#They are talking about book bans

[patheticblorbloscholar]

Prepare for mass censorship. Prepare for LGBTQ characters to become non existent as long as Trump has the reigns. Prepare to be secretive about your interests. He wants to enact Hayes Code 2.0 in project 2025.

Will we even get to see part two of Wicked the musical? Will James Cameron get to finish the Sully family saga?

I fear what the Heritage foundation has planned for media at large but "liberal" and discussions of queer themes and the planet dont align with the agenda at all.

I hate this timeline. Get me off.

[ofmermaidstories]

the australian government is trying to legislate kids under sixteen off of social media. so, if you are aussie and under sixteen, you won’t be allowed to have a sm account on sites like twitter, tiktok, facebook, youtube—and more.

i know our relationship with minors, as fic writers who write for other adults, is rocky at best. the rise in self-censoring and shame-based attitudes among readers in general is helping to kill any and all artistic curiosity in the next generation, which in turn makes it actively hard to be in shared, online fan spaces. it’s easy to blame the kids, but at its heart i think this is an active adult failure. our younger generations have gotten the raw end of the deal, in many ways; one of them being allowed to grow up alongside of material that they should’ve never had free access to, not without guided parenting.

And that’s the thing. the answer isn’t banning them. the legislation involved means that social media companies will be the ones to face the penalties (the fines) if minors break the new laws. which means—what? censorship gets even worse, in an effort to be even more kid friendly? Government-interest friendly? this talk started happening in the thick of the pro-palestine marches, as the movement was trickling into universities and highschools. And okay, let’s say it’s not that—what else could this be about? could it maybe have something to do with the fact that the australian government wants to implement a Digital ID nation wide?

"This one is for the mums and dads,” Albo, Anthony Albanese, our prime minister and prime dickhead, says in the announcement. “They, like me, are worried sick about the safety of our kids online. I want Australian families to know that the government has your back.”

But this isn’t about protecting kids. At the very best, they’re selling it as a scapegoat—like, oh! Haha, now you can just tell the kids it’s illegal!! It completely ignores the reality that people have to parent these humans. Like, it’s giving people, at best, an excuse to continue being lazy. They don’t have to sit down with their kids and the things they’re engaging with, anymore—because they’re banned from it! Instead having conversations about the media they encounter, it’s okay! You don’t need to worry about that anymore! The australian government wants to pretend this is about protecting kids from predators or online bullying, instead of parents confronting the fact they’ve created little assholes with unfettered access to tools to harass people with, or let their kids walk into traps because they haven’t taught them basic internet safety.

I have mixed feelings. Like any other (reasonable) adult, I worry about what kind of effects this much freedom to this much knowledge and drivel and personality can do to someone younger, someone who hasn’t like—had to learn how to make their way through a world where people are messy and a little weird and sometimes outright unlikable, but you have to still be professional about it, you know? I worry about things like micro-trends running the fun and excitement of digging in and finding some niche fashion that becomes your personality. I worry about status symbols like the right makeup and fitness pants and waterbottles getting popular too fast, and then cycling out just as quickly and creating a pace that kids without means can’t participate in as fast. I worry about podcasts run by sigma-pus males or whatever, tradwives selling glamour under the pretense of housework, like, so much of it. But these are all things that you as a parent have to negate!!! Like. You can’t just ban kids from the internet and then expect them to be normal about things whenever they’re allowed back—you have to teach them to be, to handle it. You have to teach them!!

I am saying this as an adult. An adult who likes adult things, and likes them in an open, easily-accessible space. An adult who would actively benefit from minor-free social media. There are things as an adult creator that I wanna talk about, or write about, in ways that aren’t always age-appropriate (or at all!!) for a younger audience. And look—my personal view has always been that as a fanfic writer, my responsibility to you guys (adults and sneaky-little-minors alike!!) has always been to warn appropriately on or in the fics themselves. That’s it. You get the warning labels on the tin, and you decide what to do with that afterwards. It’s not always perfect because I’m not perfect. I will make mistakes. I might not tag for something specific that ends up being a trigger for you. But the thing with fanfiction and fanfic communities is that we generally have to trust each other. I might miss a warning, but you have to trust that that mistake wasn’t a deliberate effort to hurt you. I have to trust that you guys know your own boundaries and will engage—or not!!—accordingly. I opt to treat my space here, my blog, as an open-one. Because it is! It’s a public blog LOL. If you have a tumblr account, then you have access to it! So, I try to treat this space like a public conversation in a café, or a foodcourt. Maybe I slip a raunchy little book over the table to you, and we make one or two rude jokes, or otherwise a stray rando catches the tail-end of a more serious conversation—but it’s all things I would be comfortable (enough) discussing with someone in a space where maybe I don’t know everyone involved, you know? I benefit from the knowledge that oh well, at least I don’t have to worry about local kids getting on here. 💀 But—I hate that for them!! Do I trust younger readers? Not always!!! I worry that they’ll get caught in the wrong feedback loop, that they don’t like, investigate claims or challenge information for themselves, that they’ve never had to! And hey, to be completely fair, I don’t always trust proper adult readers with that either LMFAOOO, but the point is that kids get more grace and more worry from me because they are still actively learning to be apart of things, of communities. And I think banning them from that is ultimately a mistake. To protect someone you have to teach them what to look out for, how to engage safely, how to trust themselves. And that’s not what’s going to be achieved here. This social media ban is a useless bandaid in the face of bigger problems (housing crisis, inflation, the AUKUS submarine thing i don’t even want to talk about it its stupid) that the government is waving around to distract everyone with. And it’s working. Because people would rather sit there and scroll on facebook, or whatever, instagram, instead of actively parenting.

[howdoyousleep3]

never in my life have i wanted a Daddy more than i do rn 😭

[icewindandboringhorror]

I've referenced before how I have a big google document to keep track of every media I've ever seen in my entire life (just for reference because I like to track everything possible lol… I am the Data Collector), but recently as I was updating it, I thought of actually evaluating them to find out random percentages (like for example, out of Total Shows Watched, what percentage did I finish vs. stop watching, what percentage did I like or dislike, etc.)...

Evaluating these things is made easier by the fact that I already place everything on each subsection of the list into 6 broad ranking categories, so I don't have to go back and guess to figure out how I feel about them or anything. The categories are: Ranking 5 - overall best* (despite some criticisms of course because I'm too much of an Analyzer to ever find anything Perfect lol) Ranking 4 - more positive than neutral, but not good enough to be 5 Ranking 3 - either the good + bad negate each other, OR it's just not memorable/interesting in any way enough to be ranked higher or lower (this is the Default category ALL things are placed in if no other rank applies) Ranking 2 - maybe a few redeemable elements but largely more negatives than positives Ranking 1 - So bad that it circles around to being fascinating to observe in some way (not necessarily Funny, or Good, but just interesting somehow) Ranking 0 - Bad in a genuinely frustrating or obnoxious manner

*("best" primarily defined here as most interesting, rather than most good in a technical sense, or some other measure. I tend to value more highly whether there's something novel or thoughtful about the worldbuilding, tone, writing, base premise, etc - than about whether it's actually executed perfectly.)

And here's the amount of shows that have so far been placed into each category -

TV shows ~ Rank 5 (highest) - 20 shows ~ Rank 4 (mid-high) - 28 shows ~ Rank 3 (neutral/default/meh) - 114 shows ~ Rank 2 (mid low) -33 shows ~ Rank 1 (low low but intriguingly so) - 14 shows ~ Rank 0 (iredeemably low) - 2 shows

This would make for a total of 211 TV shows overall. However, there are 57 shows within these list marked as "didn't finish" (typically meaning I quit on the very first or second episode - but log them still to keep a record that I at least had a brief view of them).

So my total of genuinely fully watched shows would be more 154. 211 Total, but a More Accurate Total of 154.

Counting them all and using the Total Number Of The List (211) -- that means roughly 9.5% of all total shows I have ever watched (or at least attempted to watch) have been Mostly Good, 13% have been Moderately Okay, 54% have been either entirely Forgettable or some mix of good + bad that lands them right in the Neutral Middle, 15.6% have been Mostly Bad, 6.6% have been Bad (but in an interesting way), and 0.9% have been Terribly Bad.

Additionally, I didn't even get past the first two episodes of about 27% of the total.

Sooo, discounting ones I didn't finish, my total TV shows ever watched in my life would be about 154 (maybe give or take a few, assuming I might have forgotten some from very long ago).

But instead of entire life, let's just say this is the total for 'About 20 Years' (so, not counting very early childhood when I likely wouldn't remember things I saw/have no detailed recollection of them (like for example, I'm sure at some point when I was like 4yrs old I must have seen an episode of Spongebob or something, but I have zero distinct memories of it, can't quote anything of it, and barely recall the premise - so I don't count it on the list, etc.)).

In that case, 154 divided by 20 would be roughly 7.7 shows a year.

Which is actually surprisingly low considering that I often have stuff on in the background for hours whilst I make sculptures and do costumes and stuff (maybe I should have also marked some distinction between 'things I fully paid attention to' and 'things I kind of half listened to whilst sculpting', but that would further split the categories too much probably lol), but I guess a lot of that is youtube videos or random documentaries, so .. eh.. maybe I get it being lower.

Now, doing the same thing for movies-

Movies ~ Rank 5 (highest) - 4 movies (3.4% of total) ~ Rank 4 (mid-high) - 12 movies (10.3% of total) ~ Rank 3 (neutral/default/meh) - 91 movies (78.4% of total) ~ Rank 2 (mid low) - 8 movies (6.8% of total) ~ Rank 1 (low but interesting) - 1 movie (0.8% of total) ~ Rank 0 (irredeemably low) - none in this category (0%)

That makes 116 for a Total (Actually Remembered) Movies Watched In Lifetime (Or At Least In 20 Years).

116 divided by 20 is roughly 5 or 6 movies a year (I feel this has probably been skewed though by adding everything since like elementary school onwards, as I remember a lot more movies from child/teen years.. Whereas, the past 3 years I feel like I've barely seen maybe even 5 movies?? lol). I also have "Didn't Finish" marked on 18 of them. Which means I quit halfway through about 15% of the total movies.

So, a for broader summary stuff..

I seem to be less forgiving to movies than tv shows, by far. Which makes sense to me, I guess, because I love elaboration and details, so "short form" things that only last an hour or two are often lost on me a bit. My biggest complaint with movies is indeed usually walking away just wishing there had been more exposition, more scenes where characters are doing nothing, more "mindless bantering" conversations, more Quiet Downtime and Lore Elaboration and so on lol, so... of course most 1-2hr films end up feeling a bit Not Enough To Draw My Interest/Nothingy to me.

If you count 5 and 4 as "like" and rankings 2 to 0 as "dislike", then for TV shows I at least somewhat liked 48 of them, and at least somewhat disliked 47 of them.. So it's almost exactly the same lol. I'm just about equally as likely to find something bad as I am to find something redeeming about it. But overall, the largest chance is that I just won't really care much for it at all and it will be tossed into the 'neutral' pile, forgotten forever. Movies have a bit better of a balance, "liking" 16 of them, and "disliking" only 9 of them. So I'm slightly more likely to enjoy a movie than to find it annoying - though still VASTLY more likely to just not find it anything in particular, possibly not even finishing it.

ANYWAY.. this is vague and literally pointless, but like I said, I just really find information fun. Like my document where I've rated every apple flavor I've ever tried (like 40 of them now?), or reviewed every oreo flavor (32?), or ranking data from my entire 10 years of Trying To Make Friends process (out of 100 people, roughly 8% chance of a moderate compatibility, 3% chance of high), or etc. etc.. I love to have random pointless things to analyze I suppose lol.

I doubt anyone tracks things in their life in this same exact way, but I'd be interested in hearing any at least somewhat similar data !!! (like, how many TV shows you watch a year on average, and what percentage of those you like vs. dislike (if you keep track of that sort of thing), etc.)). I guess it might be easier with movies, since I think some people use those websites where you curate a list of movies you've seen and you can rate them or something, so maybe the numbers are already available on those places. :0

[paulandjohn]

Release Dates for Ian Leslie’s upcoming book ‘John and Paul: A Love Story in Songs’:

UK Release: Mar. 27 2025

US Release: Apr. 8 2025

[rosesradio]

for the record librarians would be so fucking against the anti agenda

[vukovich]

I don't think the American Library Association is on Tumblr, so I'm sharing this. If you've had your work censored, you know the toll it takes.

Are you going to see names you really don't like on the list of banned authors? Yes. But you're also going to see Dr. Ibram X. Kendi and Judy Blume. And that should upset you more.

Be an adult about it.

--

From ala.org:

Banned Books Week, Sept 22-28, 2024

Dear Banned Author: Letter-Writing Campaign to Support Authors, Library Workers, and Educators

Dear Banned Author is a letter-writing campaign that encourages readers to write, tweet, or email banned or challenged authors during Banned Books Week and beyond to share what their stories mean to them. Hosted by the American Library Association, Dear Banned Author raises awareness of censorship while supporting the power of words and those who write them. Authors have also shared fan letters as support when there's a public challenge to their books.

The print and digital postcards provided for Dear Banned Author can also be used to let library staff and educators know that you value their work and support them.

Printable Postcards • Social Media Postcards • E-Cards • Print on Demand Postcards • In-Person Letter Writing Program Tips • Virtual Letter Writing Program Tips • Social Media Tips

Your local library may be hosting an in-person letter writing event.

[archivlibrarianist]

From this article:

"The article included photos of several handwritten lists of books that students have requested their libraries bring in. Normally, librarians would order these right away to keep students’ interests, as long they are a good fit for the collection. Now, librarians are holding onto these long lists in the hopes they can order them in the future — in the meantime, though, many students have gotten tired of waiting and stopped going to the library at all."

That's the goal. That's why they're doing this. Don't let them win.

[moonlight-prose]

i'm just gonna say it once, but those who believe booktok is getting "too political" clearly don't understand the history and meaning behind centuries of literature that led us to this point.

[thetimelordbatgirl]

....So maybe it isn't a coincidence that JK Rowling's pseudonym is after a guy who worked in conversion therapy, since she's now decided to just openly be pro-that!

[aahsoka]

absolutely fucking insane reply . they already bought the books you fucking dumbass ……….

‘those who want to expose their children to sex rape and incest’ thats not whats going on here .

[slingbees]

i had a vision of a contemporary fahrenheit 451 adaptation where the exaggerated wall sized television screens are replaced with an in universe version of tiktok to prove how stupid videos are and how virtuous and intellectual books are and in this universe i can finally fulfill my dream of becoming the fucking joker

[cosmicredcadet]

Y'all listen just because you learned something in school doesn't mean everyone else did. idk how y'all got this idea in ur heads that we all learned the same shit when literal book bans are happening in schools across the united states and certain subjects are being banned from ever being talked about. (do not even get me started on the fact different countries have different curriculum too) Like you cannot say "You guys obviously just didn't pay attention in school and are stupid because we all learned this" like you are ignoring like 50 other options as to why people may not have learned this ranging from poorly funded school to disabled kid getting shoved into special ed classes which are often notorious for mistreating their disabled students. I'm begging you all to understand the nuance of why certain skills and abilities aren't as widely spread as you assume they should be.

[nukenai]

idk I guess I'm tired of this attitude that if you're not constantly reading 9,000 page books or publicly critically analyzing the shows you're watching with huge essays, it means you don't actually engage deeply with material or you're somehow vapid and something something "consume product"

like man, stuff exists besides Media To Consume. Art is great and it's awesome. It's very cool to read books and like TV shows and movies. And not all of those need to be fuckin Citizen Kane. But it's awesome to like intense stuff too. But like yeah. You gotta have other stuff you do. I have lots of other stuff I do! Sometimes I don't even post on the internet about it!

So when I come online and post a bunch of Transformers or Gundam screencaps of some beautiful boy with the caption GOD I HATE HIS FUCKING FACE I'M GONNA CHEW HIS SKIN OFF GRRRR I AM SO IN LOVE it doesn't actually mean I don't have deeper thoughts than that. I'm just posting because I'm in my 30s and work 40 hours a week and just wanna watch a fun cartoon sometimes man.

geez

[writeraid]

wait a damn minute

DOES MOON KNIGHT COUNT AS A FLIPPING VAN HELSING VARIANT???