In this edition of Things We’re Doing To Make Do During the Pandemic, I bring you #RomanceClass Readalong—where a bunch of us in the community get together to read #romanceclass books and have conversations about the books we’re reading during a livestream. (You know, just like in the Before Times when we can all sit around at a cafe and enjoy a book + each others’ company.) It’s not a new idea; we actually got it from other bookish people on YouTube, but this is the first time we’ve ever tried doing it, and we had a lot of fun!
What’s in a name?
In case you missed it, I was in a #RomanceClass Podcast episode with Mina V. Esguerra two weeks ago where we talked about the origins of our characters’ names. It was a fun discussion and I enjoyed hearing how my fellow #romanceclass authors named their characters, too! Hope you can check out the stream posted above.
We are constantly brainstorming ideas for our online content. If you’re part of the #romanceclass community and would like to suggest anything for our streams and other social media posts, let us know via media@romanceclass.com.
Thank you in advance, and we hope you can join us for this Saturday’s stream! We have authors Brij Bautista, Chi Yu Rodriguez, Danice Mae P. Sison, H. Bentham, and Ronald Lim talking about Boys’ Love and Girls’ Love—why they enjoy it, what they want to see less/more of, and more! Set a reminder here.
Tara’s Three Things, Vol. 2
It’s September! My gosh, how is it possible for time to fly and feel so painfully slow at the same time? Soon (if not already) we’ll be hearing Christmas songs being played left and right, and yet a bunch of us are still stuck at home, trying our best not to get sick.
Quick health update!
I got my second dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine mid-August, and my parents had theirs the week after. My sister also got her first dose last month (she got Pfizer), and she’ll be fully vaccinated come next week. I hope you also have gotten vaccinated, or will be soon—an extra layer of protection wouldn’t hurt.
Anyway, I shared three things I was into last time, and I bring you three more things this month.
I need my happy endings, please, and thank you!
The month of May marked the second month of lockdown/community quarantine for us here in the Philippines, and I think it’s safe to say the otherwise calmer people I know had begun to feel agitated because of all the uncertainty. People have lost their jobs, friends and acquaintances lost their loved ones (either to COVID-19 or another disease), and the news only got worse by the day. At this point, I had begun rereading some #romanceclass books I’ve enjoyed in the past, as well as rewatching favorite films and KDramas to self-soothe after a day of shitty news.
Let it be known that I have a pretty high tolerance for stuff that are otherwise triggering, but when the production company behind Ang Huling El Bimbo The Musical announced they would be streaming the musical for free on YouTube, I grew concerned. I’ve always thought that show needed trigger warnings, but even during their second and third run, they didn’t seem to bother with it. And because they were going to stream it through such a huge platform at no cost, I was afraid there would be people who’d get blindsided by that one scene.
So I posted a content warning on my Twitter account and skipped seeing the musical entirely. I also posted this:
Hello, this is Ever After calling…
Sometime in the middle of the community quarantine here in the Philippines, a bunch of romance authors decided to work on a web series. Yep. *snaps fingers* Just like that. I think it’s safe to say spite and pettiness and rage were very strong motivators, because man…did the scripts come out so fast!
(This might have been how we looked like within 48 hours of saying “Let’s do this!”)
Anyway, long story short: Things were shitty. We wanted to make things a little better. Therefore, Hello, Ever After was conceived.