#Marketing capabilities

[beggars-opera]

Ok so I completely flubbed my first ever phone interview a few months ago even though it was for an identical position to what I currently have and now I just have to not sabotage myself on this one even though it's a completely different position I have less experience in. I CAN DO THIS, SOMEHOW

[painalotwww]

[ssslimyboy]

heyyy guys! sorry it's been so long. i'm considering coming back? but i'm not sure when i'm gonna have the time to re-watch what i've already seen and everything new from the last three or four years, so if anything major has happened, i won't really be up to date.

thoughts? is there enough of an interest to warrant me starting to post again, even if i don't know the Recent Lore?

[hanzajesthanza]

"the michael kandel translation of "the witcher" short story can't hurt you!!"

the michael kandel translation of "the witcher" short story:

[utilitycaster]

A few recent books I've read and disliked led me to this conclusion but it feels like there's been this switch over time with queer stories. It used to be that queer relationships (or queerness in general) had to be Show Don't Tell because, well, you could not make them textual! So you get, for example, shows like Legend of Korra, or Xena: Warrior Princess, where you have women who are clearly devoted to each other to a degree that goes beyond mere friendship, and a ton of effort and care is put into that depiction because they can't actually be shown in an explicitly stated relationship. And as a result, these relationships, while they never receive confirmation in the show, are rich and complex.

Now not only is it much easier to make explicitly queer stories outside of niche areas; it's even popular (and, cynically, a marketing tactic). The problem is I've run into a bunch of stories that are marketed very clearly as A Queer Story that forget to like...be a story, or show me why these characters should be in a relationship. It's All Tell No Show: I'm told that the characters are gay and are in a relationship, but no work is done to actually explain why I should care about this beyond "well they are gay and in a gay relationship."

I'm not going to rehash what I discussed here, but Baru Cormorant is an example of those books where I'm given no real reason to care. The protagonist is a lesbian but the prose reads like a phone book. On the other hand, while Starless has a queer disabled woman as a one of the two protagonists, it also provides her with traits other than "queer, disabled, woman, important" and grants her a rich interiority (even though the story is told entirely from the first person point of view of the other protagonist.)

And the thing about the good examples in that link (Starless, Teixcalaan): they show and tell. It's both explicit that these are queer stories with a canon romantic relationship, but the little moments that make up the tapestry of a relationship are given the time that moments in a subtextual - or frankly, even a queerbaiting work are. That's the real tragedy; for queerbaiting to work, you have to actually make the relationship compelling enough for people follow it until you pull the rug out from under them; whereas you can slap a cold fish kiss on a cold fish queer relationship and technically you are Better because it was Explicit Representation even though everything about it was poorly constructed. I would rather have an lazy and shoddy explicit relationship than queerbait just on principle; but honestly I'd rather have a good story that does neither.

One of my more cynical interpretations of this is that writers are either intentionally or inadvertently taking advantage of the legacy of the Show Don't Tell era of queer coding to place the burden of those small moments on the audience. They know that people looking for queer relationships in fiction are used to having to dig for moments and subtext; but instead of providing that subtext, they set up the clunky text and assume the subtext to support it will emerge from the fandom. Or perhaps, more generously, especially for younger queer writers, they are just so used to having to provide that work themselves that they forget they are doing the writing and are able to (and should) layer subtext and text together and weave something actually good.

Either way, it's this that's led to the "Lesbian necromancers in space, need I say more"* era of recommendations, taglines, and writing, in which explicit representation is, if not plentiful, at least available; but a worrying amount of it forgets to actually write realized characters or a relationship with chemistry or a plot that makes sense.

I should also note: there's obviously a TON of straight romances and books that range from mediocre to abominable. I am under no circumstances arguing that "gayboring" media shouldn't exist. But while I don't think queer stories should be held to a higher standard, I don't think I should be obligated to settle for a lower standard either simply because it's gay. I know it's fraught, in that we're at risk of publishers and producers taking away the message "people hate this because it's gay" rather than "people hate this because it's poorly developed," but like...at the very least, could we recommend things in terms of "this is a great book that has a wonderful queer romance" and "this show is gay but it is also deeply mediocre, and if it weren't gay I wouldn't recommend it at all; do what you will with this information."

*I should note: I happen to like The Locked Tomb (of Lesbian Necromancers in Space fame) a lot! I know it's not for everyone; I know it can feel very gimmicky at times. But no matter how you feel, that tagline is DIRE and does a miserable job of representing the books. Like, that premise could suck, actually (and plenty of people find it does) if you're not sold on the mere fact that it's got lesbians, necromancy, or space in it. Worth noting that neither Starless nor the Teixcalaan books were heavily marketed as Queer Romance Fantasy/SF even though both very much are, which does further make me think this is a case of people writing good books that are queer, vs. people writing books with the intention to be on some New Queer SF list or, god forbid, Booktok.

[chirpsythismorning]

Thinking about the time Tom Holland spoiled the date and poster for Infinity War 'unintentionally', even though it was very clearly a bit done by a professional actor... and even still poorly at that! Just look at how he dramatically has the CONFIDENTIAL DO NOT SHARE facing the camera, only to turn it over to look at it, flipping it back upside down while pretending to read it...

remind you of anyone...?

hint

[the-everqueen]

the degree to which i want to just tell my "mentor," You win. i'm burned out, i'm tired, i don't feel capable, i don't think my work is actually doing anything useful for the field, i want to be done, the dream of being able to do good work in a hostile place for the others like me, who were meant to never get here--that's no longer a dream because i'm not sure it's actually possible. i quit. it was stupid of me to think for almost a decade that maybe i could carve out a space.

[lovesodeepandwideandwell]

Oh yeah and in further tragic occurrences our hot water is out

[luthienne]

the whiplash pedro pascal must feel going from the last of us script i just know that when i wake up i’ve lost something… i’m failing in my sleep… that’s all i do, that’s all i’ve ever done to the s3 mandalorian script *watches a droid drop a bust onto another droid* now that’s using your head

[diamondcoded]

The problem is, I know that the only opportunity I will find in life -after this job- is being a student. but it's truly the second worst thing that could ever happen to me.

[zcoordinate]

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[thevalleyisjolly]

It's impossible to describe the experience of watching Total Forgiveness to people, like how do I explain that this is one of the most compelling shows I've ever watched and it's even one of my comfort rewatch shows but also I cannot rewatch a good third of the series because it makes me so viscerally uncomfortable and this would absolutely never be greenlit by the Dropout of today but it's also essential viewing for understanding not only the development of the company but the public personas of many of the key people involved in Dropout. It's funny and then it's painfully dark and then at the last minute it's hopeful and heartwarming again but damn if it isn't raw all the way through. From the crushing pressure of living under late-stage capitalism to the severe toll on personal relationships that the very premise of the show enables. Also there's a jaunty little soundtrack. 11/10 will rewatch again and again. Except the MLM challenge. I am psychologically unable to watch that again for any sum of money on this planet.

[fionnaskyborn]

THE IPOD IS WORKING

I REPEAT

THE IPOD

IS WORKING

[prospitfox]

.

[outeremissary]

I think it's beautiful that we live in a world where you can eat so much stuff. There a lot of stuff out there and so much of it is edible, which is awesome.