#ya discourse

[cheeseanonioncrisps]

Something I never hear anyone talk about in the 'why are Young Adults (late teens to early 30s) reading so much Young Adult (teens) fiction These Days' discussion is how surprisingly difficult it can be to transition from kids books to adult fiction.

And I don't mean in terms of content. Forget themes, characters, plots, etc. I'm talking pure practicality.

As a kid, most of the books you read are calibrated to you exactly. Your local library likely has a 'children's' section, and that section is likely split into smaller sub-sections based on age group. 0-5, 5-8, 8-12, teen. A lot of your interests and experiences are pretty easy to guess at based on average developmental stages (eg. most 16-18 year olds will relate to Coming Of Age stories), so it's probably pretty easy for you to walk into a bookshop or library and find a book aimed at you specifically.

But get to 18 (or younger) and start straying into the 'adult' section, and suddenly nothing is calibrated anymore. When people complain that all 'grownup fiction' is about white middle class heterosexual couples going through angsty divorces in their mid-forties, this is what they're complaining about. They can't find books they can personally relate to, or that are about topics that they are interested in.

And yeah, sure, books shouldn't have to be relatable to be good or enjoyable. But there's also nothing wrong with wanting to read a book about young people, when you're young. Or queer people, if you're queer. Or people from your particular culture, religion, or ethnicity.

Even if we ignore the relatability aspect entirely, there's also nothing wrong with wanting to read a fantasy book that isn't just 'Tolkien but drearier' or a sci-fi that wasn't written by some guy in the 1960s who thought that women were just another kind of alien.

The problem is, fundamentally, that finding the books you like amid the haystack is a skill that most people are not being taught.

As a result, when they get past YA and try using the old tricks of just picking up whatever is on the bestseller list at the moment, or whatever their local library is currently touting as their 'book of the week', they frequently end up with something that isn't suited to their tastes.

And maybe they love it and it opens up a whole new genre that they'd never considered, but more often they hate it but feel obliged to slog through because this is a 'grownup book' and they have decided they want to be a 'grownup reader'.

A few times being burned like this, and they come to the conclusion that all adult fiction is boring, and that the people who read it are all either mature geniuses of the type they could only hope to be, or slogging through like they were and only pretending to like it.

Thus they run back to the familiarity of YA—which is fine, to be clear, there's nothing actually wrong with reading YA as an adult— but there's every chance that somewhere on the bookshelves is a potential favourite author of theirs that they will now never know because they were never taught how to find them.

#fiction #ya books #ya fiction #adult fiction #reading #ya discourse #genuinely i am 22 and i STILL struggle to find books i like #in ways that i never did when i was a teenager #i'm getting better at it

[superbeeny]

I’ve been hearing a lot of ‘why can’t the main character just be a rando who rose up to the occasion’ discourse, and I find it funny all these people who are apparently starved for genuine normal everyman protagonists in action series never seem super interested in Demon Slayer despite how in theory, it’s everything they want.  Tanjiro’s lineage is a long line of exceptionally kind peasants who happened to stumble upon someone who ended up being important, and his descendants get to be normal people. 

(Tanjiro never WANTED to be a warrior in the first place; he’d literally rather be selling charcoal but he has a sister to cure and an evil overlord to send to hell.)  

#demon slayer #kimitsu no yaiba #tanjiro kamado #shonen discourse #shonen protagonists #ya discourse #protagonists

[helloyellow17]

Idk man I might get torn to shreds for saying this, but I simply cannot understand the new trend, particularly among younger internet users, where people write a laundry list of their triggers in their bio and then expect everyone to read and cater to said list on a PUBLIC PLATFORM.

This is the same mentality that drives people to attack appropriately tagged fics on AO3 for having x y or z content because “How dare you post this when I have trauma about this???” Obviously if someone is going to write a super heavy and highly sensitive fic and NOT tag it properly, they ought to be called out on it. But this isn’t about that, it’s about the people who don’t curate their own content, it’s about the people who enter public spaces and demand that the general public cater to THEM specifically.

Additionally: Listing out your triggers for everyone to see is just ASKING for trolls to come into your inbox and flood you with triggering content. (Unfortunately, as much as we would like to believe otherwise, the internet is full of selfish jerks who don’t give a crap about anybody’s trauma.) Not only this, but the algorithm does not read your bio. The algorithm does not care about your triggers unless YOU make sure to block specific tags and content.

YOU are responsible for curating your own content, and nobody else.

Obviously this is not to say people shouldn’t try to tag their posts for common triggers, because that’s the common courtesy thing to do. But if Becky has a phobia of bees, it is on her to block that tag and curate her feed around it, and she does not get the exclusive right to suddenly demand that nobody talk about bees within a ten mile radius of her. If Alec has a phobia of dogs, then it is well within his right to avoid contact with them, but he doesn’t get to go to a public park and yell at anybody who brings their dog there. It is his responsibility to know his own limits and seek out parks that are dog-free. (If someone brings a dog to a dog-free area, that’s a whole different issue that I won’t be getting into rn but yes, the person who does that is in the wrong there.)

The internet is widely a public space. If you want to create a safe space completely and utterly free of your specific triggers, you have to put the work in to make that space for yourself. You don’t get to ask other internet strangers to do it for you.

I’m saying this out of genuine concern (and admittedly, frustration) because there are so many young teens in fandom nowadays who don’t understand this, and they end up putting themselves in extremely vulnerable and even downright dangerous situations because they don’t understand that putting your well-being in the hands of a stranger is a terrible idea.

Please be safe, and for the love of all that is holy, be reasonable. Curating your content yourself is just as much a protection for you as it is a vital key that allows public communities to function.

#hyramblings #fandom culture #internet discourse #trauma triggers #anxiety triggers #safe space #if I get one person saying “BUT WHAT IF SOMEONE IGNORES X AND DOES IT ANYWAY #we literally went over this #they’re a jerk and have responsibility too #but this ain’t about them rn #ya feel? #internet communities #fandom community

[dear-ao3]

so in honor of pride and gay month:

not to sound cheesy as hell but! idk for the first time in my life i feel secure and proud of my identity and im glad you lot (all 85k) are here w me for it. i hope everyone of you is having a fucking fantastic day, month, year, and so on. even if youre not, it will get better. if you cant come out due to family, or location, or youre just not ready, you deserve to be proud too, even if no one knows. knowing yourself is more important than anyones opinion of you. and if you dont know yourself quite yet? youre still wonderful and valid as well. youll get there somepoint, you have all the time in the world. even if you dont get there, youre still valid and cool as hell. if you are out, whether you show it off, or whether you dont, youre still valid. theres no right way to have pride in being queer, and theres certainly no wrong way either, unless you tear down others.

so, its pride month, 2023, and i know things look like shit, but its bound to get better someday.

stand with your friends and your community, and even if you arent part of it, stand by with us anyway.

id like to thank saph, brad, fennec, and all of you who are cool as hell and are supportive as hell.

be proud of yourself for getting this far.

sincerely,

katya

(a very proud bisexual transman)

#if anyone brings discourse into here im putting you on blast #um ya #what does pride month mean to me? a lot apparently. idk #you lot are wonderous #i hope i worded well #and didnt ramble too much #pride #lgbtq #from katya #not a tag

[sirenium]

'Safequeer' mfers when people are queer in a way they don't like:

[GIF ID: a toy decor skeleton getting absolutely eviscerated in a blue shredder with silver blades. Said skeleton looks like it's thrashing and flailing about as it slowly gets consumed. End ID]

#tw discourse #how are you going to claim you're anti exclusionist but two lines later be like 'l*sb*ys are icky!' fuckin loser💀 #like that's blatant exclusionism in your 'anti exclusion' space hon idk what else to tell ya #the absolute lack of self awareness makes me feel like I'm seconds closer to an aneurysm every time I'm subjected to anti mspec les etc shi #oh yeah also 'safequeers' are against nontraumagenic systems so it's the whole nine yards of bs with them huh💀 #use hazardqueer instead cuz that label is truly anti exclusionism #queer #lgbtq #lgbt #mogai #liom #hazardqueer #mspec lesbian safe #lesboy safe #endo system safe #endo safe #friendly reminder that all system origins are valid btw. not just endo and trauma

[orbch]

dapduo enthusiasts how we feelin? personally im FUUUUVVVVVKCCCKKV AAHAHHGGGGRG GGEGRGRGRRR BARKBARKABRKBARKBARKA GOOOOOODDDDD LORD HAVE MERCYYYYYYY, but what about yall ^-^ ?

#yeah this stream is rlly good!!! unrelated im going to go chew some drywall! see ya! #dreamsmp #dreamsmp fanart #slimecicle #slimecicle fanart #quackity #quackity fanart #dapduo #quackcicle #i guess... #if i see any quackcicle discourse i will throw u down a well! purpleds line goes ignored cause hes wrong

[lavenderr-starrs]

I just think it’s funny XD

#no hate #istg I see any discourse I’m blocking ya #neuvifuri #arlefuri

[who-the-fuck-knows-blog]

[looking nervously out of the corner of my eyes at this fandom] y’all know you can be mentally ill and have disorders and trauma and still be responsible for your actions and those actions can be toxic or abusive, right?

#made such a much longer post abt this but put it in the drafts. it had hyperlinks and everything. nuance and all that #but im too scared to post it so im gonna go with this much safer and more reductive post instead #oh well ya win some ya lose some #ofmd s2 #izzy hands #ed teach #bc those are the main players #izcourse #edcourse #cannot believe we have a tag for ed discourse now #the state of the world!

[cpunkhobie]

Wait, but lesbian spaces were made by woman For woman bcuz they needed a space that men couldn't interfere or hurt them, etc. Why try and invade that?

Aight imma let you off cause I don't think I worded it well in the other post but bisexual ppl and bisexual women have never Not been apart of lesbian spaces. Lesbian spaces were made for sapphics who love women, and bisexual women literally cannot invade spaces that were also made for them.

The exclusion of bisexuals from lesbians space is, and I don't wanna say a recent thing cause exclusionists have always existed, but it's gotten a LOT stronger and a lot more hostile in recent years. Largely because of how the gender binary is being deconstructed and how it's also taking past labels into question

This shift to try and pin point what a "lesbian" is however a VERY recent thing. It's also something where many definitions explicitly or implicitly exclude trans and other gnc individuals. A shift that's largely been pushed by terf rhetoric

The "invading women's spaces" thing is very obviously terf rhetoric. Just straight up a neon flashing sign that says "TRANSPHOBIA." However the way it's been used was to first remove trans women, or other lesbians who weren't "women" enough to be apart of those safe spaces. But eventually those definitions of lesbians were turned on mspec sapphics

So basically THERE ARE NO SPACES BEING INVADED. PEOPLE ARE GETTING KICKED OUT.

#jonahs lemonade stand #queer #might not answer any more asks relating to this for the time being cause I don't wanna deep dive into the discourse topic #but ya 👍 #it's late I'm not grammar checking this

[fandomsandfeminism]

Please enjoy my weird flag design hyperfixation- just for fun, Pride flag revisions!

The overarching goal here was to create a more unified, coherent design scheme for what I feel are related/community flags. Rather than each flag looking and feeling totally isolated, by giving them a shared visual language we can emphasize our shared commonality while still celebrating diversity within the queer community.

And I like fucking around with flags, ok?

Some of the flag ideas from the video:

#pride #queer #pride flags #this is for fun #please do not have super serious discourse about me playing with fun colors ya know? #Youtube

[idolomantises]

talking abt that one thing in velma thats on my mind a lot for the past few days (that turned into a big incoherent rambling about gay rep in media)

i'm seeing jokes about how the queer representation in mystery inc being so much better than the queer representation in velma and honestly it makes me want to go on a whole tangent about my thoughts on queer representation nowadays vs the more subtle examples decades prior.

There's this weird debate that goes on online about what is "good" queer representation, and one of the most notable and honestly annoying examples is that queer representation has to be so subtle that you could easily miss it/ignore it. i've always hated that take because its a claim mostly said by straight people who are uncomfortable with seeing characters who are openly queer and/or state their identity, but they present it as some sort of push for subtle and nuanced writing. personally i do prefer it when a character just, identifies as how they are without explaining their identity, but that doesn't mean flat out explaining your orientation is inherently bad representation. its why i will always defend the very clunky and awkward high guardian spice scene. it is absolutely poorly directed and written, but that doesn't make it "bad representation". however, I do consider the character who explains that he's trans bad representation because he is flat, uninteresting and very clearly a creator self insert. he doesn't feel like a well rounded character who's also a trans man, but just an incredibly sanitized example of trans representation.

i have many, many issues with helluva boss/hazbin hotel and i do genuinely find some depictions of queer characters just flat out offensive (you can argue with me about how angel dust being written like your average 90s gay stereotype is woke actually because he has trauma, i dont care), but i do admire and appreciate that the series doesn't want to sanitize its queer characters, even if its done poorly. though i could go into a whole rant about how i find it very telling that female characters that are queer are far less sexualized or allowed to be problematic compared to their queer male counterparts.

anyways back to velma. that show does something that i've always found pretty irritating in queer representation which is just this weird lack of faith in its audience. characters can't have a slow burn anymore. internalized thoughts, anger, frustration, longing. you have to immediately know that two characters are gay for each other, even if they're lifelong enemies. its like when modern horror movies open with the gore because they're scared people are going to be bored or leave early. there's no subtlety or chemistry between daphne and velma, they're just lovers because idk, its two girls who hate each other and who doesn't love that.

then i think about how mystery inc handled velma and her sexuality, how she was allowed to be well rounded and nuanced before you slowly realize that "oh, she doesn't like boys". i know her whole thing with shaggy is controversial among fans but i always loved how she does do something pretty unlikable but not immoral. yeah, it is shitty to force shaggy to choose between her and his dog, but i can understand her line of thinking and empathize with her. and i do like how they become friends in the end despite their awkward break up. It's always fun rewatching it and realizing that their incredibly awkward and cringe relationship was meant to be awkward and cringe. it was supposed to be weird and difficult to watch, because those two weren't meant to date each other. you could see how hard velma was trying to make the relationship work despite the fact that you never get the vibe that either character was full invested in it, unlike daphne and fred's relationship.

then you had velma and her relationship with marcie, which started off as sort of a catty rivalry (not full on attempted murder, i mean holy shit hbo velma) that slowly grows to where you're completely convinced that these two did gradually like each other. and i do really enjoy stuff like that, more subtle writing like that. which doesn't just apply to queer rep btw, my favorite ships are relationships that feel understated, something you have to really dig for and pay attention to. its why i consider bubbline the best f/f representation in cartoon. because its subtle, but not too subtle where it feels out of no where when they kiss, and nuanced in ways that enhances the relationship AND characters.

there's a good amount of relationships i see in cartoons where the creator, who is usually queer themselves, often wants to depict queer relationships, but is weirdly adverse to depicting the uglier aspects of that character, and refuses to add subtlety to it. steven universe is a show i've always felt conflicted on its handling of queer representation because on the one hand i appreciate writing lesbians that are messy, traumatized and make constant mistakes. but on the other hand, the show goes out of its way to ignore these issues and/or make excuses for it, making the decision to make these characters messy and complicated genuinely baffling (this is also one of the big issues i have with catradora and stolitz).

it makes me think back to my own work too. i really enjoy making fluffy, easily digestible gay content for my followers and myself because it puts me in a good headspace. But even now and then i like exploring those little nuances too, because i don't really enjoy stories with little conflict. Because of that acknowledgement of how satisfying it is to write fluffy, queer rep, you end up putting yourself in other creator's shoes. you're so used to media that either dehumanizes gay people or tells people that they don't exist that you push yourself to make the most in your face queer rep you can but its at the cost of an interesting and subtle characters. characters that don't really have arcs or places to learn and grow.

With bugtopia i made a joke about how i want some of my queer rep to feel like you're being queerbaited. It's not literal, obviously, but mixed in with characters who are already married and in same gender relationships, i really want to write dynamics that feel subtle enough for a bit of a slow burn. even if you know they're going to end up together, to at least value the characters on their own before centering them on their relationships. queerbaiting is something that deserves all the criticism it can get, but it is embarrassing when queerbaiting feels genuinely more interesting than actual queer rep because queerbaiting has that factor of "maybe they won't get together" that adds that bit of intrigue, vs so many shows that repeatedly hammer in your head "don't worry guys, they're gonna be lesbian lovers".

mystery inc (and many other shows) being forced to keep a relationship obvious while subtle to get through censorship really forced creators to be creative with their storytelling and not center characters around their relationship and identity. but nowadays i think shows like to take the easy way out. for me, i always thought the most impactful example of queer representation in steven universe is "Rose's Scabbard". I genuinely don't enjoy that episode because it's a good example of the show thinking that trauma is an excuse for shitty behavior, but i cant deny that an entire episode of pearl breaking down and finally accepting that she wasn't the center of rose's world. it's the crew being forced to be creative and push through censors to telling a compelling story about a traumatized lesbian slowly realizing that she basically deluded herself into thinking she was someone's savior.

I think it's silly to try to place good queer representation in one box. like subtle queer rep is good, but also queer rep where a character flat out states that their gay. where I think it falls apart is when it either reinforces stereotypes without properly deconstructing or expanding on them, makes the characters so overly kind and non-controversial that the relationship is just boring, or try to make your messy and complicated characters but the narrative refuses to hold them accountable or at least acknowledge that they're doing something wrong. and to clarify on that last part, i'm not asking for some hays code nonsense where every bad person goes to prison and/or promises to stop being a bad person again. i mean the narrative doesnt just fucking sugarcoat their behavior. i don't want to see helluva boss ignore the fact that stolas made blitzo call him out for only using him for sex and then pathetically rush to justify their relationship by giving them a bizarrely sanitized and sweet backstory. and i don't want to see catra literally end the fucking universe and only do something good because she's straight up out of options and the show just decides that that was her redemption and she doesn't need to do anything to atone for what she did (including repeatedly abusing and verbally berating adora).

anyways velma has none of those interesting qualities and i'm pretty sure daphne and velma kissed because the creator is a weird pervert who thinks two girls kissing is hot.

#txt #i was thinking abt knocking off some of my longer posts on my tumblr but ya know its tumblr. its made for a blog #twitter isnt really a good place to write think pieces because its not really made for thinkpieces #i really enjoy expressing my thoughts on discourse and media but i don't want to over do it because ya know. you guys followed me for my ar #not my 2434334th post about why i think helluva boss is a bad show #but i've been thinking about sometimes prioritizing what i want to do vs what people want to see from me. so now you're getting #a long ass rant about why i think velma showing two teenagers kissing by episode 2 #encapsulates the overall issue with modern queer rep

[scarefox]

My siblings in hell that rating .... 🙈 but also while it definitely does not deserve that low rating it's the most fitting number 😏

#it was at 7.0 recently.... #but there are people in the comments srsly thinking First shoved a scalpel up Soongs ass during their med k!nk session #ya know instead of the more logical thing: a rectal thermometer #nothing makes sense for these folks because their own thoughts don't make sense #they only see and believe things they have set in their minds and not what is actually shown #the mystery part of the plot is on Manner of Death level imo but half the audience is immature and shocked about unprettified sex #i just hope xitter does not look as bad as MDL comments and the writer actors and creator don't get to hear the whining #playboyy the series #discourse #playboyy #bl drama #lgbtq

[archivlibrarianist]

"...if a kid can’t afford to buy the book, go to the library and get it. Libraries are amazing! They offer these things to people in their community.

"Y’all: LIBRARIES ARE UNDER ATTACK BY GROUPS TRYING TO ENSURE THESE BOOKS DO NOT GET INTO THE HANDS OF READERS. This is not only school libraries. It is not only public libraries. There are states literally working to outlaw entire categories of books from reaching the teens for whom they are already financially inaccessible.

"Not only that, but librarians and educators are being put under the threat of losing their jobs, their livelihoods, their health insurance, and their actual lives by legislators across the country who are eager to criminalize them for having 'inappropriate' books in their collections. These legislators are listening to right-wing Christian nationalists calling certified educators and librarians groomers for simply having the books that reflect their communities in the collection."

#censorship #banned books #YA literature #young adult literature #libraries #librarians #tumblarians #library workers #groomer discourse #also known as #fascism #yes this is fascism this is what fascism does sounds and acts like #yeah i'm tired of those tags too tough shit

[buck2eddie]

as a then-blonde now turned-brunette girlie myself, i am very much on the "buck's not blonde" team BUT i did want to see how he'll look as blonde so this is the result <3

#“dirty blonde” sorry fellas that's just brunette idk what to tell ya #his hair is more brown than blonde you can't argue with that #im not starting discourse or anything i just wanted to play with the face app cause they added the blonde hair option for free lol #evan buckley #911 #911 abc

[icedsodapop]

Feel like we need to talk about the racism within bibliophile communities, the obsession with performing the acts of loving to read and loving books, the consumerism that has infiltrated these circles...

#racism #performative #performativity #books #literature #bibliophile #ya fiction #book discourse #bookblr

[kitsunequeen1987]

I think the funniest part about watching Kirby Right Back at Ya as an adult is that you start questioning things that at no point anyone was supposed to question.

And in turn, it ends up making the show darker than it was definitely intended.

For example-

Kirby is a literal baby that has faced traumatizing thing after traumatizing thing

Meta Knight spent an unknown amount of time with probably some semblance of survivor's guilt after almost everyone he knew died

King Dedede has tried to kill Tiff at least three times (who I imagine is around 12 or 13)

Lady Like and Sir Ebrum nearly LOST Tiff at least three times

#kirby right back at ya #kirby #meta knight #king dedede #tiff kirby #fandom discourse