#please commiserate with me

[nedlittle]

everyone give it up for another year of flops, disappointments, and failures!! i read some absolute dogshit this year and now i have to share my suffering with the rest of you

the bangalore detectives club by harini nagendra ⭐

Why go through all the trouble of setting up that plot thread only to retract it at the next possible moment? That's not even a red herring. That's padding for a mystery that apparently took 13 years to cook and still came out fucking raw.

vampires of el norte by isabel cañas ⭐

Isabel Cañas writes like she's being held at gunpoint by a thesaurus.

the plague letters by v. l. valentine ⭐

I have read books with nonsense plots and books with horrible characters and books that read like a first draft done on the back of a napkin in crayon, but never, NEVER EVER have i read a book where the author decides to sprinkle in the fact that one of the protagonists can see ghosts at the halfway point.

yellowface by r. f. kuang ⭐.5

Yellowface, more than anything, rings hollow as a critique of privilege when written by someone who went to an elementary school where one year cost more than all four years of my university tuition combined.

everyone knows your mother is a witch by rivka galchen ⭐.75

Overall, I do not recommend this book except as a sleep aid.

manhunt by gretchen felker-martin ⭐.75

I weep for the potential Manhunt would have had if Gretchen Felker-Martin's Internet access had been cut off while she was writing.

the petticoat men by barbara ewing ⭐.75

This is a book your mom mentions she read for her book club because she wants you to know that she read a book about gay people.

the crimson ribbon by katherine clements ⭐⭐

The issue isn't that Clements decided to make Lizzie Poole gay. She decided to make Lizzie Poole gay so that her eventual execution would be more tragic. This isn't even a bad-faith reading of the text.

a rustle of silk by alys clare ⭐⭐

you don't need to be good at your job or care about what you're writing, you just have to have enough ideas to be able to wring every shred of life from your original gimmick until publishing decides they're no longer interested.

lovers at the chameleon club, paris 1932 by francine prose ⭐⭐

Francine, you did not make up those characters or events. You changed the names after reading a couple of history books on Paris.

[4setsofcorsets]

Just asked my deescalation trainer at work what to do in the “homphobe yelling about queer books” scenario if all the managers present are visibly queer and the customer therefore won’t take us seriously. He said to call the police. I don’t think this man has a very accurate understanding of the state of the world

[dusk--and--dawn]

I. Hate. Rich. Marching. Bands.

They can afford all sorts of expensive props, music, drill, uniforms, color guard silks, and other things. I heard that one band in my district spent over $20,000 on their show this year alone. It is so, so unfair because bands like mine, which are large in numbers and really good but certainly not rich, cannot beat them. Their money makes the playing field so, so uneven. All their stuff boosts their music, repertoire, and visual scores exponentially and it is literally impossible to beat them unless you are the same kind of rich. It is deeply unfair to bands who just don't have the money to compete with that. And it's additionally annoying that judges consider props as part of visual. Visual should be drill design and marching technique and color guard, NOT the big tarp that creates a fancy looking background.

It's unfair in a lot of ways and there should be something to make it more even. Maybe a maximum on what you can spend on a marching show or something, I don't know. All I know is that money - or lack thereof- should not influence how well you place.

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

i wanna know more about svsss menopause

They synced their periods together too well. Now they are synced through their perimenopause years.

[bigcats-birds-and-books]

...i'm sorry but. are you saying that. ART. provided. leverage??

i have another crew it might be interested in. it and bot both, actually.

[leenfiend]

this is probably relevant to me alone but Be My Thrill (the 2010 album by americana folk duo the Weepies) is so Lance to Keith the whole way through. perhaps it's time to write up a breakdown reminiscent of the much more relevant mitski post by iconic klancer heynhay

[ju-ji]

Trying not to think too hard about this bc the last episode hasn’t even come out yet but when you break up with someone and then don’t see or talk to them for presumably a pretty significant amount of time are you really just gonna fall immediately back in love as soon as u reunite?? Maybe they will have talked before they actually meet again who knows but HOW are they gonna believably get them back together in probably at most 3/4 of an episode??? Are they??? To undo the hurt and betrayal they both felt at the end of the last ep I feel like it would take a whole new slow re-burn for them to get back together… yes I know mhok is THE simp of all time and I love him for that but I’d like to think he has at least a shred of dignity and wouldn’t just jump back into day’s arms after being hurt so deeply by the person he loved the most in the world ALSO it would be DELICIOUS to have day chase mhok this time around but there is simply not enough screen time available at this point for that to happen properly which is so unfortunate bc now that I thought of it I really want to see it and that could probably cancel out all the things I didn’t like to say the least about the last few eps. I am busting out the clown makeup right now, in fact I have never wanted to be a clown more in my life, but I’m thinking we’re getting an open ending at best. MAYBE a rushed and not fulfilling/earned happy ending but that’s almost worse and if they dare to give us a sad ending (or day can see again) I’m literally digging a hole in the ground and holding a funeral service for this show

[the-eyes-of-andyserkis]

This man's eyes (among other things) will be the death of me. 🥵

[fixing-bad-posts]

　

why does he look like eminem

[aromanticduck]

Just turned my 7am alarm back on :(

[triscribe]

Hey, Tri!

I'm sorry for contacting you anon, though we're mutuals. I just have a very strange problem and I'm not sure how to go about it: On one of my fics, someone started talking about a fic that is similar to mine and written by someone else. What I got out of the comment was "this is really good and you should read it" even though they never actually made a comment on what was happening in my own fic. (Just the fic-rec and then some "I hope this happens" kind of thing.) Then another reader came along and asked for the fic's title. On my fic. In the comment section.

This week has been really rough emotionally and I don't know how to respond or what to do. This has never happened before and I don't want to be rude because it was probably kindly meant, but I've never recc'd another fic in the comment section of a fic I'm reading because it just...sounds...rude?

Any help?

Thank you very much.

Yeah, I been there. Emotionally, it's annoying and a little hurtful; logically, I talk myself around to just ignoring it.

My initial gut reaction the first time was "what the heck?" Kindly meant or not, that's just, the sort of thing that makes me want to wave my hand in front of someone's face and go "hello? Remember where you are?" But when you think about it... there probably used to be a lot of interactions like that on fic sites that were built as forums more than archives.

I've only been involved in posting fan fiction for about eight years at this point, and my experience is with just ff.net and AO3, where interactions with other people is mostly limited to comments. There's no community space, really, to talk about stories and authors, unless you know other people on different websites, like here and Discord. And because of that, there's inevitably moments where readers get into conversations with one another, establishing comment threads that barely touch upon the fic they're attached to.

As the author, it feels rude as heck. I'm not discounting that. I am lucky in that I've got a longtime reader who often does this, but always separate from the actual comments they leave regarding my story. That's someone who get to the bottom of the page, writes their initial reactions, and then goes looking through the rest of the comments for other people to poke at with theories and thoughts.

If everyone operated in that manner, I'd feel a lot happier with extraneous threads - because that does feel like people trying to have a bit of community interaction, which I'm all for... just not at the expense of my mental well-being. Because it is definitely disappointing to see a comment notification, eagerly open up the email, and be completely confused by what's been written.

As far as what you can do at this point, there aren't exactly a lot of options. Delete the comments if you'd like, or just shrug and ignore them. If you're worried about it happening again, you could put a note at the bottom of your fics requesting people not do so, but that's not necessarily a guarantee.

I am sorry this came up at a poor time for you, dude, and that I don't have more helpful advice. Hope things get better soon.

[prettyboysdontlookatexplosions]

reading a letter My Nemesis Curricular Guru Lucy Calkins posted to her facebook group after she announced she would be updating her curriculum to include phonics & remove antiphonetic decoding strategies [which to be clear is NOT the only problem with it just the one that's gotten enough media attention they feel they have to capitulate] when they were like "what? your curriculum includes phonics now? i feel confused and betrayed" and like. god i hate her.

For example, when a child is reading a sentence such as, "It was cold, so I put on my jacket," and the child gets stuck on jacket, we now suggest the teacher nudge by saying, "Look at the letters, have a go with that word," rather than saying, "Think about what's happening. What might the boy put on?" By prompting students to use phonics at that moment of challenge, we encourage them to apply and practice the phonics they know. We also know that when they use phonics to decode a word, they are more apt to add that word to their sight vocabulary.

so far, so ugh, fine, i GUESS - although please note that she does not say "regularly using phonics to decode words is the only way that readers will develop the skills to become proficient readers." also notice, if you will, how unbelievably fucking annoying every sentence this woman ever writes is. have a go with that word - shut up!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! but then we get:

Of course, the child may say something like jake-it in which case the teacher will need to follow up the phonics prompt with a prompt for meaning, "Does that make sense?" Then the child will use their understanding of the context to correct the mispronounced word so that they can fully comprehend the passage. This correction, too, adds to their phonics experience. That is, even when phonics is centered, meaning will never not be important, as the goal of reading is to understand and to learn.

AUGH!!!!! (1) i'm not saying no early reader in history has ever pronounced "jacket" as "jake-it" but it would be an unusual error to make given that children are taught the short vowels first and thus they are in my experience much more likely to incorrectly make a long vowel short than the other way around. (2) i hate this shit that the Balanced Literacy Is Fine Camp keeps pulling where they act like they're the only ones who give a shit if kids understand what they're reading. if you have not been watching these debates as something between catharsis and self-harm maybe this does not come across to you as infuriatingly smug and passive aggressive but i promise you it is!!!! (3) BUT THE REALLY FUCKED UP THING IS: yes readers including good readers do use context to confirm their decoding has been correct and/or to sort of tweak the set of sounds they have made to turn it into an actual word, because english is a(n unusually?) mushmouth-prone language and over time pronunciations have done things like blur vowel sounds a lot. maybe you pronounce DOC-TORE and then go back and tweak it to "doctor." maybe you move the stress around. maybe you realize "minute" as in time was actually "minute" as in small. maybe you try the "ow" sound as in "cow" instead of the "ow" sound as in "snow." all normal all good.

HOWEVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! JACKET IS A PERFECTLY PHONETIC FUCKING WORD!!!!!!!!!!! a kid who mispronounces "jacket" as "jake-it" should not be coached to attend to context!!!! they should be taught or reminded (ideally with additional practice for reinforcement later on) that vowels before a "ck" are just about always fucking short!!!!!!! the fact that lucy thought this would be a reasonable example for a fix that would require context to discern is maybe the most unambiguous proof possible that she doesn't fucking know what she's talking about, and all her bullshit about "i too have been learning and growing [regarding findings that are decades old]" is in fact bullshit because she obviously has not fucking bothered with any of the zillions of dollars her curriculum makes to go get her own ass, or the asses of anyone working on this project, trained in phonics. i hate her!!!!!!!!

[istherewifiinhell]

[fugitoid #1 eastman & laird]

[ID from alt: The "Fugitoid", a shiny robot with round chunky lower limbs, torso and head, with sleek tube like connectors between. He sits amongst other robots in various states of diserpair and thinks "Eh? We seem to be stopping... in some-kind of marketplace!" END ID]

[danswank]

But we all know Lisa is only there to watch Alex to make sure he don’t go back to Janelle or try to see her on the side

no!! we don’t know that!!

[midrashic]

i’m actually still thinking about “paragraphs longer than seven lines are unreadable by most people” as a thing someone might assume is broadly true

[georgebbwbush]

i wish everyone else was as terrified of aging as i was tbh like it's really fucking annoying when your neuroses are out of style :/