video | un: warden (this post is about romance novels)

[megatheorem]

[Good day, Trench, and welcome to... whatever this is going to be. Here is one Palamedes, sitting at his desk in what may be broadly recognizable as his office in the Sanctuary, whether or not one has been in it before (it has, these days, a distressing worm-on-a-string curtain in place of a door). Palamedes shuffles through some papers, tsks, and gets up to simply walk off screen, although this is not an accidental post, for he does call back:]

Damn my filing system! Hold on, don't look away.

[So now: the sounds of shuffling, and also, footsteps on a ladder? Then the eventual soft thump as he hops back down, and finally his several layered cardigans masquerading as a torso coming back into view, before he sits back down in the chair with a hearty squeak of rusty metal.

He has even more papers now. A small pile of notebooks, actually, which he folds his hands atop before properly regarding the camera.]

So! I wrote a book. Are any of you in the publishing business? Here, locally, or otherwise? My wheelhouse is firmly the academic, and literature— while a passion project— is a field I know far less about. As such: publishing. Any tips welcome.

I am also in the market for some cover art, I think. My artistic talents leave a lot to be desired, but I've produced some helpful mock-ups, somewhere around here...

[Just kidding they're right here ready and waiting, and so he holds them up side by side:



...So, yes. His handwriting is, of course, perfectly legible.]

Like I said: I'm an academic, not an artist. I'll pay you in whatever you like, blood or stone or- [and he leans briefly off camera again, to mutter, then he's back] -or scones! Good ones, for people into that kind of thing.

[Yahoo... Draw him a horny squidmance cover page... This is ordinary.]

Obviously, children need not apply.

Oh, and the working title is Ceasefire of the Senses: A Treatise on the Juxtaposition of Passion and Reason, unless you happen to be my cruelest critic and dearest spouse, love of my life, in which case "that title is ridiculous" and it's actually called "that story in your fifty notebooks." Regardless.

[He pats the pile of notebooks, like, his title is good actually? This might be a thinly veiled opinion poll about the title.]

And as it's the season, again, if anyone needs a professional hand with their lockjoint, come down to the Lumenarium- or Sanctuary- and ask for Palamedes. I'll take care of it with a silk touch; you get to keep the stones. Drawings of squids entirely voluntary for that one.

Comments

[xiaoxiuya]

[But the documentation, Pal! The documentation!!!]

Passionate is one way to put it. I was the top-ranking commentator on the Zhongdian Literature website for three years running in my first life, but you'll have to take my word for it. Let me see about finding you that typewriter and we can go from there.

[He wants to read this book so bad.]

[megatheorem]

[One day he'll get a full transcript, he'll remember this. He is owed test scores.]

Is that based on quantity or some other metric? We didn't have the internet on the Sixth, so I have no frame of reference whatsoever.

Thanks, though. Let me know if you find anything, doesn't have to be functional. Viktor can play with it.

[xiaoxiuya]

You, wait. You lived in a bunker on the planet Mercury, but you didn't have the internet? What kind of logic is that?

[Please take a seat Ms. Muir Shen Yuan just has a few questions to ask you.]

Quantity was part of it, but the site also measured traffic generated by your commentary, and people could cast votes indicating whether they approved or disapproved of your expressed opinions. Top-rankers usually generated a lot of traffic with their posts and had a high approval rating. [And SY had a high approval rating because, much like some reddit boards, people would upvote him to make his posts more visible and easier to share around, but shhhhh, he doesn't need to know that.]

[megatheorem]

Well, there weren't that many of us. We did have a postal service, although not paper.

[He shrugs, like. Don't ask him, he was 10,000 years too late to be involved in those choices.]

So you were highly ranked in the court of public opinion. Hmm. I can accept that, I think. Let's get the typewriter first, so I can get started on a first revision, anyway.

[xiaoxiuya]

On it. Very much interested in reading this book, in case that was somehow unclear XD

[megatheorem]

No, I caught on to that, it's been clear. I'll try to present an actual bound copy with a real cover, and everything.

[xiaoxiuya]

Ooh, a genuine first edition, how exciting~ Never got one of those from the actual author, before. Think I could get you to sign it?

[megatheorem]

Really, and with all your comments? Color me surprised. Sure; if I can finagle multiple copies.

[xiaoxiuya]

Those were for digital novels, and to be honest most of them were pretty shitty. They only sometimes went to print.

[megatheorem]

Shitty digital novels on this internet page of yours, huh? At least academics have to put their papers up to a panel before throwing them out at the public.