u/Famous-Cabinet-5036

Hi, I made a post yesterday asking if anyone wanted to get in contact and share our writing. I have had some interest and have descided to create a discord server for that purpose. I am currently writing a fantasy, going into dark fantasy that focases a lot on my charcters mental issues, self hatred, and relationships throughout the story. I would love to find some people who are interested in this genre that I am working on, but any genre is welcome, including poetry if you'd like. The server will be for discussing ideas, sharing our work for encouragement and advice. If you are interested let me know and I will send you the link, just let me know what genres you write and why you'd like to join. I want a very small server, less than 20 people preferably so it's just easier and doesn't get to busy.

I started my book back in 2023 and after a long break rewrote everything and am currently working on chapter 6, my book is fantasy probably going into dark fantasy later on. My writing focases a lot my characters mental health struggles, self hatred, and relationships. I really want to find other writers who enjoy reading and giving constructive feedback, I don't really care about what genre you write, but having experience in what I'm writing is probably the most helpful. I would love to connect with other writers/readers whether its through a very small discord server or something else, but I'm not interested in a large group. Let me know, and ask any questions you like!

I first started creating my fantasy/dark fantasy book and characters back in 2023, and after taking a long break, I rewrote everything and am currently on chapter six. Obviously starting off with getting family members to read your work it good, but no one in my family really enjoys my genre, and I'm at the point where I really want someone who at least knows more, and is more experianced to give me feedback. So if you have any advice on how to protect my work before I send it off to someone, and how to actually find a good reader for you that would be great! Aswell as any other advice or information on the topic would be appreciated.

Hey so I'm a writer, don't worry I'm not trying to kill anyone lol. In a scene from my book fantasy book, my character need to shove a handful of berries into a mans mouth whos trying to assualt her. And I am trying to find the fastest acting fatal berry to use. I am currently going with Atropa Belladona, where symptoms can start after around 15 mins, but very well may take longer. I am going to have her tell the guy that "hey you just ate a bunch of poison and then you're gonna die." as someone with cronic health issues I know just the thought of symptoms or worrying about "hey am I dieing right now?" can severly worsen and even create symptoms, so I will be using that in this scene for his "symptoms" to start and panic to take over before the berries even kick in. Still though I would like to find something maybe faster acting then Belladonna. So please any tips on making the scene more vicseral or realistic would be great! As well as any good berries you know of.

Hey so I'm a writing, don't worry I'm not trying to kill anyone lol. In a scene from my book, my character need to shove a handful of berries into a mans mouth whos trying to assualt her. And I am trying to find the fastest acting fatal berry to use. I am currently going with Atropa Belladona, where symptoms can start after around 15 mins, but very well may take longer. I am going to have her tell the guy that "hey you just ate a bunch of poison and then you're gonna die." as someone with cronic health issues I know just the thought of symptoms or worrying about "hey am I dieing right now?" can severly worsen and even create symptoms, so I will be using that in this scene for his "symptoms" to start and panic to take over before the berries even kick in. Still though I would like to find something maybe faster acting then Belladonna. So please any tips on making the scene more vicseral or realistic would be great! As well as any good berries you know of.

Now I've seen a lot of people talking about POC representation in the maas verse in general, but I wanna talk about Nehmiah. I've seen so many people calling Sarah a racist purely for the fact the she killed of the "only" black character in the series and many people saying that Nehemiah was simply a token black character. I completely disgree with this, because if it was the case Nehemiah probably wouldn't have stayed such a huge part of the story all the way through. Along with Sam and Aelins parents Nehemiah was such a important part of the book even though they were dead for the majority of the series. She is literally such a big part of why cealena was able to keep going. She gave her a name, when she was nameless! Now I understand people maybe being upset that their fav black character was killed off, but I don't really understand claiming that a black women was only there to serve as a prop to further Cealena's story and nothing more; and just reducing her character to nothing more than a "token". Nehemiah is one of the most selfless and powerful characters in the books. She didn't just do all of this to further Cealena's story. She did this to literally try and save the world. As we see in her conversation with Elena, and her explaining things to Aelin in EOS. She was one of the most imporatant characters and brave characters in the books. She wanted her family to be safe along with the entire continent, she didn't just die for Cealenas sake, she died to hopefully move everything in the right direction to save the world. She had her own goals and beliefs, working with the rebels to find out imformation, which had nothing to do with cealena. People are absolutely free to dislike the decision to kill her off. But I don't think it's fair to reduce Nehemia herself to "the token Black character." Doing so ignores how significant she was to the story and how much influence she continued to have throughout the series. Sarah j maas was very young writing the TOG books and has apparently gotten better at representation, so no, I do not agree with the claim that she is racist, and don't think that anything is of ill intent in her writing. But im sure she also has plenty of room for improvment. It seems a lot of authors struggle with representing different ethnicities in their books. Partly because authors will never perfectly capture every experience outside their own, which is why discussions about representation are important and can help writers improve. So there will always to some extent I think be criticism on how you write characters of different backgrounds and ethnicities. I think helping authors to write better representation and giving constructive advice is great. I know a lot of people are scared to write characters from different backgrounds, becuase they are scared to offend people no matter how much research you do. As someone who grew up in a probably 90% white area in New Zealand, I know and have been exposed to very little of the very diverse world, so finding people and sites who help write better diversity is very important for my personal writing.

I have also seen people complainig about how they are angry that the mostly black kingdom is the one to be inslaved. I think this is mainly due to the fact that calaculla is in Eyllwe. But as far as I remember literally all the other kingdoms were almost completely destroyed, and all have zero power now. When Eyllwe is actaully the only other standing kingdom who still has a king and Queen, and the two kingdoms are still working on making peace unlike all the others who's rulers have been killed or just smashed. Also the fact that Calaculla being in Eyllwe just makes sense, endovier being on one end of the continent while the other death camp being on the other, as well as the fact that most of the rebels seem to be from Eyllwe. Obviously Eyllwe is still kind of under the thumb of Adarlan, but has done alot better than all the other kingdoms.

I haven't thoroughly reread all the books in a few months so if I missed anything, or forgot any details let me know. Now I do understand some people being upset that the only main black character was killed of, considering that we had not yet met the other main women of colour characters that we see later on; and obviously everyone will have their different takes on the matter I just wanted to rant lol. Sorry for any misspells.