Corinne Morier's Blog

The Courtier and the Prince (A Short Story)

Trigger warning: Pregnancy, discussion of death

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There was never a more loyal courtier than me.

The thought came into my mind unbidden as I stood among the other nobles of my rank who had gathered to witness this historic event. To my right, Lord Murdock, who governed the northern city of Ongora. He had been a fierce ally and friend to my cause. To my left, Lord Rookwood, the queen’s father, who had seen firsthand his daughter’s despair when her engagement was announced. Very shortly he might see his child die in front of his eyes. In the corners of the room stood eight armed guards, their faces stoic and impassive.

King Torvald sat on his throne, his behavior not providing any insight into his thoughts. His back was straight and tall, his golden crown set with rubies perfectly perched upon his regal brow. His face was neutral, one hand resting upon his chin as if in thought. No one would guess that he was considering beheading his own queen at the moment.

Queen Anna was the one who drew the attention of all the gathered court. She knelt before the king, her long dark hair spilling down her back–had she foreseen the king’s desire to behead her? Perhaps she had chosen that hairstyle intentionally so as if to protect her neck. Her arms were wrapped around her middle, which was almost as large as the sun shining in the sky above us. Her child would be born very soon.

I briefly wondered what the other courtiers thought. Perhaps they believed the rumors that the queen had seduced a certain noble in order to get with child because the king was infertile? Or maybe they thought the king had lost his sanity, trying to execute his own queen when she was only days away from delivering him a longed-for son. All certainly questioned the paternity of Queen Anna’s child, though I knew the truth. I touched the clasp of my cloak to check it was secure.

“Please, my lord,” the queen begged. “Show mercy. I have not betrayed my king. Spare me my life, in that I might deliver you a son as promised.”

The surrounding courtiers behind and beside me began to whisper conspiratorially, only to stop at a fierce glare from King Torvald. I remained silent, my hands at my sides, my gaze fixed upon my king. He seemed to notice my conduct, and dipped his head approvingly to me, before once more looking at the queen. She stared at the floor, tears falling from her eyes to stain the stones below us.

“You were seen in a compromising state with that man,” he challenged. “How am I to be assured of the paternity of the child you bear?”

The queen didn’t answer at first. “I was already pregnant,” she murmured finally.

The assembled courtiers made the right choice and remained silent this time. I continued to stand, not moving, staring straight ahead, though I knew the queen spoke the truth. Almost a fortnight before the incident was said to have taken place, I had already noticed the queen’s belly beginning to swell, though I doubted that anyone else had realized that fact.

If this were a bedtime story for children, now would have been the time when the king stands from his throne, approaches his weeping queen, and takes her hand to pull her to her feet. He would press a kiss to her fingers, and put an arm around her shoulder comfortingly. “I believe you,” he would whisper in her ear. “Thank you for giving me this child.”

The king rose to his feet, but it was not a child’s story that I was witnessing. None of the assembled knew which event they would eventually witness: a beheading of a traitorous queen before she could birth a son who would usurp the throne, or a confirmation of the legitimacy of the queen’s child. The king took a few paces, then stopped and considered Queen Anna for the longest while.

“What say you, my court?” he asked, turning to us. I remained quiet, waiting to see what other courtiers would say. Lord Murdock cleared his throat. Everyone looked at him as if expecting him to speak, but he did not.

None wanted to be the first to say their opinion, for fear it was the wrong one. If we dared to speak and the king found it displeasurable, he could have us beheaded, if he so desired.

The king turned back to his queen. Silence hung upon the court like an early morning fog. I did not dare speak aloud the paternity of the queen’s child, for the king would refuse the truth. His ego was so high that he needed to always be the correct party in a disagreement. When we were children, and he was merely a prince-in-waiting to assume the crown, he got the idea in his mind to say that the mermaids who dwelt in the deep sea to the south were actually murderous sirens, not gentle creatures who liked to swim with the dolphins and were harmless to humans. Even when I showed him books and scrolls written by all manner of sailors and explorers that described sirens and mermaids as two distinct species from each other, he still insisted that he was correct, instilling in me a fear of the ocean that had lasted well until I was into adulthood.

Even now, the king had surely already made his decision and would not accept any other possibility. I still remembered three years ago, when Queen Anna’s engagement had been announced. She had originally been intended for the younger brother of the crown prince, and not the crown prince himself. Prince Torvald had already been arranged to marry the princess of the neighboring empire of Kalan, so as to make a strong alliance to help protect our kingdom from enemies. Queen Anna was from our own native Adria, and often came to court with her father. When she fell in love with the younger brother of the crown prince, a marriage was arranged for them. Only one of the two princes needed to make a political match, their parents realized. But the crown prince became jealous, insisting that it wasn’t fair that his brother could make a love match while he had to marry a woman he’d never met. No amount of pleading or promises from his parents to have the prince and princess meet before the wedding so they might learn to love each other could change his mind. He had also fallen in love with Lady Anna, and so wanted her for his queen. Being incredibly spoiled, he got his wish, and his parents switched the engagement. The crown prince was soon married to Lady Anna, and to the dismay of the younger prince, the princess of Kalan was so insulted by the change in engagement that she refuted the match and married the king of a different country, instead.

Soon after, the young prince’s status as royalty was quietly stripped away from him, and he faced exile. No matter that the previous king had declared the impossibility of a prince losing his title for anything less than treason. He had passed away, and a new king had been crowned. But the younger prince still had a few courtiers sympathetic to his cause. Rumors said that these courtiers had smuggled him back into court, almost a year ago to this day, and now he was posing as a lord’s youngest son, who had been raised with his mother’s family in a faraway land.

My poor mother. If she were alive today, she would be sick at the scene before her.

My attention snapped back to the present. King Torvald still stood in front of his queen, staring down at her. If I were to guess what he was thinking, he was imagining Queen Anna with another man. Yet we all knew that she was still in love with the exiled, presumed dead Prince Tavin. If she had the choice, she would have his child and no other. None of the courtiers assembled knew the identity of the man she had been with. Perhaps it was Prince Tavin in disguise.

I had made a good impression on the king so far. For a year, he had known me as Lord Murdock’s son, the young Lord Aramis. But now was the time to show the court the truth, before the queen’s beautiful neck met the executioner’s axe.

I took one step forward and spoke, the first words I had said all day. “I submit that Prince Tavin is the father of Queen Anna’s child.”

Queen Anna’s tear-filled eyes turned to me, and betrayal sat within their depths. I did not expect her to know who I was.

The king’s eyes blazed with fury. “Impossible. Tavin is dead. He went on a diplomatic mission to Ongora and perished on the road.”

“Or did he?” I mused. “Rumors say that he is at court once more. He could even be among us today.”

The king’s eyebrows narrowed, and his gaze swept the assembled crowd, searching for the face of his younger brother. Impossible. For his younger brother to be at court and the king to not know, the brother would have had to change his appearance drastically. Perhaps even ask Lord Murdock for assistance to have a mage of Ongora cast a glamor upon him.

“If that is so, then we have a conundrum upon us,” Lord Murdock said. “The previous King Mylor decreed that a prince should not lose his title for anything less than treason. Yet King Torvald has declared him dead, and stripped him of his title.”

Lord Murdock looked at me. I looked at Lord Murdock. Then, with a simple incline of his head, he signaled to me that it was time.

I reached up and undid the clasp of my cloak. It fell away from me, as did the glamor cast upon me by the mages of Ongora. And before the assembled court stood once more someone they had thought to be dead.

“I am Prince Tavin of Adria, and I submit that the child in Queen Anna’s belly is mine.”

Everyone gaped at me. My brother, for once in his life, lost his composure completely and spluttered at me, “Impossible! I told you never to come back! You were meant to be dead!”

I swept past him to Queen Anna, who still knelt on the floor, her wide eyes trained on me. Gently, I took her hand in my own and pulled her to her feet. I put an arm around her shoulder comfortingly, placed her hand in mine, and pressed a soft kiss to her fingers. “I believe you, my love. Thank you for giving me this child.”

The queen’s eyes shone with tears, but this time they were of absolute bliss. During our trysts, I had revealed my true face to her, but I had only told her that one of the nobles at court was sheltering me, never mentioning any names. For her own safety, I did not want her to know. If she knew, and it was discovered that she had known all this time, it could have been her downfall.

“T–Treason!” Torvald exclaimed. “Prince Tavin is guilty of treason!”

“Am I?” I asked. “Or did my brother steal away my fiance, giving up our chances for a political match with Kalan, and lie to the court that I had died en route to Ongora?”

My brother was speechless. Not something I would have expected.

“My friends,” I began, addressing my assembled courtiers. “Your loyalty should not be to Torvald, or to me, or even to Queen Anna. Instead, your loyalty should be to the crown of Adria, as mine is. And a king who will commit treason against his brother for control of Adria is not fit to be king.”

“Precisely,” Torvald growled. “You seem to be very good at describing yourself, Tavin.”

The lords and ladies of the court all looked at one another. But I was not done.

“A year ago, I left court, following my brother’s instructions exactly. I traveled to Ongora on his orders. While en route, bandits attacked my caravan, and almost all my guards were slaughtered. Among the bandits’ bodies was an incriminating piece of evidence: this ring.”

I withdrew a gold band set with rubies from my pocket and held it high for the entire court to see. “Do you recognize this ring, brother?”

Torvald mumbled something under his breath. “It’s mine,” he finally managed.

“This ring is proof that my brother tried to have me assassinated on the road, far from the safety of my palace, in that he would have no competition for what he truly wanted: the crown, the kingdom, and the love of Queen Anna.”

My queen smiled at me, and I knew all would be well.

“What say you, my court?” I asked. “The king cannot rule without the support of his lords. My father once declared that a prince could not lose his title except for treason. It seems rather appropriate that Prince Torvald should be stripped of his title and sent into exile.”

Lord Mordock was the first to agree, and then Lord Rookwood. “Long live King Tavin!” went up the shout from the lords.

“Long live King Tavin! Long live King Tavin!” the rest of the courtiers shouted. Lord Mordock was not the only courtier I had been trying to bring to my side. Lord Rookwood’s gratitude for me, and for his daughter’s life being spared, echoed in his voice. Lord Leverton, also, was joining in on the chant. He had not been as easy to convince that I should be king, but had been more willing to listen when I promised him the coveted position of being one of my closest advisors.

“The court has spoken, Torvald. You are no longer our king,” I announced. “I hereby strip you of your title of prince and sentence you to permanent exile in Kalan. Only unlike you, I will not send bandits to attack your caravan en route. Guards, take him out of my sight and provide him with rations for the journey.”

From the corners of the room, the guards emerged, surrounding my brother. It almost hurt my heart to see him reduced to such a state, until I remembered the murderous impulse of the bandits and the sightless, lifeless faces of my comrades who had been slain. Within only moments, my brother was promptly restrained by the guards who once called him king.

One of the guards took the crown from Torvald’s head and gave it to me with a bow. “I believe this is yours, my king.”

“Thank you.” I accepted it and held it in front of me. I could not put it on until my coronation–my chief advisor Lord Mordock would be the one to place it upon my brow.

I took Anna by the hand. “Is a priest available to marry us? I would not have my queen shamed for bearing a child out of wedlock.”

“At once, sire.” Lord Rookwood dashed out of the room.

“Lord Mordock, please have this put in its proper place until a coronation ceremony can be held.” I offered the crown, and he took it from me and swept into a deep bow before departing. The crown would be set on a pedestal in the royal dresser’s office, so that come the day of my coronation, I would wear the king’s mantle and crown for the first time in view of all my subjects.

The rest of the nobles and courtiers gathered around me as I led Anna to the thrones meant for the king and queen of Adria. We sat on our adjoining royal seats, our hands never letting go of each other. And as we did so, a thought came into my mind unbidden.

There was never a more loyal courtier than me.

HL Burke Exclusive Interview (DOSA Files Blog Tour)

We all know HL Burke on this blog. Mostly we know how much I love to shove her books down my readers’ throats. xD So with the release of her newest book this month, she granted me an exclusive Q & A to ask her questions I’ve never gotten to ask before. (Also she gave me some pictures of her cute kitties, so cute cat pictures INCOMING at the end of the post! )

About DOSA Files/The Supervillain Rehabilitation Series

Corinne: Who is your favorite character from the entire Superhero Rehabilitation series?

Burke: Jake. When I got the concept for Prism and Fade to start a teen branch of the SVR, this sullen, hurt kid just jumped into my head and wanted someone to adopt him. I’ve written more books with Jake as the lead than any other character at this point, and he’s right below Prism and Fade (who are tied) for the most “appearances” across the series.

There’s something really great about taking a character from being a sulky, angsty sixteen year old and watching him grow into adulthood. In Game On, the latest book in the chronology so far, Jake is twenty-nine and a father of three (Spoilers, I guess?). He’s settled down into his “best life,” but it was a rocky and intense ride to get there (there’s a reason he’s one of the first characters I’ve written who canonically goes to therapy).

Corinne: Therapy representation in fiction is so important because it’s always so stigmatized IRL!! In therapy you often have to face challenges of a personal nature; what would you say was the biggest challenge you faced writing The Dosa Files?

Burke: So this one is a little different. The DOSA Files isn’t just “my” book. It’s an anthology where I opened up the story world for other authors to play in. Reading through the story submissions was a lot of fun.

Now my particular story in the collection is “Rethink” which is a prequel set in 1991… so the hardest part was making sure I got the setting right. A lot of Googling “When was X invented? What movies were playing in the summer of 91? When did the Gulf War end?”

Corinne: The summer of 1991 was when I was born! I know that at that time Disney’s Beauty and the Beast would have been playing in theaters! xD One of my favorite scenes from Beauty and the Beast is the transformation scene when the Beast transforms back into his human self and all his servants go from furniture back to being real people and he gives Cogsworth and Lumiere a big hug! What would you say is your favorite scene from this book?

Burke: The character, Kevin Powell, is the father of the main character of Reformed, Prism, and this is the book that shows him and his wife meeting. Their awkward flirting was a lot of fun. Kevin’s young here and struggling to find his way after significant life changes (developing telepathic superpowers, mainly). They’re cute together and I enjoy writing characters “clicking.”

Corinne: I also love writing awkward flirting scenes! One of my favorite “awkward couples” of all time has to be Robin and Starfire from Teen Titans (the original series, not the dumpster fire that is Teen Titans Go) Who is your favorite superhero from a franchise that is not your own?

Burke: I’m pretty basic. I like most Marvel movies, and (if we aren’t counting Goose the Cat/Flerken) probably still Captain Marvel, though I will say the writing for her has been kind of inconsistent, but I like premise of a snarky, smirky lead. I feel like female superheroes tend to be either Diana/Wonder Woman (warm, compassionate badass) or Black Widow (deadly serious badass). Not that those are bad characters, but I don’t feel like I’m either of them. I’m the person who likes to go in, get stuff done, does not have time to angst, but would totally be cracking jokes and smirking at inappropriate times. Plus… cat. When I saw her flying with Goose on her shoulders in the Marvels trailer, I was like, “Can I be her when I grow up?”

Corinne: So did you end up being like Captain Marvel? What does an average day in the life of HL Burke look like?

Burke: I’m in a transitional period right now. I got laid off from my previous day job a couple of months ago, but since Matt and I are preparing to move across the country (we bought some property and a fixer upper in another state), I can’t really go out and get a new job (my last job was work from home), so I’ve been trying to reinvent my routine. I’m trying to start my own freelance business doing what I did at my last job (email marketing, copywriting) on a contract basis, also doing some paid critiquing and blurb writing … I have a cool business name “Cosmic Cat Email Marketing and Author Services.”

I’m working a dozen different projects trying to see which ones will bear fruit. Everything from working on TTRPG one shots I might be able to sell to doing some editing work for other writers.

So I usually stay up way too late, get up way too late (since I don’t have to do 9 to 5), get up, do my social media to try to sell books, send out inquiries about potential clients for my new business, look into job listings for other Work from Home positions… towards the afternoon or evening (depending on what’s going on with my family, if I’m the one cooking dinner—Matt and I rotate—if I have errands to run) I’ll generally sit down and write for about an hour (1000 words a night goal) then I will put something silly to watch (currently Crime Scene Kitchen) on one monitor and Lord of the Rings Online or Stardew Valley on the other and just drink wine.

Corinne: So is wine the drink of choice while writing?

Burke: No. Other than having a bottle of water handy, I do not usually write with snacks or drinks. I very rarely do writing marathons, so my “hour a night” writing sprints just don’t need food. I’ll usually wait until writing is done to pour a “reward glass” of Malbec.

Corinne: Do you have anything you can share in terms of your next book you’re writing?

Burke: I’m back with the superhero romantic comedies. This one is a “fake dating” trope. It kind of came out of nowhere because I did not expect a minor side character from Wishing on a Supervillain to want his own book. I should know by now they do that. It’s a story about a hot mess daughter of snobby parents who recruits a face-shifting supervillain to impersonate her superhero ex for a week with her (kind of awful) family. Title “Her Fake Superhero Boyfriend.”

I’m loving it because it’s a “two lost and lonely souls” story. Mira is a creative whose family has dismissed her as incompetent, making jokes about Mira-Mishaps because she can’t keep up with the high society and big business world that they live in. KC’s a drifting supervillain who lost his family when he was young and has been kind of anchor-less since.

For her, KC’s the first person to see her as having anything special to offer the world.

For him, Mira’s the first person since his mother and brother died who has really gotten to know him.

And they’re SUPER sweet together, and I’m here for it.

Corinne: What is one piece of advice you would share with new/aspiring authors?

Burke: Never ask permission to create. I see a lot of people trying to “crowd test” ideas before they write them, posting in groups like, “Would anyone read this?” or “Is there a market for this?” Unless you are super determined to write “to market” (in which case random online feedback is not the best market research), just do it. It’s impossible to know if something unwritten will be good or not, and yeah, maybe your first several attempts will be bad, but you have to be bad for a while to learn how to be good.

Corinne: Let’s talk cats. You’re a crazy cat lady if I’ve ever met one. How many cats do you currently own and what are their names?

Currently two. I was calling the first Sir Alfred Pennyworth, but my husband has apparently been calling him King Alfred the Great, so now I’m just confused.

The other is my daughter’s new kitten, Vivian Bean. She is smol.

Sir Alfred Pennyworth/King Alfred the GreatVivian Bean, the smol meower

Corinne: Which of your cats is the most likely to come sit on your keyboard and prevent you from writing?

Burke: Neither of them actually do this very often. Alfred does sometimes hop on my desk and sit on my mouse but not all that often. Vivian is in a playful stage so she might hop up and bat some things off my desk, but mostly she runs around like a maniac jumping at everyone and everything.

Corinne: Which of your cats is most likely to have a superpower?

Burke: Alfred is super strong and husky, but Vivian is super fast. I think they would team up.

Corinne: At what age did you have your first cat and what was his/her name?

Burke: There were always cats around, but I think when I was six or so was when I had a cat that was considered mine. Her name was Frisky. Tuxedo cat. I think she ran away when we moved.

I also got the chance to ask HL Burke some “this or that” questions. Here are her answers:

Coffee or tea? Coffee is mornings, tea afternoon, but I’m more consistent with the coffee. (I agree, coffee is superior to tea!)

Ramen or pho? Ramen. (Agree! Also because I’m vegetarian and it’s easier to find vegetarian ramen! xD)

Winter or summer? Summer. (This is why we get along so well! We’re two birds of a feather just flocking together! xD)

Pool or beach? Beach. (I’m happy with either, as long as I get to swim. One time I went to a hotel and another family literally stood in the pool right where I was trying to do laps, despite there being plenty of space, so “being able to swim” will really affect my enjoyment of whatever body of water I’m at!)

Pasta or pizza? Pasta. (Again, same!)

Sushi or burgers? Sushi. (Remind me to take you out for a sushi date sometime!)

Roller coaster or merry-go-round? Roller coaster. (I’m terrified of heights, so I will happily stay on the ground and watch your bag while you ride! xD)

Scavenger Hunt Clue

For those of you who have been following the blog tour and are looking for your next clue, here it is:

Here is the clue in text format:

.. .—-. — / …. .. -.. .. -. –. / ..- -. -.. . .-. / — -.– / -.. . … -.- / .-. .. –. …. – / -. — .– .-.-.- / .. ..-. / -.– — ..- / ..-. .. -. -.. / – …. .. … –..– / – …. . / ..-. — ..- .-. – …. / .-.. . – – . .-. / — ..-. / – …. . / -.-. — -.. . / .. … / . .-.-.- / .. .—-. …- . / — .- -. .- –. . -.. / – — / -.-. — -. – .- -.-. – / ..-. .-. . . -….- .-.. .- -. -.-. . / …. .- -.-. -.- . .-. –..– / -.-. — -.. -.– –..– / .. -. / …. — .–. . … / – …. .- – / …. . / -.-. .- -. / -.. . ..-. . .- – / – …. . / . -. -.-. .-. -.– .–. – — .-. / -… -.– / -.. . -… ..- –. –. .. -. –. / – …. . / … — ..-. – .– .- .-. . –..– / -… ..- – / -. — .– / – …. . / — ..-. ..-. .. -.-. . / .. … / ..-. ..- .-.. .-.. / — ..-. / .-.. .. – . .-. .- .-.. / -… ..- –. … .-.-.- / … .- …- . / ..- … -.-.–

Happy hunting! And thanks for reading this far. If you got this far in the post, go ahead and comment your favorite ship name for Robin x Starfire (I happen to be preferential to Starbin). Make sure to follow me on all my social medias (linked here: Twitter, Goodreads, Tiktok, Instagram) and hit that “subscribe” button on the right hand side of my blog to join my mailing list. It’s free, and you get all my posts delivered right to your inbox, it’s so convenient!

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The Dosa Files releases on June 27, 2024. That’s just a couple of days away! Did you know that preorders help authors? Hit the link below to preorder on Amazon, and don’t forget to add it to your Goodreads want-to-read shelf too!

Amazon

Goodreads

Thank you to HL Burke for the exclusive interview and the cute cat photos! And thank you to all the awesome readers out there who support authors like us. We couldn’t do it without you!

乙女 Corinne

For yesterday’s post during this blog tour: https://authorambergabriel.com/blog

Tomorrow’s post can be found at creatingforcreator.wordpress.com

Ace Erasure and Internalized Ableism

I am autistic, and I am queer.

Discovering my queer identity has been a twenty-some year journey, fraught with internalized ableism, lack of representation, and internalized fatphobia/body negativity. Today I’d like to discuss the obstacles that prevented me from knowing I had a valid queer identity, in the hopes that other young people struggling with similar problems can find the answers they need, without having to spend a decade or more feeling like a weird, ugly, fat outsider who’s just too picky, despite being perfectly happy as a single pringle who does not wish to mingle.

It started in Japan

Though I probably have been ace/acespec most of my life, my journey of actually realizing that I was asexual started when I was 25, when I had what I thought was a huuuge crush. Let me paint the picture for you:

It’s 2016. After a long bout of walking pneumonia and a rushed emergency dental procedure mere days before departure, I arrived in Japan to teach English. This is something I was looking forward to for years, ever since high school. Finally, it was Japan! I had no idea what was going on–I was severely jet-lagged and didn’t have a watch to be able to keep track of time during the three days I was at a hotel in Tokyo attending pointless panels with other hopeful English teachers. The panels all cover topics I’d already learned long ago in college–“How to introduce yourself in Japanese and make a good impression on your coworkers.” “How to use chopsticks” “How to go grocery shopping.” I was hoping to attend some intensive seminars about actually teaching, since that’s what we were here to do, but every panel was basically Japanese language and etiquette that’s asameshimae–a piece of cake, something I could do even before breakfast. So I daydreamed my jetlagged way through the panels until finally, on day four of being in the country, I was loaded onto a bus and sent off to Iwaki, a city right on the coast, smack dab in the middle of Fukushima prefecture. It was a perfect placement for me–beaches galore, a large population of foreign expats to be my friends, a great support network in case I needed help… Still jet-lagged, I boarded the bus to go to my new home, but along the way, between my bouts of nodding off, I noticed a young man on the opposite side of the aisle from me who had long blond hair tied back in a ponytail. He looks like Legolas! I thought. The orientation staff had given us all booklets with contact information: phone numbers for the Tokyo consulate and for our local BoE, as well as photos and short bios of all the other ALTs who would be traveling with us. By process of elimination and referencing this booklet, I I figured out his name.

It starts with J, and while he was a bit of a douchebag, he wasn’t horrible enough to not deserve anonymity here, so for story’s sake, we’ll call him Jegolas. To this day, I have no doubt I had a teeny-tiny crush on Jegolas. But now, having learned about the split-attraction model, and about squishes, I also think it was a squish–a non-romantic, non-sexual infatuation with someone, just because he looked like Legolas. As I spent more time with him, I learned several things about him–we were going to be living in the same apartment building, and he would be teaching English at the middle school right across the street from my elementary school. My kids would graduate and go on to be his kids! This was a classic rom-com setup that I still to this day want to write as an actual book (of course, Jegolas’ character would be a lot nicer than his real-life counterpart lol). I also learned that even when I wore my most low-cut cute pink tank top to show off my cleavage and put on as much flirt as I could muster at Charisma skill level 1, he had zero interest in me. I later learned that he possibly had a crush on another English teacher in our apartment building, who was petite, Asian (Japanese-American by birth), with long hair and no glasses. The complete opposite from me! (Ironically, I no longer speak to Jegolas and our personalities clashed horribly during our two years living near each other, but the girl he supposedly had a crush on turned out to be one of my best friends while I was there!) Then I also learned a few other things about him: he didn’t have a crush on this girl, but another English teacher who lived a few stops over on the local train, who was also petite with long dark hair. (There was a lot of drama in that sense when I was in Japan; she was kind of creeped out by him, and since he was nicer to me, I turned myself into a sort of bodyguard for her when he tried to hit on her during group hangouts) He was also a conservative Republican (ew) and thought it was funny to jumpscare me on my way home from work and trigger my anxiety. Twice. (Seriously, does he not realize how actually CREEPY that was???) He also, at one point, spent an hour or so in our group chat defending Trump and calling Trump’s victims “gold diggers” and essentially denying that rape was even a real thing. My interest in him quickly faded.

It was around the same time that I was crushing on Jegolas that I also discovered the term demisexuality thanks to one of my favorite Youtubers at the time coming out as demisexual.

What does being queer mean to me?

After I returned to California in 2018 and the aforementioned Youtuber came out on her channel, I briefly looked up the term demisexuality, but nowhere did I look did it mention that demisexuality was one identity on the asexuality spectrum. For a while, I was playing with the idea that I too was demisexual, but I was still not ready to apply that label to myself. After all, I’d grown up with several close guy friends, but I couldn’t imagine myself married to any of them. To me, the idea of “not marrying” was ridiculous. I didn’t want to get married, but I felt as if I had no other choice–I couldn’t see any other futures for myself because society pushes heteronormativity so much, and there was no media representation for “not being married as an adult.” So I just contented myself with the idea that once I found someone as sweet and handsome as Legolas, surely then I’d want to marry them.

Up until the time the aforementioned Youtuber brought up her demisexuality, I’d never even entertained the possibility that I was queer. To me, being LGBTQ meant Lesbian (girls being attracted to girls), Gay (boys being attracted to boys), Bisexual (people of any gender being attracted to more than one gender), or Transgender (identifying as a different gender than the one you were assigned at birth). I knew I wasn’t attracted to women, but neither was I really attracted to men. I also was perfectly comfortable being a cisgender woman, and I knew I didn’t really fall under the “transgender” label. Asexuality is so invisible that I didn’t know my feelings, or lack thereof, were still valid. Even with the catch-all “queer/questioning” label, which was too vague to really mean anything to me, I couldn’t find my people. As you might be very well-aware, us autistic folks don’t do well with vague terms, and I never saw how my lack of attraction for anyone could possibly fit into any queer label. For years, I just told myself I was extremely picky and that someday I’d fall in love with my own Prince Legolas–sexy, heroic, who’d sweep me off my feet, who I’d marry in a fairytale-style wedding, and whose children I would someday bear. I’d never even heard of the asexual spectrum, nor did I have any inkling of the fact that my lack of attraction was just as valid as homosexuality or heterosexuality, or any other sexuality.

Internalized fatphobia and body negativity

By the time I hit middle school, I was already overweight, and I constantly struggled with eating and maintaining a healthy weight. Not to mention that I also have what could be considered a “homely” face and have never felt truly beautiful or worthy of love. I spent years telling myself such things as “no one will ever fall in love with you because you’re fat and ugly” and “you shouldn’t be so picky because your choices are limited, anyway.” Extremely self-deprecating, but they were easier to understand–I couldn’t put into words or even justify that I wanted something other than the norm because I couldn’t explain what I did want. I didn’t want kids, or to get married, but with TV, movies, books, and all other sorts of media pushing the idea that women never getting married or never having kids was shameful, I didn’t feel comfortable voicing my unorthodox wishes. After all, TV shows and movies are always poking fun at the idea of the “crazy cat lady,” and making fun of women who chose to never get married and instead adopt lots of cats (my ideal lifestyle). Finally, in my twenties, I started meeting various married couples who had decided to remain childless, and I reasoned that if I could just force myself to want to get married, I could convince my husband that we could be a childless couple, too.

“Assume straight until proven otherwise”

Finally, in 2019, I discovered the term asexual. I thought it sounded a lot like me, but I didn’t want to apply the label to myself because I didn’t want to disrespect those who were ace. In short, I felt like I wasn’t “good enough” to be asexual because of my past crushes.

In ninth grade, I had my first squish, which at the time I confused for a crush. I had been cast as an extra in the school production of Hamlet (and later got upgraded to Gravedigger 2, a comic relief part that appears in one scene in a later act). As the only freshman in the production, I was a bit lonely, and I started crushing on the boy who played Osric–he was only one grade ahead of me, compared to the majority of cast who were juniors and seniors, and so I naturally gravitated toward him. But again, it was because he resembled a famous person from Lord of the Rings–in this case, Aragorn, but with lighter hair and no beard. It didn’t go anywhere, of course–at the end of my freshman year, I ended up transferring to another school, and I sent him a letter over summer break telling him how I felt, but it ended in rejection. (out of curiosity, a few years ago, I looked him up on Facebook and found that he now lives in New York, he graduated from NYU, and he’s in a band and has played in several successful gigs. He also looks completely different from how he did in high school and I would not have even glanced his way had he looked like that when I knew him, as he now gives off generic-white-guy syndrome.)

Of course, it was hard enough meeting guys when you were attending an all-girls’ private school, but even when my classmates would talk about actors they thought were “hot” or had a crush on, or what types of guys they were into, etc. I couldn’t relate. At the time, if I were asked, I’d just say I had a crush on Orlando Bloom, because he was a safe choice–he was conventionally attractive, and he played Legolas, and pretty much every straight girl under the sun had a crush on him anyway. I just always assumed that I was straight until proven otherwise–a curse that I’ve heard plagued many asexual people in their younger years.

“Maybe you just haven’t met the right person yet”

This is a statement I’ve heard so many asexual people had to deal with when they disclosed that they were asexual. If I had discovered earlier that I was asexual/acespec, and come out as a teenager or in college, perhaps people would be saying this to me, too. Not to mention that I’m autistic, so there was always the added internalized ableism: that I’m asexual because I’m autistic, that my sensory issues would make sex extremely unpleasant to deal with, that my difficulty keeping friendships would also bleed into difficulty keeping a relationship going, that we autistics are already infantilized by the media and by general society and we’re seen as “sexless” for the most part so my coming out as asexual would only further that idea in people’s minds. And some may wonder what is even the point of me writing such a rambly, winding post full of anecdotes and memes. It is this…

ASEXUAL REPRESENTATION IS IMPORTANT, DON’TCHA KNOW

If I’d had more representation for asexuality before 2019, I would have avoided those years of self-doubt, of constantly questioning if I was “good enough” to be someone’s girlfriend, of being on the outside edges of society wondering why I couldn’t just be “normal.” To any teens/young people out there who are reading this post and find themselves identifying with any of the anecdotes I’ve shared about not ever “falling in love”, you are not alone. There is a label for that, and there are people like you out there. And especially to those people who think we’re just “attention seeking” or “special snowflakes” and question why every single book I write will and does have a prominent asexual/acespec character (usually the protagonist) it’s for kids like me who never found their people. I want them to find their people.

The TL;DR of this rambly post can be viewed very conveniently in this 1-minute Tiktok video I made a few years ago when I first came out during Pride month 2022:

@cmauthor

Happy Pride everyone #actuallyautistic #fyp #autism #autismawareness #neurodivergent #asexual #asexuality #asexualpride #asexualpride

♬ Kid Gorgeous in 1 Minute and 44 Seconds – JalonBrown

Happy Rainbow Capitalism Month!

Corinne 乙女

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My Favorite Website

Do you have a favorite website?

I do. And today I’m finally going to tell you about it.

I should lead with a disclaimer: I have not received any financial or other compensation for writing this review. I posted this review purely for my love of this site and this community and how it’s contributed to my personal and professional growth. The only part of this review that Alex Cabal (the owner of the site) contributed is giving me a high-quality image of the logo for use in this post.

I can’t believe I’ve never done an official review of this site on my blog, even though I’m always praising it to no end whenever I encounter a wannabe author on social media who asks “how do I get better at writing?” And Alex has recently released a new feature of the site that I’m very excited about, so I wanted to highlight that.

My Scribophile story

The time was 2015, March or thereabouts. I had just graduated from college in January, proving wrong all the doctors who had told my parents when I was a small bean that because I am autistic, I would never be able to graduate from college or get a job. I had accomplished one of those two “impossible goals” and was on my way to the other–my sights were set on the JET program, an international endeavor run by the Council of Local Authorities for International Relations (CLAIR) to send foreign English teachers to rural parts of Japan to expose Japanese youngsters to different cultures. Little did 2015 Corinne know that in summer 2016, she would be offered a contract on JET to teach English in the best city in the entire country for a whole year, and then some. But spring 2015 Corinne was moping about because she’d just received a rejection for JET and didn’t have any sort of backup plan. Neither was she enthusiastic about the prospect of a job search because if she did get a job, then she’d either have to quit that job the next year to go on JET, disappointing her potential future boss and coworkers, or else give up on one of the most formative dreams she’d been fostering since her first day in her first ever Japanese class when her professor told everyone about the JET program, just to keep a job she’d gotten on a whim.

In between procrastinating on her job search by playing Candy Crush and Farmville, she was looking into options to take her writing to the next level. She’d been looking up things like “How to get my book published” and one website had mentioned beta readers, so when she’d then switched to Googling “How to find beta readers” and “What is a beta reader,” the Google algorithm blessed her with Scribophile.com.

My first look at Scribophile. Screenshot courtesy of the Wayback Machine.

She created an account “just to see,” since it was free anyway, and the rest was history.

The Head Honcho

Alex Cabal, owner and creator of Scribophile.com

The man behind the curtain, aka the head honcho and creator of Scribophile, is a mysterious man named Alex Cabal. That’s really all anyone knows about him, though guesses have certainly been made about his age, his other ventures, or if it’s just a pseudonym for multiple people all using one name together. Alex is the owner of Turkey Sandwich Industries, a company that is as mysterious as its owner. The offiical TSI website gives no information about its mission statement, financing, or employee information, only links to its two most lucrative websites: Scribophile and Writerfolio.

What is the reason I think this is done on purpose? Because when I try and look up Turkey Sandwich Industries public records, it tells me that TSI is a restaurant, agriculture, and farming business headquartered in Ohio (and yes, the records site links back to the same TSI that Alex Cabal owns). He “claims” that he’s a software developer, but does Alex perhaps own some chain restaurants or a restaurant supply company in Ohio and files taxes for Scribophile and Writerfolio under his restaurant company to make his taxes easier?

In an attempt to learn more about Turkey Sandwich Industries, I went to the Wayback Machine and asked it to show me screenshots archived from https://www.turkeysandwichindustries.com. The earliest screenshot it gave me was August 27, 2010. I clicked around a little bit more, and I think this screenshot from February 2014 helps illustrate my point:

As you can see, the basic layout of the webpage has remained the same: company name on top in big white letters, Scribophile and Writerfolio credited at the bottom. But what’s with the map? Each time I clicked on a different screenshot from a different date, it showed me text saying “Turkey Sandwich Industries is now located in Bad Mergentheim, Germany” or “Turkey Sandwich Industries is now located in Limal, Belgium.” As you can see from the screenshot, it’s got lines all over the map indicating the location of Turkey Sandwich Industries over time. Move over Carmen Sandiego, where in the world is Alex Cabal instead? xD

I’m not really a fan of the recent movement towards AI/ChatGPT, but out of curiosity, I asked ChatGPT “Tell me about Alex Cabal” and this is what it told me.

As of my last update in January 2022, Alex Cabal is known as the founder and CEO of Scribophile.com, a popular online writing community. Scribophile provides a platform for writers to share their work, receive feedback, and connect with other writers. Cabal launched Scribophile in 2007 with the goal of creating a supportive environment for writers to improve their craft through critique and collaboration.

Cabal’s vision for Scribophile has garnered significant attention in the writing community, and the platform has grown to become one of the largest online writing communities, attracting writers from around the world.

However, I don’t have real-time information, so I can’t provide updates on Cabal’s current activities or any developments related to Scribophile beyond January 2022.

When asked about Turkey Sandwich Industries, ChatGPT didn’t know anything and didn’t recognize the name. I told ChatGPT that the Wayback Machine proves that TSI has been in business since 2010 and it just gave me a virtual shrug and asked if we could talk about something else. xD

A few basic stats about Scribophile

No one knows when Scribophile was first started or how it came about because Alex refuses to tell anyone its origin story. Really, he thinks he’s being all sneaky-sneaky, but I have discovered that Scribophile is as old as January 16, 2008–the Wayback Machine’s first archive of the site is February 14, 2008, and on the screenshot, a “Welcome to Scribophile!” blog post is dated January 16, 2008.

Very much 90s HTML vibes here xD Screenshot courtesy of the Wayback Machine.

Is Scribophile free to use?

Yes, at its core, Scribophile is completely free. With a free account, you can access all of Scribophile’s most essential functions, such as:

Post your work for other people to read and get feedback on individual chapters or short stories

Read other people’s work and leave feedback

Access the Academy articles to level up your writing

Join groups and talk to people on the Main and group forums

Send and receive private messages and bulletins

Access the brand-new Beta Reader Directory, query beta readers, and get feedback on full novels or longer pieces of work

Scribophile also offers a paid option, called colloquially “Premium membership.” When paying for Premium, you’re given two different pay options: you can pay $15 USD per month, billed monthly, or you can pay one lump payment for an entire year ($89 USD, which turns out to be about $7.42 USD per month). I think starting with one month at $15 USD is a pretty good deal, because if you’re thinking about getting Premium but don’t want to drop $90 and commit to a full year, you can buy just one month’s subscription and try it out to see if you like it. Then, once you realize you like it, you can pay the full year price.

Why pay for Premium?

The free account comes with a few limitations, such as:

Only being able to post two works at a time

Not able to use italics, bold text, or other formatting in your forum posts or posted works

Limited to ten private message threads at one time

Only able to access the Main Spotlight, with not really any options for controlling who can see or critique your work

My least favorite part: banner ads EVERYWHERE

With the Premium membership, these limitations go away, and you get unlimited posting of works, access to formatting in forums and posts, unlimited private messages, and access to the Personal Spotlight and customization of privacy options. Also those annoying banner ads on the website all go away.

Update: As I was writing this post and grabbing the screenshots and things from Scribophile, the site gave me the dreaded “Your Premium membership has expired!” message. I went and renewed it like usual, and then the confirmation page told me this:

Apparently our Premium account now can auto-renew? This wasn’t a feature last year when I paid my annual subscription lol. It’s also really nice that there’s an option to disable auto-renew if you want.

The unique karma system

Scribophile is a little different from other websites in that it runs on a system known as the karma system. When you create your account, you’re given 2 karma points as a freebie. In order to post a work for critique, you have to spend 5 karma points. This means that you must earn karma by critiquing others’ work. The amount of karma you earn from a critique varies, but on average, I earn about 1.5 karma per each critique I do, which means that in order for a brand-new person to post a piece of writing to the site, they must first read and critique two other pieces of writing in order to earn enough points. Meaning that on Scribophile, there’s no “post and run” opportunities, to just post your writing, take the feedback you get, and never use the site again. You’re forced to give back to the community in order to get anything out of it. Which leads me to

What do I like so much about Scribophile?

Scribophile has, undeniably, made my writing a thousand times better than it used to be. And I’m going to prove it! The following is a passage from my first-ever book, written circa 2011-2012. Aka, before I found Scribophile.

I do not feel the same for you as I once did. I thought at least in front of you, I could assume my
normal appearance, but I can see that it would be harder for you to forget me that way.
Therefore…” She closed her eyes, and her pale skin took on a more flushed pallor. Her thin lips
filled out a bit, her sun-colored blonde hair became a few shades darker, and when she opened
her eyes again, they were a deep emerald green, not the thoughtful blue eyes Kinaldor had
always known and loved.
“…I shall assume this guise always, even before you, my Lord, to ensure that it is easier
for you to forget Cyassay, whom you loved.” The sorceress turned and proceeded across the
room to the door.
“Cyassay, wait!” Kinaldor ran to her and touched her shoulder hesitantly. “Cyassay…”
Without looking at him, she murmured, “Princess Cyassay is dead. From this day forth, I
am merely Cyassay, healer of Irisia.”
The sorceress squirmed out of his touch and swept out of the room, leaving the King
looking lonely and forlorn.

*cue retching noises* I wish you guys could see how revolted I am reading that, because I am revolted. I hate this passage so much, and in fact, the entire book, but I keep it for posterity and to remind myself of where I came from.

Comparing this section of gross and horrible writing to the quality of writing I’m able to produce now, it is infinitely better. And I know for a fact, 100% certainty, that it is because I’ve been learning from Scribophile’s academy, and getting feedback on my writing from other Scribophile members (we lovingly call ourselves Scribbers) and critiquing other peoples’ work and improving my editorial eyes. The proof is in the proverbial pudding: Scribophile makes you a better writer.

I love the community!

If there was one aspect of Scribophile I’d have to identify as being my favorite, it is the community. While no website is perfect and I’ve certainly seen a troll or two on Scribophile, the site admins and Alex are so quick to respond to any reports or concerns that it really does feel like a safe space. There’s an unspoken understanding on Scribophile of “we’re all writers, we’re all trying to achieve our goals, there’s no point in trying to shoot someone down because when one person wins, we all win”. Alex has never revealed the exact number of Scribophile users, but it’s somewhere in the thousands. And while it seems easy to get lost among other Scribbers, you quickly find your people by joining groups or making connections with people you’ve critiqued or people who have critiqued your work. You make actual, real friends on Scribophile, ones that are tried and true for many years. And to me, that alone is worth the price tag because Alex and the moderators do such a good job of making sure everyone on Scribophile feels welcome and safe.

Would I recommend Scribophile to other writers? If so, which kind of writers?

I think no matter where you are in your writing journey, you would be able to get something out of joining Scribophile. Beginning writers would certainly be able to get lots out of the site, from reading articles in the Scribophile Academy to participating in the forums and groups to critiquing others’ work and getting feedback on their own writing. If you are a Nanowrimo finisher who has just finished a manuscript, you would get lots out of Scribophile–you could post you work to the site and get feedback on it, and be able to pursue publication if that is something you envision for yourself. Even authors who already have an agent/have published a few books would benefit from having a community of supportive writer friends to be able to vent to when that inevitable one-star review comes in. Even if you’re not a fiction writer, if you write nonfiction or news articles for your career, you can still post those for feedback on the site.

The best part is, due to the fact that someone would have to create an account in order to read any of the posted works, Scribophile doesn’t use up those valuable first publishing rights. First publishing rights basically means if you write a book or article and make it available on the Internet, even to get feedback on it, it’s “published” and agents/editors/magazines won’t want to acquire it after that. But you still retain your first publishing rights when you post your work to Scribophile, and in fact, many Scrib users have gone on to successfully self-publish or become agented writers using the work they originally workshopped on Scribophile.

What is my advice for new Scribbers?

I am a Scribophile veteran (coming up on my ninth year on the site) and if I could only give one piece of advice to a new Scribber, it would be this: Scribophile is a website where you get out of it what you put into it. If you want people to critique your work, reach out, don’t just expect feedback to fall in your lap. Join a group related to your interests (there’s basically a group for everything, including queer writers, fantasy writers, short stories, autistic/ND writers, Japan-related stories, and everything else in between) and ask people in the group to take a look at your stuff, or even better, offer to do a one-for-one swap with them for something they’ve needed to get looked at. It’s that old buzzword: networking. Network with other writers and find your people.

The new beta reader directory

Not too long ago, I logged in to Scribophile to see a new feature “Beta Reader Directory.” Before this feature was introduced, people who wanted to read/critique something could only really visit the Main Spotlight page to search for something new to read, or else browse their group forums/friends’ newest works for something to read. There wasn’t really a better way for writers wanting feedback and users wanting to read something to be able to connect.

But now with the Beta Reader directory, users who are looking to read something new can give a short description of stuff they like to read, and writers who want feedback on a full novel can search the beta reader directory by either genre or keywords. And to prove how well it works, I’m going to try it with a hypothetical novel of mine.

So let’s take one of my favorite works in progress. It’s a YA contemporary set in Japan about two young people who are brought together in the wake of the March 11, 2011 earthquake and tsunami. Some comp books I’ve come up with for it include Eliza and Her Monsters and I Love You So Mochi. It also appeals to fans of Whisper of the Heart. So I am going to search for Young Adult and Romance genres with a keyword of “japan”.

I got three results when I searched with these parameters. When I deleted the keyword “japan” from my search and just looked up by genre, I got dozens, if not hundreds, of results. One could potentially play around with this system for ages, narrowing down potential betas by favorite authors, keywords, comp titles, or a specific profession (eg. if they had a novel about a lawyer and wanted to look for someone who could give feedback on what it’s like to be a lawyer)

I also added myself to the Beta Reader directory to see how it works from the other side. It was very easy to tell it my favorite genres, things I didn’t want to read, and a bit more info about my favorite kinds of stories. The only thing I didn’t like about this system was that an author would send me a request and my only options were “Yes, read this book” and “No don’t read anything ever from this author.” There wasn’t an option to ask for a writing sample, or to reject the book but still allow the author to send you other books in the future if they wrote another one. Also would have been handy to be able to have a checklist of reasons; when I got queried, it was right smack in the middle of graduation season for the school I work at, so I was running around like a chicken with my head cut off and didn’t have the time or energy to devote to a full beta read. I wanted to be able to have a checklist of reasons like “Too many obligations at this time to do this beta read” because otherwise the author would just feel like it’s a personal rejection. But since this is a new feature of the site, I don’t doubt that we’ll see more finesse added to the system eventually, as Alex has shown in the past to take feedback from users when introducing a new feature.

Advice from other Scribophile veterans

I asked my fellow Scribbers “What is one piece of advice you would give to newbie who have just joined the website?” and got permission from some of the respondents to share their advice with you here.

Keep the first story you post and the critiques. It’s fun to look back years later and see where my writing was, how it’s changed, and how I feel about the critiques I got back then.

Joanna F, Scribophile user

Don’t be afraid to ask questions. We are all learning one way or another and from what I have experienced people are willing to give input.

Tamar F, Scribophile user

Go to the bottom of the page and click every link you find.

There you’ll find the Code of Conduct, Terms of Service, Help Center, FAQ, Newsletter, and so many more helpful resources that will help you get started.

Anonymous Scribophile user

In conclusion, I really haven’t found any website that does what Scribophile does (though there are other websites out there designed for writers to “get feedback” or “find beta readers” Scribophile does it best). If you want proof…

My Farewell to Neopets

In the early 2000s, little eight-year old me discovered Neopets.com for the first time. In 2008, my parents gave me a computer for my very own, and I immediately set Neopets as my homepage. Neopets remained my homepage for years after that, until three computers and seven and a half years later, when I discovered Scribophile at the very tail end of my Neopets journey. (At the time, I was already toying with the idea of giving up on Neopets because it was right after Nickelodeon acquired the rights to Neopets and they were making a bunch of changes to the site that alienated a lot of the veteran users. A lot of the features of the site that I enjoyed were being changed/deleted, and I was only one of many in the mass exodus of Neopians during that time. But I still couldn’t bring myself to completely leave the site and would occasionally log on and browse the shops or Trading Post.) In 2015 or so, I said goodbye to my Neopets, logged out of my account for the final time, and changed my Firefox homepage to http://www.scribophile.com. And I’ve never looked back.

If you are a writer or want to learn more about how Scribophile works, head on over to http://www.scribophile.com and make a free account to give it a try. And if you do, find me over there and say hi, say that you came from my blog! I love hearing from my readers.

Corinne 乙女

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Scribophile.com and its logo are (c) Alex Cabal. Logo used with permission.

Farewell to my Legacy challenge

Hello all who have been following the tale of my Sims 4 Legacy challenge!

I am sad to say that I will officially not be returning to my Legacy playthrough on this blog. I have had a good think about what sorts of blog posts I want to focus on, and I have realized two things:

I want to keep this blog focused on books and book reviews, with the occasional foray into anime or movie reviews. The Legacy posts, while fun, take a lot of work to put together, and I don’t feel like they’re the right direction for my blog. Very sorry to anyone who was looking forward to seeing more of their adventures. I do someday want to do some sort of Sims 4 playthrough and put it up on maybe my Youtube channel, so if you’re interested in that sort of content, stick around and I’ll make an announcement when it happens.I realized recently that I cheated on my Legacy challenge. Specifically when Magnolia and Leah had their wedding, I misunderstood what was and wasn’t a “wedding reward”. All that furniture that I thought our guests had gifted us after the wedding? Yeah, that was actually Leah’s furniture from her old home and I had no right to sell that and use that money, according to Legacy challenge rules. However, it’s been so long since then and my family is so large and basically all of the older children have jobs now and have earned the family so much money since then, so I can’t just use a cheat or something to take away the amount of money and keep playing because I don’t remember how much it was. Plus, since we used that money to remodel the house and we did things like adding more bathrooms, etc. technically every achievement that family has now is moot because if we hadn’t used that money, we would have had to have family members take turns in the bathroom (thereby wasting more time), their skills would be lower because I wouldn’t be able to afford so many skill-building/hobby items, etc.

So for various personal reasons, the Legacy family will no longer be appearing on this blog. However, it wasn’t a complete waste of time because I learned a lot during that challenge of how to play Sims 4 like a pro. I also ended up downloading several expansion packs to enhance my Legacy gameplay that I don’t think I would have downloaded otherwise, but now I’ve discovered the merits of them outside of a Legacy playthrough.

If you are one of my readers who was enjoying my Legacy posts, leave a comment down below telling me so and suggesting what kind of playthrough you’d like to see me do if I were to put it up on Youtube or something else.

Book Review: There and Back Again by Sean Astin

There and Back Again: An Actor’s Tale by Sean Astin and Joe Layden

This is a memoir written by Sean Astin, who played Samwise Gamgee in Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy, about his acting career before and during the filming of the trilogy. I first read this book in the 2010s, before COVID, and haven’t revisited it in years. I recently picked this one up for a reread and I came to the realization of who should read this book:

If you are a fan of The Lord of the Rings movies and want a look at the behind-the-scenes of filming the trilogy while still having a good laughIf you are a memoir reader, this one is a must-readSean spends a lot of this book talking about how Christine is the best thing that ever happened to him, how much he loves and appreciates her, etc. This book was published in 2004. According to my research, as of today, January 17, 2024, Sean Astin is still happily married to Christine. So if you are a fan of the Try Guys and are disappointed in Ned, the “Wife Guy” having cheated on his wife, you can read this book to heal your soul.

If you’d like to purchase a copy of this book for yourself, click here to find the book on Amazon. (Unfortunately, since it is such an old book, I could not find it on Bookshop.org or Booksinc, which are the sites I would prefer to send book shoppers to so they could support independent bookstores. You should also check at your local library if the book is available if you would rather not buy from the mighty ‘Zon, or perhaps you have an independent brick-and-mortar bookstore near you and you can order this book from them instead!)

If you would like to support my platform, make sure to follow my blog and my various social media:

Twitter | Youtube | Instagram | Goodreads | Tiktok

If you enjoyed this post, you might also like these other posts from me:

Nine Ways to Get Readers For Your Book

Book Review: Arrows of the Queen

How Do Book Reviewers Approach Your Book?

See you guys next time! Happy reading!

Corinne 乙女

Nine Ways to Get Readers For Your Book

A long, long time ago, I wrote a guest post for a magazine about advice for authors who want to reach out to book bloggers, entitled something like “Top Ten Tips for Authors Reaching Out to Book Bloggers” or something. I’ve completely lost the link for that post, and so many times I’ll be on forums and groups for authors and see questions like “How do I get more reviews?” or “How do I find reviewers to read my book?” and I’ll wish to all the bookish gods that I still had the link for that article.

I touched on this subject a little bit in my previous post, How Do Book Reviewers Approach Your Book? In that post, I talked about books that I’ve organically approached: finding a book by chance at the library or bookstore, or being recommended a book by Booktube or a friend. Today I’d like to delve more deeply into authors reaching out to reviewers like me to try and solicit more reviews for their book.

Before I go too deeply into this post, though, I must remind everyone of the main conclusion I found through delving into the statistics of my reading journey: word of mouth sells books. The majority of my books were ones that other people, whether that be an influencer or a friend, told me to read. If you are an author, the number one thing that will get you more readers is someone who loved your book shoving it into their friend’s hands and saying “OH MY GOD YOU NEED TO READ THIS BOOK RIGHT NOW YOU WILL LOVE THE HECK OUT OF IT!!!” And getting a blogger or Youtuber to love your book has even more power; not only will that blogger or Youtuber tell their friends to read the book, they’ll shout about it to the ends of the Earth on their platforms.

Well, that, and the other main conclusion was that if you want me to read your book, you have to write a really good book and then get it into my hands somehow.

In this post, I’ll be answering three major questions: How do I find book reviewers to read my book? How do I get them to read my book? and How should I react once they do read my book?

Find your target audience

You’ve already done this, I assume, because you’re a master of marketing? No, you haven’t? Well, then, allow me to take your hand and lead you through an essential part of marketing a book… COMP TITLES!!

I am such a huge advocate for comp titles. I see you indie authors in the comments like “I thought comp titles were only necessary for traditional publishing!” Nope. You need them. Just trust me, you do.

But Corinne, what is a comp title?

A comp title, or comparison title, is a book that you can say “Fans of (insert book title here) will also like my book!” or “If my book were in a library or bookstore, it’d go on the shelf right next to (insert book title or author here)!”

What makes a good comp title?

There are three aspects that make a good comp title.

Recently published – Ideally your comp title will have been published within the last five years. Three years if you can manage it. The one exception to this, I’ve found, is if it’s a well-known classic (though there is a caveat about using classic books–see #3 on the list)

Similar to your book in some way, other than just genre and age category. Sure A Court of Thorns and Roses and Lord of the Rings are both adult fantasies, but ACOTAR is a faerie romance and LOTR is an epic evil-vs-good sword and sorcery story. You need something else that connects your two stories, whether that be theme, concept, voice, characters, etc. “Fans of The Girl Who Fell Beneath the Sea will also like my book because my story is an Asian-based fantasy that explores fate and the power of love triumphing over everything.” “Fans of Sweet and Bitter Magic will like my book because my book is also a sapphic fantasy about learning to accept oneself.”

Popular enough that it’s got a solid fanbase but not so popular that it’s surpassed its target audience. For example, it’s impossible to use The Hunger Games as a comp book because everyone and their mother has read it. It’s no longer just appealing to its target audience, it now appeals to everyone. (And I see you novice writers in the comments saying “But my book also appeals to everyone! It doesn’t have a target audience!” No. It does not appeal to “everyone” and if you think otherwise then you need to get your head reexamined. Trust me on this one.) You’ll also want to avoid using classic books for the most part because they also tend to surpass their target audience after a time, though it’s more of a gray area. On the other end of the spectrum, you don’t want to use an indie book that’s only got ten reviews, all of which are the author’s friends and family.

For more advice about how to choose good comp titles, check out this Youtube video from Bookends Literary Agency about the topic:

How to Choose Comp Titles – via Bookends Literary Agency on Youtube

Once you’ve got your comp titles nailed down, you’re going to hop over to our good friend Google and search “(comp title) review” and start looking at all the blogs and reviews that are within the past six months. Reviews much older than that run the risk of the reviewer’s tastes having changed. Look at some of the other books that reviewer has talked about and make sure you’ve got a good understanding of their reading tastes. Then, once you know that their reading tastes align with your book, you’re going to hop on over to their Contact page or their review policy. MAKE SURE TO READ THE REVIEW POLICY OR CONTACT PAGE VERY CAREFULLY BECAUSE SOMETIMES REVIEWERS GO ON HIATUS OR STOP BLOGGING AND WILL POST A NOTICE ON THEIR POLICY THAT SAYS “I AM NOT ACCEPTING BOOKS FOR REVIEW”. I cannot count how many books I’ve received from authors who are obviously mass-emailing every blogger they can find that failed to read the “I am not currently accepting books for review” sentence on my Contact page.

Which leads me right into my next point…

Read the review policy very carefully

Make sure you read the blogger’s review policy very carefully so you understand things like

Is that blog run by an individual person or a group of reviewers? If it’s a group, how do they decide who reads a book that is sent to them by an author?

How does the blogger want to be contacted? Do they have a contact form, or do they want you to send them an email directly? Do they want you to send just the first three chapters so they can get a feel for your writing before committing to a full read? Do they have a preferred format for the book file?

Do they automatically post the review across all review sites like Goodreads and Amazon as well as their blog, or is the review limited to just their blog? If they limit the review to just their blog, do they require a fee of some sort to post the review to other sites? (sometimes this is the only way bloggers can make money from their reviews)

What other expectations does this blogger have for dealing with authors who solicit reviews? Do they have specific books they do and don’t want to read? (eg. a larger reviewer I follow doesn’t want to read books about miscarriage because that’s a huge trigger for her, whereas I will not read any depictions of animal abuse because it is triggering for me)

Also make sure to read some of their other reviews just so you get an understanding of their review style, how often they post, how much they read of your genre, etc. For example, when I review, I give a “three good things three bad things” examination of the book so my blog’s readers can decide for themselves whether or not to pick up a book, and I often like to pepper my review with memes about the book or the plot. Some authors who I’ve reviewed (I won’t name names) have taken this personally because they don’t want me to criticize their book at all and they view it as an attack on their precious book baby. So if you look at some of their reviews and can’t imagine them saying similar things about your own book, you’re probably better off not working with them.

Which, again, leads me to my next point…

Follow all their instructions for how to solicit them for a review, and don’t get offended if they say no

Sometimes even if the book seems like a great match on paper, the blogger will still decide not to read it. Maybe they have a ton of other books they’re trying to get through at the moment and they just don’t have the time to dedicate to another one. Maybe they’re dealing with a personal issue of some sort and don’t have the time or energy to devote to your book.

Sometimes reviewers say no for other reasons: they try the first few chapters but don’t like the writing style, they just couldn’t connect to the characters, or they don’t think they could give the book a good rating. Again, not every book is going to appeal to every reader, and reviewers usually have a good sixth sense about whether or not they’ll like a book.

For example, I was once contacted by an author who wanted a review for a book he’d written about a dog. He specifically referenced my The Travelling Cat Chronicles review and said that his book was like that one so he was sure I’d like it. Well, one thing that really drew me into The Travelling Cat Chronicles was the snarky, deprecating voice of the main narrator, Nana. Meanwhile, the book he’d sent didn’t have the same voice; it was more of a “The dog walked down the street. He sniffed a trash can. He wondered if he’d get something to eat soon.” sort of dry narration. In addition, there was a scene right in the first chapter of the dog, who was a stray, walking down the street and seeing a young woman about my age. Instead of feeling sorry for the dog and maybe trying to give it something to eat or finding a shelter that could take the dog in, the woman kicked the dog and screamed at it.

I am a huge animal lover, and depictions of animal abuse can be really triggering for me, so I had to stop reading at that scene. I knew almost immediately I wouldn’t be able to give the book a good rating, so I responded to the author saying “Thanks but no thanks, I don’t think I’d be able to give this book a good rating, and the scene of the woman kicking the dog just doesn’t sit right with me because animal abuse is really triggering for me.” He immediately sent me back a very vitriolic response that said something along the lines of “Well, it’s very realistic and happens every day and it’s your problem if you don’t like it.”

My fourth tip for getting reviewers for your book is personalize your email. While it’s understandable that you can’t spend hours reading through the archives of one blog just to make sure a reviewer will like your book, including even just a little bit of personalization in your email will make the reviewer feel more respected and valued, and will give you a good first impression. Things like:

-Getting the reviewer’s name, blog title, and pronouns correct

-Mentioning a recent post of theirs (“Your review of Shadow and Bone that you posted in June mentioned that you really enjoy stories with Russian influence, and my book is also Russian-inspired”)

-Mentioning something from their review policy (“As indicated in your review policy, I’ve attached the first three chapters of my book in MS Word format for your perusal”)

can really do wonders for making a good first impression with a reviewer. It makes us think you’re not just mass-emailing every blog you can find, but that you’re taking the time to actually read our review policy and understand our tastes and you’ve done your research and know that your book will be a good fit for us. Just like you wouldn’t mass-email resumes on a job search or mass-email queries to literary agents, you should try to avoid mass-emailing bloggers when soliciting reviews. It’s just basic respect. And I see some of you in the comments “But Corinne, that’s just common sense!” this advice is not for you. It’s for the 1-2% of authors who don’t understand that bloggers are people, too, and deserving the same respect you’d show to a literary agent or a hiring manager.

Also make sure to say thank you, regardless of whether or not they actually read your book! If they say no, tell them thank you for the consideration. If they say yes, tell them thank you for the opportunity. If they say yes and then end up giving the book two stars, say thank you for reading my book.

Tip #5 is assume not every email results in a review.

I don’t want to crush anyone’s dreams here, but I also want to make sure authors go into this with realistic expectations. So let’s say I’m an author who just published a book and am looking for reviewers to help promote it. I send the book out to five reviewers, making sure to follow their review policies and all the other tips I’ve introduced so far on this page.

Blogger #1: never responds because they’ve gotten burnt out from blogging lately and have been considering quitting or taking a break but just haven’t remembered to put on their site that they ‘re not accepting books for review.

Blogger #2: is rather intrigued by the premise and how I’ve compared my book to Words Bubble Up Like Soda Pop, which is their favorite movie, but then they read the first three chapters and decide they just can’t connect to the main character, so they decide not to finish it.

Blogger #3: is very intrigued by the premise and how I’ve compared my book to Love & Gelato, which they reviewed last month and gave five stars, so they give it a try. They read the whole thing, but ultimately are not as satisfied with the ending as they thought they would be, and they’ve seen one too many authors like Piper CJ and Kathleen Hale retaliating against reviewers who give their books less than stellar reviews, so they decide not to post the review.

Blogger #4: is very interested in reading it and reads it all the way through, and ends up loving it. They give the book 5 stars but they’re so busy with their other reviews and their day job and family that they promise themselves “I’ll write this review later” and then never get around to it.

Blogger #5: is very interested in reading it and reads it all the way through, and ends up loving it. They give the book 5 stars, taking detailed and thorough notes while they read, and the review goes up a few weeks later, talking about how much they loved how the antagonist spoke mostly in metaphors and the main couple was so sweet together.

My point being, assume that out of five emails you send, that will only net you one review. If your email-to-review ratio ends up being higher than that, great! But I just don’t want authors to get their hopes up that every single email will result in that coveted review. We bloggers try our best to review the books we’ve read and loved, and we do our best to try and support authors (because let’s face it, we wouldn’t be where we are if not for authors writing books!) but sometimes it just doesn’t happen.

Because of this, if you’re an author who wants more reviews for your book, you should use this 1:5 rule when planning out how many people to contact. If you want five reviews, better email 25 bloggers. If you want 10 reviews, you’ll need at least 50 bloggers. Of course, if you’re emailing that many people, there’s a higher chance that more than 1/5 of them will end up reviewing your book, because real life doesn’t follow a perfect ratio like that. But then that’s a good thing! If you email 50 bloggers expecting ten reviews and you end up with twenty of them who read and review your book, even better! There are very few instances where more reviews is a bad thing. The one example I can think of is in the case of something like The Hunger Games, where it gets so many people reading it that it starts surpassing its target audience and getting more negative reviews.

Tip #6: Do not get offended if the reviewer doesn’t like the book.

Even if the reviewer gave it one star and ranted for three paragraphs about how your protagonist is such a Mary Sue and the love interest is such a cardboard cutout and there’s no chemistry, their opinion is still valid. You might be tempted to get defensive and jump in the comments or in their email and lecture them about how they didn’t get the book and how they completely missed the point. Do. Not. Do. This. Remember that once you hit “Publish” on your book, it is no longer yours; it belongs to the world. It’s one thing to email a reviewer and ask them if they’d like to read your book, but another to jump on a reviewer for a less-than-favorable review. Sarah Stusek, Richard Brittain, Kathleen Hale, Piper CJ… the list goes on and on of authors who have gone after reviewers who gave their books less-than-favorable reviews. It’s become such a problem that reviewers are even afraid to post reviews, no matter how glowing and favorable, because the author still might take offense. I’ve definitely had my fair share of authors attacking me for things I’ve said in my reviews.

So what to do if you send your book to a reviewer and they end up not liking it and giving it a lower rating than you expected and you’re upset? First off, it’s okay to be upset. You spent all that time and energy on writing your book and then more time and energy researching bloggers and making sure you only contacted ones you were sure would love your book, and yet one of them didn’t like your book.

If something like this happens to you, take a deep breath, step away from your computer, and go hydrate. If you’re still upset by it, then call up a friend or hop in your author group chat or private (note the private) Discord or whatever other way you connect with other authors. Again, privately. Rant all you like privately about how disappointed you are that the blogger didn’t like your book. No matter how upset you are, though, never take it to a public forum, and never do it in a group chat/FB group/Discord where the blogger in question, or even other bloggers, have access to it. Keep your ranting to fellow authors or family members or friends who aren’t part of the bookish community. Bloggers talk, and we have really great whisper networks. If an author comes after a reviewer for a negative review, everyone else in the blogging sphere will hear about it. Even something that seems as innocent as an author complaining about a negative review that resulted from them soliciting a blogger can give a bad impression to reviewers; it tells them that you’re the sort of author who isn’t afraid to cross boundaries and get revenge on reviewers who don’t love your book. (If you doubt the power of bloggers’ whisper networks, go look up Kathleen Hale, Richard Brittain, or Piper CJ and see how the blogging/reviewing community view them now. )

This is not to scare you. 99% of authors are perfectly acceptable and wonderful people. But the 1% of authors who cross the line and attack us for our opinions give a bad rep to all authors.

If you did not personally solicit the review and you just happen to be glancing at your book’s Goodreads page (eg. to check the effectiveness of a particular marketing strategy and to see if it netted you more readers overall) and see a negative review, DO NOT ENGAGE, I REPEAT, DO NOT ENGAGE. Log off, call a friend, and take a walk. It’s not the end of the world.

Tip #7 is they’re doing you a favor, so do them a favor and give them the book for free.

Did you know that some authors will reach out to reviewers and say “Here’s the press kit for my book, I would love it if you would give it a review,” then when the reviewer is like “Yes, your book sounds wonderful! Please send me a copy!” the author, instead of giving them a free ePUB copy, says “Great! Here’s the link on Amazon, it’s $12.99 for the paperback or $5.99 for the Kindle version!”

Don’t do this. Just trust me on this. Shipping paperbacks to reviewers is expensive and a lot of us understand that. But sending a reviewer a free ePUB file of your book costs you basically nothing. If the reviewer decides independently to pick up your book and read it, the responsibility is on them to obtain a copy, which is usually buying a physical or ebook copy with their own money or borrowing it from the library or a friend.

My theory about why authors do this is they get excited about the possibility of one imminent sale and don’t realize what the etiquette is for “who is responsible for getting a copy of the book into the reviewer’s hands?” Just remember “whoever extends the invitation pays for the date.” So if you are the one to extend the invitation to a reviewer to read your book, you are the one responsible for getting the reviewer a copy of said book.

Tip #8: Get yourself a good editor.

If you published traditionally, your publisher would have already hired an editor for you, and you can skip right down to tip #9. But if you self-publish, you need to make sure to hire a good editor to give your book a once-over. Maybe it had dozens of beta readers and critique partners who caught all the plot holes and logical inconsistencies and you just need a proofreader. Maybe you haven’t sought out any feedback on your book yet and are doing some research before uploading it to Amazon. Either way, get yourself a good editor. Yes, that means you reading this. Educate yourself on the different kinds of editors and figure out which one you need, then go get yourself one.

A developmental editor will work with you exclusively on big-story issues, such as plot, character development, and theme. They’re like a professional beta reader, but way way better.

A line editor will review your prose and make suggestions about how to reword/rewrite sentences and passages to sound better. Eg. they might look at a sentence like “The very light blue sky sparkled in the bright summer sunshine as Mark leapt lightly down the hill toward his middle school” and suggest that you rewrite it to something like “The summer sky sparkled with sunshine as Mark danced down the hill toward his school.”

A proofreader will look exclusively at grammar and spelling issues. They’ll catch all those pesky Oxford commas, the places where you used a hyphen instead of an em dash, and the inevitable misspelling of the word vacuum in Chapter Seventeen.

Sometimes a developmental editor can also do proofreading services, or a proofreader can offer line editing services. Look at the packages they offer, as well as speak to current and former clients, and choose the editor who would work best with you.

Of course, editing should always happen before you hit “publish” on your book. Sometimes, especially if the book hasn’t gotten many readers and hasn’t been out for too long, you can justify pulling it to make revisions, especially if the revisions that need to be made are major story revisions. The reason I mention editors is because typos and unclear prose can prevent a reader from getting invested in the story, resulting in the inevitable DNF/low rating, and plot holes/unsatisfying character arcs or story endings can ruin the book for a reviewer. If you want reviewers, and readers, to finish your book until the final page and love it to bits, make sure your book is edited to be the best it possibly can be.

(Also pro tip: if you’re considering getting both a developmental edit and a proofreader, do the developmental edit first because you will probably end up having to rewrite stuff anyway, so you’ll want to wait on the proofread until you do the developmental edit and won’t need to rewrite stuff anymore)

Tip #9: Remember who the review is for.

Repeat after me: Reviews are for other readers, not for the author of the book.

Reviews are not for you, the author. Reviews are for other readers who are considering whether or not to read/buy the book. Meaning that there is one very important temptation that you must resist: do not read reviews of your book on Amazon or Goodreads. The one exception is if you have done some sort of extra marketing campaign and you want to check if it’s had any effect. Even so, if you are the sort of person who would get upset seeing someone say something negative about your book, maybe don’t look at the reviews yourself and instead have a trusted friend do it for you.

“But Corinne, I need to read my reviews so I can get feedback on my book and know how to improve my writing in the future!”

This is not the purpose of reviews. Feedback on your book should come before your book is published, from beta readers, critique partners, and your editor. I know you can technically “unpublish” the book, edit it, and put it back up again, but it doesn’t give off a good impression, in my opinion. As a reader, if I were to pick up a book and not enjoy how it ended, then go to the reviews to see if other people felt the same way, only to see that the book had originally had a different ending and the author had pulled it and rewritten the whole thing after the first initial reviews had gone up, I wouldn’t feel good. It just looks unprofessional. The one exception to this is maybe if you happen to notice a review that says “This book had quite a few typos in it” and you go back and reread your manuscript again and notice the typos; if that were to happen, it is understandable that you might pull the book, fix the typos, and re-upload it. (As a reviewer, if I were to review a book and say something like “This book had a lot of typos and it needed a good editor” and then later the author were to reach out to me to say “Hey I fixed all the typos can you go ahead and delete that line from your review?” I would get pretty weirded out; that seems like a boundary that shouldn’t be crossed to ask a reviewer to change what they said about a book, even if you, the author, go in and fix what they said wasn’t good about the book. If I were the author and this happened to me, I would simply seek out new reviews to essentially “drown out” the outdated one that mentioned the typos.)

(Yes, this did happen to me one time–I reviewed a book where there was a certain character who vanished halfway through the story, and then all of a sudden was replaced with a different character whose name was spelled very similarly. This confused me at the time and I thought they were two separate characters, so I mentioned it in my review. The publishers read my review and came after me saying that it was “unprofessional” for me to mention a typo in my review and refused to listen to reason when I tried to explain that I legitimately thought they were intended to be two different characters. Because it’s not as if it’s the publisher’s fault for not noticing the character’s name had been misspelled for fourteen whole chapters before sending me the book.)

In conclusion

When you are an author contacting a reviewer:
Remember the human behind the computer
Do your research into what bloggers would like your book
When a negative review comes in, stay calm and move on

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If you enjoyed this post, you might also like these other posts from me:

How Do Book Reviewers Approach Your Book?

Book Blogger Anniversary Tag

2020 End Of Year Survey

Corinne 乙女

Legacy Family On Hiatus!

Hello all who have been following the tale of my Sims 4 Legacy challenge!

Just a brief update that the Legacy Family posts, as well as all other posts, will be taking a brief hiatus for a few weeks due to me not having access to a computer for a while.

We will return in August!

Sims 4 Legacy Challenge, Part 5: Weddings Are Profitable Dontcha Know

(If you missed Part Four, you can find it here)

(If you’re new here, make sure to read Part One)

This is Part 5 of my Sims 4 Legacy Challenge. I highly recommend going back and reading earlier parts, linked above, if you are new here, but the basics of this challenge are that I play a single family in the Sims, and create a matriarch. This matriarch starts with no money and an empty lot and has to build a house that will support ten whole generations of Sims, and then make a legacy that will last after her death.

In Part 4, we saw our heir, Magnolia, get married to her true love Leah, and Leah moved in with Magnolia. I mentioned that Leah had sold all her furniture, but since she wasn’t allowed to bring any money to the family, I had to use a cheat code to restore the family balance to pre-Leah numbers. However, I received a significant amount of furniture and household items from completing a Goaled Wedding, and since these were in-game rewards that I’d earned fair and square, I figured I could sell/use them.

After Magnolia’s wedding, I sold all the furniture we got as rewards for the wedding event itself, and then because we had so much money and were about to expand the family, I figured it was a good time for a house remodel. I spent a good few hours (and a whole lot of Simoleons) on it, and then ended up with this:

I am so proud of this house; it’s not the prettiest, but it’s nice enough and I’ve always preferred practicality over beauty when building in the Sims. When building this, I had three keywords in mind: functional, practical, and windows. Lots of windows! I love placing windows all over the place and letting lots of natural light into my builds!

The front door is recessed from the street, to give the family a bit of privacy. In the front garden is a cute little sitting area with a fountain, and then you enter the main living space:We’ve got a piano, an easel, a VR video game system that Magnolia brought home from work, a fireplace, a TV, and lots of seating. When I think of “living room,” I think of “family hanging out together in the same space and having fun” so I put in a bunch of activities to support the hobbies of various family members (there is also a bookshelf offscreen, of course)

Just off the main living space is a bathroom, then the kitchen and dining area:

Whenever I’m making a build and I find a color swatch or something I really like, I tend to just use it in every single build thereafter. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it! This is kind of my “standard modern bathroom” that appears in pretty much every Sims house I’ve ever made, whale shower curtain included.No matter what I do, the chess boards in the Sims 4 seem so awkward to place, so here I just made it a moment and gave it a full-on nook. I know I am not the first Simmer to wish for a smaller chessboard that goes on top of a table–I mean, there already exists a “clutter” item that’s a board game your Sims can play and interact with that just goes right on top of your dining room table, so it’s not like the functionality for something like that doesn’t exist.

On the other side of the kitchen is this room, which I won’t even tell you what it’s for because it’s fairly obvious:

This nursery actually sleeps four babies at any one time; there’s several cribs and a toddler bed hidden behind the dollhouses. The weird brown house thing in the corner is actually a window; it’s showing the house next door but there’s no frame so it looks more like a painting.

Just off the kitchen we’ve got a little hallway with a bedroom and a bathroom.

The bed exists, I promise, it’s behind the half wall in the right hand photo. The blue lamp is basically right next to the bed, if you’re trying to figure out where it is.As we’ve established, I like what I like and why change it if it’s not broken? And yes, you will be seeing that painting a lot in this build because it is my favorite painting ever. (there’s actually a few places in this build where I’ve used it and it just doesn’t show up with the camera view I’m using)

Then we’ve got a whole other hallway off the kitchen where that painting makes a reappearance:

I take bathrooms very seriously in my builds and I always make sure to include several of them, so we’ve got another one here:

Then we’ve got two more bedrooms–since this family is a matriarchy and only girls can be the heirs, I’ve decorated them in anticipation of having girls:

One important feature I wanted to include in every bedroom was a bookshelf, since the Bookworm trait is so important in this challenge. Though there is no bookshelf technically because there just wasn’t space for it, the books on the desk function as a bookshelf and the Sim who sleeps here can actually read them.

The another bedroom, this time in green in case one of our girls is less girly and prefers more gender-neutral colors:

Then we get to one of my favorite rooms in the house, which I officially call the “Heir’s Bedroom.” For each generation, when we have a daughter who becomes the Heir to the legacy, she will be moved into this bedroom, which is the biggest one in the house (aside from the master bedroom) in accordance with her status. It’s also big enough for two people so she can have a spouse live here with her, as well (there’s also an en suite bathroom, but it’s identical to the blue tiled whale bathroom I’ve already shown you in the above photos, so I didn’t see much point in including it here)

Of course, being a family of Bookworms, we have to have a library. At the opposite end of the hallway from the kitchen is the library:

I’ve found that when I play, I absolutely hate having more the one floor of the house, because it makes it harder for gameplay (Sims walk so slow already that it just takes more time for them to do stuff) but with a family this big, I couldn’t justify not having a second floor.

This house is also so big that I wanted to add in a little back door here that goes right out onto the street in case I needed my Sims to rush off to work or school in a hurry.

Onto the second floor, we have the cutest little reading nook:

I ended up making the second floor smaller and just putting a few things up here. Namely, the master bedroom with an en suite bathroom, a private office for Magnolia, and a deck.

I was thinking that Magnolia and Leah might come up here sometime to have some private time for themselves to sunbathe and chill out to some tuneage, but then there was extra space on the deck and I felt bad that we didn’t have any outdoor activities for the kids, so I tossed a set of monkey bars up here, too.Master bedroom with a walk-in closet. The door you see in this image leads to Magnolia’s office.En suite bathroom. Nothing really worth noting here, except I did want to get them a nice fancy tub with a separate shower.

And finally, a private office:

In case any fellow Simmers are reading this and wondering how expensive this house is, I don’t remember how much I spent building it, but the lot information values it at 266,000 Simoleons (yes, I did use a lot of debug for the clutter/decorations to cut down on costs) Without any tax breaks, I’d have to pay 12,000 Simoleons every tax cycle, but because several of my adult Sims have the “frugal living” trait (best trait ever, BTW, definitely worth getting) I get a good amount of tax breaks and only pay 5,000 Simoleons each time. And if you’ve been following these posts since the beginning and remember how I mentioned I didn’t want to pay 6,000 Simoleons per tax cycle in my 100 baby challenge, it’s because in my 100 baby challenge, I only had one adult who was only able to do part-time freelance work from home, whereas here, I have three adults who all have full-time jobs, s I can easily afford it. Man, this challenge is way too easy, I thought it was supposed to be hard! xD Or maybe I’m just not doing it right?

So to recap, at this point in our challenge, we have the following Sims in our household:

Thom Perry – Primary spouse, works full-time as a comedian

Rose Perry – Founder, works full-time as a web designer

Magnolia Perry – Gen 1 heir, works full-time as a game designer

Leah Perry – Gen 1 Spouse, works full-time as an assistant dishwasher

Ryll Perry – Gen 1 neither heir nor spare, as she did not get the Bookworm trait, but we’ll let her stick around.

This post has gotten a little bit long, so I’ll stop it here. Next time we see how Magnolia and Leah get on with being married to each other! (spoiler alert, they get along very well). Make sure to follow my blog so you don’t miss the next part!

Sims 4 Legacy Challenge, Part 4: Mission: Get My Daughter Laid

(For those who missed it, read Part 3 here: https://corinnejet.wordpress.com/2023/06/27/sims-4-legacy-challenge-part-3-now-i-need-therapy-kinda/)

(Read from the beginning here)

This is Part 4 of my Sims 4 Legacy Challenge. I highly recommend going back and reading earlier parts, linked above, if you are new here, but the basics of this challenge are that I play a single family in the Sims, and create a matriarch. This matriarch starts with no money and an empty lot and has to build a house that will support ten whole generations of Sims, and then make a legacy that will last after her death.

Now that Magnolia is an adult and has the desired Bookworm trait, she is the official heir to her mother’s Legacy and can start popping out babies!

After Magnolia aged up, I had to decide what sort of people she would be attracted to. Well, in the WIP that Rose is based on, the Rose in that story has a daughter named Magnolia who turns out to be a lesbian. In The Sims 4, you can specify things like what gender your Sim is attracted to, whether or not they’re able to become pregnant, etc. So I headed straight into Create a Sim (CAS) to set up Magnolia’s sexuality.

For context, at this point in the game, Magnolia has not had a single romantic interaction. She barely even has any friends. And yet when I went into CAS to edit Magnolia’s romantic preferences, this is what I found:

Again, I have not even touched Magnolia in CAS at this point. Not even to edit her outfits. I mean, maybe I sleepwalked one night to my computer, started up the game, and changed her romantic preferences, all without waking up? But I don’t sleepwalk, so this is kinda scary how the game knew what her sexuality was before I did. xD

So now we knew who Magnolia would be attracted to. And now she’s a young adult, meaning she no longer has to worry about school. We have two main priorities: find her a girlfriend, and find her a job.

As for her sister, Ryll is now a child. When Ryll aged up from a toddler, this is what the game decided to dress her in:

Honestly, I love this outfit on Ryll and never ended up changing it. I figured this was the kind of dress her mother used to wewar before she became a Sim, and that’s where Ryll got her fashion sense.

Whenever she had a free moment, Magnolia went traveling around to various places looking for her Princess Charming. But none of the female Sims we met were attractive to her. In the Legacy challenge, you are allowed to download new Sims from the gallery using the #LegacyLoves tag, but even on that tag, I wasn’t really finding anyone who was Magnolia’s type. I was starting to think that she just needed to have a one-night stand to have a baby and would never find her soulmate like her parents had, until we had a chance meeting at the library!

In almost an exact reenactment of her parents’ meeting, Magnolia meets her new crush Leah at the library and bonds over a shared interest in books!

Magnolia started crushing HARD on Leah. They exchanged phone numbers, and Magnolia went home to find a job. Her adult aspiration turned out to be “Computer Whiz,” and since her mom was a programmer, Magnolia ended up going into programming as well, since that would complement her aspiration nicely. I wanted Magnolia to rise to the very top of her career, because both Rose and Thom had the “successful lineage” aspiration and they’d completed all but two requirements: “Have a child get married” and “have a child rise to the top level of a career.” I was determined to have Magnolia be the one to help them finish that aspiration.

In between Magnolia’s work shifts, she didn’t really have time to invite Leah on a date. But they called and texted each other almost every day, and Magnolia was DETERMINED to invite Leah on a date that coming Sunday. She was eating lunch when a surprise visitor showed up at the door…

Magnolia wastes no time in chatting Leah up, and shoos her nosy parents and nosy sister away from the computer room so she and Leah can have some privacy.

She and Leah got to know each other very well during this visit. She learned more about Leah (Leah is a neat freak, gloomy, and has that desired bookworm trait!) and they had lots of deep conversations and got up their friendship meter to a nice high value. By the end of the visit, Leah and Magnolia had declared each other BFFs, and as Leah was heading out to go back home, Magnolia snuck her very first kiss!

That expression of pleasant surprise on Leah’s face is just so adorable!

As it turns out, Leah was crushing bad on Magnolia, too. Maybe getting Magnolia laid isn’t going to be so difficult after all. xD

After that, Magnolia felt like Leah could be “the one” and wanted a storybook romance like the ones she’d always read about. They bade each other farewell, and kept in correspondence through the next week. When Leah came to Magnolia for advice about feeling burnt out in her career, she went away inspired to change jobs and soon found a new passion for working in the fast food industry and customer service. And then the following weekend rolled around, and Leah came over to hang out again!

Leah had learned how to play chess from working as a librarian, and taught Magnolia a few new moves.

During this visit, Magnolia realized that in fifty years, what she wanted was to be doing this exact same thing, playing chess and reading books together. They spent more quality time with each other, but during this visit, they also got to talking about the large age gap between them: Magnolia was in the prime of her youth, while Leah was almost an elder. They wouldn’t have much time together, and Magnolia would spend the better part of her life caring for Leah in her old age. But Magnolia had a plan.

Magnolia proposed to Leah on the spot!

Magnolia knew that Leah was her soulmate, and nothing was going to stop them from being together. Originally, she’d thought she’d do a storybook proposal: reenact their meet-cute at the library, go for a walk along the river, then propose under a cherry tree as the sun was setting. But what really mattered was Leah, and Magnolia had no time to waste. They got engaged, and set a wedding date for the following weekend.

Magnolia tells Mom that she’s engaged to Leah. She’s never really told her mom before about being a lesbian, but her mom is totally supportive of her. And most importantly, her mom is happy that Magnolia has found a Spouse of her own!As part of her career in game design, Magnolia became interested in video games, and she found a passion for livestreaming.

With her daughter getting married, Rose realized how far she had come from where she used to be.

Rose and Thom ended up having a quiet moment together, talking about Magnolia’s engagement and reflecting on their lives together.

The next part of Magnolia’s master plan to be with Leah as long as possible was simple: get married to Leah. They had a beautiful wedding at the same location where her parents tied the knot.

The two newlyweds kiss to seal their vowsThe wedding was very small, just the newlyweds and Magnolia’s family, but that’s how they wanted it to be.The newlyweds get a picture-perfect kiss in front of this wall that seems custom-built for that express purpose

After the wedding, I had a bit of housekeeping to do. Leah and Magnolia moved in together (according to challenge rules, Magnolia is not allowed to move out of her parents’ house, so Leah moved in with Magnolia) and in the Sims, when two Sims move in together, the one being added to the house brings 20,000 Simoleons, in addition to whatever furniture they had in their house. But the challenge rules also state that Spouses cannot bring any money with them when they move in. What I did was I had Leah sell all her furniture, then used a cheat code to restore my family’s balance back down to what it was, as best as I could remember (which was 32,000 Simoleons at the time)

However, there is one more feature that affects our family’s coffers. When you have a wedding event, you can choose to set it as a “goaled” event. Meaning that during the event, you perform certain tasks, such as “get married,” “eat a slice of cake,” etc. and the more of these tasks you finish, the higher your reward. During the wedding, I focused solely on completing as many of these goals as I could. I ended up finishing all the goals, and then when it ended, I got a notification “The guests were so impressed with your wedding and what a great party it was that they’ve given you a few housewarming gifts.” So in my inventory, I had dozens of pieces of furniture, decorating items, etc. that were meant to do various things throughout the house. New fridge, new couch, even new lamp sconces. Someone also had the foresight to gift them some baby items, knowing that they were going to have children. I figured since these came from the game giving me a reward for completing a task, they were not fruit of the forbidden tree and I could use them as I saw fit. After I sold everything, I ended up with a nice little 115,000 Simoleons in my stash. So it was time for a complete remodel of the house!

Now, Challenge rules state I can’t demolish the house entirely (or at least, that’s the impression I got) The rules state that I can only “add on” to the house. So I kept the original structure, but just added more rooms here and there, made it two floors, added a pool, etc.

In the next post, I’ll give you a full tour of the house, so look forward to it! House tour coming July 11th at this same time, make sure to follow, blah-dee-blah, the usual.