/&amp/ general

[Anonymous No.20801644]

Submit to &amp magazine to have your work featured in the upcoming issue. You can email your submissions to [e-mail], or submit via the website: https://lampbylit.com/magazine/submit/

Read the July issue here: https://lampbylit.com/magazine/issue-014/

Also, /&amp/ general. Any favourite pieces from previous issues? Any pieces from previous issues you’d like to critique or discuss? If you’ve already submitted something for the next one, tell us about it. If you’re still planning on submitting, then tell us about your ideas and what you’ve been working on.

[Anonymous No.20801657]

Why is it lamp when this & is the et/and sign?

[Anonymous No.20801669]

>>20801644

[Anonymous No.20801677]

>>20801657
idk, in my head I always pronounce it like “andamp” though

[Anonymous No.20801690]

>>20801657
because editor thinks & looks like a capital cursive L

[Anonymous No.20801746]

>>20801644
Are you getting the submissions you need for the August issue? What's the estimated deadline for it and when do you think we can read?

[Anonymous No.20801861]

>&amp thread manages to hit bump limit
nice

>>20801673
Yo, I'd still like to hear more from you. And if you've got any critique of my fly-in-soup thing from last thread I'd be glad.

>>20801746
OP probably isn't editor, and editor himself hasn't made an appearance in a while, so nobody knows. End of August would be the first best guess.

>>20797828
I don't think the piece was irredeemable, and I thought it was interesting enough to feel worth finishing, but it was also dense to the point of being opaque. When I finished it I didn't see the point of it. >>20798362 put it right with the language being like stumbling blocks. Anyway, I think that sort of style (if done well) can work in pieces, but doesn't necessarily stand on its own. You ever read Naked Lunch?

[Anonymous No.20801881]

>>20801861
>&amp thread manages to hit bump limit
after bumping two dozen times

[Anonymous No.20801914]

>>20801881
>ctrl-f "bump"
>24 matches
Good guess?

[Anonymous No.20801989]

>>20801881
Yeah, there was too many bump posts last thread. Instead of saying "bump" at least bring up a new topic or go on about what else you want to see. Shit a poem out your ass, anything!

[Anonymous No.20802013]

earlier i wrote "the school of athens" as a shitpost piece and i decided to submit it for publication in the july issue of &amp just to see whether the editor would publish it. i didn't expect anybody to read it, but last thread an anon said it was trying to be funny without trying to be funny, and i think it hit the nail on the head regarding all my work. trying without trying. i'd like that anon to elaborate a little more if he can. thank you very much!

[Anonymous No.20802050]

>>20802013
NTA but reminds me of Charles Bukowski's "Don't Try" saying. Most of the funniest moments in my life were people laughing at me trying to be authentic but because I'm so autistic it comes off as some kind of masterful dry humor and sometimes I even see it coming and try to keep natural.
But that's what writing is like. You gotta be yourself but it's also good to be aware of what you're doing. You can guide subtly and in that way everybody lies a little bit. The point is not to be too heavy-handed. That has the same effects of seeing the puppeteer during the puppet show (the shows where they are hidden, not comedian dummies)

[Anonymous No.20802331]

>>20801657
Does anyone actually know where the name originated? Does it have some specific meaning?

[Anonymous No.20802366]

>>20802331
>>/lit/thread/S16997211
This is the oldest thread I saw. Anon says he wanted it to be Lamp as in "Lamp from /lit/" so I guess it's because they both start with "L" and that's it.

[Anonymous No.20802384]

&amp doesn't pay for anything they print, do they? And is that submission form telling me to just post in here if I want my pieces actually considered for anything other than slush?

[Anonymous No.20802472]

>>20802384
No, &amp doesn’t pay for submissions— it’s free access and isn’t sold for profit. If you don’t want to use the website, you can submit directly to the editor via email.

[Anonymous No.20802547]

willl you publish my philosophy paper

[Anonymous No.20802558]

>>20802472
Based

[Anonymous No.20802567]

>>20802547
see this >>20801669

[Anonymous No.20802584]

>>20801644
What's the deadline

[Anonymous No.20802640]

>>20802584
now

[Anonymous No.20802918]

>>20801989
>shit a poem out your ass

These are the first couple stanzas of a longer poem that I’m considering submitting for the next issue. Anyone interested in poetry here who wants to share their thoughts?

[Anonymous No.20803074]

>>20802918
I see the iambic rhythm to it and there's a pyrric and spondee with "As I" then "shut out" respectively on the third line. This is nice, because you focus all that stress away from the first two words and into the next two. At least in my opinion its significant because "shut out" interrupts the green month of May.

Then the third line of the next stanza starts with a spondee "crawl'd out" and this is great because it reinforces the slowness of the action. I definitely think these stanzas make sense and are restrained on your number of substitutions so that's good. On the subject matter I did find the "cocoon" interesting because it fits with the dark mood after the first spondee, yet there's a relationship with the nature outside with that reference.
But that's all I really have to say since I'm not a poet, I just like to read a few a day.

[Anonymous No.20803395]

>>20803074
Thanks, this was very helpful. I really appreciate you taking the time to read this so carefully. If you’ve got the time to look over a bit more, I’m worried about the number of substitutions in some of my other stanzas. For example, this is the one that follows immediately after the two that you just read, and I think that using compound adjectives in both the first and last lines (“tight-jawed” and “dusk-blue” respectively) might create spondees that disrupt the flow of the iambic meter. At the same time though, it evokes a sort of tension that I like, so I’m unsure about changing it. Also, I generally like to keep my punctuation as minimal as possible, but I don’t know if the first line would read better if I used a comma after “tense.”

My other concern is that this stanza might seem like an abrupt change in subject— the poem makes sense to me because I know the larger context of what I’m writing about, but I think that to anyone else it might come across as disjointed. Maybe I need to incorporate more of a transition?

[Anonymous No.20803411]

>>20803395
NTA. i think "tight-jawed" is a little stiff, but dusk-blue flows fairly well, in my opinion.

[Anonymous No.20803528]

>>20803411
Yeah, perhaps you’re right, although a sort of stiff awkwardness is almost what I was going for there, as it’s suitable for the subject matter. I also don’t want to get rid of the alliteration in the words “tight” and “tense.” But maybe I’m just too attached to the original line— I’ll try to come up with some alternatives.

[Anonymous No.20803640]

>>20803528
maybe you could go
>tight-jawed, tense, you strode away

[Anonymous No.20803703]

>>20803640
I see what you’re saying— the only problem would be that, if I get rid of the word “and,” the flow of the line will be noticeably disrupted by the missing syllable. I’m trying to maintain a fairly strict iambic tetrameter (eight-syllable lines comprised of four unstressed-stressed iambs, with room for slight metrical variation).

[Anonymous No.20803743]

>>20803703
i don't think the flow would be disrupted as much as you think. the "and" feels like a stumbling block. this would be categorized as catelectic iambic tetrameter. you can make use of catalexis without compromising the flow!

[Anonymous No.20803853]

>>20803743
True, but doesn’t catalexis traditionally come at the end of the line, in the final foot? I agree that the “and” feels like a sort of stumbling block though. I thought about changing the syntax to “you strode away, tight-jawed and tense” but I sort of like the way that lines A and C end right now, with the similar-sounding words “away” and “alone.” Maybe I’m just being too perfectionistic about the whole thing.

[Anonymous No.20803955]

>>20803853
>doesn’t catalexis traditionally come at the end of the line, in the final foot?
i'm sorry, by the way. this would be a catalectic TROCHAIC tetrameter, but i think it still flows well. i'm reading this like:
TIGHT-jawed, TENSE, you STRODE aWAY /
that NIGHT...
the iamb from line two is in continuity with the catalectic trochee at the end of line one.

[Anonymous No.20803987]

>>20801861
>editor himself hasn't made an appearance in a while

wasnt there a period earlier this year where he didnt release a new mag for like 6 months or so? no idea what was going on then but maybe hes going on hiatus for a bit

[Anonymous No.20804071]

>>20801644
Reposting from last thread since I didn't realize it was already at limit.
>If you’ve already submitted something for the next one, tell us about it
All right so now that I'm rested up, the story I submitted is "And Over the Town." It's a scifi story with Christian apocalyptic undertones. The story looks at Western society in the 22nd century with isolated company towns, the incorporation of Augmented Reality over VR, the Genetic and Nanomachine revolutions having taken place but before the Robotics revolution, the elite class' conflicted views on history's next step, and the apotheosis of a super-intelligence. There is a monster and pic related is part of the motif. I am drawing heavily from prophecy and taking a look at several characters with very different motivations for their beliefs. One character named Tayler does not appear in the story but he is of utmost importance in my next story. If you check the context of his description as an "augur" it tells you all you need to know about him right now.
Technically the short story is the cut first chapter of the novel I'm working on. That novel sequel follows the characters after these events and explores their past before it. That story is still founded upon the scientific speculation (mostly Ray Kurzweil) but I turn even harder away from explaining the science than I do in "And Over the Town". I want something more about the characters and less about trying to survive, but "And Over the Town" has this dystopian feel that gives context to the idyllic world of the novel.

[Anonymous No.20804153]

>>20804071
I think it’s good that you’re making it more character driven— if it’s to heavy on scientific explanation then the reader can get bogged down with details.

[Anonymous No.20804179]

>>20804153
Some of the first feedback I got on the short story was that I lore dumped in the opening paragraphs. Maybe I still did, but I tried to explain the situation without introducing too many brand new ideas. Most of the tech I only explain with a couple words or have one character note what is and isn't possible.
I'm more interested in seeing what people have to say about the three characters because when I first showed it you couldn't get a good picture of what they really cared about.

[Anonymous No.20804259]

>>20803955
Okay, that makes sense. I’m still a bit torn— I’ll fiddle with it and see which I prefer. Thanks for your input on this!

[Anonymous No.20804478]

An anonymous diatribe [against laughter], &amp issue 010. "reflecting on the faggotyness of laughing"

>>20803987
Yeah, that lasted from November to May. Hopefully content will continue feeding in and editor will have some good stuff to work with by the time he decides to put together another issue. It seems like there's genuine interest and awareness on here, so I don't think a hiatus would kill anything. Was exciting when &amp returned.

[Anonymous No.20804809]

>>20804478
>faggotyness

shouldnt it be “faggotry?” semantics tho, the anon who wrote this is based as fuck

>>20802918
>>20803395
poetry is for whiny fags who cant write good prose

[Anonymous No.20805036]

>>20804179
Sometimes sci-fi requires a degree of world-building that is difficult to incorporate into a shorter work.

[Anonymous No.20805347]

Bump

[Anonymous No.20805352]

>>20804809
prose is for people who fuck bad

[Anonymous No.20805415]

>>20805352
poetry is for people who dont fuck at all

[Anonymous No.20805424]

>>20802331
&amp is the (amusingly self-referential) HTML character code for an ampersand. If you spend long enough on the internet, especially if you mess around with web code, you will see it quite often. I think the editor liked the hypertext/cyberspace vibe (which makes sense given that it's a collaborative internet magazine).

[Anonymous No.20805488]

>>20805424
Ah, good to know.

[Anonymous No.20805711]

>>20805036
I did kinda feel that. The best I could do is show the one city and imply the events were happening everywhere. And how the story of people who believe all is lost, the people who have hope to escape and the people that want to benefit from history's tides are all common.
And I think my next story people will expect me to world build all the other countries in the novel if I have room, but I wont. At best they get an anecdote because the firm sense of identity and place is supposed to build credibilty of the society. So many dystopias have this fragmentation of culture and place so I wanted to wave a flag going "here's a utopia where everyone's clear but some people still arent happy"

[Anonymous No.20806153]

Bump

[Anonymous No.20806286]

>>20804478
This one just confused me. If laughter is contemptible because it’s useless and unproductive, couldn’t you say the same about so many other things that make life pleasurable, like literally every form of art? Music and novels and films distract us from accomplishing productive work, but that doesn’t mean that we aren’t spiritually and culturally enriched by those things. This reads like it was written by some humourless autist with a superiority complex.

Or maybe I’m just a stupid pseud and the whole thing was meant to be ironic.

[Anonymous No.20806360]

>>20806286
Yeah in a way inefficiency, whether it be through restraint or extravagance, is soul. Trying to be efficient and deconstructive about everything is okay for insight but not how people really live.

[Anonymous No.20806366]

the crab shitpost was pretty funny TBD (to be desu)

[Anonymous No.20806390]

>>20806360
Agreed— assuming an excessively utilitarian perspective sucks the joy out of life.

[Anonymous No.20806438]

>>20801644
I emailed, can I get a confirmation of receipt response?

[Anonymous No.20806447]

>>20806438
Editor hasn't been involved in the last two threads, and nobody here is affiliated. If he responds to your email then give yourself a pat on the back. I've had submissions without a response that made it in.

[Anonymous No.20806671]

Have any submitters here been contributing to the magazine since the early issues? Curious on whether the people who were originally interested in &amp are still involved with the project now.

[Anonymous No.20806740]

>>20806447
Does editorman browse /p/ to get art for the stories? I didnt really have recommendations for font and didnt provide art or anything, I just submitted with Garamond because it connects the double emdashes. Normally I use Palatino Type.

[Anonymous No.20806765]

>>20806740
He's probably going to take the text and re-format it as he sees fit. I wouldn't expect him to preserve any typsetting you did unless you asked him to. And yeah, he nabs photos from /p/.

[Anonymous No.20807063]

>>20806765
some of those pictures look really good

[Anonymous No.20807162]

The Sun Seeker, &amp issue 010. The Castle but instead you're trying to build a zoo.

>>20806671
I think a lot more of the early content was written anonymously. I know Ogden has at least been contributing since last June (he submitted the first couple chapters of Eggplant to &amp), but I'll pay attention for any other familiar names as I go digging back for highlights.

>>20801861
>fly-in-soup
Fucking misremembered my own story. Jesus.

[Anonymous No.20807182]

And here's a letter from our dear benefactor, editor, as seen in &amp issue 006.

[Anonymous No.20808136]

Bump

[Anonymous No.20808433]

>>20806366
Was it, though?

[Anonymous No.20808468]

>>20807162
Yeah, it seems like a lot of the earlier stuff isn’t attributed to any particular author. Sort of disappointing in a way, because it’d be interesting to be able to read through and see how specific contributors’ work develops and improves over time.

[Anonymous No.20808728]

>>20807182
honestly the editors letters are better than a lot of the actual submissions

[Anonymous No.20808904]

>>20806740
based, Garamond is elite

[Anonymous No.20809126]

>>20804809
Or perhaps fagginess? Idk

[Anonymous No.20809659]

Bump

[Anonymous No.20809929]

TRILLIONAIRE$, &amp issue 005. Ethical evildoer, million-millionaire maurauder, experimental eccentric.

>>20808468
Earliest I've picked out so far seems to be Esha Clempf. TRILLIONAIRE$ from 005 mentions FLEXÜR (sort of) which shows up in 014 (sort of), so I'm gonna guess it's the same anon. I've also submitted to every issue since 010, mostly as Ari. My name isn't on the first thing, but it's called page 24 (Vignette: A Chili April) in 010 if you want to track my stagnancy since then. will suck dick for critiques

>>20808728
Agreed. I was thinking I'd compile all the letters from him, but sadly there aren't that many. Though I'd guess he's authored a bunch of the &amp content without attributing himself.

>>20809659
Quit bumping like a fag and critique something or write something or I dunno, man.

>>20808433
Yessir it was.

[Anonymous No.20810338]

>>20808468
there's also k-anon and raoul

[Anonymous No.20810610]

>>20810338
I keep asking if k-anon is working on stuff since I read his collection and thought four of those were great. He's only shitposting on twitter so I have no idea what or if he's working on something.

[Anonymous No.20810619]

How did everyone here get introduced to &amp? Just by stumbling upon a thread about it, or did someone shill it to you?

[Anonymous No.20810630]

>>20810619
I was on /wg/ and someone mentioned it.

[Anonymous No.20810674]

>>20810610
What’s his Twitter handle?

[Anonymous No.20810684]

>>20810674
who's k-anon? did he write the piece about the feds preying on a mother who was in trouble with the cartel?

[Anonymous No.20810693]

>>20810674
he posted this on the interview with Unreal press
https://twitter.com/ItsKitWilliams
Mainly he is giving his two cents about the culture war.
>>20810684
no it's the anon that wrote the short story about the guy about to jump off "The Balcony" it was in a pretty early issue and he contributed a lot so I was hoping he'd do more.

[Anonymous No.20811044]

>>20810693
I feel like culture war shit detracts from people’s ability to actually produce art. It sucks that the contemporary literature scene has become so infected by the culture war— the only things that seem to get published and promoted center around meaningless idpol and virtue signalling.

[Anonymous No.20811096]

>>20811044
Same. I know enough that I tune out majority of the time besides radio or podcasts in the car but Id prefer silence or podcasts about lit.
You can doomscroll every hour if you really wanted to. I try to write to get past it honestly. Try to imagine a world where none of it matters.

[Anonymous No.20811186]

>>20810693
Which issue was the balcony story in?

[Anonymous No.20811438]

>>20809929
I don’t know what to make of this one. Is it supposed to be funny? The whole thing just seemed strange and nonsensical. The Dr. Seuss quote at the end feels especially misplaced and pointless.

Also
>Canada Day, which is the Canadian equivalent of Christmas
???

[Anonymous No.20811651]

>>20811438
>>Canada Day, which is the Canadian equivalent of Christmas
kek

[Anonymous No.20811664]

>>20811438
I don't know how you can ask whether it's supposed to be funny while posting that line. Made me lol when I read it. Earlier another anon said FLEXÜR is schizology, but it doesn't look long and I'm betting it's probably funny, so I'm gonna stop ignoring it.

[Anonymous No.20812142]

>>20811096
Any lit podcasts that you’d recommend?

[Anonymous No.20812315]

>>20812142
I wish I could recommend more but I listen to Writing Excuses (they say 15min but its really 20) on my way to my day job once a week. Need to get more things to listen to.
Thing about W.E. is it gives me insight into what genre writers are doing. Personally most of what I learn for my own writing I get from reading, but I like to hear writers try to explain things. /lit/ does have the Unreal press podcast but those are an hour so I listen to the newest one on a weekend morning with breakfast. I might try to find a variety of things to listen to.

[Anonymous No.20812615]

>>20812315
What kind of content do you want to see out of Unreal Press?

[Anonymous No.20812671]

>>20812615
maybe less genre fiction oriented guys (I like their enthusiasm, and its interesting to hear about (self) publishing), but cmon, Literature

[Anonymous No.20812848]

>>20812315
I’ll check those out, thanks!

[Anonymous No.20812854]

I was in the first issue, the one with the great short story The Justice System and I'm glad to see this is still going. Is the OP still the same as back then? I might submit another.

[Anonymous No.20812882]

I see you still haven't figured out how to compress a fucking PDF dude. 120 MB - serious? Let me help you out next time.

[Anonymous No.20812940]

>>20812671
If that's your standard, nobody on /lit/ would qualify, and you should know that.

[Anonymous No.20812999]

>>20812940
Painfully accurate. Posting in /wg/ is basically pointless because it’s just a contestant deluge of people asking the same questions about the formulaic sci-fi and fantasy shit that they’re working on.

[Anonymous No.20813008]

Thoughts on pedo story?

[Anonymous No.20813026]

>>20812999
If you like one of the authors though, you should pick up a copy of their book. No one starts a career writing perfectly. Support is needed in the development process.

[Anonymous No.20813030]

>>20813008
Unfunny and cringe-inducing.

[Anonymous No.20813224]

>>20812854
OP isn’t editor, but the editor is still the same.

[Anonymous No.20813247]

>>20812615
Besides having me on (after I publish), there's one discussion I have tried to have on /lit/ a few times, and I've seen initiated by others. The topic is "does something come after post-modernism?" I say this because I've seen a wide range of opinions ranging from "post-modernism is end-game it's post all the way down" to "new-sincerity or some other iteration is it."
The way I have tried to guide discussions before start with trying to understand how such a movement like that starts in the first place. Isn't it some kind of big historical event or new way of life that dramatically alters how people see the world? Next it's understanding the features of those movements and if we see multiple movements at a time. Historians tend to describe contemporary events as a kind of push and pull with different vehicles competing and eventually one begins to dominate, so sometimes where history is going isn't clear until decades after it's done.
I ask this because I feel like the past decade feels so transformative in how people see each other and with more than 50% of people getting on the internet every day—way up from the 2000s when it was like 10%. I'm not really sure what the common thread is but there's clearly a dramatic ideological shift going on and I have been trying to capture it in writing with what limited understanding I have. So for me I have been trying to remove that post-modern voice from my writing as much as possible because I feel it's doing a disservice to how different the world really is.

[Anonymous No.20813281]

>>20813008
Unfunny and cringe-inducing.

[Anonymous No.20813406]

>>20813008
Cringunny and fung-inducing

[Anonymous No.20813467]

>>20812999
based, fantashit and sci-filth pseuds are always clogging up /wg/ with their excrement

[Anonymous No.20813666]

>>20813247
This is an interesting idea

[Anonymous No.20814066]

>>20812999
/crit/ was better than /wg/ and even it still sucked most of the time. Funny knowing Ogden was hanging around in those threads way back.

>>20812882
I dunno what's up with that. Some issues have multiple copies up with varying levels of compression, and nearly all(?) the old issues are available in ~10 MB files. So editor definitely knows how to compress. Oversight, I guess.

>>20813008
I was expecting shit, but it turned out to be funny. Part of that was probably because I went in figuring it'd be some kind of confessional /b/-type wank piece, meaning it caught me off guard when it turned out to be tongue-in-cheek.
>I wanna find a mature 9 year old
genuinely made me lmao (among other things).

That said, I don't think it was especially well-written or anything, but it was definitely funny. Some bits were written poorly, I think, mostly with some of the paragraphs being overly dense and sort of stilted. Also kinda felt like the tone was shifting back and forth at times, making it a little inconsistent. If there was more polish I'd genuinely call it good, though I'd probably never have the balls to recommend someone read it. I also think editor did the author dirty by giving it shitty formatting with the text being small font full-width across the page, rather than broken into columns with decently sized text (though this also happened a lot in earlier issues even with normal pieces; editor has improved in that way).

Now does anyone have any thoughts on the rape greentext? Was also expecting that to be someone's wank piece, but it ended up better than that near the end.

[Anonymous No.20814199]

>>20812615
Issue No. 3

[Anonymous No.20814229]

>>20814199
>Issue no. 3
This got me thinking. I could probably do a short story warm-up before my second novel. Would love to do a teaser that way for it because it's more transgressive. Maybe something fit for &amp or Unreal. There is so much schizo bullshit in my head that I cannot write about stories with normal characters every time so my next novel it's gonna start coming out.

[Anonymous No.20814284]

>>20814066
I found the rape greentext perversely fascinating. It was a strangely effective portrayal of a slow, sick descent into sexual obsession.

It had very interesting subtext addressing the ways in which women can be totally objectified and dehumanized, and almost reduced to non-entities by men’s extreme perversion and lust. For example, the part when his friend confides in him and is crying about how she’s being stalked and sexually harassed by all of these strangers, and, although he claims to be in love with her, instead of empathizing or feeling guilty or showing any type of caring response, he just thinks “how can I get this bitch to stop her sob story and fuck me already?” The typical glib humour and meme references of the greentext format only serve to draw attention to the serious depravity of the narrator’s mindset in contrast.

The ending kind of drives all of this home:
>I can’t even remember her face at this point. she was nothing to me. a stair to be stepped on. a hole to fill.

Maybe I’m a fool for seriously analyzing a rape greentext, but there was something about it that was genuinely unsettling, and it was actually pretty well written.

[Anonymous No.20814348]

>>20814284
I agree with you on it, especially given how perfectly it fit into the usual /b/ fodder, like a real part of the narrative/culture on there. It felt like I was seeing the real background behind all the nudes/creepshot/"post girls you know"/etc. threads that got burned into my brain browsing /b/ as a 16-year-old. I was expecting it to devolve into gratuitous rape at the end, but the ending sections were definitely the best part--rest of it felt like a sort of elaborate setup to contextualise it as real /b/ content. Then
>Basically had sex since my hand touched her body which has a vagina so
>Cya l8r, virgins
brought it all back. Satisfying stuff.

[Anonymous No.20815369]

Bump

[Anonymous No.20815614]

>>20814229
Has unreal published anything in the last year? Any journals other than &Amp?

[Anonymous No.20815640]

>>20814199
Editor is working on it

[Anonymous No.20815692]

>>20815614
There is flash fiction anthology and something on /wg/ called minimag which I dont really know what it is.

[Anonymous No.20816401]

>>20815692
I think minimag releases weekly, and anyone can submit

[Anonymous No.20816428]

Tell me about your submission, anon. Did you submit already or are you still working on it?

[Anonymous No.20816915]

>>20815692
Where can I read the flash fiction anthology?

[Anonymous No.20817043]

>>20816915
https://archive.org/details/@_lit_anthology
(The titles are also available on Lulu in paperback)

[Anonymous No.20817060]

>>20815692
My short stories are too long for that or detroitlitmag.

[Anonymous No.20817675]

>>20816428
I got nuthin. Been half-writing a handful of things, but I've also been busier than usual. Hoping to improve over my last submission, but I'm directionless. Started doing a burgerpunk /21stC parody of "Hunger" that derailed pretty quickly (I don't think I could be funny enough to really pull it off without just being trite).

>>20815692
miniMAG is a really short weekly zine, maybe 11 pages or so. Depending on what's in it a large chunk of that can be a single story (which due to the formatting is likely to still be quite short). The editor also solicits submissions from other scenes he's a part of (last issue had something in Chinese from a chick he knows). Had a brief chat with him one night and he seems like an aight dude.

[Anonymous No.20817745]

>>20817675
>derailed
Sounds interesting.

[Anonymous No.20818164]

looking back at my submissions from a year ago and they were all just convoluted and cryptic ways of telling the editor that i wanted to kill myself. nothing has changed since then, only now we know the editor wasnt doing very well either. i dont think anyone ever gets out of a crisis. its just periods of getting fooled into new false hopes. please stop having kids.

[Anonymous No.20818278]

>>20801644
>uses the word decadence
dropped

[Anonymous No.20819123]

>>20818164
I've definitely been there but I don't I've felt that bad in 15 years. I have gotta so cynical that it made me cringe. It's like I can't dwell on anything without laughing at myself for it. I think my stories might come off way more suicidal than I intend, but I guess that is just my voice.

[Anonymous No.20819286]

>>20817675
“Hunger” by Hamsun? I feel like a burgerpunk take on that could be weirdly interesting. My own submission in progress is sort of inspired by Hamsun’s “Pan.” What else have you been half-
writing?

>>20818164
I’ve been there man. Keep slogging through and it’ll get better, even if progress feels marginal.

[Anonymous No.20819951]

Bump

[Anonymous No.20820359]

Does anyone remember that serial killer story from the November issue? What did you think of it?

[Anonymous No.20820375]

>>20820359
I haven't read all of it but I saw it at the front of the magazine. It was getting explicit, I'll take another look.

[Anonymous No.20820553]

>>20820359
Yeah, and I immediately regretted it

[Anonymous No.20820645]

>>20820359
So I read it just now. I've actually been reading American Psycho recently so it reminded me of that. I really liked the first paragraph. The reveal that he's a killer so soon and the sexual content (though not too pornographic) I didnt like. The joke about ISIS' telegram glowing made me lol. I found the ending paragraphs actually kind of strangely interesting and might have been cool if the narrator wasnt defiling it with base sexual words. It almost seemed like the girl actually liked it, at least from his POV. So seemed less about this frustrated killer but one that is going for some something greater. That's it really. Maybe if he talked more romantic than horny I'd have found that less jarring.

[Anonymous No.20820786]

>>20814284
> It had very interesting subtext addressing the ways in which women can be totally objectified and dehumanized, and almost reduced to non-entities by men’s extreme perversion and lust.

lol you fucking pussy, fuck off back to r3ddit with ur gender studies bullshit

>>20814348
>I was expecting it to devolve into gratuitous rape at the end

wouldve been better if it had, fag

[Anonymous No.20820967]

>>20817043
Cool, thanks! I’ll check it out

[Anonymous No.20821305]

Bump

[Anonymous No.20821480]

>>20820786
If it just ended with a rape it wouldn't have been different from the million other pieces of fap fodder posted on /b/ since its inception.

I'll disagree with the other anon, though. I don't think it was about the objectification and dehumanisation of women (even though it involved it), rather I think it was about the converse: the fall into depravity and inhumanity of a man hastened by derelict smut and pornography. The whole thing twisted a grain of sincerity into the various creepshot/BBC/etc. threads with the abortive culmination of trying to fulfill a hundred compounding vices. Falling into that pit and multiplying his urges didn't make him bigger or stronger than anyone, it only made him into a weak and twisted pervert.

[Anonymous No.20821763]

>>20817745
>>20819286
Yeah, that Hunger. I think a burgerpunk/modern take on it could be funny, but all my ideas felt a little too gross or on-the-nose. The closest modern equivalent I could come up with for the successes/failures with submissions to the editor was vying for attention on social media, like some guy trying to craft the perfect tweet to get noticed, coming up with something viral by accident but never replicating it, I dunno. But I don't touch much social media, so I'd probably only be able to catch that on the surface. Then the stuff about boarding houses, the period with the family, the night in prison...I dunno. Closest I could think was sleeping on people's couches, but that ruins some of the isolation. Maybe some modern shit about homelessness. Protag has to run around finding places with free Wi-Fi to use social media, getting kicked out for loitering. But, again, it all felt kind of gross and on-the-nose. Seems like too much of a joke. The thought of making Ylayali into some chick on OnlyFans makes me want to puke.

Everything else I've got is in snippets that all seem to be conspiring towards the same plot, so I might smash them all together into something cohesive eventually. Also trying to re-start an old thing I had about a Peeping Tom, but I haven't gotten around to it.

[Anonymous No.20821810]

>>20806671
I got some stuff in 001, and a teensy bit in 002, but then I ran out of ideas, and haven't contributed since. I still long to though, every time I see a new thread.

[Anonymous No.20821913]

>>20821480
I’m the other anon— I agree with you that the more overt theme is the narrator’s fall into depravity and inhumanity, hence why I described it as a
>portrayal of a slow, sick descent into sexual obsession
and emphasized
>the serious depravity of the narrator’s mindset.


I brought up the objectification and dehumanization because, to me, it was one of the things that highlighted the narrator’s depravity the most. Of course, at the end, the narrator’s repulsive physical and mental state makes it obvious that he is nothing but a weak and twisted pervert, but it’s clear that his fall originated when his lust first began to take preference over the valuable relationships in his life; when he began to see his lifelong best friend as nothing more than fodder for his sexual urges. His obsession with smut and pornography reduces him to a vile and morally bankrupt wretch, capable of exploiting, degrading, endangering, and ultimately violating someone who trusts him intimately, and incapable of mustering any empathy for the victim of his perversion. At the beginning of the story he states that he can’t even remember her name anymore, showing how warped and detached his mindset has become.

He is so mentally disturbed that he is incapable of even seeing his friend as a human being worthy of respect and dignity; he sees her as a mere object to possess and fuck with no regard for her consent. Ultimately, his selfish, twisted mindset dooms him to a sexless state; when faced with the reality of his victim's abject terror, he is forced to briefly acknowledge her humanity, and is unable to go through with his planned assault. Thus, he ends the story in a state of impotence: because he is incapable of physically consummating his base desires, he can only sublimate with his repugnant fantasies.
In the June thread soliciting submissions, an anon who I’m pretty sure wrote the piece described it as
> a fictional greentext in which the author delves deeper and deeper into inceldom.

I think one tenet of the incel mindset is an obsession with sex that is so all-consuming that it paradoxically obstructs their ability to actually obtain their goal. Their obsessive fixation on women as sexual objects prevents them from seeing women as fully human, and this attitude of misogyny and entitlement causes others to view them as creepy and abbhorent, furthering their plight.

[Anonymous No.20821964]

>>20821810
Nice, what pieces were yours? You should start contributing again if you’ve got the time and inclination

[Anonymous No.20821994]

>>20821964
"Untitled" on page 57, and some of the photography. Like I said, I'd like to write more, but have no ideas. The aforementioned was just a story I already had laying around, based on one of my dreams..

[Anonymous No.20822071]

>>20821994
You should brainstorm or something. Isnt there an idea that still works you up? May try digging into it somehow.

[Anonymous No.20822396]

>>20821994
Try to think of other things you’ve read that inspire you and source ideas that way, putting your own spin on it of course.

[Anonymous No.20822802]

Is nonfiction okay? How do you choose what goes in and what doesn't?

[Anonymous No.20822817]

>>20822802

This should answer your question:
>>20801669

[Anonymous No.20823250]

>>20822802
Right now I think that the editor accepts all submissions

[Anonymous No.20823276]

>>20821913
>writes a literal essay about a fake greentext

[Anonymous No.20823549]

>>20823276
But it was a fake RAPE greentext, anon.

[Anonymous No.20823574]

>>20823549
very important distinction

[Anonymous No.20823641]

Letter from the editor, &amp issue 012. Came with the post-hiatus issue and made me feel all sentimental. Editor said a lot of really nice stuff in this one.

>Imagine us all bustling around some office floor, handing in manuscripts and pulling together designs, slipping on deadlines and fucking around. Maybe in another time. Maybe. When I zoom out what I see is a great group of interesting and talented artists, each of us with our own unique flair, each of us coming from our own angle, throwing something down, putting another tile in the mosaic, turning the kaleidoscope. If I didn't have to work, I would do this fulltime. It's my favorite creative outlet. I could write and edit and shitpost and go crazy and turn inside out and then do it all over again. That would be meaningful. It's nice to imagine that if we were to keep going, then maybe in any number of years we'll have amassed something worth noting. Maybe if we hang on long enough, we can actually attain significance. Maybe. The only way to achieve anything is to keep going. I have learned that. There's a lot of good that can come from wasting so much time and effort. And I believe in great things to come, if not for this project, then for something like it, something adjacent, something related.

>>20818164
Which entries were yours? You've put yourself above the people who contribute nothing. Not sure if it came up in a thread or his last letter, but I think editor got a job as a copywriter, so things are looking up a bit for him. If you were a regular contributor (especially an early one) then the 012 letter was addressed to you.

[Anonymous No.20823670]

>>20822802
he's trying to fill atleast 80 pages and he doesn't skimp on words per page, just send it in

[Anonymous No.20823832]

>>20801644
Dear editor, what is the best issue for me to read? What's your favorite?

[Anonymous No.20823958]

>>20823641
This made me feel surprisingly optimistic

[Anonymous No.20824244]

>>20823670
How many pages per issue are photos and artwork though? Some of the previous ones seemed low on text.

[Anonymous No.20824312]

>>20824244
He tries to fill up as much as he can with text. There isn't always a glut of written content to include, so there can be padding to reach 96 pages (and which got bad enough to make editor trim down the last issue to 80 pages).

>>20823832
>doesn't read the thread
Dear anon, editor isn't here.

Don't have a favourite issue, but in recent ones I really liked Dog Killer in 014, Void in 012, The Only Computer Crime for Which Theologians are Consulted in 011; ⾃(縛/爆) [Self (Bound/Explosion)] in 010 and 011 is also cool. And if you read anything by Ari, tell me what you think.

[Anonymous No.20824318]

>>20824244
I imagine he tries to fill up as much as he can with text. There isn't always a glut of written content to include, so there can be padding to reach 96 pages (and which got bad enough to make him trim down the last issue to 80 pages).

>>20823832
>doesn't read the thread
Dear anon, editor isn't here.

Don't have a favourite issue, but in recent ones I really liked Dog Killer in 014, Void in 012, The Only Computer Crime for Which Theologians are Consulted in 011; ⾃(縛/爆) [Self (Bound/Explosion)] in 010 and 011 is also cool. And if you read anything by Ari, tell me what you think.

[Anonymous No.20825239]

i'm gonna start writing a piece today. after i finish this book i'm reading

[Anonymous No.20825600]

>>20823276
>be anon, a terminally online coomer browsing /lit/
>see effortpost that makes valid points about incel degeneracy
>can’t refute the analysis
>respond with tl;dr

[Anonymous No.20825748]

>>20823832
easily 5, but 7 has a lot of goodies too

[Anonymous No.20825801]

>>20823641
thanks. editor is admirable. he mentions me and i do value that. might show it to my mom even. but im still clinging to false hopes. best chop wood and cary water.

[Anonymous No.20826160]

>>20825801
keep trying anon, you’ll make it

[Anonymous No.20826304]

>>20825748
any favourites from those issues that you’d recommend?

[Anonymous No.20826925]

>>20825239
what are you going to write about?

[Anonymous No.20827099]

>>20826925
a frog is involved

[Anonymous No.20827573]

>>20827099
im going to write an awful story about a frog for &amp so everyone thinks you suck

[Anonymous No.20827663]

>>20827099
I hope it is cozy. Also, is August still on or are we expecting this roll over into next month?

[Anonymous No.20827678]

>>20827573
>im going to write an awful story about a frog for &amp so everyone thinks you suck
don't bother. my story's going to suck too.

[Anonymous No.20827699]

>>20827678
Any chance you wrote pic related (Bog Brother)? I liked it.

[Anonymous No.20827712]

>>20827699
nope. that wasn't me

[Anonymous No.20828113]

>>20824244
The design and photography is by far the best part though

[Anonymous No.20828588]

>looking back at my submission that I read over, even out loud, 3 times after I had edited and ran through several different checks
>found dialogue that is supposed to be in present tense but one verb is in past tense for no reason
SAVE ME EDITORMAN

[Anonymous No.20828750]

>>20828588
you can resubmit! just email him an edited version

[Anonymous No.20829197]

>>20827663
Haven’t heard from editor in a while, so no one knows

[Anonymous No.20829576]

Bump

[Anonymous No.20830013]

>>20827099
an actual frog, or a meme? hope it’s the former

[Anonymous No.20830084]

⾃(縛/爆) [Self (Bound/Explosion)], session #1, &amp issue 010. Masochism, bondage by the Chaotic Other, part one of two.

[Anonymous No.20830097]

>>20830084
⾃(縛/爆) [Self (Bound/Explosion)], session #2, &amp issue 011. Masochism, non-consenual touching, part two of two(?).

[Anonymous No.20830937]

Bump

[Anonymous No.20831341]

>>20830084
>>20830097
What was it that you liked about this one? It’s definitely intriguing but I don’t know what to make of it

[Anonymous No.20831932]

Does anyone have any favourite poems from previous issues? I haven’t seen much discussion on anything beyond the short stories and prose pieces.

[Anonymous No.20832482]

>>20820645
If you’re bothered by excessive sexual content, doesn’t American Psycho disturb you?

[Anonymous No.20832556]

>>20832482
Some of the parts of AP did disturb me and found it uncomfortable to read, yes. I hope that doesn't invalidate my comment but I guess serial killers can have a lot of internal conflict since the one you are portraying seems to strive for both hedonism and romance at the same time.

[Anonymous No.20832563]

>>20831341
In general the heavy first-person introspection was fascinating to me, especially with the focus on something deeply rooted in the self (masochism) and which necessarily wouldn't/couldn't be shared with others (either for its perversion and social wrong or for the fact that it's innately concerned only with the self). The discussion of different forms of "Others" at the end of #1 was also interesting in that sense. Plus the discovery/experimentation of/with the self through the MLP porno game.

In session #2 I liked the contrast between the two groups of perverts: the sort of dignified proto-digital pervert that keeps his fetish to himself, and the modern pervert that celebrates his freakishness in public. It exemplified a sort of distinction between freaks, almost like the loner pervert is a dignified and dying breed.

The first paragraph of session #2 is interesting if you go at it without the context of #1, as it opens only on the experience of isolation, and afterwards intertwines the sexual experience with it.

>>20832482
Not that guy, but American Psycho is long-form and covers much more than just sexual cruelty. It's grisly for sure, but there's a lot more to it, and as a novel it has more opportunities to elevate itself above pure violence. KILLER is a short story, and the whole thing more or less builds up to a singular act at the end, whereas American Psycho has much more room to explore the mind of its killer before and after and outside of the act.

>>20831932
Seconding this. I've got no eye for poetry, but there was some good discussion earlier as an anon worked on his (until some faggot came in and shat on things).

[Anonymous No.20832569]

>>20832563
>there was some good discussion earlier as an anon worked on his (until some faggot came in and shat on things).
where?

[Anonymous No.20832581]

>>20832569
In this thread >>20802918.

[Anonymous No.20832623]

>>20832581
ah, i see. you mean the guy who said poetry was for whiny fags

[Anonymous No.20832678]

>>20831932
Mauve Blood, &amp issue 004. Think it's prose poetry, a lot of bestial imagery. The short French poem in the same issue is nice too.

[Anonymous No.20832906]

>>20832678
The only prose poetry I’ve really read is by Flaubert, so I’m not well-versed in it as a contemporary genre. This had some interesting imagery, but seemed a bit schizo.

[Anonymous No.20832955]

>>20804478
Did a Randian write this?

[Anonymous No.20832969]

>>20804478
>>20832955
Also, blending of the p and i for "&amp media" isn't exact and it bothers me.

[Anonymous No.20833119]

>>20832955
By a Randian do you mean an autist?

[Anonymous No.20833208]

>>20803395
last line is too long. Also nothing is really evoked. Poem's don't need voltas, but something has to happen in them.

[Anonymous No.20833230]

>>20802918
>>20803395
I reread these and they're alright metrically. but you have to say more in the poem. that said I haven't seen the full poem yet. but I appreciate it more now. GJ. But post the full poem

[Anonymous No.20834181]

pmuB

[Anonymous No.20834229]

The Justice System, &amp issue 001. An art of fatherhood.

>>20834181
Here's a tip: if you ever want to bump the thread, go look through &amp for a piece you like, take some nice screenshots, and post the thing; {[title], &amp issue [***]. [description]} recommended but not required. It ain't hard, homie. Everybody (i.e., me and >>20832678) is doing it. And nobody has to know if you post your own shit, so go ahead do that if you're greedy. Or post something you hate and shit on it. Or critique something. Or make a fool of someone/yourself. w/e

[Anonymous No.20834240]

>>20834229
I read that earlier today and it had a surprisingly authentic voice to it. Nice story. I was trying to work my way through the magazines a couple stories a day.

[Anonymous No.20834318]

>>20833208
>>20833230
Thanks for the feedback. The actual poem is much longer, but it’s not finished yet so I can’t post it in its entirety. Here are some more sections— they may seem disjointed out of context though.

[Anonymous No.20834326]

>>20833208
>>20833230
>>20834318

the earlier parts you read were May/June; these portions are about November and December, respectively.

[Anonymous No.20834343]

>>20834326

[Anonymous No.20834499]

>>20834229
who submitted this boomer-tier work to &amp?

[Anonymous No.20834711]

>>20832563
>I've got no eye for poetry

Poetry is in some ways better understood as an aural form than as a purely written one. Think of it this way: if you’ve got a good ear for music and are able to identify the rhythm or time signature within a song, then you can look at poetry as operating on the same sort of principles. Try reading it aloud to try and pick up on the meter; you’ll likely be able to appreciate it better that way.

[Anonymous No.20835106]

>reposting for critique
Dinner, &amp issue 012. The world hates you, and only you.
Please tell me what does or doesn't suck about this.

[Anonymous No.20835846]

>>20835106
I like the writing style/prose, but it's all setup and no resolution.

[Anonymous No.20836709]

>>20827699
&amp needs more bogcore lit like this

[Anonymous No.20837371]

>>20801644
You should make a tripcode, bro

[Anonymous No.20837441]

>>20836709
I might not necessarily write bogcore but my recent submission has really whet my keyboard. I am gonna try to get out monthly short stories for &amp.
Some of the ones I might submit to other magazines to buff up my query letter, but I have at least 10 more prompts that I could write on. I haven't even brainstormed in a while, running out of things to write about doesn't even concern me anymore.

[Anonymous No.20837582]

>>20837371
Why would I want to do that?

[Anonymous No.20838028]

>>20835846
Any tips on resolution? There's not a lot of motive or logic in how the guy and the cook act, but that was deliberate on my part. Did I shoot myself in the foot by doing that? would it have been a more satisfying conclusion if those things had been fleshed out more?

[Anonymous No.20838146]

>>20835106
The framing of this seems confusing, and the narrator's identity is too vague. Who is he? Why is he on this date at this restaurant? Who is the girl, and what is his relationship to her? Her presence doesn’t seem to add anything to the story. Who is the line cook, and what was his motivation for spitting in the soup? Presumably he didn’t know the protagonist beforehand, and had no idea who the food would be going to when he prepared it. These questions don’t all need to be answered in detail, but they should be at least touched on or hinted at, to give the reader a sense of what the situation is and why the reader should care about it.

The narrator’s psychological state also seems strange. Is this meant to be about paranoia and insecurity, or cowardice, or suppressed rage? Or just the idea that sometimes bad things happen for no discernable reason? From a psychological perspective it doesn’t really come together. This whole fatalistic sense that the world has it out for you is an idea worth exploring, but it needs to be fleshed out.

[Anonymous No.20838393]

>>20838146
Thanks for the depth of this. I tried to frame the girl as someone containing the narrator in a way (someone he didn't know well, someone who'd take the role of mediator/defuser, someone he'd eventually leave behind), but I see now that she was only a set piece in that way. And with the spitting itself, it was meant to be unmotivated and something to fulfill the narrator's own insecurity/fatalism, but it's not realistic or logical. Regarding the narrator, is there anything in particular I should have done to set him up more as a character? I tried to have the story itself be the description of him, but I see now that he's mostly blank. In some ways I'd say I'd rather it be that way, but I can see how it's weird and confusing (probably at least because I didn't pull it off well enough).
>Is this meant to be about paranoia and insecurity, or cowardice, or suppressed rage? Or just the idea that sometimes bad things happen for no discernable reason?
Looking at it now, it feels like I was shooting for all of these (though I'd paint the latter as being more about a world out to get you than a neutral one). I get the impression that I need to be more deliberate in what I write, and focus more on my intentions with it. I'll work on fleshing things out more in the future so all these things don't end up half-formed.

[Anonymous No.20838444]

>>20802366
I would assume he's referring to light, like 'the lamp was lit'

[Anonymous No.20838810]

>>20838444
Makes sense

[Anonymous No.20838966]

>>20831932
I submitted a poem to this upcoming issue. I also liked the one about Incense from the last issue, though I'm no good at actually critiquing shit

[Anonymous No.20839181]

>>20838393
> Regarding the narrator, is there anything in particular I should have done to set him up more as a character?

To set the narrator up as a character, you don’t need to go into extensive detail about his name, physical appearance or backstory. It’s okay for him to remain somewhat ambiguous, but it’s important for the reader to have a distinct sense of what sort of person he is, and what he wants in this situation (what his goals and desires are). That’s never made clear. To remedy this, you could try beginning the story shortly before the soup arrives, to give yourself a chance to set the stage before introducing the conflict of the spit in the soup. To flesh things out, try to give the reader a basic sense of how the narrator is approaching the situation. Is he well-dressed and charming, or is he unkempt and awkward? Is he shy and nervous about making a good impression, or is he an arrogant type who sees the date as a means to an end? Ask yourself questions like that.

>I tried to have the story itself be the description of him, but I see now that he's mostly blank. In some ways I'd say I'd rather it be that way, but I can see how it's weird and confusing

When writing it did you have a clear sense of the narrator in mind, or were you just picturing him as yourself? It kind of seemed like it was the latter. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, except that it creates a trap where, since you already know all of the relevant context and details about yourself, you assume that the reader doesn’t need to be informed about any of it. You can’t just write for yourself— you need to consistently imagine the reader as you write. Here’s a good article that explains this idea in greater detail:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/books/2017/mar/04/what-writers-really-do-when-they-write

[Anonymous No.20839423]

>>20838966
Cool, what’s your poem about?

[Anonymous No.20839877]

Does anybody have the image of the captcha that says "Coffee Zone" and there is a Pepe with sunglasses and a cup of coffee? I want to include that for my coffee article. Thanks ;)

[Anonymous No.20839899]

>>20839877
This one?

[Anonymous No.20839911]

>>20839877
There's also this one. Are you submitting?

[Anonymous No.20839921]

>>20839877
>>20839899
Yes, thank you
>>20839911
Not the one, but thank you anyway.

Also
>Check;em

[Anonymous No.20839950]

You guys should interview F Gardner now that he claims he’s buying 4chan.

[Anonymous No.20839973]

I know editor's been quiet but now that half the month is over we should see him in a week or so?

[Anonymous No.20839996]

>>20839950
Stop talking about that moron in these threads

[Anonymous No.20840032]

>>20839423
Cassandra, and how she must have felt. Kinda stupid, but her story always really spoke to me and so I felt obligated to write about her once I started writing poetry. It's one of my favorites that I've made, except for a single line that I fucking hate, but that's just life

[Anonymous No.20840052]

>>20839950
That would be cool. That interview with him was pretty neat.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HsLfrpEAfB8&t=3180s

>>20839996
Why? He’s the biggest author from 4chan. He’s an obvious choice for interview material.

[Anonymous No.20840110]

>>20840052
It’s surreal that F. Gardner has gone mainstream because of this board. I was on Goodreads last week and it was giving me F. Gardner recommendations for some major horror books. Goodreads is promoting his stuff now and normies must be discovering them. See pic. Call of the Crocodile was the main recommendation for people who read and liked Dracula.

[Anonymous No.20840114]

>>20840110
Forgot pic XD

[Anonymous No.20840374]

>>20839950
An interview with F. Gardner and a book review by anonymous, &amp issue 005. Gardner is passé. Someone beat you to the punch.

>>20839181
Thanks for the article, though funnily enough I've read it before. A friend recommended it a year-and-a-half ago and we had a discussion on the idea of writing for yourself versus writing for the reader. Part of me balks at the idea that art needs to be made with the viewer in mind or as anything other than self-expression, but I suppose it's a necessity when you decide to present your work to an audience.

That article is probably what put into my head the idea that I've been leaving out important context from my writing. You pointed that out, and you were right about me writing the character more or less as myself. Anyway, I'll give the article another read knowing that I have that problem to address in my writing.

[Anonymous No.20840490]

>>20839950
I feel he only went off about that for attention and we shouldn't feed him for that. Nothing against the occasional Gardner news or posts but it's a little too dirty/outrageous this time. Besides, there's other self-published authors to be interviewed.

[Anonymous No.20841516]

>>20801644
Is this actually real and not some sort of prank?

[Anonymous No.20841631]

>>20841516
There was an issue last month. There have been 14 issues so far.

[Anonymous No.20841655]

>>20839899

[Anonymous No.20841675]

>>20801644
Does the magazine support rss by any chance?

[Anonymous No.20842277]

>>20841516
>all the past issues are available on the website

What do you think?

[Anonymous No.20842491]

>>20841516
Editor-kun, please put this post in the zine

[Anonymous No.20842507]

>>20841516
i love you

[Anonymous No.20842729]

>>20840374
where do you actually find friends who like to talk about writing irl?? the local writing groups in my city are full of delusional middle aged women and annoying sjw college chicks w/ blue hair. met one guy through my job who said he liked to write, but turned out he was only into rp/fanfic shit. sort of depressing.

[Anonymous No.20842988]

>>20840032
Sounds interesting— I often find myself inspired by Greek Mythology as well. I look forward to reading it in the next issue!

[Anonymous No.20843002]

>>20842729
The friend last year was actually I girl I met on Tinder (she had writing and reading listing as interests). I opened up asking about the books she read and we talked over the phone for a few weeks about these sorts of things. Got weird and I ended it, though. She was more into analytical writing. If you're willing to use dating apps then "read anything good recently?" is a good first message to sniff out chicks with good taste.

Made another /lit/ friend from hanging around at a bar, had seen each other around for years but only spoke for the first time when he saw me in German Army Trainers and called me out for being a /fa/ggot. An actual /lit/ browser, though I don't think he's ever contributed to &amp. Used to go out for coffee/beers and shoot the shit before I had to move. He's won an award for a short story, and says he's working on a novel now (but he's a fucker and won't show me anything).

Anyway, it's circumstantial, but you've gotta put yourself into the right scene for it. I moved cities nearly a year ago and haven't found any new people to talk /lit/ with, but I don't often broach the subject with people anyway. Probably best to find someone you respect first and then hope to God they like to read/write. Find a good crowd, not necessarily one dedicated to writing.

>>20840032
Yours is the one up on the website?

[Anonymous No.20843121]

>>20843002
>thinks retarded tinder sluts are capable of having good taste

kek

[Anonymous No.20843186]

>>20840110
>>20840114
I just checked this. Call of the Crocodile shows up for The Shining and It. Wtf.

[Anonymous No.20843341]

>>20843002
i use dating apps, but every chick i’ve met who likes to read is either fucking weird or completely crazy. either an awkward nerd who reads genre fic and y.a, or an arthoe w/ daddy issues who’ll lose her shit if you say anything non-pc. if you’re looking for anything more than a hookup then tinder is just a constant sea of red flags.

met one guy who browsed /lit/ in a class I took, but he was too much of a schizo for us to really become friends. i try to focus more on finding decent people who share other common interests w/ me, but it’d be nice to have someone to workshop my shit with once in a while.

[Anonymous No.20843479]

>>20840374
Im not sure if F Gardner’s passé if Goodreads is now shilling him.

[Anonymous No.20843758]

>>20842988
There's a reason the Greek Mythos has inspired so many for so long, I feel like it really touches on some of the deepest issues and parts of living. And thanks, I hope you like it!

>>20843002
Yeah, I did submit it on the website. I don't think it'd be available yet, but I'm admittedly new to &amp and maybe I messed something up

[Anonymous No.20843790]

>>20843758
There was a southern lit book I read recently called Salvage the Bones and actually managed to draw parallels with Medea, a pitbull and a pregnant teenager. One anon told me he thought it sucked but imo the comparisons made what could have been a trashy YA story into something that felt like it was ancient or transcendent.

[Anonymous No.20843957]

>>20843758
It’s up already, website submissions get posted immediately

[Anonymous No.20844007]

>>20843790
That sounds alright, I'll have to take a look at it.

>>20843957
Well shoot, I suppose it's already up then.

[Anonymous No.20844185]

i submitted earlier today despite being in a major slump throughout the entirety of the process of writing the piece. it's very short. it isn't great, but that's okay. i'm going to write more & i'm going to get better.
thanks for these opportunities, editor-anon.

[Anonymous No.20844235]

>>20843341
>met one guy who browsed /lit/ in a class I took, but he was too much of a schizo for us to really become friends.
kek i really hope this isnt about me desu. where are you from?

[Anonymous No.20844320]

>>20844235
lol, where do YOU live?

[Anonymous No.20844330]

>>20844235
>>20844320
like do you really think anyone here wants to d0xx himself? you first, homie

[Anonymous No.20844348]

>>20844330
i just got to this thread but i'm really interested in knowing whether you two really did meet so i'm from italy

[Anonymous No.20844559]

Anyone contribute art to the zine? I’m thinking of drawing something but idk what to draw

[Anonymous No.20844654]

>>20844559
You could draw a scene from one of the stories you liked, or from one you submitted.

[Anonymous No.20844734]

>>20843479
That's a naïve take. Odds are way higher that Gardner just paid someone to have a few thousand bots push his books up higher on the pile. Or that Goodreads itself accepts money on the sly to prop up someone's book.

[Anonymous No.20844747]

>>20844559
Pic related was a poster of mine that was in the last issue, except it's more of an ad and not really /lit/-related.

[Anonymous No.20844804]

>>20843341
Fuck, this is painfully accurate.

>>20844747
Maybe I’m just retarded but the center image looks like a half-chewed drumstick.

[Anonymous No.20844820]

>>20844804
Tilt your head to the left.

[Anonymous No.20844835]

>>20844820
what no pussy does to a mf

[Anonymous No.20844870]

>>20844320
>>20844330
>>20844348
im >>20844235 so just tell me the first letter of the city and the school so i can feel safe knowing ppl dont think im a schizo pls

[Anonymous No.20844880]

>>20844870
first letter of the city: NO
first letter of the school: U

[Anonymous No.20844979]

>>20844820

[Anonymous No.20845059]

>>20844747
>>20844820
Toad necrophilia doesn’t really make me want to check out your shit, man

[Anonymous No.20845088]

>>20845059
What about catastrophic brain injuries? Do those turn you on?

[Anonymous No.20845133]

>>20845088
You’ve gotta do better than that if you want me to listen in

[Anonymous No.20845576]

>>20845133
where’d you find pic related?

[Anonymous No.20845684]

>>20801644
I don't think I'll collab with &amp any longer

I've done some submissions in the most recent editions (excluding the very last). I was proud of some of these being debuted with really great other pieces, especially in the November edition.
But honestly, some stories are worse than my derranged ESL schizo automatic writing, some works are pretentious plotless garbage. And I don't think I want to be associated with such.
Also, my works didn't cause any stir, and that's a sign maybe I should stop.

[Anonymous No.20845691]

>>20844734
>Elaborate conspiracy theories involving F. Gardner paying thousands of dollars with an army of bots and buying off Goodreads is more likely.

Lmao. Wtf. Am I on /x/? I thought this was /lit./ You can check Goodreads yourself and see that his books are literally being promoted there. But ok.

[Anonymous No.20845698]

>>20845684
Which works were yours?

[Anonymous No.20845703]

>>20845691
I thought this was bullshit at first too. But yea. Gardner is semi-mainstream now and way bigger than he was before.

[Anonymous No.20845710]

>>20844320
>>20844330
I’m from Buffalo :)

[Anonymous No.20846049]

>>20845703
I'm not sure about those GR 'recommendations': sometimes the suggested recommendations on a book I've added seem to update to multiple books I've recently rated; if one person can offset the recs of a book with 300 ratings at most, I could believe multiple accounts could do the same for a higher-profile book like Dracula

[Anonymous No.20846374]

>>20845684
Where are you submitting to instead?

[Anonymous No.20847007]

>>20845698
I rather not comment

>>20846374
I think I'll keep my stories for myself. I am much of a better writer when I'm working on my native tongue anyway.
I don't think /lit/ likes the same books I do. Or even if books are "investigating" the same aspects of the human condition.
I have no time for the whimsical irony of postmodern literature, I want books and stories that questions what is to be a human being.

[Anonymous No.20847077]

>>20847007
This isn’t an airport. You don’t need to announce your departure.

[Anonymous No.20847140]

what does &amp mean to you, anon?

[Anonymous No.20847164]

>>20847140
A place to send my shitty microfiction at

[Anonymous No.20847522]

>>20847164
Have you submitted before?

[Anonymous No.20847558]

>>20845684
>>20847007
>pretentious plotless garbage
Name it, you don't have to beat around the bush. It's more useful to hear a proper critique than some vague blanket insult. And likewise you can post your own work and ask for thoughts/critiques if you're bothered by it being ignored. At least a few people tend to respond when someone asks for commentary on a particular piece, and there have been good criticisms going around.

>I rather not comment
>I think I'll keep my stories for myself
I just don't get the faggy defeatist attitude you have about this, and I can't tell if it's you being full of yourself or just plain insecurity. If you've got such high-minded questions about humanity then I'd like to know what you've written.

[Anonymous No.20847687]

>>20845576
I found it attached to a post in a /wwoym/ thread a while back

[Anonymous No.20847701]

>>20847558
>If you've got such high-minded questions about humanity then I'd like to know what you've written.
Maybe it's not high minded for many people and maybe my writing style is not that great. That's why I need to keep for myself on the time being.

[Anonymous No.20847881]

>>20847701
Then why did you feel the need to post about your work here at all? If you really wanted to keep your work to yourself, you would have just privately made the decision not to submit again. Choosing to proclaim that decision in this thread comes off as attention-seeking and pathetic.

If you don’t like something that you’ve read in this past issue, then name it and give specific criticisms instead of making vaguely insulting remarks. If you don’t want to be associated with &amp then that’s fine, but it makes you look like a joke to act as though you’re above it all and claim that other submitter’s stories are worse than your own while simultaneously refusing to share which submissions were yours.

If your work didn’t cause any “stir” in &amp then I doubt that it’s good enough to get attention elsewhere. You can act as though people here are too “postmodern” and “pretentious” to appreciate your creative genius, but it’s far more likely that there’s just nothing to appreciate about what you’ve written. If you don’t think that your writing is good, then stop making resentful, self-deprecating comments about it and post your work in this thread, so that others can critique it to help you improve. If you refuse, then it’s clear that you’re a coward.

>>20847558
All of this is on point.

[Anonymous No.20848397]

>>20847881
>If you don’t want to be associated with &amp then that’s fine, but it makes you look like a joke to act as though you’re above it all and claim that other submitter’s stories are worse than your own while simultaneously refusing to share which submissions were yours.
I just want to say I appreciate &amp editors. I should submit more.

[Anonymous No.20848578]

>>20848397
Not editor, but you should submit to this next issue if you haven’t already.

[Anonymous No.20849478]

Bump

[Anonymous No.20850325]

>>20839973
Not sure, is that his typical M.O?

[Anonymous No.20850388]

>>20848578
If the editor is reading this, would you be interested in a story about mud?

[Anonymous No.20850455]

>>20844185
this guy gets it

[Anonymous No.20850559]

>>20850388
Ah fuck it, just submitted.

[Anonymous No.20850626]

>>20850559
Dude, he takes literally everything. And with open arms. It's been stated multiple times in the thread (that and that editor hasn't been posting at all), so read before making yourself look like a pleb. It takes less than 16 minutes to read the thread, homie.

[Anonymous No.20850843]

>>20850626
> It takes less than 16 minutes to read the thread, homie.

Charitable of you to assume that people who can’t be bothered to read the thread are actually proficient enough to read that quickly.

[Anonymous No.20851045]

>>20850843
I'm glad to see so many people interested in &amp, though I'm dreading the quality of the stuff going in. Plus I doubt that people who can't be fucked to read a thread are even reading the magazine itself. That said, hopefully there'll be some good shit in it all and editor can be picky with what he publishes. And if these threads turn into a less lopsided /crit/ as a corollary I'll be a happy.

[Anonymous No.20851799]

Bump

[Anonymous No.20852387]

>>20851045
Maybe &amp threads should be a /crit/ buffer zone. Before you submit you post your work here and then you get crit and opinions, much more than what you would hace gotten if you were published straight, than you decide if you still want to submit

[Anonymous No.20852483]

>>20852387
Agreed. I really like editing and critiquing people’s work, so I’d be happy to dedicate some time to helping anons with their submissions. (I’d love to do editorial work professionally someday, but the state of the current job market makes that essentially untenable, so it’s nice to get a chance to do it recreationally at least.)

[Anonymous No.20852778]

>>20852387
>>20852483
The problem is that /crit/ had a ten-to-one ratio of material to critiques. You get a whole cascade of shitty writers who dump their stuff and who (a) don't critique anyone else and (b) may not even respond to your critique.

For that reason I like the idea of critiquing things after they appear in &amp. Keeps there from being a million shitty short stories floating around in a thread all at once, kinda silos the material (keeps away things like the same faggot reposting his chapter/poem/story every thread). If there are enough submissions then hopefully editor can be picky and that puts another filter in the process.

We should do a best-of issue of &amp. That sort of shit doesn't need to be "official" (editor has said he likes the idea of &amp being something anyone can make, and I think it's happened before), and we've got ~14 issues to pen through. Could re-edit any of the pieces we want to include. What do you two think of that?

[Anonymous No.20852970]

>>20802013
>earlier i wrote "the school of athens"
I wanna read this one. Can somebody post it?

[Anonymous No.20852975]

>>20852970
It’s in the July issue

[Anonymous No.20853074]

>>20852970
just to be clear, the review was a negative one-- and i agree with it

[Anonymous No.20853088]

>>20852778
You are mostly right but this is slightly different. People might care more about critiquing since they will share the magazine with these pieces. I don’t know if anyone else but editor making a single best of is a good idea. Too much bias and not enough will read through all 14 pieces. Of course like youve said there could be multiple unofficial ones like “Hadji Efendi presents his picks for the best &amp pieces”. Actually it could even be an artistic opportunity completely in the spirit of &amp. Everyone fashioning their own magazine out of the material provided with the catalogue. It would at least have curation but also commentary or design additions. And if people making best ofs out of mostly their own stuff is a problem, people could straight up have a section for their own stuff so the rest of it would have to be other peoples work.

[Anonymous No.20853534]

>>20852778
> I like the idea of critiquing things after they appear in &amp. Keeps there from being a million shitty short stories floating around in a thread all at once, kinda silos the material

Yeah, I can see how pre-release critique could pose problems. The whole premise of crit-for-crit is inherently flawed anyway— if your own work is shit, then how are you even qualified to critique the work of others? Maybe it’s callous, but since I’m doing this for fun I’d rather not put myself through the torture of critiquing schlock written by people who don’t read regularly and haven’t even bothered to master the basics of grammar, punctuation, and syntax. Likewise, nothing against ESL writers, but until they have a competent grasp of the English language it’s hard to actually help them. I prefer to focus on helping people whose work is already decent, because they actually have the potential to become good writers.

>>20853088
I see your point as well. Here’s what I propose as a middle ground: Every quarter, &amp should do a curated “best of” issue comprised of the highest quality submissions from the past 3 issues. (Not sure how we’d select the best submissions, but tell me if you have any thoughts on that.) We can post the best submissions in a dedicated /crit/ thread to give the authors the option to give & receive feedback, and they can edit their work accordingly if they like. Then, the edited/finalized versions can go into the end product.

Also, if anyone wants a detailed critique of their submission, they can create a collaborative google doc, and I’ll go through it paragraph by paragraph and leave comments, or input any structural edits as suggestions. That’s assuming I have the free time and the inclination though. It would be cool if other competent writers would be willing to do the same.

When I spoke to editor a few months ago, he said that the most important thing I could do to help would be to drum up as many submissions as possible, and then grade the submissions to help figure out what to put into a “greatest hits” issue. He also said that I could take the editor-in-chief role for the August issue if I wanted. I’m able to do it, but I haven’t heard back from him since July (which is on me, because I was dealing with a stressful situation at the time and didn’t get around to replying to his email until a couple of weeks ago). Anyway, I’m not sure if that offer is still on the table. But I’m hoping that, if we can maintain these /&amp/ general threads consistently, then more /lit/izens will hear about &amp and will send their stuff in. If there’s a greater pool of submissions to choose from then &amp can afford to be a bit more selective.

[Anonymous No.20853798]

>>20853534
Just arrived to this thread. I have to say I'm impressed and moved by the dedication of some of the posters in this thread to &amp. This kind of sincerity is what brings about the birth of great things.
I read quite a bit and my grammar isn't too bad (except for the fact that I say "it is him" instead of "it is he"), but I'm afraid of submitting to &amp because my work is painfully bad. I still love writing. I hope I get good enough to make a living as a writer. But that day won't come any time soon.
Anyway, my point is that a platform for pre-submission critique would be helpful. For the sake of &amp and for the sake of the writers submitting to &amp.

Crit-for-crit is almost useless because it soon quite literally turns into critique-for-critique-- that is, critique for the sake of critique-- which will almost certainly be insincere ninety-nine percent of the time. I feel like critiquing and vetting pieces is best left to a board of editors who are good readers, competent writers, and committed to the magazine.

But that would be asking for too much, I suppose.

&amp is a great initiative, though: the editor's letter in issue 012 puts it best (>>20823641). I also hope to see this magazine grow into something great (in fact, I have to say what the the magazine has developed into over the past year or so is great enough by itself).
I'm rooting for you guys. And if you're seeing this, good luck to you, editor-anon.

[Anonymous No.20854002]

>>20853798
> I'm afraid of submitting to &amp because my work is painfully bad.

You should submit anyway. Based on how articulate you seem in this post alone, l doubt that your writing is as bad as you think. It’s obvious that you care about the quality of your work, and there’s no way that it’s any worse than a lot of the stuff &amp has already published. I’d bet that you’re a significantly better writer than you suspect, and that you just need to develop confidence.

I agree with your point about crit-for-crit becoming “critique for the sake of critique.” In that context, it’s difficult to be sincere and equitable with your feedback. It’s hard to strike a balance— on one hand, there is the temptation to ruthlessly point out everything wrong with someone’s work. But on the other hand, you don’t want to discourage the writer to the point that they give up entirely.

> I feel like critiquing and vetting pieces is best left to a board of editors who are good readers, competent writers, and committed to the magazine.

Agreed, and I’d be willing to act as one of those editors, but with the current model of accepting everything it seems untenable to provide critique for every submission in advance of publication. I dislike the idea of spending my time trying to fix low-effort work that’s essentially irredeemable and giving feedback to submitters who are too stubborn or lazy to make use of it. If &amp can get a good enough flow of submissions, then we can stop publishing the really low-level shitposts, and it’ll be more realistic to offer a better pre-release critique of the remaining decent works.

[Anonymous No.20854317]

bump

[Anonymous No.20854357]

>>20854002
I submitted an experimental piece to &amp for this issue. About 300 words long. You'll understand what I mean by "painfully bad" when you see it!
I don't mean to beat myself up too much, though-- I really like one of the lines in this piece.

>it seems untenable to provide critique for every submission in advance of publication
You're right. &amp is very special. I think one of the qualities that makes &amp so special is that it's come this far solely based on contributions from anonymous users of an online forum that, admittedly, isn't as organized as other platforms. And there's an almost explosive, expansive, nebulous nature to &amp-- the charming, rough pieces (especially in issue 011), the wonderful graphic design, these very threads full of people excited about writing. It's a labour of love, which is why I'm paying such close attention to it.

But one of the biggest hurdles for &amp is, regrettably, the general attitude towards literature on this board: I saw a post the other day where someone attributed an obviously fake, horribly-written quote about American culture to David Foster Wallace.
To give you an example of just how fake it was, the OP supposedly thought that people on /lit/ would believe that Wallace, famous for his constant (and maybe almost pretentious) emphasis on proper grammar, would make mistake "whose" for "who's."

And they did. 13 people posted their opinions on the quote and on Wallace's books and on irony and consumerism and hypersexuality and late-capitalist America before someone pointed the mistake out.

I don't want these these people to be the ones submitting to &amp. I don't want this project to be ruined by insincerity. By pseudery.
We'll have to wait and see how things go.

[Anonymous No.20854413]

>>20854357
>I don't want this project to be ruined by insincerity
I feel like I've gotten a lot more levelheaded being over 30. Jumping to conclusions about anything, especially online, just isn't a good way to approach things. Thus a lot of my writing comes with this assumption that a lot of prevailing doom and gloom notions about the world today are not true. I'm by no means an optimist but I'm always trying to imagine an alternative, another way things can go down.

[Anonymous No.20854459]

>>20854413
>Jumping to conclusions about anything, especially online, just isn't a good way to approach things.
You're right. I'm not even twenty yet-- maybe I should reel it in a little

In my post earlier I said:
>I don't want these these people to be the ones submitting to &amp.
I wanted to clarify: I realized this reads like I'm lumping in the great writers who've been published in the magazine already with the posters in that other thread. I want to apologize to them.
>I'm always trying to imagine an alternative, another way things can go down.
Yeah. Regardless of everything, I think the general future of the magazine seems pretty bright. People seem to be taking it more seriously now, at least compared to last year!

[Anonymous No.20854475]

>>20847522
i sent an email a day or two ago with some trash in it

[Anonymous No.20854480]

>>20854475
i hope you're just really modest. what was your piece about, anon?

[Anonymous No.20854823]

>>20853534
>>20853088
I think it'd be best to have a collective best-of rather than however many meaningless collections from individuals. The process doesn't have to be entirely transparent or democratic, but we could still field ranked lists in threads, and honestly, I highly doubt any of the half-decent submitters are going to secretly try to push their work--if they're good enough to be included then they'll stand out in the first place given the big gap in quality between submissions.

A thread dedicated to best-of suggestions with a few of us fiddling around and making the final decisions in the background could work, I think. We've got 12 writing-based issues to pull from, and it wouldn't be hard to find the one or two stand-out entries from each, plus we don't have to be super rigorous and stick to any particular rules about how we choose them apart from a general need for "quality". We'd of course be lacking editor's design abilities, but I think it'd be appropriate for it to look different from the "real" &amp. Adding our own "letters from the editor(s)" would also be fun.

We're almost at 300 now, so if I get the chance I'll make the next thread around the idea of a best-of. If either of you (or anyone else) want to get in contact with me for a best-of, email me at [e-mail].

[Anonymous No.20854918]

>>20854823

Sounds good. I’m >>20853534— anyone who wants to talk more about the “best-of” issue or wants a more detailed critique of their work can email me at [e-mail].

[Anonymous No.20854983]

>>20854918
What experience do you have critiquing? Just wanted to know what kind of feedback you tend to give, is it mostly prescriptive for editing or do you also express how the work makes you feel in general? Just out of curiosity and not a need as I try to get more professional with the novels, just not as much with these short works yet.

[Anonymous No.20855127]

>>20854983
I’ve done a lot of peer-editing work for different analytical and creative writing classes that I’ve taken, and I was an assistant editor with my university’s lit zine for a year (which sucked, by the way, but what can you do?). I also used to act as a beta reader for various online stuff.

There are different kinds of feedback that I can give. If it’s a relatively short piece, I’m happy to do a paragraph by paragraph edit in google docs and offer suggestions on syntax and diction, as well as a critique of overall content. If it’s a longer piece, I can read through it to let you know my thoughts, and give more general feedback, but it’ll be more vague. If you’ve written an entire novel than that’s impressive, but I can’t commit that amount of time right now. I can edit short stories, poems, and essays for &amp though.

[Anonymous No.20855174]

>>20855127
Yeah what I meant was I was more interested in how you were looking at &amp submissions and that I already have a group for the novels.
I'm still waiting to see what I submitted in print, I'm excited about it because some people that have read it noticed what happened and some didn't.
That's probably gonna be my MO for a while, I like to hide plot revelations. Some of them remain dramatic irony (if the reader catches it) but the event I'm referring to ends up making one character start crying. I hope whoever reads it will feel like they missed something rather than feel like the character is crying for no good reason. I feel like I give enough signs for it.

[Anonymous No.20855180]

>>20855127

As an example, this is a more general critique that I gave in this thread.
>>20839181
>>20838146

[Anonymous No.20855227]

>>20855180
Okay neat. I think I hint at enough but one relationship I only use a couple keywords to hint at why the two hate each other and say the rest by how they act. I think one topic I don't really explain much is the source of disillusionment of the protag but because I set up a couple possibilities first of how the technology works, I trust that readers can craft their own theories when they see something "paranormal" mentioned.

[Anonymous No.20855406]

NEW THREAD >>20855401