#rep reimagined

[jesncin]

I really wish they went into lois being korean in maws :( i really wish the season was longer than 10 episodes, all of the emotional development felt rushed to me. they could have done more with her if they had more time

While I agree that MAWS is super rushed, I don't think that more episodes would fix their issues. MAWS inherently has an "I don't see color" approach to their characters of color.

Why did they have a joke about Black Jimmy Olsen not comprehending oppression? Why is his only basis to anything remotely similar to facing bigotry be "being stood up" by his friends? Why does Lois as a Korean American not understand why an alien immigrant would hide his heritage from an unaccepting world after she herself said "nobody normal believes in aliens"? Why is her Asian American dad xenophobic to Clark without any insightful discussion as to how assimilation can make minorities turn against each other? Why is it, in the narrative of MAWS, that the only characters who go through bigotry are white people (and a gorilla)? Why is it in Lois' hope speech to support Superman does she mention that humans are cruel to "people who don't look like us" when Clark passes for a white man?

These aren't things that can be fixed with "more time". It's a fundamental problem with how MAWS depicts characters of color. They view them as a commodified aesthetic acknowledgement of diversity and not people who navigate the world differently. Changing historically white characters into people of color comes with understanding how those different experiences would affect their characterization. It's not skin deep.

[morninkim]

Rise of the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers - Bulk & Skull

Co-founders of the Power Rangers Fan Club and proud owners of a ClikClak account with a whopping 78 followers (and counting!), R4ngerN3T, meet Farkas "Bulk" Bulkmeier and Eugene "Skull" Skullovitch!

Bulk is on the football team with Jason and Zack, and has always wanted to be a superhero since he was a kid. He's a bit abrasive and hard to get along with at first. He's also very loud and outspoken, not afraid to put those he thinks deserve it in their face. Though underneath his obnoxious tough guy exterior is a passionate and driven young man who is determined to uncover the identities of the Power Rangers with the help of his boyfriend, Skull.

Skull's a little more mellow than Bulk, but only barely. He's not the brightest, mostly down to his problems staying focused on schoolwork, and relies on Bulk to help him out with studying (which is about as successful as it sounds). Though the one thing that immediately gets him excited and fixated is a new Ranger sighting, to which he'll pull out his phone and start bugging anyone and everyone with questions about it.

Together they started a ClikClak account to start documenting their search for the Power Rangers' identities, mostly to go viral when they eventually succeed (maybe, but probably not). They keep the page active with blurry photos, conspiracy theories about the Rangers and the monsters they fight, and dubious interviews from people around town. Despite some... precarious sources and stories, it's surprisingly good journalism.

[qbdatabase]

Daily Book - At Midnight: 15 Beloved Fairy Tales Reimagined

At Midnight ed. Dahlia Adler YA Fantasy / Horror, 2022, 496 pg short story anthology that includes: Mexican wlw female; Indian; hijabi female; wlw female; mlm male; drag queen; transgender male; transgender female Fairy tales have been spun for thousands of years and remain among our most treasured stories. Weaving fresh tales with unexpected reimaginings, At Midnight brings together a diverse group of acclaimed YA writers to breathe new life into a storied tradition.

[loving-n0t-heyting]

Omar little should really make the wire into a tumblr classic. You have here a flamboyant gay black robin hood-esque stickup artist who holds himself to an exacting code of honour and refuses to taryet civilians, whose in-world legendary status borders on the mary sue-ish, and who across 2 seasons together with his bf teams up with a lesbian couple as a gangster-robbing quartet (these are only a handful of the canon gay characters). The show is ofc itself fairly sympathetic to the cops over most of the drug dealers and other associated criminals, but its also among big name cop-sympathetic media probably the most amenable to reimagining from the other side, and as much as the show loves detectives it hates the war on drugs even more; certainly moreso than in the few exposures ive gotten to b99, which somehow managed to bypass this sites usual anti-LEO vitriol with what is to all appearances the most tepid edge-sanded "queer rep" imaginable

And it managed to pull all this off during the bush administration

[simoneashleyedits]

EXCLUSIVE: After breaking out with her lead role in the second season of Netflix’s smash hit series Bridgerton, Simone Ashley has moved on to star in This Tempting Madness, a new indie directed by Jennifer E. Montgomery, from her script written with husband Andrew M. Davis, which just wrapped production in Los Angeles.

A first look still from the pic, marking Montgomery’s feature directorial debut, can be found below.

Inspired by a true story, This Tempting Madness is an elevated psychological thriller about a young woman (Ashley) who awakens from a coma grievously injured, memory fractured, her husband arrested. But as she puts together the pieces of her past, she starts to question her own actions — and her perception of reality.

Producers include Montgomery and Davis for their Smoke Jumper Films; Mango Monster Productions; Jessica Malanaphy and Marcei Brown for CatchLight Studios; and William Day Frank. Coming from a background as a cinematographer, Davis will also be lensing the film.

In the second season of Bridgerton, based on the hugely popular Julia Quinn romance novels, Ashley was introduced as Kate Sharma, who’s courted by Viscount Anthony Bridgerton (Jonathan Bailey) upon her arrival in London from India. For a moment snatching the record of the most-watched English-language series in Netflix history, with 251.7M hours viewed in its first seven days, the season was celebrated for breaking a race barrier with Ashley’s character, whose ethnicity was changed from the books so that her family would be of Indian descent.

Set to reprise the role in Season 3, Ashley has also recently appeared in Disney’s live-action reimagining of The Little Mermaid, as Ariel’s sister, Indira. Otherwise best known for her role as Olivia on Netflix’s BAFTA-winning series Sex Education, she also boasts credits including Pokémon Detective Pikachu (Warner Bros), Broadchurch (BBC America) and C.B. Strike (Cinemax), to name a few. The actress is represented by Identity Agency Group, CAA, and Myman Greenspan Fox.

Montgomery and Davis are repped by Anonymous Content.

Source: Deadline

[samglyph]

Sorry I’d like to give book recs but I suddenly realized I do not have a very wide range of books I’ve read.

Do you have any queer book recs that you’d like to talk about? I’d love to read more queer books but was never exposed to much of it as a child when I read through books so quickly

Queer books that I’ve read recently that I quite liked:

The Salt Grows Heavy by Cassandra Khaw

This is actually a horror book and only counts as a romance to me cause my brain is a bit snapped but it is romantic ok it IS what if I was a man eating mermaid and you were a gender unspecified plague doctor and we made a connection despite our mutual inhumanity. It’s also very short

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by VE Schwab

Ok the main relationships in this are f/m but the main characters are bi/queer (there’s a lesbian artist side character named Sam :]!)and there are quite a few lovely wlw scenes that I quite liked. Otherwise I just really liked this book I know some people found it slow but I thought the pacing was very well done and the twists felt well earned. Bittersweet, but (spoilers) had an ending that had me going “good for her >:)”

What Moves the Dead by T Kingfisher

This one’s not romantic and it’s also horror it’s just a reimagining of Poe’s Fall of the House of Usher with a non-binary protag and it’s sooo entertaining. Alex is such a funny pov character for this story.

And now it’s time to rank the TJ Klune books that I’ve read so far (all of Klune’s books are mlm romance fantasy books though I guess itlop is more sci fi) (I liked all of them but here’s my preference in order of least to most enjoyed)

3. In the Lives of Puppets

Reverse retelling of Pinocchio (android man raises a human son in a world of robots) I thought the ace rep was maybe a little heavy handed at times (I’m ace I think the author was doing his best but could’ve dialed it back to feel more natural) and some of the humor wasn’t to my taste but the relationships were sweet and as always I love Klune’s worldbuilding. When the terrible dogfish showed up I said OHHHH out loud cause I hadn’t put the premise together yet despite everything else making it so obvious.

2. The House in the Cerulean Sea

This is everyone’s favorite but I’m gonna be honest. I just thought it was really good. I thought the conflict was a little on the nose/id seen it before so it didn’t really grab me but the setting and characters SHINE. It’s so visual I love Klune’s descriptions (right off the bat even in the boring office setting I was thinking “this should be a laika movie”)

1. Under the Whispering Door

This one is my favorite. Am I predictable. Yes. Am I taking criticism ABSOLUTELY not I loved this book. I love when an asshole learns to grow as a person I love how human this understanding of death and the after life is I love how even though the book tells you the twist on the back cover it still managed to sneak up on me and tear my heart out. Good book.

[metalheadsforblacklivesmatter]

This is an amazing way to increase the number of jobs and reduce burnout. This will also make working a full time job more accessible to disabled and neurodivergent folk.

-fae

[ghost-of-kreacher]

Some things that I thought about while looking at EGOs.

A lot of them are symbolic for something in the Sinner's life. I might possibly be late to the party. So, we'll be looking at 3 examples for now, because these 3 are the one's I've been thinking about the most.

I. Meursault

"Sun's out, guns out"

I've seen someone here say that this EGO metaphorically represents how Meursault is chained by what other people expect from him. So it follows that Meursault's other EGOs are what people expect him to be/see him as.

Screwloose Wallop/Do You Want To Get Beat? Hurtily? represents how other people might see Meursault as mindless muscle. Considering that Meursault won't do anything until Dante says so, this is probably where that comes from.

Pursuance/Heavenly Executor's Scribe represents how some people might see Meursault as this tireless, perfect, yet unnatural being. I say unnatural cuz biblically accurate angels? horrifying.

Lastly for Meursault, Capote/Brazen Bull. But being brazen isn't exactly what you'd think of Meursault. I think that Meursault has this EGO because he's repping the matador attire instead of the bull. Meursault is usually very calm, much like how a matador would be despite a very angry bull charging right at them. This EGO likely represents how people expect Meursault to be cool and collected, even in dire situations.

Next up is...

II. Ishmael

"i can and will teach you how to tie a knot"

These two are put together for an obvious reason. Ishmael wants to catch up to someone for, judging from her trailer and from her inspiration from Moby Dick, reasons of vengeance. So it stands to reason that both Roseate Desire and Snagharpoon are all about getting someone closer to her, or stopping them entirely in Roseate Desire's Corrosion.

(Helping with the vengeance bit is that both EGOs require Wrath. I'm assuming that Snagharpoon represents Ishmael being sad about her crew dying, since that requires Gloom, and being angry about it, while Roseate is the actual obsession with whoever she's (was?)* trying to find, since it costs Lust.) <--- this was added when I searched up the Sin costs in case that was relevant.

What's weird to me though is that Roseate's animation is just Snagharpoon's but reimagined. I mean, seriously both have Ishmael tossing something, bringing it back, and smacking the opponent. Roseate's associated Sin is Lust, but I'm guessing that Lust in this game represents obssession rather than actual horniness.

"If that bastard is really dead, I might have nothing to chase after."

Following with the obsession, she also has Capote. However, compared to Meursault's Capote, Ishmael actually represents the Brazen Bull this time. This EGO probably represents as long as she sees even a hint of 'red', she'll keep chasing after the 'bastard'.

This EGO costs 2 Wrath, 2 Lust, and 1 Sloth. I think that the Sloth represents how she isn't really working towards any other goal other than the revenge mission she was(?)* on, which is, I guess, a sort of laziness?

Ishmael's last EGO, Ardor Blossom Star/Ardor Blossom Moth. This is the one I'm most iffy on. The art displays what seems to be burnt corpses beneath her, which makes me think of her likely dead crew. Her line during regular EGO seems to bring them in mind too, though I might be reaching on this.

"Though I cannot guide you... I can offer a warm embrace."

This makes the most sense when referring to her crew. She doesn't know how to properly mourn them, and is instead 'offering a warm embrace' by doggedly trying to kill whoever she's (was?)* trying to kill.

The EGO costs for this one also have Wrath and Lust like the rest of her EGOs, but the one thing that throws me off is the Envy. Why would she be jealous of her own crew? I'm sure that there is another interpretation of the Envy sin that I'm missing, someone tell me please.

*I say was, because the contract might have stopped her from trying to find the 'bastard' mentioned in her trailer.

Up last is...

III. Sinclair

"So you mean to tell me that this Clair has committed sins?"

Sinclair's EGOs are probably the ones I had to stretch REALLY far for, so forgive me. Feel free to tell what you think though.

The Branch of Knowledge represents his Mark of Cain, which represents his bravery to stand up to Kromer. Honestly, I think this EGO is best explained by that one tumblr post about N Corp Sinclair.

Essentially, N Corp Sinclair has one chance to defy The One Who Grips, and it's this EGO. Faust's EGO has a Fatal weakness to Gluttony, which is N Corp Sinclair's one chance at rebellion. However, he isn't entirely safe, since Branch has a Fatal weakness to Pride. If N Corp Sinclair screws it up, The One Who Grips' Execution and Representation Emitter means the end of him. So that's why I think that Branch symbolizes the Mark of Cain.

Anyway, moving on to the next EGOs. I'll keep it short since this is already way too long.

Doomsday Calendar/Impending Day probably represents his final meeting with Kromer? This one I'm not entirely sure of. The only reason I'm associating this with Kromer is the fact the Sinclair had one last coin from Kromer on him, and the fact that the calendar itself is very fleshy too, which mirrors Kromer's obsession with human 'purity'.

At this point I've reached the limit for photo on tumblr it seems, but regardless.

Sinclair's last EGO, Lifetime Stew/Basilisoup, probably represents dinner with his family, and subsequently how he still loved them. Sinclair liked dinners with his family, and you can even see in the window of his jail cell in Branch that he thinks that if he had taken the prosthetic, he'd still be having dinner with his family.

I might be missing more, but its 4 am here, and I'm about to get knocked out. I might do more with the other Sinners once they get more EGO's that are unique to them cuz

Sunshower just means that they had a wife (Yi Sang, Outis, Heathcliff)

Alleyway Wolf means that they lost someone (Don Quixote - Sancho, Faust - Gretchen/a baby, thanks to the people who noticed the baby-adjacent things in Faust's EGOs, Heathcliff - Catherine) since the wolf carries a body on its back. 'Probably' in Don's case, I don't know the full details of the original Don Quixote.

yeah night

[scotianostra]

On December 27th 1904 J M Barrie’s play Peter Pan premiered at the Duke of York Theatre, London.

Writer and playwright J.M. Barrie was born on May 9, 1860, in Kirriemuir, Forfarshire, Scotland. After graduating from Edinburgh University in 1882, Barrie worked as a journalist. He published his first novel, Better Dead, in 1887. Barrie soon had a string of popular novels set in Scotland, including A Window in Thrums.

After having some success with fiction, Barrie began writing plays in 1890s. His play, Walker London, was warmly received. The comedy poked fun at the institution of marriage. He got married himself in 1894 to actress Mary Ansell, but it didn’t turn out to be a happy union and they later divorced.

Perhaps to escape his difficult home life, Barrie took to going out for long walks in London’s Kensington Gardens, where he met the five Llewelyn Davies brothers in the late 1890s. It was the brothers where he found inspiration for Peter Pan. Barrie would later become the boys’ guardian after the death of their parents.

The famous character of Peter Pan first appeared in the 1902 book The Little White Bird. Two years later audiences were drawn into the fantastical tale of the flying boy who never grew up and his adventures in Neverland with the Darling children. Barrie also wrote a book based on the play called Peter and Wendy, which was published in 1911. The book earned rave reviews from critics.

Barrie published about Peter Pan in five works in total, Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up, Peter Pan in Kensington Gardens, When Wendy Grew Up – An Afterthought, Peter and Wendy, and Peter Pan, or The Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up, the first publication of the script of the play.

Around 40 other stories have been published by various other people through the years along with four nonfiction works telling the stories behind the stories. Numerous comic books have also been published and there was a radio adaptation from the BBC in 1995.

According to wiki we have had 26 different stage plays about or eponymous boy who never grew up, the latest being only two years ago, Peter Pan: reimagined fro the Birmingham Rep.

Wiki says there have been 12 films, including the animated ones, and on the small screen in various guises, Peter has been explored 12 times.

The charm of J M Barrie’s character lives on in several video games and who knows how long we will continue to see Peter appear in years to come.

[pridepages]

🌈 Happy Pride! 🌈

This June, good things come in sets of six as I spotlight some of my favorite rainbow reads.

✨Category is: Shakesqueer✨

From Viola to Hamlet to the mysterious Golden boy and Dark Lady, readers of the Bard know there’s nothing straight or narrow about these texts…

Learn more about them under the cut

Besides his collected works, here are some other titles for Shakespeare fans!

Loveless by Alice Oseman (YA): Uni first year Georgia Warr has learned all about love from stories…including Shakespeare. As she and her friends perform snippets of several plays, Georgia discovers more about her identity and all the forms love takes Rep: aromantic/asexual mc, sapphic scs, nonbinary sc, BIPOC scs

Mortal Follies by Alexis Hall (Fantasy Regency Romance): Shakespeare meets Austen in Hall’s latest romance between Miss Maelys Mitchell and Lady Georgiana Landrake. Fans of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” will recognize the narrator, who’s clearly been up to antics since wreaking havoc in the forest…Lord what fools these mortals be! Rep: F/F sapphic mcs, queer scs

Lady Hotspur by Tessa Gratton (High Fantasy Reimagining): Gender-bend “Henry IV” and fill it with sapphics? Yes, please! While it is a sequel to “The Queens of Innis Lear,” this one can stand on its own. Rep: F/F, sapphic mcs, queer scs

Golden Boys Beware by Hannah Capin (YA reimagining) What if you set “Macbeth” in high school and put Her Ladyship front and center? A lurid, poetic reimagining of a timeless, horrifying tragedy. Rep: sapphic scs trans sc, BIPOC

If We Were Villains by ML Rio (Mystery/Thriller): Once an actor, now a convicted killer, Oliver Marks reveals what really happened the night one of his fellow Shakespearean troupe members died. “One sin I know another doth provoke; Murder’s as near to lust as flame to smoke” Rep: questioning/unlabeled queer characters, M/M

[uppastthejelliclemoon]

Jumping off of the last ask, what types of non-rep costumes are your favorite? Do you like a more human-esqe look like Tecklenburg or Opera Populaire went for? Or a more cat-like look like the Mexico tours or il sistana? (Personally i don't like one over the other generally. Tho i have found i tend to like the bright colored or themed ones best)

that's the same with me!!! there's something i love about each of the non-reps that it's hard to put one above the other!

the sort of sepia-tonied costumes for il sistina are SO aesthetically pleasing, and i love the subtle changes they made to the makeup and costumes!

mexico 2018's colors are some of my absolute FAVORITES (pink jemima my beloved!!!!) and gothenburg/stockholm with all the colors funky designs is SO much fun, plus the setting is one of my favorites ever!

i think opera populaire and kilworth both do a fantastic job at reimagining the show in a different setting and time period (though if i was to pick one over the other, kilworth will always have my absolute favorite character designs!)

so, i think i prefer SLIGHTLY the more catlike looks, because, for me, a more human-ish look has to be done SUPER well in a non-rep. like, luisenburg does such a phenomenal job with making them more human-ish than cat while still sticking perfectly with the essence of each of the characters.

i will say... i think i'm in the cats fandom minority when i say i'm not a fan of tecklenburg 😭😭😭

[matoitech]

doodle from last night of the an old fursona i dont use anymore that ppl whove been following me since i was a teenager will probably recognize tho. i decided to make like an adult version since a lots changed since then and its fun to do like, older versions of old characters. i dunno if he could ever become just a normal oc cuz i used him for like a decade growing up, but im not the same person i was when he was my like rep, so he doesnt feel like ‘me’ exactly either lol. but he also was always kind of an oc and not exactly a fursona i just used him cuz i struggled to design a more fitting one?? so its complicated lol. but its fun to do some slight redesigns or rly just like..  better looking ‘reimaginings’ of markings i gave him when i was a kid

anyway his horns and spikes used to be smaller but i decided to give him ibex-like horns and make him spikier as a guy in his 20s. hes always been a cheetah/dragon tho over the years hes been combined with more animals here and there like lions but its rly just been whatever i felt like with him. i think he should still be able to breathe fire too

[thoughtsofthegirlwiththecurl]

9 books

9? Just 9 most favorite books of all time? Oh the inhumanity! Thank you for the tag @cricketnationrise I had a ten minute existential crisis and then wrote the following, which is not particularly helpful and breaks all the rules:

Tortall series by Tamora Pierce

Discworld series by Terry Pratchett

Good Omens by Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman

Innkeepers series by Ilona Andrews

Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell

Check Please by Ngozi Ukazu

everything Margaret Rogerson has written

Dealing with Dragons by Patricia C. Wrede

everything T Kingfisher has written (minus her horror, I'm working my way up to it)

It's also a fuck ton of books (as well as a lot of books people already know about), so I also offer my 9 favorite books I've read this year ("isn't that just introducing even MORE books? Are you just using this platform to get as many books as possible in front of people's faces?" I hear you ask, to which I say "shhhhhhhhh")

The Witch's Hand by Nathan Page [Hardy Boys but gayer and also a comic]

Stars, Hide Your Fires by Jessica Mary Best [queer locked room mystery in space]

Dance with the Devil by Kit Rocha (3rd book of a trilogy) [post-apocalyptic hopepunk romance featuring found family + building a community + everyone's casually bi]

Network Effect by Martha Wells [murderbot continues to reluctantly save the galaxy and make friends against its will; #5 in the series, though I maintain the events of book #6 happen before this one]

The League of Gentlewomen Witches by India Holton [witches, romance, very proper lady pirates in flying houses, victorian society, old lady cat fights. Technically book #2, but I think it could work as a standalone]

The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches by Sangu Mandanna [contemporary, found family, romance]

Vespertine by Margaret Rogerson [possessed lady knight attempts to save world, very murderbot vibes actually, ace rep]

Hither, Page by Cat Sebastian [gay 1950s cozy British mystery]

My Lady Jane by Brodi Ashton, Cynthia Hand, and Jodi Meadows [it's just delightfully silly, reimagining of Tudor history, now with spontaneous animal shape shifting, murder plots that DON'T succeed, inappropriately timed horses, enemies to lovers arranged marriage]

Tagging @vhenadahls @dancemakestheworldgoround @pendwick @starthecozy @appalamutte @zimmerdouche @alocalband @bookish-owlette @theunembarrassedalto and literally anyone else who sees this!! Gimme those recs!!

[starrlikesbooks]

Welcome to September!

As always, check under the cut for more on each~

Garlic & the Witch is the sequel to Paulsen's adorable, cozy middlegrade graphic novel, Garlic & the Vampire. I'm looking forward to more cute art, fall vibes, and anxiety rep.

The Gathering Dark is an incredible collection of folk horror! I was lucky enough to read this anthology in advance, and recommend it for all YA horror fans, lovers of folk tales, and anyone into local legends.

Our Shadows Have Claws is another short story collection, this one with all Latine authors and representation! Each of these stories are takes on different Latin-American monsters.

Self-Made Boys is a fantastic adaptation of The Great Gatsby that I've already been fortunate enough to read! This book reimagines the classic as a trans, Latine, queer story of classism, colorism, and America.

Silver Under Nightfall is a vampire story of queer love and courtly intrigue that was also pitched for fans of Castelvania! Chupeco has put out some interesting, weird stuff, so I have high hopes!

Eternally Yours is an anthology of paranormal romances, and one that seems really inclusive! This collection looks super fun.

Less is Lost is a surprising sequel to Greer's Less! The first book was bittersweet, fun, and solid, and I'm really looking forward to seeing how the story continues.

The Golden Enclaves is the long awaited final book in the Scholomance series, a trilogy full of demons, denying your fate, and golden retriever boyfriends.

How to Succeed in Witchcraft is a queer, witchy book of prestigious schools, breaking racist barriers, and musical theatre. It looks super fun!

Spells for Forgetting is a magical mystery of a small island community, as well as lost love.

[literaticat]

Hi Jenn! For books that change titles after publication, who makes the decision? Is it solely up to the publisher, or does the author have a say, 1) that it should happen (like if a title becomes problematic) and 2) what the new title should be? Or will the book just not get another printing? How would a change affect book sales, would it be treated as a brand new book, does anything special need to be done like with ISBNs or catalogs? Example: Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None.

First of all, this doesn't happen often at all, so it's probably not something that will ever come up, if you are reading this like !!! -- pls, calm down, you don't need to add this to your brimming catalogue of concerns.

Occasionally -- RARELY!!! -- a title will change after the book is already published. It's rare because it's a bit of a pain in the ass. IF this were to happen, it would most likely be at one of two times, for one of two reasons:

First: IF the book truly did NOT do well in hardcover, but they still believe in it and want to publish it in paperback but totally reimagine the packaging and "rebrand" to get a fresh start. (It does OFTEN happen that a paperback will get a new cover look from the hardcover -- but that rarely extends to the title itself. As in, over 500+ books I've had published, this has happened to me once.) In that case, the publisher said, hey, we want to rebrand this and give it a new title what do you think? And we brainstormed new titles and cover directions together. It was a good thing, because whatever confusion that might have happened in the marketplace (wait -- did I read this book already? Is this the same book or...??) was fleeting -- after all, hardly anyone DID notice the book the first time around, so there weren't very many people to confuse, that was the whole point! And it did say on the book "previously published as [former title]" so people could figure it out. And there was no issue with ISBN, because the paperback had a new ISBN anyway.

Second: If the book has done very well over the course of years, but for some reason the title has become A Problem. The case you mention, AND THEN THERE WERE NONE, is an example of this; the original UK title was offensive even for the US in the 1930's and I'm certainly not typing it, click the link if you don't know. We published it under another name here, and it has changed to be more offensive and then less offensive and changed back a couple more times over the course of decades. Obviously they didn't want to put a popular book by an extremely famous author out of print, so different publishers over the years have opted to tackle this in different ways, and Agatha is famous enough and the book popular enough that everyone just rolled with it. (I think everyone has finally settled on AND THEN THERE WERE NONE for the book, play, and new adaptations!) These changes might have been the idea of the estate itself, or might have come from the publisher, but either way, they'd both have to agree. Yes, a new edition with a new title would have a new ISBN and the updated version would be in catalogues and able to be ordered, the old version would just go out of print.

This has also happened to me once over the years with a book I repped, MELISSA by Alex Gino. It was originally published under a different title and won many awards and I don't think it's a stretch to call it a Modern Classic of MG fiction. It's about a trans kid (the titular MELISSA!) -- but the title of the first version was her "boy name." This made sense back in 2010 or whenever the author first conceived of writing the book, and we (author, agent, editor, publisher) didn't think much of it even when the book was published in 2015; that was what everyone called the protagonist, so it didn't feel weird at the time -- but after a while, Alex came to feel that this title felt inappropriate since Melissa IS Melissa throughout the whole book, even if other people call her by a different name; they wanted to change it. And times by then had changed quite a bit, people's understanding of how to talk about gender and such was just different, so while the publisher did balk at first (after all, changing that book meant potentially confusing A LOT of people, as well as changing the covers of ALL Alex's books that mentioned this award-winning first book), eventually the publisher decided that the benefits outweighed the risks and did change it. So a bunch of things happened: All Alex's other books had their covers changed in reprints, MELISSA's cover and ISBN changed and the old version went out of print, and new jackets that said MELISSA were created so people who already had the hardcover with the old title could swap it out if they wanted, and they did a lot of PR around the name change so people would hopefully understand why and what was happening and be excited about it rather than potentially annoyed.

As you can see, doing this with a popular book is quite an undertaking and not something a publisher would take lightly -- and while the decision might come from the author OR the publisher, at the end of the day, EVERYONE would have to be on board.

I strongly suspect that a book that had a "huh, is that kosher these days?" title that was NOT popular would just end up going out of print and fading into memory.

[taylortheeswift]

Hey, what are 3 songs you'd ask Taylor to play you acoustically if you got the chance?

This is so hard bc acoustic Taylor is my favourite Taylor so literally anything would be gold. She could burp the Dear John long note and I’d be happy. But if I truly had to choose three…

* I’m going to first eliminate Dancing with our Hands Tied because I DID get to hear that acoustic at rep tour and it was everything…so that would be my first choice for songs I have actually been lucky enough to hear acoustic.

But for songs I haven’t:

* Exile or Evermore WITH Bon Iver: I love Justin as well and they have such good musical chemistry. These are probably the top two surprise song performances for me so far, aside from the ones at my own concert. I’d love an extended Evermore performance where Bon Iver does the bridge and Taylor also does it somehow. Maybe an orchestral backing too, some violins… 😮‍💨

* Cowboy Like Me: I fell in love with this song 1.5 seconds into the first listen and I adore the surprise song rendition too. I’d like one with just Taylor (but the Marcus duet is great too).

* Glitch: I’m like one of 5 Glitch stans and there’s something so electronic about the song, so I’d love to see how she reimagines it on guitar (or like…keyboard? Synth keyboard??). I think her vocal choices could be very exciting with all the high and low notes. She surprised me with the amount of emotion she injected into Dress acoustically so who knows how an acoustic Glitch might sound?

Honourable mentions:

* Ivy - shit slaps wbk

* Long Story Short - a normal version without Story of Us mashed in (TSOU is a least fave sorry, and I loved the positivity of the original LSS but I see why she mashed them together right now)

* Lavender Haze - sort of a tiny desk set up with backup vocalists and some more percussion for a fuller sound and I wanna hear her BELT like she does in the final chorus.

But I really love anything she does with just a guitar or piano. I think her acoustic Gorgeous performance from 2017 (in the dark green outfit) is one of her best ever.