encountered a casey mcquiston novel instagram post and there are people saying they disliked one last stop and loved red white and royal blue. and at first i was surprised and kind of upset because i have eyes and while i do love both, ols is much better written than rwrb and imo better by far.
and i think the thing is that rwrb was written for a general audience and not for queer people specifically. casey mcquiston has said in interviews that they use big tropes to prevent their novels from falling out of mainstream and i think rwrb makes this really obvious. it’s feisty and spicy and political and very, very fanfic-y. the public loves the emails and enemies to lovers and forced proximity. cmq obviously knew this and used this to their advantage.
one last stop on the other hand is fundamentally for queer comfort. personally i found that the concept of queer community is much more prevalent than the actual romance, and august and jane were both extremely compelling as queer women trying to discover themselves. i (and tumblr ols fans, from what i’ve seen) got really into the queer found family, the overwhelming support from everyone, the ultimate queer joy that is present in the book. august and janes romance is a secondary thing and even so if feels so representative of struggles in sapphic dating. a lot of us have experienced the “queer girl friendship” which feels a little more romantic than you previously thought.
so straight people read rwrb and love it because it contains themes they’re used to and already love, with the side dish of being queer, which is fine. read what you like. (also a lot of them massively fetishize mlm which is a big issue too). but ols is queer community and sapphic struggles and self discovery which is not the kind of queer romance the straights sign up for. so they say shit like how august and jane are uninteresting (false) or their romance felt forced (false) or the smut was unnecessary (people never complain about that on straight books where unnecessary smut is plentiful and boundless).
babes. straights. you are not the target audience. so respectfully, read all you want, i don’t care, but shut it. don’t be surprised when the queer comfort book for queer people doesn’t align with your straight expectations.
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ouguhhh just read the summary and article from this post about alexandre baril's work on suicidism (oppression of the suicidal) and the opening paragraph of the conclusion in the full article. thoughts. rotating
i was thinking about the. thick white gloves. while reading. remembered that one post about how csa being horrifically taboo to talk about compounds survivors' trauma and shame and went Maybe something similar re: suicidality and suicide... the suffering multiplied by the silence, the risk of dismissal or instant change in perception in anyone you tell... and even in 'mental health' spaces the perception that suicide as a topic is dangerous to talk about- that it could be triggering instantly and automatically- is like. i think there's some paternalism there and there's some shamefear and there's some oversimplification and there's the fact that it plays well into the existing well-taught impulse to avoid the discomforting. but like. this post also about how getting through suicidality is maybe only possible by considering the option thoroughly. i am just thinking. idk. yall know me yall know i think about this topic a lot
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hello again!
the songs on the bracket have been finalized and i'm working on the bracket right now!
originally my plan was to put songs against each other by both the time they came out and their popularity to give lesser known songs a chance against some of the super notable classics, but i've been seeing a post go around about matchups that are final round worthy happening round one. while i don't think it's anything worthy of any major (or minor) backlash, i do have to agree that having more challenging matchups so early on can lead to a bit of an anticlimactic ending
the way the bracket is set up now, there's no way to avoid several major matchups so early on (ex :: rolling girl vs. matryoshka or world is mine vs. triple baka)
as much as i want to give songs that might not be as well known a chance (especially considering some only got in w one nomination via a random number generator), i also don't want some of what i at least consider to be the most well known songs to be disqualified round one. those songs are popular and well loved for a reason and i genuinely think they should also have a chance to make it to the end. round two at the very very least
i'll make a bracket for each possibility so it can go up when the pool closes, so please vote for whichever one you think would be the most fun !
also unrelated to this poll, i realize kinda forgot to make a post responding to the bracket song list one ?? since it ended showed up as a tie but wasn't really one after factoring in a missclick vote, the last songs were chosen via a random number generator ^^
there were some nominated but ultimately unpicked songs that i felt were too notable and influential to go unmentioned though??? so there's also a little hand picked honorable mentions bracket (it's very small !! it only has 8 songs total on it) :D
i will admit that some songs on it are more biased than others, but w the exception of one they all have at least 5 million views (counting unofficial reprints). i did try and make sure they're all at least somewhat notable (or were when they came out) in one way or another. so it's a little compromise in a way ^^
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so when i was a teen i was like, very alt, very punk, like eyeball-deep in the local music scene (this would continue for the next decade), i was NOT a scholar by any stretch and quite frankly hated academics. and my friend introduced me to this band and it ended up being one of my favorites for years.
well i was talking to my friend who's into a bad that was big back in that day and i was like ahhh yes.... i remember those days.... neon and crust and studded leather.... and i listed off some bands, and remembered that one i had liked for so long. i went and looked it up and spotted the album i remembered the most, and gave it a listen and well
it would seem ive always been this way. apparently
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obsessed with star trek repeatedly writing themselves into a corner by creating alien races that are supposed to be The Bad Guys when that explicitly conflicts with their previously established notion that no group of people is inherently good or evil.
first it was the klingons—they’re originally supposed to be this cruel, bloodthirsty, war-obsessed people—and then tng comes along and it’s like wait no maybe war and violence is a part of their culture and actually ties back to ancient traditions and philosophies so we have to be woke about it.
hey these are the ferengi and they’re supposed to represent everything we hate about capitalist society; they’re greedy, scheming, profit-obsessed, and they look like ugly little trolls to emphasize how much we fucking HATE capitalism. oh wait fuck here comes deep space nine and we have to recognize that they’re PEOPLE. okok what if the pursuit of profit is actually part of their culture and ties back to ancient traditions and philosophies. so we have to be woke about it.
this is the borg, they’re a hivemind race of cyborgs who have no sense of individuality and their only motivation is assimilating people into their society. they want to assimilate humanity and we are completely defenseless against them because their technology is eons ahead of our own and they’re incapable of being reasoned with. oh sweet we have a borg prisoner this is the perfect opportunity to commit genocide against them. fuck actually we can’t commit genocide we’re woke and communists and in space.
hey these are the cardassians, they’re part of a cruel and vicious empire which is supposed to be a representation of fascism and authoritarian regimes, they’re a cold, bloodthirsty people with no sense of empathy or compassion, their society literally references 1984 on multiple occasions, and they’re known for the insanely cruel and inhumane methods of torture they use against their prisoners of war. we hate the cardassians…….. except, here’s a cardassian kid who grew up on bajor, and……. fuck. he’s a person. now we actually have to consider his humanity. and being racist is actually……. bad.
this is the jem’hadar, they’re genetically engineered soldiers who have no sense of individuality and only live to defend the state. they’re all born addicted to a synthetic drug that’s manufactured by the state and administered by their masters—this is how they’re kept subservient. they’re ruthless and powerful and they’re incapable of being reasoned with because their only motivation is violence and killing. so we should kill them all, right? FUCK….. what if they’re actually people. goddamnit. now we have to consider their humanity.
hey these are the romulans. hey these are the founders. the list goes on. i just find it really interesting
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