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batmanisagatewaydrug · 9 months

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what meaningful plenaration does "sane" add to "safe sane and consensual"? safe and consensual are both pretty intuitive as to what is and isn't and why they're important, but what is the aspect of this nebulous hypothetical insane sex (this would work better as a phrase if insane sex wasn't already a thing people said about good sex. much to think about) which is uniquely best to avoid but not already covered by safe or consensual?

i've been thinking about that one thing i saw a while ago about reevaluating ssc in the face of increased awareness of like, mad liberation and the ways that mentally disabled people are barred from sexual agency by ableism & the psych system and i genuinely can't come up with a reason why sane was in there in the first place

great question! let's talk about it!

but first: hey. what on earth does plenaration mean. I absolutely understand the question that you're asking but I don't know that word (unusual for me, if I may flex a little!) and google is giving me NOTHING.

anyway, moving on!

SSC was initially popularized by in 1983 by the New York group Gay Male S/M [Sadism/Masochism] Activists, and particularly activist David Stein. let's take a look at their full statement:

GMSMA is a not-for-profit organization of gay males in the New York City area who are seriously interested in safe, sane, and consensual S/M. Our purpose is to help create a more supportive S/M community for gay males, whether they desire a total lifestyle or an occasional adventure, whether they are just coming out into S/M or are long experienced. Our regular meetings and other activities attempt to build a sense of community by exploring common feelings and concerns. We aim to raise awareness about issues of safety and responsibility, to recover elements of our tradition, and to disseminate the best available medical and technical information about S/M practices. We seek to establish a recognized political presence in the wider gay community in order to combat the prevailing stereotypes and misconceptions about S/M while working with others for the common goals of gay liberation. (x)

GMSMA was founded three years prior in 1981, which is only important because that was also the year the first AIDS patients were identified. I don't know if you're familiar with a little thing called The AIDS Crisis, but suffice to say that during the 80s the public perception of gay male sexuality Was Not Good, particularly something double deviant like sex that was gay and also kinky. in a later essay reflecting on (and criticizing!) the mainstreaming of the term, Stein said he wanted to SSC framework to distinguish mutually consensual sadomasochism from "the criminally abusive or neurotically self-destructive behaviour popularly associated with the term 'sadomasochism'."

in other words: while I can't tell you everything that lay in the heart of David Stein when he first used the phrase, it's very clear that the GMSMA seemed invested in improving the public image of kink by separating it as much as possible from the notion that it was something only practiced by crazed degenerates - you know, something queer people have been forced to do for pretty much all queer sex throughout history? in the same 2000 essay linked above, Stein reflects on how many people took SSC as "a welcome validation for a type of sexuality still considered "sick" or "crazy" by much of our society."

is there still ableism baked into that narrative re: the notion that mental illness is a bad thing to be affiliated with? yeah, absolutely, and we'll get to that! spoilers: it's been a source of much criticism, which is why many people now prefer RACK over SSC. but give me a second to get there!

in the essay I've been pulling from, Stein freely admits that GMSMA never attempted to offer concrete definitions of SSC, particularly not the latter two: "We left "sane" and "consensual" much vaguer, "sane" because it's pretty vague to begin with once you get past the obvious meaning - able to distinguish fantasy from reality - and "consensual" because we didn't realize how tricky it is."

the idea of "sane" meaning a person is meaningfully able to distinguish fantasy from reality was echoed by Gil Kessler, a longtime kink educator and board member of GMSMA. rope enthusiast Tammad Rimilia defined it differently, saying that sane kink referred to a situation where "all parties are engaging in this activity by direct intention and can judge the effects of their actions." you can see that echoed in Stein's earlier statement about differentiating the kind of sex that GMSMA encouraged from "self-destructive behavior."

tl;dr, the "sane" is mostly there to specifically draw attention to the fact that some people engage in sex in ways that may be a form of self-harm and/or may want to engage in sex when they are experiencing reality in a way that prevents them from making rational, fully-informed choices, such as psychosis or manic episodes. per their own statement, it seems the GMSMA would discourage having sex with people in this category.

obviously that may already fall under the purview of safe and consensual, but show me an organization that's never gotten a little redundant in its mission statement and I'll eat my shirt.

now, back to that criticism! as Stein notes in the essay I've referenced heavily in this answer, understandings of safety, sanity, and consent have come a long way since 1983! the risk-aware consensual kink model (RACK) has gained popularity for many reasons, with much of the conversation centered on both the inherent ableism of SSC and concerns about the promise of "safe" and the unhelpful and unrealistic expectations it may set. hell, even notions of consent are constantly growing and evolving. and that's wonderful! SSC comes from a very specific time and place in the history of kink and may no longer be the pinnacle of best practices for everyone, but there's still plenty to be learned from its origins.

#sex edventures 2023 #RACK

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absolutebl · 10 months

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Hi!

I love your Blog and love to read your takes in everything. So thank you so much for all your Posts and thoughts about the industry etc.

Here is my question: i came across one of your posts where you wrote "actually gay, not bl gay" (it was a Post about Jojo and Only Friends) and while I FELT that I TOTALLY understood what you meant and instantly was like "yes 100% clear" Id love to read and learn more about what this means exactly and why some bls feel quite heteronormative while some dont. Would you mind explain the take on "actually gay Not Bl gay" a little bit? And why some Shows feel just more queer than others (besides the unbelievable stupid "gay only for you" trope lol)

Thank you so much and I hope you will have a nice day!

actually gay, not bl gay

There's actually quite a discourse on this right now mostly originating with @waitmyturtles and @wen-kexing-apologist (Post @killiru references above is here.)

I tend to mostly talk about this in broad brush strokes as a queer lens.

But there's a great ven diagram (which of course I've lost the link to) that approaches the idea of and queer lens by tunneling into its approach and intent:

about queers

by queers

for queers

How do different BLs intersect in different ways with these three elements?

When I said "actually gay, not BL gay" I was alluding to this discourse. Specifically the "about queers" category of BL.

There are characters in BL who read as genuinely gay (as in belonging to the queer family of this terrible reality we live in) and then there are those that seem more performative (to exist in a bubble of fantasy were sexual identity is almost unimportant, only the romance matters, everything is safe sweetness & light). For some queers this can read as manipulative or even exploitive (because it is inauthentic to most queer experiences). For me, it's fine... even desirable. I like the safe bubble. I enjoy the utter delusional escapism of it. Sometimes I will call this sanitized gay. (Since it is designed to make gay palatable to non-gay identified folks e.g. seme/uke.)

A sanitized gay BL may be unintentional but it is nested in origin yaoi and mm romance whose target market has never been the queer community, and whose authors have historically not been members of it, either.

Let's be frank, we queers are generally a terrible target market, we don't have enough spending power - especially not for a piece of pop culture as niched as BL. And as creators we really want our voices to be heard (obvs), which makes us produce content that those unsympathetic or uncaring find uncomfortable. (Yes, I know, fuck them, but also, they have all the money and the entertainment industry is a numbers game.)

So in the arena of office romances, just as an example:

actually gay = The New Employee

sanitized gay = Our Dating Sim

actual gay = Step By Step

sanitized gay = A Boss And a Babe

All of the above have the same tropes, archetypes, and premises. All of them are BL. Some are just... queerer feeling than others. And the characters in those shows (Step by Step and The New Employee) read as more "actually gay."

This has nothing to do with the actors, chemsitry, or how much we may personally like the show (Our Dating Sim is one of my absolute favorite BLs). It has to do with how closely those CHARACTERS intersect with the reality of queerness as we inhabit it today. It will be lots of little touches given to the drama by director and script:

language use,

surrounding friendships (and friendship style),

mannerisms and physicality (specially body language around straights vs other queer characters),

makeup & wardrobe,

facial expressions,

surrounding queer-coded behaviors by side characters,

layers of story nuance that indicate a complicated queer-driven back story.

Markers of specifically a queer identity are given to the leads.

These kinds of BLs are satisfying the "about queers" category. ("By queers" can be difficult to extract because IRL outting is involved. "For queers" is the rarest kind of BL, because making something specifically for us often alienates the majority of the rest of viewership/market. I could be argued that SCOY did this.)

I'm sure I've missed things, but I hope that kinda makes sense?

By/For/About discourse from @wen-kexing-apologist here:

Parts 1

Part 2

Part 3

I'm indebted to them for the links!

More Queer Stuff from Yours Truly

BL Linguistics & Queer Identity - I Am Gay versus I Like Men

Will BL Get More Honestly Queer?

Queer lens (from the director) and chemistry (from the actors) in BL (A Tale of Thousand Stars)

Touch & Daisy in Secret Crush On You - Queer Coded Language and 3rd Gender Identity

BL in Taiwan & Gay Marriage

Debating Queerbaiting in BL ( + Devil Judge... is it queerbaiting?)

BL Actors and the Assumption of Queerness - outing actors, coming out, being out, more: Is that BL actor actually queer?

So is it really fetishization? straight women loving bl

Some BL fans are sasaengs, and it’s a problem in this fandom

BLs That Highlight How Society Treats Queers

10 BLs That Are Honest to a Queer Experience

(source)

#asked and answered #bl and queer identity #intersection between BL and queer stories #about queers by queers for queers #thai bl #korean bl #the new employee #step by step the series #actually gay #not bl gay #actually gay not bl gay #BL university

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deadtothefuture · 9 months

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"The theory of ungendered being occupies a decisive place in Afro-pessimism. The elements which make up this theory are law, language, kinship, value, naming, and chattel slavery. Now, through this diversity of terms, we quickly discover what the ambivalence of ungendered being consists in: a mothering performed by a no-longer-woman, but also a paternity that has no name. The ungendered is the image in which property represents kinship, and, better still, reifies its value. At the same time, the no-longer-woman is the image in which the product of the womb (as a commodity) or racial-species activity appears to define the epoch of modernity. The product is the property of a great winnowing, is representative of a legal subtraction, the belonging of the no-longer-woman and who is fathered by the man-without-paternity. The product of the slave womb, without any paternal metaphor, is a symbol fragmented by mastery and law. In so many countless ways, such offspring is contrary to both common sense and human nature, for it reproduces descent as monstration and chaos. The ungendered is severed from generation, and yet reproduces itself as the cut that severs; but every child it brings into the world seems to it stillborn, symbolically dead, and yet alive in its death.

[...]

The slave has no symbolic name and is merely the effect, in thought and culture as such, of a subtraction that diverts life from its telos or path in descent, kinship, and reproduction. The ongoing uncertainty—that blackness has no symbolic name—becomes the science of racist culture. Whence the certainty: blackness is a life that cannot make promises, cannot give its consent, or keep its word, and cannot show that it is not without sense (for all depend on the symbolic pact of sexuation with the signifier). Finally, the ungendered cannot then know who or what it is. Only a knowledge of whiteness can secure itself as symbolic property, blackness is thus forced to think of itself as a techne without knowledge, because it can only identify itself with reproduction as a method and surrender itself to relations of terroristic production. Knowledge is productive life against the unreproducible life, the life which cuts blackness from life, but only because whiteness is presupposed to be the most valued reproducible life, for it alone is knowledge.

[...]

So how can the ungendered be represented in black critical theory; as a void, as a less than nothing? Or something else again, queerness or radical feminism? But the ungendered is no more to be found among object choices than among sexual difference: everywhere there is the ungendered, there is no sexual relation. The ungendered subject is the end of gender itself, species activity, sexual culture, and its movement."

– David Marriott, Lacan Noir: Lacan and Afropessimism

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goingrampant · 3 months

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The Boys Marketing

Similar to issues surrounding The Hunger Games as a profitable franchise, the Amazon series The Boys critiques the excesses of modern capitalism and then Amazon reproduces them in marketing The Boys merchandise. There are numerous toys, T-shirts, and costumes paying homage to the various characters as well as general series logos stamped on whatever they can sell. In some cases, the satirical nature of a framework glorifying these awful figures is retained, but some are more ambiguous. The use of the character Stormfront as a Nazi antagonist serves to clarify the satirical nature of some of these products, but there also appears to be an active effort to obscure her nature as a Nazi to make her more marketable.

When it comes to depictions of The Boys, the protagonists, the merchandise accurately captures the sentiment of rebellion against Vought as an evil capitalist organization. We can critique this at a meta level--Amazon selling "fight capitalism" merch to make money from a "fight capitalism" show subverts the point of a "fight capitalism" show--but it is, at least, consistent with the message of the show.

Things get rockier when it comes to depictions of bad guys who act as part of the evil capitalist organization.

The most overt satirical product they have, in my opinion, is the "Brave Maeve" critique of rainbow washing:

The use of the rainbow-washed Claddagh makes it clear to any queer people what's being invoked here, and it has a very sneering tone at the whole concept--true to the show's satirical nature.

The Homelander merchandise presentation is largely ambiguous in nature, marketing both to people who appreciate him as a villain and conservatives who like him as a character they can relate to: a conservative American patriot just trying to stumble his way through life.

This Homelander costume is completely neutral. Someone might buy it because they like villains and want to portray a horrible person. Or, maybe a MAGA type would buy it because they identify with the figure as a beleaguered hard-right American just trying to keep America great, like the fellow who wore this costume at the Million MAGA March (2020-11-14 demonstration by conspiracy theorists claiming Trump won the election and Biden stole it).

In this Homelander and Stormfront shirt, the use of Stormfront as an obviously evil Nazi antagonist clarifies the satirical nature of the image:

You'd be hard-pressed to find any actual American fascists who like the vibe of this shirt. It is overtly about the show's villains and reads like it should be worn by people who like villains and/or the critique of American nationalism as equivalent to Nazism. I think even actual Nazis would be turned off by how obviously evil the Nazi character looks. (TBH, they were already alienated by the casting of Jewish actress Aya Cash, in the tradition of Colonel Klink.)

On the other hand, this shirt just looks like edgy patriotic fashion favored by conservatives. Even the metallic text lacks the hammy villain tone of the "Homelander & Stormfront" shirt and just looks vaguely intimidating in-line with such fashion. It would be really easy for a hard-right Homelander fanboy to wear this shirt unironically, in full support of Homelander as a patriotic figure. It could be said that this shirt was perhaps designed with satirical intent, but this is not clear at all from its presentation. In context, it looks like Amazon wanted to market to some of its known consumer demographic: hard-right unironic Homelander fans.

Meanwhile, on the official Gen V merchandise page, the lead actors simultaneously act as satirical figures hawking merchandise like the wacky capitalist institution the show criticizes and are the lead actors hawking merchandise for the capitalist institution producing the show:

Self-aware irony only goes so far.

In the show, Dawn of the Seven (a spoof of Justice League with elements of The Avengers) is used to criticize superhero movies in our universe (e.g. they're tropey, can be sexist, have questionable themes, etc.). In Amazon's merchandise, it's used to unironically market the superhero figures as these cool characters.

Is this a critique of Homelander or marketing at all? I'd argue no. It is unironic pro-Homelander, pro-marketing, pro-consumerism, and pro-superhero-fandom theming to appeal to the lowest common denominator of fan, likely to be a conservative fan of Homelander.

The worst part of this is with the use of season two's Girls Get It Done, a critique of superhero movies (particularly Avengers: Endgame) pandering to women with an all-woman team-up that purports to be feminist but doesn't back it up with any actual feminist writing surrounding it or understanding what women want past a simplistic disingenuous argument that women are better than men. The three female superheroes of the Seven--Starlight, Queen Maeve, and Stormfront--are arbitrarily teamed up and paraded around as a faux-feminist marketing gimmick. This is a clear satirical element in the show. However, the Amazon merchandise uses it unironically as a woman-targeted gimmick for the show's female fans.

It is weird as hell that someone thought this piece of satire depicting a literal Nazi antagonist would make a good "girl power" piece marketed to women. Again, possible satirical intent is nerfed by unironic capitalistic greed.

Let's talk about Stormfront. She's a likable villain, and it's fairly reasonable to sell merchandise representing the figure as a villain. Her only T-shirts are the ones I've posted above. "Homelander & Stormfront" effectively depicts her as a villain in a critique of American fascism. However, "Girls Get It Done" is ambiguous in the manner of the Homelander shirt that seemingly panders to conservative unironic Homelander fans. Stormfront is just there, alongside two heroic figures, looking cool alongside them. You'd have to watch the show to know she's a villain.

And here's another thing: her Nazi signifiers are all obscured. Her arm bands are seen from a weird angle and somewhat blocked by Queen Maeve; her imperial eagle belt buckle is hidden in artificially generated shadow, and she's not printed in a high-enough resolution to see her swastika fabric pattern. All that's left is her skinhead-evocative Skrillex hair, which is far from overt. Skrillex isn't a Nazi, after all. Amazon essentially did the same sort of thing they did with the Billy Butcher merchandise in censoring the swear words to make them friendlier wear around in public and removed hate symbols from a character who is innately a political figure as a means of critiquing racial hatred in America. In the process, they made a Nazi more palatable without the corresponding political critique.

The one other way they marketed Stormfront merchandise was with a limited-edition collection of themed Nike sneakers, available only through sweepstakes. Several of the main heroes and villains in season two got their own sneaker color theme, including Stormfront (top right).

Here, Stormfront's Nazi crap is retained with an allusion to her belt buckle--the Nazi imperial eagle--printed on the side under the swoosh. Other characters get their own symbols in the same general area, so it's in theme with the others but also questionable given its authentic Nazi imagery in absent of a context of critiquing modern America. People are expected to just don Nazi imagery as fans of the show. The Homelander, A-Train, Black Noir, and Kimiko sneakers are decorated with blood imagery, at least signalling "edgy show", but Stormfront's are without even that limited context. (Please do not take this as endorsement of people harassing Aya Cash for playing a Nazi. It's okay to portray a Nazi as an actor on a television show, just not out of context in the real world like this.)

The grey portion at the toe resembles Stormfront's arm bands and may, like the arm bands, depict a desaturated American flag like that worn by American conservatives. In the context of the show, this is used to critique American conservatives as fascist and embracing Nazism. Removed from context, it would suffer the same problem as the Homelander shirt aping conservative fashion.

The decision to make Stormfront's sneakers dark with white laces is another interesting choice. Neo-Nazis often signal to each other by wearing black boots with contrasting white laces. It's unclear if this was intentional.

I'm honestly unsure which is worse, merchandise obscuring that she's a Nazi to make her more palatable or merchandise retaining her Nazi characterization in a context completely absent of framing her as a deplorable villain.

All these bad marketing decisions come together in a weird capitalist kerfuffle aping at being a satire of capitalism while being outrageous in itself. It unironically showcases why the kind of stuff the show parodies is bad.

#the boys #the boys tv show #consumerism #late stage capitalism #tw nazis

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vatican3 · 6 months

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this is a long one and your ask box is a confessional now. to start off; im not christian. i was raised christian but thats just not the life for me. secondly; my name is judas. this makes christians uncomfortable as well. last thing before we get into the meat of it; i am also not a satanist but i do still dabble in it from time to time. so off the bat your more die hard christians would Not like me. like i said i have a very complicated relationship with christianity; i hate god and god hates me. i do things specifically to spite him and i call him out on his bullshit all the time. however; this does not extend to jesus. this is where the more complicated part comes in. i am not a christian, i do not worship god nor the holy spirit or any saints or anything like this, and my relationship and connection to jesus i view more as an extension of my worship of dionysus more than anything else. i dont know what this all entails, im still exploring this, but despite all my disdain towards christianity i cannot get myself to extend this to jesus. and its haunted me for years and years until i finally started to accept that. and more recently ive stopped trying to fight the nature of my relationship to jesus and lean into it. and my exploration of my worship of dionysus has helped as well; a lot of people connect the two in their own ways and i personally view them as two sides of the same coin. and through this ive just started to accept that my relationship with him is inherently queer, sensual and erotic even. god, to me, has always been rough, cruel, and uncaring, taking away whatever support he has given me at the drop of a hat if i do something that he doesnt agree with. a cold hand. but jesus was never like that yk? always kind and caring, a guiding hand, never let go even if i stopped and went back. a soft, tender lover. ive cried and hes responded to my pain with gentle touches. always forgiving, never judging. ive felt guilt over my sexual fixation on him; weight on my shoulders for years. trying to ignore it and bury it. but the second i gave up and accepted it i felt free. my name had no connection to its origin when i initially chose it; it just fit like a glove when i tried it. but the more i go down this weird path the more i realize that it fits more than i thought. its nice. but i dont think your average christian would appreciate my views.

This has been in my inbox for a day and I've reread it a few times, and I don't know if you're looking for religious counsel or maybe just to get your thoughts out (evoking the image of a confessional implied you were interested in a response specifically from my point of view, or some sort of direction, but if that's not what you want, stop reading after the cut?) So I'll try to answer as an anthropologist and theologian before answering as myself.

First and foremost, and the part I'm sure you're familiar with, you are far from the only person that has a convoluted and difficult relationship with religion--so the good news is that you're not alone! Even among the most devout Christians there is unrest, doubt, feelings of loneliness and despair. And those people seem to know what they're about. So for someone that has an unfavorable history with Christianity and no longer identifies with it, it only makes sense to feel such a varied and complex array of emotions about specific aspects.

I don't even necessarily think that it's abnormal to feel there is an erotic element to your relationship with Jesus. St. Teresa of Avila experienced her "spiritual ecstasy"--

In his hands, I saw a great golden spear, and at the iron tip there appeared to be a point of fire. This he plunged into my heart several times so that it penetrated to my entrails. When he pulled it out I felt that he took them with it, and left me utterly consumed by the great love of God. The pain was so severe that it made me utter several moans. The sweetness caused by this intense pain is so extreme that one cannot possibly wish it to cease, nor is one’s soul content with anything but God. This is not a physical but a spiritual pain, though the body has some share in it—even a considerable share. [Article on that.]

Your stance is, yes, unorthodox (haha). And it's true that many Christians would shy away from and admonish everything you have going on here--not all of them! I think you have some interesting concepts going on with your personal spirituality that don't necessarily speak to me as a human being but that I think would be interesting to do some writing about, if you care to.

The story of Jesus and Judas is a love story. What kind of love story it is can be up to interpretation, and that's a wonderful thing to me. And I think that's something that you have certainly considered between your name and your personal theology.

On an objective level, I believe that if this is good for you this is good for you and that it is then worth exploring. If you like what Jesus as a man and as a symbol encompasses, you should include that in your own spiritual life--and it sounds like you are! You can love Jesus without being a Christian. Many people do.

i hate god and god hates me. i do things specifically to spite him and i call him out on his bullshit all the time.

God does not hate you. God doesn't hate anyone, that's kind of the deal. You could do the most morally bankrupt nonsense and still God would be there for you. I think a lot of the other things I would want to say on this topic come off as though I would be trying to convert you (I'm not) and would be better in, like, an essay, so I'll leave that be.

This is a genuine question, not that you have to answer but if you'd like to please feel free: how are you, as someone that isn't Christian and doesn't worship a Christian God, qualifying what exactly God's bullshit is? What goes into that category? Is there something worth examining there?

my relationship and connection to jesus i view more as an extension of my worship of dionysus more than anything else. [...] a lot of people connect the two in their own ways and i personally view them as two sides of the same coin.

I'd love to know more about this. I don't know much about Dionysus as a figure nor Dionysian worship so I'm interested in how people make the connection/what that does for them and their spirituality. I know you said you're still exploring this and figuring out what it means for you so ofc no pressure to bare your soul or anything, but again if you have any specific thoughts to share go wild.

god, to me, has always been rough, cruel, and uncaring, taking away whatever support he has given me at the drop of a hat if i do something that he doesnt agree with. a cold hand. but jesus was never like that yk? always kind and caring, a guiding hand, never let go even if i stopped and went back.

Bizarre to me to so readily separate God and Christ. But I do understand that Jesus is easier to empathize with as a man, we have stories of his life, joy, and suffering. Jesus is also divine, though--you could even view him as a bridge between us and God, in a way. I don't know your personal journey. But it's easy to mistake, sometimes, God telling you the path you're on is wrong for you as God denying you or revoking support from you.

This was a really interesting message! I hope you feel that I've engaged with it fairly. Do you have any beef with the Holy Spirit or is it just the God/Jesus split you struggle with?

#mtxt

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marissapaul · 1 year

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12/23 day 8: Vodou

today i want to look at the legend of korra in thinking about the days' readings. i recently rewatched the show and i love how much we got to see of the spiritual world in it. the christian creation story was never super fascinating to me, but i love learning about other creation stories and modes of spirituality and the avatar universe is a great touchstone for that for me (i was also a rick riordan kid so you can see the common theme of my life's journey). in thinking about the show in relation to today's readings, i think that the show does a really good job of blending the spiritual and physical realms. there are times where korra loses the ability to bend the elements or can't enter the avatar state and it is because her energy is being blocked either physically or mentally but most often mentally. this is especially prevalent at the beginning of book four. we see her years long struggle with identity that results in real and tangible effects on her life. this is what i really love about the different spiritualities that we are studying in this class, tangibility and holistic healing. in many ways, book four of legend of korra is just an artistic exploration of what happens to your real world and your physical body when you do not take care of and be kind to your mind. korra is the most powerful human because of her intimate connection to the spirit world and because she can draw on the strength of the spirit world. but she is not all-powerful, and can lose that power or see it weakened. in book four we really see her have to grapple with her mentality. in book two she has to literally maintain the balance between the spirit and material worlds and she can only do that if she is in tune with each and with herself. i love the medium of animation. it allows for such beautiful explorations of real and tangible emotions and as we have seen, the avatar universe has really resonated with kids who don't always fit in growing up. (unlike james cameron's white savior avatar).

i love that vodu places an emphasis on intuition rather than rational intelligence. i have been trying to live this way for the past two years and it has led to a much happier and healthier outlook on life. i have learned to trust vibes a lot more and to listen to my body and the world around me. i eat when my body tells me i am hungry, and if my body feels unsafe around someone i honor that and set boundaries. this goes back to what i have talked about in previous posts where i am much more open to spirituality now. instead of overadjusting into science as my lens for understanding the world, i lean into what my body, mind, and the world around me are telling me. and i can only speak for myself, but this has made me vastly healthier.

i think that today's readings resonate with me because they were all borne of inbetweenness. inbetween free and enslaved. in between africa and a new world. inbetween indigineity and african tradition. inbetween indigineity/african tradition and european religious beliefs. inbetween the material and spiritual. growing up queer and autistic that inbetweenness really resonates with me. i can understand searching for a sense of belonging in a world that is cruel to you. of course not to the same level of enslaved Black and indigenous people, but i live under the same white supremacist system that seeks to homogenize and clearly demarcate. i think this is also why i have become so much happier embracing ambiguity. growing up with undiagnosed autism and being visibly queer, for so long i went in search of language to help me describe what i was feeling internally. and the language that i found was binary and incomplete. i found the term gay, but that wasn't right, i found the term trans, but that wasn't right, i found pronouns that more closely align with my gender identity, but those too weren't right. in the past two years i have come to embrace ambiguity and the understanding that terms and identifiers are never going to fully encapsulate the nuances of my lived experience. i use she/they pronouns publicly but neither of those terms fully encapsulates my gender identity. i use all sorts of gendered terms to refer to myself including some that are traditionally male. i heavily relate to stone butch lesbians, but not holistically because i love wearing dresses presenting more femme at times. these are all partial pieces of a puzzle that make up my entire being and so i have stopped searching for the exact right term to describe myself, and have instead started gathering an archive of words and media and art that help me outwardly present my inner self. and that is what i love about these creole religions. they lean into that ambiguity and are not only open to change, but welcome it. and thus learning about them has provided me with more of those puzzle pieces and terms through which i much understand and express my inner self.

i was happy to see us talk more about spiritual healing again today. the readings today laid things out very clearly, explaining that there has been a rise in non-traditional healing as a result of rising medical costs and an inability for modern medicine to heal in the way that these spiritualities are - especially in terms of psychiatric healing. more people are going in search of this holistic and tangible healing. i am writing from the positionality of someone who is able-bodied so my experience is of course heavily influenced by that, but having the resources to genuinely and lovingly take care of my mind has also made taking care of my physical body much easier. i do not find myself paralyzed for weeks by anxiety, literally unable to leave my bed anymore and that physical benefit to my life was only made possible through the immense mental and spiritual work that i have done. i can wake up and brush my teeth and shower regularly and work out without doing so in pursuit of some insane and unattainable body type, i can eat freely and whenever i am hungry. these worlds are so intimately intertwined and i think that that is exactly what makes these spiritual belief systems so powerful.

i also really loved how the readings speak to shortcomings of the contemporary church and how vodu and vodou tangibly address those shortcomings. these spiritualities are "continually evolving in response to the socio-economic milieu and the psychosocial needs of its practitioners" (p. 87 in Vodu of the Dominican Republic) evangelical christianity remains wedded to the myth of the american dream and to capitalism. and thus it can't really address the material woes of a hurting congregation because they do not believe in a fundamental reorganization of society so that it might benefit all humans rather than like fifteen absurdly wealthy men.

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i watched this documentary over the summer and found myself deeply hurt about my upbringing in the church in new ways. the documentary is focused on hillsong which is much more a corporation than a church. and it is hillsong who produced all that catchy contemporary christian music at the turn of the millenia. but they did so in pursuit of building an economic empire. hillsong recognized in the late 90s that people were growing disillusioned with the church (for all of the reasons laid out above) and so the church did shift. but it didn't shift to building itself out so that it might provide a place of tangible relief and healing for its congregation, it shifted to building a media empire built on trendy, secular-adjacent music in order to actively abuse its congregation who came in search of meaning and left with lighter wallets. i think that is evil.

we're now solidly into the course and i love how much the readings build on each other each day. i find myself coming back to the same topics but in new ways, with new language to describe my thoughts. i want to return now to the power of drumming. and i actually want to talk about mumble rap. i am a part of that weird generation of people from the late 90s that don't fully relate to millenials or gen z, but have borne witness to both. thus, i grew up inbetween the eras of lyrical and mumble rap (though this is a vast oversimplification of rap history) so i know people on both sides of the cultural/generational divide. the tired argument goes that mumble rap is not as legitimate as lyrical rap or that mumble rap doesn't take talent and that it's basically just a hard beat and a bunch of gibberish. that is of course, not all it is, but even if it was, is that bad? i say no. mumble rappers grew up on lyrical rap and draw inspiration from it and move the culture forward. but even if mumble rap is just a phenomenal beat, is that not music enough? is that not spiritual enough? in the context of this class i would posit that an incredible beat is absolutely enough to constitute a great song. i frequently listen to music in other languages that i don't understand, but vibes transcend languages. the vibrations of love far transcends even my ability to capture it in the english language. sometimes sounds and instrumentals are even the best way to transmit a vibe or certain energy.

i feel that way about mah's joint by jon bellion. in the documentary where he talks about what it was like to make this album, jon talks about how he didn't have the words to say all that he wanted to say on the topic of his grandmother's dementia so he just sung without words. the song is eight minutes long and the vast majority of it is instrumental and wordless singing and yet the song is so powerful. the back half of the song is just a sonic meditation on dementia and that's all it needed to be. i'll post the documentary below.

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my last very brief thought that hasn't fully developed yet is that the zombie apocalypse media trend of the early 2010s could have been so much more powerful/meaningful if they had leaned into their actual roots.

#Youtube #Spotify

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qqueenofhades · 3 years

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Hi. I’m curious. What did you mean by “women who read fiction might get Bad Ideas!!!” has just reached its latest and stupidest form via tumblr purity culture.? I haven’t seen any of this but I’m new to tumblr.

Oh man. You really want to get me into trouble on, like, my first day back, don’t you?

Pretty much all of this has been explained elsewhere by people much smarter than me, so this isn’t necessarily going to say anything new, but I’ll do my best to synthesize and summarize it. As ever, it comes with the caveat that it is my personal interpretation, and is not intended as the be-all, end-all. You’ll definitely run across it if you spend any time on Tumblr (or social media in general, including Twitter, and any other fandom-related spaces). This will get long.

In short: in the nineteenth century, when Gothic/romantic literature became popular and women were increasingly able to read these kinds of novels for fun, there was an attendant moral panic over whether they, with their weak female brains, would be able to distinguish fiction from reality, and that they might start making immoral or inappropriate choices in their real life as a result. Obviously, there was a huge sexist and misogynistic component to this, and it would be nice to write it off entirely as just hysterical Victorian pearl-clutching, but that feeds into the “lol people in the past were all much stupider than we are today” kind of historical fallacy that I often and vigorously shut down. (Honestly, I’m not sure how anyone can ever write the “omg medieval people believed such weird things about medicine!” nonsense again after what we’ve gone through with COVID, but that is a whole other rant.) The thinking ran that women shouldn’t read novels for fear of corrupting their impressionable brains, or if they had to read novels at all, they should only be the Right Ones: i.e., those that came with a side of heavy-handed and explicit moralizing so that they wouldn’t be tempted to transgress. Of course, books trying to hammer their readers over the head with their Moral Point aren’t often much fun to read, and that’s not the point of fiction anyway. Or at least, it shouldn’t be.

Fast-forward to today, and the entire generation of young, otherwise well-meaning people who have come to believe that being a moral person involves only consuming the “right” kind of fictional content, and being outrageously mean to strangers on the internet who do not agree with that choice. There are a lot of factors contributing to this. First, the advent of social media and being subject to the judgment of people across the world at all times has made it imperative that you demonstrate the “right” opinions to fit in with your peer-group, and on fandom websites, that often falls into a twisted, hyper-critical, so-called “progressivism” that diligently knows all the social justice buzzwords, but has trouble applying them in nuance, context, and complicated real life. To some extent, this obviously is not a bad thing. People need to be critical of the media they engage with, to know what narratives the creator(s) are promoting, the tropes they are using, the conclusions that they are supporting, and to be able to recognize and push back against genuinely harmful content when it is produced – and this distinction is critical – by professional mainstream creators. Amateur, individual fan content is another kettle of fish. There is a difference between critiquing a professional creator (though social media has also made it incredibly easy to atrociously abuse them) and attacking your fellow fan and peer, who is on the exact same footing as you as a consumer of that content.

Obviously, again, this doesn’t mean that you can’t call out people who are engaging in actually toxic or abusive behavior, fans or otherwise. But certain segments of Tumblr culture have drained both those words (along with “gaslighting”) of almost all critical meaning, until they’re applied indiscriminately to “any fictional content that I don’t like, don’t agree with, or which doesn’t seem to model healthy behavior in real life” and “anyone who likes or engages with this content.” Somewhere along the line, a reactionary mindset has been formed in which the only fictional narratives or relationships are those which would be “acceptable” in real life, to which I say…. what? If I only wanted real life, I would watch the news and only read non-fiction. Once again, the underlying fear, even if it’s framed in different terms, is that the people (often women) enjoying this content can’t be trusted to tell the difference between fiction and reality, and if they like “problematic” fictional content, they will proceed to seek it out in their real life and personal relationships. And this is just… not true.

As I said above, critical media studies and thoughtful consumption of entertainment are both great things! There have been some great metas written on, say, the Marvel Cinematic Universe and how it is increasingly relying on villains who have outwardly admirable motives (see: the Flag Smashers in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier) who are then stigmatized by their anti-social, violent behavior and attacks on innocent people, which is bad even as the heroes also rely on violence to achieve their ends. This is a clever way to acknowledge social anxieties – to say that people who identify with the Flag Smashers are right, to an extent, but then the instant they cross the line into violence, they’re upsetting the status quo and need to be put down by the heroes. I watched TFATWS and obviously enjoyed it. I have gone on a Marvel re-watching binge recently as well. I like the MCU! I like the characters and the madcap sci-fi adventures! But I can also recognize it as a flawed piece of media that I don’t have to accept whole-cloth, and to be able to criticize some of the ancillary messages that come with it. It doesn’t have to be black and white.

When it comes to shipping, moreover, the toxic culture of “my ship is better than your ship because it’s Better in Real Life” ™ is both well-known and in my opinion, exhausting and pointless. As also noted, the whole point of fiction is that it allows us to create and experience realities that we don’t always want in real life. I certainly enjoy plenty of things in fiction that I would definitely not want in reality: apocalyptic space operas, violent adventures, and yes, garbage men. A large number of my ships over the years have been labeled “unhealthy” for one reason or another, presumably because they don’t adhere to the stereotype of the coffee-shop AU where there’s no tension and nobody ever makes mistakes or is allowed to have serious flaws. And I’m not even bagging on coffee-shop AUs! Some people want to remove characters from a violent situation and give them that fluff and release from the nonstop trauma that TV writers merrily inflict on them without ever thinking about the consequences. Fanfiction often focuses on the psychology and healing of characters who have been through too much, and since that��s something we can all relate to right now, it’s a very powerful exercise. As a transformative and interpretive tool, fanfic is pretty awesome.

The problem, again, comes when people think that fic/fandom can only be used in this way, and that going the other direction, and exploring darker or complicated or messy dynamics and relationships, is morally bad. As has been said before: shipping is not activism. You don’t get brownie points for only having “healthy” ships (and just my personal opinion as a queer person, these often tend to be heterosexual white ships engaging in notably heteronormative behavior) and only supporting behavior in fiction that you think is acceptable in real life. As we’ve said, there is a systematic problem in identifying what that is. Ironically, for people worried about Women Getting Ideas by confusing fiction and reality, they’re doing the same thing, and treating fiction like reality. Fiction is fiction. Nobody actually dies. Nobody actually gets hurt. These people are not real. We need to normalize the idea of characters as figments of a creator’s imagination, not actual people with their own agency. They exist as they are written, and by the choice of people whose motives can be scrutinized and questioned, but they themselves are not real. Nor do characters reflect the author’s personal views. Period.

This feeds into the fact that the internet, and fandom culture, is not intended as a “safe space” in the sense that no questionable or triggering content can ever be posted. Archive of Our Own, with its reams of scrupulous tagging and requests for you to explicitly click and confirm that you are of age to see M or E-rated content, is a constant target of the purity cultists for hosting fictional material that they see as “immoral.” But it repeatedly, unmistakably, directly asks you for your consent to see this material, and if you then act unfairly victimized, well… that’s on you. You agreed to look at this, and there are very few cases where you didn’t know what it entailed. Fandom involves adults creating contents for adults, and while teenagers and younger people can and do participate, they need to understand this fact, rather than expecting everything to be a PG Disney movie.

When I do write my “dark” ships with garbage men, moreover, they always involve a lot of the man being an idiot, being bluntly called out for an idiot, and learning healthier patterns of behavior, which is one of the fundamental patterns of romance novels. But they also involve an element of the woman realizing that societal standards are, in fact, bullshit, and she can go feral every so often, as a treat. But even if I wrote them another way, that would still be okay! There are plenty of ships and dynamics that I don’t care for and don’t express in my fic and fandom writing, but that doesn’t mean I seek out the people who do like them and reprimand them for it. I know plenty of people who use fiction, including dark fiction, in a cathartic way to process real-life trauma, and that’s exactly the role – one of them, at least – that fiction needs to be able to fulfill. It would be terribly boring and limited if we were only ever allowed to write about Real Life and nothing else. It needs to be complicated, dark, escapist, unreal, twisted, and whatever else. This means absolutely zilch about what the consumers of this fiction believe, act, or do in their real lives.

Once more, I do note the misogyny underlying this. Nobody, after all, seems to care what kind of books or fictional narratives men read, and there’s no reflection on whether this is teaching them unhealthy patterns of behavior, or whether it predicts how they’ll act in real life. (There was some of that with the “do video games cause mass shootings?”, but it was a straw man to distract from the actual issues of toxic masculinity and gun culture.) Certain kinds of fiction, especially historical fiction, romance novels, and fanfic, are intensely gendered and viewed as being “women’s fiction” and therefore hyper-criticized, while nobody’s asking if all the macho-man potboiler military-intrigue tough-guy stereotypical “men’s fiction” is teaching them bad things. So the panic about whether your average woman on the internet is reading dark fanfic with an Unhealthy Ship (zomgz) is, in my opinion, misguided at best, and actively destructive at worst.

#long post #anonymous #ask

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idreamtofmanderleyagain · 3 years

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Hot takes about Severus Snape are a wierdly decent glimpse into how a person with progressive values analyses things. Literally every time someone talks about Snape, it’s like this tiny window into how one-dimentionally people actually think.

Recently saw a twitter post that was a fantastic example. Here’s how it goes (paraphrasing):

Person A:“Snape is POC and Queer coded, that’s why you guy’s hate him uwu lol.”

Person B: “Actually I hate him because he was mean and abusive to children under his care uwu but go off I guess lol”

Both of these takes are designed to be dramatic and/or reactionary. They each use partial truths to paint very broad strokes. These are get-em-in-one-hit quips. This is virtue signalling, if you’ll excuse that loaded phrase. Nobody had a substantial conversation, but now everyone who sees their statement knows the high ground they took.

At least a hundred other people chimed in to add their own little quippy hot takes into play, none of which add anything significant, but clearly made everyone feel very highly of themselves.

So many layers of nuance and complex analysis is completely lost in this kind of discussion. On tumblr, you get more of this kind of bullshit, but you don’t have a word count limit, so you guys just spew endless mountains of weak overblown evidence backing up your bullshit arguments, none of which was really about engaging in a real conversation anyway.

Here’s the thing about Snape.

He is a childhood domestic abuse victim. His abuser is a muggle.

He becomes a student at a magical school that takes him away from his abuser and immediately instills in him the idea that being a part of this magical world is a badge of self-worth, empowerment, and provides safety and security - provided that he keeps in line.

There is a war is being waged in that world over his right to exist (he is a half blood).

He is a marginalized person within the context of the narrative, forced to constantly be in the same living space as the children of his own oppressors who are being groomed and recruited into a hate group militia (the pureblood slytherins). They are in turn trying to do the same to him.

He is marginalized person bullied by children who are also part of his oppressor group, but who have “more liberal” leanings and aren’t direct about why he’s being targeted (the mauraders are all purebloods, Sirius, who was the worst offender, was raised in a bigoted household, the same one that produced Bellatrix.).

He had a crush on a girl who is a muggleborn, and therefore she is considered even lesser than him and carries a stigma to those who associate with her. That girl was his only real friend. In his entire life.

For both Snape and Lily, allying themselves to a pureblood clique within their own houses would be a great way of shielding themselves from a measure of the bigotry they were probably facing. There would have been obvious pressure from those cliques to disconnect with one and other.

Every other person who associates with Snape in his adulthood carries some sort of sociopolitical or workplace (or hate cult) baggage with their association. Some of them will physically harm and/or kill him if he steps out of line. He hasn’t at any point had the right environment to heal and adjust from these childhood experiences. Even his relationship with Dumbledore is charged with constant baggage, including the purebloods who almost killed him during their bullying getting a slap on the wrist, the werewolf that almost killed him as a child being placed in an authority position over new children, etc. Dumbledore is canonically manipulative no matter his good qualities, and he has literally been manipulating Snape for years in order to cultivate a necessary asset in the war.

He is a person who is not in the stable mental state necessary to be teaching children, whom has been forced to teach children. While also playing the role of double agent against the hate group militia, the one that will literally torture you for mistakes or backtalk or just for fun. The one that will torture and kill him if he makes one wrong move.

Is the math clicking yet? From all of this, it’s not difficult to see how everything shitty about Snape was cultivated for him by his environment. Snape was not given great options. Snape made amazingly awful choices, and also some amazingly difficult, courageous ones. Snape was ultimately a human who had an extremely bad life, in which his options were incredibly grim and limited.

In fact, pretty much every point people make about how shitty Snape is as a person makes 100% logical sense as something that would emerge from how he was treated. Some if it he’s kind of right about, some of it is the inevitable reality of suffering, and some of it is part of the cycle of abuse and harm.

Even Snape’s emotional obsession with Lily makes logical sense when you have the perspective that he literally has no substantial positive experiences with other human beings that we know of, and he has an extreme, soul destroying guilt complex over her death. Calling him an Incel mysoginist nice guy projects a real-world political ideology and behavior that does not really apply to the context of what happened to him and her.

Even Snape’s specific little acts of cruelty to certain students is a reflection of his own life experiences. He identifies with Neville; more specifically, he identifies his own percieved emotional weaknesses in his childhood in Neville. There’s a very sad reason there why he feels the urge to be so harsh.

Snape very clearly hates himself, in a world where everyone else hates him, too. Imagine that, for a second. Imagine total internal and external hatred, an yearning for just a little bit of true connection. For years. Imagine then also trying to save that world, even if it’s motivated by guilt. Even if nobody ever knows you did it and you expect to die a miserable death alone.

There are more elements here to consider, including the way Rowling described his looks (there may be something in there re: ugliness and swarthy stereotyping). These are just the things that stand out the most prominently to me.

J.K. Rowling is clearly also not reliable as an imparter of moral or sociopolitical philosophies. I don’t feel that her grasp of minority experiences is a solid one, considering how she picks and chooses who is acceptable and who is a threat.

All of that said, this is a logically consistent character arc. Within the context of his narrative, Snape is a marginalized person with severe PTSD and emotional instability issues who has absolutely no room available to him for self-improvement or healing, and never really has. And yes, he’s also mean, and caustic, and verbally abusive to the students. He’s also a completey miserable, lonely person.

There are elements in his character arc that mirror real world experiences quite well. If nothing else, Rowling is enough of an emotional adult to recognise these kinds of things and portray something that feels authentic.

In my opinion, it’s not appropriate to whittle all this down by comparing him directly to the real world experiences of marginalized groups - at least if you are not a part of the group you are comparing him to. There have been many individuals who have compared his arc to their own personal experiences of marginalization, and that is valid. But generally speaking, comparing a white straight dude to people who are not that can often be pretty offensive. This is not a valuable way to discuss either subject.

Also, I believe that while it’s perfectly okay to not like Snape as a character, many of the people who act like Person B are carrying Harry’s childhood POV about Snape in their hearts well into their own adulthood. And if nothing else, Rowling was attempting to say something here about how our perspectives (should) grow and change as we emotionally mature. She doesn’t have to be a good person herself to have expressed something true about the world in this instance, and since this story is a part of our popular culture, people have a right to feel whatever way they do about this story and it’s characters.

The complexity of this particular snapshot of fictionalized marginalization, and what it reveals about the human experience, cannot be reduced down to “he’s an abuser so he’s not worth anyone’s time/you are bad for liking him.”

And to be honest, I think that it reveals a lot about many of us in progressive spaces, particularly those of us who less marginalized but very loud about our values, that we refuse to engage with these complexities in leu of totally condemning him. Particularly because a lot of the elements I listed above are indeed reflected in real world examples of people who have experienced marginalization and thus had to deal with the resulting emotional damage, an mental illness, and behavior troubles, and bad decisions. Our inability to address the full scope of this may be a good reflection of how we are handling the complexity of real world examples.

Real people are not perfect angels in their victimhood. They are just humans who are victims, and we all have the capacity to be cruel and abusive in a world where we have been given cruelty and abuse. This is just a part of existing. If you cannot sympathise with that, or at least grasp it and aknowledge it and respect the people who are emotionally drawn to a character who refects that, then you may be telling on yourself to be honest.

To be honest, this is especially true if you hate Snape but just really, really love the Mauraduers. You have a right to those feelings, but if you are moralizing this and judging others for liking Snape, you’ve confessed to something about how you’ve mentally constructed your personal values in a way I don’t think you’ve fully grasped yet.

I have a hard time imagining a mindset where a story like Snape’s does not move one to empathy and vicarious grief, if I’m honest. I feel like some people really just cannot be bothered to imagine themselves in other people’s shoes, feeling what they feel and living like they live. I struggle to trust the social politics of people who show these kinds of colors, tbh.

But maybe that’s just me.

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batmansymbol · 3 years

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hi riley! read this recently and would love to get ur perspective on this as a YA author https://tinyletter.com/misshelved/letters/did-twitter-break-ya-misshelved-6

hi anon! yeah, i read this the day it was posted. thoughts/supplementary essay below.

firstly, i'd put a big "I AGREE" stamp across this essay. i think it's well-cited and thoughtful, and i agree with pretty much everything in it. i especially appreciate it for introducing me to the terms "context collapse" and "morally motivated networked harassment" - seeing internet sociology studied and labeled is ... odd, but useful.

i left twitter in 2017, but i keep an eye on things, which seem similar now to the way they were four years ago. the essay describes the never-ending scrutiny, the need to seem perfect, and the pressure on writers to out themselves. all of that is spot-on. twitter is an outing machine. there is so much harassment and anger on the platform that in serious conversations, good-faith engagement becomes something that must be earned, rather than something that's expected. and in order to earn good faith, strangers expect you to offer up an all-access pass to who you are. otherwise, things might take a swift left turn into verbal abuse.

obviously twitter is a cesspit of harassment from racist, homophobic, and transphobic people, but i think the most painful harassment comes from within the community. i, and most people i know, wouldn't give a single minuscule little fuck if ben shapiro's entire army of ghouls came after us and told us we were destroying the sacred values of Old America or whatever. but the community at large does care about issues of racial justice and queer liberation and economic justice. which is why it's painful to see this supposed "community" eating its own over and over again.

how cruel can we be to people and pretend that we are their friends? that's the emotional crux of the essay to me. what we're doing to ourselves - people who do share our values and want to achieve the same goals - because this one platform is built on rewarding the quickest, most brutal, and most public response.

god forbid you don't have your identity figured out. god forbid you have an invisible disability, or are writing a story about something sensitive you've personally experienced but had an off-consensus reaction to. on twitter, if you are not a paragon of absolute and immediate clarity, you may as well be lower than dirt morally, because you're unable to do what the platform requires of you: air every private corner of your identity, up to and including your trauma, to justify not only your everyday actions and opinions but also your art.

(this is all honestly incompatible with interesting art, but i'll get to that in a bit.)

it doesn't take a genius to see how troubling this environment is when combined with twitter as a marketing tool. i remember that around the time of my debut, i'd tweet out threads of private, painful, personal stuff, which felt terrible to recount, but i'd watch the like count increase with this sense of catholic, confessional satisfaction. all of this was tied to the idea of my potential salability as a writer.

i was around 21 at the time. i felt a lot of pressure as a debut. i wanted people to like me and think i was exceptionally mature and confident. i wanted to do my job and build buzz for my book. i saw that all these publishing professionals and authors spent day in, day out angry and exhausted on twitter. every few days, a new person fifteen years older than me would say, "i can't take this anymore, i'm so fucking tired of this, i'm logging off for a while." i thought, well, this must be how online activism feels: like running on a sprained ankle.

i can still remember book after book after book that inspired blow-ups, big explanations, and simmering resentment: carve the mark (whose author was forced to admit that she suffered chronic pain after relentless criticism of that element), the black witch (a book explicitly about unlearning racism that was criticized for depicting ... racism), ramona blue (a book about a bi girl who thinks she's a lesbian but winds up in an m/f relationship, because she's still discovering her identity) ... etc

each book, each incident, followed the same pattern. firestorms of anger, a decision of where to place blame, the desperate need for a single consensus opinion in the community. i think a lot of people on book twitter see these as bugs inherent to the platform, but really, in twitter's eyes, they're features. the angrier and more upset twitter's userbase is, the more reliant they are on the platform.

i wound up leaving around the time i realized that not only was twitter making me anxious - NOT being on twitter was beginning to make me anxious, because of vaguely dread-infused tweets all around like "i'm seeing an awful lot of people who are staying silent about X. ... why are so many people who are so loud about X so silent about Y?" etc.

that shit is beyond poisonous. people will not always be logged on. the absence of someone's agreement does not mean disagreement. actually, someone's absence is not inherently meaningful, because it is the internet and silence is everyone's default position; internet silence in all likelihood means that that person is out in the universe doing other things.

this is already a ridiculously long response, so i'll try to wrap up. firstly, i think that progressive writers and readers have GOT to stop thinking that a correct consensus opinion can exist on every piece of fiction, and on every issue in general, and that if someone diverges from that consensus, they're incorrectly progressive.

secondly, i think that progressive writers and readers have got to uncouple the idea of a "book with good politics" from a good book, because 1) there are books about morally grimy, despicable subjects that help us process the landscape of human behavior, and

2) if, in your fiction, there is only one set of allowed responses for your protagonist, you will write the same person over and over and over again. you see this a lot in religious fiction. the person is not a human being but an expression of the creator's moral alignment. (not entirely surprising that this similarity to religious correctness might crop up with the current state of the movement. i read this piece around the time i left twitter and it shook me really, really deeply.)

i understand that in YA, there's a sensation of immense pressure because people want to model good politics and correct behavior for kids. this is a noble idea - and maybe twitter is great for people who want to be role models. but i've become more and more staunchly against the idea of artist as role model. the role of the writer is not to be emulated but to write fiction. and the role of fiction is not to read like something delivered from a soapbox, or to display some scrubbed-clean universe where each wrong is immediately identified as a wrong, and where total morality is always glowing in the backdrop. it's to put something human on paper, and as human beings, we might aspire to total morality, but we fall short again and again. honestly, that's what being on twitter showed me more clearly than anything.

#reply #ya lit #personal #the discourse tm #essay

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gffa · 3 years

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I know I've brought this up before, but how much of the fandom reception of the prequels do you think stemmed from the genre dissonance? That the prequels, genre-wise, are closer to high fantasy, while the OT is more an adventure/space western/underdog triumph story.

The prequels also have elements more reminiscent of a romantic period/court drama/Shakespearean tragedy, while if you consider the underdog angle of the OT, the OT also seems kinda similar to some of those inspirational movies about sports teams or something, or a shonen anime with the "Power of Friendship".

I'm just saying, these are rather disparate genres that tend to attract different demographics of people.

And not many people tend to be... great about understanding why they don't like something, much less putting it into words, or understanding that they can dislike something without that something being actually bad. (For example, instead of "I just don't really like [thing]," the usual statement is something along the lines of "[thing] absolutely sucks.")

So the usual response is trying to find (and gather) solidarity while putting down or being condescending towards any dissent, and trying to justify their own dislike. (*gestures vaguely towards pineapple on pizza*)

And historically, it's not uncommon for people to... react strongly towards things they find... different or abnormal, which they judge based on themselves, their emotional response to something, and what they're used to.

Looking at kids, this behavior is... fairly normal. "You're weird," "ew, why do you like that, that's gross," "that's stupid," and so on. A lot of kids/teens/young adults also get defensive really easily. And let's face it--adults are basically just older, taller kids who've had to deal with more of life.

(To be honest, I also get defensive really easily. A lot of people do, and it's... it's normal. The defensive reaction can be lashing out, denial, or just being passive-aggressive or staying silent and tuning it out or mentally rolling your eyes at it. But I'm trying to work on it, because just because it's normal doesn't mean it's a good reaction.)

So, what I'm wondering is whether some fans dislike the prequels simply because it's a different genre...

...but instead of realizing that, they try to defend and justify their dislike by pointing fingers and criticizing whatever stood out or looked different from the OT or cherry-picking details/taking things out of context or making negative conflations (that can be refuted).

Because it's not about logic, it's about how they feel. And people want to feel justified and validated, and we want to feel like we're right and we enjoy staying in our comfort zones. So... yeah. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

LOL, okay, this response is going to be really disjointed because I went off in like a dozen different tangents and even then it's not enough to cover everything, so just kind of read this in a Scattered Thoughts Nerd kind of tone, where I'm staring off into the distance because Navel Gazing Gets Me Going Sometimes. 😂 In my experience, it's sort of a mix. I don't hang around a lot of people who dislike the prequels (in the sense of dismissing them/not being fannish about them) because, well, that's the heart of my interest in Star Wars, so our areas of interest basically don't really overlap that much, so I don't have a chance to talk to a lot of people and find out their reasons or even how they dislike the prequels, in the bigger trends of fandom. I do think there's an element of what you're talking about, that sometimes people can't just dislike things because it's not their genre of choice, that's absolutely a part of it. Mostly because that's how a lot of people react to anything they don't like (and it's something I and literally everyone else has to work on), there has to be a reason for it that it's objectively bad and, like, I have experienced a lot of people getting mad because I like something in a different way than they do. And I don't mean just in Star Wars fandom, but in almost any given fandom--if someone likes something in a way someone else doesn't, if they talk loudly about it (even within their own space), then there's always a contingent of people who have to find a reason why that person is objectively wrong (or even try to make them morally wrong), rather than just shrugging and going, "We see things differently, my view on things doesn't overwrite theirs and their view on things doesn't overwrite mine." It gets more complicated in instances where fandom attitudes genuinely can be hurtful, especially when they're overlapping into the way real people are treated, likes/dislikes don't 100% exist in a bubble, especially when it comes to queer fans, fans of color, disabled fans, mentally ill fans, etc. But that there are a lot of instances where fandom culture has always been--and is increasingly so--contentious and it's hard to chill out when someone is always screaming at you, when the atmosphere of the fandom is always so intense. Further, there's also an element of how fandom has always been--and also is increasingly so--about personal resonance, personal emotional investment, interpretation, and meaning. That sometimes we identify with something so deeply that we feel attacked when someone else likes or dislikes something we feel so strongly about, something that we feel is a reflection of ourselves, and I see a lot of that as well. And this, too, often crosses over into lines of how the context of how we treat characters can be reflections of how we treat real world people, but that there's no monolith here as well. For example: I make fun of Anakin, this angers some people, because how dare I not take this fictional victim 100% seriously, despite that I have repeatedly said that Anakin is the character I most identify with, that things I make fun of him for are ones that I resonate with personally. I'm not disrespecting mentally ill people, especially considering that Anakin is not bound to a single interpretation on this front--he is not canonically mentally ill, no matter how easy it is for us in fandom to map much of that onto his character or, in my case, feel that so much of what I see in him are things I struggle with myself. By and large, the majority of the people I see (at least on tumblr) who make fun of Anakin are doing so within the same vein, that they're being silly about him on things that they personally relate to. (My experiences on this are not universal, I cannot speak for the whole of even any one part of fandom, only my own sphere of experience, but this is what I've seen.) As always, it's fine if someone doesn't vibe with my style or they find that it's not their thing because they do take him more seriously, but that preference does not make my jokes

suddenly not have the context that I relate a lot to what I see in Anakin. In contrast, the way some of the fandom treats Mace or Finn isn't just personal all the time. Not liking their characters isn't inherently racist, but the way they're consistently, consistently treated sure as hell speaks to a larger pattern of racism in fandom and doesn't come without that context. It's the same with Rey--is there a huge vein of misogyny when it comes to her character? Abso-fucking-lutely there is. Things Luke and Anakin get a pass on, Rey is raked over the coals for. Is everyone who dislikes Rey a misogynist? Not even close. Some don't like her because Finn was used as a prop for her story. Some people don't like her because she got sucked into Kylo Ren's story too much. Some just don't care for the way she was written for other reasons. Some just don't vibe with her. It's fine. Nothing is a monolith. And to circle this back around to what you're talking about--it's hard to judge, both because no part of fandom is a monolith in their reactions, but also because we're only hearing from a selection of the fans. How do you know how many people who aren't fans of the prequels, who just don't care for them because it's not their genre, but just go about their day? You don't hear from a lot of them because they moved on to things they do like, so it seems like they must not exist--except, they do, and they're just out there doing things they like more. We only hear from the people who feel the need to tell others they dislike the prequels for this reason or that reason, some valid, some less valid, etc. Ultimately, I do think there's probably a fair amount of genre dissonance for why people dislike the prequels and channel that into "they're objectively bad" and get defensive when people like them and say they were great, but only because that's true of anything anywhere. But that it's only one small slice of the bigger picture (and there's a lot of stuff that I had to eschew in the writing of this response as well because it can be a pretty sprawling topic), where there are tons of reasons and reactions that people have, as well as they're perfectly free to dislike the prequels for whatever reason they do or don't have, it doesn't really affect my opinions, unless they're trying to shove it in my face or are being a dick to those who disagree with them.

#lumi.txt #idk how to tag this

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absolutebl · 2 years

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I seem to have fallen into a BL black hole and have completely stopped reading (I usually read at least 50 books a year)… do you have any good queer novel recs to get me back on track? Bonus if any of them have a seme/uke dynamic! (I don’t mean thai BL novels, the translations are so awful I can’t cope with them)

Right there with you, BL killed my reading. But I did once read a ton of m/m.

So this is interesting because a seme/uke doesn't play well with m/m romance readers (in the US market at least). Also the more seme/uke the book the less genuinely queer friendly the writing. A romance author who writes this dynamic probably came from the slash side, identifies as straight, and is unlikely to be in touch with modern queer culture.

M/M Books for BL Fans

The only book I know of off the top of my head that strictly and intentionally is written with traditional yaoi tropes in mind and strong seme/uke but in English is:

Tokyo Stars by Gage Lively - and actually it works pretty well for what it's trying to do. Very classic Japanese Yaoi but in m/m novel form.

M/m authors that touch on some of the tropes? These are gonna range in heat levels and queer friendliness, and a few of them aren’t the most fantastic writers (but they are better than Thai in translation).

Christmas Kitsch by Amy Lane - friends2lovers, poor little rich kid, sunshine, hurt/comfort, coming of age, trigger for depression & family rejection. It’s a GREAT book. For fans of: I Told Sunset About You

My Hero by Max Vos - this is what we all wanted from Water Boyy.

Steamroller by Mary Calmes - nerd/jock, obsession, very high heat. For fans of FighterTutor Why R U? (Mary Calmes’ style is extremely addictive, she writes mostly adult characters but she does tend to have a strict top/bottom kinda seme/uke thing going on. Because, I’m pretty sure, she comes out of early slash fanfic.)

Frat Boy and Toppy by Anne Tenino - kinky, nerd/jock, bit dirty, coming out. For fans of TharnType.

Him by Sarina Bowen and Elle Kennedy - sports romance, pining since childhood, complicated back story, hurt comfort, grumpy/sunshine, well done and popular book. For fans of We Best Love.

Valor on the Move by Keira Andrews - bodyguard trope, age gap. FBI agent falls in love with the president’s youngest son. For fans of Golden Blood of course.

A Fool and His Manny by Amy Lane - childhood proximity (close to stepbrothers), younger boy pines for older boy, fantastic family dynamics. For fans of Lovely Writer.

Prefer Taiwanese Gritty BL?

If you like the harsher stuff and you want your leads to suffer seriously for their pay out...

Racing for the Sun by Amy Lane - friends2lovers, hurt-comfort, military, criminal activities, trigger for abuse and violence

Yes but hella QUEER?

If you want strong story, paranormal elements, (more like 1000 Stars, He’s Coming to Me, or Until We Meet Again) but with great queer rep then try author R Cooper. They are amazeballs.

Please don’t ask me about Red, White, & Royal Blue.

Links are to Amazon because I’m a lazy putz. Pay the fucking author, don’t steal these. Some of them are only on Amazon, but most of them are wide.

(source)

#mm book recs #thai bl #taiwanese bl #bl books #bl novels #gay romance #amy lane #I Told Sunset About You #water boyy the series #water boyy #why r U?#fighter turtor #TharnType #We Best Love #Golden Blood #Lovely Writer #he's coming to me #Until We Meet Again #R Cooper

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akajustmerry · 2 years

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Hey Merry, I hope you're doing well.

Sorry that I'm spamming you with this but could you maybe give advice to someone who's identified as a lesbian for many years but recently started questioning it? I'm really scared what would people think if I started dating a man. I feel like a fraud. Being queer is such an important aspect of my identity and also as a sa survivor it always deeply offended me when people assumed I'm only dating women bc of my past trauma. But now that I'm on the path of healing I think it's possible that I buried these feelings in myself bc of it. I'm also scared that my lgbt friends would think I don't deserve to be in the community anymore. I'm writing this to you bc I'm looking up to you in many ways and you make me believe it's ok to be bi and not in any way inferior to being gay. There are so many negative assumptions about bi people, I feel like it would be 'easier' for me to stop entertaining these thoughts and stick to this label...

If you don't feel like answering this question it's completely ok. Thank you for doing what you do (esp. gayv club) and take care. xx

hello!

i am so sorry you're struggling so much, but honestly what you're saying is really brave considering everything you've experienced and i think it's really amazing.

among many things, labels are there to help. just like any other element of ourselves they can also change over time. they're not binding contracts. they're outfits, something we can and do change when they no longer fit right. not everyone is born knowing their perfect fit. some of us take a while to find the right label. there's an attitude on this site that changing labels is bad and messy but real life is rarely so neat and one size doesn't fit all.

i'm not an sa survivor, so won't speak to the specifics of your healing, but i am really proud of how far you've come. healing and what that looks like is different for everyone. anyone with half a lick of decency would be happy for what you've discovered about yourself as you've healed. if your lgbt friends can't see that, they're probably not very good friends.

internalised biphobia and biphobia within the lgbt community is very real and i won't sugar coat that for you. there will be people who will say that your interest in men makes you less queer. these people are biphobic and are undeserving of your friendship. but rest assured there are still loads of lgbt folks who aren't biphobic. bisexuals and our experiences with gender and attraction are inherently queer. bisexuals have always been a part of lgbt movements and were at the forefront of its formation. that's a history to be proud of and a history that ties bisexuals to queer history as much as any other identity within the lgbt community.

i mean this sincerely and i know it sounds corny, but its not worth pretending to be something you aren't. ignoring yourself will make you unhappy and even if being bi is just something you personally recognise just for yourself and take your time coming out to others, that's okay. there's no wrong way to be bi, your journey is yours and the people who really care about you will be happy for you.

also, if you maybe use the bi label/try being with men, etc and find its not for you and you are actually a lesbian, that's cool too! try on all the outfits until you find one that fits. better to know than not. bi.org is a great site with tonnes of free resources to help out people questioning.

i'm really chuffed that you trust me with this question and i hope i've helped. thank you for your kind words about the pod and my work! x

#bisexuality #bi tag #lgbt

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androgynousblackbox · 3 years

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have you seen the latest RaM episode? I was hoping to see if you had any thoughts about it! I really liked the exploration and the going off the gotdamb rails with the decoys. Also that scene with rick just. dick out and making morty peek at his ass for No actual reason sndhs

Don't forget the fact that his family didn't questioned for a single second that it should be MORTY the one to look into Rick's ass, like there was never anyone else but Morty who should be do it. It was gross, sure, but also such a... "guys would be guys" moment but not in the violent/toxic way but on the silly and unnecesary way, you know? Like Morty called it "punishment" and, sure, nobody wants to be farted into their face, but I can see Rick pulling a similar move on just any friend he feels like pranking to and, on a way, that was kinda wholesome. Okay, so I am going to pour my thoughts about this and the other episode as I usually do here so bear with me: -The fact that Summer IMMEDIATELY picked on what could go wrong about the whole decoy thing, and Rick has to aknowledge that Summer was smarter than this on this regard. This to me is talking again about how Summer IS actually smarter, emotional and socially wise (meaning with interelationships at least), that she could tell that if one Rick thinking he is not a decoy was going to make decoys then of course other Ricks would have the same idea. But Rick never saw this coming because he was only thinking of the decoys as instruments to be used and disposed, even as he was giving them actual personalities and filled their memories with real ones. He never considered they could go on to make their own because, well, they are not This Rick and this Rick is the smartest man in the universe, the guy that unironically think himself to be god, so OBVOUSLY think only HE would be capable of pulling that off. -The fact the immediately after a Rick wins while proclaiming himself "not a man, I am god!" only to be killed by what is essentially JUST A TOY, some little creature that was MEANT to be killed but got pissed when nobody did it. A literal "god" got eliminated for something fucking mundane that didn't even had to do with the main conflict. He doesn't even understand WHY this little dude just killed him, he died with uncertainty, and if that isn't the most human experience ever then I don't know. -With this episode and the first one, I HOPE this season is going to be about desconstructing Rick thinking himself above anything else. I said this before, but I don't trust fans who truly believe Rick is entitled to do anything he wants and be shitty with everyone because he is smart. It seems to be like these two episode literally adressed that kind of attitude by putting Rick on situations where not even he can get out of and revealing he is, in fact, still just a flawed human being. A major criticism that many people have levered against the show is that yes, we know Rick is sad and miserable, but the show still goes out of it's way to keep making him win on anything he wants (most of the time at least) and thus is signaling to the audience the idea that he is always right, that he should be always right, because he has the power to do anything he wants. The very first episode start with Rick about to fucking die with all his regrets ("I am a silly man, a silly old man") and then he is saved BY MORTY. If it wasn't because of Morty being there that would be it, they both would be gone. -The previous season was already descontructing Rick as the patriarch of the house and show how nobody "needs him" on the same way they needed him on the first season. The only character you could argue still gives a fuck about Rick's approval/recognition is Summer, but even then Summer was never submissive and passive like Season One Morty was to Rick, instantly believing anything he said. Plus, we all know that Rick COULD take Summer on all his adventures and she would never complain about it because she doesn't give a fuck about school anyway. But he still insist on taking Morty instead, despite his protests, because he just likes Morty better than Summer and he does not take well with Morty not relying on him. I don't fucking buy the whole "cancelling brain waves" excuse anymore because, come on, there is a million ways in which Rick could circunvent that problem if he wanted to

but he just prefers keep Morty around. -On the first episode Rick literally says "let me deus ex machina out of here". Deus ex machina literally means the hand of god because in ancient greek mythology many plays would have an element of a literal hand coming from the sky to take the characters out of any problem they are in. And it didn't worked! He needed Mr Nimbus to save them. Because he is not fucking god, and the show is finally showing us concrete evidence of this, while Rick is still the only one with this delusion on his head and this delusion is part of his downfall. The whole second episode is nothing else but Rick's ego fucking him in the ass, literally killing him over and over again. -Beth was GREAT rejoicing on Rick's existential crisis and she fucking deserved that moment, I am glad they gave it to her. -The way so many of the decoys decided to react to knowing they were decoys was so amazing. Like yeah, a majority of them decided to be all "oh no, there can only be one", but many other just off themselves because they couldn't handle not being The Original, insisting to the last moment that they MUST be the original because, well, that is what they think, and then other decoys were just ready to accept death because they had accepted there was no other way. -The only wish of Summer to be on the ocean was... so wholesome? Like it made for a beautiful scene in general, but then they dying hand by hand and just happy to be together, Rick apoligizing to Morty because they couldn't make his wish come true, such a good moment. -The fact that all those Ricks made decoys purely out of a sincere desire to protect his family, it's just great. It was still selfish to basically create life with the only purpose of it being destroyed, but it was motivated as another security measure to protect others, not just himself. -The skin wearing Rick on the swamps talking about "a Rick must provide for his family". Ricks CARE about their family so much. -The puppet Smits were so cute, I loved their voices. -THE MUPPET SMITHS. Even if it was nothing but a costume, it was cute and I want them on Pocket Mortys. -This scene is a Call Me By Your Name reference and nobody tells me otherwise:

As I explained on a server: 1. Italian. The movie happens on Italy. 2. Pool. Many crucial scenes include a pool. 3. Age difference. If they just wanted to imply Morty was flirting they could have used just an older teenager, they didn't need a literal hunk that kinda looks like the older character on the movie. 4. THERE IS FUCKING PEACHES ON THE FOREFRONT. If anyone saw Call me by your name, they know they literally fucked a peach at some point and then the love interest EATS IT ANYWAY. And what does it look like the guy Morty is with is eating? PEACHES. 5. Parents are watching and don't give a fuck. 6. I have decided. -Regardless if it's a reference or not, though, is still pretty fucking gay. -I have seen some fans theorizing that the Smith family we see in the end with Space Beth was our own, and at first I thought so too because they are with Space Beth but then I was... wait a minute, ALL Beth decoys knew there was a Space Beth. They went out of their way to show us this by always having Beth being the one who insisted that no decoy had to die, because she knew what was to feel like a copy. When Rick decided to make another family exactly as his own, he also made HIMSELF expendable and interchangeable. We don't need thirty Smith families, the show only needs one and it doesn't matter which one is it as long is one we can recognize. Why couldn't that have been another decoy family that just so happened to want to do a space trip while all the bullshit was happening? I don't think they are ever going to confirm if this was our original Smith family or don't, just like they won't confirm which Beth is the clone, but I personally think it would be fucking hilarious if they were a decoy and Our Rick just died thinking he was a decoy. -Also the way that Space Beth was just casually putting an arm around Morty made me so happy. Considering that Beth is also the mother who prefered to save Summer over Morty when their lives were in danger, I really like the idea that Space Beth sees how much Morty has grown and is proud of him for becoming a badass himself without Rick's help. That is just my headcanon though, but wouldn't be nice to have SOMEONE appreciate Morty? -Finally, but not less important... Rick knew Morty uses a yosemite shirt in order to cum. This man literally knew about the masturbatory habits of his grandson. Rick went as far on his desire to protect his family he used that knowledge for the decoys. He also told Morty to not fuck his double, which is a nice little reference to Morty literally doing that on the comics but also a subtle way to tell us that Morty is definitely Not Straight because, yeah, I am fucking counting selfcest as a form of queerness because regardless of everything else, that is still two identifying male characters fucking. We only need Beth showing attraction to some female character and the entire Smith family would be officially pan/bi.

#rick and morty spoilers #andro is talking

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coldtomyflash · 3 years

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I've seen your speech pattern analysis on Flash characters. I was wondering if you had any advice on how to create speech patterns for OC characters?

oh heck this is one of the coolest questions i’ve ever received.

i’m gonna try not to go overboard/overwhelming and just give a bit of advice, and then if you want more details please come back and follow up!

There’s a few things to think about up front with character voices / speech patterns. The biggest and most obvious is language and cultural background. The second is personality. The third is personal history. Fourth, briefly, is gender. And the final one I’d say is idiosyncrasies to avoid ‘same voice’.

Culture and Group Dynamics

Depending on the setting, there’s a decent chance you’ll be writing characters from different cultural backgrounds. Even if you’re focusing on a single culture, there will be subcultures. Even if you’re focusing on a single narrow group of people, there will be age and generational differences.

Think about where your character is from. If it’s a fantasy world, that’s still (and even more, in some ways) important. What country, what ethnicity, what mother tongue? Did they grow up urban or rural? High socio-economic status or working class? What sort of educational background and peer group did they have growing up (and presently) and how does that factor into their vocabulary and mannerisms, if at all.

All of these can influence how people talk. There are regional accents and different modes of speaking to signal your group membership. There is code-switching across groups, for those who have had to learn multiple linguistics codes to survive and thrive in society.

How much slang does this group and therefor this character use? What references (modern, outddated, topical, etc) do the rely on? What kind of references (pop culture, music, academic, etc)? What colloquialisms and proverbs do they say? Are these the same or different to their characters, even within the same culture, subculture, or group, and is it because they’re from a different place/sub-group or because of their idiosyncrasies?

You can use these to help your reader get to know more about your character’s background without having to spell it all out directly. Speech patterns and style are a great way to show instead of tell when it comes to details that are hard to drop in organically in other ways.

An important caveat: don’t write a bilingual character who switches languages in speech unless you’re ready to do a bit of research on that. In AATJS I did an absolutely horrific job of this because I was thinking more about fronting the fact that character was Italian rather than thinking through how people actually talk, and it came out exotifying and embarrassing. It’s important to make sure that the way you use language to bring in a character’s cultural and/or ethnic background feels authentic and manifests is a way that respects that language and its users. You can write a character with a complex cultural history without using multiple languages if you’re unprepared to do research and talk to bilingual speakers.

Personality

Probably the most salient thing in a writer’s mind when they’re trying to write character voices: is this the funny character? the serious one? the brainy one? etc.

Don’t overuse stereotypes and archetypes for creating speech patterns (or characters in general) if you’re trying to make a rounded, 3-dimensional character. Instead, go about three levels deeper.

Think about whether they’re introverted or extraverted, whether they are neurotypical or neurodivergent, whether they are introspective enough to express their own emotions clearly or whether they stumble when asked why they did a particular thing or feel a particular way (most people don’t or can’t clearly articulate exactly why they did something or how they feel, and come at things a bit sideways to circle around their motives and interior realities when pressed to make them external and concretely verbal).

Is this character calm, is their voice soothing, do they speak slowly? Are they excitable and loud and is their speech free-flowing? Are they angry? Do they swear? Do they use references for humour or are they more into puns? Do they laugh at their own jokes? Do they talk with their hands?

This character has social anxiety: how does that manifest in her speech? Does she clam up and get very quiet when she gets nervous, or does she go rapidfire and a little too loud (does she process by turning in or by distracting herself by turning outward)? Does she get very careful and deliberate in choosing her words (is she a bit high-strung?)? Ask yourself which fits best with the other elements of her personality and what you want the reader to know/interpret about her.

This character is incredibly smart and a bit awkward: how does that manifest in their speech? Do they tend to use 5-dollar words, or do they expend a lot of energy choosing their words more carefully (how considerate are they to their audience when speaking and does that influence their speech)? Do they stumble over their words and explaining things, or are they good at making points with clear language learned from a lifetime of tutoring and helping others?

This character is the bff, who tries hard to make sure everyone else is happy first: how does that manifest in his speech? How does he switch between his happy-mask versus his more authentic self, and what changes in tone, word-choice, and inflection come in when he does?

Personal History

I’m only drawing a distinction between this and personality (archetype, really) so that I can draw attention to ways to add simultaneously unique and shared layers to characters that are distinct but related to group dynamics.

Here’s sort of what I mean: the level of education of a mother (or primary caregiver) of an infant can determine that infant’s vocabulary size. While we can break down all the ��why is that’ layers to this, the one I want to point is to the simple truth that the more education a person does, the more specialized language they end up learning over time. This doesn’t have to be formal education though -- the more you learn about something and the more you read and access new knowledges and perspective, the more and more words you learn, and then if you start using those words, they trickle down to those close to you.

So.

What’s your character’s educational background? Is it the same as their friends who you are also writing? Is the same as their family’s? How does this character’s family influence their speech? Are they formal, informal, warm, authoritative?

If you’re writing siblings, they’ll have some shared things! But also some very different ones! Me and my sister talk nothing alike in terms of vocabulary, but a lot alike in terms of mannerisms whenever we spend a bit of time together!

If your characters grew up around each other, they’ll have a lot of the same references. People from the same cities or regions will have things specific to that region, either due to sub-culture effects or because of local references.

The city of Calgary, Canada for instance has the Plus15 which are a connected pedway system between the buildings in downtown, so named because they are 15feet above the ground. Drive 3 hours north to the city of Edmonton, and you have an underground pedway just called the pedways, no special name. Go a few provinces east to Toronto and their underground pedway system downtown is called PATH. These are all known to locals and part of the vernacular, but are opaque to people outside those cities. And the whole idea of them is probably opaque to people who aren’t from super cold cities that don’t require building-connecting pedway systems for pedestrians to get around high-density areas like downtown (or university campuses) without going out into the cold.

Friends, families, and groups are like that too. In-jokes, shared histories, speaking in references. What are your characters’ relationships to each other and how does that history influence the way they approach talking to each other?

Gender

I don’t want to spend too much time on this one because ugh, gender. What even is it?

But like it or not, it has an impact on our speech patterns. There are cultural and societal norms in how men and women are likely to speak, and breaking those norms will be noticed regardless of whether you’re trans, enby, queer, or not. There are norms that people who are queer may fall into as well, sometimes without even noticing at first. A lot of these aren’t about word choice per se but instead about mannerisms and tone and body language, but some overlap or are specific to language.

Speaking in broad generalizations here, women use more emotional language and tend to speak with more hesitancies/qualifications. So more “i think, i feel” and less “it is”. More conversations that front emotions and dig deeper into those, with longer sentences to explain in detail. The obvious caveat is that personality matters more (i.e., is this a person who likes to talk about their emotions in detail or not) but it is something to consider because there will be general but subtle differences that you can use to help further distinguish your characters’ voices.

Sidenote: this can also be exacerbated by different cultural backgrounds and languages (a simple example is Japanese which has different words for “I” depending on your gender as well as your personality, familiarity with the other persons in the conversation, and situational appropriateness, so interesting ways that gender and social expectations intersect in language).

Anyway this isn’t typically a huge problem except that I’ve found that a lot of writers have a tendency to overgeneralize the speech patterns that fit with their ascribed gender due to early-life socialization, or conversely to overgeneralize patterns that fit with their gender identity (when not cis) either due to heavily identifying with their gender identity’s speech model (or sometimes possibly due to a knee-jerk sort of backlash). I say this as an enby who both struggles with it and notices it and tries to edit and correct for it.

I could get into all sorts of examples of ways this can lead to voice issues, but in general i think the point here is to make sure you’re writing any given character in view of that character’s personality and history, with gender only as a modifier for how some of these might come out in subtle ways but which can be important to help tell us about your character (and if you’re writing queer characters, it’s all the more important to consider how their relationship with gender and socialization might impact which speech models and styles they identify more with).

Idiosyncrasies

So, you’ve got a character. You’ve got their personality and history down. You know how they manifest in their speech. And you’re still getting some ‘same voice’ issues.

People really are unique snowflakes. Let that be reflected in their speech.

This person uses contractions differently than that one. This one says “ain’t” and that one says “isn’t.”

This person makes Simpsons references and that one doesn’t like Simpsons, and makes Brooklyn Nine Nine references instead. That other one doesn’t use referential humour much at all. This one loves old movies and hasn’t seen any of the new stuff so they make references all the time but no one ever notices.

This one loves the word “excoriate” and that one doesn’t even know what it means because what the hell, who uses the word excoriate?

This one talks about food a lot, it overlaps with their interests. This one uses metaphors. This one grunts in response. This one exclaims. This one says “like” and that one hates it. That one refers to themselves in third person. This other one uses reflective language an usual amount (e.g., “love me some candy”). This other one keeps misusing the word inconceivable and that one speaks almost without contractions but still comes off as more charming and humorous while correcting him.

I have an aunt who says “girl” or “girlfriend” a fuck-ton and she has been my whole life and I don’t know why because none of her sisters do, but she does and it annoys me so much the way she says it. I swear a lot when I’m feeling casual despite never ever doing it in a professional or even slightly-less-than-relaxed space, so the idiosyncrasy of comfort levels has a massive impact on my vocabulary in ways which, I promise, almost no one who meets me first in a professional space expect.

Let your characters be individuals and try to make them as unique as possible without overdoing it, or over-relying on a single verbal tendency or habit.

And ... that’s all I’ve got for now. Completely failed at being concise. I meant to give like 2-3 bullet points or examples for each, not paragraphs, but here we are. That’s one of my verbal tendencies: long flowing verbosity :)

Hope this helps!

#speech patterns #speech analysis #phyn writes #writing advice #writing #OC's #writing reference #didn't edit so apologies for typos i'm sure i'll come back at some point #Anonymous

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booksandwords · 3 years

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Autoboyography by Christina Lauren

Read time: 2 Days Rating: 4/5

The quote: This is how we reveal ourselves: these tiny flashes of discomfort, the reactions we can’t hide. — Tanner Scott

Autoboyography is a wonderful book that enjoys a lot of praise. I really enjoyed it. This review ended up being quite lengthy. I have chosen to focus largely on the characters of Autoboyography which I really appreciated. This is a well thought out and designed story, intended to provoke thought in readers. Not just about religion and relationships but maybe about themselves a bit. It deals with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints referred to as LDS with at least some dignity, more than is normal.

The opening is great, a walk through the relevant parts of Tanner's life and clarification on the LDS. Some stereotypes are displayed, these are still high school students. The LDS we all think of are those on their Mission. The pacing of the plot is at least reasonable, it fits the relationship. Especially after the line "You've always led with your heart first and your heart second, but I need you to think about this one." (Jenna to Tanner, p 100). There are a couple of moments that are questionable. A convenient change in the enrolment numbers for the Seminar (14 to 15), one frequently mentioned moments comes to nothing. The plot is described as Tanner falling in love with Sebastian, which just feels right it really is that simple and that complicated. The ending feels right. An HFN was almost certain but it was the journey that I was unsure of and really enjoyed.

Characters are multidimensional and of their circumstances. With Emily and Jenna wholly distrustful to the point of nearly hating LDS due to their previous experiences with it. Paul knows what could have been and knows the situation his son his in, as well as his familial history having a role to play. Due to the differences between the families, Tanner and Sebastian don't face the same concerns or restrictions within their relationship, though both have the same source to a degree. Tanner's family objects to Sebastian's religion. Sebastian's family stringently objects to same-sex relationships. Autoboyography is one of those books that shows love in multiple forms. Familial, in different forms. Romantic between the protagonists, it's complicated and messy. Platonic between friends and unrequited love as well. Autoboyography has some wonderful quotes about love, faith, family and friendship.

Tanner 'Tann' Scott is a bi, senior and transplant to Provo, Utah from Palo Alto, California, a move that put him firmly back in the closet. Even his best friend, the brilliant Autumn doesn't know his true sexuality. His parents are extremely supportive of his sexuality but don't want him to get hurt in the very Mormon town he now lives in. His subject strengths are in the math/science stream. he's an honors student essentially with his pick of universities. After accepting a challenge to join the Seminar, a semester-long book writing course he is introduced to local celebrity Sebastian Brother. Tann's attraction to Sebastian is instantaneous "His smile ruins me." (Tanner, p 22) which is a great line, I remember being bowled over like that. His fast movement from infatuation to love is interesting to read. Tanner is helpless to resist even though he knows he should (Sebastian is in the same position there). His coping mechanisms are sometimes healthy, sometimes destructive, reading both in the same character added a great depth. I quite like Tanner, because of how this book his written I could feel his anger and pain.

Sebastian 'Seb' Brother is a published author tutoring the Seminar Tan is in. After the semester is over he goes on book tour than on his two year Mission. While he is attracted to men, he doesn't identify as gay. His father is the local Bishop as such his family are expected to lead by example in both word and deed. Seb's family are very welcoming and accepting of Tann when they meet him. Sebastian's experimentation and reluctance to label (and hair-splitting) were extremely off-putting. I've been known to DNF a book for less, despite what I said earlier, that was more about Tann's reaction rather than Seb's choices. "I'm not gay, I'm not straight, I'm me" (Sebastian, p 224). The very thing that makes him off-putting makes him a great character, it's the circumstances and expectation (familial and communal) that make the person. He also has a hidden passion that is shown only at the right times but it was definitely needed, and it, not a small streak either.

In the support cast, there is a standout. Auddy. Autumn Summer Green. Tann's best friend, she is ride or die but with a complication. Those unhealthy coping mechanisms I was mentioning, they relate to her. My one question about her is how can she be so beautiful and accepting of everything that happens? It's not passivity she's just a really well written best friend. But Tann's family are great. There is a lot going on there. Full acceptance of Tann's sexuality, but wanting to protect him from the pain they experienced. "How would this be any different from his parents saying guys are off-limits?" "It's completely different. Among a hundred other reasons, going to church is a choice.. Being bisexual is simply who you are I'm protecting you from the toxic messages of the church." (Tanner and Jenna, p 99).

One of the minor problematic elements in Autoboyography is a sense of abuse between Tanner and Sebastian. It's psychological, not physical and it called out but not in words. Some people won't have an issue with it due to the context but I did. Your identity is your own if Sebastian (or a real-life person) wants to live their life according to a religious doctrine rather that is their prerogative. There is of course the larger issues of homophobia. The LDS elements may be an issue for some readers. It is core to the plot and cannot be ignored. Those with a particular issue or history with such religions/ doctrines/ cults should read with care. I make no judgements on organised religion here.

Reading the acknowledgements I read something interesting. "We started talking about this book years ago; Cristina worked in a junior high counselling office in Utah, and Saw teen after teen coming through who honestly believed, devastatingly, that their parents would probably rather have a dead child than a gay one. As a woman who grew up bi in the queer-friendly world of the Bay-Area, Lauren felt a social obligation to reach out to teens whose experiences weren't as easy". I like that this is where Autoboyography came from. Built on their experiences with at-risk teens. Given this was the source of the idea I love the inclusion a resource section. The Song of Achilles is entirely unsurprisingly, it is hugely popular and stunning. Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe has been on my tbr for far too long. The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert is an absolute classic and is also a brilliant stage musical. LGBTQ Reads I'd never heard of but it's really good. If I may add my own recommendations; The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue by Mackenzi Lee (it's my purple pride book) and Cemetry Boys by Aiden Thomas (own voice Trans POC).

#autoboyography #christina lauren #book review #lgbtq #ktreviews #young adult

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