hello anon! full disclosure i'm guy whose primary wip is turning 5 this year and also guy who regularly returns to wips i dropped years ago to finish them after everyone has already left the party BUT i do think it's important to triage wips depending on your personal cost/benefit analysis, because we all have a finite amount of time and energy in our lives. for me that looks like estimating how much i have left until the fic is done and weighing it against how much i like the idea and how much i've thought through what actually happens in the fic / how realistic it is for me to finish. since i have extremely limited free time for writing these days i tend to prioritise ease of completion above all else, so if i only have like 500 words of a very vague idea that i think will end up at around 10k but am not entirely sure where it's going, then i'm more likely to switch focus to something where i think i'm a couple k away from finishing (whether that's actually true or not is a vastly different question…) and know what i need to write to get there. you might assign different weights to these factors (eg maybe you value the idea more than the proximity to the finish line); the breakdown is fully up to you.

i also find that i hit a stage in every single wip where i'm irrationally convinced that it sucks and i should quit and move onto something i can execute better and/or quit writing altogether, and the only way out of that particular feeling is through unfortunately, so i've gotten used to recognising that it's a warped self-perception thing that doesn't necessarily reflect the reality of how good/bad the fic is and just pushing through. my view is always that it's better to have a fic that is imperfect but done and on paper where it can be improved, as opposed to a fic that is perfect but trapped in your head. i feel like we are often our own harshest critics and what we think isn't translating well is actually fine to someone outside of our minds. it definitely helps me to talk through scenes or plot points i'm stuck on with a friend! just last week i was complaining to pea about not knowing what the central conflict of my current exchange wip should be and she instantly came up with the perfect solution. or sometimes all a wip needs is some resting time. you can always put something on pause and revisit it later (and usually when i do this i find it isn't as bad as i remember), even if "later" is years down the track.

hope this helps! lmk if you'd like me to talk more about the process of pushing through / writing motivation generally, i have a few old ccs on the topic and would be happy to repost <3

OMG 🫂💖 vampire academy my beloved my vampire ya romance onepick even!! to be fair to you dimirose had uhh a lot going on even outside of the cheating LMAO i personally find teacher/student romances offputting even though i love power dynamics and mentorshipping and authority figure x subordinate ships in non-school contexts, so dimirose was never one of my main vampac agendas but the cheating did put me off even further. it's a shame because rose was one of my fave heroines but cheating kind of is where i draw the line 😭 still, i have always been a henchman enthusiast and rose was one of my first.

for me the emotional core of the series will always be roselissa (and christian can be there too <3), real true love that transcends the boundary between life and death :') invented bodyguard romance to me like hello the resurrection, the bodysharing, the ladyknight power dynamic, the rose letting lissa feed from her because keeping lissa alive is more important to rose than any societal taboo no matter how deeprooted, the rose literally dying to protect lissa… christianlissa is my fave canon ship and i loooove christianrose unlikely besties in violence and combat. was obsessed with the sex comedy scenes where rose kept accidentally getting pulled into lissa's body while she was having sex with christian like guys it's in the text My Ship Real. i would have been SO happy with a poly v endgame with lissa as centre (obviously was never going to happen but a girl can dream).

(assuming tristan is autocorrected from Adrian) yess i thought adrianrose was soooo sweet even though they had NOT ENDGAME stamped all over them from the start, they met too late for adrian "second male lead" ivashkov to ever have a real chance ): what's frustrating to me about their relationship is that i just don't buy rose's reasoning that even aside from rose being permanently hung up on dimitri, adrianrose still wouldn't have worked out because he was toxically using her as a ReasonsToLive therapy crutch – i don't think this is actually borne out in the text. imo even though adrian's relationship with rose did inspire him to be a better person and try to develop healthier habits, he wasn't hinging all of that on rose until right at the end when dimitri was back in the picture and rmead needed to get adrian out of the way asap. he was developing strong interpersonal connections with lissa jill et al separately from his status as Rose's Boyfriend and finding community and friendship and support to ground his management of spirit magic use side effects. so the authorial attempt to justify rose cheating on adrian / adrianrose breakup was just so disappointing to me. adrian one of the poorest meow meows of the whole series really.

i am a firstlovetruther but i do really really love adriansydney – have you read the sydney-centric sequel series bloodlines? i didn't enjoy it as much as vampac but the developing relationship between adrian and sydney did make me smile, i think their personalities complement each other so well and they have some fun romijuli forbidden love tropes going on!

this is making me so nostalgic i should reread the series soon :')

hello anon!! thanks for reading my reviews i'm glad you're enjoying my bookposting <3 this is a bit complicated to answer since the venn diagram of Things I Like and Things I Dislike has a 95% overlap (see especially: gore, amnesia/memory problems, pairing off an entire ensemble cast) because most tropes are heavily dependent on execution for me and i have sofuckingcomplicateditis. but the main story elements i dislike in published fiction regardless of execution are:

• focus on real-world oppression / homophobia, sexism, racism, transphobia etc being a heavy part of the plot or worldbuilding – kind of inescapable in my fave genre (sff) so i just have to cope
• a character's reputation being unjustly ruined eg public humiliation, lies that turn their loved ones against them, false accusations, etc
• medical realism eg pregnancy, infections, surgeries, needles, blood withdrawals/transfusions specifically
• unrelenting misery that also ends badly – i have a weak heart and need a little bit of hope/light/love at some point to live >_< love interests having names i find unappealing

and a few other notes:

• cheating is my #1 dnw in fic where i don't even want to see a mention of it, but i have a bit more tolerance of its existence in books, although it will permanently sour me on the ship and characters involved (dimirose vampire academy……………….)
• similarly switching/reverse is tied #1 dnw in fic but i'm less bothered by it in books because i rarely care for canon m/m or f/f so it's really none of my business if it shows up
• 95% of authors need to be banned from writing enemies to lovers

obviously not a value judgment on any of the above tropes, just what i personally prefer not to read. all this being said, i basically never dnf books no matter what (i have literally only ever dropped two books, being 1. evermore by alyson noel which was legitimately so bad i could not force myself through it and don't intend to ever revisit + 2. jade city by fonda lee which was actually really good but so insanely stressful for me i couldn't keep going although i haven't ruled out picking it back up) so i'm always shopping at the landmine store for landmines lol. probably i need to go back to my crime procedural roots and make 2025 the year of mysteries which rarely if ever fail me, but i really love magic systems so much i can't stop picking up romantasy glurge #949273939383 in the hopes that this one will be different for real not clickbait. :')

hi anon!! thank you for sharing your thoughts, i am always so happy to discuss books and feel like the_school_of_athens.png <3 really my opinion on the radiant emperor duology comes purely down to a matter of personal preference. i wish i had a better time reading them than i did! i think they are objectively excellent books and i wouldn't hesitate to rec them to people who i know are interested in the topics they explore. i also really liked everything you've mentioned enjoying here--the tragedy, the doom, the self-sabotaging behaviour exhibited by so many characters but especially ouyang, zhu's willingness to bear any human cost for the sake of her ambition--but unfortunately the books also ran into so many of my major dislikes in their subject matter that my feelings netted out to a negative. i don't like historical fiction and i don't like stories that focus heavily on characters facing prejudice and oppression whether those attitudes are period-typical or not. however, i think it's so important that these stories are told and that there is space to explore real-world oppressive power structures in fiction. i'll defend the right of those stories to exist until i die. i also accept that it's entirely on me that i was shopping at the landmine store for landmines, i knew more or less what i was going into but as sffliker9000 i hoped it would be worth it and i do think it ultimately was! i enjoyed the characters and the insane cast dynamics and the awful feeling of doom pervading every (beautifully chosen) word. but parker-chan is obviously very interested in exploring gender and sexuality, and i am not very interested in reading fiction that primarily concentrates on those themes. that's really all there is to it.

i hope that explains my views on the books! i did think they were good, i just didn't like them, in a way that casts no value judgment on them. i felt a similar way about the baru cormorant books--i respect them on a craft level and there are discrete themes and aspects that i did enjoy, but overall the story was just not something i wanted to read.

happy holidays & happy new year to you too!!

i wish i could answer you with a book that i actually liked but unfortunately things have not been going well on the literary enjoyment front for me recently 😭 just posted a book review roundup on dw for the past few months here: https://rhodochrosite.dreamwidth.org/47990.html. out of everything on there i did think the radiant emperor duology by shelley parker-chan was fairly compelling but i did not like it. however i'm pretty excited for a few entries on my tbr list, particularly exordia by seth dickinson, the queen of nothing by holly black and long live evil by sarah rees brennan, so hopefully things turn around for me soon reading-wise! which i feel like i am saying every time...

hi anon! i think the best way to deal with this is to view it as a growth opportunity. every time i read something that gives me that God I Wish I Could Write Like That feeling, i always try and figure out what specifically i admire about it and how i can apply it to my own writing--like is it the dialogue or the humour or the word choice or the imagery or some interesting aspect of figurative language or structure or... etc. by shifting the focus to myself and how i can improve, the issue of comparison/competition just never arises. so i guess my advice boils down to Just Be Really Self Absorbed but i do mean that so sincerely! it's all about YOU. if you see something you like, try it yourself (obviously i don't mean lifting phrases word for word, but like for example if i've read something that's used language in a highly experimental way i might try and write in a more experimental style myself to see how it works). everything is only a chance to improve your craft.

i also think it helps to look at fic as a community experience rather than a competition--it's not a zero sum game, there's plenty of audience for everyone. highly recommend doing things like sprints / brainstorming sessions / beta work with a few writer friends! it helps with actual productivity and with reframing writing as a collaborative thing (even if just in the sense that fic exists in dialogue with a broader fandom) rather than a you-vs-the-world thing.

wishing you the best in your writing endeavours!! i know that insecurity/competitiveness is a difficult feeling to manage but in the end we are really our own worst critics and i find that taking practical steps to harness that feeling into helping you bridge the gap between your level and where you want to be, and to make everything about yourself, is the most effective way to handle it <3

YESSS this moment right https://x.com/sanrawrxd/status/1863279064972169601?t=BMMVH9oigusf3R9CIt61LA&s=19 i looove a neck grab / waist grab moment especially when combined with the ridiculous theatrics present here lol the lady doth protest too much etc. i've been paying special attention to jml recently for reasons and laughed and smiled and clapped through their dream v dream, it touches my heart how close they've grown and how well they openly know each other now, the power of abnormal guys who are normal coworkers to men in men's business billionaire beyblade gaming buddies to silly guyswhoaresnakes bffery who can high tension out together is so beautiful. it's really nice that they've hit this You Are Not Coming In x You Are Coming In Whether You Want To Or Not equilibrium groove when they seemed to have such mismatched wavelengths before. chenle's imperviousness to (other people's) complexes and cheerful social butterfly willingness to play along with people combined with jaemin's passion for committing to the bit and open borders cognitive restructuring to cure himself of the tension points he had before in re chenle's uncontrollability has created a really funny winning formula.

that being saidddddd i'm jichen fated soulmates truther and endgamer so i do think that chenle's growing closeness with jeno and jaemin in particular has thrown such a fun little (or not little) spanner in the works for jc considering the tenor of jisung's own relationships with jmjn and it's definitely something i'd like to see explored. i'm cheering on your jc wip efforts!!! i am also getting back in the jc wip mines myself, let's push the writing boulder together <3 also ctfu'd at your last sentence, strongly cosigned as an average jmrn enjoyer.

awww anon my heart is so touched T__T <3 um firstly i'm sorry about misery and anguish being my writing passion but thank you for bearing with me whfdkjgkdfd i like to think that my fics are ultimately about love and belief even in the face of certain doom so i hope that those moments of catharsis are worth the pain!! lol i'm so glad the jokes/terror zigzagging in swdbg worked for you. war criminals shop too is so silly but i did crack myself up writing that part. also very glad you liked haechan's voicing and the realtruepresentgame love that is dr in swdbg, i know the jmrn is incredibly heavy emotionally but i really tried to balance it out with the dr so both dynamics would resonate with equal weight. anyway i hope you enjoyed(??? felt some kind of way about???) the rest of swdbg and thank you so much for dropping this very lovely note in my inbox!!

hello!! omg yes i've seen op's yuri art pop up on my tl and it is so pleasing to look at, really such a lovely art style and i am always glad to see more f/f around :') <3 especially enjoyed https://x.com/haotmeal/status/1793105296208064819 for the beautiful girls and beautiful tennis. it's so funny that you mention winrina--i distinctly remember mistaking one of of op's yuri bn artworks where they're blonde x brunette for winrina on first glance lmao. also As A Fellow Zzt Onepickist would you like to say more about the vibes you felt from zh (like... homosexuality...?) because i do love a highranker centre slayer on principle and he is kind of already my oshi in law...

i haven't read <the guy she was interested in wasn't a guy at all> in its published form but i did read parts of it when sumiko arai was posting it as a comic on twitter, again an art style so pleasing to look at. from my limited knowledge it's not really my personal taste in story (i like romance in a high-stakes high-tension People Die When Killed setting) but i thought it was cute!!

I HAVE NOW, i can't believe it's never found its way onto my radar before considering that one of my greatest passions in life is idol survival shows where the survival is literal. average death games and idolverse angst and military academy child soldierdols and people dying when killed and complex entanglements of unrequited love and ambiguous relationships and sacrifice and rescue and doom enjoyer... rn hyuna and luka are probably 2pick, hyuna is so cool and reminds me of sakura kyoukos i have loved before and luka being a twisted fucking cycle path and defending champion is all exactly what i like to see.

will be meditating further on agendas but i’m primarily interested in luka → hyuna → mizi (arrow directions not entirely determinative), luka illusioning sua in order to provoke mizi into losing her shit was an image soooo compelling as was hyuna swooping in to rescue mizi and saving or trying to save her over and over and over again and ofc i will be there no matter what for whatever toxic enemyexes who never got over each other thing lukahyuna have going on… there’s a couple of scenes in all in, one where mizi is clinging onto hyuna on the motorcycle and they drive past one of luka’s ads and there’s a closeup of the image of his face reflected on hyuna’s sunglasses, and another where hyuna has been captured and then mizi charges in to rescue her and again it’s luka’s ad behind her (LOVE the hyuna pov shot of mizi’s resolve visibly kicking in as she shoots and Image Of Luka splits and blurs in the background now that’s cinema…). anyway those instantly crystallised evil triangulation visions in my mind. i really like the idea of hyunamizi resistance roadtrip where they experience joy and laughter and couldbesecondlove with each other but ultimately their histories and ghosts mean they were doomed from the start. but still it means something that they did save each other in the moment even if it could not last.

other scenes i enjoyed: hyuna desperately trying to stop mizi from risking her life to go to till and mizi shaking her off because she has to try to save till no matter what, ivan double checking that till’s score is higher than his while he’s kissing/strangling till to save him, child luka killing a boy just because he got too close to hyuna, till closing his hand around mizi’s with the last of his strength, the first time luka seems off-balance being when he sees hyuna again on the stage at finals.

finally the premise is sooo friendship cup from yugioh arc v season 2… to me...