#i cannot make a tiktok post for my book that uses that trend it feels sacrilegious!!!

[zafiro-anyejo]

WHY is the mcwexler theme song trending on tiktok???

[cd-covington]

Two questions for you, if you don't mind!

I'm working on a story that's set in a future version of the real world. Can you give me any advice on how modern languages might change going forward? Are there any sort of "trends" in phonology that might continue?

Also, the world consists of several post-human races that have differentiated to fill ecological niches. Some look and act more like buffalo, others like arthropods, et cetera. I want them to all speak different [accents?|dialects?] of the same language, but I'm having trouble keeping consistent the sounds that each race can or can't make. It's also difficult to make them feel unique without restricting their vocabulary down to only a few phonemes. Do you have any advice on developing phonetic restrictions?

Hi literal-bot! Thanks for your questions!

Predicting language change is extremely difficult. Language change occurs in all aspects of a language, including sound/phonetics, semantics, inflection, and vocabulary. We can describe what a language looked like at a previous point in time and compare it to itself at another point in time, or compare related languages to each other at the same point in time. (Assuming that we have written material for all of them. The oldest texts that are more than inscriptions on tools or stones that we have for the Germanic languages date to the 9th century CE. Except the Gothic Bible, which dates to the 4th century, but Gothic is the only attested East Germanic language, and that entire branch is extinct. Then there’s 500 years of, like, “I built this stone in honor of my son who died at sea��� or nothing at all.) Since you asked about sound change, that’s what I’ll focus on here. Also, I can only speak with any expertise about the Germanic languages (mainly German, but you can’t avoid learning about English if you study linguistics in the US), so specific examples will vary if you’re talking about, say, French or Māori or Mandarin. I have plans to cover this extensively in my book, and a full discussion would be way too long for a tumblr post, so this is going to be more superficial than I would like.

Sound change can occur with consonants. That’s why English has day, Norwegian, Danish, and Swedish have dag, and German has Tag. It’s also why the Germanic languages have fish and brother, but Latin and its descendents have piscis and frater. (And then there’s Swiss German.)

Vowels can also change, of course. There were vowel changes that occurred before the Germanic peoples had writing that gave Germanic languages the historical [o] sound in brother (that has since shifted further in the West Germanic languages) instead of the [a] sound in Latin frater. The Great Vowel Shift is why English spelling makes no god damn sense.

There are several sound changes occurring in US English right now, as well as a wide variety of regional variations. (UK, Australian, and New Zealand Englishes also have their own sets of vowel changes and regional variations that I am not expert in and cannot discuss.) You could take any of these and make them the dominant variation in your future society.

The most notable sound change is referred to as the Northern Cities Vowel Shift, and it could be the next big thing. The first step was documented in the 1960s (but probably started in the 1930s), a tensing and raising of the [æ] vowel in trap to something more like trep, and there are now 6 documented shifts.

Another major ongoing vowel change is the cot/caught merger. (If you pronounce these two words the same, congratulations – you have the merger, like most North Americans! I do not.) Regional variations in vowel sound include monophthongization in the South (I –> ah) and the pin/pen merger.

I’ve been noticing a couple things when I watch movies or peer-reviewed tiktoks or when I talk to people, and I don’t know if they’ve been studied yet. The first is a tensing of the /i/ vowel in words like king or going to sound more like an /e/, like keeng or goeeng. I don’t have any data on who’s doing it, so I can’t speculate on what region it comes from or how old the people who do it are. If nobody over 20 is doing it, it’s a more recent change than if the cutoff is 40. But I heard it from grad school friends who were in their mid-20s at the time (five years ago), so it’s not SUPER recent.

The other thing is super cool to me, because it parallels the first Germanic sound shift. The [k] sound in words like cool or clear is becoming more heavily aspirated and maybe even becoming a fricative. Which is exactly what happened like 2000 years ago! First, what is aspiration? Aspiration is the presence of a puff of air when you release a stop, like /p t k/. Put your hand in front of your mouth and say top. You’ll feel a little puff after the /t/ and /p/.  Second, what’s a fricative? That’s sounds like /s f h/, where the air moves through a constriction. So, the [k] is already aspirated because of how English works, but maybe it’s a little hard to distinguish sometimes, so you add a little extra /h/ to it, and eventually you get enough in there that it’s almost [x] – the sound in German ach.

So, phonologically speaking, ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Start with the pages I linked and pick something you like, then take it further. What happened in the past is likely to happen again. But on the plus side, whatever you decide, nobody can tell you you’re wrong. If you have institutional access (I do not), this reference encyclopedia looks amazing. If your outgoing language isn’t English, try searching for some variation of “ongoing sound change in X” until you find something.

Your second question overlaps slightly with one in my inbox (whose answer should go up on Friday), so I’ll have a more detailed answer then. But for now, here’s a VERY superficial preview (and I have about 5000 words on this in my current book draft, so this is the idk 200-word version of something that’s already a highly condensed version of half a semester of grad school, so, uh, I hope this makes sense.)

As you’ve already pointed out, mouth shape affects what sounds a creature can make. But real-world linguistics only studies human speech, for obvious reasons, so what do you do when a bison gains language? One thing you can do is sketch out their vocal tract and figure out which human sounds just aren’t accessible to them. How muscular are their lips/jowls? Will they be able to round or purse them to make /oo/ sounds? Will labiodentals ([f v]) be possible?

I like the way this graphic shows the human vocal tract over the IPA chart, because it puts the two things right next to each other. It doesn’t explain what the articulations are, but this (very dry) page does. So you have your human vocal tract and your sketch of your non-human vocal tract (to the same scale), and if you overlay them, you’ll find places that can make interesting differences in what speech sounds are or aren’t available between one species and the other.

If you think this is interesting, consider backing my Kickstarter, where I’ll be writing a book about how to use linguistics in your worldbuilding process. Or if tumblr ever sorts out tipping for my account, leave me a tip.

[secret-ssociety]

a great part to being latin american, I think, is finding your culture somehow absorbed in americanisms. and I mean, being latin american, not 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, etc. gen immigrant in the US, not knowing more than a few words in your parents' language and only having picked up that part from your identity when being latino became a trend on tiktok and only to the extent you could look a little like Maddy from Euphoria listening to Selena Quintanilla.

no. I mean growing up in the streets of México City in houses that aren't made of clay on top of an ancient aztec cemetery, as if all our continent wasn't itself an indigenous burial ground. I mean having deep within your veins the knowledge that fabelas are much more inclement than they look on whatever action movie that takes place around the carnival of Río. I mean squinting at the sight of Bogotá being presented as a tropical yet slightly desert-like town as if the city wasn't so cold it has its own type of flu.

I mean having the deep post-colonial experience of placing your forearm next to the mestizaje page of the history text book and think your skin colour is enough to tell the recipe of your mix. I mean that weird sense that all definitions of communism for us can't not be ambiguous because all the left wing leaders that have rised to power have been mysteriously killed and the ones who have succeeded are so bizarre they almost look like a satirical comedy on real life.

I mean looking for representation in cinema or literature and only finding the works of american authors who feel the need of advertising the fraction of latin blood on their veins (because only unbeknownst colonized people put percentages to their bloodline) who tell stories of a character with light brown skin who understands their parents' spanish but can't respond in the same tongue and live through the most whitewashed version of our myths, because for some reason la Llorona decided to pack her dead children into bags and move to Boston.

I know that the narrative of the immigrant and their children is important, but the narrative of the ones who stay is also important and it is strange to feel the need to say that latin people exist outside of the united states.

maybe this neo colonial rage comes from watching Encanto and having the deep colombian urge to gatekeep it from everyone whose ignorance could ruin it, but that urge was followed by the realization that I don't know enough about my own identity to know what I'm gatekeeping, because I'm looking for books of my land in articles written in english and that itself is proof that I, too, have fallen for it. raised by disney channel and nickelodeon, I have nurtured from my culture on the same level a white individual consumes from it.

and once I see the voice I've acquired, I cannot unsee it: it is my cousin who was born in the capital of vallenato, child to a woman from the very home of cumbia, who now as an adult dismisses all the music of his homeland because it could never offer him the same that Eminem offers him. it is my old friend who thinks watching the victoria's secret runway rubs off of her skin the wayúu ancestry.

and while I'm in this process of educating myself in art and wonder, I can't help but notice that out of all my stories, it is the ones which have a deep latin american influence, the ones filled with references to our culture that have the less engagement, almost as if they had passed under the radar.

and that angers me.

it angers me to the point I want not to write another character who wasn't born and raised in my country ever again, to the point I want to fill all my stories with hints that make everyone who reads them have to learn about the bloodiness of our myths, about the curses of our soil and the silent pains we inherit, to the point nothing I ever write can be read without the knowledge of how latin american magical realism has evolved into the gothic spectrum.

it angers me to the point I want to yell to everyone that the bandits that displaced the Madrigals from their village had a political affiliation that can't be ignored, that abuelo Pedro was murdered in a river because that's where we find our dead, that Macondo is and can only be in Colombia because the banana republic wasn't in central america.

it leads me to a state of wrath that I want to scream in people's faces about the Manigua, the spirit of the jungle that lures the white man into its foliage and feeds of their vital energy, and about the ancient belief that if we go into the river on holy thursday we'll turn into monsters that are half fish.

it makes me want to shove my history and my culture down the throat of everyone who consumes my content the same way other people's cultures has been pushed down mine.

[dilfdoctordoom]

On Tom Taylor, the Current Nightwing Run & Ableism

I did mention I was gonna do a post about it, so here we are. There are some things I want to make clear before we begin: the issue exploded on Twitter on the very first day of disabled Pride month; disabled people have been discussing the ableism in Taylor’s Nightwing run since it began; nobody has blamed Taylor for what happened to Barbara in 2011. We are, however, blaming him for the way she is written in his series during 2021. 

I am also going to be discussing the ableism in the fandom in this post. The reactions I have seen, from here to Twitter to TikTok, are showing not only a great misunderstanding of the situation, but a purposeful misunderstanding. The very real reasons disabled people are angry right now have been twisted to make us seem ridiculous and overly sensitive and I cannot help but feel that is very intentional.

Another quick addition: disabled people are not a monolith. Barbara Gordon spent over 20 years as a paralyzed wheelchair user. Stating (and I would like to note, never truly showing) that she is a part time cane user now is still erasing her disability. These things are not interchangeable.

So, with that out of the way, let’s begin.

Tom Taylor’s run is ableist. That is a fact of this situation. He made the active choice to include a version of Barbara Gordon that is ableist caricature. Story wise, the role that Barbara plays could have easily been filled by anyone else. There is no real season, within the narrative and outside of it, for Taylor to include this version of Barbara Gordon, who has received a decade of criticism from disabled people. It’s very well known that this iteration is problematic, to put it kindly, and Taylor is aware of that. 

He made the active decision to include her, anyway, showing, at the very least, that he is passively, if not actively, ableist. Passive ableism is still ableism and disabled people are allowed to take issue with that.

That alone is reason enough for disabled people to be angry. But that’s not why things exploded on Twitter.

On July 1st, the very first day of disabled pride month, the new design for Barbara was dropped. After months of teasing Barbara’s return to a wheelchair using Oracle (see: Last Days of The DC Universe, Batgirl (2016), etc), they debuted... a new Batgirl costume that the artist has openly said draws inspiration from the Burnside suit.

There’s a lot of issues to unpack here, so let’s start small: the issue with consciously calling back to Burnside. The Burnside era of Batgirl stories was... beyond awful. The villain of the series’ first arc, was an AI based on Barbara’s brain patterns when she was disabled. It was evil because of all the rage and pain Barbara felt. The actual Barbara, on the other hand, was good -- because she was able bodied. Because her PTSD had been tossed aside. It was a horrifically ableist era that drove the idea that Barbara’s life was terrible when she was disabled; that it was some horrible, twisted secret.

Comics have kept that narrative going. Barbara is seen hiding books on chronic pain; she reacts aggressively to the mere idea that she could be in a wheelchair again, acting like it would be weakness. Whereas Barbara had once been Oracle not because of, but in spite of, her disability, who was fantastic representation for the disabled community, she now acts like it is the most shameful thing in her life.

To call back to Burnside is to call back to that ableism and make no critique of it. If anything, it’s to embrace the ideas of that era.

There is also the design itself to consider. Many people have pointed out the inclusion of a back brace, as if that saves it from ableism -- it does not. Any person who has ever worn a back brace can take one look at this design and know that they did not consult a disabled person. Hell, by how impractical that thing is, I doubt they even Googled a picture of a back brace.

It’s a superficial acknowledgement that Barbara is supposed to be disabled. Something that was apparently thrown in to appease the numerous complaints of Barbara being able bodied; something that no one working on it put any effort into.

When it comes to aids, this is not a new thing for Barbara in Infinite Frontier. She’s said to be using a cane occasionally, that we got a better look at in Batman: Urban Legends, and as any cane user can tell you... that is not a cane that could feasibly be used. It’s another pathetic attempt to acknowledge that Barbara is supposed to be disabled, without actually doing anything of importance.

[IMAGE ID:  A segmented cane with a tri-pointed handle with a wrist strap. There is a stripe across the sections to connection them, labelled “solar battery charger buttons”. The text reads: “telescoping antenna doubles as cane or weapon if needed”. END ID]

Dropping this design (which we have now established to be problematic) on the very first day of disabled pride month is a sickening move. The very first day, and DC has doubled down on their disability erasure, thrown in superficial things like a back brace to act like it’s fine.

Tom Taylor is definitely involved in this, whether you like it not. No, he is not in anyway responsible for the events of the New 52 and what they did to Barbara Gordon, but that does not absolve him of blame for what is currently being done to her in his run.

When the design dropped, it started trending due to disabled fans reactions. To be clear: we were directly calling out the ableism in this design. This was Tom Taylor’s response:

[IMAGE ID: A tweet from TomTaylorMade that says: “Hey, @Bruna_Redono_F I think our new Batgirl suit is getting some attention.” He then adds a winky face emoji and tags @jesswchen and @drinkpinkkink. Attached are a screenshot showing that Batgirl is trending in the United States and a picture of the design itself. END ID]

This is him, bragging about how the disabled community reacted. Perhaps before this tweet, you could’ve made an argument that he was not ableist, but after he flaunted the fact that disabled people were rightly furious over this, like it was something to be proud of? No. If you are defending him, you are a part of the problem.

Taylor has included ableist writing in his Nightwing run, beyond the inherent ableism that comes with the current iteration of Barbara Gordon (whose inclusion, yet again, is his decision).

[IMAGE ID: A panel from Nightwing #79. Barbara and Dick are standing in his apartment. Barbara is saying: “I have some pretty new technology holding my spine together. I’m happy to do most things -- eat pizza in the park, take down low-level thugs -- but leaping from rooftops seems... unwise.” END ID]

What Barbara says in the panel above has bothered a lot of disabled people. The implication that she couldn’t “eat pizza in the park’ and “take down low-level thugs” without a spinal implant that conveniently erases her disability is... fucked up, to put it mildly. Those are both things that Barbara has done in a wheelchair. The first one is something wheelchair users can do and the implication that it’s not is beyond offensive.

But, let’s leave Barbara behind for a moment. I have previously mentioned that disabled people have been discussing the ableism present in this run long before July -- and that ableism is not only centred on Barbara. Dick is also a player in all this.

Dick Grayson was shot in the head. I don’t believe I need to retread the story, but just in case: Dick was shot in the head by KGBeast, developed amnesia from the event, and went by Ric Grayson for a long enough period in comics. If you have been active within the DC fandom for the past year or so, you know all about this controversial storyline and its fallout.

The Ric Grayson arc concluded itself the issue before Taylor became the writer for the series and ever since his tenure has begun, Taylor has completely ignored the reality of Dick being a disabled man. We understand this is comics, that things do not function the way they do in our world, but still -- it is clear that this gunshot wound to the head has affected Dick massively. We had an entire arc dedicated to how he struggled to find himself in the aftermath.

Taylor is choosing to write Dick as an able-bodied man, despite his canonical injuries and how they would impact his life.

This man is choosing to give empty gestures towards Barbara being a disabled woman (as discussed above, the completely dysfunctional back brace, etc) whilst writing her as able-bodied as possible. He writes both Dick and Barbara as able bodied as humanly possible. That is ableist. He is ableist. This is the same man that said he made a dog disabled ‘in honour of Barbara’. I do not think I need to elaborate on why that is bad.

The least he could’ve done, was get a sensitivity reader. We know that Taylor is not beyond getting people from marginalized communities to consult on his work (see: Suicide Squad), so why, when writing two characters that should be disabled, one that the disabled community have been criticising for a decade, does he not reach out to a single disabled person? A mere Google search could’ve improved the situation massively. In both the new design and the current writing, it is beyond clear that this is not just an able-bodied person writing it -- it’s an ableist person.

He could have listened to the numerous disabled fans that spoke out. Instead, he chose not only to refuse to do that, but to describe justifiable anger as ‘raging’. He treated us like we were crazy for daring to speak out about blatant ableism being parading around of us in our pride month.

Tom Taylor has failed to do the bare minimum and in doing so, he is, at very, very least, guilty of complicity. Again: passive ableism is still ableism.

The argument at hand is not just about Barbara Gordon and the continuing ableism that shines out from her current writing. The argument is about the treatment of disabled characters in his run. It has also become about the way he treats physically disabled people.

We also can’t have this conversation without acknowledging the fandom’s role in it all. I waited a day to write this up, to allow all the reactions to flood in... and I am sickened.

We have everything across the board. Able-bodied people that have actually listened to disabled people, who have supported us (which is deeply appreciated). Able-bodied people who may have had good intentions, but a skewed sense of the situation and perpetuating some of the more insidious lies being spread around (IE. that this is only about the new costume).

There are, obviously, the ableist reactions, though, that we will be discussing here. People deeming the current issues as ‘crazy’, calling disabled people ‘overly sensitive’ and ‘delusional’. Many people have completely glossed over the examples given for why Taylor, specifically, is ableist, and instead have resorted to telling disabled people that we are wrong and should be mad at DC instead.

It’s important to note that Tom Taylor is an adult man. He doesn’t need a fandom to attack disabled people for daring to call him out. He is not the victim in this situation; he has, for quite a few disabled people, been the aggressor.

I have seen claims that Infinite Frontier is a ‘slow burn’, implying that disabled people need to patient... as if we have not waited a decade for less ableist writing. There is a complete refusal from able-bodied fans to actually listen to what disabled people are saying. They would much rather rush to the defence of the (honestly rather mediocre) current Nightwing run. 

Disabled fans know that comic book spaces are ableist. We know that both DC and Marvel and many of their writers are ableist. We are still allowed to be pissed as hell about it and acting like the current reaction being had right now is disabled people being ‘overdramatic’ is yet another example of how the able-bodied side of the fandom both refuses to listen to and undermine disabled people when we call out ableism.

We know it when we see it. We always do and we always will and we will always be able to recognize it far faster than an able-bodied person. If this many disabled fans are coming out and talking about an issue, calling it ableism, then it’s time for you shut up and listen.

Stop being a part of the problem and start supporting disabled fans for once.

[nuatthebeach]

HI, I love your blog. My ask is

What are your top 5 fictional girls who inspire you and you genuinely love them and why?

I love questions like these because they always force me to reflect on why I prioritize certain traits over others in fictional characters in the first place. And this question in particular is fascinating because I’ve come to realize that a certain pattern that correlates with my liking of fictional characters is usually to do with how supremely underrated they are and how much hate they receive from fandom (and it's for really dumb, hypocritical, double-standard reasons in most cases).

I actually for the life of me cannot come up with a top 5 because my brain absolutely refuses to work, and I love so many female characters to the bottom of my heart, so asking me to just choose five is actually really freakin' hard. I’m sure I’ll hate myself when I do remember, like, five minutes after I post this, but until then, I’ll give you my top three.

These are ones I feel so supremely attached to that my fingers itch to write, talk, and obsess about them to the point that I’m sure I’ve scared off all my family members by now lol. Particularly because these characters are not usually a fan favorite (with the exception of one).

My Top Three:

3. Piper McLean - yep, that’s right, I said it. God, I wish I could go back to my fanfic writing days with the wisdom I have now to fully express just how underrated this character really is. A lot of people dislike her because in many ways, she appears to act like she’s “not like other girls.” They point to instances of her cutting her hair haphazardly to not draw attention, having dark skin, hating on her cabin for having Aphrodite as her mother, being “super obsessed” with Jason, and - the part that really gets to me - preferring Jason’s looks over Percy’s. I repeat, people hated Piper for saying her boyfriend was better looking than a dude she just met. And she still is (in fact, it’s literally a TikTok trend).

Reasons why I like her: all of these claims are bullshit. I think she’s just a teenage girl who is very passionate about her culture, wants to protect her father, loves her boyfriend and her friends, and desires to do the right thing. When we first meet her, you realize that all of her memories from her time at that school I highkey forgot the name of were all a lie. She had to relearn everything and get to know a boy she had always thought she knew. Can you imagine how heartbreaking it must be to lose (for lack of a better word) someone she loved in a manner she had no control over? As for all of the “wanting to be not like other girl stuff,” well, I think a lot of people forget that there is this huge stereotype of Native Americans being oversexualized in the media as well as in history itself, and while I can’t make assumptions that is what Riordan was going for, I’m not surprised that fandom has a way of focusing on dispositional factors as opposed to situational and cultural ones because frankly...what's new.

Also, at the time, people used to hate Jason as well, but now I’m seeing more love for him and even less for Piper. Again, this is one of those things I’m not surprised about. Nothing like that good-old fandom misogyny.

How does she inspire me? Y’all, hear my girl out. People are always telling her that she’s weak and the more useless one of the seven. You think she hasn’t internalized that shit? Because she’s the first to have done so. After fighting that ice goddess-villain-bitch on the ship in one of the books, she started becoming really hard on herself to improve her skills and become better. You all are forgetting that Percy, Jason, and Annabeth had years of experience over her. And she learned how to fight with a sword within that same book! Talk about badass development!

Phew, sorry for the rant. For those who agree (or still need convincing), I had written a lot of Piper x Jason fanfic back in the day if you want to check it out on fanfic.net. I stopped writing about them for…well, obvious reasons that people who are caught up on the series would know about 😭

2. Jude Duarte - this is actually one of those rare instances where I am absolutely in love with the main girl character who’s not underrated even the tiniest bit by fandom. And they don't love her because she's perfect they love her because she's morally gray. A glow-up for all of us, let's give each other a pat on the back. She makes mistakes (anvil-sized ones) both on the society- and emotional-level, but she sincerely, whole-heartedly learns from them. I think all BookTok authors have something to gain from reading and writing about her (I'm looking at you SJM die-hards) because seeing a female character who is so unmistakably and unapologetically human is just so refreshing to read. You can trust that when I say I have never read a female protagonist like her, you can believe it, and I'm almost 100% sure you haven't either (at least in American contemporary literature). I won't prattle on more about her because, again, she's fairly well-liked so I don't need to "defend her actions" (rolls eyes) as they say, and this post is getting severely long as it is.

1. c'mon. You know why you follow me. Hermione Granger.

Jk.

Ginny Weasley.

(still love you though, book!Hermione)

I'm just going to copy and paste the reasons why I love this girl from a previous post because it still sums up my feelings pretty well. Stay tuned for some additions at the end.

This girl. If she were real, I’d give her my babies. She is almost the most developed female character in the book series, considering the little number of relevant scenes she was given. I say almost because I actually do think JKR missed the concluding bulls-eye with her arc, particularly in HBP and DH. I, like everyone else, expected her to do a lot more than she did (c’mon she’s one of the only kids connected to fucking Voldemort, that had to have counted for something?!?!). With that being said, she’s the only female character who has a consistent rise in characterization throughout the books: starting off as a bubbly 10 year old waving and crying to see her brothers leave, a shy 11 year old who can’t speak around Harry but can to her diary and trauma ensues, a quiet 12 year old who still doesn’t talk to Harry but is overcoming her reputation as the girl who opened the Chamber and was victimized by literal Voldemort himself, and so on and so forth to the flawed, stubborn, angry, petty, defensive but also caring, compassionate, funny, clever, sassy girl we have by HBP and DH. As the books go on, you really see her shine and become a woman in her own right. And interestingly enough, her arc doesn’t repeat, like Hermione’s and Neville’s does; it has a clear direction that journeys from Book 1 to the end. For all of these reasons, I notice a lot of people claim she isn’t very developed - and while I agree she could definitely be more - I’d also argue she’s one of the most obviously developed too. Plus, I’ve always been fascinated by her connection to Voldemort and wish JKR explored it more herself: from her wand being made of the same wood as his (while Harry’s is made of the same core…hmmm interesting) to the interactions being much more gendered and personal than I’d even argue Harry’s. If I had to read about someone’s relationship with Voldemort other than Harry, Ginny definitely takes the cake, sorry Draco. I could go on and on about her, but if you want more Ginny meta, just check out my other posts dedicated just for her.

I'd also add that I like the fact that she doesn't always fit the mold of a stereotypical book!female hero: she isn't the absolute smartest in the room, she isn't a nitty-gritty perfectionist, she doesn't pine after and date only one boy, she likes nuances and creativity, she isn’t at the beck-and-call of the male protagonist who helps him all the time to complete His Task™, she likes sports and flowery perfumes, she is conventionally attractive and popular and knows it, she does quit her quidditch career to be a mother from an early age, and she does take Harry's last name as her own. None of the aforementioned are bad characteristics/intonations, of course, but the point is that girls' personalities (like all personalities lmfao) can and do vary. You don't have to be a certain type of woman to be a woman. Ginny Weasley is proof that if anyone tells you otherwise, they're delusional and need to get their internalized misogyny in check.

Because that is what being an independent, feminist is... having the power to choose what being a woman in this world means to you.

Thanks for the ask!

[marimopeace]

there's a limit on how much you can be an isekai intellectual...

a bunch of analyses have been popping up before me all day so i wanted to throw my hat into the ring. all love to ppl who are exercising their creative minds + ppl like geoff here who just talk about these things because of fan interest but i feel like there reaches a point where exploring the "types" of isekai is pointless? i've seen ppl list out the different types of villainess revenge isekai or fantasy mmorpg isekai but eh why fit them all into separate boxes like that?

i think it's easier to think of isekai as a "type" (genre) of itself with only two categories: 1) a focus on isekai (lit. another world) 2) tensei (lit. to be reborn). this allows for a variety of applications and thus tropes that ppl see so many trends of!

with isekai - in another world

you see everything from:

pure fantasy (inuyasha, digimon wait maybe not the best example but in my childhood mind i count digimon as pure fantasy, fushigi yugi)

mmorpg inspired fantasy/adventure (.hack//legend of twilight, sao ugh, log horizon, overlord (LOVE OVERLORD!)

otome game-esque worlds >>> this is where it gets complicated with "villainess routes" since i admit there are multiple villainess tropes but this is why it's nice to not think of this as a "sub-type/genre" bc it frees you from those complications! (the saint's magic power is omnipotent, the white cat's revenge as plotted from the dragon king's lap soso cute!, the savior's book cafe in another world, i'm a villainous daughter so i'm going to keep the last boss wait i can't remember if she's reborn in this one lmaooo see this is why rules make everything hard)

with tensei storylines - being reincarnated/reborn in another world as *insert character/role*

you see...

the same tropes!!

pure fantasy (a returner's magic should be special, reminiscence adonis, the lady and the beast, light and shadow, i can't think of a manga off the top of my head for this ah)

mmorpg inspired fantasy/adventure (so i'm a spider so what i stan kumoko so hard, her majesty's swarm, can't name another off the top of my head ah i hate lists shorter than two things...)

self-insert based games/novels (fiance's observation log of a self-proclaimed villainess, who made me a princess, death is the only ending for the villainess, the villainess wants to marry a commoner, honestly games vs novels are different applications but i'm not in the headspace to try to remember a bunch of both lol)

*insert line break to give random ppl a break from scrolling but tl; dr just enjoy things for what they are no need to micro analyze*

similar variations occur in both genres (if ppl want to be super technical i guess i'm arguing that isekai itself is a massive genre that has the "another world" subgenre and "reincarnation" subgenre tl; dr) so i think it's honestly a huge pain to try to separate all these trends into so many different types of stories. for me personally it's easier to not get overwhelmed by this gigantic umbrella of "isekai" that spans light novels, manhwa, manga, and mobile games by just stripping each story down into its trademark tropes (aka character archetypes, story structures) and slapping "oh this is a person going to a world that's not ours" and "this person gets reborn as blank in another world". none of this "omg this power fantasy is such a this kind of isekai moment" or "there are 14 different types of villainess revenge stories and this series fits into this" bc AH labels! limitations! circle-jerks via ppl trying to compartmentalize everything and sound smart for leaving a comment on story analysis instead of ooh-ahhing over a character's face! dividing things into light novel manga vs manga vs korean manhwa ft. female characters!

the last bit is mainly why i feel frustrated by ppl's insistence to group everything?

the video linked at the beginning of the post (honestly good video essay, i enjoyed it, i just kept thinking in my head the whole time "marimo these are tropes do not take the genre talk literally") has a baby comment thread talking about "korean isekai manhwas" as a genre featuring nothing but reincarnated villainess' and i can't.

like i cannot acknowledge that as a genre of any sort. the energy i felt reading through some of those insights takes me back to 2012 when all yt americans discovered k-pop and deemed all korean music k-pop from then on! (ppl still do this now, yes you are seen and don't talk to me pls i don't like you. k-pop is korean pop music and nothing less and nothing more. take a few seconds and try to parse apart aspects of korean culture instead of slamming everything into a monolithic label that has the letter k and a hyphen.) it feels so odd to see a bunch of young ppl on ig and tiktok acknowledge korean media that happens to be in the form of a webtoon as "oh stories all about young girls becoming villains in stories they made/played" bc it feels so reductive u.u

(positionality disclaimer that i'm praying isn't actually necessary: i am a 3rd-generation korean of japanese descent do not fite me i am exhausted irl of ppl asking for validation/verification bc massive shove off.)

breaking news! korean manhwa...is just as multifaceted as japanese manga...bc how can comics as an art-form not have multiple genres...huh such a shocker?!?! same likely applies to media in other parts of the world like chinese manhwa and french comics--not my place to explain either of those i just know those industries exist bc of wakfu and donghua shows by Tencent.

at the end of the day it's not like analyzing any kind of isekai is wrong--absolutely not!! i think it can be super fun to think about how isekai elements complicate a story (MCs trying to go back home, ppl from the og world, reincarnation plot-twists) or maybe even bash a series for including some kind of other world element when they could have just written a super fun fantasy.

insert marimo's brief ramble that hey you can get sick of truck-kun's hitting disillusioned guys who happen to be super duper smart or girls who happen to be master chefs/craftsmen but transporting a fully-grown being into a fantasy setting is the ultimate cheat code for making mundane modern technology seem cool and overpowered, and being reincarnated as a fully grown person in a world with a pre-made story/game set-up completely bypasses the need for an author to slowly flesh out world-building in a natural progression so isekai is actually a really smart writing tool it's just that there are some series where the author didn't use it well at all and it's cheesy or clearly isekai was misused as a vehicle for character/story development and it was pointless *DEEP BREATH OUT*

in this essay i will argue...lol i am such a culture studies major!! if i were an english major i would be talking all about writing but here i am having a side-tangent about world-building via someone being reborn wow i love this for me (don't get me started on when an author has someone reincarnate as a baby and the story is mostly them having warm fluffy moments with their family--typically father figures--and getting lots of powers i could and would and probably will rant about east asian toxicity)

but anyway am i crazy????? like yes for being passionate about the technical use of a word like genre (i am a scorpio rising let me be fussy pls) but i don't think it's a lot to ask for ppl to not unironically see "villainess revenge isekai" as the definition of korean manhwa.

idk as someone who resonates with why japanese isekai is so popular domestically + why a lot of korean manhwa feat. the same tropes (it's not for great reasons lads it's actually depressing tbh) i'm just starting to feel kind of pained by the generalization and need to separate "cute japanese girl in an otome game"/"japanese boy finds a harem in another world" from "korean girl dies and comes back as a villainess" bc they are just! applications to the same story device!!

recommendations for any who makes it this far down below <3

// also gladly recommend any of the examples i've listed in the above rant as i've read/watched all of them and adore them v much! //

save me princess

super refreshing fantasy manhwa ft. a princess and her ex-boyfriend having to save the world!

the beginning after the end

an AMERICAN web novel turned into a comic (but see it being not korean/japanese doesn't really matter when you just consider isekai as a genre...isn't it nice to not overthink it?) ft. a super-powerful wizard king reincarnated into another world and starting from scratch--gives mushoku tensei vibes but huge twists!

the reason why raeliana ended up at the duke's mansion

love love LOVE this story--read the title and you'll learn how this girl reincarnated as the character raeliana in a book gets married to a duke!

trash of the count's family

such a good novel!! a guy gets reborn as a lazy oaf and he takes the hero of the story under his wing...plot twists come up later on!

this time i will definitely be happy!

v good and refreshing for a shorter series! she's been reborn 3 times and remembers every time the hero's stabbed her in the back, and now she just wants to break up with him!

silver diamond

older manga but v good adventure w intrigue! a boy who loves plants get sucked into a desert world with demonic lizards and a mysterious bodyguard by his side. shonen-ai not BL but wonderful vibes nonetheless + great side characters!

the princess imprints a traitor

adore everything in this from the world (not in that way this society makes me so angry) to the machinations at play and the dynamic between the fl and ml

[cavehags]

i realize this will probably bring up old drama so you might not want to answer it. but do you ever regret, however on purpose or on accident, bringing all that unnecesary hate towards Katara? i'm really sad and dissapointed tbh. i'm a woman of color and katara was so important to me growing up. my favorite animated woman ever. and then this resurgence comes and theres so, so much unnecesary hatred for her and everyone ignoring everything that makes her a good character.

(2/3) 2- and you know, i expected this from the male side of the fandom. they were misogynistic to her and the others even back then so i would expect it to be even worse with how internet culture is more mysogistic now that ever. and i wasnt wrong. male atla fans had some truly horrible takes and views that just came across as racism and misogyny. but, i expected these circles to be better. to be a safe space for us woc who love this character. but i found the same weird hatred for her.

(3/3) 3-i just, i cant believe i feel less welcome now that i did even back then. and back then i didnt even paricipate really. but at least i could enjoy fandom content without stumbling into misogyny and racism every other post. also sorry for sending this to your personal blog b i just wanted to let you know you controbuted to that too even if it wasnt your intention. at least you realized that and arent contributing to it anymore right? cause honestly the hate has only gotten worse not less.

hey anon. thanks for asking this question, because i hadn’t addressed this topic previously and this gave me an opportunity to do so. 

no, i don’t regret publicly interpreting a character whom i love through a nuanced and human lens. and i don’t regret combating the one-dimensional interpretation of this character, which posits that she’s merely an vaguely defined object of attraction for some boy or another, and a singularly gentle, mature, maternal figure whose sole purpose in life is to nurture others. those interpretations suck. they rob her of the humanity and complexity that make her character unique and they stem from misogynistic tropes that reduce women to the services they can provide to men. the thing in the world that matters most to me is fighting misogyny, and this trend to diminish a proud and powerful and angry teenage girl by exaggerating only her most socially acceptable traits is misogyny. 

unlike you, i did not grow up watching avatar: the last airbender. the shows i watched growing up did not have a lot of girls who felt real to me. the girls i saw on tv growing up were simple. they were the main characters’ crushes. they were simple, desirable, usually sweet and loving, and not much else. if they had a flaw, it was that they were, at best, “awkward.” whatever that means. or if they were the protagonists, which was rare, they were nice enough and tried to do the right thing, but they never had strong feelings like resentment and anger. they weren’t allowed to be unfeminine which meant they weren’t allowed to be bitter, angry or in any way flawed. they didn’t look like the version of girlhood i knew to be true for me personally, which included a lot of anger and frustration and powerlessness. 

that crappy representation left me with internalized misogyny that chased me for longer than i’d like to admit. i did not learn to think of girls as humans who could be as interesting and flawed and messy as the boys were. i did not value myself as a girl, and later a woman, because i thought the best thing a girl could be was... bland. boring. pretty, but empty. passionless.

it would have meant the world to me to see a character like katara. 

because katara is angry. she has every right to be: she’s had so much stolen from her, including her mother, her people, and her childhood. katara has a short fuse. she yells. she snaps. she fucks up. sometimes she makes mean jokes! i never saw a single one of those dreamily perfect cartoon love interests make mean jokes when i was a kid. she is extremely idealistic--it’s her defining character trait--but we see the bad side of that as well as the good. we see that her need to help others  leads her to act rashly, to get herself into danger, to put others in danger too. 

and she has her very own arc. it’s not about her love for another person, either (what a snooze of a storyline); it’s about growing up and learning to break down some of that stubborn black-and-white thinking that we all indulge in as children. it’s a true coming-of-age arc and it belongs to a fourteen-year-old girl. 

when i, to use a phrase i find crass, “entered the fandom,” i quickly realized that other fans’ perceptions of katara did not line up with the things i valued most about her. other fans seemed to valorize her most socially acceptable feminine qualities: her generosity, her kindness, her dedication to helping others. and of course i love those parts of her--i love everything about her--but what is really remarkable about avatar: the last airbender is that katara’s many important virtues are also counterbalanced by equally significant flaws. a good character has flaws. katara is a good character, and a deviation from the characters who made up my formative media landscape, because she has flaws. her temper, her idealism, her stubbornness--these are flaws. flaws make her seem real and human and challenge the mainstream sentiment that girls are not real or human.

it simply did not occur to me that celebrating these aspects of katara that make her a realistic and well-written teenage girl would spark ire from other adult fans. it absolutely did not occur to me that i would then be blamed for somehow causing misogynistic interpretations of this character, particularly given that misogynistic interpretations of this character are the very thing i sought to correct when i began to blog about this television show.

i’m told there are “fans” on instagram and tiktok who think katara is whiny, annoying, and overly preoccupied with her trauma. i do not use instagram or tiktok, so i wouldn’t know, but i’ll take your word for it. respectfully, however, they didn’t get that from me. misogynistic takes on katara have existed since before i came along. i have never, ever called katara whiny. and seeing as i have been treating my own PTSD in therapy for nine years, you can safely conclude that i don’t think anyone, katara included, is overly preoccupied with their trauma. that’s not a thing. do i think she’s annoying? of course not! as a character, she’s a delight. does she sometimes find real joy in aggravating her brother and her friends? yes, because she’s 14. i, an adult, am not annoyed by her. sokka and toph often are, because that is katara’s goal and katara always succeeds in her goals. she’s not “annoying.” 

if there are “fans” who are indeed following lesbians4sokka and somehow misreading every single post and interpreting them to mean that we hate katara and they should too, i don’t really know what you want me to do about that. l4s has over ten thousand followers and we have already posted so many essays disavowing katara hate. our feminist and antiracist objectives in running the blog are literally pinned with the headline “please read.”

furthermore, you cannot reasonably expect my co-blogger and me to control the way our words will be received. we should not have to, and are not going to, add a disclaimer to every post saying that when we critique or make jokes about a teenage girl we are doing so through a feminist lens. our url is lesbians4sokka, and we are clearly women. if that alone doesn’t make it obvious, then refer back to that pinned post. 

it is indescribably frustrating, and really goddamn depressing as well, that people are so comfortable with the misogynistic binary of Perfect Good Women and Flawed Wicked Bitches that they perceive any discussion of a woman’s flaws to be necessarily relegating her to the latter camp. if that is how you (a generic you) perceive women, then i’m sorry, but you’ve internalized sexism that i cannot cure you of. and it’s unjust to expect my friend and me to write for the lowest common denominator of readers who have not yet had their own feminist awakenings. we do not write picture books for babies. we write for ourselves, and with the expectation that our readers can think critically. reading media through a feminist lens is my primary interest; i have no intention of excising that angle from my writing.

as i go through my life, i am going to embrace the flaws of girls and women because not enough people do. as long as the dominant narratives surrounding women are “good and perfect” and “unlovable wh*re,” you’ll find me highlighting flawed, realistic, righteously angry women in the margins. and for what it’s worth, it’s not just katara. i champion depictions of angry girls in all sorts of media. that’s sort of my whole thing. my favorite movies are part of the angry girl cinematic universe: thoroughbreds, jennifer’s body, hard candy, jojo rabbit, et cetera. on tv, in addition to katara, you’ll find me celebrating tuca and bertie, poppy from mythic quest, tulip and lake from infinity train, korra, and more. i adore all these women and see myself in them. i hope you find this suitably persuasive to establish that i have sufficient Feminist Cred, according to your standards, to observe and write about these very flawed and human fictional women. 

what i’m saying is this: i decline to take responsibility for the misogynistic discourse orbiting a children’s cartoon. as someone who writes about that series from a perspective that seeks to add humanity and nuance to the reductive, one-dimensional, overwhelmingly sexist writing that already exists, i am pretty taken aback that i am the one being blamed for the very problem i sought to address. except not that taken aback because i am a woman online, haha! and this is always how it goes for us. 

finally, i think it sucks that you’ve chosen to blame me for a problem that begins and ends with the patriarchy. i can’t control the way this response will be perceived, just like how i can’t control the way anything will be perceived because i am just one human woman, but i do hope you choose to be reflective, and consider why you’ve chosen this avenue to assign blame. 

[pomegraniteseeds]

On God/Goddess Wrath

This is a topic I’ve been really wanting to address in serious detail with the information coming from Tiktok recently. Gods from ANY pantheon are capable of being mad or disappointed at you, but there’s some misconceptions on this wrath and what it looks like to worshipers. So if ur in need of some reassurance, want to start worshiping deities. or want to start working with them this post is for you! 

I have indeed experienced Gods being mad at me. When I cannot get around to my worship to Ares as much as my other deities, I feel less powerful as myself. I feel his presences just being dissapointed in me. One time, I accidentally disrespected Zeus by making a joke about the rain, a small droplet of water got into the crack of my phone during the storm and turned the touch screen of for 3 days! Another time, I really disrespected Aphrodite on accident by agreeing to worship her and then not being able to handle it and having to go back on my word. I was given cramps, zits, and graying hair?! (im 17 and my family does NOT grey young) But in my experience, these are the worsts things I have ever had to go through.

I will say, everyone has a different relationship with the Gods. But, from what I’ve noticed, people often have very similar trends with them too. I notice a lot of divination with Apollo for most of us is using tarot. I’ve noticed for multiple worshipers/devotees to Ares, use shufflemancy! These things are not really a coincidence, the Gods do have patterns. They aren’t going to change their whole personalty from person to person, I mean what would be the point in that? Check those trends out, they will give you a lot of information on what you are or going to experience! When I say different relationship, I mean something along this line. Ares has always presented himself to me as an older brother figure, who loves me dearly but is stern with me. But he isn’t afraid to joke around with me and I’m not with him. Others may keep their relationship with Ares more formal, and thats okay too!!!

But no matter how different relationships can be, the Gods are NOT going to try to kill you. They are NOT going to make you feel unsafe. If they are actively making you fear and are sending you terrifying messages like threatening to kill you for a mistake, then you are NOT working with a god . (Ahem ahem...tiktok) I mean....if something is trying to kill you doesn’t that logically sound more like an evil entity then Apollo’s presence being with you as you pick out a necklace....just saying.

A common argument to this idea of the Gods not harming you (Why is there an argument to this ill never know) is “hAvE yoU eveN ReaD tHe mYtHS?” I have a lot to say on this subject;

 1.) Anyone whos seriously worshiping a deity is indeed going to read their myths like...come on stop assuming everyone doesn’t do their research. 

2.) Myths involving wrath are invoked when something CRAZILY disrespectful happens between a God and man. Like CRAZILY disrespectful. Lets take a look at Hermes myths of wrath for example. Demanding bribes, devouring visitors, calling Hermes a “common thief”, scouring the Gods..etc. These are things no worshiper would even do on accident, lets be real. These are the things that caused that serious, godly wrath in myth. Serious acts of blasphemy would cause that wrath, not a simply mistake like the wrong candle on an alter. 

3.) This point is more opinion based but. Myths were not written by the Gods themselves, but by people. And I personally do not think something written by a human could ever fully contain the true intentions, ideas, or thoughts of a God. Myths were also made to teach lessons back then as well, so in that sense, not all your research on a deity should be based on mythology. If mythology is the only book your reading on deities, your doing it wrong.

Honestly worshiping the Gods has been life changing for me. It has brought nothing but positively into my life. Even when mistakes occur, the Gods understand I’m still learning and growing. They forgive and never go rougher on me then I can take. They love me, and I love them. They are going to do the same to you. <3! 

[irarelypostanything]

The State of Technology Today

In old science fiction, they described the Internet (even before the Internet was invented) as a landscape you would plug into and get a rush from - my favorite book on the subject is Neuromancer.  Maybe you’d plug something into your brain, and then there would be so much information that you would get high on it.

The Internet now is really not that far off from the science fiction fantasy, it’s just more integrated with reality.  You go on the phone while waiting for the bus, and you’re there.  You record something happening now onto your Facebook live, and you’re there.  It’s not quite so interesting to talk about cyberspace as a literal space because we don’t fade to black and transfer our consciousness to the net, like we would in this fantasy, but in a sense the brain does similar things.  Inside the net, our minds go into a different mode of thinking.  We quickly open links, instead of linearly processing information like we would while reading a book.  We see things differently...people become a front-facing entity we can interact with, and a backend we don’t see.

I wish I could refer to this imaginary cyber universe as The Matrix, but unfortunately someone already copyrighted that term.  I’m just going to keep calling it FIGNATIA (Facebook, Instagram, Google, Netflix, Apple, TikTok, Intel, Amazon) until it catches on.  Even when it doesn’t, I’m going to keep calling it that.

FIGNATIA is the world we enter when we turn on anything that gets us into the net.  FIGNATIA is accessible on a phone, a laptop, even a Kindle.  And FIGNATIA, in this day and age, is where most of us choose to spend most of our waking moments.

Is it bad?  I don’t think so, but there’s certainly something a little bit terrifying about it.  In this imagined world, we have a separate entity that’s like us, but not us.  It’s a series of attributes, the presence we create every time we like, share, write, or post something.  We’re creating a persona for ourselves, and even when we project it via a conference video or a picture, it’s still not REALLY us.  It’s as authentic as we can make it, but it’s still just far enough from real to serve as something of a mockup.

View Facebook in developer mode, and you can see the JSON-like attribute structure that makes up every person.  Hit “view source” on a website, and you can see portions of the frontend code that render a website.  Unless you’re an app developer or a data scientist, you’re not going to get much out of this except the ability to to remember passwords you forgot and bypass certain payment walls (or, in my case, briefly pretend I’m Neo in The Matrix)...but as a metaphor, I find it interesting.

Many of these things, like software objects or whatever the f*** it is JavaScript decided to use, have an outward-facing component.  That’s our world - it’s an image that makes comments, a username we talk to, a bunch of pictures.  Underneath that, in the background, are all the many pieces of related information that develop as we go about our lives in FIGNITIA.  They have metadata.  They don’t just track what we post, they track the locations, the times, the many other related pieces of data.  With this information at their disposal, FIGNITIA attempts to predict the future by influencing it - it determines what we’re likely to want next, how long we want it for, where we’re going.

And someone like me will act like we’re above all this by seemingly making nothing secret, and by sharing thoughts like this with the world...security by obfuscation, we might say...no one can find anything on me if they have to navigate through a deluge.  But then tracking tools exist.  Run Tumblr through some tools that leverage the API, and you can tease out specific details.  In the same way, websites that cannot seem to be shut down exist that scrape addresses, simply by using associated information.

I think.  I never figured out how some of these tools work, and why they’re legal.

FIGNITIA exists in a feedback loop.  We compete for approval, for attention, and the data this provides is enough to make a person feel high.  Briefly.  The amount of pleasure created is so brief, and so fleeting, that we keep finding ourselves drawn back.

And, again...nothing is wrong with this.  But it’s not reality.  What I write here is still coming from me, but it’s not EXACTLY the cadence of how I interact in real life.  The picture I post may be as close a representation of reality as modern technology can create, but it’s still not QUITE real.  Recording serves as a way to document history, but at what point do we record excessively?  At what point do we find ourselves traveling to landmarks for the pictures, instead of to behold the view?

Reality, in that sense, can quickly feel more like a recording effort than like a series of experiences to enjoy, or at least to live through.  The problem with this virtual reality isn’t that it’s bad or overly addictive, but that it seems so close to reality that the two images become immistable.  

We all have the ability to unplug, at any moment we want to, and that’s why there’s nothing inherently bad about the software world we have created.  It marks people safe in natural disasters, creates no shortage of minable data we can exploit in order to determine trends, allows us to investigate things in ways most people don’t even know are possible by combing data they don’t even remember creating.  The net is beautiful, in that sense - for advertising, for helping to make business transactions, for forming a brand on the skills in our respective fields we wish to market.  The net is great.  I cannot even remember what life was like before we had a high-speed connection.

But it seems we live so many times in it, from the latest TV series to the newest news article to the last thing suggested to us by an algorithm passively harvesting the information we provided.  And sometimes it feels wrong, but I don’t know why.  There’s no patience in it.  In the net, time passes differently.

[swizzoo]

2020 - The Great Greeting Card Revival

When I started my funny greeting card company, Swizzoo, back in 2018, lots of people said it was a bad idea. “No one sends cards anymore because it so much easier to text / message / email /post on Facebook /Twitter/Snapchat/TikTok etc. etc. etc.” But I loved sending cards and I loved receiving them, and I didn’t want this tradition to die, so I setup Swizzoo anyway. It turned out that my timing couldn’t have been better. After years of slow,gradual decline, the greeting card industry around the world has started to grow again. People are buying more cards today than they have for along time, and the upward trend started long before Covid invaded our planet and forced us to stay at home for Christmas and Birthdays. 2019 – The Revival Part 1 In 2019the US market alone grew by 3%. That doesn’t sound much, but given the market size is 6.5 billion cards, it actually equates to 195,000,000 additional cards. Valentine Day wasa particular highlight with card sales increasing by 10% to a value of just under $1 billion. What is even more gratifying is learningwho is buying the cards. The same people who told me that Facebook and text would destroy the greeting card industry, would also say the card-giving generation …. those who are 50 plus and who still read physical newspapers …are dying out and taking traditional industries like greeting cards, newspapers, books and magazines with them. Well all you naysayers I have some news for you! The greeting card revival is driven, not by the older generation, but by the young, and millennials in particular. And what is more, the reason the young most frequently give as to why they send physical cards is … are you ready for this … sending messages via social media is too impersonal. A physical greeting card says to the recipient, I thought of you before your Birthday, took the time to choose a card just for you, wrote a personal message in the card, bought a stamp and walked to the Post Office to send it. This is so much more meaningful than getting an auto-reminder on Facebook and posting “Happy Birthday John” on their wall! In other words, a physical card provides a way to break through the digital clutter and it says I really do care. 2020 – Part 2 - The Great Greeting Card Boom During 2020 my sales have grown by 250%. A large part of this growth will be down to the fact that many high street card shops have had to close at key times of the year, like in the lead up to Christmas. This has forced more people to buy cards online. Much of this trade will have moved directly to the online stores of the offline shops such as Hallmark, Paperchase and Card Factory. However small designers, like myself, who sell on Etsy, Amazon and Ebay, have also benefitted. It is going to be very interesting when the industry publishes their 2020 figures to see if the industry as a whole has grown, and if it has, by how much. My bet is that it has grown a lot. Covid and lockdown have forced people to revaluate what is really important in their lives and for many people, at the top of their list, is friends and family. Before Covid, we all took it for granted that we could see family and friends whenever we wanted, so seeing them was not a high priority. After all, they were on social media so we all felt we were in touch anyway. However, when you are suddenly told you cannot see family and friends, it is amazing how deep and profound the feeling of loss is. I have felt it, my family and friends have felt and I know from comments from my customers, they have felt it too. This year it has become really important to tell people how much you miss and love them, and greeting cards have become one of the most important ways of conveying this message. This year a greeting card has become so much more than a folded bit of paper it has become the physical manifestation of the bond of friendship.A text or Facebook post is a miserable and inadequate substitute. It’s Funny How Important Humour Is! All the card designers and sellers I have spoken to this year have also said they have noticed a big increase in the sale of funny greeting cards. The British have always been known for turning to humour in the darkest times, and the pandemic has been no exception. Cards that make fun of the virus and lockdown have been particularly popular. Google also reflects this trend with a huge increase in people searching for phrases like ‘funny birthday cards for friends’ and ‘funny Christmas greetings’ card. Beyond 2020 So what will happen to card giving beyond 2020? Well nobody knows for sure but I predict 2021 will slip back from the exceptional increase in 2020, but be higher than 2019. After 2021 I think the industry will stabilise and any increase will be small, but the decline will have been stopped for the foreseeable future. I believe the more reliant we become on social media and digital messaging for our daily communication, the greater the impact will be of receiving a handwritten greeting card through the post. Only time will tell. Long live greeting cards and the smile and joy they deliver! Original Source: https://bit.ly/3ivOI4u

[hold-on-a-little-longer-whump]

Tell me about your OC's! — @i-kill-my-darlings

@i-kill-my-darlings Ohhhh boy you know exactly how to get me talking. I’ll be doing official introduction posts in the future, but this will work for now *cracks knuckles*

First and foremost, I have so many AUs that I can’t even choose what is canon anymore. Bear with me. Now, on to my first brainchild Charlie.

Full name: Charleston Grant Darling, prefers to be called Charles or Charlie

Height: 5’10”

Ethnicity: Austrian, Russian, Arabic

Gender ID: Male, He/Him

Appearance: Wide, strong shoulders; oak brown hair; widow’s peak hairline; medium-small roman nose; intense, darkest blue eyes (often mistaken for black); average cheekbones; strong jaw; thick eyebrows; close-shaven beard; DIY star tattoo on wrist from teen years, scar on collarbone; muscly boi™

Role: Everyone’s impulse control, sharpshooter, tank, human shield & wounded transport

Traits at first glance: terse, observant, standoff-ish, skeptical, talks to get the point across

Traits after earning his trust: curious, devoted, mildly humorous, values his personal space, bad with words, hard-working

Likes: jokes, thunderstorms, reading, traveling, camping, music, and foggy mornings

Dislikes: wet socks, flowers indoors, excessive heat, gambling, doctors, sitting still, coffee, and kids he says

Fears: Who says you get to know?

Weaknesses: deep water, he sinks very easily; ankles - they snag on things when he’s not paying attention; authoritative figures, climbing, when friends or significant other is threatened, flirting? flirting.

Listen, this boy just wants to be left alone with his hunting gear. All he desires is the hermit life. Trophy hunter? Check. Hired help for animals that are getting out of hand? Check. Unexpectedly and unofficially adopted as team sharpshooter? He’s convinced this is because they all suck at target practice.

He’s a horrible conversationalist unless drunk - then you can never get him to shut up.

He really wants to publish a book some day, but he’s too harsh of a judge and scraps almost everything he writes. Nobody knows he writes.

DAD FRIEND

If you ever get close enough, he smells like honey, cinnamon, and leather

*slaps roof* this bad boy can fit so much self-doubt and angst

He either overthinks to the last detail or jumps on something without considering anything - and there is no in between.

He’s the best out of the team at that soft “Hey...” when reassuring or comforting.

He does not do doctors. Bad experience with them as a kid. He will do every herbal remedy possible before being dragged to a hospital bc he put it off for so long.

“For my next trick I will disappear without an explanation”

After a scare or a fright, he sneezes.

In some AUs, an ex-soldier.

Next up: Beatrice!

Full name: Beatrice Anne Vitale, nicknames include Bea, Bess, & Bumble-Bee

Height: 5’4”

Ethnicity: Swedish, Native American, other ethnicities unknown

Gender ID: Female, She/Her

Appearance: pear-shaped, plump but strong; small shoulders; wispy, curly/wavy chestnut brown hair that’s cut to just above her shoulders; beauty marks (notably, one below her left eye & one on her neck); her eyes are bright, hazel with flecks of gray; dark-but-neat eyebrows; slightly prominent cheekbones; small chin; button nose; heart-shaped lips that are naturally pink; burn scar on right wrist and large birthmark covering her left thigh.

Role: Healer, slaps others when they need a slapping and apologizes directly afterwards, sneak/stealth ninja

Traits at first glance: quiet, painfully polite, passive, timid

Traits after getting to know her: cheery, energetic, relatively talkative, stubborn af

Likes: lilies, lavender, quiet, strawberries, pumpkin-flavored foods, making her own decisions, snow, autumn, she loves cows, chilly weather, dancing

Dislikes: being told what to do, drunk people, strange bugs, sweating, being rude, being underestimated, talking to others in front of her family, being laughed at, small talk, when people cry, unnecessary drama, obligations, and being called “cute”

Fears: not fulfilling her goals, loud noises, crowded places, frogs, having children/being pregnant, and being rejected

Weaknesses: cannot flirt to save her life, terrible liar, combat, public speaking, confrontation, gullible

Her parents are ridiculously overbearing. She just wants to make her own decisions - routine is nice, but not for your entire life.

When she’s nervous she fidgets with her hair or tugs on her earlobes

She smells of lavender and ink

When she’s excited about something, her words tend to run together and gradually increase in volume.

Even though she’s terrible in combat and fights in general, she keeps a surprisingly level head and doesn’t panic.

If you make her angry enough she’ll give you the silent treatment - usually after a good shouting row first

Just like Charlie, she’s clueless with flirting. If you’re nice to her, she assumes that you want to be friends and goes along with it. She’ll only get the hint if you actually kiss her or tell her outright. Too bad Gideon can’t work up the balls.

Speaking of which: Gideon!

Full name: Gideon Faye Miles

Height: 6’2”

Ethnicity: Scottish, Spanish, & Portuguese

Gender ID: Male, He/Him

Appearance: Average build; ashen blond/red hair tied back in a pony tail; hazy brown eyes w/ a patch of sky blue under his left iris; freckles all over; his face is narrow but attractive; average cheekbones; sharp chin; a soul patch

Role: the one that plows in headfirst and does rash things without consulting everyone else first - wannabe leader, but let’s be real here this team is a collective effort

Traits at first glance: annoying, full of himself, lucky, debonair, airy, stuck up

Traits after you get to know him: inventive, fair, lively, organized, committed

Likes: finding ways to make others smile, babies!!!, cherries, meteorology, sailing, messes (so he can clean them), cleaning, braiding everyones’ hair

Dislikes: harsh winds, unloyal spouses/dating partners, bad/cheap shoes that make his feet ache, hammocks, wind chimes, tedious tasks (Beatrice gets him to detangle her yarn as punishment), mushrooms

Fears: tiny spaces/crawlspaces, skunks, getting sick, making a decision/mistake that wrecks everything/puts his team in danger, freezing to death

Weaknesses: randomly zones out when being spoken to/doesn’t listen, the team is positive that his cause of death will be competitiveness, he’s horrible at adapting to last minute changes

He smells clean. Like freshly watered plants and sudsy soap.

He has the unfortunate habit of forgetting his drink is full and ends up soaking himself. The team buys him a sippy cup as a joke but he secretly loves it and uses it all the time.

He is the epitome of a guy being perfectly at peace with his feminine side and still feeling masculine/comfortable af.

Shaming? What’s that?

He’s always wearing his brown leather coat (appearance varies in AUs, but he always has it regardless)

He takes it as a personal challenge to sit in chairs in any way but the normal way. His favorite pose is the lounging monarch.

He cannot write well in print, but his cursive is lovely.

Loves being lazy and brags about his inability to get fat.

This boy will puppy-eye beg any girl he meets to give him the same killer manicure they have.

“Look! Twinsies!”

He would absolutely jump on the latest tiktok trend of swapping clothes with the girls and so help him he will summon a demon to get Charlie to do it with him

[gregoryjdillerblr]

2020: Pandemic, Murder Hornets, Riots and Protests, Monoliths, and the Rise of TikTok and OnlyFans.

2020 sure has been a strange and difficult year. Like everybody else, I was really looking forward to enter the new decade, the 2020s. My goal was to get on my own two feet and seek out a publisher to publish my books, something I have been wanting to do for many years now but kept pushing off because I was taking a hiatus and stuck in daydreaming of it happening instead of actually trying. Of course I’m doing it now, re-editing my novels while writing a new project, as well as seeking publishers to publish short stories with. But I’m here talking about 2020, since it’s near the end of an odd year

I remember back in December, riding the bus to the mall, where one crazy passenger was telling the bus driver that there was a virus wiping out China, that they were dropping like flies, and that Bill Gates was behind it all. My first thought was that this guy was fucking crazy; even the bus driver seemed to be annoyed by him. The man kept repeating himself all throughout the bus ride, and I couldn’t tell you how many times he said that this was Bill Gates doing, and that China was being wiped out.

A few months went by, and the Coronavirus found its way to the Untitled States. I am a movie goer, and I remember watching The Hunt in theaters just when the virus was hitting the US, me posting my movie ticket on my social media accounts that I wasn’t going to let the virus stop me watching the movie. Little did I know The Hunt was going to be the last movie I ever saw in theaters, and that Regal Cinemas would be closing theaters for good in the following months. I live near downtown Ithaca, NY, and the movie theater that was nearby in the Commons was Cinemapolis, who play a lot of more independent films than mainstream films. It was in this theater I watched films like Climax, Color Out of Space, The Lighthouse. Of course, the theater was forced to shut down. It’s still in the air whether the place has closed down for good or wait to reopen. Now I pass it and see the inside of it (the entire front is glass), noticing they had torn floorboards up and remodeling the place. 

I streamed films, paying the rent from as low as $6 to $20. I like to review, to talk about the films (and books I’ve read) I’ve watched recently. It’s the nerd in me that wants to talk about art and storytelling. It was cool seeing the films that were supposed to be in theaters at home. But knowing that these films were supposed to be in theaters, I couldn’t help but feel that I was missing that experience, to go to a theater, to pick out a seat (it’s usually in the middle for me), hoping to see new movie trailers I haven’t seen before, and experience the film in surround sound and on the big screen (I’m not a popcorn guy, I don’t buy it). 

Some films have been pushed back while others were streamed. I’m still waiting films like the wendigo horror flick Antlers, Godzilla Vs. Kong, The Conjuring 3, Tenet. HBO Max has announced it will stream three of the four films. Antlers was my biggest anticipated horror film of the year, and I still hope to God they would eventually stream the film rather than push it back. 

I work in retail. I was a department manager until about half way into the year, and when the whole pandemic started, there was a high demand to keep up with the flow of the almost endless flow of customers. When businesses were forced to shut down, people began to shop out of boredom. The store I work at saw an increase flow of customers. One of my good buddies and coworker told me that he helped a college girl who told him this was her very first time shopping, and she didn’t know how prices of meat work. Our store then laid down stickers to try to control customer flow, which aisle they are allowed to enter and which aisle they didn’t. Half the customers listened to the signs, and the other half didn’t. For those that didn’t, I pinpointed the signs out, and the main response I got was, “Oh, I didn’t see that there.” Eventually it got so common I stopped trying to pinpoint it out. I was a department manager, but I couldn’t enforce it like the upper management, but even they stopped trying, because there wasn’t really anything we could do to enforce it. 

Some customers got mad at other customers who weren’t wearing masks. Some of them argued. Some of them shouted at employees when customer hosts ask if they could give them a mask if they came in without one. It got so bad to the point that the store had to hire a third party security to help enforce the mask rules. But as of right now, there really isn’t much anybody to do to enforce it unless it’s enforced by state law. 

Because customers fear of going inside, online shopping saw a huge increase in sales. It got to the point that we department managers were called to help the online pickup crew. The lead manager over online pickup approved overtime, and a few of us were allowed to go in two hours ahead of our shift and help them out, just trying to fulfill orders the best we can. 

Toilet paper, paper towels, cleaning wipes, hand soap and sanitizers, rubbing alcohol, and Clorox and Lysol cleaners were wiped out. We saw many shelves emptied, naked to their metal frames where product was supposed to be. The company limited to a certain number of selected items so it was fare for all customers to buy, but the getting the supplies became difficult. Warehouses were getting low, and some even ran out of products that till this very day they are still out of. I was in charge of the frozen food section in my store, and I began to see a trend of what items were being wiped clean. Can fruits and vegetables were hit hard in the grocery department. The frozen fruits and vegetables were next. Everyday I had pull and breakdown a lot of emptied display boxes, and praying that the products would be coming soon. 

Things have slowed down, when businesses were up and running again, but to this day we are still having difficulties in getting some supplies in, or keep on the shelves. Toilet paper and paper towels slowed down, as well as hand sanitizers and soap, but good luck trying to get cleaning wipes and air sprays. Those are still gold.

With a pandemic comes the consequences of unease. When George Floyd was killed while a police officer was kneeing on him, suffocating him, the United States blew up with riots and protests. Major cities saw riots, businesses burning down. Police were shooting rubber bullets into crowds, including journalists. We saw much more police brutality in the videos that have gone viral. Police pushing elderly folks, cracking one’s head open in Buffalo, a city that’s just about three hours away where I live. In Rochester, a city that’s two hours away from me, saw some riot damage but nothing compared to those in other cities. In Ithaca, we only saw protests, nothing breaking out into riots, however, police did arrest a few protesters one night, after some of them blocked their way when the police were trying to rush to a crime scene. 

Some rioters took advantaged. They targeted business owners and killed them on the spot. Some injured police officers, and some protesters managed to block them before rioters got the chance to kill them. A retired police chief was killed while responding to a jewelry and pawn shop being robbed. Young 17 year old Kyle Rittenhouse killed two people and injured a third while trying to act as a mercenary for the police.  

Coronavirus cases spiked from large gathering of crowds, as America seemed to be on the heels of an apocalypse, torn apart by civil unrest. Protests were not only happening in the United States but in other countries as well, each trying trying to fight what is right. Videos have gone viral showing how police use their power in position, though some of them prove that some officers do what is right. I won’t go into much details about the riots and the protests. I do believe some police officers shouldn’t be police officers. I do know a few in my personal life, some of them more strict than others, but they are nevertheless good people; we just need a better system to separate the bad from the good.

Before George Floyd was killed, Asian Murder Hornets found their way across the ocean. In Washington State, a beekeeper noticed his hive was killed, their heads chopped off. He then collected the predator. It was confirmed to be an Asian Giant Hornet. There was then the fear that I saw online that these hornets were already their way across America, and a couple of my Facebook friends have had claimed they saw them in New York State. Because of George Floyd being killed wrongfully, the murder hornets became old school news. However, in October, there was the first confirmed case of a murder nest in Washington. It is believed the hornets have arrived on ships, since they cannot cross the ocean just by simply flying. 

During all of this, the US Government have confirmed that UFOs exist, providing us declassified footage. But we became forgotten about it, haven’t we?  Because deep down we already knew UFOs existed. 

As if 2020 couldn’t get weirder by the end of it, a silver monolith was found in Utah. It became instant news, as many people claim it was aliens that have planted the monolith there. Once it was all over the media, the monolith disappeared, but soon after there was one that had suddenly “popped” up in Europe. When that got viral, that monolith disappeared and another one came up in California. I figured it was a group of underground people on the internet discussing their plans to make 2020 weirder than it already was, and recently an Instagram post confirmed this, as the artist of the monolith in Utah is now trying to sell it. Sorry, guys, not really an X-File case. 

There were also the California wildfires that burned 4,359,517 acres of land, from 9,279 fires. California seemed to be suffocating with black smoke as fires rage. The smoke eventually reached across the nation. New York City was seen in a fog like state. Viral videos showed mountains of fire, as many forests were perished. Many were forced to evocate their homes, which many were left to burn. Homes and lives destroyed. As if things weren’t apocalyptic enough in 2020.

TikTok saw an increase. People began to make viral videos and challenges on the popular app. We see people making comedy videos. We see people make music videos. We see stupid challenge videos, trying to make a challenge go viral. We see people try to get though the day, no matter how difficult it was for them. Social media is a powerful tool these days, and the TikTok app seems to be one of the more recent ones that can make you instant internet famous, despite that countries are trying to ban it because the app was created by the Chinese. I do plan on getting TikTok shortly, if they don’t ban it (which I honestly think they won’t, but we’ll see). 

Another increase in popularity is the much more controversial website OnlyFans. Since many were forced to go jobless when businesses were shut down, many turned towards online to make money. OnlyFans was growing, but 2020 bloomed the website. Popular celebrities began to turn toward it, rather to release behind the scenes of photoshoots, songs, exercise tips, etc. Of course, OnlyFans is known for its popularity in the ever increasing of nudes or pornographic like content. Famous adult entertainers to maybe the girl next door use OnlyFans to earn money as they sell sexual content on the site. Because this is being 2020, and people are stuck in homes or single and the difficulties of dating someone, OnlyFans is a way to release that sexual tension, and those that are releasing content to make money. However you want to view it, OnlyFans is popping up everywhere on social media, and it’s a site that isn’t going away anytime soon.

Looking back at 2020 now, it has been a fast and surreal year. Liker everybody, I hope this pandemic goes away soon, despite that it’s looking like it may end next summer, the way they are predicting. I hope whoever is having difficulty that 2021 would be much more positive, that things will work out together. My message overall is this: please be kind to one another. Times are tough right now. Be positive, smile under your mask, and things will work out in the end. Cheers. 

[nosuchthingasthewritetime-blog]

Armageddon is a Man-Made Disaster

Armageddon does not come with the ringing of bells and trumpets of angels, but instead with the promise of ever-growing progress. I recently read an article called All the News is Bad that summarizes how we have orchestrated the end of the world through our own actions that have hit fast forward on climate change. As a review of The Uninhabitable Earth: A Story of the Future by David Wallace-Wells, this article brings the most important parts regarding our imminent demise to attention. 

Global warming— characterized by rapid climate change— is the main point of much of the article and book and is described as the reason for previous extinctions. Human beings are producing greenhouse gasses at an alarming rate, around 10 times faster than the period that triggered the last greenhouse gas-related extinction. These gasses are causing global increases in temperature and it is estimated that by 2100 that the increase will be about 4.5° C. This increase in temperature is not only causing ice melting but also triggering the release of poisonous gasses from within ice caps and causing dead zones without oxygen or life in the oceans due to sulfur-producing bacteria.

These dead zones aren’t only caused by sulfur-producing bacteria, however. With over 400 such dead zones all over the ocean, you can find many clustered around cities where pollution, sewage, and fertilizer runoff create perfect habitats for algae colonies. These colonies then leach all of the oxygen from the water when they begin to decay. Although a serious problem, dead zones are actually just a fraction of the nightmare currently affecting our oceans and Gooding goes on to describe other topics the book covers such as coral bleaching and ocean acidification.

Terrifying right? Gooding seems to agree but brings up that this book is ultimately unhelpful despite it being about a very real and terrifying thing. Why? Because it is an attempt to prepare you for events that have already happened and it is an overwhelming dump of data and information. Wallace-Wells places focus on events that have already happened or that are currently happening such as the wildfires currently raging in California. By focusing on old news it is difficult to look for solutions that may come in the future. We focus on what’s going on now as a side effect of the shock of climate change. Far off dates such as 2100 are out of focus to an adult living now as they will be largely unaffected (or so they think) by the changes to come. 

How can we fix this disconnect and how do we make climate change less of a data dump of fear? Well, technical writing and its focus on the reader and using plain language may be a great first start in creating a more manageable and relatable experience. Technical writers are often the liaison between experts and the average person, which means they have to understand and meet both the needs of the expert as well as the end reader without losing the core concept of the message. When translating this information from one form to another, it is important not to lose any of the content just transform it.

Many pieces of media regarding climate change, particularly those that are written, tend to be scientific and seemingly overcomplicated in nature and aren’t accessible to the average person. This is extremely unfortunate because while scientists may be able to come up with new ideas regarding climate change and global warming, the average person is going to be the one implementing them. If a person cannot read and understand the importance of a new process or change to their current lifestyle, they are unlikely to adopt these things despite the value attached. The language needs to be written in a way they can understand rather than what seems to be a contest between authors of who can sound the most intelligent and impressive. As writers, we need to place a limit on jargon and fear-inducing buzzwords that make our writing unapproachable. Articles or “instructions” to reduce the effects of climate change need to be written with the average person in mind rather than a scientist who has pre-existing knowledge to supplement their understanding. By immediately trying to data dump with statistics and figures you alienate the reader by overwhelming them with too much information. The same is true for buzzwords crafted to shock, although the concern is the desired effect. 

As for the disconnect about the demise of our planet happening within our lifetime or outside of it, the focus should perhaps be on the younger generations that are now reaching adulthood or who are currently in “early” adulthood (aka the “Millenial” and “Zoomer” generations). For older generations it is hard to get around the disconnect of “well it’s not happening in my life so why should I care” and it’s also difficult to promote the feeling of empathy with the new generations (their children and grandchildren) who will be the ones experiencing these things during their lifetimes. However, Millennials and Zoomers have shown great concern with the environment. Even internet memes are focused on environmental concerns. “Save the turtles” began as a concern for the environment in regards to plastic straws entering the ecosystem, progressed into an internet meme which increased exposure to the problem and has actually prompted people to choose more sustainable options such as paper, silicone, and metal straws. The ease of sharing posts and articles has exposed predatory hunting practices of celebrities and other individuals of means that devastate natural ecosystems. The ability of young generations to turn serious topics into relatable memes or succinct posts that can be shared en masse to promote social or environmental change is an incredible talent, and something to aspire to. 

Young adults, teens, and children are the hope for the future when it comes to climate change and other serious problems facing the world today. They should be our priority when we communicate about such serious topics, so we should target our communications to them. We need to evaluate what appeals to this particular reader/viewer group and discuss its obvious success rather than mock it. Buzzfeed articles, Twitter threads, TikTok clips, these are the communication methods and media that are currently popular but these platforms come in and out of style frequently so it is important to stay up to date with them. Despite trends, many of these platforms follow the same format as previous sites so the formulas can be replicated and their success studied. On these platforms messages with weight and importance such as climate change, genocide, etc. are brought to the attention to millions in a way that is accessible to people who can and will eventually work to solve these issues. While older generations seem to find trendy social media ridiculous and a waste of time it is the clear and obvious way to communicate with young people today.The industry needs to catch up to the times and use what works to our advantage in order to promote change.

[ladystylestores]

What’s Behind the Shootings? – The New York Times

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Good morning. A heat wave is pounding the South. Fauci responds to his White House critics. And crime is rising in several major cities.

Gun violence has been rising lately in some of the biggest American cities. It’s happened in New York, Chicago, Philadelphia and, perhaps most notably, Minneapolis, the scene of the brutal killing of George Floyd and the intense protests that followed.

The trend raises a question: Is it possible to change the nature of policing in the United States — and to make it less violent, as protesters are demanding — without unleashing other kinds of violence?

Some opponents of police reform say no. Some advocates of police reform claim that the recent crime increase is a meaningless blip.

To make sense of it, I talked with Patrick Sharkey, a sociologist who’s written perhaps the clearest explanation of the great crime decline of the past few decades, a book called “Uneasy Peace.” He offers two main answers:

First, the crime increase is not just statistical noise. It’s real, even if there are sometimes multiple causes, depending on the city. “It is a pattern,” Sharkey said. “When there have been large-scale protests against police, it is pretty clear that some police have stopped doing their jobs, and that’s destabilizing.”

Before this year, the biggest examples were in 2015, in Baltimore and in Ferguson, Mo., where crime also rose after protests. “I worry this is going to be a violent summer in a lot of cities,” Sharkey added.

But a second point is also vital: The rise in violence is not inevitable.

It happens because some police officers respond to criticism by staging a work slowdown — and because the U.S. relies on the police to fulfill so many roles that other civic organizations could accomplish. That reliance also has huge downsides.

“Police are effective at controlling violence, but there are all these costs,” Sharkey said. They include mass incarceration and widespread violence committed by the police, often against Black men.

“But there are alternatives that maintain safe streets without the costs,” says Sharkey, who was previously the scientific director of Crime Lab New York and is now a Princeton professor. “There is now a body of evidence showing these are not just feel-good stories. The effects are very real.”

The alternatives include conflict-resolution counselors, addiction and mental-health programs, summer-jobs and after-school programs and more. The Cure Violence program, in Chicago, New York and elsewhere, is an example. (For more detail, read this 2017 Times article.)

“We’ve asked police departments to be the primary force that responds to many situations,” Sharkey said. That’s not the only option, of course. But when it’s the approach that cities take — and when police then respond to protests by pulling back — violence often does increase.

For more: The Times’s Ashley Southall looks in depth at the recent crime increase in New York.

FOUR MORE BIG STORIES

1. Where the protests haven’t stopped

In Louisville, Ky., protesters continue to hit the streets demanding justice for Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old Black woman who was shot and killed at her home by the police. The Times has put together a visual story about the daily demonstrations.

On Tuesday, 87 demonstrators were arrested and charged with a felony after gathering outside the home of Kentucky’s attorney general to demand action in Taylor’s case. None of the officers involved in the shooting have been charged.

In Minneapolis: Journalists were allowed to watch the police body camera footage from the killing of George Floyd for the first time. In the video, “the officers seemed to be more concerned with controlling his body than saving his life,” Times reporters write.

2. Fauci responds to attacks

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the most prominent scientist on the White House coronavirus task force, pressed back against criticism that some Trump administration officials have recently leveled at him. “I cannot figure out in my wildest dreams why they would want to do that,” Fauci said in an interview with The Atlantic. “It’s only reflecting negatively on them.”

Trump aides have criticized Fauci for underplaying the virus, and Peter Navarro, the White House trade adviser, has called him “wrong about everything.” In truth, Fauci’s predictions about the virus — and his warning about its seriousness — have proven more accurate than the president’s remarks in recent months.

In Oklahoma: Gov. Kevin Stitt announced yesterday that he had tested positive for the coronavirus, a first for a U.S. governor.

3. A heat wave hits the South

4. U.S. considers barring many Chinese

The Trump administration is considering a sweeping ban on travel to the United States by members of the Chinese Communist Party and their families, The Times’s Paul Mozur and Edward Wong report. About 92 million Chinese citizens belong to the party.

Administration officials have loudly denounced China for its handling of the coronavirus outbreak and its crackdown on Hong Kong.

Elsewhere: TikTok, which is owned by a company based in China, has hired a small army of lobbyists to convince lawmakers of its allegiance to the U.S.

Here’s what else is happening

President Trump demoted his campaign manager, Brad Parscale, last night, in an effort to lift a re-election effort that is trailing in the polls.

Hackers hijacked the Twitter accounts of a number of major figures, including Barack Obama, Kanye West and Bill Gates, and posted messages asking followers to send them Bitcoin. (Unaffected was Trump’s account, which is under a special kind of lock-and-key after past incidents.)

Deadly monsoons across southern Asia have displaced millions of people, destroying homes and drowning villages. Scientists say global warming has increased the frequency of extreme rains that cause flooding.

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, 87, was released from the hospital yesterday, a day after she was admitted for a possible infection.

Lives Lived: Like Walt Disney, Blaine Kern was an artist, a businessman and a showman all in one. As the designer of innovative and spectacular parade floats, he helped turn Mardi Gras from a New Orleans institution into a worldwide phenomenon. Kern died at 93.

Subscribers help make Times journalism possible. To support our efforts, please consider subscribing today.

PLAY, WATCH, EAT, GARDEN

Get gardening

Gardening makes Samin Nosrat happier. Yanking out weeds, composting for hours at a time and planting seeds have become a kind of solace, “regenerating both the soil and something deep in myself,” she writes.

Green coriander seed — the fresh seed of the cilantro plant — is Nosrat’s favorite thing to grow. Intensely fragrant and slightly citrusy, it can be used interchangeably with cilantro in stews, marinades, dressings and more. Try it in her recipe for corn on the cob with green coriander butter.

For more on gardening: Read the fascinating history of victory gardens in the Times Magazine.

A star director gets her due

Best known for intimate dramas like “Love & Basketball” and “Beyond the Lights,” the director Gina Prince-Bythewood is trying her hand at something new: a summer blockbuster.

Netflix has released “The Old Guard,” starring Charlize Theron, which makes Prince-Bythewood the first Black woman to helm a big-budget comic book movie. Read this interview with her, in which she talked about the perils of the Netflix algorithm, sexism in the film industry and the future of independent films.

The show goes on, at a distance

Thanks for spending part of your morning with The Times. See you tomorrow. — David

P.S. This was supposed to be the week of the Democratic National Convention in Milwaukee. But there’s still plenty of politics to talk about. Join several Times reporters — plus Julián Castro — for a conversation today at 5 p.m. Eastern.

You can see today’s print front page here.

Today’s episode of “The Daily” revisits a restaurant owner in Baton Rouge, La., who struggled to decide whether to reopen. On “The Argument,” Times Opinion columnists interview Senator Tammy Duckworth, a potential running mate for Joe Biden.

Ian Prasad Philbrick, Sanam Yar, Gus Wezerek and Lauren Leatherby contributed to The Morning. You can reach the team at themorning@nytimes.com.

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