“Authors should not be ALLOWED to write about–” you are an anti-intellectual and functionally a conservative

“This book should be taken off of shelves for featuring–” you are an anti-intellectual and functionally a conservative

“Schools shouldn’t teach this book in class because–” you are an anti-intellectual and functionally a conservative

“Nobody actually likes or wants to read classics because they’re–” you are an anti-intellectual and an idiot

“I only read YA fantasy books because every classic novel or work of literary fiction is problematic and features–” you are an anti-intellectual and you are robbing yourself of the full richness of the human experience.

"you are functionally a conservative" is such a good and clarifying insult

Literally right after I saw this post, I saw another post in a discord chat for BOOK EDITORS in which an outspokenly liberal editor talked about how Nabokov should have never been published because he wrote about p*dophiles and described women's bodies in ways that made her uncomfortable. She described his writing as "objectively terrible" and said she wanted to burn his books. And other editors were bringing up classics they didn't like and talking about how they wanted to throw them in the trash. This wasn't like a light "unpopular opinion!" conversation. This was actual book editors talking about how books should be destroyed and censored.

There is something so scary and toxic in global culture right now. The revival of fascism is influencing everyone's mindset and approach to art, regardless of where they fall on the political spectrum.

I see far more books being censored today than when I was a kid. Librarians handed me The Catcher in the Rye, The Sexual Politics of Meat, and Animal Farm when I was literally 8-11. My mom would never have taken a book away from me. I read everything from the Tao Te Ching to the Qur'an to atheist texts under my desk at school. Teachers thought nothing of it or encouraged it. Books seemed universally acknowledged as sacrosanct to me.

Now I can't find any adults who don't hesitate or want to make exceptions when it comes to censorship. Even the most liberal social activist librarians I know go, "well except for book X..."

Functionally conservative. It's so important to have the language to express that.

Thank you for this addition!

I've seen this sort of thing described as a "total war" ideology, and I think it's a pretty apt description

the idea that we're all supposed to be soldiers, shaping every part of our lives around doing what it takes to most effectively Fight The Enemy. that everything you do must be held up to scrutiny, and if anything falls short of what our side might ask for, you're Part Of The Problem

it really is how fascists demand total compliance, just shaped to hijack progressive-sounding ideas. and it's bullshit

i think part of the reason people fall in line with censorship is because everyone has their limit, where they say "no, anything past this line is bad and makes me feel bad." that's normal. so in response to that:

Even if some pieces of media are obviously hateful and i think most reasonable people would/should hate them, it's so so important to be able to confront the ugly parts of humanity. it is impossible to address a problem if you refuse to look at it head on.

like, i was talking yesterday about Song of The South, which i think is a solid contender for containing "objectively bad content," if such a thing exists. do i think it's a particularly artistically valuable movie? not really. do i think it's appropriate for anyone who just wants to enjoy an animated film without getting slapped in the face with romanticized racism and dehumanization? also no. it makes me angry that parts of it have continued to exist for so long with their context stripped.

but it's important. it happened. it harmed people, and that matters. media is a mirror of the world, and when the world is ugly, the media is ugly too. we can't hide that. we can't just talk around it and gesture vaguely at "you know...that" and call it good enough. watch it. remember it. preserve it, so future generations can see our own ugliness and perhaps avoid it. Don't ever try to bury it. The media is the canary, not the coal mine.

i think as adults it's our responsibility to be nice to kids and treat them with the respect we wish we got at that age and im not kidding or exaggerating in the least

I saw a post saying that Boromir looked too scruffy in FotR for a Captain of Gondor, and I tried to move on, but I’m hyperfixating. Has anyone ever solo backpacked? I have. By the end, not only did I look like shit, but by day two I was talking to myself. On another occasion I did fourteen days’ backcountry as the lone woman in a group of twelve men, no showers, no deodorant, and brother, by the end of that we were all EXTREMELY feral. You think we looked like heirs to the throne of anywhere? We were thirteen wolverines in ripstop.

My boy Boromir? Spent FOUR MONTHS in the wilderness! Alone! No roads! High floods! His horse died! I’m amazed he showed up to Imladris wearing clothes, let alone with a decent haircut. I’m fully convinced that he left Gondor looking like Richard Sharpe being presented to the Prince Regent in 1813

And then rocked up to Imladris a hundred ten days later like

Some people have been wondering about the raccoon. Listen. Listennn. Don't ask about the raccoon.

But does the racoon survive the Uruk-Hai? Does he curl up on Aragorn's head, or does he go straight to Faramir? Does he bite Denethor?

My friend. My colleague. My brother my captain my king. I too have been pondering this question, and in my mind there can be only one ultimate outcome.

A few months later

All hail the High Warden of Gondor.

Epilogue: It ADORES Faramir.

I’m going to wear this on my head like a raccoon and show everyone

people who comment on fics just to say that they are re-reading and still cried/felt emotions/loved it are the greatest people on earth and should be given a thousand dollars. 

addition: people who comment on fics to say that they are not even in this fandom and didn’t know the characters at all but read it anyway and loved it are also the greatest people on earth and should also be given a thousand dollars.  

This.

happy pride to straight queer people. i love u

i love u transhets, i love u heterosexual aromantics & asexual heteroromantics, i love u straight nonbinary people, i love u straight polyam people, genderqueer straight people, and any other straight people who identify as queer for any reason. i love u

Hey, this pride month (or literally any time of year), you wanna know something fairly easy and great you can do?

Contact your local library (or comment on their social media) positively for any pride/LGBTQIA+/queer-related displays or events they have going on.

Seriously.

What I’m seeing and hearing from the (mostly US-based) library workers in my groups and social circles is that the anti-queer (anti-gay, anti-trans, anti-drag queen story time, etc.) comments and complaints that have ramped up in the past year aren’t going away. Even library workers with supportive coworkers/bosses/boards are steeling themselves to deal with an avalanche of garbage, or are second-guessing their displays and events because the amount of vitriol can wear a person down so much. And the ones without supportive people or work environments? It’s worse.

Give the library something else: give them both the ammo (by being one of the numbers they can count worth the positive group) if they need to show their community isn’t wholly negative. Give them the compliment of knowing that their work got appreciated.

Same-sex marriage in 2003 vs. 2013 vs. 2023

(20 years of change)

More info below:

Nearly twenty years ago, I was volunteering as a hotline staffer at GLAD -- the LGBTQ law firm that brought about same-sex unions and marriages in New England. Every week I would take a lot of heartbreaking phone calls from queer folks who were in states that didn't yet recognize same-sex partnerships. I heard from so many people being separated from their partner and/or their kids, because their families or their workplaces or hospitals or the immigration system didn't recognize the partnership. So many who couldn't provide sick partners with health benefits. So many people who were fired for being queer. So many breakups that ended with the biological parent automatically getting sole custody of the children.

We've come SO far. Like many of you, I worry about a lot that's happening right now politically, and I know there are lots of fights left to fight. But I also try to step back often and appreciate how far we've come. Thirty years ago, I was a scared & closeted school kid, and legally-recognized same-sex unions felt like an impossible dream. The big picture shown above is amazing.

Happy Pride, all. May we look back in another decade and see many more wins for queer folks around the globe. <3

The whole point of writing fascist characters as human beings is that real fascists are also human beings. If you think of fascists as somehow less than human you are falling into the trap of letting their mentality frame your worldview, thus legitimizing their course of action!

When you start looking at fascists as subhuman the debate becomes 'which group is actually subhuman and which is being unfairly maligned?' And personally I'm not fucking comfortable with that question being on the table ever.

#ADDITIONALLY #it makes recognizing fascist ideology in the people around you so much harder #bc if you know someone as a person #and a fascist isn't a person #then clearly this person can't be a fascist #or have fascist views #they're your colleague or your neighbor or your family member #they are way too human to be fascist

DING DING DING ✅

I don't understand why more people don't comment on fics from a perfectly self serving perspective. Do readers not realise they are often the difference in how much fic they get from a writer they like in their fandom?

I don't know, maybe we are not supposed to say this as writers, given the prevaling write for yourself uwu culture these days, but I've had instances where I only meant to drop one fic for a small pairing and dip but that fic got such a warm reception -- and by that I don't mean hundreds of kudos, I mean a handful of people who took time out of their days to leave meaningful comments that went beyond 'I loved this!' -- that I ended up writing ten more. Conversely, I've written fics I was simply compelled to write but the reception was so lukewarm, I moved onto more fertile ground once the brain worms were satisfied, even though I had ten more ideas I could have explored for the same pairing. And I've seen so many other writers do the same.

I personally don't comment on every fic I read -- exhaustion gets in the way -- so it would be hypocritical for me to expect the same of anyone else, but man, it baffles me that other people don't strategise in their commenting, that when they see a writer they love they don't go extra hard on fics that don't have much interaction or for writers that are a bit more needy -- yet another thing one does utter in polite society -- not out of any sense of gratitude or anything like that but just to get more good fic, just from perfect selfishness.

Teen girls reading this, if you feel a calling to write fanfiction about a teen girl being transported to a fictional world, go for it. If you want to write about a teen girl being adopted by your favorite characters or joining the fellowship of the ring or becoming a knight, please do.

We should be encouraging kids to be creative and practice writing, an important life skill, not discouraging it because we find teens acting like teens to be cringe.

HAPPY PRIDE THE A IN LGBTQIA+ STANDS FOR ASPEC IDENTITIES NOT ALLY !!!

When I was a kid, I regularly lost reading privileges for "having an attitude" and "acting out".

It wasn't as simple as being told not to read during other activities- one of the first times it happened, I remember being six years old, watching my stepfather pull fistfuls of books off my bookshelf and throw them to the floor in a heaping mess while I cried and asked him to stop.

It was weird. Every other adult I knew described me as exceptionally well-behaved, but at home, it was the opposite, and it was blamed on "learning bad habits from that shit you're reading".

Because I couldn't read at home, I spent all my free time at school in the library, reading with my friends.

When I grew up and moved away, I realized that my family life was toxic and abusive, and the "attitudes" I was being punished for were standing up for myself, standing up for my younger siblings, and resisting actual, real-life psychological abuse. Because I'd learned from what I'd read that my family wasn't normal, not like my parents said it was, and in my stories, the heroes were the people who spoke out when it was hard to.

It is insane to me that there are students right now who can't access books. It is insane that books are being outlawed. It is perverse that we are stealing away an entire generation's ability to contextualize their lives, to learn about the world around them, to develop critical thinking skills and express themselves and feel connected to the world or escape from it, whatever and whenever and however they need.

That is not how you raise a compassionate, thoughtful, powerful society.

That's how you process cattle.

It's fucking disgusting.

(source)

@sunnymarbles

also I promise this is unrelated to anything else I've been posting about but like. We're not doing the "rainbow capitalism" complaint this year. Sorry. I know pitching this particular hissy fit is really important to some of you. But years when the conservative movement du jour is to have a literally identical tantrum about any company that's putting rainbows on drink cans or reusable grocery bags because they view that as "supporting groomers and pedophiles," we don't get to throw fuel on that fire. Even if you disagree with the fire on an ideological level, it doesn't matter to the fire! This year, feel however you want to feel about any given company making their logo into a rainbow flag, but I promise the "boycott Anheuser Busch because they're supporting Deviants by making our beer gay" people do not give a shit whether you're supporting their cause from a gay standpoint or a homophobic one, they just care about the net result, which is that by getting outwardly mad about this, you are lending them support

Hello friends, and welcome to the 'Look how they massacred them!' Poll. A poll to express all the anger you have at the creators and let people decide who the biggest victim of them all is.

What is this poll about?

Are you angry one of your faves was screwed over by the narrative or the creators?

Was your character assassinated, flanderized, or derailed?

Was your character sidelined so another person could shine? Did another character suddenly pop up just to replace them?

Did another adaption (reboot, live action, anime etc.) turn them into a complete joke?

Did their character development go nowhere, lessons constantly looped itself, or was all their character development suddenly erased without any explanation?

Then, your favorite character fits the criteria!

Rules

- character needs to be fictional

- the character needs to be screwed over by canon. Fanfiction and other fan projects are discounted unless they are mentioned to discuss how the fandom embraced how canon screwed them over.

Inspired by:

@controversial-blorbo-bracket @the-robot-bracket @the-worst-bracket @most-mistreated-characters @let-me-date-them-bracket @best-dad-battle @bracket-of-betrayal

it's actually really weird to me that a lot of adults don't seem to remember the worst bits of being a child. were you not horribly aware of when adults were talking down to you as a child? don't you remember how little autonomy you were allowed, even when it came to things that seemed pretty harmless? don't you remember the times when adults would seemingly be assholes to you for no reason? even if you had nice and reasonable parents, didn't you ever have teachers or other adults in power who treated you disrespectfully? didn't it sting no matter how people justified it?

especially when I was a teenager, it seemed obvious to me & to most of my peers when an adult wasn't treating us with respect. you could almost smell it, in certain classrooms. there would be this palpable, shifting undercurrent of teenage dissatisfaction whenever some teachers started talking. and it made a lot of the kids act out! which of course made the teachers try to exert their power, which never worked because nobody respected them, which made them get more draconian, etc.

as a teen, I didn't really get why my peers and I seemingly had a superhuman sense for when an adult was on a power trip. but now I think I get it. kids are systematically denied autonomy, respect, and consistently have the validity of their experiences denied. like, flat-out. they're a vulnerable class of people made even more vulnerable by their lack of societal rights. being disrespected as a kid is so frequent that I would say it's a defining experience for most children. is it any wonder they tend to pick up on when an adult doesn't see them as worth listening to?

so yeah, of course a ton of kids want to be treated "like an adult." to them, that's synonymous with being treated like a human being worth listening to. it's up to you, as an adult, to understand that wish for what it is, and behave accordingly. you don't gotta be a child psychologist. you don't gotta be perfect at it. all you have to do is remember how painful adult disrespect could be when you were a kid & do your best to act with some compassion.

Your phone battery percentage determines what year of the 1900s you'll live in.

How screwed are you?