starting to suspect that tech bros actually just don’t know what reading is

Okay spoilers for ssp1 and ssp2 here, so if you haven’t read them both and want to avoid spoilers, keep scrolling (and also blacklist the tags if you want to save yourself spoiler pain in the future!)

It’s fascinating to me how obviously these books were written in a global pandemic. Like, obviously we knew that, but I’m so interested in the way that influence is showing up in the books.

In Tress of the Emerald Sea, we start the story with a girl who Does Not Leave Home, under order of the government. Breathing the air outside of her home is Definitely Fatal, and there are many variations on the Very Fatal Things you could inhale. People wear masks to protect themselves, but it’s hardly exact protection. You’ve even got people with a long-term version of the spores living under their skin until they die, in the form of the aethers. Tress is a pandemic novel, where the spores are covid, and someone is risking exposure for the sake of someone they love.

The Frugal Wizard’s Handbook For Surviving Medieval England is a mouthful of a title. BUT it also has some really interesting influences too! Right at the start of the book, we learn that the main character is a cop- and we learn it in the most copaganda series of sentences I think I’ve ever read. Then later, we learn he is not a cop, but his friend is, and that friend is subsequently portrayed as Absolutely Perfect Person Arbiter Of Justice. Then later, we see that the cop-friend is just a bastard in so many ways. Through Ulric and the whole idea of buying dimensions, we see capitalism ruthlessly profiting off of people who have no say, usually making their lives actively worse for money or entertainment. We see medical tech that can protect you from terrible diseases, and we get hints of people who refuse to use it.

To me, ssp2 (NOT typing that title again) shows so much of what was happening culturally during lockdown. ACAB, with a bastard cop character throwing locals and “losers” in harm’s way, when the other characters want so desperately to believe that there is someone doing actual justice in a fucked up world. Vaccines, and antivaxxers. Killing entire dimensions of people who don’t have a say for the sake of a profit SURE SMELLS LIKE THE WAY ESSENTIAL WORKERS WERE TREATED.

Idk, I just think that it’s very fascinating to see the way that the pandemic is so present in these novels if you scratch even a little bit beneath the surface

Little guy with a big flag

Just another little Toothless pride doodle

No means No, even if it's a big name author with tons of lawyers behind them. When they say "please don't show me fan fic," that's enough, and, if they give more detail about why, you don't get to judge whether you think they're telling the truth or not

To clarify: I saw a post where someone said they didn't believe that Big Name Authors were genuinely afraid of being sued, but that instead they were just snobs who hated fanfic and thought saying "oh no I could get sued" was more polite than sharing their true feelings

Another author shared a detailed, eloquent explanation of what a bad take that was, and all of the points were 100% valid

but

No Means No

and I was just so baffled that the OP was more willing to spin a tale of authors all agreeing to the same lie about not wanting to get sued so they could hide their disdain for their fans, than just respecting the requests not to do it

Authors who hate fanfic are not afraid to say so.

Authors who love fanfic are not afraid to say so.

We are not collectively in the business of lying for free. We get paid for that. So no, we're not running a mass conspiracy to lie to you about our feelings.

i fucking hate this trend online where someone will mention a stereotype or a dog whistle- i.e. jewish people and goblins. for example. someone will say “[game, persons opinion, media, etc] uses the stereotype of a money hungry goblin- which is an antisemitic stereotype” and theyll get a bunch of fucking reply guys and devils advocates in their replies going “WOW YOU SAW GOBLINS AND YOUR FIRST THOUGHT WAS OF JEWISH PEOPLE??? so you think jewish people are goblins! who’s the REAL antisemite??? i am very smart.” like you are dumb as all fucking hell actually being able to recognize stereotypes and dog whistles and point them out is in now way agreeing with them. are you fucking stupid. genuinely.

i once saw someone point out that it’s a prevalent radfem rhetoric that trans women are “men in dresses” and the first reply was “SO YOU THINK TRANS WOMEN ARE MEN IN DRESSES???” and i wanted to blow my brains out.

Climate change is real and happening faster than scientists thought.

inverse of the Australian experience of "using the particulate respirator you got for the bushfires during the pandemic"

Is there one Jewish person making weird accusations of antisemitism who isn't a Zionist? Just one, there has to be at least one

This is what I was talking about, you see a claim that a thing is antisemitic, that to a normal person seems exaggerated; and then it turns out the person making the claim is a Zionist so the claim probably WAS exaggerated.

This is exhausting, it's frustrating; there's so much antisemitism happening, the USA going full Nazi; and you also have to deal with weirdos who think Vampires are antisemitic

Is everyone criticizing you for cultural appropriation actually a Zionist or are you just using Zionism as a byword for "Jew I don't agree with"? Because "Zionist" is the most widely misused term by antisemites who want to discredit the people pointing out their antisemitism.

Also, considering that this whole thing started with you getting offended that people were pointing out how appropriating an aspect of Jewish culture (Lilith) is cultural appropriation, it sounds like your benchmark for "normal people" are the missionizing Christians who hold Christian seders and insist that everything to do with seders was actually about Jesus this whole time

Oh, also this:

Hi I'm an Eastern European with an interest in CEE and Slavic folklore. Vampires originated from Slavic folklore and only really spread to the West in the 1800s. Vampires absolutely are not the European aristocracy; sometimes reviled nobles were accused of being vampires or just generally of drinking blood, and later on Western writers preferred to depict their vampires as wealthy nobles, but that's not the same as vampires flat-out being the European nobility

And while they probably didn't originate as an antisemitic trope, if you don't believe that the unholy blood-drinking monsters could possibly have a history of being used as allegories for a group of people often accused of being unholy, blood-drinkers, and monstrous, I don't know what to tell you

"Worshiping this Jewish Demon if you're not Jewish is antisemitc" is not a take I ever expect it to see in my life, but here we are

It's cultural appropriation.

The biggest issue is that the people who worship Lillith came up with the narrative that Lillith was a positive entity before the patriarchal Jews change her to a demoness because they fear and hate woman.

Do I need to explain why this narrative is antisemitic?

This narrative is also completly false. The myth of Lillith the singular demoness developed from earlier myths where about a whole class of demons. Specifically, as their Name suggests, the Lilliot (plural form of Lillith) were nocturnal demons. And we know that older culture in the middle east also had demons of similar kinds such as the Akadian Lilu that most likely inspired the Jewish myths.

Oh my god another one? Don't you guys have hobbies? Something other than tell people that demons are antisemitic?

So... someone explained to you how taking a figure from a closed religious tradition that is not your own and misrepresenting said figure is cultural appropriation... and your response was to ridicule them and accuse them of having too much time on their hands? 5 points for asshollery

And yeah the narrative used to justify this cultural appropriation is both historically inaccurate and demonizes Jewish people. Historical revisionism with the intent of making Jewish people look evil so that you don't have to feel guilty about appropriating their culture isn't just antisemitism, it's multiple different antisemitic tropes that go back to 2nd Century Christianity rolled into one

"Worshiping this Jewish Demon if you're not Jewish is antisemitc" is not a take I ever expect it to see in my life, but here we are

That's not what I said. What I said was, "talking over Jews who are telling you it's a CLOSED PRACTICE to cite REDDIT of all things is antisemitic." If people of a culture say "this is a closed thing," and you, a person outside that culture, correct them, there's a problem.

Try reading next time. It will help you.

This post was about the other person, and I realized later I misunderstood what you were saying; I thought you were telling the OP she was wrong for worshiping demons and that worshiping demons is antisemitic, then I realized you only meant it for Gentiles.

Still, this is about demon worship.

There are demons that don't belong to closed or semi-closed religious traditions, you know. And saying "this is about demon worship" comes off as shockingly dismissive and is also not the fucking point. The discussion is one side saying "hey worshipping this figure is appropriative, maybe don't do it" and you responding "but I don't WANNA be respectful of other people's cultures!" and demon-worship is only relevant to the conversation because that's what the people doing the appropriation are doing it for

Lilith is the demon responsible for miscarriages, still births, and SIDS. We have enchantments to keep her away from our babies.

Yes, JEWISH feminists have reclaimed her.

Most Jews just see her as a demon who kills babies. Why would you want to "work with" an evil being whose entire purpose is stealing and murdering infants?

I kinda love this exchange, makes everything seems so... silly

This post is about literal Demon Worshiping.

(Side note, Lilith Worship is apparently not a closed practice)

You're really going to use Reddit as a source to say that Lilith worship is open to everyone, despite multiple Jews telling you it's a CLOSED PRACTICE?

No. Lilith is Jewish, and gentiles shouldn't be touching her. Random "pagans" on Reddit don't get to decide what practices are open and what are closed.

#seriously gtfoh with that antisemitic bullshit#pagan in quotes because most of those people aren't pagan. they're just edgelords#they have no family history in the faith and they subsist entirely on internet articles and tomfoolery#Lilith worship is a closed practice#period. end of.#Judaism#jumblr 

Good tags

So I reported this asshole and IP blocked them, for their intense and blatant antisemitism, but I'm screenshotting and posting this ask because it's a perfect example of what I talked about here: [Link] on my other blog.

I am really open about being an atheist. I am of course really open about being Jewish. I frequently talk about the two in conjuction, and when I talk about Christian cultural hegemony in atheist spaces and antisemitism in atheist spaces, I am talking as a Jewish atheist. But the first thing any gentile atheist who doesn't want to think about antisemitism and Christian cultural hegemony does, is erase my atheism and paint me as the outsider religious person attacking atheists.

And the same thing happens when queer Jews bring up antisemitism in the queer community. Our queerness is erased, and it's "Oh the Jews are such bigots, attacking queer people!" Every time. Intracommunity discussions of antisemitism in communities we belong to, over and over are shut down by gentile members of those communities, painting us as outsiders and interlopers trying to atrack the community. Thank you, Nonny, for providing a perfect example.

Refusing to listen to Jews about their own culture and religion is being antisemitic. Calling Jews names and saying they're being "weird" when they want to protect their mythologies, texts, and practices from appropriation is being antisemitic. Coming up with excuse after excuse for worshipping Lilith when numerous Jews have spoken up about her being Jewish and is therefore closed to gentiles is being antisemitic. You're being antisemitic.

@neil-gaiman did that actually happen to you? Pretty funny nevertheless

It did. Although it was in the advanced readers copy of Neverwhere, so we caught it before it went out to the public. Universal Find and Replace is never your friend.

In my experience, Jewish people who go around calling everything antisemitic and shut down people tend to be Zionists

So you posted this in the Jewish tag, which means you want Jews to see this and know you think all Jews who talk about the pervasive antisemitism we deal with are all dirty Zionists, something that is itself antisemitic. But it got me wondering, what are you up in arms about? What are the evil Zionsts claiming is antisemitc that you say is just their evil Zionism?

Let's look at your posts:

All this is about Lillith and Vampires? Are you serious? This has literally nothing to do with Palestinians, or activism on their behalf, or the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, literally absolutely nothing. There is no reason to bring up Zionism at all, except that you've figured out that calling any Jew who talks about antisemitism a Zionist is a great way to convince people, including yourself, not to listen to them.

I could talk about why you're wrong about vampires, and also why worshiping a figure from a closed practice is appropriative and shitty, but why bother. I am too busy boggling at the fact that you are the platonic ideal of the antisemite who calls any Jew talking about antisemitism, a Zionist. That's it everyone. Go home. This clown is the perfect example.

people trying to insist a fandom is tiny when it /only/ has a few thousand works on ao3 meanwhile my current fandom is a sixteen book series and has several hundred fewer works than goncharov, a movie that, and i cannot stress this enough, doesn’t even exist

#measuring the size of fandoms based on their goncharov index#this has been a useless text post you may now resume your normal programming#rote has a goncharov index of 0.63#for perspective ofmd has an index of 26.5#spn’s is 360.8#the cosmere is 2.26 for a fantasy book comparison#i am very normal

The Goncharov Index, everyone.

Oh! I was looking at stats for this yesterday! On AO3, 72% of fandoms have 10 or less works in them. 98% have 1000 or less works. Only 1% of fandoms have 5000 or more works. So yeah, if your fandom has “a few thousand” works on AO3, you’re in the top 2% of Fandoms, by size. You’re massive.

@athingofvikings

Sir Christopher Lee, 1922-2015.

Served in the Finnish army in 1939, the British Home guard in 1940, and the Royal Air Force 1941-1946; retired a flight lieutenant.

Released heavy metal albums in his 90’s. Appeared in over 250 films and TV movies. Won the Guinness world record for most on-screen sword fights.

He’s Dracula, Saruman, Count Dooku, and Lord Summerisle.

And he makes that mustache work.

Anyways remember that time that JK Rowling, who has never spoken to an indigenous American person in her whole life, was like "but what if the Natives had four schools and they were also bloodthirsty savages who started the residential schools with their fictional beings as their mascots and Christians weren't actually at fault" right at the time when we started getting some traction around getting recognition for the heinous crimes that were the mass graves of children, then went on to make a whole spin-off franchise in America using that """lore""" and rhetoric, where the one wizard guy who tried to stop the Holocaust from happening was villainized and played by Johnny Depp (who played Tonto in the Lone Ranger and said he was going to buy the Black Hills and Wounded Knee and "give it back to Lakota people" then never did that at all) and who she later defended as saying he wasn't a domestic abuser because she believed him over a woman who has since been proven to be telling the truth several times over?

The woman's a violent colonizer.

Hello <3 I deleted this original post but in light of the fact that there's a Twilight TV series reboot/spinoff in the making let's talk about how these women are one and the same in their actions against indigenous American people!

Stephenie Meyer is a Mormon with Mormon views. Mormons have extremely racist ideology embedded within their religious texts about indigenous Americans and Jews - that indigenous people are quite literally the Actual Real Jews (I'm mixed, this is truly insane cult rhetoric). Through the decades the LDS church has successfully funded, advocated, and carried out forced conversion and cultural genocide. THEY ARE THE ONES ACTIVELY TRYING TO OVERTURN ICWA, THE INDIAN CHILD WELFARE ACT.

Her views on this are very, very clearly written into the pages of her books, here's clearer documentation about how she fucked over the Quileutes tribe and the inner workings of white supremacy in the book.

Are you seeing the pattern here? Are you seeing the undercurrent of antisemitism and anti-indigenous racist imperialism?

Get rid of your attachment to these franchises, stop making it a question of what media you will replace it with, get involved with US. We want your allyship and understanding more than these white supremacists even want to think about your humanhood.