#I understand the critiques

[tockamybeloved]

I can hardly believe it but. I might actually be excited to draft further the next couple of chapters.

By switching the order, it makes the story faster paced. Which initially I feared. There's a little voice in the back saying: don't rush the pairing! It won't be 'believable'. It also says: hurry up, this isn't a slow burn!

[aediondraws]

tmagp comic bc I'm not normal about them!!

ep 12

[demigods-posts]

imagine a world where the heroes of olympus series was one big crossover. a world where we meet an eleven year old boy named jason, no last name because it reminds him of his mother — a drunk who literally threw him to the wolves as a toddler. jason, who's earliest memory is chewing on a stapler and his older sister tending to the wound on his bottom lip — but he hasn't seen or heard from her since they were separated years ago. jason, who grew up reaching for the sky like a purpose, desperate for a chance to prove himself. jason, who fought to save the world at fifteen years old. and jason, who finds himself in the grand canyon four months later with no memory of who he is or where he came from, feet away from some frantic sixteen year old girl in search of some dude named percy jackson. imagine what this could have been.

[idolomantises]

i'll be real, i always hated it whenever media tries to "critique" Christianity while portraying all Christians as bigoted, misogynistic and irredeemable. its why it matters a lot to me that my own angels have some nuances to them.

Sera is very puritanical and obsessed with showing her devotion to God, but she's still a caring and well-meaning angel.

[ofbreathandflame-archive]

With the rise of booktok/booktwt, there's been this weird movement against literary criticism. It's a bizarre phenomenon, but this uptick in condemnation of criticism is so stifling. I understand that with the rise of these platforms, many people are being reintroduced into the habit of reading, which is why at the base level, I understand why many 'popular' books on booktok tend to be cozier.

The argument always falls into the 'this book means too much to me' or 'let people enjoy things,' which is rhetoric I understand -- at least fundamentally. But reading and writing have always been conduits for criticism, healthy natural criticism. We grow as writers and readers because of criticism. It's just so frustrating to see arguments like "how could you not like this character they've been the x trauma," or "why read this book if you're not going to come out liking it," and it's like...why not. That has always been the point of reading. Having a character go through copious amounts of trauma does not always translate to a character that's well-crafted. Good worldbuilding doesn't always translate to having a good story, or having beautiful prose doesn't always translate into a good plot.

There is just so much that goes into writing a story other than being able to formulate tropable (is that a word lol) characters. Good ideas don't always translate into good stories. And engaging critically with the text you read is how we figure that out, how we make sure authors are giving us a good craft. Writing is a form of entertainment too, and just like we'd do a poorly crafted show, we should always be questioning the things we read, even if we enjoy those things.

It's just werd to see people argue that we shouldn't read literature unless we know for certain we are going to like it. Or seeing people not be able to stand honest criticism of the world they've fallen in love with. I love ASOIAF -- but boy oh boy are there a lot of problems in the story: racial undertones, questionable writing decisions, weird ness overall. I also think engaging critically helps us understand how an author's biases can inform what they write. Like, HP Lovecraft wrote eerie stories, he was also a raging racist. But we can argue that his fear of PoC, his antisemitism, and all of his weird fears informed a lot of what he was writing. His writing is so eerie because a lot of that fear comes from very real, nasty places. It's not to say we have to censor his works, but he influences a lot of horror today and those fears, that racial undertone, it is still very prevalent in horror movies today. That fear of the 'unknown,'

Gone with the Wind is an incredibly racist book. It's also a well-written book. I think a lot of people also like confine criticism to just a syntax/prose/technical level -- when in reality criticism should also be applied on an ideological level. Books that are well-written, well-plotted, etc., are also -- and should also -- be up for criticism. A book can be very well-written and also propagate harmful ideologies. I often read books that I know that (on an ideological level), I might not agree with. We can learn a lot from the books we read, even the ones we hate.

I just feel like we're getting to the point where people are just telling people to 'shut up and read' and making spaces for conversation a uniform experience. I don't want to be in a space where everyone agrees with the same point. Either people won't accept criticism of their favorite book, or they think criticism shouldn't be applied to books they think are well written. Reading invokes natural criticism -- so does writing. That's literally what writing is; asking questions, interrogating the world around you. It's why we have literary devices, techniques, and elements. It's never just taking the words being printed at face value.

You can identify with a character's trauma and still understand that their badly written. You can read a story, hate everything about it, and still like a character. As I stated a while back, I'm reading Fourth Wing; the book is terrible, but I like the main character. The worldbuilding is also terrible, but the author writes her PoC characters with respect. It's not hard to acknowledge one thing about the text, and still find enough to enjoy the book. And authors grow when we're honest about what worked and what didn't work. Shadow and Bone was very formulaic and derivative at points, but Six of Crows is much more inventive and inclusive. Veronica Roth's Carve the Mark had some weird racial problems, but Chosen Ones was a much better book in terms of representation. Percy Jackson is the same way. These writers grow, not just by virtue of time, but because they were critiqued and listened to that critique. C.S. Lewis and Tolkien always publically criticized each other's work. Zora Neale Hurston and Langston Hughes had a legendary friendship and back and forth with one another's works which provides so much insight into the conversations black authors and creatives were having.

Writing has always been about asking questions; prodding here and there, critiquing. It has always been a conversation, a dialogue. I urge people to love what they read, and read what they love, but always ask questions, always understand different perspectives, and always keep your mind open. Please stop stifling and controlling the conversations about your favorite literature, and please understand that everyone will not come out with the same reading experience as you. It doesn't make their experience any less valid than yours.

[steveyockey]

Once you start looking, you see queer presentism everywhere. It pops up when politicians espouse our “unprecedented” ability to love who we love, and when recent book bans are said to “roll back the clock” on LGBTQ+ rights, implying that clocks tick continually toward progress. It manifests in Oscar Wilde hagiography, which elevates him to the status of singular queer martyr and extrapolates an epochal paradigm from his 1895 trials. It seeps into our everyday speech, in our references to “forbidden love” and our use of the term “Victorian” to imply prudish homophobia. It both stems from and structures the editorial projects that publishers pursue, giving rise to catalogues like the NYRB Classics, where the oldest work tagged LGBTQ+ is Colette’s The Pure and the Impure (1932) — as if nothing queer was written before.

The truth is that there’s a world of queer writing that predates Colette, volumes of manuscript and books that aren’t so much products of historical suppression as they are suppressed by today’s “it’s gotten better” mindset. This is convenient for a culture industry in search of the sui generis and always eager to pat itself on the back for its own enlightenment. But the almost total neglect, outside the academy, of the queer literary archive is a shame, and not only because it propagates factual errors. In limiting our horizons for understanding how our predecessors lived, loved, and wrote, we end up narrowing our own vistas. When we apply the repressive hypothesis, we’re actually repressing ourselves.

Colton Valentine, “Against Queer Presentism​ | How the Book World Neglects the Archive,” The Drift, October 25, 2022.

[starrysharks]

evilution

[penofwildfire]

I actually refuse to watch reviews of Ninjago that come from non-fans, including YouTubers I enjoy, because I'll listen to one of my tumblr mutuals bitch about some aspect of the show they think is shit for HOURS but I'd rather walk a mile over Legos barefoot than listen to some OUTSIDER judge my beloved kid's show from 2011

[insulinetnicotine]

i LOVEEEEE The qsmp but one thing i do hope returns after the break is over is the islanders actually finding and solving lore on their own rather than it always being scripted events and qsmp channel streams. i miss the whole maze thing i miss ordos theoritas i miss them gathering and just Talking about whatever the fuck they found doesnt matter if its actually relevant or not MAYBE IM CLOUDED BY NOSTALGIA I DONT KNOW and i dont mind scripted global lore at all!! But i do wish player participation when it comes to getting information amps up again

[choccy-milky]

bruh i need to vent about a rude comment i got on my recent chap and also about clora, cuz its something thats been on my mind for a while now. it has spoilers to my most recent chap tho so im putting it below

so in my most recent chap clora gets hit by the killing curse but thanks to seb sacrificing himself for her, it doesn’t work/she survives. and I got a rly rude comment about how that’s super cringe and that clora is a "shoe horning of every possible manifestation of Mary-Sueism I have ever seen." theyre dropping my fic after almost 500k words bc apparently THAT’S where they draw the line and that "just somehow pulling it out the bag and surviving a killing curse from the power of love. In simpler terms, it’s absolutely cringe worthy" and "forgive me if I rolled an eye at the yet again invincible nature of Clora Clemons-the-one-eighth-Veela-extraordinaire"

BUT LIKE LMAO TELL ME U DIDN’T READ/WATCH HARRY POTTER WITHOUT TELLING ME. that’s literally what happens to harry??but its only cringe when it happens to our "mary-sue" clora? like yeah sure love magic might be a bit cringe but IM LITERALLY JUST PULLING FROM THE SOURCE MATERIAL. of all the things to take issue with in my fic and interpretations, theyre taking issue with something that’s canon BAHAHA.

and since im on the topic of clora being mary sue can I just say I hate the misogyny/internalized misogyny that i've seen some people (NOT A LOT, THANKFULLY) treat her with. like i get it, im not pale and blonde and as conventionally pretty as clora is, but even if I was, is that a reason to hate me?? and does being beautiful and well-liked = mary sue? bc as far as I know, mary sue is a chara who is just naturally amazing at everything and doesnt need to try hard and theyre just inexplicably great for no reason (like mc in the base game BAHHAA) if anything the mary sue in MY fic is seb LMAO (but hes a boy so its ok). like clora has worked hard and studied magic all her life due to being a squib and wanting to make up for not being able to DO it. she isnt good at flying, seb is still better at her than duelling, shes really short sighted when it comes to doing/thinking whats best for others and can be a huge idiot.... and like. the only guys that have even shown interest in clora on a real scale have been seb and leander (and then lawley for blackmail purposes, and also bc he hates seb) so its not like literally everyone is falling over themselves for her?? like her interactions with the main cast of boys (ominis, garreth, amit) theyre all indifferent to her LMAO but still, the fact that shes pretty and guys here and there might look at her and go o shes cute! doesnt make her a mary sue SORRy thats just called being attractive idk its just annoying that ppl automatically see a nice kind beautiful female character without any VISIBLE flaws and go SHES TOO PERFECT!! MARY SUE!! WAH IM JEALOUS! and like I get it bc when I was younger I probs would have been annoyed by clora as well due to my own insecurities and internalized misogyny but hey, how about u just realize that’s ur own problem and your own jealousy, and not a real one HAHAH anyway ive since evolved bc I used to be a ‘not like other girls’ type girl back in highschool. trying to be super tomboy-y bc I thought being feminine was cringe and too basic but now ive embraced it and love girly things and dresses and charas like clora who are still strong and showcase their strengths and weaknesses in subtler ways, and I want to smooch her and make out with her. get behind me clora ill protect you🤺🤺🤺

[hamartia-grander]

Wyll Ravengard is an honourary Don Quixote fan to me. Like he doesn't reference Don Quixote because it doesn't exist in fantasy world, but if it did I just know he'd love it

[scltbvrns]

homogenising something that has always been inherently diverse will kill us all one day.

[reineyday]

it sounds like hawks is probably going to keep the ranking system, and when he says he's keeping it bc the people who want to tear it down are "only seeing the cons of the system, and none of the pros," it shows keigo's childhood plushie of endeavor, and that's wild to me. "the popularity contest still has its pros," hawks says as he thinks of his idol endeavor, the man who abused and neglected his whole family because he wanted to win said popularity contest.

and it's specifically a panel of keigo's plushie, which reads to me that keigo's holding onto his childhood worship of the man so much, he's ironically only seeing the pros of the system (whatever those are), and none of the cons. it feels like hawks has blinders on when it comes to endeavor, and it's felt that way ever since he found out about endeavor's past and immediately, seemingly without any inner conflict, gave his stamp of approval anyways bc hey, at least endeavor's trying now! and i'm disappointed considering how complex a character he seemed when he was introduced. sigh.

[metanarrates]

"queernorm" worlds are fine and i do understand why people like them + why there's a desire to make their depictions of queer experiences legible to an audience who lives under real-world gender and sexuality norms. but for me i always end up feeling a little dissatisfied by them because they still end up implicitly adhering to certain real-world norms that in-universe have no real reason to exist. can we not imagine a world in which gender/sex assignments entirely don't exist? what could gender and gendered expression even mean in that world? how would romance and kinship and care be reimagined there? how far could you potentially go in totally deconstructing those norms? wouldn't it be nice to imagine a world so different from our own that even the language we have to describe certain experiences is no longer the same? im dissatisfied by the inability to go much further, even if i do understand why people don't

[yellowraincoat]

Just me, but if my dear friend —who was a little too in love with me and who committed numerous crimes on my behalf— died for me only for him to turn out not to be dead, I’d give him a big ole hug ON SIGHT!

EVEN IF HE CAME BACK WRONG 😤

[theflashjaygarrick]

I hate this scene so much. Just to be clear I know that this does reflect a real experience a lot of women and girls go through growing up, the realisation that you don't actually hate feminine things and you just were taught to. And to give him credit I feel like Tom King read one feminist think piece about internalised misogyny and girls growing to like pink so congrats for the effort I guess.

But the problem is, did it have to be Cassie? Cassie is one of the few characters in the Wonder family, and honestly in DC, to be gender nonconforming (in presentation). And DC if full of kickass feminine women who can hold their own and fight. Hell, that is literal the entire point of the Wonderfamily and the amazons. Cassie being butch could have been shown girls and women that there are all sorts of ways to be a woman. That being gnc or more masculine doesn't mean you have to hate other girls or femininity. It just means that it isn't you. And that's okay.

Some gnc Cassie panels:

And sure, this isn't the worset thing that happened to Cassie (New 52 was a bad time) but it still frustrates me. To me this scene low-key implies (perhaps intentionally) that Cassie being a tomboy as a character flaw that she had to grow out of and did after meeting the Wonders. That the more butch elements of her characterisation that a queer fans saw themselves in was actually just her not believing feminine women could be powerful. And considering this is written by a cishet man (not a woman reflecting her own experiences with the struggle of femininity) I am not a fan.