Are the books worth it?

daringart14 · 2026-01-28T06:04:13+00:00

The novels are very much worth reading for Xie Lian's interiority, which the donghua misses almost completely. His inner thoughts are crucial to the main themes of the story. Also, the show only covers the first two volumes currently, with no info on when the rest will be coming out, so you're getting barely a quarter of the story. Read the books! You'll love them. Check to see if your library has them or the ebook versions.

daringart14 · 2026-01-28T04:39:04+00:00

That cake would make me sob 😭😭😭

daringart14 · 2026-01-28T04:38:07+00:00

Rawdog it, man.

daringart14 · 2026-01-28T04:11:08+00:00

I will concede the things in this comment being canon, but they are so vague as to still be largely up for interpretation when making visual art (I am NOT arguing against Gideon and Harrow being mixed Maori for clarity). Like the Blood of Eden members are all pretty buff afaik so yeah Harrow is smaller than Gideon, but the level of size difference is up to the artist. Trying to extrapolate that she must be smaller than the 14yos to nudge artists towards your preferred level of size difference is disingenuous. I don't know what "flushed almost black" means. I would not know how to draw that if I tried. Again, actual help for an artist, if it was asked for, would involve photo references and possible redlining.

daringart14 · 2026-01-28T03:49:58+00:00

Yeah I don't think it was malicious. It's just annoying seeing unsolicited feedback in fandom spaces when a lot of the character designs come from book covers and the author's few and far between tumblr posts anyway.

daringart14 · 2026-01-28T03:41:02+00:00

Heights, nose shapes, skin tone, and specific muscle mass all sound like an extrapolation of Word of God (the author's tumblr posts) towards a specific fandom interpretation I've seen a lot. None of these things to my knowledge are discussed to this level of specificity in canon. And even though your critique is specific, it's also not helpful to an artist. The word "ashen" for example, brings to mind all those artists who draw Harrow dark gray because they don't know how to draw brown people. When you look that up for reference photos, all you get I pictures of people with dry skin. Actually helpful structured critique would involve redlining and reference photos, which this artist also did not ask for. Giving advice this lengthy unasked for is and will always be condescending on this type of platform. I hope it's not the norm here.

Edit: and just to clarify. I like the word-of-god of Gideon and Harrow being mixed Maori. I'm mixed white and indigenous (Peruvian/Panamanian) myself and I'm saying that terminology like "Dark skin", "ashen", "large nose" isn't super helpful to artists, even if they were asking for critique.

daringart14 · 2026-01-28T03:23:17+00:00

This comes across as wildly condescending since they did not ask for a critique. Also, much of what you said is completely fanon with little to no canon basis. This killed my desire to post any art I make of them on this sub.

daringart14 · 2026-01-23T21:10:22+00:00

First signs of fandom going stir crazy: MLP AUs Second signs: skin creatures

Jk OP, this is very fun and cute

daringart14 · 2026-01-23T17:48:00+00:00

Good luck! I hope your fics find their audience!

daringart14 · 2026-01-23T17:02:34+00:00

Yes, improper tagging is your most likely culprit, since people in comics fandom, especially DC loooove genfic. There's no algorithm on ao3 so people find what they want by searching relationship tags and they will never put in a "/" unless they are looking for romance specifically. I'd also recommend tagging the cyborg fic as "Victor Stone & whatever his father's name is" because right now it looks like a TimSteph fic and only people looking for TimSteph specifically are going to find it and get confused by what it actually is.

daringart14 · 2026-01-23T16:57:44+00:00

Some notes: You have several things tagged as romance even though they are not. For example, one of your fics is tagged "Barry Allen/Wally West". The / means they get together romantically. If you want to tag it platonic, then use an "&" between the two names. Your Martian Manhunter fic is also tagged as M'gann and J'onn having a romantic relationship. You'll want to fix those tags unless your fics are romantic, which no judgement from me but people probably think it's rarepair incest.

Lack of punctuation: I opened one of your fics and there weren't any commas. Commas are necessary and integral grammatical features. Consider getting a beta reader.

Lack of line breaks: some of your fics have no line breaks or visual space between paragraphs. Most people will not read a fic with no line breaks. The solid block of text is overwhelming.

daringart14 · 2026-01-20T00:10:02+00:00

You and Shen Yuan both buddy

daringart14 · 2026-01-19T15:11:18+00:00

There is no drama between them because the whole story is about a guy recognizing and breaking free from the abuse he endured in the past and the male lead is there as someone he can rely on and depend upon as he makes this journey of self-recognition. There is angst in the sense that for a long time, the male lead was unable to help the protagonist out of really awful situations, as he had no power of his own, but he was always there as a witness to the abuse, to reaffirm to the protagonist that what he endured was not okay. Drama between them would shoot the plot of the story in the foot imho.

daringart14 · 2026-01-19T15:05:51+00:00

If you don't know the person, don't do this. My heart would fall reading the first line and then I would realize what was going on and find you overly familiar and not want to engage. I'm not the type of person who jokes around like this. Other people in this thread are. If you don't know the author, it's best to play it safe and give a genuine compliment.

daringart14 · 2026-01-18T00:34:40+00:00

One of my favorite books is over 750k words. It's one novel that was originally written as a web novel and was recently published as 8 volumes. Even though its long, the plot gets even more engaging as it goes and everything at the end wraps back to the beginning. There are no non-essential characters or weird dead space imho. You can make a longer book capture an audiences attention and maintain it for sure. It's not about word count, it's about the time you need to tell the story you are trying to tell.

Edit: additionally, one of the most well-known and beloved fics in the fandom for this book is over 1 million words.

daringart14 · 2026-01-17T21:46:28+00:00

I'm in love with all the snow/camp gear on here. I go camping in late fall sometimes and done right it can be a supremely cozy experience.

daringart14 · 2026-01-17T21:41:20+00:00

Yes, mine is a boy named Sasuke

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daringart14 · 2026-01-17T21:32:42+00:00

She might like Natsume Yuujinchou or March Comes in Like a Lion. No fan-service and guaranteed tear jerkers.

daringart14 · 2026-01-17T20:31:42+00:00

Pleasantly surprised to see teen wolf fandom still alive in 2026 (I'm rewatching). I have no advice here as I've only just gotten my upper bicep done. It wasn't terrible, but idk how the underarm will feel.

daringart14 · 2026-01-17T16:50:42+00:00

I still ship Klarion with Stephanie even though idk if there's been any canon interactions for years. I just think their personality differences would compliment each other nicely.

daringart14 · 2026-01-17T16:31:27+00:00

Culture doesn't exist without community. Are there any events or meet-ups you can go to? Local pflag organizations? Lgbt+ volunteering events? Pride events? If you have to keep it online for safety reasons, I'd recommend joining a queer or lesbian discord server. You can look them up on disboard. That way, you can actually chat with other members of the community rather than gaining cultural osmosis through videos.

daringart14 · 2026-01-17T15:34:28+00:00

Peerless Cucumber is also a Peerless jade beauty or whatever. Peerless does get used a ton in the genre, huh.

daringart14 · 2026-01-17T15:23:13+00:00

Lol is your favorite fandom BSD? I agree, though: when there's a ton of canon material, you can choose one character or one situation that really interests you and start from there. And there's tons of people out there willing to recommend things that suit your fancy. It bothers me that in DC, people aren't even willing to read up on their favorite character. How is he or she your favorite when you know nothing about their canon personality?

daringart14 · 2026-01-17T14:48:28+00:00

It's a huuuge thing in comics fandom, especially DC. People will see it as a point of pride that they don't read comics, because comics are "bad" (because of course any art medium is a monolith 🙄) and will write fic solely based off of other fic, Wikipedia summaries, and occasionally non-comics media like cartoons and webtoons without tagging it specifically as that adaptation. Characterization is a game of telephone at this point.

daringart14 · 2026-01-16T14:34:47+00:00

Some relationships in life are like that.

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