omg I need your thoughts on the terminally o line author culture bc ngl it makes my eye TWITCH, there are authors I deliberately avoid even tho I've heard their stuff is good bc they're like that 🙈
HHHHH oh good lord, okay, from how I see it, there are two angles on this, both aggravating and sad: the official decree one and the spontaneous ecosystem one.
The officious one is that the nature of publishing nowadays demands an author have an online presence. You need Twitter/X. You need to let every potential reader know your book is coming out. You need engagement through reviews and pre-orders incentives (if you buy now you’ll get a special keychain!!) and word of mouth assurances from your peers that yes your book is as cool as you say it is. You need a newsletter with links (more buying! more voting on lists that are simply popularity contests!) and promises you’re still working on the next thing, don’t forget about me in the morass of everyone else doing the same thing. You need an Instagram and TikTok now to post pretty pictures and videos because one or two authors made it big off this kind of promotion and now everyone thinks it’s the ticket to the bestseller list (sadly, it seems to be working). You need an OnlyFans (a joke but I do recall a twt spat that was a joke/not joke about how rupi kaur will always be more beautiful than her critics and people who took issue with the conflation of beauty with talent). At the end of all this, you’re basically an influencer, a content creator creating content for the content you should be focusing on creating, the finished novel. And the novel itself seems to be disappearing behind the masks used to promote it (fanfic-style tropes, moodboards, playlists, memes) until I now no longer trust the book that I’ll pick up to have any resemblance to the enticements that brought me here. I’ve seen an author or two complain about the stress all this self-promotion generates, but it’s become such an entrenched part of the industry, I think people just accept it. And thus spend too much time online hoping that if they tweet just a little more, produce just one more reel, maybe that’ll be the difference between a sale and no sale.
The other side of this, distinct but obviously connected, is the ecosystem created by this panic of being perpetually visible coupled with the fact that so many of the new authors came of age during the rise of internet fandom culture. That opinionated community mindset that blurs the line between anonymity and friendship is the lens they bring to their own work. I mean, it makes sense I suppose—if you love yelling about characters and words, why wouldn’t you do that once you start to produce your own? This really came home to me hearing about that reviewbombgate “scandal” and how people involved were in reylo circles and that was used to provide receipts. You’re interacting with your readers and peers about your intimate work but they are also all strangers. They will not always give you the benefit of the doubt, and now—as opposed to the past when maybe the worst that could happen was a handful of bad reviews in newspapers—you will either be tagged in hate reviews, sub-tweeted, explicitly called out, demanded to atone for your sins. It’s no longer the morality of consumption but the morality of production. Of course, the easy answer is just log-off, touch some grass. But that can work only when you and everyone else are separated by anonymous accounts or when you have no platform to maintain. As an author trying to make your livelihood from this, suddenly it’s do or die. We’re in a strange moment of authorship bringing the Internet’s echo-chamber and claustrophobic into the real world (this is a lie: publishing now is no longer the real world. But it looks like it) and thus you can kind of no longer escape things.
Will the average reader who isn’t aware of all these machinations care about reviewbombgate? Would a reader browsing at Target think about the controversies around Lightlark? Very likely not. But the impression I’m getting more and more is that the average reader isn’t the one buying all the books. Or shall we say—a bestseller’s status relies on bookstore stock. Bookstore stock is only huge when they know a book will be a good investment. They’ll only know a book is a good investment if it and its author has street cred based on booktokkers, bookstagram, bloggers and reviewers (have you noticed how many books out these last maybe 1-3 years have these kinds of accounts thanked in the acknowledgments? Yeah), and THESE are also chronically online people who will Know. And decide the cast of fate.
Honestly, @batrachised, I see why you avoid these kinds of writers, though I wonder how long it’ll be before the disease becomes epidemic.
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Love for Love's Sake | Things You Didn't Notice #4 | Fight with Homophobes
Honestly, I wanted to dissect these scenes right away but then we got the rest of the show uploaded and the emotions overshadowed me. But now we're diving into informal Korean speech, swearing and slurs! It's going to be a fun post, let's go :D
Disclaimer: I'll be writing down both English and Korean slurs strictly in educational manner, obviously.
"Fuck. You two are always so fucking close together. (to Myungha) Are you also a faggot (homosekki)? Wow, Kyunghyun's skills are so good."
"Why are you so vulgar? What's wrong with being homo?"
"You're really crazy. Are you criticizing me?"
... (Myungha kisses Tak Junho)
" Ah fu— You damn faggot!"
"We both kissed. I'm not the only one who's homo. You're homo too~"
"You did it yourself, you faggot!"
"Ah, our Junho keeps saying 'homo'. Tss, slurs are forbidden."
"Shut up, you faggot."
"If you call me homo one more time, I can steal your lips for real. (Junho is silent) Ha, afraid you'll be robbed?"
Honestly, I like the translation in subs this time, I just wanted to give you a more technical version (and to show you the difference, because in Gaga subs the f slur is also used by Myungha but it's not exactly that)
So, as far as I noticed, the slur in Korean is a derivative from the term "homosexual" - thanks to the similar sounding, it became "homosekki" (from sekki - asshole, bastard, bitch etc). This is the word Junho keeps using in almost every sentence. And the socially accepted common term is now "gay" (at least, the cast and couple from Korean reality dating show "His Man 2" refers to themselves as 'gay' and not 'homo').
Myungha uses the original term, just "homo", which also gained a negative connotation but doesn't include a 'sekki' swearword. So he keeps saying "homo" to talk back in the language Junho used, only less derogatory. We'll see later but it's amazing, because both Myungha and Sangwon confidently used this word about themselves (Sangwon even went further and proudly reclaimed the slur itself).
Still, Myungha did threaten gangster Junho not to even call him "homo" or any similar terms. And here's the moment which made me laugh: in the next scene with Sangwon, Junho was angry ranting about Myungha, but he caught himself using the slur "homosekki" and quickly changed to the modern and neutral term "gay". LOL
Which is what Gaga subs failed to show it to us. Again, let's see more technical translation:
"I'll go after Tae Myungha and Ahn Kyunghoon soon, just so you know. Those fa– Those gay bastards must die. That fucker Tae Myungha kissed me in the lips, shit. Isn't it fucked up? It was disgusting."
(Sangwon, pouting) "Wow, really? It must've been nice."
"Jeez, you asshole. You're not a victim so you dare talking shit."
"I'm being serious, though?"
(Junho, appalled) "What the hell are you talking about? You're not a faggot."
"I am a faggot, though?"
One, why is it so funny that the first reaction Sangwon had, hearing about Myungha kissing someone in a fight, was: awww :( i wish it was me :((( you so lucky :((
Second, it's hilarious how the gangster ends up the ONLY person who ever uses nice and modern term "gay" once in this show because our protagonists both hit him back with the derogatory terms (Sangwon even attached the slur to himself, when he only liked girls before falling in love with Myungha at first sight, what a legend).
Let's wrap it up with slurs and check out another small detail: informal speech in Korean.
(Sangwon to Myungha)"Why would we fight here?"
(Yeowoon to Sangwon)"Hey, watch your tone (don't use informal speech)"
"Was I talking like that with you?"
"Talk curt (informally) only with me."
"I'm already being curt (talking informally) with you."
This one is definitely a cultural thing that always gets lost in translation (but "being curt" is a nice way of putting it). There are two general styles of speech in Korean: Formal (존댓말, jondemal) and Informal (반말, banmal). Of course, it's a lot more complicated in the language, but I'll paint briefly the differences that are pointed out in the scene.
I talked in previous posts about properly addressing your senior in korean (usually by title/position). To convey respect to your senior, you also use 요 (yo) at the end of the sentences – and both Sangwon and Yeowoon talk politely to Myungha. UNTIL Sangwon uses the rude version of a question, without polite ending ("Why would we fight here?"), to which Yeowoon protests and tells Sangwon that it's banmal, informal speech, and he should only use it with him.
Because with your friends, same age people (Yeowoon and Sangwon in this case) or people younger than you, it's normal to use their names with different intonations (Think Myungha's "Yeowoon-ah, Yeowoon-ie") and talk informally.
(Yeowoon to Myungha) "I asked who it was."
"You're being curt (that's an informal speech)".
Fast forward – Yeowoon loses patience and demands Myungha "I asked who it was", question without polite ending as well. To which Myungha cheekily says "that was an informal speech", reminding Yeowoon of his own remark to Sangwon.
Fast forward again – and now I have to take back my previous statement from another post that Yeowoon never called Myungha by his name because I found the rare case of him doing it xD
"Tae Myungha is so frustrating."
"You're speaking informally more often these days."
Again, a youngster! calling his senior! by his own name! Not using the polite ending! The horrors of informal speech. He's not being too rude but he's sulking therefore he's rebelling. Though I can swear, again, Yeowoon hears Myungha's scolding and resorts back to speaking politely, and from now on, he'll keep using 'senior'.
If you survived until the end of this post, congratulations! The second half probably wasn't needed but in case you're learning Korean or you want to know why these seemingly normal phrases are being considered "curt" out of nowhere, I hope you understand it now a little bit better :)
// Previous messages translation + other language moments here //
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okay i'm actually going to talk about the phrase "her necromancer" again in the context of TLT being a master class in proper and powerful epithet usage. because while the first time gideon's narration used it for harrow was after picking her unconscious body up and inspecting her after finding her passed out, and the second time after successfully removing her from the situation and having heard her recover enough to wake up and be bitchy for a moment, it was actually used for what i believe is the first time overall shortly before. still by gideon's narration, but for palamedes, referring to him as camilla's.
gideon has just met these people. camilla actually tried to kill her on sight, briefly presuming her a threat. but in that time, gideon has recognized that they *belong* to each other. palamedes is camilla's necromancer, camilla is palamedes's cavalier. with all the possessiveness and codependence and affection that entails.
so a part of her, the part that's been raised on the revered ideal of the necro-cav pair, recognizes them as embodying it. in a way that's actually far more intense than the standard, and in a way that serves only to highlight just how badly gideon and harrow are fucking it up.
but even as she sees their differences, she also sees their similarities. as camilla attacks her, gideon directly acknowledges: "here was a warrior, not just a cavalier." of course gideon would know and appreciate the difference; she was trained by a warrior to be a warrior. the cavalier thing is new, and a facade, and the latter is also true for camilla. both in terms of combat style and in terms of the expected subservience, as gideon is certainly not subservient to harrow in the traditional sense, and camilla and palamedes, as much as they embody the necro-cav ideal, also defy it in that they are *equal* partners. hell, in NtN, camilla teases palamedes for implying that she's mindlessly following his agenda and ignoring her own. "you thought it was your agenda? huh."
then, to drive the nail home, palamedes directly scolds gideon- and harrow- after they retrieve harrow safely. he tells them: "stop splitting your forces."
because pal has seen the similiarities too. not only is he also the young leader of an entire house burdened with an impossible task (saving dulcinea, vs. saving the whole ninth), he has the same issue harrow does, working himself to exhaustion unless someone stops him. so he's telling gideon: you have to be there for her, because she's like me, and if camilla wasn't there to step in, i'd work myself to death too.
it's worth noting that harrow recognizes the parallels between the two pairs as well. it's why she's so wary of pal, even as pal is all but making them friendship bracelets. i've said it before: harrow thinks of herself as a threat, and thus, anyone similar to her must be a threat also.
all this to say that gideon first calling harrow "her necromancer" in the immediate wake of being given an implict lesson by the sixth, doing so for the second time after an explicit lesson by the same, and going on to do so throughout the story, is an exactingly calculated move and devastatingly effective for it. this is what epithets can do in the right hands. and it fucks
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Another thing that bothers me, and this is on a General About Japan level, is how the same people that seem to always complain about there being, I don’t know, whatever their fucking alt-right pipeline has fed them in their easily digestible grub, such as there being piss fountains or panty vending machines or any of the other Literally Exists In Like One Place Just Like Some Real Suspect Stuff Also Exists In Specialty Shops In Every Other Country, never seem to bring up the absolute service Japan has for people with disabilities.
I’m not an expert and also not a resident of Japan, but in my time there as a tourist (1 month), I noticed that every single elevator had a both a loud, noticeable sound cue, a secondary call button at wheelchair-bound person height, and an actual person nearby. Every street in Tokyo and Osaka, and most at Kyoto, had those grooves on the floor for blind people to follow. Every traffic light had a loud, clear audio cue to when it was green (well, blue in Japan’s case).
I’m from the third world so seeing this level of infrastructure blew my mind, but I never hear anyone talk about it. But haha Shinzo Abe baby propaganda in anime, am I right?
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