Ruby Bridges is 68. This is not ancient history. Not even close.
I know Ruby. She’s a really nice person. The idea that they would try and write what she did as a girl out of history is shocking to me on so many levels, the simplest of which is just, but don’t they know how lovely she is?
“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!
And, following up on the previous post …
“This makes me uncomfortable” is NOT a valid reason for censorship
These fucking book editors should remove themselves from the profession ASAP 😡
The only reason a book should be removed, the ONLY reason, is “we are keeping it in the restricted section for research because its only intended function is to cause harm.”
And to be clear, when I say this, I’m talking about shit like To Train Up A Child and The Protocols of Zion. One is a text responsible for the deaths of multiple children because it’s an abuse how-to, and the other is entirely fabricated “protocols” from a group that never actually existed but is claimed to represent all Jews, and it’s basically one long antisemitic screed.
And even these should be available. Just. Not where they’re gonna be used to start a white supremacist cult.
I have been trying to write for a while now. I have all these amazing ideas, but its really hard getting my thoughts onto paper. Thus, my ideas never really come to fruition. Do you have any advice?
Write the ideas down. If they are going to be stories, try and tell the stories you would like to read. Finish the things you start to write. Do it a lot and you will be a writer. The only way to do it is to do it.
I’m just kidding. There are much easier ways of doing it. For example: On the top of a distant mountain there grows a tree with silver leaves. Once every year, at dawn on April 30th, this tree blossoms, with five flowers, and over the next hour each blossom becomes a berry, first a green berry, then black, then golden.
At the moment the five berries become golden, five white crows, who have been waiting on the mountain, and which you will have mistaken for snow, will swoop down on the tree, greedily stripping it of all its berries, and will fly off, laughing.
You must catch, with your bare hands, the smallest of the crows, and you must force it to give up the berry (the crows do not swallow the berries. They carry them far across the ocean, to an enchanter’s garden, to drop, one by one, into the mouth of his daughter, who will wake from her enchanted sleep only when a thousand such berries have been fed to her). When you have obtained the golden berry, you must place it under your tongue, and return directly to your home.
For the next week, you must speak to no-one, not even your loved ones or a highway patrol officer stopping you for speeding. Say nothing. Do not sleep. Let the berry sit beneath your tongue.
At midnight on the seventh day you must go to the highest place in your town (it is common to climb on roofs for this step) and, with the berry safely beneath your tongue, recite the whole of Fox in Socks. Do not let the berry slip from your tongue. Do not miss out any of the poem, or skip any of the bits of the Muddle Puddle Tweetle Poodle Beetle Noodle Bottle Paddle Battle.
Then, and only then, can you swallow the berry. You must return home as quickly as you can, for you have only half an hour at most before you fall into a deep sleep.
When you wake in the morning, you will be able to get your thoughts and ideas down onto the paper, and you will be a writer.
This is the feelings wheel by Geoffrey Roberts, shown to me by my therapist. My initial thought was, “what amazing synonyms to use for diverse emotional vocabulary!”
More than that, this wheel is great for understanding your characters inner motivations and reactions to situations. For example, if a character constantly feels helpless, then their overarching characteristics will be that they are fearful.
Characters who are less emotionally aware may use words and act in the inner most circle. Those much more aware of their emotions may describe themselves or express and use words from the outer most circle.
Hopefully you guys find this as helpful as I did! Let me know down in the comments.
Nah, fam. It’s not about “taking” criticism. It’s about the fact that unless a writer asks for it specifically, it’s a dick thing to do on a website that is rooted in community.
If a writer wants critique they will ask trusted friends or professional associates (in the relevant field). When a writer shares a fic on AO3 it’s not necessarily with the aim of improving their craft (there are better places for that). It’s about sharing joy.
Positive comments enhance that feeling of joy and community. Negative comments do not.
Fic isn’t a product to be evaluated. If it’s not for you, then you can just walk away. 😁
I’m so tired of this discussion - why do all these people think they’re entitled to offer critique on a fic author’s work?
When you get a hand-made gift from someone, do you verbally rip it apart in front of them and point out every flaw or perceived flaw you can find? Congratulations, that person will never put the time, love and effort into making anything for you again, and they may question themselves so much they won’t ever make anything for anyone else again, either. Well done, you’ve now deprived a whole community of art and an artist of their source of joy because you’re an ungrateful walnut who can’t say ‘Thank you’ and appreciate what you got for free.
Your opinion is not universal. Your tastes are not universal. Your preferred style is not universal. Authors can write whatever the fuck they want and unless you specifically commissioned a fic, you get no say in it.
Tl;dnr: If you don’t like a fic or piece of art, hit the back button and keep your mouth shut. If you didn’t like something, it likely wasn’t meant for you and your 'criticism’ is not wanted or helpful. Fandom is about community and lifting each other up, not about you shitting all over another person’s work because you think your opinion matters.
Feel free to reblog from the source and ignore this addition but I just wanted to add to this for people who truly do not get it:
Society tries to trick fat people into thinking their lives will get better when they’re skinny because “you’ll feel better skinny because your body is healthier” and shit like “you’ll act more confident and people respond better to confidence.”
This is to absolve themselves, on a personal level, of fatphobia. It is to say FAT PEOPLE make their own lives harder and skinny, midsize, even other fat people do not make it worse. The fatphobia is made up, not real. Not systemic. Not a constant in interpersonal relationships.
This is a lie.
I lost about ~40% of my body weight. Some of the kindest, least judgmental, socially aware, anti-discrimination people almost immediately started treating me better. I could even just MENTION that I was trying to lose weight, that I had only lost 1 pound, 5 pounds, 10 pounds (while still being “obese” by arbitrary medical standards) and people would treat me better.
Again, these are people who never, ever used fatphobic language. Who never shamed me out loud for being 214 pounds. Who I thought loved me to the best of their ability.
And it made me realize… everyone is fatphobic until they actively unlearn fatphobia.
If you think you aren’t fatphobic, I assure you, you are. And I think you need to mentally check yourself when you are interacting with fat people.
Are you withholding affection? Are you avoiding touching them when you’d touch someone else? Do you immediately try to avoid certain activities with them? Are you PUSHING activities onto them that you think will make them less fat? Do you avoid clothes shopping with them and going to stores with clothes for fat people? Do you avoid gifting them clothes because you don’t want to ever talk about sizes with them?
What do you avoid talking about with fat friends?
Do you complain about your own weight, “feeling fat?”
Do you push YOUR insecurities onto your fat friends?
Do you avoid being seen with them?
What are you excluding fat people in your life from?
Do you have internalized biases? Do you quietly think to yourself that they’re eating too much, that they’re lazy or selfish? Do you assume they’re unhealthy? Do you blame them for what they’re going through?
Do you make it clear you’re willing to listen when they want to talk about this?
What do you do to make sure the fat people in your life know you love them AS IS?
