accused of appropriating the queer struggle before, pre-tumblr.)

If you want to write a book where all the women are of color, JUST DO IT. Don't pat yourself on the back, don't get smug or spiteful about it, don't fantasize about how you'll make the assholes cry, JUST FUCKING DO IT. I have at least one book like that on my shelf, and I don't read it as a revenge fantasy, I read it because THE BOOK ROCKS. (It's a fantasy novel taking place in a society based off feudal Japan, so all the characters are either fantasy-Japanese, fantasy-Chinese, or fantasy-Tuareg, I think.)

Don't focus on the brilliant clever social message of your goddamn book. Get it fucking written first and then get it fucking edited, and make it fucking AWESOME.

--Rogan

[(Anonymous)]

If there was a way to "like" posts on Dreamwidth...

[lb_lee]

Seriously. I get that we all like to imagine we're writing the great mind-blower of our time, but first you have to actually write it and sell it.

--Rogan

[blitzwing]

+1.

[nightscale]

All of this tbh.

(Also do you have a name for that fantasy fedual-Japan book? I am most interested).

[lb_lee]

It's called Ladylord, by Sasha Miller, and I truly believe that if it'd been published ten years later, it would've been a hit. (At '95, it JUST predated the huge Japan craze in the US.) As it is, it seems to have mostly been forgotten.

However, no matter which edition of the book you find, the cover blurb is AWFUL. It'll try and portray the book as either some kind of girl power pablum or orientalist wet dream, when in reality it is the only epic fantasy I've ever read that I've ENJOYED. It's got politics and intrigue galore, a ton of great characters, and Dragon Warriors.

I will warn that there is rape in the book (it does not shy away from saying that the society in the book is DOUCHEY to women) and some stuff that now that I'm adult comes off as, "sexually non-normative people are EVIL!" But I still see it as worth a read. It's not so much Epic Quest as "epic quest as an excuse for political takeover."

--Rogan

[nightscale]

You had me at Dragon Warriors.

But! I shall have a look for it. I like fantasy settings and I've been looking for more that deviate from the standard western-inspired fantasy mold(that and I have a bit of a history-boner for feudal Japan).

I can handle Game of Thrones, so unless it's amazingly worse than that series I'll be good.

[lb_lee]

No problem! I really don't think it's intended to be AT ALL alt-history (for one thing, they aren't on an island, and the language they use has phonemes Japanese doesn't have) so any serious want for history will likely be deeply disappointed, but it's a good book and it DEFINITELY deviates from the standard Bland Blond Vaguely Northwest Medieval Europe mold. Which is part of why I like it.

Oh yeah no, it's no Game of Thrones. Like, I'm able to handle it, and I'm pretty touchy about rape and violence. And unlike what I've heard about Game of Thrones, there are plenty of nice people who don't get... I dunno, beaten to death with puppies. The villains are DELIGHTFULLY hateable though!

--Rogan