The Forgotten Bookshelf

INEJ GHAFA & ZOYA NAZYALENSKY Shadow and Bone: Season 2 Trailer

THE CROWS IN SEASON 2, SHADOW AND BONE

Unreasonable Ideas

It seems silly but this is why it’s so important to give yourself downtime where you can just let your brain idle!! You gotta let yourself become the cardboard box, trying to make ideas is just herding cats so let them come to you instead

This is especially useful for ADHD people – chasing something relentlessly will just burn you out. You’ll find it if you divert attention, annoyingly – use the weird psychological quirks to your advantage!

“Become the cardboard box” is terrifyingly good advice.

when parasite said the rich can afford to be kind, when parasite said global warming is most catastrophic for those least responsible, when parasite said the rich are the ones with access to sunlight, when parasite said the efforts of the working class are invisible to their exploiters, when parasite said water only ever flows from the rich down to the poor and never in reverse, when parasite said the rich are the real parasites for leeching off of their workers' labour

This is also what’s referred to as sacrifice zones in climate change communication. The poor and marginalized live in areas that are used unreasonably and then left (think surface mining or strip mining). The marginalized people who live in the area don’t want the environmental degradation to occur, but the rich majority don’t care about their needs, and continue to do it anyway until the environment is destroyed. Then the rich move to another area and the cycle begins again.

I think maybe we have forgotten the value of shutting the fuck up sometimes

Like not in a mean way, actually quite the opposite. I think we've had so much easy, unmoderated access to large communities in fandom spaces that sometimes people forget they are dealing with actual other people.

I also think that the public space we all have access to here and other places is so... I don't think homogenized is the right word, but the space contains so many more interests in a single space, and unlike fandom of yore, they're not often separated into groups that allow people to easily avoid each other. Blocking is a thing, and of course it's a great tool, but it's an opt out tool, rather than an opt-in one, like a mailing list or a forum used to be.

And when we used to be on forums, on mailing lists, on journal communities etc, someone usually had the ability (the authority) to step in and say hey, you can't act mean like this and stay in the community, and you either shut the fuck up, or you opted out, or you got booted. Because you were in a community, and communities did their best, to mixed results, to remain at peace within themselves when it came to trivial matters (not like massive issues, those have always been here, I'm talking like, particular headcanons or which ships people like, that kind of thing).

Except now we're all thrown into a room together, to form a single community, full of disparate voices, and lacking anyone to tell us hey you gotta play nice with each other over the little things. And technically no one has to play nice anymore, and some people have forgotten how, or were never taught, and it shows.

I guess what I want to say is like... You don't have to say unkind things. You don't have to talk about things you don't like. You don't have to come into the public spaces like tags, or add onto reblogs, just to put people or fandom elements down. If something isn't your cup of tea, you can just ignore it or block it- you don't have to repeatedly declare how bad it is to you (and that's not even touching on the people that harass others in their own spaces over things they don't like, which isn't just impolite, it's disgusting behavior). You don't have to frame things you do like in things you don't, you can just talk about the things you like with no strings attached, and it will almost certainly feel great.

Talking down about things other people might like adds nothing nice to the community.

It just says you've forgotten the value of shutting the fuck up sometimes.

important question: what is ur sexuality and what style and color converse do u own (this is for science)

Reminder that the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette canceled its striking workers' healthcare benefits last month and that Starbucks has cut unionizing workers' hours so they don't qualify for healthcare benefits and threatened to withhold travel benefits to access abortion or gender-affirming healthcare from unionizing stores.

Anyway, here are some links to help both these strikes and an invite for anyone else to add other strike funds to support.

Bacchino Malato (Caravaggio, 1593)

My favourite thing about this post is that someone saw those photos of that cat and went “ah yes, I know exactly which 15th century Baroque painting this reminds me of”

This is not like a fully completed thought but yk

So I've done my first aid + CPR a few times. And every single time I try and bring up scenarios for fat folks

Specifically like 'what if someone is too large for me to wrap my arms around then to do the heimleich'

And its incredibly rare I get a decent answer.

How absolutely insane is it that me, as a fat person, is asking how to have MY life saved or to save ANOTHER life, is an impossible feat if someone is fat.

Most of the time they tell me to 'just try anyways uwu'

There has got to be a better option.

From a first aid and CPR trainer, who is also fat.

The heimleich is scientifically as effective as slapping someone VERY hard on the back. The only reason it's so well taught is the man that invented it did a lot of great PR for himself. It's also a bit easier for smaller framed people to get the necessary force in, because people are often extremely scared to hurt people, even in life threatening situations.

With larger bodied people, whether they be fat, tall, muscular, etc. If you cannot get your arms around them, literally just slap the shit out of their shoulders. You want hard, open palmed slaps right in the center of the shoulders or slightly below.

If they are too tall for you to reach that high, guide them to lean over the back of a chair, and then slap slap slap slap slap.

It's been proven to be just as effective through many studies. It just doesn't have a trademarked name and a dramatic effect in film.

If you have to do CPR on a larger bodied person, again, fat, body builder, tall and broad, whoever, the trick to finding where you want to put your hands if going to be to take your hand and shove it in their armpit. No seriously. Put your hand in their armpit, then drag it in a straight line towards yourself until you're in the center of the chest, then put your other hand beneath that one. This is where you push. Then you are going to move the arm closest to you out of the way so you can get closer to them, and get the leverage you need to press down for compressions. The more of your body weight that is over your hands, the better the compression will be. Act like you are trying desperately to pack the last of your clothes in a suitcase, and just slam down hard on their chest.

They will make *horrible* noises. You might even break ribs.

But a broken rib is better than being dead.

One day, perhaps, other CPR and First Aid instructors will actually know and teach this shit. But the medical field is filled with people who don't know, don't care, or just outright hate fat people. So while this information won't fix your complaint, I do hope it helps someone out there with saving their loved ones, should it ever be needed.

my personal weird book hangup is that i don't really like to read depressing fiction where lots of bad stuff happens because i prefer to save those emotions for nonfiction

very cool how the gender binary in the emerging trad terf synthesis is like, there are two genders, the one that does bad things and the one that bad things are done to. the only thing in the world is immorality and it flows from unexperiencing agents to unacting experiencers.

which naturally appeals to people who would like to be perceived as inherently lacking the capacity for immorality. for whatever reason

anyway remember bell hooks’s very cogent critique of second-wave feminist organizing in ‘sisterhood: solidarity between women’ where she argues that by “bonding as ‘victims’, white women’s liberationists were not required to assume responsibility for confronting the complexity of their own experience … Identifying as ‘victims’, they could abdicate responsibility for their role in the maintenance and perpetuation of sexism, racism, and classism.” it’s not by accident that terf gender essentialism dovetails so much with other biological-determinist & essentialist assumptions including Extremely Racist Ones   

What makes JKR's shitshow even harder to process is that she didn't just ruin a book series. Harry Potter was an entire subculture. Like Star Wars and Star Trek fans, Harry Potter fans dedicated their lives and careers to the series. I don't know if I'd call it "underground," but liking Harry Potter got you beaten up when I was in school, so it was more of a dedicated indie culture than a mass-appeal fanbase.

Harry Potter was so huge that fan works developed their own followings. Potter Puppet Pals racked up hundreds of thousands of followers and was nearly as relevant as the series itself. For fanfiction, Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality got so big that it has a Wikipedia page. The band Harry and the Potters spawned the wizard rock music genre. A Very Potter Musical developed a fanbase and launched Darren Criss's career.

Harry Potter also has extensive ties to fandom history. Everyone in my generation (millennials) remembers coming home from school to read Harry Potter fanfiction on the Internet. Today, most people just post their stories on Wattpad or Archive of Our Own. But at the time, the fanbase was splintered between fanfiction.net and dozens of individual websites and forums, some made for specific ships. Since they all had individual hosts, a lot of those sites have been lost to time.

And there's the infamous My Immortal fanfiction, which is an Internet legend with people still searching for the author. Everybody read that one (and laughed at it) in middle school.

Pre-social media, fan sites like The Leaky Cauldron and Mugglenet had massive followings because they were one of few sources for news, theories, essays and fan content. Some of these sites still exist after being around for over a decade and building their own legacy.

Before Deathly Hallows came out, fans were so desperate to know what happened that Mugglenet published a book called What Will Happen in Harry Potter 7: Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Falls in Love and How Will the Adventure Finally End? Yep...Harry Potter was so big that people wrote separate books about what would happen in an upcoming book.

And that's not mentioning all the book release parties, Harry Potter-themed events, monuments, fan films, restaurants and even a theme park. A lot of fandoms have those, but Harry Potter infiltrated every aspect of popular culture.

Today, there's a thriving culture of "Harry Potter adults" with themed weddings, baby showers and Etsy stores. Putting your Hogwarts house in your Instagram bio is pretty much a prerequisite for joining the "bookish" community. Warner still produces new content, like the Fantastic Beasts series, although we've all seen what a disaster that's been.

Everyone has at least a few memories associated with Harry Potter even if it's just watching the movies. I had great memories associated with Harry Potter. But looking back at the subculture, history and thousands of fan works, it doesn't seem fun anymore. Studying the fandom or being part of it comes with an awkward tension because you don't want to seem like you're condoning JKR's bigotry but can't divorce her from the series. This subculture was spawned by a woman who turned her legacy of magic and wonder into one of abuse and hatred.

I don't expect people to write paragraphs about how much they hate JKR every time they post about Harry Potter, but it's still uncomfortable to see people make new content or wear their Harry Potter Etsy tote bags like nothing happened. Even if they clarify that they don't support her, it's just a weird, tense situation for everybody.

People dedicated years of their lives to running Harry Potter fan sites, writing fanfiction, cosplaying characters and making fan movies. If I were in that situation, I'd have a mild identity crisis. I'd ask myself "Did I waste all those years? Should I delete my content? Where do I go from here?"

So ultimately, JKR didn't ruin "just" a book series or even "just" a fandom. She tanked an entire culture, which inspired people to look at Harry Potter more critically. The issues that people brought to the light tainted the series's legacy even without JKR's personal issues.

Once, Harry Potter was a series for generations. Now, former fans hope that the series fades into irrelevancy. Unfortunately, JKR didn't just tarnish her legacy--she took decades of history, millions of fans and a worldwide subculture along with her.

What makes JKR's shitshow even harder to process is that she didn't just ruin a book series. Harry Potter was an entire subculture. Like Star Wars and Star Trek fans, Harry Potter fans dedicated their lives and careers to the series. I don't know if I'd call it "underground," but liking Harry Potter got you beaten up when I was in school, so it was more of a dedicated indie culture than a mass-appeal fanbase.

Harry Potter was so huge that fan works developed their own followings. Potter Puppet Pals racked up hundreds of thousands of followers and was nearly as relevant as the series itself. For fanfiction, Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality got so big that it has a Wikipedia page. The band Harry and the Potters spawned the wizard rock music genre. A Very Potter Musical developed a fanbase and launched Darren Criss's career.

Harry Potter also has extensive ties to fandom history. Everyone in my generation (millennials) remembers coming home from school to read Harry Potter fanfiction on the Internet. Today, most people just post their stories on Wattpad or Archive of Our Own. But at the time, the fanbase was splintered between fanfiction.net and dozens of individual websites and forums, some made for specific ships. Since they all had individual hosts, a lot of those sites have been lost to time.

And there's the infamous My Immortal fanfiction, which is an Internet legend with people still searching for the author. Everybody read that one (and laughed at it) in middle school.

Pre-social media, fan sites like The Leaky Cauldron and Mugglenet had massive followings because they were one of few sources for news, theories, essays and fan content. Some of these sites still exist after being around for over a decade and building their own legacy.

Before Deathly Hallows came out, fans were so desperate to know what happened that Mugglenet published a book called What Will Happen in Harry Potter 7: Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Falls in Love and How Will the Adventure Finally End? Yep...Harry Potter was so big that people wrote separate books about what would happen in an upcoming book.

And that's not mentioning all the book release parties, Harry Potter-themed events, monuments, fan films, restaurants and even a theme park. A lot of fandoms have those, but Harry Potter infiltrated every aspect of popular culture.

Today, there's a thriving culture of "Harry Potter adults" with themed weddings, baby showers and Etsy stores. Putting your Hogwarts house in your Instagram bio is pretty much a prerequisite for joining the "bookish" community. Warner still produces new content, like the Fantastic Beasts series, although we've all seen what a disaster that's been.

Everyone has at least a few memories associated with Harry Potter even if it's just watching the movies. I had great memories associated with Harry Potter. But looking back at the subculture, history and thousands of fan works, it doesn't seem fun anymore. Studying the fandom or being part of it comes with an awkward tension because you don't want to seem like you're condoning JKR's bigotry but can't divorce her from the series. This subculture was spawned by a woman who turned her legacy of magic and wonder into one of abuse and hatred.

I don't expect people to write paragraphs about how much they hate JKR every time they post about Harry Potter, but it's still uncomfortable to see people make new content or wear their Harry Potter Etsy tote bags like nothing happened. Even if they clarify that they don't support her, it's just a weird, tense situation for everybody.

People dedicated years of their lives to running Harry Potter fan sites, writing fanfiction, cosplaying characters and making fan movies. If I were in that situation, I'd have a mild identity crisis. I'd ask myself "Did I waste all those years? Should I delete my content? Where do I go from here?"

So ultimately, JKR didn't ruin "just" a book series or even "just" a fandom. She tanked an entire culture, which inspired people to look at Harry Potter more critically. The issues that people brought to the light tainted the series's legacy even without JKR's personal issues.

Once, Harry Potter was a series for generations. Now, former fans hope that the series fades into irrelevancy. Unfortunately, JKR didn't just tarnish her legacy--she took decades of history, millions of fans and a worldwide subculture along with her.