#none of this is even getting into my big critique of a lot of literature

[senadimell]

Favorite PolSci paper?

...you should really know not to expect anything resembling concision from me, my friend.

So, uh...I'm not even gonna try to pick one.

The thing about me and political science is that I skew a lot closer to the humanities end of the analytical pool; I tend to be more inductive than deductive and it shows. I also tend to be skeptical of most work's explanatory power, and extremely skeptical about anything claiming predictive power. My favorite work tends to incorporate historical research and ethnographic data, and I tend enjoy critique papers and theory building. I tend to like "mid-level" approaches, where people try to study a specific phenomenon rather than going for large unifying theoretical questions, because I favor smaller knowledge claims with more data behind them. It's harder to build than tear down, and unfortunately I just love "tearing down" work. That said, there are some things that are really hard to research, and I'm always impressed by scholars who manage to do it well, either by spending a lot of time building trust or else by thinking of novel measures.

Kathleen Collins has a neat paper that tries to understand something really dang hard to research: banned underground movements in Central Asia. It's called "Ideas, Networks, and Islamist Movements: Evidence from Central Asia and the Caucasus." Specifically, she's looking at the spread of social movements that politicize Islam, and why they might succeed and take root in the face of governmental opposition or fail.

What I like in particular about the piece (in addition to the interview data she managed to collect from people involved in very illegal movements in generally illiberal states) is that she proposes mechanisms for the spread of a particular ideology in the face of state repression rather than just assuming "well, it's an Ideology! It's powerful!" She looks specifically at ideational fit and recruitment/idea networks (i.e. how the word is spread), and whether they're inclusive or exclusive networks (more about the "not us" or more about "join together").

It's ultimately case study research, but unlike a lot of case studies, convenience is decidedly not a driving factor behind her particular cases because she picked one of the hardest things to get people to talk about outside of a war zone. And of course, she gains a lot of respect from me by realistically assessing the implications for her paper (nothing turns me into a shark faster than people claiming greater explanatory power than their paper actually provides). So. Great insights, she really interrogates the mechanisms she proposes (which is absolutely what you have to do if you're theory-building with case studies), and she incorporates both extensive interviews from focus groups, political leaders, and surveys.

There's a series of pieces about Euromaidan by Volodymyr Ishchenko that I really enjoyed. The first is more or less introducing a database recording Euromaidan protest events that I admire. It does a good job being thorough and controlling for common biases from databases made up of media reports (skews towards big cities, sensationalist events, etc). I'm impressed by the dataset, and find the analysis particularly interesting.

Ishchenko really digs into what Euromaidan looked like on the ground and how it manifested regionally, who was involved, and what happened at protests. A bunch of scholars were going back and forth on whether Euromaidan was actually violent or not or what the degree of state involvement was, but he pretty convincingly argues that most of these arguments are based on...well, not cherry-picked exactly, but non-comprehensive evidence.

So you get one person who is saying stuff like "it was totally organized violence" and another saying "it was totally peaceful and state-escalated" and "it was mostly organized by the far-right" and "it was totally a popular protest" and frankly, based on their evidence, none of those contradicting claims were wrong because nobody was comprehensively analyzing what actually happened in all the protests and paying specific attention to who, what, where, and when incidents happened.

So he argues that most protests were peaceful, but there are specific regional trends, and eastern protests tended to be much less popular but had a higher concentration of far-right organizers, which is why some people can honestly say it was like a coup while a lot of other people can say "it was just a popular protest." He also identifies who exactly was involved, and when, and where, which is really important; in a followup article, Ishchenko IDs the groups with the resources to "[initiate] and [diffuse] efficient, coordinated, and strategic violence" and talks about how when Euromaidan was violent &/or radicalized, who was involved, and why. So who specifically was involved, who had organizational knowledge and violent knowledge, and when/where were they involved?

The concept of violent organization or escalation to violence is really interesting because people tend to separate peaceful from violent organization like they're two separate phenomenons or people assume that violent stuff was always going to be violent (scholars of violence are especially prone to only studying events where violence occurred, and when you want to know why something happens, it's really really important to look at why it might not happen). So I like what Ishchenko does.

My appreciation for Ischenko comes largely from a neat article by Charles King called "The Politics of Microviolence" which makes the assertion I just mentioned about violent and non-violent events being part of the same phenomenon. His piece is mostly a critique of the literature that then highlights two papers doing it well. (he argues we need to think smaller instead of only looking at large-scale violent events, and we need to consider when violence doesn't happen when it could have).

Oh man, there's a lot of really good work that I'm leaving out. Most of it is on civil war, paramilitaries and militias, and socialization to participate in violence (there's a really interesting study that says we basically assume it's easy to get people to be violent, then says that's not necessarily the case because that socialization fails, then works with with Israeli defectors). But my list kept growing and so I'll stop here.

The challenge with all scholarly work is that the more specialized you get, the easier it is to get siloed and unfortunately, it does get easier to take methodological assumptions as facts. For all the buzz around interdisciplinary stuff, there is a reason people specialize. I tend to be a connection-minded person and so I eat up work that combines disciplines well or critiques methodological assumptions that put two things into stark categories. But there's often a pretty good reason why those categories develop. Thus is the nature of scholarship...

Bibliography

Collins, Kathleen. 2007. "Ideas, Networks, and Islamist Movements: Evidence from Central Asia and the Caucasus." World Politics; World Pol 60 (1): 64-96. doi:10.1353/wp.0.0002.

Ishchenko, Volodymyr. 2016. "Far Right Participation in the Ukrainian Maidan Protests: An Attempt of Systematic Estimation." European Politics and Society (Abingdon, England) 17 (4): 453-472. doi:10.1080/23745118.2016.1154646.

Ishchenko, Volodymyr. 2020. "Insufficiently Diverse: The Problem of Nonviolent Leverage and Radicalization of Ukraine’s Maidan Uprising, 2013–2014." Journal of Eurasian Studies 11 (2): 201-215. doi:10.1177/1879366520928363. https://doi.org/10.1177/1879366520928363.

King, Charles. 2004. "The Micropolitics of Social Violence." World Politics; World Pol 56 (3): 431-455. doi:10.1353/wp.2004.0016.

#none of this is even getting into my big critique of a lot of literature #which is that i was trained in a field that just loves states #which means a lot of people i know about who study violence are asking it from the field of security #and security is about the security of the state #so it divides people pretty starkly based on their pro- or anti-government affiliation #and i'm not satisfied with that analysis #idk it's kinda like what volkov says in violent entreprenuers: we draw a line between organized crime and legitimate business #like there's a fundamental difference between state-sanctioned economic activity and state-criminalized economic activity #or state-sanctioned violence and non-state-sanctioned violence #and i don't think two types of the same behavior are fundamentally different just because they where they operate vis-a-vis the state #same thing with violence. who's to say the natural state of violence is that the state has a monopoly on it? #specifically. i think it's wrong and ahistorical to assume it's an anomaly when non-state actors engage in violence #even organized violence. #so yeah...i do think there's a difference between paramilitaries like SWAT and many militias #but rebel groups and state-aligned militias? not so much. or at least that's my current hypothesis based on what i've read #would like to do more research but alas. that's hard and i'm not willing to go for a phd in the foreseeable future #asks

[nightswatchdisbandmentera]

Welp ok so I generally don’t care about differing fandom opinions (unless they’re egregious misreadings specifically related to Jon Snow’s arc/character), but this article right here is absolutely BONKERS. Like in ways that I can’t even begin to explain. So the title right away is just so…

Why GRRM’s A Song of Ice and Fire is Bad Literature

Ok whatever, fantasy has traditionally had a hard time being regarded as literature. So this is nothing new. And I don’t particularly care about this argument so moving on…

I love that the first sentence is also just so factually incorrect

Nearly half a century has pasted since Billy Shakespeare has picked up his pen, and bibliophiles are still reading his plays.

Sis probably meant to say millennium but ok 😭 lowkey makes me think this is a joke but parts of this doesn’t read like that ansbjanan

And then the author proceeds to make a pretty bold claim

Traditionally, page-turners are not masterpieces. And that rule still stands when it runs by GRRM’s works. Yet legions of his fans sprout ridiculous praise, such as GRRM revolutionizing the fantasy genre and the diversity of his characters.

But…he kinda did. ASOIAF has had a great impact on the genre (good and bad). Plus, it is really important to acknowledge the sheer diversity of characters presented to us in the series. Characters who would traditionally not get the big focus that they do. Two of our main characters are disabled, and a big part of their arcs is how they navigate a world that is so horribly ableist. He upends the return of the king trope by shifting it to his sister who starts out a child bride/sex slave forced to take on the mantle of a dead dynasty. We have two female characters whose arcs revolve around how gender nonconforming they are but how they are so rooted in ideas of justice and compassion, especially towards the disenfranchised. He upends the revenge of the glorious and noble king by putting the focus on his mother. Et cetera, et cetera. Now GRRM is not without his faults (and he has many), but one cannot in good faith act like he hasn’t given us a different spin on a lot of what fantasy offers. There’s no need to be contrarian for the sake of it.

GRRM, being the revolutionary monster he is, rejects the romanticism of fantasy in favor for realism. He eschews the wonder, the ideals, the heroism, the chivalry, and the subtle social commentary. Congrats, you’re very innovative, GRRM. What did you replace them with?

I just vastly disagree with this and idk where to start.

Case in point. Throughout the series I masturbated to rape scenes, lovemaking scenes, and even a lesbian scene in which a vagina is described as a “Myrish swamp.” Yet in the aftermath of my orgasms, I was left to wonder: where’s all the pederasts? GRRM addressed this curious phenomenon by explaining none of the viewpoint characters were homosexual; “Sorry, none of the characters chose to be gay. Nothing I can do about it.”

Ok the beginning of this section is INSANE. Might just be me but idk why you would even add this to an essay that’s apparently about literary criticism. But I anyway…it is a fair critique that none of our POVs are explicitly non-heterosexual (and we can also criticize some fetishization with female-female relationships), but like the “myriad swamp” thing…isn’t it about power? Like there’s something in that scene that gives us glimpse to who Cersei is and what she craves…idk

Which goes to show, GRRM doesn’t use sex for verisimilitude; he exploits it so degenerates such as I can buy his books. Sure, heterosexual rape happens in war. So does homosexual rape, but its complete absence in the books ought to raise some eyebrows.

The second sentence makes a good point but it’s preceded by what is honestly just a mind blowing statement I- 😭

Additionally, not every graphic sex scene in the books contributes to the narrative. Sometimes it is absolutely redundant. In Dance of Dragons, Asha Greyjoy fucks Qarl the maid, which serves to… Show Asha’s feminine side? Reveal her disdain for her arranged marriage? It obviously didn’t supplement the plot; ten minutes post-coitus, a fucking battle occurs. I don’t understand why it needed to be so explicit as well. Its short appearance in the chapter was awkward, almost entirely random. Yes, sex happens in real life. That doesn’t mean portrayals of real life have to be so ridiculously pornographic.

Wait, this is satire right? Did I fall for it?

Eh, I can tolerate violence. At the age of five, I remember watching from the passenger’s seat as my dad pulverized his colleague by repeatedly smashing his head into the car’s hood and fender, spraying blood all over the windshield. But there’s a distinctive difference between sensational violence and artistic violence. Sensational violence is violence for the sake of violence, for the sole purpose of evoking shock and disgust. It’s tasteless. As bipolar as he is, even my ex-convict padre didn’t attack strangers without reason.

I’m so confused this has to be a bit, right?

No literary devices such as symbolism, metaphors, even the fucking pacing. While there is a climax, the scene does not build itself up to it: there is no intensity in the air, and time is not manipulated. Catharsis is missing, and the only feelings a reader has for Oberyn’s death is shock due to the element of hero invincibility. Don’t people get it? GRRM’s writing is boring.

One of the most confusing aspects of this scene was the death of the stableboy. It’s a great example of sensational violence, because his death seems entirely random and unnecessary. His life was so dispensable, the reader could barely register what they’re supposed to feel: sorrow, terror, or shock? What if the killed bystander was someone important? Violence for the sake of violence, and it comes off as tacky.

No way did I fall for a satirical piece on literary analysis?

This is essentially what GRRM does with Brienne of Tarth. She’s incredibly ugly and described as androgynous; her life was filled with scorn and pity for the lack of her feminine social graces, and contempt and resentment due to her violation of gender norms. But if I was a biologically female transsexual in a patriarchal medieval world, I’d have no fucking reason to dress up and act like a knight, especially if I was an aristocrat (which Brienne is). I don’t understand why Brienne couldn’t stay at Evenfall Hall and be her father’s Castellan or Captain of the Guard. She’s the only surviving child (and heir) of Lord Tarth, so I’m confused why her father would let her roam Westeros as a hedge knight. It’s also never explained why Brienne wanted to be a knight in the first place. She idealizes the concept of true knighthood but you can be just as courageous and conscientious as a lord. Brienne acts like a knight just for the purpose of being a female knight.

I feel like this is a joke 😭

If it isn’t a joke, why does it feel like the author is hating on Brienne for being a good person?

Yet readers claim Jaime Lannister underwent a character arc (approximately 3M words into ASOIAF), since he became easily likable. I personally do not believe Jaime has a redemption arc because his mindset, behavior, and opinions do not change. Jaime is still an arrogant prick, and just because he was written agreeably does not indicate his growth as a character.

I’m dying rn

What passes off as “character development” is actually “perception development.” Instead of putting effort into developing his characters, GRRM decides to warp the reader’s perceptions instead. To make Jaime a sympathetic character, GRRM develops Jaime’s backstory (completely justifying Jaime killing the Mad King) and makes Jaime’s actions more approvable (executing a rapist). The former completely nullifies Jaime’s prospective redemption arc, since it reveals that Jaime was just as “well-intentioned” in the past, and the later does not have noble intentions — as a military man, Jaime expects more discipline from his men than Ser Gregor Clegane did.

?

The way Jaime is written, however, suggests that GRRM intended to build Jaime as a flawed character who matured over the course of the story. Instead we get an impulsive character whose personal inspirations are derived on those who he associate with — Cersei in the past and now Brienne. The same Jaime who would throw Ed Stark’s son out a window for Cersei would encourage Brienne to search for Ed Stark’s daughters. Not because he feels he owes more than an apology to House Stark, but because Jaime befriends Brienne after his relationship with Cersei becomes strained. What’s worse than a misunderstood character is a a character misunderstood by its own creator.

Nah this author’s having a laugh, aren’t they? Like no way they said this with a straight face.

1. Ending a plotline at the climax only leaves the reader unsatisfied and bitter for wasting their time.

A brilliant example is Quentyn Martell, who traveled all the way to Essos to get burned by a dragon. Unlike Ned Stark’s execution and the Red Wedding, Martell’s death did not open any new plotlines. He was a POV character who is completely irrelevant to the narrative. Seriously, George… you chronicled Quentyn’s entire journey to Essos just to bring Quentyn’s two companions to Essos? What’s the fucking point? There were no new characters or locations unveiled to us throughout that entire episode, and Quentyn and his friends could have been introduced later, when they arrived in Astapor

This is a criticism I’ve seen since I joined this fandom over a decade ago. Now it’s definitely understandable to be annoyed with a cliffhanger, especially one that involves a character introduced so late isn’t he series, but there are Doylist and Watsonian reasons to Quentyn’s inclusion. His death has an impact on Dorne and Dany, plus he’s a meta deconstruction of the hero’s journey which we also see with Aegon/Young Griff (who is also, by very much on purpose introduced in the same book) and also Jon, Dany, Bran, etc. We don’t know the conclusion yet, but it’s easy to see why GRRM added Quentyn into the mix.

Writers have all the power when they weave a story, and if they thread the eye of the needle they’re expected to sew up the buttons. GRRM clearly doesn’t know how to sew, because he doesn’t know how to resolve conflicts that he has created. His solution? Kill off the characters with narratives too complex to unravel or too boring to write about. This conveniently creates a vacuum of absent characters to sew together, so when the textile inevitably becomes tangled again GRRM commits another literary genocide. Rinse and repeat.

Idk this doesn’t hold up, like at all? Name one major character killed for the sake of it? Ned is the father figure whose death is meant to push the arcs of his children. Robb’s death is meant to push those of his siblings. Now GRRM himself has stated that he regrets killing character he needed, but this seems like a bizarre criticism. It doesn’t help that the author provides no examples to back up their claim.

The repetitiveness of this ploy just demonstrates to me how GRRM cannot tell a story beginning to end, because he doesn’t have the perseverance and the patience.

Now let’s be fair (and truthful). ASOIAF is not GRRM’s first book. It’s certainly his biggest series but he has written award winning stories before, to completion.

Myrcella Baratheon: “Are you the Sword of the Morning now?” Gerold Dayne: “No. Men call me Darkstar, and I am of the night.”

I can see what GRRM is trying to accomplish, but it’s incredibly cringeworthy. Although readers can see the direct contrast between the two characters, the symbolism is not comprehendible. Hence it also sounds very stupid.

Myrcella Baratheon: “Are you a good guy?” Gerold Dayne: “Nah. Men call me epic evil badass, and I am evil.”

HELP

In On Fairy-Stories, J. R. R. Tolkien argues the fantasy genre ultimately fulfills three purposes: to challenge a reader’s perspective of his or her own world, to provide escapism from reality, and to provide moral and emotional “Consolation of the Happy Ending” which he calls eucastastrophe.

Tolkien delves into his third point more into his conclusion, where he focuses how a true representative fantasy tale is manifested by joy. This does not deny the existence of sorrow and failure. But a happy ending emphasizes the final closing in the universal outcome of the story that provides gratification and catharsis to the reader.

ASOIAF and LOTR are two different stories. Tolkien and Martin had different goals. GRRM is not trying to one up Tolkien. Not sure why this take is so pervasive but it is, and it’s annoying.

So after reading all this I have to ask, is this satire? Have I been had? I’m not on twitter so idk if people have talked about this yet but it seems so out of pocket and incorrect, like no one could’ve seriously sat down and written this with a straight face, right?

#asoiaf #grrm #idk parts of this read like satire #because how can you miss the point so completely? #if this is satire then pls forgive me but #YIKES

[pinkch3rie]

The Secret History Review☕️🏛️♟️

4.5/5

This book along with the Virgin Suicides is one of those books whose themes gets diminished because of tiktok and tumblr but imo the aesthetic-fication of the secret history actually adds on to the subjects that it’s critiquing. because of this i wasn’t expecting to be this involved with the book, but i was pleasantly surprised by the complex themes and the allusions to classical works, while also being pretty easy to read for me. I got really invested in the book and had to physically hide it to study for my finals to make sure I don’t get through it in a day, because the characters and the plot were very engaging and you kind of couldn’t look away. The secret history is so well written and the use of the characters as figures that represent your stereotypical “elite” students/professors and in turn “elite” education made the satire so sharp and spot on. bc even though i’m not studying classics i can definitely see a pretentious, out of touch professor at an expensive liberal arts college wanting to go back to the socratic approach of learning completely and not see anything wrong with it. I think the exaggeration of the character traits made the book so hilarious at points, especially when you step away from the book at certain points and remember the story is taking place in the 1980s and some of them are living like it’s the beginning of the 20th century. I’m so glad that i read it in college rather than highschool because i definitely appreciate the critique of elitism in academia, among other themes, a lot more than i would’ve in highschool. i do think it can be a little slow in the beginning and in some other parts but I also understand that there is a reason why it’s slower so it’s not that big of a deal. you also need to at least have a basic understanding of classics literature, philosophy, and history, as well as ancient greece and rome to understand the references, but i don’t think not understanding some of them takes that much away from it. idk there’s so much more i want to say but also none of them are unique so maybe i’ll add more to this review later. but definitely one of the better books i’ve read this year.

#book review #the secret history #booklr

[tepkunset]

@avatarfandompolice​​​ is a blog that likes to misuse progressive language in attempt to make ignorant, racist posts sound more intelligent than they are. While most of their blog consists of arguing about ‘zutara,’ (which I recently learned is a ship name for Zuko and Katara from an anon), there is also a large number of posts and reblogs under the premise of being “hot takes” on how unfair it is to address racism in fandom and in media.

Avatarfandompolice is very sensitive about people pointing out that Avatar: The Last Airbender is not, in fact, flawless. That a show made by two white men featuring Asian and Indigenous characters and influences is fully capable of getting things wrong. That their western colonial views are influences all on their own, and it shows. Rather than listen to fans of colour point out things like these posts for example: [Link] [Link] [Link], avatarfandompolice has decided that such things must simply be fake, and has made multiple posts complaining it. This is not just regular ignorance, this is wilful ignorance. The dismissal of critique simply because they cannot fathom not everyone being able to handle the amount of issues they are freely educating others on, or people holding the ability to like something overall while also pointing out where it could be better.

It is my firm belief that you should never absorb media with an uncritical eye. If this was the case, if people just accepted everything given to them, then we would never see any progress. We need to be able to look back at something and say here’s what we did right, and here’s what we need to do better with.

The argument that A:TLA was made in 2012 and therefore should not be analyzed with a modern understanding of the world is downright hilarious, too. As if we aren’t taught to write literature analysis on books and plays that are centuries old in school. In particular regards to the whole cop thing... if anyone reading this seriously thinks that hate and fear of the police is just a 2020 trend, you can meet me in the pit. I was four years old when I learned how terrifying cops are. If your experiences differ, let me tell you that does not make them universal. And as for all the 20-somethings talking about it today, well, gentle reminder that as said by avatarfandompolice right here, the show aired in 2012. Little 10-year-old kids don’t have social media, (at least I hope they don’t,) and unless they grew up experiencing first-hand police terror, probably were not aware of it at that age. I do not know why avatarfandompolice insults people's ability to grow and learn. I can only guess it’s jealously from their lack of ability to do so.

Now let’s address their defences of whitewashing, which is easily the most backwards reaching I’ve seen on this issue in a while. Primarily their defence relies on four repetitive “points” —

Fake minuscule percentages to downplay the high prevalence and extremity of whitewashing in the fandom

Deflecting the addressing of whitewashing with rapid-fire fake scenarios and claims of “reverse racism” / “blackwashing”

Claiming whitewashing isn’t real because people only care about it with Katara

Claiming that calling out whitewashing in fandom is wrong because it hurts artists

I have only so much as dipped my toes into the A:TLA fandom, and even I have seen a lot of whitewashed fan art. If you do an image search for fan art, I guarantee within the first couple rows of results, there will be in the absolute least, a few examples. The idea of these artworks not substantially lightening skin is also just plain inaccurate. Just from a quick Google search, this is literally the first result for ‘Avatar The Last Airbender Katara fan art’:

Avatarfandompolice is also hyper-focused on the lightening of skin, and seems to be under the impression that this is the only component of whitewashing. I come to this conclusion because when someone pointed out the equal prevalence of depicting these characters of colour with Western European features instead of their actual eyes, noses, etc., they rip a giant turd out of their ass and scrawl the words “but stereotyping” over it. No, not all Asian peoples and Indigenous peoples look the same. The original poster made no such claim of this at all. Avatarfandompolice jumped to this conclusion all on their own... (which really says a lot in itself). It is entirely unrelated to the point. The point being the erasure of how these characters look, in favour of giving them whiter features. And guess what? This does hurt. But I’ll get to that below.

The lack of understanding of whitewashing is on full display when avatarfandompolice talks about “blackwashing”; the idea that colouring characters with darker skin is just like whitewashing. Firstly, there is no such thing as “blackwashing.” “Blackwashing,” “brownwashing,” etc. does not exist because it is a false equivalency to whitewashing. It is a false equivalency to whitewashing because white people are not even in the slightest loosing representation when a white character is re-imagined as a racial minority, whereas when racial minorities are re-imagined as white people, they are taking away from what is already very little representation for us. If we lived in a world where the statistics of representation were not so drastically disproportionate, then there would be something to talk about. But if you are really wanting to support equality, you should focus on equitably supporting those who actually need it, not white people. As for specifically depicting characters like Sokka and Katara with darker skin than what they have in the show, the same applies, (so long as it’s not racebending them as we really shouldn’t be taking representation away from each other, and the artist avatarfandompolice ridicules above has done no such thing,) because colourism also exists within nonwhite communities as well.

As for the fake questions about cosplaying, the answer is really simple: Cosplay however you want, but don’t make pretending to be a different race part of your cosplay. If you want to cosplay Katara, you can do it without painting your skin darker, aka brownface. If you want to cosplay Zuko, you can do it without editing yourself to look East Asian, aka digital yellowface. The racist history behind this is an internet search away, but I suppose that is too difficult for avatarfandompolice to do.

Avatarfandompolice has made multiple claims that people must not really care about whitewashing if they only call it out for Katara. It is laughable at best, and sad at worst, that this is the conclusion they come to, and not the fact that unfortunately Katara just happens to be subjected to more whitewashing than other characters. I assume this is from a mix of her popularity as well as being a WOC and not MOC. This is not to say that whitewashing does not exist with male characters—not in the slightest. Half the images on this “10 fan art pictures of Sokka that are just the best” list from CBR are whitewashed. Only that across fandoms, whitewashing is more prevalent in female characters, by my observations at least.

Finally—and this one pisses me off the most—avatarfandompolice claims that whitewashing is no big deal, but calling out whitewashing is too harmful to justify. How fucking dare you put the feelings of artists who can’t handle critique of their work (that they publicly share) over fans of colour, who are constantly subjected to seeing our identities and looks not being worth respecting. As if it doesn’t imprint on your mind from a very young age how only villains ever have your facial features, because they’re ugly and I guess that means you’re ugly. As if there is something wrong with you. As if respecting you is regarded as extra effort, and not just common courtesy.

Whitewashing is a form of colourism, which is a form of racism. It is the favouritism, unconscious or not, of white features and the erasure of visible characters of colour. It is not fandom drama. It is not being too lazy to focus on “real issues” because it is part of a real issue. It is yet another part of why fandom spaces are so uninviting to POC. We live in a society that favours lighter skin. Corporations make fortunes from selling products to bleach your skin, products to contour your features away or go as far as surgery, all to meet beauty standards set by and influenced by white colonizers. That does not exist in A:TLA, and that’s called refreshing escapism. But it’s hard to escape that when the fandom constantly reminds you otherwise. It is a perfect example of how the classic “just let people enjoy things” complaint is nothing but disguised racism, because it’s only ever said regarding white fans’ enjoyment, at the expense of fans of colour.

None of the characters in A:TLA are white. Redesigning them and recolouring them as if they are, be it out of accident or intent is wrong. If you get called out for it, apologize, learn from the experience and do better going forward. You’ll also improve your art this way.

Beyond excusing whitewashing, avatarfandompolice has overt racist posts as well. A Black fan said they like to headcanon Katara as being partially Black; “I swear Katara was a sister. Im convinced there ain't no way she didn't have some black in her.” Avatarfandompolice jumps in saying “She's literally an Inuit but ok” as if being an Inuk person means Katara can’t possibly also be Black. The OP never claimed Katara was not Indigenous, simply that they also saw her as Black. Black Indigenous peoples exist. Black Inuk peoples exist. It is overtly anti-Black to say otherwise. But what even is the point of talking to avatarfandompolice about that? You know, you would think in trying to put such a front up of caring about the Inuit, they would do the most basic learning of the proper grammatical use of Inuit and Inuk. (As is the case with a great many Indigenous Nations, Inuit is both the Nation and plural. Inuk is singular. “An Inuit” / “Inuits” as avatarfandompolice has used just makes their dressed-up racism all the more pathetic. It’s similar to as if you said “Chinas” instead of “Chinese”.)

But all this is nothing, nothing compared to the worst post I had the displeasure of seeing. In a single post, avatarfandompolice manages to squeeze in insult against low income people, Mexican people, Jewish people, and Black people in a mockery of financial help posts. Absolutely disgusting, childish behaviour from a place of privilege. As someone who has had no option but to make such a post before, more than once, let me fucking tell you that the embarrassment and desperation when in that situation is unparalleled. It is not done lightly. It is done when you are at the last resort of having nothing but hope that the combined generosity of others will be enough to save you and your family. And what adds a whole other level to the odiousness of avatarfandompolice’s post is that they specifically targeting low income minorities to boot. Because we’re all poor beggars, right?

All in all, for someone who prides themselves in calling others ignorant, avatarfandompolice has to be one of the most obtuse fandom blogs I have ever scrolled through. They are as vile as they are pathetic, and my sincere sympathy for anyone who has been unfortunate enough to interact with them. It has been a while since I so strongly recommend blocking someone.

#avatarfandompolice #atla #atla fandom #racism #whitewashing #long post #fit for a queue

[thetypedwriter]

Firekeeper’s Daughter Book Review

Disclaimer: Please keep in mind that all of my in-depth reviews contain spoilers. 

Firekeeper’s Daughter Book Review by Angeline Boulley 

Well, this book review came quicker than I thought it would (which after weeks since my last published review for an actual novel that may sound absurd, but I promise it isn’t). 

There’s a lot of great things about this book and a lot of really important representation, but I also found it to be an incredible slog to trudge through. 

Firekeeper's Daughter by Angeline Boulley is the story of a girl by the name of Daunis Fontaine who finds herself stuck between two worlds: her Fontaine side, also known as her zhaaganaash or white side, and her Native side, or known as her Anishinaabe side, or even more specifically, Ojibwe side. 

The debut novel from Boulley mainly describes Daunis’ struggle between these two worlds, the important people in them, and the war within herself to follow her heart, her gut, and her mind. 

In the background of this identity struggle, or perhaps largely influenced by it, Daunis finds herself inexplicably tangled up in a secret federal investigation into a specific type of meth being produced in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula that affects people not only in her community, but other Native communities as well. 

Suddenly finding herself becoming a spy, Daunis starts to learn and keep secrets, those in regards to the investigation as well as those regarding her feelings for fellow investigator-Jamie Johnson-an undercover narcotics cop posing as the cute new highschooler in town. 

As Daunis deals with her own internal struggles, her community, her relationships, and her burgeoning romance, her past, future, and present all collide and come to a head in this new novel. 

Now. Reading this summary, you might be thinking: this book sounds awesome! Love? Undercover cops? Drugs? Mystery? It has everything. 

And you’d be right. 

When I first read the jacket cover for this novel I knew it was a book I was inevitably going to read. Everything from the gorgeous cover art, to the intriguing summary, to the representation of Native Americans, I was completely drawn in. 

Too bad I didn’t like it very much. 

I will start off by saying that I think this book is incredible in its realistic depiction of the Ojibwe experience and I know how important it is to increase representation of all kinds of people and backgrounds in literature, especially YA literature. 

Boulley did an absolutely stunning job of relaying the nitty-gritty of the Ojibwe community-the elders, the geography, the food, the stigma, the finances, the politics, the reputation, the racism, the prejudice, the community, the love, the healing, and so much more. 

I always am in awe when authors utilize the golden rule of write what you know. Per the back jacket of the novel, Boulley herself states that she is an enrolled member of the Sault Ste. Marie Tribe of Chippewa Indians and an active storyteller of the Ojibwe community. 

This is beyond incredible. Having an accurate and active portrayal of people writing and drawing from their own experiences are powerful and significant. I could taste, feel, and see how clear and how real Boulley made the novel. 

I questioned a lot of things during this read, but the Ojibwe community in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula was not one of them. From vocabulary to the extreme details depicting Sugar Island to the care and craft when talking about specific ceremonies like funerals, Boulley did an outstanding job of bringing in what she knows from her own experience and that of her community in order to breathe life into these pages. 

This was by far the best part of the novel for me. 

On the back jacket, Boulley also states that she was a former Director of the Office of Indian Education at the U.S. Department of Education. While I did not know this until a few minutes ago when I sat down to write this review, I am in no way surprised. 

The book was extremely intelligent. I could viscerally tell that Boulley knows her stuff and does her research. Everything from biology and chemistry processes and vocabulary, to mushroom identification, to legal matters like having an underage informant, politics regarding becoming a member of the Ojibwe Tribe, and due process of the law regarding FBI cases was very clear cut, very detailed, and obviously very accurate. 

I appreciated how much time and effort was put into this, even if I did find a lot of it bone dry and dull, I still could appreciate the time, effort, and knowledge to make sure that everything in the novel was precise and correct. 

That being said, it also made the book come across almost like an informational pamphlet at times, or like I was reading non-fiction. I understand being accurate, and I applaud her for that, but I don’t need or want five pages of in-book description of how one of these processes work. Just give me the bare-bones outline and I will go from there and look it up more if I so desire. 

This brings me to my first critique of this book and a large reason it was so tedious to get through: it was mind-numbingly long. 

Now. I just read a 2,000 page fanfiction not that long ago. That is long, you could argue, and you would be right. But, none of All of the Young Dudes was a bore to get through (sad, sure, but not boring), whereas whole sections of Firekeeper’s Daughter were too dragged out and too explicitly explained that I inevitably got bored and nodded off. 

The pace was too slow and too bogged down with unimportant details, like Daunis’ daily visits to the elders or her overthinking every single thing, or her making lists of all the things she doesn’t know (these are long lists). 

She often spends whole pages grieving about her Uncle David as well as her best friend Lily, and while understandable and realistic in real life, it was not fun nor productive to read about over and over and over again. 

Take for example, the very beginning of the book. It takes over 100 pages for Daunis to realize the new-boy-next-door isn’t who he says he is and that he’s actually an undercover cop here to investigate a new strain of meth and asks for her help. 

Over 100 pages of set up. 

It was so goddamn boring. 

It got better once she became involved with the investigation, but then so did the whining, the overthinking, and the reflecting. The first 100 pages could have been condensed to 20. No joke, I would have gotten the same exposition out of that I did. 

In addition, despite things taking so long or not serving a purpose, I was often confused about what was happening, which is an overall unpleasant experience. Boulley simultaneously describes everything and yet nothing at the same time.

 The reason for this discrepancy is because she often used native language to describe feelings, events, people, etc and while some of the words I learned over time, often the words left me confused or bewildered. 

I appreciate the use of native language, but it also left me with big gaps while reading or made me struggle to put pieces together as they were happening. 

The pace of the novel overall was incredibly bad. Things either took 12 years or two minutes. The actual plot to show up? 12 Years. Daunis and Jamie to fall in love classic YA style? Two minutes. Daunis to find Uncle David’s notebook? 12 years. The final confrontation of the bad guys? Two minutes. 

With any event, it either felt sluggish or way too quick and mashing these two together in one novel was disorienting and frustrating, not to mention it made me not want to read. 

Additionally, while I generally thought the plot was very interesting, who doesn’t like undercover cop stories? I thought all of the characters were very forgettable or downright shells. 

Daunis was...a textbook female character in my eyes. The way she spouted off knowledge like the periodic table to fall asleep or reciting the scientific method wasn’t cool or new, it was irritating.

To me she wasn’t real. 

She was someone’s idea of a female character who seemed cool, but wasn’t. Nothing about Daunis made me think of her as a great character. If anything, she just seemed like an empty vessel I was reading the book through, like the book was happening to me instead (cough cough Mary Sue). 

Some of you may be upset with this statement, and that’s fine, but other than her love of science, her knowledge of geography, and her ties to the community, nothing about Daunis was a real person. 

She hardly had friends, I don’t recall learning anything she liked or disliked (other than Jamie, hockey, and running) , and she was entirely surmised of the people who had left her and the identity struggle she had been born with. I don’t mean to undermine people who struggle with their identity, I know that’s important, but there is more to people than just that. 

None of the other characters are frankly worth mentioning. 

You might ask, what about Jamie? The shadowy, scarred love interest?

*Shrugs*

He’s fine. Genuinely that’s all I can say about him. We don’t even learn his real name as Jamie Johnson is a fake. All I know is that he’s got curly hair, a scar, and doesn’t know who he is. It’s hard to like a character when the character themselves have no idea of who they are. 

The other characters either die or are in the background to progress the plot along. 

To be fair, it’s a good plot. It’s intriguing, it’s mysterious, and I learned more than I ever thought I would about meth and mushrooms, but it doesn’t make up for the dead-end characters or the pacing issues. 

I didn’t hate it, but I also didn’t like it. I guess I can say that I feel indifferent about this book, although the representation of Native Americans bumps it up slightly for me from being dead average. 

The storytelling isn’t spectacular, even if the idea is promising, but if you have been searching for representation like this in YA I can see how this book would be much more impactful and important and I’m happy to have it as a part of the YA collective. 

Recommendation: At the end of the day, this novel is a true smorgasbord. I love the representation, the draws from Boulley’s real life, and the intelligence, but I didn’t see any of the characters as real people, the pacing issues made it hard to gain and keep interest going, and the dialogue often came across to me as someone's warped version of what teenager’s sound like. 

Score: 6/10

#firekeepersdaughter #angeline boulley #ya fiction #YA Books #YA literature #book blog #book review #Book Recommendations #YA Book Review #ya book rec #nativewomen #nativebooks #representation in fiction #book rec #book reccs #6/10

[sin-emberstalker]

Get To Know Me.

Rules: Always post the rules. Tag 11 new people you’d like to know better.

1. Dogs or Cats?

Dogs, cat’s love me more actually I think it’s because I am 1000% indifferent to them and that pisses them off that I can out game them. 

2. YouTube celebrities or normal celebrities?

None, don’t elevate people to some special station as they can’t ever be the thing in your head. It’s not fair to them and it has done a lot of harm to the general discourse of progress. 

3. If you could live anywhere where would that be?

Cyprus, it is in my opinion the closest thing to what I gather most people think heaven is like. The progress the country has made to unite peacefully is inspiring. 

4. Disney or DreamWorks?

Disney as Dreamworks is a studio built out of pure spite, but I respect the grift. 

5. Favorite childhood TV show?

Pirates of Darkwater, TMNT(classic), Ghostbusters, Gargoyles, Batman the animated series and batman beyond.

6. The movie you’re looking forward to most in 2020?

I just can’t muster enthusiasm for movies lately, but it does mean I get surprised by some new stuff when it really impresses. 

7. Favorite book you read in 2019?

The only books I have read this year are all RPG manuals and Linux guides. I feel bad but I just don’t have time to read like literature in a while. But I do make sure to read every night with the kids unless Niv is doing it. 

8. Marvel or DC?

Marvel movies/ DC comics

9. If you choose Marvel favorite member of the X-Men? If you choose DC favorite Justice League member?

Marvel - Gambit/Ultimate Colossus (his story is just so god damn cute). 

DC - Constantine/ Hal Jordan 

10. Night or Day?

Night, i love to be awake when the rest of the world is sleeping (at least in my time zone)

11. Favorite Pokemon?

Honestly it’s Evee and all the variations, they are just all so god damn cute. 

12. Top 5 bands:

Pink Floyd, Deftones, Wu Tang Clan, Coheed and Cambria, Tool

13. Top 10 books.

Invisible Man -  Ralph Ellison

East of Eden - Steinbeck

Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte

The Great Gatsby -  F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Waste Land  - T.S. Eliot

Ring World - Larry Niven

Neuromancer Trilogy - William Gibson

Dune - Frank Herbet 

The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath 

The Foundation Trilogy - Issac Asimov 

The Trial - Franz Kafka (Bonus addition)

14. Top 4 movies

The Big Labowski. Hellraiser I and II, A Clockwork Orange, The Wild Bunch 

15. America or Europe?

I’ve spent enough time in both to know that the only way a place is valuable is the people we form bonds with and the spaces we share moments in.

16. Tumblr or Twitter?

Both but I don’t post a lot on twitter, but some of the freshest memes come from twitter. Tumblr is like a second home at times. 

17. Pro-choice or Pro-life?

Pro-Choice.

18. Favourite YouTuber?

Noah Caldwell-Gervias - Best in depth game critique you will find, I even find all the early audio issues endearing. 

19. Favorite author ?

T.S Eliot and Kafka are the two that changed my life and I mean that I was going to be a priest before I started to you know, question.

20. Tea or Coffee?

Coffee to amp and tea to chill. 

21. OTP ?

Sinivaeh oh and @karidakdellanir​ @centoridellanir​ for life!

22. Do you play an instrument/sing ?

I used to play guitar and bass but I am so out of practice but I think a few minutes on the drop D I will find my space again.

tagged by @monster-of-master​

tagging @prolificpoisons @crowsaerie-rp​ @fel-temptation​ @covexalexanderkingsley​  @valishoneybee​ @zaennicus​ @amorthonblackwood​ @waroftwowolves​ @aredhelvaltieri​ @seilune​ and anyone else!

[thank-you-phipps]

Review: The Hating Game by Sally Thorne

So, I’m on my third of fourth reread, and it’s held up well over time. I was in a pretty shitty mood today, so it’s had its work cut out for it, battling all my negativity, which tends to manifest in intense distrust of this sort of book. I’m thinking the cynical mood will help to balance out the blinding heart eyes and give an objective perspective. 

When I first read this book I thought I’d found the holy grail, and though there have been a few books after that that have taken the cake, I still think it’s wonderfully written and it has basically none of my usual rom-com pet-peeves, which makes it easy to like.

That being said, this book doesn’t try hard enough. I know this isn’t literature. I don’t expect to be tossed about so much as by Jane Eyre wandering the moors, putting her faith in nothing but God Himself; but the sheen has worn off rather quickly for a book that once held pride of place in my heart. I mean, Red, White, and Royal Blue is a rom-com through and through, but I can hardly read the emails for how heart-wrenching and raw they are, so it’s not the genre’s fault. 

My main problem, which wasn’t immediately clear to me after I’d read it again, is that there’s not much of a plot or any kind of conflict at all. It’s pretty up-hill the whole ride, and even though they are “mean” to each other for a lot of the book (I’d classify this enemies-to-lovers), there is no real threat of any meaningful harm being done to there relationship, however caustic it may seem on the surface. You know they’re just flirting, albeit kinda antagonistic flirting. Of course you root for them, but at some point banter isn’t enough. As I’ve said, there’s basically no plot, and though I’m a decided rom-com light-skirt, when, for all intents and purposes, the whole book is the hooey gooey precious cuddles, the soft stares, the love words, or the antagonistic sexual tension, then the quality of the romance takes a hit. From what I can tell, the “climax” was Lucy finding out that Josh and Mindy were together a long time ago, and she feels insecure. That is quickly gotten over, though, and a hot sex scene is queued up ready to go. No big deal. Well, if the author doesn’t want too much conflict stemming directly from the romantic pair themselves, fine, but they’ve got to make up for it with conflict elsewhere, or else what am I here for? You can’t keep me on the hook if you just keep feeding me sweets. Now that the novelty has worn off, I had to shoulder all the work, trying to imbue myself with some sense that there are stakes involved and some reason to get attached to the story when there wasn’t really a whole lot to keep me invested besides her feminine wiles and his cutting whit. You gotta make me suffer a bit. You can’t rely on the characters alone to carry the romance. It always helps to develop a romantic pairing when they are forced to play with the world the author has created (e.g. The Soldier’s Scoundrel, and The Lawrence Brown Affair, both by my lady love, Cat Sebastian, to whom I’ve sold my immortal soul.) and that’s what I found most lacking

This is all thrown into unflattering relief by the holy undeserved overabundance of sap. Now that I’m looking at it with more objective familiarity (not a good mindset if you’re wanting to actually enjoy a  romantic comedy) Josh’s ministrations at the end of the book especially felt over the top. Don’t get me wrong, I still go a little starry-eyed. Sally does a superb job at love talk, making it original to boot, and I was emotionally masturbating to this emotion porno of epic proportions. But if you’re going to serve me that good, you’d better make your characters suffer to balance the scale. I’m more likely to let myself enjoy that kind of over the top confessional stuff if it’s in some historical romance a la Lisa Kleypas, where I’ve already thrown out my dignity with the bathwater. But this is a real life rom-com (…oxymoron…) where the romance takes place in world whose inhabitants should be self aware enough to call bullshit. I mean, come on. There is literally a sepia-filter road trip montage scene. It’s jarring when you’re trying to enjoy something good (despite my critiques), but you’ve put it in this gaudy picture frame and you can’t help questioning it’s value. Couldn’t you have at least tried to make it seem a little more down to earth, so the negligible chance of this ever happening in the real world aren’t rubbed in my face with quite so much heartless glee? You could have made it just as poignant and also made it feel realistic. Would have pack more of a punch that way. 

Anyway, one huge point in her favor: Sally does a fine job of making Josh masculine without resorting to alpha male-ism, which I suppose many authors find difficult (Looking at you, Kleypas). Lucy is cute and actually has a personality, but it irritated my that she objectified Josh as much as she did. It’s something I noticed in 99 Percent Mine, Sally’s second book, in which the objectification of the male love interest made me feel a bit ill. It started out so promising and then the romantic pair were together for a few pages and I had to stop. I’m all for the main characters taking pleasure in each other’s bodies, but the way Lucy was practically drooling over him when it came time for that, turned me off. It sounded as though she wasn’t really paying Josh himself any attention, and there was a literal scene in which she's squeezing and weighing is muscles in her hand. Gross. I’m hyper sensitive to this particular quirk in romance, and I think Sally does a good job overall of cancelling those blips out with comments on the other end of the spectrum, but it still rankles.I will say that it’s not nearly as pronounced as in 99 Percent mine. 

I know this review is negative on the whole, but keep in mind, I’ve read this book four or five times, so it must being doing something right. It’s one of the better rom-coms by a long shot, and I’m sure I’ll read it again in another few months and eat it up shamelessly. Just didn’t have much patience today.

#book review #review #romance #romantic comedy #ship #book blog #book #booklr #the hating game #sally thorne #99 percent mine #book nerd

[rgr-pop]

i haven’t read the surrogacy book (i actually do intend to, because of all of this!) and it is absolutely fanning the natalist* flames, that’s true. and it’s doing so partially on purpose, it is making a provocation to be provocative! there’s a lot more context there, though. for one, we’re in the middle of a nu social reproduction revival, and i see this book as part of that literature, and timely. but it is also timely politically, and i do imagine (hope?) that lewis has observed this sort of new wave of biologic nationalism--i’m sure she had finished the book by the time n*gle published the borders article, but thinkers savvier than i must have seen that coming, given the state of borders and population paranoia around the white globe. plus, i assume (again: hope?) this book in some ways addresses some of the creeping terrors of alienation (”atomization”) that are leading to this: n*gle for example writes a book arguing that atomization (the disruption of the family) incubated this new global right. it is obviously time for the left to be reading and writing books against the family.

i have been very surprised that it is the “against the family” part of the surrogacy book that has been so controversial everywhere, and all across the left. it seems like that critique should be familiar to absolutely everyone, fundamental even. the kind of technocratic claims (cannot assess until i read!) should, to me, have been the ones that people were freaking out about--and those are the ones that are transparently experimental and probably inflammatory. (and those kinds of arguments have a much different position in the feminist canon, but, again, cannot assess until i read.) but what’s actually happening is “parenting is labor, in fact productive labor in capitalism, including the labor of labor” is fucking tearing everyone apart, from anarchists to dsa caucuses to podcast accellerationists and, most of all, everyone in the strasserite wars. they are losing their fucking MINDS. they saw “abolish the family” and leaped off their fucking roofs. absolute fuckin hysteria.

but ALC is another thing entirely. imo she is your average (absolutely dead average except for being basically bari weiss) wealthy liberal. she’s not a leftist of any stripe, even though she occasionally speaks about or on behalf of them on her twitter. so she contributes some “against the family” tweets, but they are not “against the family,” they are actually just... well, everyone is acccusing her of just doing therapy, which kind of is what it is. she asked what the point of parents were, and somehow none of her weird liz warren philospher fans or any of the enraged were like “a social relation?” instead they were like “your life has sad. family is BIOLOGY and DESTINY” and of course her response was “you think that your parents love you, but they don’t.” this is as far as comp lit will get you, my friends. in any case, everyone seems to agree that good parents or bad parents is a “lottery” or perhaps some kind of inherited “brain worm,” as the kids these days are saying. none of them said: maybe there are reasons that our mothers can’t support us? (silly me! if mothers need supporting, then we must ban abortions, so that we can reward pregnant women with welfare! bruenig welfare.)

my point here being that ALC was being deliberately inflammatory--and, okay, she’s big Not a Genius, again, that’s the best you can hope for a rich comp lit grad--and, it worked, in that, again, the natalists are saying “they are coming for our FAMILIES.” they already hate (and maybe hatefollow) her because she is like an obnoxious comp lit liberal on twitter who everyone hates, and also because a lot of these people (obvs) love to hate trans women (although this trend isn’t nearly as easy to predict in this milieu as I would have thought. much like regular t*rfs themselves, they are all the hell over the place.) (in that screenshot i posted, the OP is one of aimee’s reply girls, and the person who responded to her is some kind of leftist european who also posts a lot about the trans threat. an anti-trans activist? in MY “it’s biology actually”?). 

none of this is new for ALC. for those of you who haven’t heard of her, she somewhat notoriously wrote, well, this. i don’t want to be flat-out mean about this part, but if i’m being honest, the way i interpret her career is that she was handed a pedigree that allows her to sell sanitized summaries of twenty-year-old intra-community trans issues to NPR tote bags. (the mean part is I truly think she believes she has conjured her own ideas at some point in her life. she hasn’t.) I think she was being deliberately inflammatory but I’m not even entirely convinced that she mounted this “conversation” in light of the aforementioned conversations; not sure she has the range. (she definitely does not have the range to be a cryptofascist!) but, still, “parenting is labor that operates a way in capitalism” is absolutely outside of her vision! not to bolster the “she’s just trying to make us therapize her” argument, which I find mostly annoying, it does seem, like, true, that this is a much harder thing to understand if you are rich. and I don’t yet know how to explain it in a way that raises the consciousness of the wealthier!** you DON’T have to love your rich mom, but it would be nice not to see “mothers are a social problem, the problem is mothers” from people who went to duke or wellesley u know

*henceforth this is how i refer to all the “left” organizing around the issue of population & the family who are elsewhere cyberbullied as “cryptofascist”

**wait, maybe I do! “social reproduction”

#pleas dont reblog

[copperbadge]

Hi Sam, I decided to take my 1st stab at writing fic. Its going great so far but Id love some advice from someone of your experience. I'm having trouble with tenses - Past tense feels the most natural for me to write in, but I hate how clunky it feels when I do action scenes (which I have many of). I LOVE how present tense feels more dynamic and snappy, real stream of consciousness effect...but I wind up having lots of weird phrasing. Idk, is mixing & matching tenses every few paras a bad idea?

Sorry to ramble, I guess my question is how do you tell if your writing is getting in the way of readability?

I think really there are multiple questions here – questions about judging the appropriateness of a style, about one style in particular, and about gauging a style’s readability. All are tough but let’s dive in! 

In terms of the appropriateness of a style, especially as a beginning writer, I tend to recommend going to books you really love, or writers you really admire, and looking at how their books are structured. Read not for pleasure (just this once!) but to see how they construct their paragraphs, how they use tenses and tense shifts, and how they convey information. This is a skill, so you have to practice at it! Look for passages that are mostly information, look for how dialogue is designed (are there a lot of dialogue tags? Are there none?) and pay attention to tense-indicating words like has, had, do, did, etcetera. 

In terms of tenses in specific, you will find that almost no story has shifts between tenses in the way you’re describing, in part because it does confuse the reader – is the story happening now in the moment, or did it already happen? People really like linearity in their stories, and tense shifts disrupt that linearity. HOWEVER, lots of stories do have covert tense shifts – for instance, a story told in present tense may shift to past tense if someone in the story is telling a story, or if the narrator in the present tense has skipped something and is now backtracking to explain it. There are ways to make tense shifts work, though they may make life more difficult for you. 

Lots of people will tell you that present tense is inherently not as good as past tense, and they are wrong; they just mean they don’t like it as much. For every person who says to me “First person present, Sam? Really?” there are fifteen people who don’t even notice because they’re just enjoying the story. 

This does make studying how to write present tense more difficult because you will encounter a lot of haters. However, because we use present tense more often in conversation than we do in literature, it can be awkward, as you’re finding out, to tell a story with it. The best way, again, to learn how to write less awkwardly in the present tense is to read in the present tense – find books that use the present tense voice and read them, studying how they handle wording that you’ve found awkward in the past. You may even find that what you think is awkward isn’t even that noticeable when you’re reading someone else say it. 

I am a big fan of knowing the rules so you know how to break them BUT ULTIMATELY if you want to write a story shifting between tenses, do it and the hell with what anyone says. You are experimenting with style, and if it doesn’t work it doesn’t work, but while you can write for others to read, in order to satisfy the creative urge really you need to write for yourself first. Write the story you want to write, the story you want to read, and you will learn as you go. If other people don’t like it at first, who cares? You told the story you wanted to tell. 

I ran into this when I was learning the ukulele – I realized that the reason I didn’t like playing music as a child was that my teacher was teaching me as if I was possibly going to be a concert pianist or play in a jam band. She had me learning a lot of musical theory and playing a lot of music that would give me technical skills – but they were not skills or lessons that were any fun for me, they weren’t music I liked or the skills I’d need to play the music I liked. And so I didn’t practice much and when I did it was without passion.

Learning the ukulele, I got proficient really fast because I started out playing songs I liked and learned the chords I needed for them because I wanted to play them so badly. I was enjoying what I did and because of that I learned faster. Did I learn every skill I will ever need for the ukulele? Of course not. Some of those missing skills, like reading sheet music, may one day be important. But those harder, more boring skills can come in time, when I already have my passion for playing cemented and I myself am willing to take the next step. And without ever doing anything I didn’t want to do, I learned how to compose songs of my own, because I learned how the chords from songs I liked fitted together. 

Basically, a lot of times, we teach art of all kinds to children as if it’s going to be a marketable job skill. It’s a very capitalist way we have. Very rarely do we let children find the parts of art they most enjoy without forcing them through the parts they don’t, I think because it scares us that they might make something that doesn’t fulfill some idealized potential. Art, in any form, is meant to be an expression of self, but even when we say “The outcome doesn’t matter” we treat it like it’s an assembly line. You can make anything you want to make as long as you make it in one of these three proscribed ways. 

So to your final question, how to determine when style is getting in the way of readability – that’s a really tough one because we are never objective about our own work; we know what we’re trying to say and we think we’re conveying it, but because we have backstage knowledge, we can never truly be sure. One way, of course, is to have someone else read it and tell us what they think; “I understood this, I didn’t understand that.” 

It’s a painful process, being told what we “did wrong”. It does help us learn; knowing how other people see your work will help you a great deal in terms of self-knowledge. But it’s also a process that’s only necessary once you’re already in love with what you’re doing, because at that point you WANT that self-knowledge that only comes from critique. So this leads back into what I said first: you have to love what you’re doing and do it from love first, and only care about other peoples’ opinions afterwards. There is no tried and tested way to know how other people observe our work, but if we love to make things for ourselves first, then we feel strong enough to ask and internalize the answer. 

Basically, write what you want to write, and if you find that you love doing it, keep doing it; soon enough you’ll get bored of doing the same thing and want to expand, and that’s where skills acquisition will come in – where reading, listening to readers, and self-reflection will be helpful, instead of just tedious. At that point you can explore the nature of tenses and how to write in a single tense with more skill -- or maybe you’ll write a crazy fun experimental novel with tense shifts and change the literary landscape. WHO KNOWS. 

Good luck! 

(Did you find this useful or educational? Encourage artistic expression and drop some change in my Ko-Fi or at my Paypal!)

#Anonymous #writing #learning

[theantisocialcritic]

Archive Project - January 5, 2014 - Best Films of 2013 Part 2

Welcome! Ladies and gentlemen to The First Annual Hummy Awards! As this is in writing you can't tell but i'm currently standing behind a golden podium, wearing a fine tuxedo while riding a white horse as I entertain you tonight! 2013 has been an awesome year for movies! Long awaited premieres, sequels and even a few new franchises came into being this year! Now it is my pleasure to announce which of them I considered to be the best. In the past year, through various means, I have been able to catch 53 of the years biggest movies. My top ten movies will come ONLY out of the ones I saw on this list. Movies like Wolf of Wall-street, Only God Forgives, Pain and Gain, Fast and Furious 6 and Movie 43 are all exempt from my criticism as to date I have not seen them. I should also like to note that this list is in MY PERSONAL OPINION. While I greatly enjoyed films like Man of Steel, Catching Fire and The Hobbit, I didn't feel that they matched the quality of the other movies on this list. Without further ado, here are the runners up for the Top 10 Movies of 2013: Dallas Buyers Club, Rush, Iron Man 3, The World's End, Don Jon. Now…..Drumroll please.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzAfTmC3It0 Here they are!! My Top 10 Films of 2013 are…. ————————————————————————————————————————— 10. The Great Gatsby ————————————————————————————————————————— I didn't get to see this one till just this December but i'm very sorry that I missed it! Great Gatsby is an awesome adaption of one of the greatest works of American Literature of the last century! Leonardo Di Caprio and Toby whats his name both give great performances and the story carries all the symbolism and meaning from the book over very well. A great example of how to create a unique twist while adapting a source material! ————————————————————————————————————————— 9. Elysium ————————————————————————————————————————— What do Matt Daemon and the director of District 9 come up with when you put them in a room together (other than a love letter to socialism)? The answer is one of the coolest, most original Sci-Fi, Action movies this year! Sure it does pull off subtlety in the same way a Baseball Bat does, but under all that is one of the best Action movies all year! ————————————————————————————————————————— 8. Captain Phillips ————————————————————————————————————————— Based on an incredible true story, Captain Phillips works as an incredibly tense Action-Drama that will keep you on the edge of your seat. This movie is blessed with amazing performances by Tom Hanks and the previously unheard of actors playing the Somali Pirates. Speaking of Tom Hanks... ————————————————————————————————————————— 7. Saving Mr. Banks ————————————————————————————————————————— …Here is Tom's second major role this year playing Walt Disney as he attempts to secure the rights to P.L. Traviers famous novel Mary Poppins into the famed musical. A great movie with humor and real heart, Saving Mr. Banks brings a surprisingly honest image of Disney to the big screen and succeeds in making every character on screen deep and sympathetic. ————————————————————————————————————————— 6. Inside Llewyn Davis ————————————————————————————————————————— Gotta love the Coen Brothers! No Country for Old Men is one of the best films i've ever seen, but prior to seeing this with the Chicago Critics Club I had next to no interesting in seeing it. I'm glad I did because its one of the years most interesting movies! Filled with lots of symbolism, cool folk songs and a plot that does really well for one with nothing happening in it, Inside Llewyn Davis does really good. ————————————————————————————————————————— 5. Twelve Years a Slave ————————————————————————————————————————— Who wants to get depressed? Twelve Years a Slave isn't a movie I particularly like as much as I do admire how good a piece of storytelling it is. Its a harsh, brutal reminder of this countries darkest hours during the age of slavery and a glimpse into the hearts of the men that kept the institution alive. Dark, disturbing, unpleasant, but powerful. ————————————————————————————————————————— 4. Gravity ————————————————————————————————————————— I don't usually praise a film on it's visuals, if I did i'd have to give Transformers movies a pass as artwork. Gravity however proves that a film can hold itself on being a visual spectacle while still being a tense thriller. ————————————————————————————————————————— 3. Frozen ————————————————————————————————————————— I'm a harsh critic of Disney, but when one of their movies can do as much for me as Frozen has then I simply have to praise it. Mixing the aesthetics of Pixar and the Princess Genre with a surprisingly intelligent plot critiquing the concepts of true love and meaningful relationships together and you get one of the best films by Disney since Beauty and the Beast! ————————————————————————————————————————— 2. Prisoners ————————————————————————————————————————— Finally! A movie that proves people want to see Hugh Jackmann in a movie that isn't about the Wolverine! Prisoners is an incredibly tense crime thriller than explores the darkness in the hearts of man. How far would YOU go to protect your children? Could you hurt someone? Could you torture someone? Could you kill? Prisoners explores how far even a deeply religious man can fall attempting to save the people he cares about. ————————————————————————————————————————— ————————————————————————————————————————— And now…. The Hummy Award for Best Movie of 2013. Of all the movies i've seen this year, none had quite the impact on me than this one. None were quite as fresh and original as this one. None made me squeal with childish glee at the things I was seeing as much as this one. And that movie was…. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mzAfTmC3It0 ————————————————————————————————————————— 1. Pacific Rim ————————————————————————————————————————— I've argued with people as to why this movie is great. People have tried to convince me that it's shallow, or dumb or unoriginal, but its none of those things! Pacific Rim is an awesome movie that succeeds in everything it's trying to do. It's insanely fun to watch giant robots fight giant monsters and while the plot is simplistic, its entirely functional and gives the movie the context is needs to be really tense. Its cool to see how the film really does give a lot of respect to other countries as the world comes together to face the threats in this movie and gives them all a chance to show off for a bit. Not to mention, Rinko Kikuchi as one of the coolest women over to be put to film starring as the female lead. Feel free to disagree. But to me, no movie deserves more attention this year than Pacific Rim. Which is sad because this movie unfortunately flopped in the US… Thankfully it did well overseas so… PACIFIC RIM 2!! ————————————————————————————————————————— ————————————————————————————————————————— Thank you for reading! Heres for another great year of filmmaking! Yay for 2014!! Live long and prosper!

[analysisessaythesis383]

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[haydenstudiesblog-blog]

Writer Ask-Meme

“This isn’t studyblr-related shocker right? but I’m a writer so I wanted to do something fun that will also allow my followers to get to know me a little better!

01: When did you first start writing?

I started writing when I was 10 (around 10, I don’t remember for sure. It was before I started middle school)

02: What was your favorite book growing up?

While I wish I could say it was Harry Potter, I didn’t read that until a little over a year ago (in college). I’d have to say The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein, I actually want to get a tattoo about it :)

03: Are you an avid reader?

YES! Reading is my all-time favorite activity. I have too many books in my TBR pile (my theoretical one, they’re all on a shelf). I’ve reread some books more times than I can count because I love them so much, but recently I’ve been “broadening my horizons” that sound so lame and reading new authors and genres.

04: Have you ever thrown a book across the room?

Not that I can recall. I don’t think I could even if I wanted to, I try to take care of my books for as long as I can (until they start to get old, then I just embrace them being broken-in except my HP books those are kept somewhere safe)

05: Did you take writing courses in school/college?

WELL. At my current university I decided to enroll in an Elements of Creative Writing course this fall, which I’m excited about. I’m also going to be taking Intro to Professional Writing. If all goes well, I’m hoping to transfer to a different university to finish up school and major in English and Creative Writing (one whole major, not 2), so I’ll be taking more literature and writing courses.

06: Have you read any writing-advice books?

I’m reading an old textbook that I had when I took a creative writing course in high school through our local community college (back when I had health problems and couldn’t finish the course but already had the book so I kept it and didn’t read it, so I don’t count this course as a creative writing course I’ve taken). So I decided to read it now. I also have a list of books on writing that I’m looking to buy!

07: Have you ever been part of a critique group?

When I was in 5th grade we had an assignment to write a short story. I did, and my teacher said it was amazing and took me to a writer’s workshop where shy-little-me was forced to sit at a table with strangers my age and take turns reading our stories aloud. I hated it, but we got to go to McDonalds after. Also since then I’ve looked back at the story I wrote and it super sucks but maybe I’ll try to rewrite it because the idea is decent at least.

08: What’s the best piece of feedback you’ve ever gotten?

Honestly, I don’t even remember. What a boring answer.

09: What’s the worst piece of feedback you’ve ever gotten?

It’s not really feedback, but in high school I wrote a research paper and my best friend at the time peer reviewed it and she tried to cross out a bunch of my commas. I was so annoyed because she was horrible at grammar. I ended up leaving all the commas and I did great on the paper haha!

10: What’s your biggest writer pet-peeve?

Bad grammar. Hands-down. I’ll be reading someone else’s writing (I look over my boyfriend’s and sister’s papers for them) and I genuinely get baffled by how bad their spelling is or how they don’t know when to use a semi-colon. In my head it’s all just second nature (not that I don’t make mistakes, especially because I hate editing my own work so sometimes I just don’t, but still!).

11: What’s your favorite book cover?

I have two, and they’re for the same books. The new HP covers!!! I LOVE the ones where you line up the books and the spines create Hogwarts. I also love the ones that have the horcruxes in them. I want to buy those sets, but I literally just got my own hard cover set from my mom for Christmas (they came in a box that looks like a trunk) so I’d feel bad for buying new books. They just look SO COOL though. 

12: Who is your favorite author?

I currently love Michael Crichton (I said I’m broadening my horizons, these are the books I’m using to do that). I’ve loved Sarah Dessen for a very long time; I own all of her books, and I preorder her new ones. But of course I have to mention J.K. Rowling and Stephenie Meyer. Not everyone is a HP fan and not everyone loves the Twilight series, but I’m die-hard HP and I’ve read the Twilight series twice. 

13: What’s your favorite writing quote?

“We could have been killed- or worse, expelled.” -Hermione Granger, HP

14: What’s your favorite writing blog?

I don’t have one because I can’t find any!

15: What would you say has inspired you the most?

Emma Watson and J.K. Rowling. I feel like it’s so easy for characters from the HP series to just be identified as their characters, but Emma went to college and she does amazing things and she’s just made a great name for herself and I’ve always loved her. J.K. Rowling is obvious, if you don’t know her back story you should look it up (I’m not going to talk about it, it’ll make this post even longer).

16: How do you feel about movies based on books?

They’re never good enough. My preference is (if I can help it) to watch the movie before I read the book, so I’m not disappointed. If I read the book and then watch the movie, I’ll be upset with how much they changed or left out. If I watch the movie first and then go and read the book, I can’t be as disappointed with bad casting (because they’re already planted in my head and I didn’t have an opportunity to create my own characters) and the storyline is always just better because you get MORE information instead of them leaving things out!

17: Would you like your books to be turned into TV shows, movies, video games, or none?

Movies, definitely. Any time I begin a story I imagine what it would be like if it were a movie. Actually, my process is that I usually hear a song and I think of a storyline for it (I prefer to listen to songs that tell stories in my free time, rap and stuff is for clubbing haha) and then I write a story with that song in mind. I love letting music inspire me. But yes, from the very beginning I usually picture my books as movies.

18: How do you feel about love triangles?

I guess I don’t have much of an opinion. Wait JK I do, I’m currently writing about one. Sort of. They can be good if they’re done correctly, sometimes they can just be too predictable. IMO, if you use a love triangle you should incorporate some elements of surprise into your story, things to keep the reader on their toes, especially if the love triangle itself becomes predictable. 

19: Do you prefer writing on a computer or longhand?

I love the idea of writing longhand, but I write kind of weird and my hand cramps up fast, I hate my handwriting (I write too big), and typing works better for me because I can get my thoughts out much faster.

20: What’s your favorite writing program?

I’m going to assume this is in regards to Microsoft Word, Pages, etc? I personally use Scrivener. I paid, like, $45 for it but it’s just a one-time payment. I saw that a lot of writers use it because it has tools for plotting, characters, it’s just really organized. I watched tutorials on it and then I did a 30-day free trial (I don’t think it strictly goes by days, I think it counts the days you open the program and use it) and I fell in love, so I bought it and I haven’t used Word since (except for homework and notes, but I’m going to try to switch to OneNote for that).

21: Do you outline?

No, but I really should. I’ve been trying to. Like, I’ll at least put into Scrivener in a separate folder the idea of my story and maybe a storyline, how I know I want it to end and what could happen in the middle. But it’s by no means an outline, and I really do need to work on that. I think it would help me a lot.

22: Do you start with characters or plot?

I definitely start with plot. Like I said before, I hear a song and I think of a story and then I just go from there.

23: What’s your favorite and least favorite part of making characters?

My favorite part is definitely coming up with their personalities, and my least favorite has to be deciding their names and how they look. It takes me forever to decide on names, and I change them a lot.

24: What’s your favorite and least favorite part of plotting?

I don’t know if this is considered plotting, but it’s SO hard for me to figure out where and when my story should begin. I also hate trying to put in fillers in-between all the scenes that I know I want to happen. I’ve read about a process where people who write the way I do write out the scenes they already have in their head, and then they just go from there. They don’t write in order. So maybe I should try that, just write as it comes.

25: What advice would you give to young writers?

Oh god, I’m only 20, I still consider myself a young writer! I don’t think I’m in any position to give advice. BUT, if you’re in high school and you have a passion for reading and writing, start considering your options and make sure you get into a good school that has a good program. I didn’t do that because I was stupid, and I should have because I’m at a university that I don’t enjoy and I’m trying to transfer.

26: Which do you enjoy reading the most: physical, ebook, or both?

Physical, 100%.

27: Which is your favorite genre to write?

It’s been Young Adult for a while (before I even knew what YA was, or that what I was writing was YA), but as I’m getting older I’m noticing that my writing is maturing a bit more.

28: Which do you find hardest: the beginning, the middle, or the end?

The beginning

29: Which do you find easiest: writing or editing?

Writing. Sometimes I’m not in the mood to edit, my work or anyone else’s.

30: Have you ever written fan-fiction?

Nope!

31: Have you ever been published?

HA. I wish.

32: How do you feel about friends and close relatives reading your work?

I’m really shy and self-conscious so I don’t let anyone read my writing. They have, though, because they’re stinkers and they did it secretly. I recently found out that my mom printed out all of my old stories from our old computer and kept them in a binder and would show people.

33: Are you interested in having your work published?

Yes, even though I just said I’m shy and won’t let people I know read it. I think things are easier when people I don’t know read my stuff. So weird.

34: Describe your writing space.

My writing space isn’t one space yet. I’m going to be moving into an apartment out at my school with some roommates, and I plan on making my room really calming and relaxing. Just a bunch of pastel colors, because I’ve found that those calm me. I want twinkle lights in my room, a fuzzy rug, candles, all of it. Recently I’ve been going to our student union/common area and library to write at school, though. The hustle and bustle keeps my mind working. I can’t work in silence, I’ve found that out the hard way.

35: What’s your favorite time of day for writing?

I usually write in the afternoon and whenever I have free time because I’m a full-time student. I do good writing at night, though. I’ve read that you should lay down and write at night, because that’s where you do your best thinking. It’s worked for me so far!

36: Do you listen to music when you write?

While I write and while I do homework I’ll look up the piano instrumentals to Disney songs and I turn them down so I just barely hear them.

37: What’s your oldest WIP?

If this means Work In Progress (God I hope it does or I’ll feel so stupid!), I couldn’t even tell you honestly. All of my writings are WIPs.

38: What’s your current WIP?

It’s about two women who are best friends. One gets engaged and the other is either in love with the guy, having an affair with him, or both. I haven’t decided yet. There’s more to it, but that’s the gist.

39: What’s the weirdest story idea you’ve ever had?

I don’t think I’ve ever had any weird ones. If I have they’re from middle school and I’ve forgotten about them (thank god).

40: Which is your favorite original character, and why?

SUCH a boring answer, but I don’t have one! UGH UGH UGH.

41: What do you do when characters don’t follow the outline?

Considering I don’t use much of an outline, I just follow them where they try to go. It’s usually better than what I had in mind, anyway.

42: Do you enjoy making your characters suffer?

.... No.... Of course not, what an awful question............... No writer EVER enjoys that, nope, never.....

43: Have you ever killed a main character?

Not yet... :)

44: What’s the weirdest character concept you’ve ever come up with?

I haven’t really come up with any weird ones.

45: What’s your favorite character name?

Cora

46: Describe your perfect writing space.

See #34, that’s my dream space. Hopefully I can make it happen. Also, a giant, beautiful old library surrounded by books but also in a nook by myself would be amazing.

47: If you could steal one character from another author and make them yours, who would it be and why?

Hermione Granger. I could only dream of creating someone so iconic as her character. She’s my dream character, and just reminds me so much of myself. In case you haven’t guessed yet she’s my favorite character ever haha

48: If you could write the next book of any series, which one would it be, and what would you make the book about?

I WOULD MAKE ANOTHER HARRY POTTER BOOK. I so badly just want to do this on my own (basically fan-fiction I guess?) but never try to publish it or anything. I would make it about everyone where they are now, where they work and their kids. Not ABOUT their kids, but still just about them. Actually I don’t think I’ll ever attempt that because I wouldn’t execute each character correctly and I’d never be happy with it, but yeah.

49: If you could write a collaboration with another author, who would it be an what would you write about?

Okay. Sarah Dessen, a YA novel, not sure what it’d be about. Maybe she could help me with one of my own ideas. J. K. Rowling, we could collaborate on a new HP book (lol in my dreams). Stephen King, we can write whatever the hell he wants to write about because he’s amazing and I love his writing and it’d be a huge honor to even meet him.

50. If you could live in any fictional world, which would it be?

You can probably guess this. Obviously the world of Harry Potter. I literally got a fake Hogwarts acceptance letter, a student ID, and potions bottles for Christmas when I was little. I played Harry Potter every day with my sister (surprise, I was Hermione).

If you read this, thank you love you’re so sweet! I super appreciate it! This was super fun to do, I honestly love answering random questions. My boyfriend and I ask each other random questions that we look up online all the time because it’s just fun to think of answers and stuff. :)

xx Hayden 

#haydenstudiesblog #writers tag #writer #studyblr #tag #writers askmeme #writers ask

[icespyders]

Rules: answer the questions in a new post and tag people you would like to get to know better

tagged by @risquetendencies (thank u friendo!!!!)

1. Nickname: Maggie

2. Star sign: Libra, and since i'm a big astrology nerd i also know that my moon sign is pisces and my rising sign is gemini lmao

3. Height: uhhh like 5'6? 5'5? it's been a long time since i measured myself

4. Time right now: 10:32 PM. i should think about getting to bed but i also wanna write fics cries....

5. Favorite music artist: my loyalty to my chemical romance is undying but also i get more attached to songs than artists. i listen to the wombats a lot and i've been listening to magic man and foster the people recently

6. Song stuck in your head: it's not stuck in my head, per se, just playing on my shuffle, but i'm listening to "call it what you want" (see i told you i was on a foster the people kick recently. i love this song and also "pseudologia fantastica")

7. Last movie watched: Blair Witch, the new one! i liked it a lot and i wish i'd gone to see it in the theater instead of streaming it haha

8. Last TV show you watched: uhhh i started watching kimi ni todoke but i'm not very far yet, and i rewatched an episode of haikyuu today just because

9. What are you wearing rn: pajamas...i basically exist in pajamas in ideal circumstances. sweatpants and an mcr tshirt and a cardigan

10. When did you create your blog: oh GOD i don't even know, i was still in high school though. so a long goddamn time. the first post is from 2010 oh GOD i was a sophomore in high school. good lord.

11. What kind of stuff do you post: haikyuu and other anime, aesthetic shit about space and cityscapes, lots of ask games chatting w/ sweet & lovely friends, every image of kageyama tobio smiling i can find, etc

12. Do you have any other blogs: none that i use. one of my sideblogs was a component of a final creative project for a class i took, no joke.

13. Do you get asks regularly: not really, but i cherish every single one!! someone sent me encouragement for my fic writing recently and i literally screenshotted it for morale purposes before replying lmfao

14. Why did you choose your username: it has a nice ring to it and i have a soft spot for shitty movies about giant monsters. (please watch the syfy original film Ice Spiders it's so fucking funny, i have a DVD of it and everything bc it's Who I Am. i need this story about a washed up skier who is humanity's last hope against genetically-modified murdering super spiders. honestly. just watch the trailer, even. it's so funny.) (obvious trigger warning for arachnophobia, they're really ugly fake-looking cgi spiders but still)

15. Gender: female

16. Hogwarts house: RAVENCLAW RIDE OR DIE

17. Pokemon team: i was mystic but i don't play pokemon go anymore so now i'm on whatever team rowlet's on. that's where i belong, with my fluffy bird son

18. Favorite color: green, usually, but i own way more blue clothes for some reason

19. Average hours of sleep per night: not enough...rip...i need to be better about sleeping

20. Lucky number: 14, but only because it's my birthdate haha (true story: my dad's lucky number is 9 so every time i wear my kageyama jersey at home he reminds me of this fact, as if i don't already know from the ten billion other times he has told me)

21. Favorite character: fuck!! way too many!!! i claim, desperately hiding all my kageyama stuff behind my back

22. How many blankets do you sleep with: 2!

23. Dream job: Editor or literary agent or something else involved with literature. i don't think i'm made for a career as a writer since i'm shit at making myself write on a regular basis, but i'm very good at editing and critiquing and giving feedback! i'm the weirdo agonizing over sentence structure for fun & i beta fics for my sister, which is hilarious, bc she’s prone to bizarre spelling errors and i get to make fun of her.

24. Following: 431 blogs. probably a ton of them are deactivated or inactive somehow, but hey, that's what happens when you're on this goddamn site for 7 years

pls feel free to answer this & tell me about yourself!!!!! :')

#ask game #risquetendencies

[jesseneufeld]

8 Comebacks For Keto Criticisms

It’s easy to forget how weird we all are.

You spend your days reading this and other health blogs, communing with Primal and keto folks on social media, staying abreast of the nutrition literature, arguing about arcane metabolic minutiae on forums, counting your linoleic acid intake, and you forget that most people don’t know 2% of what you know about diet.

So, when you hear people criticize keto, don’t get exasperated (even if the criticisms are silly). Be ready to respond. And hey, not all criticisms are unfounded. In many cases, wrangling with them will only make you more honest and informed about your diet. Let’s look at some of the more astute keto critiques….

1) Your Brain Needs Glucose, How Do You Even Think?

This isn’t so much wrong as incomplete. Yes, the brain famously needs glucose—but not as much as we’re lead to believe. Once you’re keto-adapted, ketones can provide most of the brain’s energy needs. At max ketone production and adaptation, you’ll still need about 30 grams of glucose for your brain.

Your liver can make about 150 grams of carbohydrates a day from gluconeogenesis, so even if you don’t eat any carbs at all (and you can definitely eat carbs on keto) you’ll still be able to manufacture the requisite 30 grams of glucose.

2) Don’t You Need Carbs for Energy?

The beauty of keto (and low-carb eating in general) is that it leads to low insulin—both fasting and post-prandial (after meals). When your insulin is low, you’re able to access your stored body fat and liberate it to be burned for energy. Since even the leanest among us carry pounds of body fat, that means you have tens of thousands of calories of clean-burning energy available for liberation at any time.

Once you’re keto-adapted, you’ll most likely find that you have steadier energy than before.

3) How Do You Get Fiber?

Actually, there are plenty of ways to obtain fiber on a ketogenic diet. Many of the best sources of prebiotic fiber—the kind that feed and nourish the good gut bacteria living in your digestive tract—are fairly low in digestible carbohydrates and mesh well with keto. For example:

Berries

Jicama

Onions

Garlic

Leeks

Dandelion greens

Green bananas (Yes, a green banana is mostly resistant starch, which your body cannot digest.)

Asparagus

Broccoli

Dark chocolate

Almonds and pistachios

Mushrooms

Avocados

Plenty of fiber in those.

4) How Do You Exercise Without Carbs?

Quite nicely.

There are two primary energy systems used during exercise: aerobic and anaerobic. Aerobic energy relies on fat; anaerobic relies on glucose. The better you are at burning fat, the more work you can do while remaining aerobic. This preserves stored glucose (glycogen) for more intense efforts, increasing your overall energy efficiency. Particularly for endurance training, being keto-adapted allows you to utilize greater amounts of stored body fat for energy and reserve glycogen for when you really need it.

And besides, if you do engage in glycolytic, glucose-intensive training, you can always cycle carbs in and around your workout sessions. Your insulin-sensitive muscles will suck up any glucose you consume as glycogen without affecting your insulin levels or your ability to generate ketones and burn fat.

5) Doesn’t All That Fat Give You Heart Disease?

The vast majority of studies placing people on low-carb, high-fat or ketogenic diets find that markers of heart health improve rather than decline.

In obese adults with type 2 diabetes, a ketogenic diet improved blood lipids and boosted fat loss compared to a low-calorie diet.

In lean, healthy adults without any weight to lose (and who didn’t lose any weight during the course of the diet), total cholesterol went up from 159 to 208 mg/dL and triglycerides fell from 107 to 79 mg/dL. A lipophobic doc might freak out at the rise in TC, but given that the triglycerides dropped, I bet the change reflects a rise in HDL and an overall positive, at worst-neutral effect.

Now, do some people see classically-deleterious changes to their blood lipids? Sure. Anything can happen. We’re all different. I talk more about keto and cholesterol effects here. But the weight of evidence shows that becoming fat-adapted through a keto diet is better for your heart health than not.

6) You’re Just Losing Water Weight, Not Fat

Here’s the truth:

Yes, when you go keto and start shedding glycogen from your liver and your muscles, you lose a lot of water. That’s because every gram of glycogen is stored with 3-4 grams of water. Burn the glycogen and you lose the water along with it.

But this glycogen-and-water loss is a prerequisite for losing “real” weight. It’s a harbinger for fat loss. Once the glycogen runs low, that’s when you start getting into deep ketosis and developing the ability to burn massive amounts of body fat for energy.

7) I Heard the Keto Diet Kills Your Gut Bacteria

Ah, yes, I remember that study. They either fed people a varied diet of fruits, vegetables, grains, legumes, and other foods—or a diet of lunch meat and cheese. Turns out the lunch meat and cheese “keto diet” was bad for the gut biome, increasing gut bacteria linked to obesity and metabolic problems and decreasing gut bacteria linked to health. Of course it was.

A keto diet doesn’t have to consist of bologna and American cheese slices. In fact, it shouldn’t. As I explained in the fiber section, a well-formulated ketogenic diet is full of prebiotic fiber, non-starchy vegetables, and even low-sugar fruit that provide plenty of nourishment for your healthy gut bacteria. What these studies and media stories attack is a caricature of keto, a diet full of processed meat and low quality cheese. They aren’t relevant for someone following a Primal keto diet.

8) Keto Isn’t Sustainable

Well, what do you mean by sustainable?

If you’re talking about the “restrictiveness” of the diet at a personal level, that depends. Sure, you can’t go keto and continue eating Pop Tarts and donuts for breakfast, heaping bowls of pasta for lunch, and fast food burgers (with the bun, at least) and fries with a shake for dinner. But you can eat eggs, bacon, and blackberries for breakfast. You can eat a Big Ass Salad full of a dozen different species of vegetables for lunch. And you can have a ribeye with buttered broccoli for dinner with a glass of wine. I don’t know about you, but that’s a pretty damn sustainable way to eat in my book.

If you’re talking about the environment, and worrying about farting cows or whatever, the evidence is quickly accumulating that properly-raised and managed grazing livestock can sequester more carbon than they emit, revitalize (and even de-desertify) grasslands, and produce more calories-per-unit-of-input than conventional pasture-raising. A large portion of the world’s surface isn’t even suitable for growing crops and is better used for grazing animals. The environmental sustainability of meat-eating is still an open question, but the popular conception of “meat bad, grains good” is completely incorrect and incomplete.

What other keto criticisms have you encountered in the wild? Leave them down below, and thanks for stopping in today, everyone.

(function($) { $("#dfizgzU").load("https://www.marksdailyapple.com/wp-admin/admin-ajax.php?action=dfads_ajax_load_ads&groups=960&limit=1&orderby=random&order=ASC&container_id=&container_html=none&container_class=&ad_html=div&ad_class=&callback_function=&return_javascript=0&_block_id=dfizgzU" ); })( jQuery );

window.onload=function(){ga('send', { hitType: 'event', eventCategory: 'Ad Impression', eventAction: '84157' });}

References:

Hussain TA, Mathew TC, Dashti AA, Asfar S, Al-zaid N, Dashti HM. Effect of low-calorie versus low-carbohydrate ketogenic diet in type 2 diabetes. Nutrition. 2012;28(10):1016-21.

Phinney SD, Bistrian BR, Wolfe RR, Blackburn GL. The human metabolic response to chronic ketosis without caloric restriction: physical and biochemical adaptation. Metab Clin Exp. 1983;32(8):757-68.

The post 8 Comebacks For Keto Criticisms appeared first on Mark's Daily Apple.

8 Comebacks For Keto Criticisms published first on https://drugaddictionsrehab.tumblr.com/

[lauramalchowblog]

8 Comebacks For Keto Criticisms

It’s easy to forget how weird we all are.

You spend your days reading this and other health blogs, communing with Primal and keto folks on social media, staying abreast of the nutrition literature, arguing about arcane metabolic minutiae on forums, counting your linoleic acid intake, and you forget that most people don’t know 2% of what you know about diet.

So, when you hear people criticize keto, don’t get exasperated (even if the criticisms are silly). Be ready to respond. And hey, not all criticisms are unfounded. In many cases, wrangling with them will only make you more honest and informed about your diet. Let’s look at some of the more astute keto critiques….

1) Your Brain Needs Glucose, How Do You Even Think?

This isn’t so much wrong as incomplete. Yes, the brain famously needs glucose—but not as much as we’re lead to believe. Once you’re keto-adapted, ketones can provide most of the brain’s energy needs. At max ketone production and adaptation, you’ll still need about 30 grams of glucose for your brain.

Your liver can make about 150 grams of carbohydrates a day from gluconeogenesis, so even if you don’t eat any carbs at all (and you can definitely eat carbs on keto) you’ll still be able to manufacture the requisite 30 grams of glucose.

2) Don’t You Need Carbs for Energy?

The beauty of keto (and low-carb eating in general) is that it leads to low insulin—both fasting and post-prandial (after meals). When your insulin is low, you’re able to access your stored body fat and liberate it to be burned for energy. Since even the leanest among us carry pounds of body fat, that means you have tens of thousands of calories of clean-burning energy available for liberation at any time.

Once you’re keto-adapted, you’ll most likely find that you have steadier energy than before.

3) How Do You Get Fiber?

Actually, there are plenty of ways to obtain fiber on a ketogenic diet. Many of the best sources of prebiotic fiber—the kind that feed and nourish the good gut bacteria living in your digestive tract—are fairly low in digestible carbohydrates and mesh well with keto. For example:

Berries

Jicama

Onions

Garlic

Leeks

Dandelion greens

Green bananas (Yes, a green banana is mostly resistant starch, which your body cannot digest.)

Asparagus

Broccoli

Dark chocolate

Almonds and pistachios

Mushrooms

Avocados

Plenty of fiber in those.

4) How Do You Exercise Without Carbs?

Quite nicely.

There are two primary energy systems used during exercise: aerobic and anaerobic. Aerobic energy relies on fat; anaerobic relies on glucose. The better you are at burning fat, the more work you can do while remaining aerobic. This preserves stored glucose (glycogen) for more intense efforts, increasing your overall energy efficiency. Particularly for endurance training, being keto-adapted allows you to utilize greater amounts of stored body fat for energy and reserve glycogen for when you really need it.

And besides, if you do engage in glycolytic, glucose-intensive training, you can always cycle carbs in and around your workout sessions. Your insulin-sensitive muscles will suck up any glucose you consume as glycogen without affecting your insulin levels or your ability to generate ketones and burn fat.

5) Doesn’t All That Fat Give You Heart Disease?

The vast majority of studies placing people on low-carb, high-fat or ketogenic diets find that markers of heart health improve rather than decline.

In obese adults with type 2 diabetes, a ketogenic diet improved blood lipids and boosted fat loss compared to a low-calorie diet.

In lean, healthy adults without any weight to lose (and who didn’t lose any weight during the course of the diet), total cholesterol went up from 159 to 208 mg/dL and triglycerides fell from 107 to 79 mg/dL. A lipophobic doc might freak out at the rise in TC, but given that the triglycerides dropped, I bet the change reflects a rise in HDL and an overall positive, at worst-neutral effect.

Now, do some people see classically-deleterious changes to their blood lipids? Sure. Anything can happen. We’re all different. I talk more about keto and cholesterol effects here. But the weight of evidence shows that becoming fat-adapted through a keto diet is better for your heart health than not.

6) You’re Just Losing Water Weight, Not Fat

Here’s the truth:

Yes, when you go keto and start shedding glycogen from your liver and your muscles, you lose a lot of water. That’s because every gram of glycogen is stored with 3-4 grams of water. Burn the glycogen and you lose the water along with it.

But this glycogen-and-water loss is a prerequisite for losing “real” weight. It’s a harbinger for fat loss. Once the glycogen runs low, that’s when you start getting into deep ketosis and developing the ability to burn massive amounts of body fat for energy.

7) I Heard the Keto Diet Kills Your Gut Bacteria

Ah, yes, I remember that study. They either fed people a varied diet of fruits, vegetables, grains, legumes, and other foods—or a diet of lunch meat and cheese. Turns out the lunch meat and cheese “keto diet” was bad for the gut biome, increasing gut bacteria linked to obesity and metabolic problems and decreasing gut bacteria linked to health. Of course it was.

A keto diet doesn’t have to consist of bologna and American cheese slices. In fact, it shouldn’t. As I explained in the fiber section, a well-formulated ketogenic diet is full of prebiotic fiber, non-starchy vegetables, and even low-sugar fruit that provide plenty of nourishment for your healthy gut bacteria. What these studies and media stories attack is a caricature of keto, a diet full of processed meat and low quality cheese. They aren’t relevant for someone following a Primal keto diet.

8) Keto Isn’t Sustainable

Well, what do you mean by sustainable?

If you’re talking about the “restrictiveness” of the diet at a personal level, that depends. Sure, you can’t go keto and continue eating Pop Tarts and donuts for breakfast, heaping bowls of pasta for lunch, and fast food burgers (with the bun, at least) and fries with a shake for dinner. But you can eat eggs, bacon, and blackberries for breakfast. You can eat a Big Ass Salad full of a dozen different species of vegetables for lunch. And you can have a ribeye with buttered broccoli for dinner with a glass of wine. I don’t know about you, but that’s a pretty damn sustainable way to eat in my book.

If you’re talking about the environment, and worrying about farting cows or whatever, the evidence is quickly accumulating that properly-raised and managed grazing livestock can sequester more carbon than they emit, revitalize (and even de-desertify) grasslands, and produce more calories-per-unit-of-input than conventional pasture-raising. A large portion of the world’s surface isn’t even suitable for growing crops and is better used for grazing animals. The environmental sustainability of meat-eating is still an open question, but the popular conception of “meat bad, grains good” is completely incorrect and incomplete.

What other keto criticisms have you encountered in the wild? Leave them down below, and thanks for stopping in today, everyone.

(function($) { $("#dfTE96M").load("https://www.marksdailyapple.com/wp-admin/admin-ajax.php?action=dfads_ajax_load_ads&groups=960&limit=1&orderby=random&order=ASC&container_id=&container_html=none&container_class=&ad_html=div&ad_class=&callback_function=&return_javascript=0&_block_id=dfTE96M" ); })( jQuery );

window.onload=function(){ga('send', { hitType: 'event', eventCategory: 'Ad Impression', eventAction: '66049' });}

References:

Hussain TA, Mathew TC, Dashti AA, Asfar S, Al-zaid N, Dashti HM. Effect of low-calorie versus low-carbohydrate ketogenic diet in type 2 diabetes. Nutrition. 2012;28(10):1016-21.

Phinney SD, Bistrian BR, Wolfe RR, Blackburn GL. The human metabolic response to chronic ketosis without caloric restriction: physical and biochemical adaptation. Metab Clin Exp. 1983;32(8):757-68.

The post 8 Comebacks For Keto Criticisms appeared first on Mark's Daily Apple.

8 Comebacks For Keto Criticisms published first on https://venabeahan.tumblr.com

[fabulizemag]

Quan Millz talks candidly with Fabulize Magazine

I think I first discovered Quan Millz and his books on Facebook. I kept seeing these outrageous book titles such as, “Crack Hoe Dreams” and “Pregnant By My Mother’s Gay Husband”. I thought the titles were just memes people were making up as jokes but to my surprise, these were actual book titles being sold on Amazon — and Millz has a steadily growing fanbase.

By now, you’ve probably seen his books on various platforms being talked about and the same words are used to describe him and his books; ratchet, ghetto, women-hating, low-class etc. While there are some who can find validity in these critiques, I found it interesting that no one took the time to speak to the author themselves.

Not all black women to read these books but a lot do…Women are 99% of my fan base

Now, urban fiction is not a new genre. Street literature has been around since people were able to publish their own books. For you younger whippersnappers, back in the day, titles like Coldest Winter Ever, The Game, and Black were some of the infamous works from Triple Crown Productions; a publishing company that produced ( that are still available on Amazon) hood novels that were sold on the subways, out of the trunk of cars on the streets and if you were lucky, in black-owned bookstore that was tucked all the way in the back of the shelves. These books and novels have always existed, but with social media being so visible it’s easier for creatives to debut work and go viral off of controversial content and that’s exactly what Quan Millz is doing.

Quan Millz talks candidly with Fabulize Magazine

Millz fanbase and creative team are comprised of mostly black women and if you were to ‘judge a book by its cover’ you might not believe that at first which is the interesting irony from his critics. I’ve been following him on Facebook and black women are his biggest supporters. In fact, I’ve seen numerous black women contribute ideas and give him feedback on the projects he’s working on. This is why Millz doesn’t feel these critiques are fair and feels all the negative press he gets are from people who relish in respectability politics. He also thinks there are other authors that are jealous of his success; after all, he’s been mentioned on The Shade Room and other popular blogs and continues to generate sales. Are his critics overthinking his work, or is Millz pimping out black, stereotypical strife for profit?

I was able to catch up with Millz who took the time out to talk to me about his books, his failures, what inspires him, his future projects and how he views “Wokebook” ( the black social justice warrior side of Facebook).

Do you think your work is misogynistic? Intentionally or unintentionally?

QM: Misogynistic in what way? I think that’s where I am having a hard time trying to understand how I am promoting misogynoir or whatever that means.

Misogynoir means using stereotypes that are used to demean black women in ways that are violent, sexual and or classist. Do you think your work is popular based on how you portray black women even though it’s entertainment?

QM: Ohh! I portray all spectrums of black womanhood and black manhood. In fact, that’s one of my criticisms about contemporary urban lit; it’s too narrow in its scope of the portrayal of black people. Not everyone lives in a housing project or a ghetto, but not everyone lives in a middle class, suburban neighborhood. My stories draw from real life experiences of things that have happened in the news. Now, I will confess there are perhaps some comedic or satirical elements to my writing. But take for instance Crack Hoe Dreams, I wanted to show the pathology of how a woman goes from being normal to a full-on crackhead or drug addict [while explaining] her experiences [and] the evolution of her addiction. Addiction doesn’t happen overnight. I also deal with a lot of colorism in my books. Gutter Hoe Dreams is about an abusive, “light-skinned” aunt who terrorizes her dark-skinned, morbidly obese, supposedly mentally challenged niece. I do play on tropes and certain common storylines/characters but that’s only because these are current, identifiable issues that black people deal with on an everyday basis. I don’t understand why people like to pretend that colorism isn’t still very much rampant in the black community.

Colorism is very real

QM: Yes, also what people need to realize about the street lit/urban fiction genre is that it’s designed to be digestible by the masses. I try to weave in larger social themes, but I also try to still incorporate everyday colloquialisms that resonate with people. None of my books are overly cerebral. I write simple and direct but try to be expressive with language. I think honestly that’s why I have such a popular, growing fan base. So many urban fiction writers love writing over-the-top thug romance stories that in reality fantasize the very pathologies that I try to erase through my characters and have them overcome them. I do not like glorifying drug trade, kingpins, etc. I hate alpha male thug romance stories. But the reality is there is a strong demand for that type of literature and I respect it. I just choose to write the stories I want to write that I feel reflect realities for a lot of black folks who live in the working class and poor neighborhoods. Sorry if I’m rambling I just…ughh. I’m kind of heated because I already have to deal with controversy within the urban fiction writers’ community for my choice of titles. I get it though. But then I don’t like it when these stay woke cultural elitists see it as an opportunity to tear down writers and the readers who write urban fiction and street lit.

What advice would you give to writer and aspiring publishers? How do you build your online community and fanbase?

QM: Write what the fuck you wanna write. If people like it, they’ll continue to read it. But also learn how to write for the market.

How do you come up with plots and storylines? What inspires you? What influences do you have or use to create characters?

QM: I don’t focus on storylines. I focus on characters and the adversities I want them to overcome. That drives the plot. From there, everything else falls into place.

How old were you when you published your first book?

QM:32. I’ve been writing since late 2014. I started after my business and co-author, N’Dia Rae, got me into writing. I started under a different pen name and failed miserably. I had no idea what I was doing. None of those books are on Amazon anymore and I will not reveal to you what the pen name was.

Where are you from? What was your childhood like? Where do you live now? What life experiences have/do you use to write your books?

QM: I was born and raised in Miami, Florida. I graduated from the University of Florida in Gainesville, lived in Atlanta, then moved to Chicago. Now I spend most of my time between Chicago, Los Angeles, and Miami.

How long does it take you to write a book? Depends on if the spirit of creativity.

QM: Sometimes I can write a book in less than a week. Sometimes, it takes damn near three months.

What’s the hardest thing about writing books?

QM: Being able to tell an emotionally gripping story and draw people in from the very beginning.

What’s the biggest complaint /worse feedback you get about your work? What is the best?

QM: I haven’t gotten serious, serious complaints. My readers, for the most part, enjoy my work to the fullest.

Who do you think is your audience?

QM: Describe them in 4 words. Black women. Lol, black men hardly read, unless its nonfiction 48 Laws of Power type shit.

Who are your favorite urban fiction writers? What writers and authors do you admire?

QM: Sista Souljah and K’wan right now are my tops. I tried to get into some other authors, but they primarily write urban romance. Ain’t nobody got time to read about thugs with big dicks. That shit is wack to me.

Do you have any friends and family who feel you are taking their personal lives and turning it into entertainment?

QM: Nope, not at all.

How do you choose your cover titles?

QM: Honestly, they just come to me. And a lot of them reflect common says and aphorisms in the hood.

Do you feel obligated to showcase the black and minority communities in good/positive light?

QM: No, I do not because I am a creative and I write stories that reflect the reality that people live. Only 4% of Black American households are worth more than $200,000 or more. So this whole faux Huxtable narrative that black bourgeois intellectuals and artists like to push onto people is nothing more than rehashed respectability politics.

How do you market your books online? What has worked best for you? What are some mistakes you’ve come across in marketing your books?

QM: I use a variety of methods. Social media advertising works best. I’ve actually developed a very comprehensive launch marketing strategy for my books, but I will not delve into the specifics of that because it’s too detailed and I’d be damned if I am going to give out trade secrets, lol. All I will say is, social media engagement is very important.

What are the topics you refuse to write about?

QM: I’ll write about any and everything so long as it piques my interest and readers find it interesting.

Do you want to expand your empire to tv, film or music? Do you see yourself writing in other genres?

QM: Yes, that is actually the goal to get into television. Although I see myself making films here and there, I actually prefer television. Seems more up my alley as far as being able to stretch out a plot. Don’t see myself ever getting into music. As far as other genres – honestly, no. I prefer the African American Urban Fiction market because it’s gritty and underground. Besides, I like writing for black folks.

Where do you see yourself in 5 years?

QM: In five years I see myself with a multi-million dollar publishing house. I would also like to get into real estate. Long term, I would like to tone down the writing a bit and focus more on African American urban young adult fiction because a lot of teenagers do read street lit novels. See for me, I love writing cautionary tales – entertaining, cautionary tales.

What’s the difference between cautionary tales and urban lit?

QM: Well, I am saying it’s my style of writing in the context of urban lit meaning, I am writing with the intent to try to weave in some sort of larger social message. Not all of my books are like that, some honestly were just written simply for the sake of making money. I plan on eventually taking those books down.

So you work is limited time only?

QM: No, certain books like My Bad White Bitch.

So are you going to give Quan Millz a chance? What’s your favorite urban lit book?

Urban Fiction Author, Quan Millz Doesn’t Like ‘Stay Woke Cultural Elitists’ That Discredit Street Lit I think I first discovered Quan Millz and his books on Facebook. I kept seeing these outrageous book titles such as, "Crack Hoe Dreams" and "Pregnant By My Mother's Gay Husband".

#Books #exclusive #interview #Quan Millz #Reading #social media