i rise with the sun

I’ve never seen anything this funny in my goddamned life

anyone else feel like they missed about 85% of 2021

I remember a boat and that’s about it.

The boat was this year??

There’s also a large grey area between an Offensive Stereotype and “thing that can be misconstrued as a stereotype if one uses a particularly reductive lens of interpretation that the text itself is not endorsing”, and while I believe that creators should hold some level of responsibility to look out for potential unfortunate optics on their work, intentional or not, I also do think that placing the entire onus of trying to anticipate every single bad angle someone somewhere might take when reading the text upon the shoulders of the writers – instead of giving in that there should be also a level of responsibility on the part of the audience not to project whatever biases they might carry onto the text – is the kind of thing that will only end up reducing the range of stories that can be told about marginalized people. 

A japanese-american Beth Harmon would be pidgeonholed as another nerdy asian stock character. Baby Driver with a black lead would be accused of perpetuating stereotypes about black youth and crime. Phantom Of The Opera with a female Phantom would be accused of playing into the predatory lesbian stereotype. Romeo & Juliet with a gay couple would be accused of pulling the bury your gays trope – and no, you can’t just rewrite it into having a happy ending, the final tragedy of the tale is the rock onto which the entire central thesis statement of the play stands on. Remove that one element and you change the whole point of the story from a “look at what senseless hatred does to our youth” cautionary tale to a “love conquers all” inspiration piece, and it may not be the story the author wants to tell.

Sometimes, in order for a given story to function (and keep in mind, by function I don’t mean just logistically, but also thematically) it is necessary that your protagonist has specific personality traits that will play out in significant ways in the story. Or that they come from a specific background that will be an important element to the narrative. Or that they go through a particular experience that will consist on crucial plot point. All those narrative tools and building blocks are considered to be completely harmless and neutral when telling stories about straight/white people but, when applied to marginalized characters, it can be difficult to navigate them as, depending on the type of story you might want to tell, you may be steering dangerously close to falling into Unfortunate Implications™. And trying to find alternatives as to avoid falling into potentially iffy subtext is not always easy, as, depending on how central the “problematic” element to your plot, it could alter the very foundation of the story you’re trying to tell beyond recognition. See the point above about Romeo & Juliet.    

Like, I once saw a woman a gringa obviously accuse the movie Knives Out of racism because the one latina character in the otherwise consistently white and wealthy cast is the nurse, when everyone who watched the movie with their eyes and not their ass can see that the entire tension of the plot hinges upon not only the power imbalance between Martha and the Thrombeys, but also on her isolation as the one latina immigrant navigating a world of white rich people. I’ve seen people paint Rosa Diaz as an example of the Hothead Latina stereotype, when Rosa was originally written as a white woman (named Megan) and only turned latina later when Stephanie Beatriz was cast  – and it’s not like they could write out Rosa’s anger issues to avoid bad optics when it is such a defining trait of her character. I’ve seen people say Mulholland Drive is a lesbophobic movie when its story couldn’t even exist in first place if the fatally toxic lesbian relationship that moves the plot was healthy, or if it was straight.                          

That’s not to say we can’t ever question the larger patterns in stories about certain demographics, or not draw lines between artistic liberty and social responsibility, and much less that I know where such lines should be drawn. I made this post precisely to raise a discussion, not to silence people. But one thing I think it’s important to keep in mind in such discussions is that stereotypes, after all, are all about oversimplification. It is more productive, I believe, to evaluate the quality of the representation in any given piece of fiction by looking first into how much its minority characters are a) deep, complex, well-rounded, b) treated with care by the narrative, with plenty of focus and insight into their inner life, and c) a character in their own right that can carry their own storyline and doesn’t just exist to prop up other character’s stories. And only then, yes, look into their particular characterization, but without ever overlooking aspects such as the context and how nuanced such characterization is handled. Much like we’ve moved on from the simplistic mindset that a good female character is necessarily one that punches good otherwise she’s useless, I really do believe that it is time for us to move on from the the idea that there’s a one-size-fits-all model of good representation and start looking into the core of representation issues (meaning: how painfully flat it is, not to mention scarce) rather than the window dressing.

I know I am starting to sound like a broken record here, but it feels that being a latina author writing about latine characters is a losing game, when there’s extra pressure on minority authors to avoid ~problematic~ optics in their work on the basis of the “you should know better” argument. And this “lower common denominator” approach to representation, that bars people from exploring otherwise interesting and meaningful concepts in stories because the most narrow minded people in the audience will get their biases confirmed, in many ways, sounds like a new form of respectability politics. Why, if it was gringos that created and imposed those stereotypes onto my ethnicity, why it should be my responsibility as a latina creator to dispel such stereotypes by curbing my artistic expression? Instead of asking of them to take responsibility for the lenses and biases they bring onto the text? Why is it too much to ask from people to wrap their minds about the ridiculously basic concept that no story they consume about a marginalized person should be taken as a blanket representation of their entire community?

It’s ridiculous. Gringos at some point came up with the idea that latinos are all naturally inclined to crime, so now I, a latina who loves heist movies, can’t write a latino character who’s a cool car thief. Gentiles created antisemitic propaganda claiming that the jews are all blood drinking monsters, so now jewish authors who love vampires can’t write jewish vampires. Straights made up the idea that lesbian relationships tend to be unhealthy, so now sapphics who are into Brontë-ish gothic romance don’t get to read this type of story with lesbian protagonists. I want to scream.      

And at the end of the day it all boils down to how people see marginalized characters as Representation™ first and narrative tools created to tell good stories later, if at all. White/straight characters get to be evaluated on how entertaining and tridimensional they are, whereas minority characters get to be evaluated on how well they’d fit into an after school special. Fuck this shit.                            

“He could put you on the end of that and say: “Yes, I know you.” The idea is that these two people know each other, knew each other other when they first saw each other, that they recognized each other from their future.” - Joe Wright

If you push yourself too hard for too long, you'll end up regretting it. There's a limit for how long you can get away with pushing yourself to the breaking point. So choose to take a break on your own terms before your body and brain force you to slow down.

I find it endlessly fascinating that most humans just want someone who will get up in the middle of the night to close the windows with them when it starts down pouring. We want someone to dry our dishes after we wash them. We just want another person to do mundane activities with. We want to tell someone how the copy machine broke at work and we want to listen to how Debra is causing office drama again. We just want something so simple. We want human connection and honesty and to be bored with someone else instead of bored alone. 

MILF (Mutuals I’d Like to Formally apologise to after not responding to an ask or dm for weeks at a time. a kiss on the forehead for U)

Ao3 authors will literally post under any fucking circumstances

If you've ever written a thesis/dissertation for a Master's or PhD, I'd love your two cents on something!

As of right now I'm working on a laptop but I'm finding it to be a bit insufficient for what I need to do. I'll be purchasing a keyboard, mouse and computer stand because I'm only 21 and yet I have the back pain of an 80 year old woman.

I'm struggling to decide between getting a second monitor or working on a tablet (maybe getting an apple pencil type thing? It's still very unsure). Usually, reading on actual paper is a better fit for me but I obviously won't be able to print 200+ papers just for the sake of it.

I'd love some feedback if you have any!

Thank you @ofprongsandpotters @lilyinthesun and @tygridiablr for the amazing feedback. So far I've gotten the keyboard and mouse, and stacked my laptop up on some textbooks to give it a bit more height. I'll be using my iPad to read papers for the time being and if I find it necessary I'll eventually bite the bullet and get a monitor! But for the time being I'll probably use my mom's WFH monitors at night and during the weekends. Thank you again!!!

I’m glad you’re back.

How I feel when my sneakers do the squeaky thing against the floor

after the pandemic is over the phrase "unprecedented times" is gonna activate something in me like a secret agent. I'll bring out the hand disinfectant. it's like pavlov dogs or whatever

#social distancing quarantine new normal zoom. all words that will turn me into the winter soldier (@dougramsey)

One night, you decide to put your phone under your pillow. When you wake up in the morning, your phone is replaced by cash totaling what you paid for your phone. Turns out the tooth fairy takes more than just teeth.

You regret the loss if your phone, of course, but the tooth fairy gave you brand new market price and so you bought a new one with the cash and pocketed the rest.

You experiment. Sticking items under your pillow is better than the hassle of Facebook marketplace.

She doesn’t take the plastic plate set you’ve tried to sell for weeks, but she takes a gold rimmed china saucer from your Grandma’s old set. You get brand new market value for it - from 1946 when it had been bought.

She ignores jeans and books, but trades for spoons and costume jewelry. The tooth fairy, you realize, is a bit of a magpie. If it’s a little bit shiny, she’ll give you cash.

You clear out the jewelry table at a garage sale, place them one by one under your pillow. The amount you get varies, but still is brand new market value of when the item was originally bought. Nothing more than $50, but that’s better than the $8 you bought it for.

After a few weeks, something changes. Your bank account isn’t as empty, your pillow is thicker. You take a nap, because sleeping on items isn’t the most comfortable. You wake up to a crinkle, a note next to your nose.

The writing is tiny, you need your phone’s magnifier to read it, but it turns out just as you’ve been using the tooth fairy, she wants to use you. She’s dropped off a list of wants; hints at a finder fee in cash or precious metals.

It’s specific, odd stuff. A clean dollar coin. A chandelier crystal. A reversible sequin pillow. Antique holiday ornaments. Photo hooks. All, you think, easy to get.

You sign her contact with purple sparkly gel pen and offer it as a freebie.

rory lane paris and jess never becoming a group of friends is offensive im gonna fistfight amy sherman-palladino in a parking lot