LGBTQ+ BOOK RECOMMENDATIONS

LGBTQ+ BOOK RECOMMENDATIONS 🏳️‍🌈

@the-wip-project Day 31 (I finally understood the question!! Yay! I was waiting to read other replies to see what I didn't get - pardon my English)

So now I can answer: 🔞

What’s a pet peeve you have, that you focus on to do differently in your own stories?

In intimate, or even downright smutty moments, I literally skip depiction of "bedroom eyes", or other "liking lips for entrance", or "liking lips in anticipation". That kind of stuff makes me C R I N G E like nothing else does. It's porn, but it's poor, cheap porn to me and I can't stand to see my favorite characters shown in that light. They deserve better smut!

I don't pretend the smut scenes I write are the best, but as much as I can, I don't objectify my characters, nor do I use what I call unnecessary details that just make the whole thing a mood-killer.

tumblr mobile won't let me upload a voice recording, so I guess you're all spared hearing about my thoughts that people (some of them at least) aren't actually desperate for comments. What they're actually missing is community.

canon: they died

fanfic: fUCK YOU

Folklore & Fanlore

@the-wip-project Day 14

Do you have figures/creatures of folklore in your WIP? If not, can you think of something that would fit?

So, which WIP are we talking about here exactly? 😉WIP 1 or WIP 2?

WIP 1 has no figure of folklore in particular, but is ingrained in a specific country's recent history. The context is actually central to the plot so it required some research at understanding of traditions, mentalities, ways of living. It was never my intention to tackle this aspect as an expert (far from it) and it still isn't. However, I love learning new stuff and I hate half-assing tasks, even for leisure. So it was important, and fun, to me to get those details accurate whenever they needed to be.

WIP 2 doesn't hold any figures of folklore per se, but figures of fanlore more like. The Alpha/Beta/Omega trope offers a very intricate and fascinating universe, and whenever you thought you had read every possible variations of it, someone surprises you with more inventiveness (your humble servant yearns to that privilege).

Writing was a healing process when I started it. Now it is part of a learning process, where I give as much as I gain. It requires effort, time and dedication, but the nourishment I get in return is amazing. I grow as a person, just as my characters grow. Add to that kudos and comments, and I'm on cloud nine.

In a Muffled Hong Kong, Bookstores Offer Freedom of Thought

Some independent shops flout the new limits on free expression. Others try to come to terms with them. For readers, they offer a sense of connection in a changed city.

By Tiffany May

HONG KONG — When Hong Kong public libraries pulled books about dissent from circulation last month, Pong Yat Ming made an offer to his customers: They could read some of the same books, free, at his store.

Mr. Pong, 47, founded the shop, Book Punch, in 2020, after Beijing imposed a national security law in response to the antigovernment protests that rocked Hong Kong in 2019. The law broadly defined acts of subversion and secession against China, making much political speech potentially illegal, and it threatened severe punishment, including life imprisonment, for offenders.

Mr. Pong said he had opened Book Punch precisely because he did not want the city to fall silent under the pressure, and because he felt it was important to build a more empathetic, tightknit community as the law cast its shadow over Hong Kong.

“The social movement has changed the way people read and the value they place on books,” he said. “I want to bring out that kind of energy, that desire for change through reading.” He added, “Books are powerful, like forceful punches responding to the social environment.”

The venture is a potential minefield.

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