#I fucking changed my mind on this despite frankly finding it all abhorrent and thinking the US is run like a shit show

[medicinemane]

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[jeanmoreaux]

28. The first book that comes to mind, tell us about it. Rant.

hey!! sorry for my late response, hon! this ask has been sitting in my inbox for close to 2 weeks due to multiple reasons, two of them being my terrible time management and my limited amount of spare time to waste away on tumblr. mainly, though, i just didn’t know what book to rant about bc i feel like if i rant about a book there has to be a good justification as to why this book deserves my bashing. so i tried to think of a rant-worthy book and i came up empty. but then the other day, i walked into a book store, unknowing of the inspiration that would hit me and help me to finally answer this ask. as i made my way through the numerous shelves full of great books, a familiar cover caught my eyes and filled me with abhorrence. the book i am taking about is Adam by Ariel Schrag. 

for all of you who haven’t read this book yet; good, keep it like way. it’s the most utter piece of garbage i have ever laid eyes on. honestly, i have never hated a book with more passion. It’s beyond me why it has a 2.87 star rating on goodreads. apparently, it was initially praised as a revolutionary, subversive queer story, but actually it’s a homophobic, transphobic, racist, and misogynist disaster that is not worth the paper it was printed on. seriously, it physically hurts me to think about how trees had to die for this dumpster fire of a book to exist in physical form in bookshelves around the globe.

i conjecture the author’s intent was to promote the idea that sexuality and gender can be fluid and that love knows no gender, which is in itself a great message, but, oh boy, the execution was just horrendous. worse than anything i have ever seen, and ten time as problematic.

*spoilers ahead*

((my brain tried to erase this book’s content form my memory, so i forgot the names of every character except for the protagonist’s one since his name is in the title lmao)) basically, this story follows this cis boy, adam, who’s nonstop horny and would literally do ANYTHING to get laid, which shows in the questionable decisions he makes throughout the story. he spends his summer at his sister’s apartment in new york. through his sister, who is a lesbian, he comes into contact with various other lgbtq+ individuals, of which some are trans. he meets a cute lesbian at a party, and decides that she is his one true love (yikes), the-girl-of-his-dreams (quite literally! he dreams of her and later meets her at this party and it’s supposed to be an adorable dejà vu kinda thing but it is NOT. it’s just cringy and uncomfortable). he then sets his mind on seducing her. since she’s a lesbian, he decides to pretend to be a trans guy ((like what the fuck, dude????!!!?)) so she’s willing to go on a date with him ((which does not make any fucking sense to me bc she’s still a lesbian and he’s still a guy, but whatever)). in the mean time, his sister has some drama going on that’s quite yikes, if you know what i mean, and there is also a lot of other horrible stuff going on, such as fetishizing various minorities and reinforcing harmful stereotypes, that makes you wanna bury the book somewhere no one will ever be able to find and read it. 

adam keeps telling people he is trans, and is quite proud of his “performance” as he keeps lying to everyone’s faces about being trans. there is a lot of drama happening, but i forgot most of it. what i do remember, though is that eventually adam and the-girl-of-his-dreams start officially dating and, consequently, they start having sex. adam insists that they only have sex in the dark, using his made-up gender dysphoria as an excuse. at first he use a strap-on to keep his masquerade up, but at a later point in the story adam just tells himself “fuck it, i wanna have REAL (uhhhm, wtf as if only penetrative sex is real sex), UNPROTECTED sex with this girl who still doesn’t know i am lying to her about being trans. so i’ll just insert my penis into her vagina without her consent.” i believe he tells her after the fact, and she’s like “i know, it’s chill. i found out that you’re a cis guy a while ago, and what can i say, you’re such an amazing guy i still fell in love with you, despite being a lesbian (!!!!!!!! WTF)”

they keep dating for a few month, and when they break up the girl starts dating an older guy shortly after. suddenly, she isn’t a lesbian anymore (i don’t even think she considers herself bi), and the ending kinda suggests that adam turned her straight, which is hella problematic, to say the least. don’t get me wrong, this change of labels is not intrinsically bad, but the way it is presented in the context of the book suggests that you can “turn people straight” and that being gay is “ a choice” or “a phase” that ends when you meet the right person of the opposite sex. furthermore, the way the characters are crafted and the story is told, Adam also suggests that queer people are annoying assholes whose only defining characteristic is their queerness. this notion of anti-queer character portrayal and conversion is also present in the storyline of adam’s sister.  i think his sister who labelled her lesbian in the beginning turns bi in the end, too, bc she just Can’t™ with lesbians and trans people anymore since their all selfish & self-righteous pricks.

and it’s not like this book judges adam’s actions or critically comments on his bad behavior. there are literally no consequences for adam unless you count the break up as one, which i think you can’t be they still happily dated for a considerable amount of time.

i hope you get the gist of why i loathe this book so much. there is nothing subversive or revolutionary about this sort of portrayal of lqbtq+ issues and characters. the representation & messages contained in this story are damaging as fuck. i have no idea how this book was repeatedly approved of by several instances in the process of publishing and no one in this chain of decision making voiced concerns and was like “i’m sorry but this is a really shitty book”??!!? HOW IS IT POSSIBLE SOMETHING LIKE THIS GETS PUBLISHED??!!? after this massive fuck up, ariel schrag probably can’t ever again publish a story under her name.

frankly, i desperately want to throw Adam into the destructive, all-consuming flames of eternal hell fire so it vanishes into ever-lasting oblivion. 

[rivetgoth]

I keep wanting to talk about my stupid band OCs but when i try i forget what words are idk. theyre an industrial band called Heat Pit and there’s three members and they’re kind of an homage to all my favorite bands but really fucked up and stupid. the three members are E.C., Eris, and King Ramses.

E.C.’s name is Eric Christian & he’s from the deeeeep South. he loves trad goth and old school industrial and experimental electro stuff. he plays keyboards of all kinds. he’s extremely extremely shy and quiet and people mistake that for him being sweet and nice but he’s really just sort of a dick in reality. he’s very self absorbed and hates most people and is just standoffish and likes to be left alone. he bitches constantly on tour cuz he hates being stuck with his bandmates for too long and he never goes out and does fun things with them and he’ll disappear ALL DAY before a show and barely make it back in time. he’s very... detail oriented, he likes to construct weird little inventions and creatures with little scraps of things he finds because it entertains him, he likes puzzle solving, he really appreciates little in-the-moment things, he loves nature and stargazing and watching the clouds and shit like that. because he’s so shy he refuses to sing and hates his singing so his solo work is always purely instrumental unless he’s collaborating. he also tends to wear some kind of face covering on stage so he has this weird mysterious aura around him, he almost never does interviews and if he does its with a bandmate and he almost never speaks. he worked in a record store with Ramses after graduating high school because college was miserable for him and he went to the same high school as Eris so he’s a middleman between them because he knows them both.

Eris’ name is also Eric cuz I thought it’d be funny to have two characters with the same name as an homage to you-know-what -___- His music taste tends to be like, synth stuff, new wave, post punk... Eris was born in LA but his family were like devout intense Christians and they moved to some shitty small dirt town in the South cuz they said they were called by God or w/e so Eris was dragged across the country to the pit of Hell and it was miserable. He was miserable. He hates God and he has religious trauma xddd. He was a choir boy throughout school and everyone praised him for having the voice of an angel. He learned to play guitar and did low budget local Christian rock gigs in high school. everyone loved that. he didnt. He realizes he was gay and his life fell apart. goth culture provided a place of solace for him and he started exploring harsher scarier shit in part to get away from the whole “uwuw what an angel!!!!” rep he had with his ugly christian rock stuff. Eris’ original stage name was Eros but he changed it cuz Eris was edgier. He wears fucked up gothic pseudodrag a lot and he is very excitable and energetic and very unafraid to aggressively speak his mind, but he doesnt really know exactly who he is or what he wants to be, hence the frequent name changes, and he ends up struggling the most with drug abuse as the band relations get worse over time :(

King Ramses ends up changing his name to Anubis later in life and he’s a major character in my novel LOL. Ramses is into all industrial stuff and metal and especially industrial metal. he’s from Europe, Greece I think, he’s Greek and Egyptian and he moved to Britain to go to university there and get a philosophy degree. he was a poet his entire life and he was exceptionally good at manipulating people and presenting himself however would best suite him, he adopted a very very upper class british accent and made himself out to be this elite rich intellectual despite being a foreigner from a pretty poor home. he’s incredibly good at reading people and then conforming to what will suite him best in their eyes. he’s a control freak but he’s good at it. he’s fascinated with the occult, with spirituality, with art, with philosophy, and he comes to consider himself a neotranscendentalist. hes an attention seeker and a thrill seeker and he played multiple instruments so he decided to move to the US and become a musician. he needed a band because he thrives so much on leading others, being a solo artist bored him, so he convinced E.C. (who really had only wanted to do solo stuff) to form a band with him after they met while working together at a record store. Ramses becomes increasingly fascinated by body modification and performance art & by the time of my novel he’s gone through extreme extensive body modification but that’s a whole other story 🤗

Heat Pit ends up falling apart cuz frankly they’re all assholes LMFAO. They all hook up with each other at various points and whichever one isn’t currently in the relationship ends up being a really bitter third wheel. they’re all very much control freaks in their own way and very uncompromising. In the end the final instigator is another OC named Sugar who’s a goth macabre pop performance artist & model. he’s really into self mutilation in his work. he’s fucked up. he meets Ramses at a club and the two start dating and Sugar’s influence is abhorrent. things collapse after that. Sugar actually ends up killing himself eventually which sets Ramses down this path where he becomes fascinated by the art of death and death as art which is when he becomes obsessed with body modification stuff. E.C. and Eris eventually reconnect after not speaking to each other for a long time and start dating in a slightly healthier fashion but things remain awkward forever. Eris disappears off the face of the planet and is presumed dead for like a decade but he’s “fine”? Yeah. Shit happens. :/

[xenosgirlvents]

Response (cont.)

I recieved a response which was rude enough to other people that I felt a need to respond to it. However, my efforts to ‘reblog’ it so far have failed as each time I click ‘Reblog’ nothing would occur. Since I’m not technically gifted and thus doubt I’ll figure out the problem, or if it even has a solution, I’ll post my response to it here anyway. To be clear, to the person who sent this, I don’t mind you insulting me, but I’ve seen you insulting others simply for their names on this site and I feel compelled to respond if you are going to be behave like that.

This is what I am responding to;

”Ok, at this point the argument has actually gotten ridiculous. Saying that in the fluff Xenos “don’t pose a credible threat” is absolutely, without question, utterly supported, and saying that the beast arises doesn’t support it is insane. The Imperium is almost destroyed. Terra is almost destroyed. The imperial fists are wiped out. The entire might of the imperial navy can’t stop them. They lose multiple worlds to the orcs, including several important hive worlds. If you read The Beast Arises and come out of it with the impression that the orcs aren’t a credible threat… that’s… completely insane. This is past the point of a discussion and now into complete and willful ignoring of facts. You’re upset that the Xenos haven’t won major engagements, when almost every major engagement has been an existential threat to the Imperium! You’re saying that they’re not a credible threat? Of course they are. Tyranids without number barely being stopped, orcs almost taking one of the most important sectors of the Imperium, which is STILL in a state of war over it (and its relatively close to Terra), tau constantly expanding, winning multiple major victories. Nimbosa, taros, the list goes on. And when the Eldar use the Imperium and manipulate them to help birth their god of death as part of their endgame plot against slaanesh, they’re completely discredited by you as a “imperial plot device.” The problem isn’t the authors devaluing Xenos: it’s YOU. And your argument treats them like this is some tally game where only major campaign wins can make something a credible threat, and that was after you moved the goalposts from your original statement. And to read the Beast Arises and come out of it saying that orcs aren’t a credible threat, or were shown to be weak, is utterly insane. And now we’ve hit a number one pet peeve which is why I’m now irritated by this irrational argument that willfully ignores fluff and discredits the skilled authors who make the universe: When you say that you’ll try to change the fluff where you can. You are not entitled to someone else’s intellectual property. You admit to wanting to take someone else’s product, someone else’s artistic endeavor and thing that they create, and change it because you don’t like certain aspects of it. That’s just nuts. LUCKILY, there’s a new worldwide campaign coming up, where GW and it’s writers are actually allowing fans to have some say. Want to see more Xenos wins? Go out and earn them. Just like Armageddon or medusa V. The fact that you’ve come out of reading these books with such a twisted view of not only the events therein, but wanted to change someone else’s product just because you don’t like the fact that Xenos aren’t the main, primary focus, explains a lot, frankly. You’re CHOOSING to be negative and take away negative views on things. What’s worse, is I can’t believe the little echo chamber it created. Hell, one person even said “this is why I don’t read much official fluff and make my own.” What the actual fuck. All of this is just another exercise in whatthefuckedness.”

Now my response;

Is this really necessary? It seems to contain little substantive content and just amount to a lot of namecalling.

No the argument has not gotten ‘ridiculous’. You’ve made several inaccurate points and resorted to the use of insulting language, but nothing of the points being made so far are ridiculous.

Xenos don’t pose a credible threat from a narrative standpoint. They’ve lost every single major engagement against the Imperium, the Imperium has continously expanded, no major Imperium world but Cadia has been lost in 8000 years and the Imperium has remained the dominant hegemon with no losses of major wars for over 9000 years. Hence not a credible threat.

The Beast Arises series saw the Orks lose, again. The Imperium in fact did so well that it only took them a single century, which is very short by the timescale of 40k, to recover completely. The Imperial Fists were reconstituted within a single book, shortly after their destruction, making even that loss recuperated near instantaneously within the narrative.

Name the major worlds lost to the Beast Waaagh. I know of no worlds considered major lost to the Beast Waaagh.

There is no wilful ignoring of facts occuring here. You need to detach yourself and observe what actually happens. What actually happens in The Beast Arises is that all Orks unite to attack the weakened Imperium, fail to conquer or destroy a single major planet, destroy the Imperial Fists briefly and then are utterly defeated. Shortly after (1 century) all the damage done has been undone and the Imperium is once more expanding and growing. Meanwhile the Orks lost all their most powerful leaders and their Homeworld. For a second time. That is what happens.

Furthermore you seem not to be remaining consistent. For example; ”You’re upset that the Xenos haven’t won major engagements” Correct. “when almost every major engagement has been an existential threat to the Imperium“

But this in no way amends the problem as you yourself correctly identified above. The problem is ‘the Xenos don’t win major engagements’. Hence your attempt to act as if this is resolved by your second statement makes no sense as you still have not demonstrated the Xenos winning major engagements. Now on to the next part where you rattle off some points; no major Tyranid or Ork victories are listed by you, simple more defeats and one inconclusive war. Nimbosa has been reconquered by Black Templars, Taros was explicitly a back water planet and not a major engagement and the Eldar did not manipulate the Imperium to give birth to Ynnead. Do you not know how Ynnead was born? The Imperium is not involved in its birth at all (in a purposeful way) except to successfull foil Eldrad’s initial attempt despite his best efforts to stop them.

I am doubtful of how much you understand of the Ynnead plotling if you think the Eldar manipulated the Imperium into giving birth to it. Furthermore the Ynnead plotline has been completely descredited as it has been usurped into a vehicle which only existed to create a new plot hook for the Imperium.

Since this is a narrative it is, of course, to an extent a tally game. The same is true of real life.

Furthermore I have moved no goalpost, you yet again seem to simply be replacing actual substantive counter-arguments against me with insults with no basis.

We all try to change fluff by expressing likes and desires. If you wish to stick true to your position then you’d have to be willing to never say anything about any story or creative process ever other than ‘it is what it is’. By simply engaging with a narrative property, forming likes, forming dislikes, purchasing certain things over others, supporting certain things over others we automatically enact pressure to change. So of course we all exert efforts to change Fluff in 40k, that is standard for any narrative one participates in.

I choose nothing but to report how things are and to make clear what I dislike and do like and respond to debate there over.

You also seem to think that people agreeing with something = echo chamber, which is a completely baseless assumption as, by that logic, automatically the moment two people agreed on something, according to you, it’d amount to an ‘echo chamber’ making consensus as a process impossible, leaving me confused as to how you engage with discussion.

I have no idea what ‘whatthefuckedness’ is, but I highly doubt this is an exercise in that at all.

Furthermore I find your proclivity for insulting or harmful insinuation abhorrent. If I am honest most of what I have said here in this post, besides my opposition to your purposefully offensive behaviour, has been repetition, so I’d request that before bringing up points next time read carefully through what I already had said since oft times I simply repeated things already discussed.