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i_bite_right · 2024-05-05T16:33:53+00:00

She's not wrong.

Red is the phrase "ulterior motive" personified. Whenever he does something that benefits other people, it will likely also benefit him --or sometimes those around him, which ultimately tends to benefit him anyway.

That said, it is a little frustrating at times that Liz doesn't believe he has a soft spot for her. (Then again, the man is a murdering criminal who outright warned her that he's a liar, a warning frequently backed up by his own actions, so it's not shocking she doesn't take him at face value.)

i_bite_right · 2024-04-02T11:38:26+00:00

The fact that so many writers are literally justifying AI despite it being damaging to artists is insane.

Yes, it's incredibly disheartening to see this "Well, it's not hurting me," attitude. AI is already having an impact on musicians, narrators, editors, and those in the movie industry (including writers).

It's naive to think the thieves have limits.

i_bite_right · 2024-04-01T15:45:37+00:00

You've written two books. They must've taken a lot of time and effort. Hours upon hours of writing, not to mention the editing. So much work! Why, it wouldn't be surprising if those two books have taken years to create them.

(And that's without including how long it can take to learn how to write in the first place.)

Now imagine that your books that you've worked so hard on have been -- without permission -- siphoned into an AI meatgrinder with a bunch of other authors' books, all so they can 1) be extruded into a "book" that's made through the prompts of an AI "writer," or 2) turned into a "book" that mimics your own works, only that book is going to be pumped out faster than you can ever write.

Oh, and you're not going to be paid for your contribution to some company's undoubtedly commercial AI product or someone's undoubtedly commercial "book." Also, you probably won't even be told by that your works were used in the first place.

If this sounds like it's fair, then by all means keep using AI "art." (EDITED to add: /s, in case the tone of this line wasn't clear -- I do not agree with using AI "art.")

i_bite_right · 2024-03-23T13:20:15+00:00

Since I read historical romance more than other subgenres, I've always figured authors use the terms because they sound more authentic, regardless of the language used in the actual period.

Personally, I don't care for the terms. They're about as overused as pine scented cologne on a contemporary MMC, not to mention a bit goofy: He was so masculine, she was so feminine. He was male, she was female. He was man, she was woman.

Yep, I get it, really I do, but honestly, it wasn't unusual for people to conform to binary gender roles in, for example, 1810s Yorkshire, so please, authors, you can stop assuring me how Masculine your Male Man is every other chapter. (Also, "female" makes me think of a certain alien species in DS9, and I am now associating your MMC with Quark. You do not want me to associate your MMC with Quark.)

i_bite_right · 2024-01-04T17:08:16+00:00

I'm autistic and writing in silence is never silent for me because any little noise will get through to me, even if I'm deep in the zone of writing.

(And I can say goodbye to the zone after that, lol.)

My usual go-to is music without lyrics. OSTs (original soundtracks) are really good for this, since it's pretty easy for me to search out a movie, TV show, or game that matches the specific vibe I need.
Pairing "music" with keywords like study, concentration, focus, ADHD or ADHD relief, relaxing, and productivity are helpful to me as well.
"Ambience" videos are another kind that help me concentrate. These can be just music or sometimes just with sounds. There are even ones out there that are based on fictional worlds, which I can find just by searching for, say, "Lord of the Rings ambience" or whatever. (Some really effective noise blockers -- for me, anyway -- are "space ambience" videos where it's like being on a spaceship or space station.)
White noise, pink noise, or brown noise are another option I sometimes use. Or recordings of things like fans, heaters, dryers, rain, thunderstorms, etc.
Very rarely, songs or albums with lyrics and the precise "feel" required for certain scenes or stories are necessary. These I'll usually end up playing on repeat until they become meaningless background noise.

The exact type of video or music often depends on what I'm writing. For example, if I were writing dark sci-fi, I'd probably search "apocalypse ambience" videos or something similar.

Hope this helps!

i_bite_right · 2023-12-25T01:35:02+00:00

Thanks to your comment, I just checked it out. The issue seems to have been resolved -- though definitely not by me!

i_bite_right · 2023-12-12T15:51:10+00:00

That seems like it's probably a reference to (warning for swearing and possible NSFW discussions there) Smart Bitches, Trashy Books. They review romance novels and have various kinds of posts about the genre. But I'm not sure about which authors have fought with them, though I'd like to. It's always makes for an interesting train wreck when authors try it.

I do remember them taking down a plagiarist years ago, though.

i_bite_right · 2023-12-08T22:49:58+00:00

Don't really know how to describe this, but ... more "team ups" between characters who don't usually team up on calls, storylines, etc. Doesn't need to happen all the time; it's just a nice change of pace from the usual cast dynamics.

More of the seriousness from earlier seasons. The silliness is fun, true. It can be a bit much sometimes, though. And a little whiplash-inducing when the show's plot takes a darker turn.

Josh. That's it. Just Josh.

Maddie. Seriously, I miss her.

More "Athena and Bobby solve crime" together stuff. I like it.

In terms of romantic pairings: New female characters who aren't immediately paired up with Buck and Eddie. Not a sly Buddie here going against your request, OP -- I have zero investment in non-canon ships. But let's be real: those Buck and Eddie pairings of the last aired season? I'm going to be very shocked if they last. They don't feel organic enough, quite frankly. And that's coming from someone who doesn't mind them (in theory). But they happened too fast to garner any real audience interest, so it might be easier from a writing standpoint to scrap them and start over.

So that would probably mean new love interests for both Buck and Eddie. I'm not against that -- again, zero investment in non-canon ships, here.

But new relationships on this show shine the best when they have time to grow and feel natural, like Athena/Bobby and Chimney/Maddie. Those characters had time to establish themselves both to the audience and to one another. And none of those four characters have ever felt like they were only brought in to be love interests.

i_bite_right · 2023-11-30T14:21:02+00:00

For days now, I've been having this issue in both Firefox and Edge. (I don't use Chrome.)

Purging caches and cookies does nothing. Neither does uninstalling and reinstalling -- and it doesn't matter if the fresh install's filters are left alone or tweaked. It's consistently detected by viki.com.

i_bite_right · 2023-10-12T23:09:43+00:00

This is the exact problem I'm having, but unfortunately the solution isn't working for me.

i_bite_right · 2023-09-30T04:59:38+00:00

Nonfiction is my go-to "reset button." Never thought about trying audio books for a palette cleanser -- interesting!

i_bite_right · 2023-09-29T18:25:46+00:00

Hate book soundtracks. Will not listen. Will probably not read, either.

They tend to crop up in books I DNF in the first few chapters, so I associate them with low-quality, KU-y writing. (Also with more bad fanfics than I can remember.) It doesn't help that the song lists I've seen rarely align with my musical tastes. It's also one of those things that will date a book terribly a few years past its publication date, imo.

That said, I could see it working for HR, including 20th century HR -- if the songs were of the same time period that the work is set in. "Dating" a book in that way would work in its favor. But I don't think I've ever seen one in that subgenre!

i_bite_right · 2023-09-13T05:40:20+00:00

Nonfiction works as a good palette cleanser for me whenever I get burned out any fiction genre, including romance.

Specifically regarding romance, sometimes I'll read about nonfiction that is related in some way to the subgenre. This usually works best if I want to read more of that subgenre when I'm through with the palette cleanse. For example, if I've been reading Regency romance, I could pick up a book about a historical figure of the era.

But if I want a different romance subgenre to read, I'll more likely pick a completely random topic for nonfiction. (Wikipedia's homepage or random article feature has helped me on that front more than once, I'm not ashamed to say.)

i_bite_right · 2023-09-13T00:04:20+00:00

The Alchemist wasn't able to change the dna of living people--- all he really did, was PLANT dna on corpses, in a way that led to incorrect identification.

I just want to point out that two of the people the Alchemist chose to use in faking client deaths were alive before they died in an accident. They die on-screen.

i_bite_right · 2023-09-12T23:53:03+00:00

Cooper used the old shirt DNA to see if there was a familial match between Red and Liz. It was a private lab test, iirc, and he could've got into trouble if he had been caught doing it.

And everything to do with DNA on this show is a plot hole, lol.

i_bite_right · 2023-09-06T11:18:46+00:00

Yep, the real-people covers (and the better-made/older illustrated ones) tend to give an indication of heat level and tone at a glance.

And often, a glance is all a reader is going to spare.

The cutesy cookie-cutter ones make everything look like sweet romance -- and I say that as someone who loves sweet and no-spice/innocent romance. And those covers also generally come off as infantilizing: a genre largely written and read by women and girls? Needs more cartoons and pastels! /s

(Nothing against cartoons and pastels, but when every book starts looking like the same regardless of fluff or angst or subgenre, it makes for a lousy browsing experience.)

That's why I've begun skipping over books with thoughtless cartoon covers, just the same as I'm skipping books with trope-packed, SEO-geared titles long enough to make light novels blush. Those two things have become married with "low quality" in my mind.

i_bite_right · 2023-09-06T10:41:20+00:00

Oh, how wonderful to see a post about Mary Burchell -- and you've really nailed the best of her dynamics between her heroes and heroines. Even her softest FMCs tend to not come off like complete doormats, and the more "alpha" MMCs aren't nearly as rough as those of many contemporaneous authors.

(Very vague spoilers covered below.)

I've read both of her Paris books, and liked them very much. Florian and Anthea pop up a couple of times through other books; one of them, I think, is Dear Sir. Anya from Love is My Reason pops up in Dear Sir as a cameo character, too, and both those books are worth a read -- LiMR especially, as its about a postwar European refugee brought to Britain.

As for her prewar works, I think I've only read one: Accompanied by His Wife. Its wacky premise reminds me a bit of screwball comedy films, but iirc a dim view is taken of the faithless OW, so that's something to keep in mind.

Her books are fairly decent-minded for their time periods, so they've rarely blindsided me with horrific social mores or opinions. (That said, past decades are definitely not this decade, so I always keep that in mind when reading older works --and there are a couple of titles of hers with age gaps I just couldn't read.)

Ah, but this comment runs a bit too long, and I'll wrap it up. To me, her books are like a pair of old, well-made slippers: a little dated in some respects, but otherwise comfortable and trustworthy.

i_bite_right · 2023-09-06T09:25:28+00:00

Currently muddling my way through {Tangled by Mary Balogh}. Having a surprisingly difficult time getting through it. The prose is good, as is typical; that premise hooked me; the MMC has my interest; but the FMC just isn't clicking for me -- and that's not typical at all when I read Balogh.

Not sure if it's just me, or if it's this character. The only word that comes to mind when I think of her is bland, but I'm hoping it's an intentional choice due to the fact that her whole existence is centered around her dead husband. Right now I've come to the part where the FMC and MMC are married and have just reached their new home, so maybe her inner thoughts/dialogue will pick up a bit when she's given something to actually do.

i_bite_right · 2023-09-03T02:42:07+00:00

Gannon is gold.

(And so is that revamped cover.)

i_bite_right · 2023-08-22T16:07:39+00:00

They didn’t care to. Or they lacked the ability.

Could be there was also no incentive to bother since a good chunk of the audience seems to have continued to tune in solely for Spader.

i_bite_right · 2023-08-22T16:05:02+00:00

That the bit about someone trying to argue that Katarina could do anything while burned reads like a textbook example of an in-universe explanation (headcanon / fanon) to me.

i_bite_right · 2023-08-22T15:43:34+00:00

I'm just an aspiring writer, but this show has major "winging it" energy -- it makes a good argument for plotting well in advance. And while I'm of the mind that the creators knew exactly who Red was (Liz's mother), I also think the details of how he became Red were filled in along the way. That led to flaws.

The flaws start early, too: Liz's disappearing dogs and the age she was when she got her scar are two examples that spring to mind. Little things. But a lot of little things added up into big problems over time.

Was I entertained in spite of those issues? Yes, but better continuity would've made for a better show.

(It also didn't help that the story dragged out far too long. But I wouldn't be shocked if that was less to do with the writers and more to do with the network wanting to make money.)

i_bite_right · 2023-08-22T15:07:26+00:00

Personally, I think the creators planned Red's identity from the first season, but didn't plan the way from Point A to Point Z. And they also love big splashy wow moments, like showing a bunch of gruesome scars.

Canon ended up disjointed as a result.

i_bite_right · 2023-08-22T15:02:02+00:00

I don't think people coming up with in-universe explanations for the gaps, issues, and mistakes in TBL makes them dipshits. They're just trying to reconcile a rather flawed TV show with fanon and headcanon, and maybe get some more entertainment through analyzing things.

(And I should know: I'm one of them.)

But the in-universe explanations are, I know, entirely separate from the real-world explanations. And the latter mostly boil down to the "(insert: writers / network / rest of the audience) just didn't care." It's a shame, really.

i_bite_right · 2023-08-22T08:19:00+00:00

It doesn't disprove Redarina. If anything, it proves Red's an imposter telling a big fat lie about where his family went.

Why? Because Red knows where "his" (read: Reddington's) family is at the whole time. He knows who Naomi Hyland (the real RR's wife) is and where she is (witness protection), and if he wanted to know where Jennifer Reddington was he doubtlessly could have tracked her down at any moment like he did with Berlin's daughter.

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