Author spotlight/Themed weeks planning

[geraineon]

Hi all,

I'd love to get some stuff going in August, so I'd like to ask you all if anyone wants to help out with this!

Author's Spotlight

What: A post, or collection of posts (depending on your energy/time) on one specific author and their works. Ideally it will include links to the works, available translations if any, some thoughts of your thoughts on some of their works. Feel free to include your favourite fanworks too or other reviews!
When: An author every month

Please reply to claim an author and month!

List of authors and months (will be updated as we go):

August: geraineon (Jiang Zi Bei)
September: momijizukamori (priest) + requesting for help
October: geraineon (Musuli) [note: if you want to do this, let me know!] We will have a themed novel spotlight instead! (thanks hazevi)
November:
December: douqi (Ning Yuan)
January: hazevi (Yi Zhan Ye Deng)

Themed weeks

What: During the themed weeks, recommend anything related to the theme or create fanworks/request for fanworks related to the theme (e.g., Thousand Autumns, but make it e-sports). Or discuss them however! (We can even do read-alongs, I think?).
When: Every month, for two weeks (tentatively, testing it out the week of August 4th)

This is what I'm having more trouble trying to think about what to do and duration. I have a list of suggested themes and genres compiled through past posts (thank you!). I suppose we can try it first? Any and all comments/suggestions appreciated on how to do this! (if you have examples from other communities/other spaces, that'd be great!)

List of suggested themes/genres

Sci-Fi
Detective stories
Esports/Entertainment industry
Female Protagonists
Quick Transmigration
Infinite Flow/Unlimited Flow
Modern Day
Xianxia
Wuxia
No Romance
Short stories/Novellas
Short Novels (max of 50 chapters)
Really Long Novels (500+ chapters)

Comments

[geraineon]

Only if nobody wants to do august: I'll take Jiang Zi Bei

(If anyone has strong feelings about Jiang Zi Bei, lmk! I'm taking this only because I'm blasting through their works right now)

[duckprintspress]

I'm definitely interested but I don't think I can commit to anything right now. *sweatdrop*

[geraineon]

It's okay! I figured people will be busy, so only volunteer if you feel like procrastinating or have some extra time xD

If nobody does, I'll do it for other authors too but probably at a rate that works for me (so, probably very inconsistent)

[momijizukamori]

I could maybe commit to doing something for Priest, though if anyone else wants to help out that would be excellent because I'm not sure I can do her justice on my own XD Anything other than August would be fine, I've got some other stuff due in August so I'd rather not be worrying about this as well.

[geraineon]

That'll be great! I'll put you in for Sept? (can always be changed if you want later!)

If nobody steps up to help with priest, I can help too though I too, probably won't do a very good job XD

[momijizukamori]

Yeah, I can probably do September as long as it's not like, 'post something September 1st' XD I can probably also poke the priest discord server for help/ideas, too.

[geraineon]

Awesome! And no worries xD I left it deliberately open, so whatever works for your schedule, anytime in September!

I didn't know there's a priest discord! Nice! (This is not a request for the discord channel link because I'm very bad at discord... Haha)

[douqi]

I can do one for Ning Yuan in, let's say December?

(future douqi will regret this because she will be neck-deep in work shit around that time, but hey, that's a problem for future douqi)

[geraineon]

Putting you in for December then! And as mentioned to momijizukamori, it can be anytime December so hopefully future douqi won't regret it too much xD

Thank you!

[hazevi]

It's taken me such a long time to work up something to pitch here haha. I'm currently more interested in
the themed weeks because I think I definitely read more by genre than by authors in general.

I'm currently thinking of doing one (or maybe a series???) on school romances (high school and college), it's a big enough genre. I've glanced at my finished reading/watching list recently and realized that there's an overwhelming amount of this genre and even then I've been finding more to read.

Anyways, the reason why I was considering a series is because my list is actually decently well spread out over BL, BG and GL, so dividing like this means I can compare similar works while avoiding issues like comparing apples to oranges in terms of relationships. (also the fact that my BG list leans more of a watch list from drama adaptations of novels means it will be a bit different). Or I could maybe separate depending on what type of tropes it has (?) since a lot of school romances also usually bleed into the 破镜重圆 trope (reconciling after separation) and stuff like that. I'd probably cover more ground with more books mentioned.

If I do a singular post, it's probably going to be a 3 book case study, one from each, and I already have the list:

过门 (Through the Strait Gates) by priest for BL
最好的我们 (Our Best) by 八月长安 for BG
她的山，她的海 (Her Mountain, Her Sea) by 扶华 for GL

And then I'll probably throw in some self-reasoning about why I like the genre so much haha. This is definitely a pitch type of thing and I haven't really seen the theme weeks being implemented (although I have been traveling and haven't kept up too much). Let me know what seems better.

(Or I mean... I could also do both???? I'd be very slow though, since knowing myself I'm gonna reread stuff to word my thoughts better.)

[geraineon]

Yes, please!

I don't have the brains and breadth of reading to be able to do themed weeks myself, and yeah, I haven't implemented themed weeks yet because I don't want to have to lift author spotlight and themed weeks myself (author spotlight at least has other people who volunteered). Very happy that you want to do one!

Let me know if there's anything I can do to support you! Either way works for me. Hm, I guess we can try a themed week for school romance, launching with your 3 book case study and then inviting others to also pitch their fav school romances?

[hazevi]

Yeah doing the case study definitely works! I'm def ready to re-read my chosen books for it haha, just to start off discussion and stuff.

I definitely have a longer list of BL school romance books I want to talk about at some point in the future, but now that I think about it, those can definitely make their own themed week for like 'BL modern romance with reconciliation' or I can just bring them up in discussion instead, while the other genres are all over the place so I think focusing on one book will be good for me haha.

I guess the final thing to do is to set a time; I'll aim for like early October since it seems like Author spotlight hasn't been taken for October either? It can definitely change according to the comm's convenience as well.

[geraineon]

Romance with reconciliation can be a whole thing by itself XD it's such a good trope imo.

Early Oct sounds good! I was gonna do an author's spotlight on musuli if nobody wants to do Oct, but I'm actually pretty busy then.

Thank you so much! I'm excited for the case study~

[halfcactus]

Could we link to the corresponding spotlight posts in this post + add them to the community memories, maybe?

[geraineon]

Good idea! I'm gonna make a fresh post to link the spotlight posts and also other resource posts later when I'm back on my laptop.

I always forget that memories exist... Ahaha. I'll do that!

[hazevi]

Okay... put me down for author spotlight down in January- I'll be doing baihe author Yi Zhan Ye Deng (the author of the novel I finished translating)

This is somewhat spite fueled and I might regret this later since school but... honestly I've stewed in my annoyance for two days so might as well.

[geraineon]

Sure! Thanks for volunteering~

Haha, was it due to some drama or discourse happening? (don't have to explain if you don't feel like it though!)

[hazevi]

Oh no it's definitely not discourse, I just happened to see something that annoyed me very personally-

I saw that a tl of one of the author's novels had appeared on NU and immediately realized that it was probably mtl. (I won't say 100% because I don't have any solid statement, but plugging the Chinese title through google translate myself and getting the same (imo REALLY BAD) English title seems relatively damning).

Maybe I wouldn't have had such a big reaction otherwise, but the novel in question has many easter egg mentions in the novel I translated so I do have a bit of emotional closeness with it already. Secondly, I realized that this tl was started the day I finished the book I translated. It might be a total coincidence, but since I already have a terrible taste in my mouth from the mtl thing, I get the feeling that... they are trying to catch my wave. Which I admit is a self-centered take but pessimism has been worming in lately.

Sorry for the rant. On another note, I think I might make duplicate posts in the baihe comm and over here because of the topic, is that okay?

[geraineon]

No worries! And your feelings are totally understandable, given the context (tbh even without the context, I can understand having complicated feelings about works of fav author/author we like being translated badly, which in this case it certainly will be). I look forward to reading about Yi Zhan Ye Deng!

and no worries about cross-posting!