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warriorsredux · 3 years

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RE: Feedback for the Redux.

(I wanted to give you really in-depth feedback. Unfortunately, it ended up being way longer than I anticipated. I figured it would be easier to send this as a submission rather than breaking it up into a million smaller asks. I hope that’s all right!)

Note: I put this under a readmore to save space, but I have read it all and thoroughly agree with it. Thank you so much for the feedback, man!

Before I get into the nitty-gritty, I want to briefly talk about my personal relationship with Warriors - not because I want to talk about myself necessarily, but because I want to provide some relevant context. You see, I was first introduced to these books in 2004, about when I was nine years old. You could argue, in some ways, that these books defined a large part of my childhood, and were extremely influential into my teenage years and early adulthood. When I wasn’t fantasizing about colonies of talking feral cats, I was gleefully writing fanfics and roleplaying online. Those were my first tentative forays into writing, and would ultimately set me on the path to refine and hone those skills in the years to come. I was obsessed with the mythology and lore of this world, with the sprawling cast of characters, with the steady publication of new entries into the series.

Now, kids tend to not have the best critical thinking skills. Which is why it took until my late teenage years to realize that my cherished books were really, really not that great. The mythology and lore that I’d praised were starved of any creativity, steeped in the cliches of the fantasy genre, and prone to collapsing under their own weight when subjected to even the smallest amount of scrutiny. The characters that I adored? They were blighted with similar cliches, lacking in any sort of growth or development or depth; sustained only by archetypes and whatever retcons the authors thought would sell the most books, either through hype, drama, or fanservice. Exacerbating all of this was the publisher’s insistence on milking the franchise for whatever profit nostalgia could still yield. They weren’t writing more books because they had new, interesting ideas they wanted to explore - they did it because this series was (and still is) fucking lucrative. As I thought about these things more critically, and became more informed on social issues, it became impossible to unsee the uglier aspects of the franchise - the ableism, the queerbaiting and lack of representation, the depiction of minors and adults (Dustpelt and Ferncloud, Thistleclaw and Spottedleaf) having romantic or sexual relationships, the blind nationalism and eugenics/persecution of minorities (non-Clanborn cats) and characters of mixed descent (half-Clan cats). People far more informed and far more eloquent than myself have discussed those issues in-depth elsewhere, but suffice to say, I was understandably upset by these things. No amount of nostalgia could blind me to those flaws.

And yet, for some reason, I never really stopped loving Warriors. Or put more accurately - I never stopped loving the potential of Warriors. That was the thing that I kept coming back to. The wasted potential of a series depicting the lives of feral cats, and their brutal struggle to survive in the wilderness, all the while deeply immersed in their own complex societies and cultures. It became painfully clear to me that the thing I loved about Warriors was the sandbox nature of the franchise, and all the ways fans were able to explore that untapped potential. With that realization now achieved, Warriors slipped into the back of my mind, accruing cobwebs as the years passed. Occasionally those dormant thoughts stirred whenever I saw a piece of fanart on my dashboard, or I passed a new release while browsing the local Barnes & Noble. Sometimes I even entertained the fleeting thought of writing AU fics again. But by and large, Warriors had been retired from my thoughts.

And then, in 2017, I found the Redux.

While writing this segment I had several false starts, in no small part because I didn’t know what to talk about first. It was like someone had gone through my thoughts with a steel-toothed comb, and took every disappointment, every what if, and turned it into a reality. Holy shit, look at this blog! Look at the meta commentary! Look at all of the worldbuilding! I could clearly see just how much passion and attention to detail was put into developing the plot and the characters. How many hundreds of hours went into correcting the broken genetics of the canon characters. Suddenly, the Clans had culture - real, living, breathing culture! There was a pantheon of deities and demigods. A deliberate intention behind the naming tradition beyond slapping two words together because they sounded pretty or made for a trite pun. This. This was the story Warriors should have been. This lone blog managed to conceive an original lore for the Clans, while further developing the canon plots beyond their base elements. What three authors failed to do, one person achieved on their own.

You made forgettable characters interesting. And you made interesting characters unforgettable.

I lived for every scrap of content you created - the asks, the deconstructions, the amendment posts, the art, even the fucking shitposts (because they were just genuinely wholesome and funny). The Redux wasn’t just a source of entertainment, either - it introduced me to the idea of writing an AU that was sustained by meta-analysis, and grounded in critical reception of the series’ flaws (both technical and social). Your work eventually inspired me to create my own Redux-style worldbuilding/AU blog for a series that has similar issues to canon Warriors.

The Redux deserves all the praise it gets, and you should be extremely proud of what you’ve accomplished. Even if the Third Arc wasn’t finished or the Fourth started, it was still a helluva ride, one that I’m so glad I got to participate in.

But, of course, you asked for feedback, so I can’t spend the entirety of this post throwing roses at your feet. So, onto the constructive feedback.

I think a lot of my thoughts are going to echo what other people have previously said, but for me, the biggest setbacks in the Redux were the following:

[1] Pacing. This is going to sound weird, but this isn’t a criticism of the Redux’s length. Rather, it’s more about how that time was spent. While I really like how you adjusted aspects of the Redux’s plot in order to still tangentially align with the books’, it sometimes felt like the chapters were there just to connect points A and B. I knew this was a retelling of the original series, so I already had a vague idea of what the general storybeats would be. What appealed to me was how the story would get to those points. Let me give you an example: in Arc 1, we’re told in chapter 10 that Murkpelt is roaming the territories, and poses a threat to the Clans. Immediately in chapter 11 we’re taken to the scene where Firepaw finds her while escorting Spottedleaf. We’re told about ThunderClan’s efforts to track her prior, and about the looming tension in the wake of this invisible threat. But that’s the thing - we’re told that by the narration in just a paragraph or two. We’re not shown what that looks like. The setup is supposed to be everyone being on edge, but Bluestar’s lounging by the stump when the scene begins. It’s a little dissonant, and it has the unfortunate problem of contradicting the narration. It would’ve been so cool to see a chapter or two where Firepaw’s still trying to immerse himself into Clan life, and his questions are met with terse answers or impatience. Undercut his (and the reader’s) learning with other characters being brusque with him, or short-tempered, or something. And then that could lead into Greypaw or Ravenpaw consoling him and explaining why the situation is so serious. Then Firepaw could ask something like, “Have there ever been instances like this before with rogues?” Which could organically lead to a conversation where Greypaw or Ravenpaw bring up relevant lore/worldbuilding. It’s little stuff like that which would’ve helped with immersion and pacing. I think it would have balanced the two out, by providing pseudo-downtime where the audience experiences the world as the characters do. (If that makes sense.) Or, to provide another example: we never get to see Tres Idiots mentoring Snowpaw. In chapters 5 and 6 of Arc 3, we see Raventhroat struggling to develop a signing system he can use with his apprentice; and then, after a few chapters he’s perfectly narrating the Bright-Eyed Crow to Snowpaw. I think that showing us scenes where the two were actually working out the kinks would have done more to develop Raventhroat’s character arc. He went from being a meek, timid apprentice to an eloquent warrior, and him becoming a mentor is supposed to be a definite part of that journey. It would’ve have been so cool to have plot-relevant scenes broken up by smaller ones where we watch Raventhroat gain confidence through each small success he makes with his apprentice. I’m not sure if I’m conveying exactly what I want to say, but I guess the TL;DR would be something like - I would’ve gladly welcomed either more chapters, or longer ones, if it meant we got more scenes like this.

[2] Utilization of the worldbuilding. You mentioned this already in response to another ask, but if you could go back and change anything, it would be incorporating more lore/adhering the Redux to its lore more strongly. Your worldbuilding is perhaps the strongest part of the Redux by far. You gave us a conlang, traditions, folk stories, Clan stereotypes - so much fascinating material - but it feels like its integration was based solely on whether or not it was relevant to the plot at hand. Unless there was a reason why it was brought up, then we’d never get to see a ThunderClan cat freaking out near a ShadowClan seer and refusing to approach them at a Gathering. Or listen to Mistfoot share a poem with Greystripe and Fireheart (after being goaded into it by Silverstream). Or watch as Redtail politely interrupts the elders and asks for their opinion on an important matter. Or listen to the Clan getting together after a loved one dies and share stories about their life. Or watch as Sandpaw/Dustpaw use their age and seniority over Firepaw to terrorize him with stories of Yrrun and Terror. On one hand, I absolutely understand why a lot of lore was relegated exclusively to the Amendment section - it’s important to strike a balance between what’s interesting versus what’s relevant. You don’t wanna just throw worldbuilding trivia at the audience apropos of nothing. On the other hand, I really wish I’d seen a much larger integration of your worldbuilding into the story, because it’s so fascinating and so god damn good.

[3] Utilization of the characters. One of the things you tweaked, that I absolutely loved, was choosing to introduce Silverpaw in Arc 1 at a Gathering. Not only does it create a realistic basis for her friendship with Tres Idiots, but it fixes the canon’s issue of her saving Greystripe out of nowhere and then developing a relationship on that alone. That was fucking great! Same thing with Rainpath - it was so awesome for Fireheart to get a friend in another Clan (ShadowClan, of all Clans). It broke the mold, and their interactions were just delightful. But outside of those examples, sometimes it kinda felt like the side characters didn’t really exist? I remember an old piece of writing advice, but I can’t recall who it’s attributed to: “Treat your side characters like they think they’re the main characters.” Because they absolutely are. I might be some passing stranger in another person’s life, barely a blip on their radar, but I have my own vibrant story. Everyone does. In the Redux, it sometimes felt like minor or side characters weren’t living their own lives outside of their interactions with Fireheart and his friends. Mousefur’s the most fluent speaker of Fang in ThunderClan? Cool. How did she learn that skill? Who taught her? Does she have a friend in WindClan who’s been teaching her new words at Gatherings, or whenever they happen to cross paths while on border patrols near Four Trees? Not only is that character trivia interesting, but it could provide foreshadowing/become relevant later on. When the Clans meet to discuss how to deal with the dogs in Arc 3, perhaps someone suggests having their most fluent Fang speakers act as interpreters/diplomats, and try to broker some sort of peace/understanding with the dogs. Things like that. Basically, it would’ve been nice if Fireheart’s life intersected more with the goings-on of his Clanmates, or if his own goals/agenda were sometimes inconvenienced by the goals/agenda of others.

I think those are my major criticisms. More integration of lore, a slower/steadier pace that accommodates showing over telling, and finding ways to have the personal lives of minor characters interact with the story. Maybe adding in some additional subplots that are congruent with the main plots, and occur simultaneously, in order to keep chapters busy. That sort of thing. I hope what I provided wasn’t overwhelming in any way, and ends up being useful for either the Redux or any of your other writing projects.

As an aside, thank you. For creating this humble niche community within an even larger fandom. For asking for feedback from your readers. For being someone who makes mistakes, but eventually endeavors to learn from them, and ultimately, become a better person. I know this sounds kinda sappy, but I really do mean it. <3

(For the record I wrote this at like five in the morning, so if there are any grammatical errors I’ll be kicking myself in the ass for those.)

#silvokrent #submission #i speak #kind of #textwall #readmore

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flightfoot · 4 years

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What's your favorite Rick Riordan series between Percy Jackson, The Kane Chronicles, Heroes of Olympus, Magnus Chase and Trials of Apollo? (or like, if you can't choose, what do you like about the series you've read?)

Trials of Apollo, no contest.

I liked Percy Jackson a lot, it was VERY well done. Percy was hilarious and relatable, but also just super awesome, his dynamic with Annabeth was fun to read, along with his dynamic with Grover, the quests had a lot of entertaining encounters, and it had some well-executed themes that tied in with the overall conflict nicely, mostly about how parents’ and adults’ negligence and even abuse can harm their kids, the overall effects of that, and just... generally trying to get the parents to shape up, as well as the effects of not respecting others in general, like with how the minor gods and by extension, their children, are treated by the Olympians. It comes up with Percy’s relationships with both Gabe and Poseidon, and most of the campers’ relationships with their godly parents, and that’s a MAJOR cause behind the entire conflict, and one of the major things that Percy tries to make better at the end of the last book.

Kane Chronicles... it’s been awhile since I read it. I don’t remember it having as prevalent a theme as Percy Jackson did, though there was definitely social commentary on racism, with how Carter was sometimes treated, and with how people had trouble comprehending that Carter and Sadie were full siblings, since while both are mixed, Carter’s pretty dark-skinned, while Sadie looks White. It was more of a background thing though, not a major plot point. I liked the characters and the plot fine, they were entertaining, and it was good overall - but it’s not a series I’ve felt a pressing need to reread either. Only real complaint I have about it is the romances centering around Sadie. Her and Anubis were kinda cute, but it would’ve been a lot cuter if she was older than 12-13, and he wasn’t a 4000-year-old god who looked, acted, and was treated as a 16-year-old. And then the whole thing with making it a love triangle with Walt who’s ALSO 16 and Rick’s method of “solving” the love triangle... look honestly I just would’ve been a lot more ok with the romantic shenanigans there if Sadie wasn’t a middle-schooler throughout it. Overall still good though, I’d be down for an adaptation of it, but it’s one of the few cases where I hope something IS flat-out changed to make the romances more palatable.

Heroes of Olympus is where I originally fell off of the Riordanverse. There was just so long between books and I could barely remember what happened between them, and with most of the books being like parts of the same quest (especially books 3, 4, and 5), unless you were constantly refreshing your memory of them via fandom, they were hard to follow, especially with several main characters and different character dynamics to keep track of. When I went back and read the whole set of them though, getting back into the series, it was WAY better, since I could read them as a coherent whole. I could tell he was struggling to juggle all the characters, but I thought he did a fairly decent job of it for what it was. I ended up liking all the characters - ESPECIALLY Leo, I thought he was great and relatable and funny, but I also wanted to hug him - and while the quest could drag on a bit at times, there were some interesting parts there. And Percy and Annabeth’s journey through Tartarus was GREAT.

The themes for Heroes Of Olympus overall were pretty much the same as with Percy Jackson, but with less emphasis I think. It was mostly just “the gods (mostly Zeus, really) are being crappy again, but this time we have enough support among ourselves to manage, except for when a god is technically required to defeat a Giant”. A lot more emphasis was placed on individual character arcs and circumstances, which I think was a good choice, since with so many main characters, they needed more concentrated character development in order to put them up to par with Percy and Annabeth. Plus it allowed Rick to still go into some different themes a bit, like racism with Hazel, trauma with Leo, insecurity with Frank, etc, in a way that felt natural and relevant. It helped that they were broken up into different books for their introductions, so not everything was dumped in at once.

The ending of Heroes of Olmypus... yeah the final battle with the GIants was lame as all hell, and honestly the quest ended up feeling a bit like busywork, but screw it, I did LOVE one part of the ending. The imagery of big, bad Gaia, who even Zeus is so scared of he just wants to hide away with his head in the ground, physically manifesting and being about to take everyone out, everyone losing hope... and then screaming as Festus appears and snatches her up into the sky as Leo gives a shit-eating grin and hurls fireballs at her while insulting her the whole time is just GREAT. I always giggle, and I honestly found it a lot more memorable than the Kronos fight, even if it was technically less epic. It seemed fitting for her to be taken out in such an embarrassing way, by the boy she’d personally taken the most from.

Magnus Chase... yeah that’s the only one I didn’t finish. Quick note: its been over a year since I tried it, so I’m operating off of memory here. I wanted to like it, and after reading through Heroes of Olympus (which i originally stopped reading after Mark of Athena) and Trials of Apollo, I was all hyped up for more Riordanverse... and was disappointed. The basic elements were there, and the writing itself wasn’t bad, but... well, I never really got attached to most of the characters this time, I didn’t find the quest very interesting, and... well, you see how I mentioned about the themes in the earlier reviews? I thought Rick bit off more than he could chew with Magnus Chase, at least with the first book. (I slogged through the first book, got a hundred pages into the second book to see whether Alex, who I’d heard a lot of hype about, could save it, thought Alex was only ok but not someone who saved the book, and called it quits).

So in Magnus Chase, Rick went DEEP into the social commentary on a lot of disparate subjects, trying to really tackle homelessness, child abuse (because no duh, that’s pretty much a staple, I think the only of his series that DOESN’T have major themes around that is Kane Chronicles), Islamophobia, ableism, and... I’m having trouble thinking of the exact term for it, but Blitzen was heavily looked down upon and derided for wanting to make fashionable armor and just being into fashion in general, so... I think it’s supposed to commentary on making fun of people for having interests that are generally seen as feminine? I guess? I dunno, it was definitely social commentary on SOMETHING, but I think the dwarves having their own particular culture here hurt whatever Rick was trying to say, since social commentary is very much tied to the culture it’s in, and we only have a small taste of dwarven culture, at least in the first book.

In any case, all these things are fine to do social commentary on, but when you’re trying to go in-depth and really address them, it helps if they’re more tied in with the overall conflict in the book, and if each issue has room to breathe. As it was, it kinda felt to me like the characters were being paraded from location to location to confront some different social issue. I just thought it was too much, too crammed into one book, and the overall conflict had pretty much nothing to do with that. Like, at the end of the book Rick tried to tie it together with some sort of “we’re a band of misfits” message, and... well, a message based on NOT fitting in with society, isn’t one that’s very satisfying or cohesive. And the individual issues, while there’s certainly cross-sectionality between, aren’t intrinsically linked, so... they just don’t mesh together very well. Not so many, all mashed into one book. Plus I just didn’t care for any of the gods, and the only characters I liked were Magnus and Sam. Blitz and Hearthstone... they were just sort of “there” for me.

I can see why people like Magnus Chase, and it’s not BAD by any means, but it just wasn’t for me. Maybe I’ll take another crack at it at some point, but I’m not super optimistic about it. As it was, I just ended up looking up the parts where Magnus met with Annabeth and read those.

Trials of Apollo though, I ADORE. Apollo was hilarious (along with the books in general), it had a pretty focused message about child abuse and abuse in general, along with how a privileged position can blind you from the travesties that are going on around you, or that you yourself cause, and I just thought the themes worked very well. Rick went more in-depth this time on the exact consequences of child abuse and the ways that a parent could abuse and manipulate their child, something that wasn’t covered as much in his earlier series, as those were more based around neglect. I’m a sucker for a good redemption arc, and I was really impressed with how it was kinda slipped in with Apollo. Like, he didn’t even know he NEEDED one, and the good guys weren’t especially pressing him on that point, it’s a realization he slowly came to over the course of several books. And you can clearly tell that he’s conceited and has issues, but isn’t actually malicious... and slowly the reader comes to the realization that he has hidden depths, that not even HE knew he had. It’s really interesting how he did some pretty bad things (or DIDN’T do, a lot of it has to do with inaction and just being uncaring), but he never comes off as being like, evil. He comes off as being an arrogant, narcissistic person at first, but then slowly finding out that beneath that is a lot of pain and trauma, and part of that persona he’s built up has been to deal with this. Watching him slowly change and grow and discover himself during the series, in a way he never had before... it’s just amazing to read. Also puts a nice cap on the Greco-Roman saga, in that the past two series had a heavy emphasis on how the gods didn’t care enough and had to have their hands forced a lot, and Apollo sort of acting as a stand-in for those other gods, showing that yes, they CAN change for the better - something that most of the gods, and even other immortals, didn’t think was possible, even as they did it.

Well that was super long. But yeah, I have strong feelings on the Riordanverse, and Trials of Apollo is far and away my favorite.

#ask #long post #percy jackson #heroes of olympus #kane chronicles #trials of apollo

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ayman-eckford · 5 years

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This is my very old post. I’m not a Muslim now, and I don’t identity myself as “lesbian” because I realized that I am a non-binary person. But everything else in this post is true. And I want to re-publish it without any changes.

________

[CN: Homophobia; Islamophobia; Ableism]

My name is Аyman. I am Autistic; I am a Muslim, and a lesbian. While I am Russian by birth, I do not belong to Russian culture. I don’t understand it although many people suggest that it is my culture. My perception of culture is reflected in little things; in that sort of stuff that seems irrelevant at the first sight, but it very clearly defines me as a “foreigner.”

My differences are almost invisible from the outside. People are not aware of my sexual orientation. I do not look like the stereotypical “butch” or “femme” lesbians that people expect me to be, or the “masculine women” that people of my mother’s generation imagine when they hear the word “lesbian”.

I was born into a conservative Russian Orthodox family. I suffered from serious psychological problems because of religion, and initially I was afraid even to think about leaving Christianity. Transitioning to Islam has influenced my worldview more than the way I look, dress or speak.

But I do not look like what people expect a typical Muslim to look like. I have light brown hair, light skin, and I speak with no accent. I do not act like a typical Muslim woman as the majority of people think she would. I listen to metal rock music. I talk a lot about politics and about human rights, and I wear European clothes most of the time.

My national identity is fairly American. I chose it myself, but at the same time, I didn’t.

I have never understood my family’s culture. Looking at my parents and other adults, I did not copy the norms of behaviour. If I didn’t understand the goals of such behaviour, then those norms were alien to me. You have probably witnessed little kittens imitating their mother’s behaviour or children copying their parents. Like many Autistic children, I have a badly developed mechanism of imitation.

The idea that people who I share my apartment with (even if they are my parents) should define the way I think seems like a meaningless abstraction – almost magic – to me.

That’s not the only example.

I didn’t notice the peculiarities of post-Soviet culture. At that time, I did not know why. However, the reason was that I did not recognise nonverbal signals and shades of meaning in other people’s talk. I could not “read” the culture of people who surrounded me. That was why I could not understand it.

I read books because they were easy to grasp. I watched movies. I researched information on the topics that interested me, and I formed my own culture based on what I could understand and what interested me. This culture originated from the culture of all humanity – from all the facts that I knew and which I could understand based on my knowledge. That culture had something that was missing in the Orthodox post-Soviet culture of my family, and my family considered that culture as wrong. It was something that we did not discuss at home; something that I learned from books and that I came up with on my own. I did not choose my culture, like you did not choose yours. It formed by itself. However, some elements of that culture were the result of deliberate choice.

Later, I started to realise that my culture is strangely similar to American culture. I can easily understand characteristics of American culture in books and in films, even those that seemed strange to the majority of my friends. It is easier for me to communicate with Americans rather than Russians. That is how I acquired some sort of a national identity.

I also have another identity that, perhaps, influenced everything else in my life. It is autism, which defines me almost entirely. I cannot separate my personal characteristics from autism, because it influences everything. It affects the way I communicate with people and how I perceive communication. Being autistic influences my attitude towards my interests and the effects that sounds and colours produce in me. It defines what helps me to relax and guides what interests me. That’s why the idea of “curing autism” seems brutal to me. If you take autism from me, what would be left of me? When I am told that autistic people would be happier without autism, I hear that they would have been happier if we didn’t exist.

Most often, I have heard this from people who know almost nothing about autism. These people base their judgments on what they think it means to be Autistic without even knowing how autism looks like. They often don’t even know why there are five times less girls diagnosed with autism than that of boys. We are rarely diagnosed because all of the first books about autism were based on observations of the control groups which included mostly boys, and in most cases autism in boys manifests itself differently than that of the majority of girls. My autism follows the “female pattern”, like in many Autistic girls. And it means that – again – I find myself invisible.

If you belong to several minorities, you cannot avoid wrong assumptions. Especially, if you are not a typical representative of these minorities.

Homosexuality was unthinkable in our family. My father called it “sodomy”. When the United States legalised same-sex marriage, he predicted a great economic crisis which would eventually destroy the U.S. economy. He spoke of Greece and Rome, which had “fallen because of gays”.

This conversation took place a few months before I finally accepted my homosexuality. I was afraid to talk about it to my parents. After coming out, I was afraid to go home. I did not know what consequences to expect. I was ready to end the relationship with my parents. However, everything went much more smoothly than I thought because it seemed as though my father didn’t take me seriously.

I should have expected this because I have faced similar situations all my life. Denial is one of the most common types of wrong assumptions. This was the first kind of wrong assumptions that I faced because it permeated my entire life with my family.

Looking at me, my parents saw a completely different child – the child who they wanted to see in front of them. They saw a Russian Orthodox girl – which I never was. More specifically, I was Orthodox for many years, but even though I was Russian by birth, I was never Russian in a cultural sense of this word. My parents, of course, did not notice. They talked about all sorts of things that were supposed to be clear and dear to me because I am “Russian”. I explained in vain that those things were alien to me, and that I understood different views and traditions better. They ignored my explanations.

They also ignored my autism. At school they told teachers that I was “an unusual child,” but at home they blamed me for everything. They scolded me for problems with communication that made me a target for bullying and made me want to die. When I did not do things on time, they accused me of having problems with planning. Because of that, I started to experience panic attacks. They did not believe that I could not hear their voices when there was noise around. I walked strangely. I did not look into their eyes, and I ran back and forth across the room in order to calm myself down. They explained that away as signs of my “immorality”. They often said that I was a weird kid, but they could not explain me what was wrong with me. I demanded accurate explanations, but I was never able to get them.

I received these explanations when I received my autism diagnosis. In the beginning, my parents also refused to believe that I am Autistic. It took for them several years and many articles read by my mother in order to accept it.

My parents could not support me because of their wrong assumptions about me. All these years, their misconceptions hurt me the most.

I often encountered them in my life. Usually people need a few minutes to conclude about my sexual orientation, neurotype, religion and cultural background based on my appearance. Most of the time their conclusions are wrong.

Like my parents, other people do not want to recognize their mistakes, even if I clearly point them out.

“You are too normal to be Autistic. Why do you invent all those diseases?”

They ask, even when I have already told them that I do not consider autism a disease. Usually I hear that from people who have never read the diagnostic criteria.

“You do not look like a lesbian”

They say, meaning that I am not “masculine” enough.

People who say that do not understand that a person’s gender expression does not define their sexual orientation.

“Of course, you belong to Soviet culture! We all belong to Soviet culture, because we have absorbed it, even from our cartoons. There are so many implicit “Soviet” themes and substance there!”

When people tell me that, they forget that as a child I didn’t know how to recognize those themes or substance.

For some reason, people think that they know who I am – better than I do. Wrong assumptions emerge because people do not want to listen.

Sometimes people deny my experience out of their best intentions.

Once a doctor told my mother that he had noticed “Autistic signs” in me (as in the USSR Asperger syndrome was often referred to), but he did not tell that to my face, so that I would not feel “abnormal”.

One of my close relatives tried to “comfort” me saying that I was still “able to understand my culture”. In addition, a stranger in the street advised me to “return to Russian roots”.

Many of my LGBT friends were advised to see a therapist in order to become “normal”. Some people are convinced that LGBT people suffer from their sexual orientation and gender identity. Even if LGBT people themselves told the opposite.

Some of my LGBT friends think that I would have felt better if I stopped believing in God.

Wrong assumptions arise because people think I would feel better if I become someone else. They arise from the fact that people think I suffer from being myself.

Some people in the LGBT community call Islam “the religion of the devil”. One of my LGBT friends told me this right to my face, not knowing that I was going to convert to Islam.

I have heard homophobic jokes from my former friends, and I heard their calls for “jailing all faggots”.

They did not even suspect that a lesbian was among them.

I have heard and read that people without disabilities are calling to take us all to “one large island and leave” us there because “nobody wants them, except for their parents”. I have heard and read that all Autistic people are considered to be unable to think, unable to feel, or unable to make their own decisions.

People who wrote and said it did not think that an Autistic might hear or read their words. Looking at me, they would never have thought that I was Autistic.

This is one of the main dangers of hate speech. People who would never say such a thing to the face of those whom they “do not like” say it unaware of who is present around them.

Perhaps that is why I feel an alien almost everywhere.

And perhaps that’s why so many people tend to hate – for them, people whom they hate are actually aliens. Not aliens from science fiction stories, but aliens from computer games that can only spoil everything, and whom they should kill. They do not think that we can be their friends, colleagues or comrades in activism.

Wrong assumptions arise because people think that they can learn everything from a person’s appearance. They arise because people start to hate those of whom they know nothing about.

You can read END of this post here, in my friend’s blog.

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krixwell-liveblogs · 6 years

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Check out this post. Wildbow talks about his life on reddit. This explains so much about Taylor’s school experience. No Worm spoilers

This sounds interesting. I’ve frequently wondered about how Wildbow’s life shaped this story.

Let’s take a look.

Redditors who have opted out of a standard approach to life (study then full time work, mortgage etc), please share your stories. What are the best and worst things about your lifestyle, and do you have any regrets?

Well, the title is already intriguing.

Hermit writer here.

Born hard of hearing, went to a regular school. Struggled in middle school. Struggled in high school. Kids who were in my class in kindergarten were in my classes all the way through to grade ten, with the elementary/middle school and high school being a stone's throw from one another.

I kind of knew about the hard of hearing bit already. I can’t find the ask that told me about it, though (it was probably before I stopped using screenshots for asks).

So far this sounds relatively normal, except for that part. But I’m guessing he’s going to elaborate a bit on the struggles surrounding his school life and hearing problems?

In grade 10, after years of bullying and a peer group that had established who was 'in' and who was 'out' when I was knee-high, tired of struggling, I was walking down the halls and I found myself wondering when the last time I'd even opened my mouth in school was.

Oh wow.

I stopped dead in my tracks, just paralyzed by loneliness. I asked myself what the point was, couldn't come up with an answer, resumed walking, went out the side door of the school and went home.

This clearly parallels a few of the last times we saw Taylor at Winslow High.

The start of me just not going to school for that entire year. Nobody noticed.

Damn. He really did write all that from experience. It took a while for Taylor’s absence to get noted, too.

Taylor’s absence getting noted at all actually seems like a fantasy compared to this.

I got caught at the end of the year, did the same thing the next year, got caught only at the end.

What the hell sort of attendance routines did this school have? Clearly not good ones.

Ended up going to an Alternative school (Self study), proved to myself that I had it in me when I got 3 years of studying done in 8 months, won two awards... and then had to go back to my old school for what was essentially grade 13, where I struggled.

Huh. Well done.

People learn in very different ways. Some people can do this much more effectively than learning in a group. Some people are like me and can’t make themselves keep up the effort required to self study, or learn better from lectures than reading.

Some people learn by observing their surroundings while flying.

I worked retail and found it fine. But family wanted me to go to University and figure myself out.

I’m currently working retail, taking a break from the educational system and buying time to figure out what to study.

I went to University and I struggled.

Guys, I’m sensing a theme here.

I spent a long, long time trying to figure out why I struggled, why I was tired all the time, and it took a kind of confluence of events before I realized what should've been obvious. I found the social stuff hard and I was exhausted after a day of listening because I'm severely to profoundly deaf.

Oh yeah, that makes a ton of sense. It’s like how focusing is exhausting when you have trouble doing that, how reading without glasses you need tires out your eyes and brain, etc.

Honestly, it’s a little surprising that I haven’t (explicitly) met a hard of hearing character in Worm yet. Maybe later? Oh wait, there was that deaf waitress at the villain pub in Hive.

Beyond that, the 'path' just isn't for me. The systems and institutions just grind me down. The idea of a 9 to 5 is death to me. These things are built and streamlined for the average person, and between disability and a fairly extreme degree of introversion, I'm far from that average.

That is very fair. There’s definitely a brand of ableism in that system.

In the end, I stepped off the path. I'd been writing a thing online as a side project and the reception was good, so I decided to leave school earlier than planned, use the savings I had, stretch things as far as I could, and work when I could (with a family friend when he needed the help and had the cash to spare, doing some landscaping, drywall installation, house painting, all prepping houses for sale in a boom market) to stretch things further.

This would be too early for that thing online to be Worm, right?

It just occurred to me that I have no idea how old Wildbow is.

And I wrote as seriously as I could while people close to me told me that I didn't deserve to 'get lucky' and have the writing work out because I hadn't seen University all the way through, or openly expressed doubts and disappointments.

Yikes.

Fuck that noise. Writing is tons of effort!

But you know, it worked out in the end. I wrote the equivalent of 20 books in 2.4 years, wrote another 10 for my next series in the ensuing 1.2 years, and I've kept up a similar pace over the last 7 years and two months.

Especially when you’re this coddamn productive!

That’s 8.33 books a year!

I started writing mid- 2011, left school at the start of 2012, went full-time-paying-the-bills in 2014 with an income around minimum wage. I moved to a small town (no car, nothing fancy) that same year. I'm now closer to the average Canadian wage. It's been two chapters a week (2.5 if crowdfunding money is enough) since the beginning.

Oh, I suppose that means it would be Worm after all.

When was this written... huh, yesterday? Well, that explains why this hasn’t been sent to me before.

Writing being Wildbow’s only/main income makes me feel even more right about my decision to set things up so that some of the money from my Patreon goes to Wildbow. It’s not that big a portion of his income (apparently average Canadian wage is 986 CAD or 755 USD per week, and I chip in with about 3.26 CAD or 2.50 USD per week), but it’s something.

My reality: I can go a week or two without really talking to anyone that isn't a cashier.

Sounds a bit lonely in the long run, but as a fellow introvert (or maybe I’m an ambivert, in the systems where that’s actually a thing), I get it - it also does sound pretty good. Especially if you’ve got internet people to casually interact with at your own leisure.

Every two months or so I go to a relative's to dogsit while they're on vacation or to see someone for their birthday, and that gives me most of my fill of socialization and companionship.

Nice!

I don't have a car, so it's usually walking or taking the train to another city, and using public transpo there. I subsisted on a rice and beans diet for a good stretch, one $15 video game bought in a year, and my level of expenses hasn't really risen that much from that point. I eat better and buy a couple more things, but nothing major.

So I guess this would be somewhere between average and reserved?

I don’t know. Being Norwegian spoils me on these things.

60%+ of what I earn goes to savings, which gives me security when my income could fluctuate or disappear at any time.

Oh, that’s smart. I suppose writing would be a bit of a risky business, what with writer’s block, audience fluctuations, sudden drops in popularity because something you wrote didn’t go over as well as you thought it would, etc.

My schedule is entirely my own, which usually amounts to 2.5 15+ hour workdays a week and another 5-10 hours a week spent managing community, finances, and exchanging emails with tv/movie studios, publishers or startups.

I was going to talk about the long but few workdays, but tv/movie studios excuse me what

Is a TV series version of something Wildbow wrote (Worm or otherwise) a serious possibility right now?? :o

Best things - I love what I do. I love creating, I love my reader's tears, I love my readers being horrified.

This is really important. You gotta enjoy what you do.

I get to make monsters and be surprised by what my characters do. Many of my fans are just the absolute coolest people - people I'm now insanely glad to have met and include in my life. There's amazing fanart of my work out there, music, people have gotten tattoos. Tattoos. That's insane.

People have permanently, painfully painted their appreciation of your work into their bodies, Wildbow!

The bad- I'm an online content creator, and it's impossible to convey just how toxic the toxic elements of a fandom can get and how negative the negative aspects can get, and how much it can affect you.

That is true. There will always be a toxic side, and I can imagine works like Worm would attract a lot of the edgy sort.

I've seen 20 online content creators either break down or remark on the effect it has, and it's wholly accurate- and my audience isn't even ~that~ large.

Yeah, it doesn’t take that many people to start brewing fandom sides like this.

This is multiplied by the fact that writing is lonely as a profession (I know too many writers who can't even talk to their life partners about their work) and it can be hard to find perspective or balance as you take it all in, when you don't have people to communicate with.

Robert Jordan used his wife as a beta reader or editor of sorts. She was there to tell him when something he wrote didn’t quite come across, to make up for the fact that he couldn’t tell. After all, he knew what he meant by that one line.

On a similar note, some casual dating would be nice, and living in a small town for economical reasons doesn't leave me with a large dating pool, and at this point I'm not even sure if I could or should inflict myself on someone.

Oof.

There are way too many people who think like that. I hope you find happiness with someone who sees you for the good bean you are, Wildbow.

I'm healthy, groomed, I can hold a conversation, I'm just pretty set in my introverted ways.

...relatable, though.

But still, I’m pretty sure there are people out there for us, who not only tolerate but appreciate the introvert lifestyle.

Hell, both of my crushes have been very introverted, even compared to myself, so I know those people exist because I’m among them.

On another, less social note, there is the fact that as an online content creator, you can't really take breaks. Or you can, but it costs. Consistency and frequency of updates are god, and a hiatus is a death knell.

No wonder he criticized me on this that one time. In his situation, it matters a lot.

I don't even know what an effective vacation would entail, because I feel like finding my stride again would cost more than I gained from having the break. So it's been seven years and two months without a vacation, writing a short book every month.

Damn.

You deserve so many props, Wildbow.

...at some point here I started talking to Wildbow, just like I do to Taylor and other Worm characters. Well, at least this time there’s actually a chance he’s going to read this sometime, if he hasn’t dropped my blog.

I just hope he doesn’t think it’s weird that I’m liveblogging his life story.

It makes for a very strange sort of burnout, when I love it so much, I can still regularly put out some great work to acclaim and praise, but am nonetheless worn down around the edges.

That does not sound healthy.

No regrets. This is me. This is what I'm built for.

As long as you feel it’s right for you, this is good. :)

I could do with less negativity from some fans and getting regular good nights of sleep (the deafness comes with insomnia by way of terminal tinnitus), but both of those just come with the territory.

Ouch.

I feel you on the sleep front (ADD has its ways of messing with your ability to fall asleep too), but tinnitus sounds like a particularly annoying way to be inflicted with it.

I've been telling family for the last year that I'll move to a city with more going on than (as my elderly neighbor phrased it) drinking and meth, where there's classes to take, a possible dating pool, and/or activities that could break me out of my hermit shell... but my current apartment is amazing and cheap, with the nicest landlords ever. It's just in a do-nothing town. I haven't found anything remotely competitive, even taking 'cheap' off the table.

I’ve lived in small-ish towns all my life. It’s pretty nice, especially as an introvert.

So that's where I'm at.

Thank you, Wildbow. This was an interesting read. I feel like I know you a bit better now. :)

(Again, if you’re reading this, I hope it wasn’t too weird to see me liveblogging this.)

#Worm #krixwell liveblogs #Arc 14 #chapter 14.11 #14.11 bet #asks #wildbow's life #mlp:fim #i tried to keep references and jokes out of this

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snakeandravenreviews-blog · 6 years

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Fangirl Review - **4.8/5 stars**

I was so late to the game reading this book. It’s been out for awhile and I’ve always been wanting to pick it up because I loved Eleanor & Park by Rowell, but I just never did. I am so mad at myself for waiting so long but so glad I finally read it. Fangirl was one of the most relatable reads of the year for me for a lot of reasons, and once I got into a groove for reading I could not put it down. The growths for the characters both individually and within their relationships was really refreshing. This review will contain spoilers. There weren’t any huge topics addressed in the book, but there were still some heavier aspects within it so a quick TW for: anxiety, mental breakdown, slight ableism (very minor; only in one part), and alcohol poisoning.

OKAY. SO. This book was amazing. Reading this reminded me of why I loved Rainbow Rowell’s writing so much. She is relatable without going overboard and trying too hard, and I love how her characters sort of melt into you and become you as you’re reading. My favorite aspect of the book (and character) was Cath’s growth and development throughout the story. I don’t think I’ve ever read a YA fiction like this where the MC has such a developed arc from beginning to end. She has social anxiety as well as separation issues when it comes to her twin sister Wren (and also because of her mom leaving), and all of it was so relatable and very tangible in a way lots of YA characters aren’t.

I will try and have each character bolded when talking about them individually, and I will only talk about the individual relationships with Cath under Cath; every other character will just be one section.

Cath. Cath starts off so out of her element when she starts college. She has a lot of anxiety and repressed feelings and emotions that aren’t really respected the way they should be by her twin, Wren. I felt so bad for Cath in the beginning because she was really co-dependent on her sister, the way a lot of twins are I’m sure, and her sister wanted independence (rightfully so) but was really insensitive about it. Despite all that, Cath had one of the best growths of all the characters in the book. She started the book introverted because of her insecurities and overwhelming social anxiety and she ended the book having shed a little bit of that insecure mindset and grew a lot more confident in herself and her ability to exist around other people. She also, in my opinion, grew to be independent from Wren (even if it was because she was forced to) in a natural way. And she really needed it. She grew into her independence in a beautiful way that was aided by her own, individual growth and by the end whenever Wren was wanting to room with her, Cath had grown to not need her there the way she used to. Cath also grew so much with Levi and Reagan (obviously in different ways), and that was really nice to see. I think Reagan helped get her out of her shell a bit, and Levi was just so lovely I knew from the beginning he and Cath would be amazing. I did think that the “relationship” between Cath and Abel that was going on in the beginning was a little ??? Like, I felt like it could have been done differently or not been mentioned how it was at all. It felt out of place a bit although it did spark the Emergency Dance Party.

Cath and Wren. Even though they’re twins, they’re so different and as they go into their first year of college it really becomes evident. I think Wren started to go overboard with her freedom and independence and took Cath for granted. It hurt to find out Cath was only C in Wren’s phone, and I think Wren just wanted to be her own person but went too hard to fast and shot her relationship with her sister into the dirt for a bit. I will say one of the more frustrating parts of this book was the fact that Wren and Cath’s relationship got kind of a lackluster reconciliation. I felt like Wren was really shitty to Cath and insensitive to her feelings, and then Cath was very...overly forgiving? In a way. I know that they’re sisters, and that Cath wasn’t perfect either, but I wish that Cath had maybe brought up more of her feelings and addressed the things that Wren had done. Because they were really crappy, especially for a sister. To feel replaced by your sister’s roommate and like your sister is making fun of you all the time really hurts, and I don’t think Wren fully acknowledged how shitty she was. Especially how Wren handled her mom and kind of left Cath out of everything was just sad in my opinion. In the end, though, their bond was so strong and awesome and I loved reading a dynamic like that. The ending was awesome after they had reconciled and were “fangirling” over Simon Snow together; it was awesome to see that bond.

Cath and Reagan. Reagan was a lot harder than Cath and much more rough around the edges. At first, she was very standoffish. Reagan seemed kind of ideal for Cath because she left her alone and wasn’t overbearing, but as the book went on Reagan really helped bring Cath out of her shell. Cath understood Reagan and how she was the way she was and they worked well together. It was a little frustrating with Reagan’s “ground rules” because while she said she was “okay/over” Levi and Cath being together, the ground rules told a different story. I get not wanting to see PDA and really be in the middle of the drama or issues within a relationship between your roommate and ex-boyfriend who’s not your best friend, but I think Reagan still had issues with Levi with anyone that wasn’t her. In any capacity. And that’s something she needed to kind of deal with and get over especially because she was with a lot of guys (nothing bad about that) that weren’t Levi.

Cath and Levi. This relationship was so cute and so lovely. After Levi got over himself and just went for it and told Cath he really liked her and messed up by kissing someone else, he was the boyfriend we all want. I think Cath needed someone like him because he was able to also bring her out of her shell while also allowing her to still be herself. I also liked how Rowell had Cath saying “I don’t know if Levi and I will get married” and having subtle comments that showed that Cath wasn’t attaching herself to Levi in a way that took away from herself; she still held onto the independence she gained from being separated from Wren. That was refreshing especially in a YA novel with a younger MC. I also thought how they handled their relationship struggles was healthy and also showed premature growth for their relationship once the book ended.

Cath and her Dad. Their relationship was so special and tender it made my heart ache. I have a similar relationship with my dad in terms of closeness, and how caring and attentive she was with him. That was really awesome to see the interactiveness of the parent in a YA novel and his own growth as well.

Cath and Nick. He was such a dick and from the beginning it was off with him. He used her and I LOVED how she handled him in the end; he really got what he deserved for how he acted with the story. I loved that and was whooping the entire time.

Wren. She bothered me the entire book. She was insensitive, rude, callous and kind of a bitch. I hated when she acted like Cath and her Dad were “choosing” to be “sick” (aka - have a mental illness) as if it was a choice, and I really wish she would have had a bigger moment during the reconciliation with Cath on that point. Because that was so shitty and ignorant. I understood her need and want for independence and to branch out and be her own person because of how attached she was to Cath in more ways than one, but I felt like she was so desperate for it she set up her own failure. She drank herself to death almost and still couldn’t admit that she had; she had so much more growth that could have occurred but the novel also left room for that. She grew well enough within the novel and you had that sense of inferred continuation of that development after the story ended for the reader. She was always the more outgoing of her and Cath, but I think she kind of took so much advantage of her freedom and just went wild. It was nice at the end to see her kind of annoyed with Courtney because she wasn’t a great friend at all.

Levi. He was so sweet and sincere, I loved him so much. He was always so happy and kind, but it wasn’t an annoying amount, for me. You could feel how good Cath felt around him and that made his excitement and happiness be so amazing and genuine that you just knew that’s how he was. I did love, though, when Cath told him that when he smiles at everyone so big and bright she doesn’t know if he’s looking at her differently or seeing her differently. That was a really powerful moment, to me, in their relationship. Because she appreciates and loves Levi’s kindness and happiness but she also needs to feel special to him apart from everyone else. He was just one of the most genuine characters I’ve ever read and so mature as well for his age. Need me a man like that.

Honestly all in all it was an amazing read. I was so pleased and engaged with the story the entire time. Rainbow Rowell is so talented and I can’t wait to tackle Carry On, the companion novel to this book, now that I have read this one. I wish I could have more of Levi and Cath because they were just so sweet and warmed my heart. This book was amazing though in all seriousness with how the relationships grew and evolved as well as the individual characters. Highly recommend.

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