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!historychads it was his half-sister-step-cousin-aunt-wife
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I finished “Confessions of a Mask” yesterday, BUNCH OF SPOILERS AHEAD.
I found this book to be much better than “The Sailor who fell from Grace with the Sea”, the beginning was kind of weird with Mishima describing his fetishes like masturbating to a St Sebastian painting
This one to be more specific, and I giggled when he had an erection at school after seeing his older classmate show his hairy armpits during a physical education class while describing the pits as “black bushes” with fascination , not to mention his suicide fetishes.
Then by halfway the book became increasingly sad.
This an honest confession written by a man tormented by his homosexuality, he desperately tries to blend in and fails, at some point he holds on the idea of war and dying in battle or during an air raid, he even says he wishes his entire family would die as well trying to act as emotionally robotic as possible. Then we see that's just a coping mechanism as he cries after his sister dies and cries again after realizing his mates mocked him for not having being able to have s*x with a prostitute. You can also tell he wishes he was in love with Sonoko and kind of regrets not having married her, at the same time he knows it wouldn't have worked, or at least he wishes he was “normal” enough to be sexually attracted to her.
All in all this is a well written book and I wonder what sort of reaction it caused on mid 20th century readers.
- Patsy : jost started burtons 1001 nights. will take break between each of 17 volumes
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To discuss your weekly readings of books, textbooks and papers.
I'm about to finish Confessions of a Mask, I'll post a review once it's done. I also bought this book
“Rise and Reign of Mammals”, is by Steve Brusatte, and American paleontologist, his book about dinosaurs was good.
Also @kaamrev it's pass 4pm at Cape Town so you can't complain about timing. Most euros are awake too and soon so will the West-Coastcels
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- WeihnachtenSalvador : R-drama
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To discuss your weekly readings of books, textbooks and papers.
I didn't read Atomised this week and instead started Confessions of a Mask, which is basically Mishima's autobiography as a closeted teenager during the Shōwa Era Japan, plus weird sadomasochistic tendencies like getting an erection and masturbating to St. Sebastian's painting. I'll finish Houellebecq's “magnus opus” eventually.
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I had it open in a tab but now it gives me a 403 not welcome message.
https://rdrama.net/h/lit/post/269135/foid-marseytrad-writes-a-meme-book
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Jesus Christ, lady, I hope your book has paragraphs!
Let's chop this up a bit.
...it's in a fantasy setting, it also has a coming of age aspect to it and takes place over about 6 years, and they age from 12-18. im thinking hard about how to write them right in their early ages, like 12-14, and i feel like i'm doing it wrong. i'm putting more focus on their character and specific personalities but i'm wondering if, as a girl, maybe i'm accidentally making them too “girly” and “soft.”
i like to make them enjoy the simple things in life, like exploring and enjoying nature, and they also like to talk about their feelings and their hurts. but is that a thing boys do? im trying to make them realistic but sometimes i forget that i was never a boy and i'll never know what it is like to be a boy. and to top it all off, it's a gay romance (it takes awhile though, so they're just friends in the beginning). it just happened to be that way, i wanted a romance that wasn't straight and i felt my story didn't fit two girls (again, there's a difference but idk what it is!)
... i just want these characters to feel real and not how i “think” they're supposed to be. i can't decide if gender is just a construct and it doesn't matter if they're a boy or a girl, or if their outlook on life IS different and they should be written differently. both? what mistakes should i avoid in writing male leads when i'm not a male?
"Have you tried adding reason and accountability?"
Nah, it's a good question. Writing any type of romance you haven't been in is obviously challenging. Writing the opposite s*x requires observation skills, reading and engaging with their work (a bitter pill for moids), and a healthy imagination. You also have to be able to set aside your preconceptions about how people should work, and your desire to fix them. For example, in this case it's not just that men usually don't talk about our feelings, or that we feel uncomfortable doing so. Often, we don't want to. How do these sorts of things affect a developing gay relationship?
But as usual, /r/writing offers reassurance instead of seriously engaging with an OP who wants real answers. Many also get bogged down making very important points about gender.
It's MY SETTING, and I get to pick the gender roles!!
Actual good advice to tell a story about boys erased in real time by genderslop.
In my fictional society, sexy women with big tits are expected to throw themselves at members of !bookworms and !writecel
Of course you can write a world with different social "rules." But the farther it diverges, the less it has to say about real people in our own world, and the more it has to say about the author's own desires and hangups. Might as well say some coomer's monster girl erotica is commentary about female gender roles.
This isn't actually out of nowhere because the full OP mentioned "The Song of Achilles," but lmao
Differentiate your characters from each other. Give them flaws. Let their differences and flaws produce tension. Two guys who are just soft and sensitive and slowly start touching peepees isn't a story. Even a hack writer would make one of them the emotional one and the other the moody, silent one or whatever.
A couple more people actually gave decent advice, like here, but of course low effort "You're perfect just the way you are!" advice is upvoted while interesting stuff is near the bottom.
As a straight man, I'll never understand this trend. If the men in your gay romance act like women, why make them men at all? Reading gay erotica should be a form of escapism where you can imagine loving relationships without having to deal with women. At least, that's why I read it.
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!bookworms I decided to post the thread for once as @pbj has been busy hopefully touching grass
What are your thoughts?
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What's the worst book you've ever read, discounting self published crap?
I bought my mom Jo Watson's Among Others half a decade ago for mother's day.
I didn't know much about the industry so I thought that it winning the Hugo meant it had to be at least of decent quality. It was so bad that she said it had to read it too
300 pages of the most pretentious precious child crap
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To discuss your weekly readings of books, textbooks and papers.
!bookworms !classics I'm reading Houellebecq Atomised as part of the bookclub
I also got my copy of Confessions of a Mask this week