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Why did I always get kudos from COMMENT_ME_JAPANESE_TITS? Why did I never get kudos from Carl Gauss? What's a girl got to do to attract a studly mathematician to her principia-mathematica-omegaverse fanfic? I'd proved the number 4 at least twenty times! But no, Gauss and his cute flowery signature were nowhere to be seen! Just me, the Hell Hounds, and the stalwart tit-requester. Typical.

(https://secretfanspace.dreamwidth.org/3100.html?thread=5411356#cmt5411356)

Welcome back! Chat fandom, creative things, odd stuff you've seen around the net, funny stuff, books, films, anything! Meme trundles on!

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From: (Anonymous)

8. Partway thru. So far, this chapter satirizes the social media response to the novel's success, and the critics accusing the narrator of various forms of racism. The satire isn't quite there, for me; the passage about everyone attacking the book for making the Chinese labourers lust over a white woman is funny, but also feels like a stretch, since that's an assumption I've seen directed at black, arab and south asian men, but never chinese men, tbh (instead, I think the inverse is more of a trope, where white men assume chinese women make ideal wives, for all sorts of dodgy reasons). It does track that an online conversation would just grab an anti-black trope and apply it everywhere, regardless of fit, tho not sure that's what Kuang was going for.

I'm also not sure how well this satire works when you've gone with the premise that the "author" has stolen the MS, vs written it herself. I think it'd hit harder emotionally if the author had set out to write a well-meaning novel about Chinese labourers in WWI, blundered around, and then got the predictable social media response. Maybe it's better to keep the reader at a distance from the narrator, to keep the story light. But it does suck out some potential for drama. Guess I'll see where it goes.

From: (Anonymous)

She then gets into the idea of appropriation more widely, and discusses the appropriation of suffering, presenting the possibility that Athena was a kind of vulture getting material from tragedies she hadn't experienced (owing to being rich Asian American diaspora, NOT a suffering WW1 vet), and asking what the real difference is between that behaviour and her own. She keeps slipping Athena's own defences of her craft in there, so this bit feels like the author having a go at herself in the role of an imaginary critic, and not quite ready to give said critic full reign, but fair enough, it's one of the more interesting avenues for the discussion to go down. I don't think there's anything in here so far that my own debate-simulation apparatus hasn't covered, so it's not that interesting to read, but maybe it would be if I had never thought about this stuff. I like that so far, the book is much less stupid than the commentary on the book; my issues currently are mostly that the characterization is too thin, so it reads like a debate with character names tacked on, rather than a plausible story about people. So some of that might come down to personal taste.

From: (Anonymous)

And I find it interesting that the *way* the characterization feels thin and unconvincing is the same way it does in a lot of MFA novels, or novels that are touted as The Next Big Thing in the lit world, though it's hard to put my finger on what exactly it is they're all getting wrong. Like, ok, what I *feel* from them is "lack of life experience", but what is it about the words on the page that gives me that vibe? What makes one book feel solid and another feel weightless? Something I'll be wondering about.

From: (Anonymous)

Ch9. June goes to an Asian American social event to give her some street cred. It backfires; the organizers have assumed she's Chinese, and it's well awkward when they realize she isn't. The organizer is pissed off but stays silent (out of decorum? Out of kindness to June? Out of her own embarassment? I like that it's not spelled out, as it would be in a shittier novel), and June feels ashamed. It's impossible not to read this chapter without cringing, and while it's a bit heavy-handed, I think the book would work better with more of this vibe; June actually feels guilty, for a change, and trapped. In general, I think this book would have benefited from making June either more sympathetic, or thoroughly unrepentant, whereas it's mostly stuck in an awkward middle ground.

From: (Anonymous)

Ch10. Hollywood comes knocking. They suggest they make a film of the novel, in a racist way. "Aight," says June. "Sounds good to me." This is another one where the idea of the scene appeals to me but I don't think it's as well-executed as it could be. Go harder, more ridiculous! Or go softer, more realistic!

(Also there's a pun on "death of the author", and I can hear Kuang, bojack-like, "did you get it? Did you get it? Did you?" but tbf the goofiness of this makes me like her better. yes u put words in a character's mouth that they would never say, but we got it.)

From: (Anonymous)

Ch11. She's describing the mean comments June gets on social media, as rumors of the novel's true origins swirl. I don't think I can critique this part fairly, since I write a lot of stuff that goes in that direction (ie: parodying aggro responses on social media), and am of the humble opinion that I do it better than anyone else. For me, Kuang's attempt is a bit limp and needs seasoning with wittier humor. But yeah, biased. Tho I don't think humor is Kuang's strong suit. The comments here read more like draft placeholders than the final comments. This chapter could've been so much funnier.

From: (Anonymous)

Example:

https://imgur.com/b94BsEd

Come on, babe, you've literally just transcribed a meme. Go harder! Make it original.

From: (Anonymous)

Oh, and that scarjo bit niggles because if a reader doesn't know the scarjo memes, it doesn't explain enough. If the reader does know, it overexplains. A lot of the writing in this book is like that, and could do with tightening.

From: (Anonymous)

End of chapter. It goes more into her being disturbed at online trolls, and the overimportance of twitter for the publishing industry and authors' reputations, and again I think "this would be so much better if the character hadn't been positioned as stealing the MS to start". Still, the psychological stuff here is good, and feels informed by experience.

From: (Anonymous)

Ch12 or 13, I forget. June decides she's had enough of online trolls, so she decides to make a honeypot website so she can track their locations from their IP addresses. This idea is cool but it's executed in a really dumb way, for some reason. Apparently June knows how to set up a website, and how to retrieve visitor IPs, but not how to geolocate them. What? So she knows everything except... Google? 🧐 She intends to forward the IPs to her IT tech brother in law, so he can track them, anyway. 🤷

Not finished the chapter, yet. Maybe it'll make more sense as it goes on. If you can code, this chapter will prolly give you a laugh; this is not an author who knows tech. :p

From: (Anonymous)

Still same chapter. Athena gets posthumously Cancelled for not being good enough Asian American Representation, and this part I think is sharply written and satisfying to read. It accurately depicts how the lit crowd hop from adoring the hot new thing to burning the witch at a fingersnap, usually without even bothering to read any of the works they praise or castigate. It made me laugh, though also makes me wonder if Kuang will ever get it together and terf out. You can't really talk about witch-hunts in modern publishing and not mention THE most obvious one.

From: (Anonymous)

Right when I was complimenting the structure, she went and spoiled it by introducing a new, villainois character halfway thru the book. Ok, she gave a heads up about the character's existence... Like a chapter before. This character needed to be mentioned at the start!

Though tbf, there's a chaaaance they were. Maybe I skimread. Any dans who've read it, feel free to correct me if I'm being an eejit.

From: (Anonymous)

(ooh, "villainois", sounds French! That was meant to be "villainous". Obviously. Enjoy this pointless post.)

From: (Anonymous)

Ch15. Hard to concentrate, because the tenses are all over the place. Fix grammar plz. Shame, because otherwise this chapter is good. June reveals that, after she was raped at Yale, Athena comforted her, listened to her, then poached her account of her feelings and used the tale to get published in a literary magazine that June herself had been rejected from. Fair enough, June, do what you like with Athena's manuscript after that, lol.

From: (Anonymous)

Ch16. June puts out another book, plagiarizes off Athena, again, but this time it is discovered immediately, and there's proof. Given the earlier rumors, everyone assumes she's been plagiarizing everything. All her fake publishing friends desert her. But she has a damn good agent, who salvages things. Up 'til now, he's been depicted mostly as a slightly racist bro, but his smooth agenting in this chapter has boosted him in my estimation, because apparently I value competence over most things. :'] She has only plagiarized the first para, so they agree to rewrite that, make a statement, and leave the rest.

But June's not out of the woods yet. Athena's mother has all of Athena's old wip notebooks, so can prove that June is a plagiarist, but she says she won't look inside. The emphasis on her mother having secrets is now heavy enough that I've been wondering for a while if Yellowface is going to have a twist that Athena is a) adopted and b) Korean, just for the lols.

I am enjoying the plot developments and interested to see what happens next; I think this book is better when it moves away from Discourse and more into plotty territory. May be personal preference.

From: (Anonymous)

Kuang continues to be a bit odd about money. June apparently has enough to live on, for the next 15 years, eating takeout every other day. But then she gets some good news about royalties going up a bit for a project, and she's pleased, picturing buying an IKEA couch. So who's this person who has funds for fifteen YEARS but can't afford a couch from IKEA??? Did I miss something? Is Kuang unfamiliar with IKEA? She's mentioned it by name a few times. I also don't see how June can possibly have this much money, with the figures quoted so far. Maybe I misread something. And if June went to Yale, and she has 15 years' living expenses handy, why is she too dumb to invest?

From: (Anonymous)

Even if she just uses a fixed rate savings account, she could stretch that passive income. Get it together, June.

/dan-getting-distracted-by-pointless-details

From: (Anonymous)

17. The mob turning on June has unexpected consequences: she becomes a darling of the online alt-right. Here, I don't think Kuang has her finger on the pulse. She suggests the alt-right would take the angle that plagiarism is fine because free speech and Own The Libs. No. The angle the online right would take is *exactly the same angle Kuang is taking*. They would frame it as a "woke mob" story, and it'd focus on June's discovery of the viciousness and superficiality of those in the industry who present themselves as progressive, kind and virtuous. And a fair chunk of rightwing youtubers et al would just go "lol snake eating its tail" or "lol industry run by women; what do you expect?"-- but those left remaining would invite June to tell her tale of her emotional journey. Kuang, in the eyes of many of the people you are seeking to satirize, *you are alt-right*. Sorry. But I suspect that, sooner or later, you are going to say something inconvenient for them, and they are going to let you know it.

From: (Anonymous)

17 continued. She has writers' block, so she goes to Chinatown for inspo. She is cringe. She goes to a restaurant, where she tries to interview the staff, but they recognise her as a plagiarist and ask her to leave. (Thathappened.jpg). For some reason, she doesn't know what soup dumplings are, even though she could take a wild guess from the name. I'm still confused about how June can be *so* stupid and a Yale student while not rich. Anyway. I'm confused about how she doesn't seem to have ever been in a Chinese restaurant before. She also expects Chinatown both to be full of crime and also super gentrified? Idk, these seem like very weird expectations for Chinatown, but I keep substituting in my local Chinatown, which I tend to visit for late night cafes and dessert places. No rep for more or less crime than anywhere else in town, and somewhere local students choose to go all the time for nights out. Maybe hers has a different rep.

Depth: 20

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