[ SECRET POST #5853 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #5853 ⌋

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


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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 02 pages, 48 secrets from Secret Submission Post #838.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[fscom]

07. https://i.imgur.com/q93a4Ib.png

[(Anonymous)]

I hate her and had no idea she'd written a book.

[(Anonymous)]

Why?

nayrt

[(Anonymous)]

but i personally found the "mask off" video to be... just a very bad idea.

[(Anonymous)]

I don't think I've seen anyone dragging it? I don't do Tiktok and booktube ignores it?

I mean, you aren't wrong on the social media thing. The "website excerpts" were a poor framing device. The college girl protag did college girl protag things with over the top consequences. So it fell more YA than adult, which if it had been written YA fine, but it wasn't. The relationship between the girl and the alien felt romantic b/c there was no other good platonic relationship to compare it too. (I don't think it was supposed to be romantic.) And the whole "I took a few classes on linguistics, let's use linguistics as the 'science.'" felt shoehorned in to make the book more "hard/serious SF."

I guess TL;DR, it didn't know what type of book it wanted to be other than... contrived? I can see why it took so long to get a contract and probably her social media status had something to do with it.

Did I drag it enough for you OP?

[(Anonymous)]

i think it was supposed to be romantic, or that’s where it’s headed at least

[(Anonymous)]

ayrt

I think romantic is where it is headed as well.

Okay, don't get me wrong, the prose was fine. Like, it just felt very strange to have all these different things and "alien romance" with it? That made it confusing in... a genre expectations kind of way. I wouldn't know how to 'sell' it to a reader and would always have to ask "do you like alien romance?" That's just me, I guess. Over analyzing.

[(Anonymous)]

The prose isn't even "fine," though, it's pretty clunky and tedious in a lot of places. Like, embarrassingly so.

It did seem to be heading to romance, I agree, but then I think I've heard that there's a human love interest in the sequel so who knows.

[(Anonymous)]

(ayrt)

I have read a lot worse. So when I say fine, it's "It didn't make me bash my head against a wall."

But yes it was very tedious in some places.

Interesting about the human love interest. I wasn't going to read the sequel, so I'll have to find a summary somewhere. She's contracted for 3 books I think.

OP here

[(Anonymous)]

Haha, thanks nonny. "Contrived" is right, but that's what happens when you file the serial numbers off your Transformers fanfic.

I don't do TikTok and I barely do BookTube, but one of the two or three booktubers I follow genuinely and unironically loved this book and I was utterly baffled. I think it was only because he's a huge Lindsay Ellis fan and because he doesn't normally read sci fi.

Re: OP here

[(Anonymous)]

(ayrt)

Transformers fanfic? Really?

OMG. That makes SO MUCH SENSE. The whole stroking her head thing.

I mean if you don't normally read SciFi, then maybe yeah, you'd like it. But err... (eyes piles of scifi has read) yeah.

[feotakahari]

Female content creators for nerds get called “problematic” a lot lately, and it’s usually for stupid reasons.

[cakemage]

I mean, I liked her books, but y'know, different strokes and all that.

[(Anonymous)]

What is this about?

[(Anonymous)]

Twitter villain of the day over Raya and the Last Dragon.

She's been around a long time though too, so it got blown up WAY out of proportion especially since others were also saying the same thing. Just, they weren't Lindsey Ellis, white nerd girl trademark pending.

[(Anonymous)]

SA
I still have no idea what you are talking about.

[deleted_scenes]

Lindsay Ellis was known a Nostalgia Chick from That Guy with the Glasses aka Channel Awesome.

She parted ways from the site a while ago and did youtube media videos. She got nominated for a Hugo Award for her video essay series on the LOTR and Hobbit movies.

She tweeted about how Raya and the Last Dragon was like Avatar the Last Airbender and people raged, even though other sites like Honest Trailers said the same thing before her.

Then she made a big video picking at all the rage she got, then left Twitter. (But is back now?)

She wrote a book called Axiom's End which apparently is just Transformers fanfic.

Did I clear that up for you?

[(Anonymous)]

I really liked her videos, but I don't even remember what the whole drama was about anymore, I do remember thinking that people were overexaggerating but agreeing with some of the criticism.

Anyway. The comments above are making me want to read this. I don't care if it isn't great. Alien Romance? Sign me in!

[(Anonymous)]

That's kind of how I remember the drama too? Like, she definitely got dogpiled to a ridiculous degree, but also some people had a point and some of her response was... not cool. I don't think I knew she wrote a book though. Sounds like it's at least worth looking for at the library.

[(Anonymous)]

(above anon)

Oh, definitely give it a read if you like alien romance! If something that baffles me encourages someone else to read a book. That's great. Different tastes and all. I hope you enjoy it!

[(Anonymous)]

I like her youtube content, but Axiom's End was admittedly pretty unremarkable. I don’t doubt that being an internet celebrity helped her get picked up, but I have also read worse books by authors who as far as I'm aware got published solely for the quality of their writing. So, you know, it doesn't stand out to me as something that could never have been published by an unknown author.