My Piece of the Internet

Challenge #14

In your own space, create your own fandom challenge. Post your answer to today’s challenge in your own space and leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

My challenge is called "Raise Your Ratio".

On your Dreamwidth profile there is a statistic:



Comments posted and comments received. If you divide these numbers, you get a ratio. I've posted 557 comments and received 605 comments so my ratio is .92. The aim of this challenge is to raise your ratio. My personal goal is to get above 1. But maybe your ratio is already above 1 so your goal is to get to 1.4 or 2. Or maybe you're a super popular blogger with an active comments section so your ratio is .25 - maybe then your goal is to get to .3. Whatever you want your goal to be is great, as long as you're raising your ratio of comments posted/comments received. So go make some friends and leave them some comments!

Did I mention that I like Dark themes and Angst? Well if I haven’t proven that yet, we’re going there today! Also note, this post will contain spoilers for some of the books mentioned (particularly The Song of Achilles). Also, as a self-proclaimed trope lover I had to cheat a bit. I did my top 5 tropes instead of just one.

How We Got Here

As seen in: Half Bad by Sally Green

This trope is one of my favorites. You start at the end of the story and give a weird, tantalizing situation. Then the rest of the book is explaining how you got to that point. It’s popular in movies (Deadpool) and television (the first episode of Breaking Bad), but I also love when it’s used in books. It’s basically a way of working in extensive backstory and flashbacks, which I usually love.

Half Bad starts with teenaged Nathan in a really brutal situation: kept outside in cage, manacled, and forced to train by Celia. When he tries to escape, the manacle on his wrist releases acid that melts his skin to the bone. He’s doing his best to cope with the abuse, using his “trick” of not caring about anything (dissociating, basically). And then suddenly the first section is over and we get to see exactly what led to this messed up situation in the first place.

Undying Loyalty

A seen in: Dragon’s Winter by Elizabeth A. Lynn

I love books where the primary ship is solidified before we even meet them, or at least where the couple gets together early. I love seeing the love and the bond between characters tested by hardship, especially when they are deeply devoted to one another.

One of my favorite examples of this trope is Dragon’s Winter, because we start out with Azil and Karadur already as friends and lovers, but then we get to move forward in time to after Azil has unwittingly betrayed Karadur, been kidnapped, tortured, and finally returned. To see their love survive that kind of test is so beautiful!

Despair Event Horizon

As seen in: The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

This is a very specific and weird trope that I love, but it’s basically when a character has a complete and total breakdown after having something really horrible happen to them. Specifically I love it when they just absolutely lose their shit when their partner or lover dies. I love happy endings, but if I’m in the mood for tragedy I want balls-to-the-walls, no-coming-back-from-this-shit kind of tragedy.

Which is exactly why I love The Song of Achilles so much. After Patroclus is killed, Achilles loses his fucking mind. It’s not healthy to give up on life after a partner dies, but this is fiction and, for me, this is the just so damn romantic.

Break the Cutie

As seen in: The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins

Break the cutie is a great trope, because it takes a character who is defined by their positive aspects and allows the stark contrast between their optimism and the gritty reality of the world to come into conflict.

Hunger Games is a great example of Breaking the Cutie, especially when it comes to the character of Peeta. There’s a lot to complain about with The Hunger Games, but one thing I think it did really well was being super mean to Peeta. If you like books that heap suffering on your favorite characters, The Hunger Games is where it’s at.

Also seen in: Halfway Human by Carolyn Ives Gilman

If you're not familiar with this book, check out my fandom promo for it!

Tedla's story is particularly sad because we see how idealistic and sweet they were as a child. Getting to know the thoughtful, loving, kind-hearted child version of Tedla via flashback does make the jolt back to present day Tedla exquisitely painful to experience. The way that Gilman writes a traumatized character - quiet and withdrawn, intelligent yet full of self-doubt, wise but wary, self-deprecating as a defense mechanism - it all the more poignant when we know how it all came to be.

Food Porn

As seen in: Redwall by Brian Jacques

What’s not to enjoy about authors lovingly describing plate after plate of savory, juicy, ripe, tender, roasted, sizzling, candied, overflowing… everything. Food porn is just fun and it’s a great way to do world-building.

I love food porn in general, but as a vegan the feasts at Redwall Abbey have stood the test of time for me as a food porn favorite. Brian Jacques makes vegetables sound so damn delicious. I loved this series as a child and to this day I fondly remember learning how to bake scones to pass out in elementary school while I presented my book report on Redwall.

Challenge #8

In your own space, write a promo, manifesto or primer for a beloved character, relationship or fandom. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

Here we goooooo!

The Rifter - Fandom Promo

Elevator Pitch for the Series

The Rifter is an epic portal fantasy featuring dual POV gay MCs, slow-burn romance, incredibly creative world building, and a mysterious plot full of twists and questions that will keep you confused but very interested.

( Logistics - How Do I Get My Hands on This? )

( Spoiler-Free Summary )

( The Fandom )

( 10 Reasons to Read The Rifter )

Challenge #4

Since this is the start of a new year, this challenge will be to set your own goals! Of course we can all make large or ambitious goals, remember that small and/or short goals are also good! Post your answer to today’s challenge in your own space and leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

I already posted about my new year's resolutions, so let's get a bit more specific with some of my Dreamwidth and fandom related goals:

1. Hit 1000 comments posted - I want to leave more comments and I think 1000 is a realistic and very attainable goal to start out with. (If you want to know how many comments you've left, it's in the first section of your profile page.)
2. Participate in the Fandom 50 - I'm going to get started on this as soon as Snowflake is over! But my goal is to make 50 posts about "what tickles my id" aka why some angst works (for me) and some doesn't.
3. Post at least 1 fic of over 1000 words I know this is a very modest goal but I haven't posted a single fic since 2019 so I want to go easy on myself and make it fun.

Challenge #3: Guess Who's Coming to Dinner

In your own space, tell us who, from one of your fandoms, would you most want to have dinner with (or tea, or a random afternoon visit), And why? This could be a creator, an actor, a costumer, a set designer, a director, a character, a composer, anybody! What would you talk about? What are you dying to know? Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

I would love to chat with Carolyn Ives Gilman, because she is one of the few authors I love who is totally absent from social media. I have so many questions I'd love to ask her about her Twenty Planets sci-fi universe.

For fictional characters, it has to be a roundtable with the Kings and Queens of the Little Peninsula: Attolia, Eddis, Sophos, and Eugenides.

Challenge 1: In your own space, introduce yourself! Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.

I updated my profile here and my sticky post here.

Featuring: updated references to my age (over 30 now!) and new interests, including sewing clothing, papercrafting, and the Half Bad series by Sally Green.