#Yes this is about Margaret Atwood

[tweedfrog]

You know that Margaret Atwood quote about how women can never escape male fantasies because you internalize them to such an extent that everything is a performance for men and you effectively become your own voyeur?

I kind of worry that social media has done that for every single person on earth.

[balrogballs]

You know the easiest way to not get doxed on Reddit is to not splash pics of yourself here out of confidence that you’re not well known enough to be recognized? Clearly you’re well known enough to be recognized at least by some people. **I** can recognize you, though I did not post it on Reddit. Doxing is horrible, but you should learn this lesson too, and share less identifiable information.

ok just got 5th text along these lines across the last couple of days at varying degrees of politeness so just picking out a short one at random to answer on public — yes, you’re absolutely right. 100%, i agree.

let the record show that i realised my part in it the moment i was directed to the post and saw it was my face that was recognised, believe me i have been beating myself up over it ever since, and am aware that i am at fault for treating a public website like closed socials 🙏🏽

less justification, more explanation is that i had been so used to self-curating a certain kind of public image in the activism days with the way i look/present myself and behave — obviously that had to switch off at once with the book, especially the whole barbie act, and with the first few ‘world lit’ events i did, i very soon understood why.

i def took anonymity here for granted after the initial increased scrutiny post that lindir anecdote had died down, esp as i’d shared it on a 10 follower blog at the time, assumed it was more of a silly tidbit than anything people would care enough to go looking for, let alone post all across the web, have public threads trying to scour over what i post and find stuff out even months after. frankly it’s less me not knowing re: internet safety and more me convincing myself that it was fine, and i can do what i used to without facing any repercussions.

anyway that’s all i’ll say on the matter, just letting it be known that dw, i am perfectly aware of my own culpability 👍🏽✨

[agapestricken]

margaret atwood, alias grace; slightly modified to say 'her' instead of 'his.'

[literaryvein-reblogs]

How to Write a Character

For creative writing to have as deep an impact as possible, you need to give the reader strong characters they can relate to on a personal level.

By borrowing from tried-and-true character archetypes and giving them your personal spin, you can create heroes, villains, and sidekicks that will affect your readers as if they were real people they knew.

Come up with a backstory

Crafting a backstory can help you flesh out an interesting character profile.

“When I’m dealing with characters,” says legal thriller author David Baldacci, “and I’m trying to explain somebody's situation and motivations, you have to look into their past, because [the] past always drives motivations.”

Ask what experiences your character had in elementary school or high school that shaped who they are today. Your character’s backstory can greatly inform your plot.

Develop a character arc

A character must evolve throughout a story.

“The character has to change,” insists crime fiction writer Walter Mosley. “The character doesn’t have to become better. The character doesn’t have to become good. It could be the opposite. He could start good and become bad. He could start off hopeful and end up a pessimist. But he has to be impacted by this world that we’re reading about.”

Plan out your storyline based on your character's goals and how achieving or not achieving them will change them as people. This sort of template can help anchor your narrative.

Do research

If you plan to set your story in a specific locale or period, do enough research to make your characters seem true to life and believable.

“What does it mean, for instance, in the Tudor era to be a male person?” asks Margaret Atwood, author of The Handmaid’s Tale. “What does it mean to be a female person? What do those things mean when they’re at different social levels?”

Empathize with your characters

No matter what the type of character you’re developing, try to find some reason you and your reader can relate to their internal conflict.

“You’re living with these people every single day for months at a time—in some cases, years at a time,” says acclaimed children’s author Judy Blume. “You had better feel for them. So, for me, yes, I have great empathy for them.”

When people can empathize with characters, they’re more likely to find them compelling.

Experiment with different approaches

If you usually write characters from a particular point of view (or POV), change things up to challenge yourself.

“Write about someone entirely through the eyes of their friends and family,” suggests journalist Malcolm Gladwell. “So do a profile of someone where you deliberately never talk to the person that you’re profiling.”

There are plenty of ways to craft compelling character descriptions—free yourself up to try new alternatives.

Give your characters flaws

To craft believable characters, you need to give them flaws.

“One, it makes the characters human, just by default, because everybody recognizes that we all have flaws and mistakes,” David says. “But two, it gives you plot elements and plot opportunities because somebody makes a mistake. Why? Because they’re flawed.”

Learn from real people

Pay attention to real people’s mannerisms, personality traits, body language, and physical appearances.

Do research, and be respectful, when you want to write characters with backgrounds that you are not familiar with. Become familiar with different people's cultures, sexual orientations etc.

Talking to people about their experiences will help form your character’s personality.

Let your characters surprise you

Character development can proceed down a host of different avenues.

“Spend a lot of time with your characters and getting to know them,” Judy suggests. “And the way that you get to know them can be different from the way I get to know them. But my way is: They don’t come alive until I write about them, until I put them down on paper.”

As you write, your character’s motivation or perspective might change from what you originally planned.

Play characters off each other

Ask yourself how a secondary character’s personality might thwart the main character’s motivation.

“One of the best ways, as I said, to develop a character is to put that character in relationship to another person,” Walter says. “So as they talk, as they fight, as they work together, we find out more about who they are and what they are.”

The character’s close friends, adversaries, and acquaintances might all have different effects on their behavior.

Take an organic approach

Over the course of the story, be ready for your characters to surprise you as much as the people you know in real life might, too.

Your characters may take on a life of their own.

Avoid static characters by letting yours have their own lives and personalities. Let their stories take you where they lead.

Source ⚜ Writing Notes & References ⚜ Writing Resources PDFs

[arthurs-better-half]

John and Yellow (Mirrors and Monsters)

Reblogs much appreciated 👍

1. Julio Cortázar, Los Reyes // 2. Malevolent - Part 23 // 3. Brené Brown, Daring Greatly // 4. Brutus - The Buttress // 5. Malevolent - Part 40 "The Order" II // 6. Minotaur Forgiving Knossos - Moonface // 7. Dawning Night by Joseph Feely / Malevolent - Part 1 / Malevolent Part 21 // 8. Joan Tierney, The Elektra Complex // 9. Malevolent - Part 24 // 10. Bad Sun - The Bravery // 11. Minotauro (Minotaur) by Jordi Garriga Mora (2007) // 12. Malevolent - Part 40 "The Order" II // 13. Margaret Atwood, Corpse Song // 14. Repeat Until Death - Novo Amor // 15. Malevolent - Part 40 "The Order" II // 16. The Calling - The Amazing Devil // 17. @autistic-evil-xisuma (sorry for the tag) // 18. Bad Bad Things - AJJ // 19. Marie Howe, The Affliction // 20. Malevolent - Part 40 "The Order" II // 21. Ragnarok III: Strange Meeting - The Mechanisms // 22. a conversation about identity - tea // 23. Malevolent - Part 40 "The Order" // 24. Requiem - Death Note Musical (English concept album) // 25. Richard Silken, The Long and the Short Of It (Annotated)

(Playlist of the songs included (Spotify))

ARIADNE Why do you fear him? He is my brother. MINOS A monster has no siblings.

YELLOW: But it was me. I-In a way. ARTHUR (sighing): John. YELLOW: He was... different than me.

I want to experience your vulnerability but I don't want to be vulnerable Vulnerability is courage in you and inadequacy in me. I'm drawn to your vulnerability but repelled by mine.

But why do I lie awake each night thinking "Instead of you, it should be me"? Something wicked this way comes And as I set to face it, I'm unsure Should I embrace it, should I run? What motivates me? Hatred? Is it love?

ARTHUR (sighing, pityingly): Yellow. He never will. You are trapped with him. Forever. JOHN: Trapped?

I was born into this We were all born You were born like a pearl We were all born

YELLOW (in awe): There's a building, with lights on.

ENTITY (surprised): Well. ARTHUR: What? ENTITY: Nothing. I, I just... the city is so alive.

YELLOW: I... appreciate the life I saw. I... am at a loss for words.

ENTITY: I... the city... the life that exists on every street corner. It's... so different than the Dark World I thought I would forever call home.

I tip my head like a dog at the window. The outside world is so interesting, and I am not a part of it; I'm just witnessing.

JOHN: It's nothing, Arthur. I'm just telling you that every time you call him a monster, you're forgetting that I am the same.

I don't know what's wrong with us They just made us this way There's a hole in you and me That pulls us together

JOHN: If killing Larson kills Yellow... ARTHUR: Then you'll be fine! Stronger, maybe. JOHN: Or. I don't know if I can survive with only half a soul.

I exist in two places, here and where you are

Don't go, you're half of me now But I'm hardly stood proud

JOHN: I know you can't promise me. I know you aren't sure. But... Yellow is a piece of me. Can you imagine having to destroy a piece of yourself? Even if it's a reflection of yourself you may not like!

I look into the waters and see a face I don't recognise Who's this (Who are you)

people always talk about evil clones like oooh a dark mirror oohh what if you saw what a cruel person you were/are capable of becoming. and well yes but what if you were the evil clone. what if you looked in the mirror and what you saw was so bright it blinded you. what if you had to know exactly how good you could have been.

So I looked into your eyes And I saw a reflection Of a coward that you and I both hate very much

And he: (and this was almost unbearable) he saw me see him, and I saw him see me.

ARTHUR (quietly): But we all have to face our demons. Even if they're ourselves.

[Verse 2: THOR, LOKI, & Together] Where are you going? For vengeance For love

You're losing in a staring contest With whatever's in your mirror You are me and I am you But we're not one and I'm inferior

YELLOW: I... I... (Quieter.) Why you, John? What did you have to offer? Why does he care about... you?

Gone, who was right or wrong Who was weak or strong Nothing left to learn

The question for this issue was Do you have a human soul and can you prove it? And, of course, there was no definitive answer.

[Tumblr has deleted progress on this like three times now so I'm posting it now while it's done before it can fuck it up again!!! And thank you @ghostnotoast for being so lovely here is the weave]

[sometimesoliloquy]

THT Is a Love Story

(Yeah I said it. And I'll tell you why.)

In the very bittersweet context of being in the middle of the final season, and with the knowledge of all the press notes/directional spoilers out there ramping up to the finale, I’ve been thinking a lot about The Handmaid’s Tale as a a whole. What it’s about, at its core, and what would accordingly make for a truly satisfying ending. Margaret Atwood’s novel, of course, has presented a disturbing and brilliantly crafted political commentary and cautionary tale since its debut in 1985: the bleak but ultimately hopeful story of an ordinary woman’s survival trapped in a cold and cruel extremist regime where human rights (and particularly women's rights) are a thing of the past, made possible by environmental ruin and the everyday apathy of ordinary people. The show is that too, of course. It’s also at it's core a story of loss, perseverance and ultimately revolution. But moreover what weaves all the themes together in a truly compelling way: I think at essentially the very heart (fittingly), it is a love story. Not just in the most obvious romantic sense, but on so many broader levels. It’s a love story of parents and children, of family (born and chosen), of human connection. It’s a love letter to the perseverance of the human spirit, the ability of the heart to expand and evolve, the triumph of light over dark in the soul and in the world at large. And dancing at the center of it from the very start (and enduring against incredible odds) has been Nick & June: yes, the very epitome of epic, passionate romance with a capital “R”, but also on a deeper level, the symbolic and tangible embodiment of all of the above.

I’ve also been reflecting a bit on some of the things the show’s writers and producers have been saying about the ending and the last season in general, like how it has been “crafted with viewers in mind more than ever” and focused on “delivering a rewarding conclusion for the audience.” They’ve also hinted at a purposeful harkening back to the very first season and touching on all the seasons in between. All of this would have me believe they are paying close attention to staying consistent with the repeated motifs of the show, and striving for satisfying, full circle cohesiveness AND catharsis in the end. With this in mind, I wanted to go back and explore how the ever-present and echoing theme of love is depicted through the words of the characters themselves. Namely here, a trio of major power players since the beginning: June, Nick, and (in the opposing corner) one Mr. Fred Waterford.

…

June:

"What else is there to live for?"… "Love." - 1x05 "It’s lack of love we die from." - 3x05 "Nichole, she was born out of love. Her father’s a driver named Nick… he helped me to survive." - 3x05 "It’s too dangerous” "No it isn’t… at least someone will remember me… at least someone will care when I’m gone. That’s something." - 1x08

June believes in love. This is made clear from the very beginning and is one of the core tenets of her character. It’s not a “nice to have” and it’s not something she’s able to separate from herself, even in Gilead, a place where love is essentially forbidden, where it should feel impossible. It is framed by her as essential to life itself, like water or oxygen. It’s what she credits her very survival to. Moreover, she believes that love is worth dying for, it’s that vital to her. If June stops fighting for love, stops believing in the power of or perhaps even the very existence of love, who is she then? How depressing and devoid of hope would that ending be? Sure, the June we bid farewell to at the end of 6x10 will inevitably not be exactly the same June we met in 1x01, but given the consistent through narrative, we should expect this core value of hers to remain steady, if not indeed grow in conviction.

...

Nick:

" Love is patient, love is kind... Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, endures all things. Love never fails." - 2x05

It’s fitting that it’s Nick who reads this passage in the show because perhaps more than any other character, Nick’s love throughout has been the very epitome of the verse. We’ve seen his actions play it out literally line by line. Nick knows his Bible verses. He picked this one for a reason, his (barely) coded Hail Mary message to June: I’m still here, this isn’t over, please don’t give up on us. Nick believes the words he reads to her, believes them to his very soul, and he continues to show it in his efforts season after season, demonstrating the constant and undying nature of his devotion. It’s notable that in fact, the full 13:8 verse reads "Love never fails, but where there are prophecies they will cease, where there are tongues they will be stilled, where there is knowledge it will pass away," emphasizing love as the one true thing that remains.

"I’m trying to keep you alive. You and our baby" - 2x02 “I’m trying to keep you alive" - 4x02 "I just want her to stay alive"- 4x03 "She changed you, she changed me" - 4x03

It’s Nick's love for June (and Nichole) that drives him more than anything else, and we see the real, tangible reverberations throughout the story. June and Nichole are safe, alive and free (at least in part) because of his love. Nick is changed because of this same love. And June’s love saves him from a life lacking in meaning, purpose and true connection. If Nick fully turns to "the dark side", if he becomes somehow irredeemable (particularly in June's eyes), it would negate in the cruelest and most nonsensical way all of this, and in one fell swoop rip to shreds the hopeful rainbow of his cumulative character arc.

...

Fred:

"Love isn’t real. it was never anything but lust with a good marketing campaign" - 1x05 “Every love story is a tragedy if you wait long enough." - 1x05

Fred on the other hand, scorns the idea of love. His cynical, contemptuous views are presented as the antithesis to June's quite early on. In rose-glass tinted flashbacks of early life with Serena, we see glimpses that this may not have always been the case, but what was once their love story has indeed turned to tragedy: corrupted into a bitter, twisted thing under the weight of the monster they created together. In the present, he does not believe in love and the selfish callousness of his actions (in stark contrast to Nick) clearly shows it, over and over again. To Fred, 1 Corinthians 13 is just a silly meaningless little verse (of no more consequence than the vapid old fashion magazines he "gifts" to June) in the book that he uses, not as a guide or an inspiration, but as a weapon: a cudgel to wield for his pathological ego-driven power trips, no matter how many must suffer (including his once beloved wife), how many innocent lives it ruins or much how it blackens his soul.

...

If in the final episodes Nick were to be exposed as a “true villain”  who ends up burning June (and in fact his soul) in favor of “power and prestige”, then Fred will have been proven correct all along, and we (like June) will have been stupid to ever believe in love.

- If Nick truly decides to throw away everything he's done, everything he's held close to his heart even at his own peril all these years, to remain in a dismal teeter totter of emotional pain and privilege in Gilead;

- If June refuses to forgive, to endure, to truly fight for Nick as he's fought for her;

- If they truly flame out in epic betrayal and irreparable rupture:

Then we will know love has failed. And Fred was right. Love doesn’t save, it destroys. Love doesn’t endure, because in fact it was never even real to begin with. Love isn't the ultimate reason and purpose, but a tragedy. A lie. 

That's not the story. That CAN’T BE the story. Fred doesn’t win. He was so dead wrong that he is now dead and buried for it. He eschewed love a long time ago and it warped him into a depraved, cruel shell of a human with acts so heinous under his belt that we all cheered as he was hunted down and the flesh savagely torn from his body, because he deserved it. 

No, this isn’t The Debased Delusional Small-Weak-Man Commander’s Tale. This is not the story of how Fred was right after all.

This story is love endures all things. This story is love never fails. This story is love lifts us up, love saves us and gives us the will to fight. And that (someday) a child conceived in love in this brutal place and saved by the love of her parents will unite with her long-lost but dearly loved sister to burn it to the ground.

They may want the viewers to believe that it’s possible for Nick to be irrevocably lost for the drama of it all; for the shock of the reveal, the reckoning and the emotional payoff when the ship rights itself. And I’ll keep my clown makeup handy in case I end up being astonishingly wrong, but I just can’t see how they would so blatantly, not just blow up the story, but in doing so essentially erase the very core of the story we’ve been told up til now.

(just look at them, don't you fucking dare break up this family for good!)

*screencaps/captions sourced by me*

[otp-after-dark]

Don’t Let the Show Gaslight You: This ending violates Margaret Atwood’s book canon — and the version we were meant to believe in

Let’s be clear about something the show wants you to forget: The Handmaid’s Tale was never a story about clean resolutions. It was never a morality play. It was a study in power — in its cruelties, yes, but also in its ambiguities. In its intimacy. In its emotional violence. In the quiet, impossible choices we make when the world collapses around us.

And that’s why this ending — the flat, bloodless disintegration of June and Nick’s story — doesn’t just feel wrong. It is wrong. It contradicts the book’s text, its themes, and its most radical truths.

Forgiveness Is Power — and June Used to Know That

Margaret Atwood was clear:

“Forgiveness too is a power. To beg for it is a power, and to withhold or bestow it is a power, perhaps the greatest.”

June knew this once. She wielded it. She asked for it. She extended it. She forgave Serena Joy. She gave grace to Luke — again and again — even when he failed her. She forgave herself, even, for the choices she made in Gilead — the violence, the darkness, the guilt.

But when it came to Nick?

She withheld everything in the end. No empathy. No reckoning. No conversation. Just silence.

The man who risked his life to smuggle letters. The man who orchestrated Fred’s death so she wouldn’t have to live with that weight alone. The man who never once condemned her, even when she chose others, even when she let him go. And she gave him nothing.

Atwood never wrote June as a woman who hoarded her pain to punish others. She wrote her as someone who understood that in Gilead, choice was the most dangerous act — and that to love, and to forgive, was a radical reclaiming of power.

The finale doesn’t honor that. It strips June of her emotional intelligence. It tells us that withholding love is somehow strength. That to walk away from Nick is righteousness — when in fact, it’s regression and not something June would ever do.

The Human Heart Remains a Factor: Nick Was Always the Most Loyal Character

The show wants to reframe Nick as someone June needs to let go of. Someone who chose Gilead. Someone too complicit to be worthy of her love.

But the book — the original canon — says otherwise.

“More likely it was ‘Nick,’ who, by the evidence of the very existence of the tapes, must have helped ‘Offred’ to escape.”

“He may well have brought about his own downfall. This too we shall never know.”

Book Nick is not some passive protector. He is not a mistake. He is not a symbol of regret.

He is the reason Offred survived.

He was Mayday. He was Eyes. He was double-agent, lover, protector, insurgent. He was complicated — yes. But he chose her, again and again, even when it could kill him.

And if you strip away the show’s last few episodes, Nick was always that man.

The man who told her “I should have run away with you.” The man who made sure Fred would never hurt her again. The man who walked away from Lawrence, from Rose, from safety — and offered her Paris.

You can argue with how the show wrote him in the final moments, but you can’t argue with the truth:

“The human heart remains a factor.”

Atwood’s Love Was Complex, Sexual, Messy — and That Was the Point

The show used to know this. Early seasons let June be a mother, a fighter, a lover, and a woman all at once. It showed us that love in captivity isn’t always clean — but it’s real, and it’s resistance.

Atwood wrote:

“The more difficult it was to love the particular man beside us, the more we believed in Love, abstract and total. We were waiting, always, for the incarnation. That word, made flesh.”

Nick was the incarnation.

Not the symbol. Not the abstraction. The real, flesh-and-blood man who made her feel human in a world designed to erase her.

And now? The show tells us that choosing that kind of love is a mistake. That real, layered, flawed connection must be sacrificed for a clean narrative arc.

But Atwood never asked her characters to be clean. She asked them to be honest.

So No — Don’t Let the Show Gaslight You.

Don’t let Season 6 convince you that June became stronger by letting go of the only man who actually saw her. Don’t believe for one second that Nick wasn’t worthy. Don’t let them twist “complex” into “corrupt,” or “flawed” into “irrelevant.”

Because in the book — in the real canon — June didn’t stop loving him. She didn’t walk away from him. She didn’t even want to escape the regime without him.

“The fact is that I no longer want to leave, escape, cross the border to freedom. I want to be here, with Nick, where I can get at him.”

That’s who she was. And that’s the ending I believe in.

Not the one where she stands still and lets him go. Not the one where she forgets what it means to choose. Not the one where she forgets that forgiveness — like desire — is a power all its own.

[bitterkarella]

Midnight Pals: The Sower

Octavia Butler: Submitted for the approval of the midnight society, i call this the tale of the parable of the sower Butler: the parable of the tale of the sower Butler: the tale of the sower Butler: boy that's really not working

Butler: for this story, i think it's time to look to the future Poe: the future? Butler: yes the far distant future Butler: of 2024

Butler: so in the future of 2024 Butler: a christo-fascist government comes to power over a crumbling America bedeviled by climate change and wealth disparity King: Poe: Koontz: Barker: Butler: now you may be asking Butler: how did she know? Poe: how DID you know?

Butler: an America falling apart, states are their own military dictatorships, police are corrupt King: that's crazy that you're so good at predicting America's future King: it's like you live in America or something!

Poe: for real, how are you doing this? Barker: eh i'm not impressed Baker: i feel like predicting the rise of a christo-fascist government in a crumbling America bedeviled by climate change and wealth disparity is pretty much a gimmie

Butler: ok fine Butler: but what if this christo-fascist government comes to power using the slogan "make American great again" Barker: Barker: ok yeah that's impressive Poe: how ARE you doing this??

Butler: simple Butler: i simply looked at the America of the present day Butler: and asked myself what would the future look like King: that's good! i gotta make a note of that King: anyone got a pen? King: these writing tips are gold!

King: that is seriously incredible King: some scary accurate predictions! King: why is everyone always talking about Margaret atwood's predictions? these are way better! Barker: yeah these leave Margaret atwood in the dust! Barker: like, there's no comparison! Margaret Atwood [under cardboard box, through vocoder]: beep boop :(

Margaret Atwood: [under cardboard box, through vocoder] beep boop i am predict-o-tron, the robot that predicts the future Barker: oh we're not interested in that anymore Margaret Barker: your predictions are all so obvious Margaret Atwood: [under cardboard box, through vocoder] beep boop :(

Barker: but go ahead Barker: give us one now Barker: if it makes you feel better Atwood: [under cardboard box, through vocoder] beep boop reproductive health will be threatened by conservatives Barker: oh damn wow Barker: you must have fuckin crystal ball to come up with that one! Poe: clive Barker: oh come on edgar we all saw that one coming

Butler: anyway this christofash government in a collapsing dystopian America only lasts one term Butler: then they vote him out Barker: wait, they still have elections in this collapsing dystopian America? Butler: oh yeah Butler: yeah i mean why not?

King: this is a real downer King: can we hear some future predictions that DON'T come true? Diane Duane: i have some stories about the utopian post-scarcity star trek future King: no i meant like King: bad things that don't come true King: not good ones :/

[lullydoesstuff]

- TOP DYSTOPIAN BOOKS -

Well, since I want to use this blog for personal stuff too and not just for requests or stuff concerning my MANY Demon Slayer AUs, here we are talking about some of my favourite books ever.

I love dystopian ones so these three will be very hard-core, I love the Hunger Games, I love Maze Runner, I love 1984 but these three just hit different.

Let's not lose time and let's begin!

3 - Tender is the Flesh (Augustina Bazterrica)

I decided to start with a book that has arrived in my country just this year, I didn't know about it before and I'm so glad I red it, even if it really disturbed me... do you know what the Promised Neverland is? Well, take it but make it Supersayan. And this is the less disturbing one here.

Plot: Marcos works in the meat industry, he always did but recently a virus started spreading, and animals couldn't be edible anymore so what does the government do? They start searching for vegan replacements? NO! They legalize cannibalism. Marcos has a troubled life, his father has gone mad since this "transition" from animal meat to human meat and his wife left him after they lost their son. He works in the meat industry but he swears to himself that he's not like the others, because he doesn't eat meat.

I know what you're thinking, "but this is a book to bring people close to veganism, it's the whole point"... no, congratulations, you didn't understand ANYTHING. This book is way more complex, this because it's about the line that divides humanization/objectification, and this will be a recurring theme in this post.

This book is full of gore (what did you expect?), graphic descriptions, violence, sexual violence so I don't know if I recommend this book to everyone, it's very short but be aware of this if you decide to read it. In any case, the plot is very interesting and it's very well written.

2 - The Handmaid's Tale (Margaret Atwood)

I'm sure many of you have seen the TV series, I've seen it too and it's one of the few cases I say that the series is better than the book, maybe because the series has a more modern setting and so I can actually be terrified by it.

Plot: the world has been almost destroyed by wars and this caused the birth to decrease to 0, and what happens in America? After a coup a new government is instituted... a totalitarian theocracy where religious confessions that aren't Christianity are banned, let's fucking go, this new country's name is Gilead. In this new world women have an only job: being literal baby machines given to rich families to have children.

This is so damn disturbing because, the insemination thing is wild, the man reads a Bible verse from Genesis, and then he just... does it. It's gross, go check for yourselves, human butchering was nothing compared to this.

We follow June, an Handmaid and we just see how things work in this new... amazing... world... I guess.

1 - Unwind (Neal Shusterman)

This deserves the first place, I've never stopped reading a book I loved because it disturbed me too much. I wanted to support the author, he's very good, so I bought all the other books from the Unwind distology... but I finished the first one and never red the second one, please tell me in the comments if it isn't as disturbing as the first one so I can give it a chance or not.

Plot: in the USA a second civil war is fought, but that's not a war where you shoot people from aontoher country to conquer it, or to oppose the government (well... kinda), it's about reproductive rights, many discussions, many things but in the end people decree that you can't abort in any case (*Lully already screaming and tearing off her hair*) BUT you can... well... Unwind your child if you don't want them anymore. But just when he's from 13 to 18.

What does unwind mean? Basically you give your unwanted child to some clinics that literally vivisection them (yes, the person is awake during the process BY LAW) and give thier organs to people that need transplants.

Now you can easily understand why this is the number 1 in this list, it's the destructive combo between "Tender is The Flash" and "the Handmaid's Tale".

We'll follow the story of Risa, Connor and Levi (and this last one oh my God, I wanted to punch his family so bad), escaping their fate of being unwind.

And yes, that scene comes, yes, you will see a vivisection, and yes... you will feel physically sick and need to throw up after, you'll probably have nightmares and life crisis. Also because... the unwind isn't exactly one of the "good guys".

Ah, dear pro-life people that care about a bunch of unborn cells and can't distinguish a human embryo from a dolphin embryo... Read this book, then change your mind about other people's body and take choices just for yours, because it seems we're going back and not aiming foward as we should.

[akajustmerry]

"speculative fiction is where white people write about what white people do to people of colour being done to them" shut the FUCK up. 2 pioneers of the speculative fiction genre were Isaac Asimov and Octavia Butler. Asimov's work was deeply influenced by his parents experiences as Russian Jewish immigrants in the early 1900s. Butler's body of work is foundational to the genre and is deeply rooted in Black American history, culture, and resistance. Yes, there are speculative fiction works like The Handmaid's Tale that are very white centric and appear to arguably appropriate the oppression of POC onto white people. But acting like that's the whole genre erases the pioneering contributions made by Jewish authors and authors of colour and if any of you bothered to research the genre beyond known TERF Margaret Atwood's body of work, you'd know that.

[spritecranverry]

Woe, asexuality essay be upon ye (snippet under the cut)

I’m actually not super invested in ‘proving’ to anyone that being ace is “queer”. I released the burden of proving it a long time ago.

It makes no difference whether you’d put your flag next to ours in the face of our collective lived experiences, which are clearly incongruent with what a society that imposes cisheterosexuality wants from us.

However, I think that this text message is where asexuality becomes clearly demarcated as a queer way of being. To understand this is to imagine what I like to call The Boundary: an invisible force field I just made up where cis-hetero-patriarcho-capitalism (we should really come up with a shorter word) stops you at the door. Well, I’ve already slammed into it a couple times: I don’t like men; that is to say I rarely think about them, broadly. I think the ‘man in my head’ Margaret Atwood was talking about must’ve died of malnutrition up there. I also don’t really fuck with the gender binary. But supposedly the opening in the barrier that every gender identity and sexual orientation can waltz through no-questions-asked is that of sex. That is, having it and actively desiring to have it.

[crunchycrystals]

i wanna get into more classics so

no other option bc i have a whole list like this is maybe half of the books on that list and i may make another poll at some point lol

info about my reading tastes if you want that: i mostly stay in the lane of YA fantasy or contemporary, but books a little closer to this genre that i have loved are anxious people, little women, a midsummer nights dream, this is how you lose the time war, babel, and seven husbands of evelyn hugo. yes these aren't really close to the books on this list but maybe this will help if you've read one of these and think i might love something in the poll

[eightglass]

do you have any book recommendations? nonfiction or fiction. i'd love to hear what you've enjoyed reading!

!!

Books!!! I love them!!!

Uhh

I'm always a big fan of science fiction! (loong so. under the cut)

I mean. There's always Star Wars, if you're into it. Best of those would be the three Thrawn trilogies (yes three trilogies) by Timothy Zahn. The old one (Heir to the Empire, Dark Force Rising, The Last Command) is literally sequels to the original movies, and they were canon (and awesome) before Disney did their shit. They are very good.

Adrian Tchaikovsky is a fantastic author! His Shards of Earth trilogy and Children of Time trilogy are some of the best scifi I've read! Completely different vibes though, but both are really good!

Uhh... If you want existential dread forever, read The Three-Body Problem trilogy. If you've ever heard of the Dark Forest solution to the Fermi paradox, these books are where it came from. (Or popularised/named it? idk.) They're also pretty good.

Everything by Becky Chambers. Wayfarers tetralogy, Monk and Robot duology, To Be Taught If Fortunate, all really good vibes. LGBTR (Little Gay Books To Read)

the Red Rising series by Pierce Brown.

The Locked Tomb trilogy by Tamsyn Muir! Wow! These are really good. Lesbian necromancers in space, and it makes sense. The narrators don't tell you anything either, because in book 1 the narrator doesn't know jack shit, in book 2 the 'narrator' gave herself a lobotomy, and the narrator in book 3 is six months old.

the MaddAddam trilogy by Margaret Atwood. Post-apocalyptic, but the pre-apocalypse was also a capitalism hellscape, so you don't feel too bad.

the Lilith's Brood trilogy by Octavia Butler is some of the BEST aliens scifi I've read holy shit. Seriously, read this.

The Book of Koli trilogy by M. R. Carey! 300 years after an environmental/war apocalypse. Written language has been forgotten, the bioengineered trees have further evolved to walk around and hunt humans (among other things), and the leaders of the remaining groups of humans have whatever top-of-the-line, self-repairing, and self-refilling infantry weapons from the war to use on each other.

A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine (two books out, dunno if there'll be a third). Ever wondered about a poetry-based interstellar empire? And what if it were gay?

The Andy Weir books. The Martian, Artemis, Project Hail Mary, those are good.

If you're more into YA scifi, then the Lunar Chronicles tetralogy and Renegades trilogy by Marissa Meyer are both fantastic, and the Aurora Rising and Illuminae Files trilogies by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff (collabs) are amazing!

Fantasy is also good! But I don't find myself reading very much of it.

First off: Discworld. I read 25 of 41 over the summer, and they are GOOD. https://www.discworldemporium.com/reading-order/

All of the Greishaverse stuff by Leigh Bardugo is pretty good, but the Six of Crows duology is really amazing.

The Cruel Prince trilogy by Holly Black! If you like fae stuff, but also urban fantasy and romance. Good books!

A Darker Shade of Magic trilogy by V. E. Schwab, those are good! There's also a sequel series coming out atm.

OMG how can I forget the N. K. Jemisin books?? The Broken Earth trilogy is FANTASTIC. What if the Earth hated everyone and there were geology witches that are actually pretty awesome but everyone hates them? The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms trilogy is also really good. What if the gods were actually omnipotent, but sort of hated each other? And the Great Cities duology! What if New York City was a person (six people)?

As for less scifi-fantasy, I've read and really enjoyed:

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver, a retelling of David Copperfield, this time with the main character living/growing up in rural Appalachia during the opioid epidemic. Really, really good.

All of the Alice Oseman books of course.

One Two Three by Laurie Frankel

Webcomics! These were really fun and they're still ongoing! My favs are:

Questionable Content (yes, you can start at 2104). Just a bunch of young adults in Massachusetts doing random shit with varying degrees of gayness, eventually the singularity happens and there are robots (they're gay too)

Dumbing of Age Really, really good college story. Fundie girl goes to college and learns about how the world actually works, varying amounts of gayness, horrible very bad parents, and three dramatic character deaths by the end of the first semester.

Gunnerkrigg Court weird scifi fantasy stuff going on all the time, big mysteries, omnipotent trickster god. The art style improves a LOT.

Web serials (if you want to be consumed by a piece of literature that's easily over a dozen normal books in length)

Worm. 1.6 million words. This consumed me from July to September. Good god. Some of the very best superheroes and superpowers, like, ever, beautiful fight scenes, and conflict escalation that does. not. stop. The poor characters never get a break between crises and catastrophes. But by Scion it is one of the best things I've ever read. Don't look up anything about it, the spoilers are insane. And there's a sequel that's even longer.

Uh.. I've started Katalepsis

[nanamoonnight]

we should teach our daughters how to be women.

i hate the sound of this, but i think it is absolutely necessary.

patriarchy is our reality that we cannot flee, no matter how hard we try. margaret atwood was right: in every woman there is a little man watching a woman.

» male fantasies, male fantasies, is everything run by male fantasies? up on a pedestal or down on your knees, it's all a male fantasy: that you're strong enough to take what they dish out, or else too weak to do anything about it. even pretending you aren't catering to male fantasies is a male fantasy: pretending you're unseen, pretending you have a life of your own, that you can wash your feet and comb your hair unconscious of the ever-present watcher peering through the keyhole, peering through the keyhole in your own head, if nowhere else. you are a woman with a man inside watching a woman. you are your own voyeur. «

— margaret atwood, the robber bride

» men act and women appear. men look at women. women watch themselves being looked at. this determines not only most relations between men and women but also the relation of women to themselves. the surveyor of woman in herself is male: the surveyed is female. thus she turns herself into an object of vision: a sight. «

— john berger, ways of seeing

» yes, my consuming desire is to mingle with road crews, sailors and soldiers, barroom regulars—to be a part of a scene, anonymous, listening, recording—all this is spoiled by the fact that i am a girl, a female always supposedly in danger of assault and battery. my consuming interest in men and their lives is often misconstrued as a desire to seduce them, or as an invitation to intimacy. yes, god, i want to talk to everybody as deeply as i can. i want to be able to sleep in an open field, to travel west, to walk freely at night... «

— sylvia plath, the unabridged journals of sylvia plath

he makes me sick. he is with me every step of the way, and he makes me envy men. he makes me envy how they can exist without thinking, how they can live in the moment. we in turn are locked in our heads. my body is my doom, the prison of my mind. i used to be unaware of my being a woman — seeing things as they are not, believing in an utopia that they use to pacify us, a lie, convinced of my innocence being mirrored by the world — but as i grow older, it has irrevocably come to haunt me.

now, i stand next to the little man. he comments my bodies every action, my every thought, and surrounded by blood and flesh, i look at him in awe — wondering how i could not regognize him as a young girl. wondering how i was scared of monsters under my bed, when the real horror has been accompanying me all along.

he glances at me, condescendingly. my heart beats hard, cracking my ribcage. oh, the shame. my most private and personal realm, my mind, is not mine in the end. i do not have the map, he took i from me before i knew it was there, rendering me unable to navigate myself. this is the shame of having made a mistake before moving. boys get second chances — i am not even allowed one. condemned from the start.

his gaze makes me feel violated. nausea... he has been here forever. in my head, where i just arrived, finally stepping into consciousness and maturity, the place that was supposed to be my triumph, but he took it away from me.

he is standing there so confident, so aware, and his mere presence is mocking me. i feel guilty for being ashamed, not because it is justified, but because i am a woman. and we feel guilty for every action and non-action.

and the most terrible part is that i didn't know. i was looking forward to this day. to growing out of girlhood and becoming a woman.

the most terrible part is that is have always been one, just as he has been staring through my eyes from inside forever. i was never myself. i have never looked at anything. my eyes aren't mine. i was destined to be restricted by womanhood from the very first time my eyelids opened to the sight of the world.

i am not a person. i am a woman.

the sheer horror of realizing that my individuality has not merely been taken away but never even existed to begin with makes me faint, leaving him alone and powerful.

this is how it is. and i don't think we can change it.

i am not a godess, nor a murderer, no matter how badly i'd like to be one.

it is impossible to stand above this. our mothers can try, but they will never be able to elevate us into heavens and save us from womanhood. even though we can never be just human, we are human.

our mothers can try, but being a woman cannot be unlearned.

our conscience is not free, we carry the weight of centuries full of opression in our hearts. the collective unconscious of a woman is trauma, trauma that connects us to each other and sets us apart from men.

not shaving, only wearing masculine clothes, upsetting the male gaze — all of this is reasonable to do. we should do absolutely everything that makes us feel better about our constant violation by this injust world. i would argue that a woman who adapts to patriarchy and changes to be loved by men (in spite of it being impossible), even if it is only as a sex object, acts reasonably — as long as she is aware of it.

awareness is the crucial necessity.

because we should not live an illusion. they will never understand our pain and our reality. no man is able to overcome his maleness and comprehend what women have gone trough.

i can stop shaving, i can refuse to wear pink, i can be a construction worker instead of a pretty secretary that is more of a decoration, appreciated in the same way someone would appreciate a pretty vase, a thing. but believing that this makes me less of a woman and thus more of a person is an illusion.

we hurt ourselves if we try to escape womanhood.

our mothers can try, but being a woman cannot be unlearned — that is why they should teach us how to be women instead.

men can never understand women, but i strongly believe that we can understand men. merely because they are what we aren't — it is a simple substraction. i know what not being able to walk fearlessly at night feels like, thus i must know what the opposite means.

we should teach our daughters every lesson that we wish we'd learned.

my mother tried to open heavens golden gates for me singlehandedly. and i tried being a godess, i tried squeezing through the door, i really did! i used to feel guilty for failing, but i know now that it was impossible from the very start.

i don't blame my mother. she wanted me to achieve what she couldn't achieve, to not be suffocated by womanhood, but instead i felt suffocated by the shame of not acting like a woman, and now i try not to recreate her fate. i try to break the cycle, for she has paved my way.

how?

by teaching our daughters every lesson that we wish we'd learned.

i will teach my daughter how to shave. how to use makeup and how to dress up. i will teach her every cliché and stereotype and the history of female opression. but! i will tell her that it is a cliché. a stereotype. our reality.

she has to know. she has to be aware of her womanhood, for even if the pain can't be reduced, i can tell her to expect it.

and she will know how to navigate this world.

she will not faint of pain, she will not let them see her shame. she will know of the map, keep it. and she will not be a godess, and she will not be a murderer, she won't lead a senseless revolution but instead know how to please the men. she will achieve as much as possible by only changing her way of acting minimally. the men will not notice, deeming their cruel system that has been there all along, the system that they don't feel weighing them down constantly but take for granted, safe, and suddenly, she's standing a little closer to the little man in her own head.

and she will not be a godess, and she will not be a murderer, she won't lead a senseless revolution but instead teach her daughter everything she knows about being a woman.

and her daughter, my grandchild, will know this and she, too, will take another step to stand a little closer to the man. and she will teach her daughter, and it will go on and on, and someday, we are going to stand victorious.

we will be so close to the man that we melt into him. we take the final step into his position and he will be gone and we will be left standing. and we will smile, slowly and then all at once, looking to the side at the row of women who took their steps before we took ours. shadows, ghosts.

we will have overcome womanhood. and we'll have been godesses of our own heaven all along, the place where dead women go after dedicating their lives to this silent fight, to taking a well-measured step that is theirs alone.

the men will not realize — they are just human.

we should teach our daughters how to be women.

we should teach them so they can each change the definition minimally and in silence, so that someday, we stop being women... and become women instead. we will take on a new kind of womanhood that we defined ourselves.

and we will break our cages.

[figureitoutinthemorning]

Characters in retellings are not carbon copies of the characters in the works they’re based on. Sometimes all they share is a name or a vaguely similar vibe.

Look, say I’m writing a retelling of Jane Eyre (I’m not, just go with me on this). Let’s imagine I name the protagonist Jane, like in the original. At the end, Jane does not go back to my book’s equivalent of Rochester. She cuts all contact with him and ends the story hoping that their paths never cross again.

Now imagine someone reads this, and tells me that I do not understand the original text, and I am mischaracterising Jane, because she would never do what I had her do. But here’s the thing: I’m not mischaracterising her, because my Jane is not the same character as Charlotte Brontë’s Jane. I read the original. I understood it. And then I thought, ‘What if Jane was different?’

Even if I set it in 1800s Yorkshire, even if my Jane is still named Jane Eyre, even if the synopsis broadly remains the same, I’m still not mischaracterising Jane because it’s not the same book and she’s still not the same character. You could view her as a similar-looking descendent of Brontë’s protagonist, but she’s not her clone and isn’t meant to be. Maybe my Jane dyes her hair purple or decides to take ballet lessons. Would Brontë’s Jane do that? No, I expect not, but again, it doesn’t matter, because we’re not talking about that Jane.

So, the next obvious question would be, why not write a completely different book? Why call it a retelling? Well… because I wanted to. You don’t have to like it, but you can’t tell authors what to write just because you’d prefer they did it your way. Or rather, you can, but why should they care?

‘But you’re not engaging with the themes of the original text,’ you might argue, and maybe I’m not. Maybe I’ve chosen to use that text as a jumping-off point to engage with entirely new themes. Or maybe I’m handling the original themes in a way that isn’t to your taste. The thing is, no one’s forcing you to read it.

Then again, maybe I did miss the point! Maybe my version lacks what makes the original so compelling and offers nothing in its place! But, again, you’re not being held at gunpoint and made to read it (and if you are, my shallow, missed-the-point retelling is the least of your worries).

What it all comes back to is you can’t really mischaracterise your own original characters, no matter how similar they are to a character from a novel in the public domain or to a character from a fairytale or myth.

This post is about… every retelling ever, to be honest. But I remember reading a review of a Persephone retelling (yes, apparently I am about to kick that particular wasps’ nest) and the reviewer said something like ‘the author doesn’t understand Demeter. Demeter wouldn’t act like that.’ And no, Demeter from the myths probably wouldn’t act like that (whatever ‘that’ was, it’s been months, I don’t remember), but we’re not dealing with Demeter from the myths! We’re dealing with this author’s character.

I mean, you know that Merlin from the BBC show of the same name and Merlin from the Disney movie The Sword in the Stone are different characters. So why would you think that either of them are the same character as Merlin from the Arthurian legends?

I could keep giving examples, but you take my point. It’s just odd to me that so many people don’t seem to grasp this.

I’m not saying ‘don’t criticise things you don’t like’ — I get that complaining can be fun. But some things are just not worth getting upset about.

And yeah, these are bold words coming from someone who will bitch about The Penelopiad by Margaret Atwood until the cows freeze over (I know what I said), but at least I know I’m a massive hypocrite.

[bitterkarella]

Midnight Pals: A New Scam

L Ron Hubbard: hey friends its me again, your old pal Honest Ron Poe: what's your scam this time ron Hubbard: i'm hurt, friend, hurt! Hubbard: i'm just an honest merchant, a purveyor of quality goods, services, and occasional religions!

Poe: ron every time you come here you've got some new scam Poe: we're not falling for it again Poe: right guys? King: that's right Koontz: yeah! Barker: we're not that stupid Lovecraft: not this time ron! Hubbard: well i just happen to have this machine that'll put a star on your belly

Hubbard: are you feeling blue, friend? melancholy? down in the dumps? Hubbard: [holding colander] listen friends i got the cure for what ails you Poe: how does it work? Hubbard: you just put it on your head and, bzzt, presto! Hubbard: all your thetans are cleared out!

Hubbard: i'll demonstrate for ya Hubbard: i just need a volunteer from the audience Hubbard: you, sir! Hubbard: now you you've never seen me before right? Jack Parsons: uh yes that is correct Poe: then how come his face is on the colander? Hubbard: Parsons:

Hubbard: you're the worst shill I've ever seen, parsons! Hubbard: you're a disgrace to whole patent religion business! Hubbard: this isn't working, i need a new scam Hubbard: hmm what's this AI thing I've been hearing about

Hubbard: step right up, step right up Hubbard: are you tired of the rat race? tired of always writing stories using boring old human ingenuity? Hubbard: is your writing too sparkling? too vital? too inspired? Hubbard: well i got the cure for you right here Hubbard: an endless fire hose of tasteless gray slurry

Poe: how does it work? Hubbard: it's simple! Hubbard: [readying hose] just open wide

Hubbard: take a spin on our patented, bona fide, genuine AI chat bot and you'll agree: I'll never read human-produced art again! Margaret Atwood: [under cardboard box, through vocoder] beep boop plagiarism-o-tron lives

Hubbard: soon all the publishers will be using plagiarism-o-tron Hubbard: archaic things like human writers will be a thing of the past! Poe: no one will want to read this garbage! Hubbard: thats ok, human readers will be a thing of the past too! Hubbard: just robots writing for robots

Hubbard: with this new genuine, bona fide AI you'll never have to pay a writer EVER again-- Harlan Ellison: [instantly appears, smashes plagiarism-o-tron with one blow] HARLAN SMASH!!!

Hubbard: okay okay i can take a hint Hubbard: seems you folks don't like AI Hubbard: don't worry, don't worry, i got a million of 'em Hubbard: how bout some beanie babies? pokeman cards? princess diana commemorative plates?