#if they were working on a Taylor's Version that day I'm going absolutely feral

[lovefrommaxie]

Y'all, do we know yet what Taylor and Jack were working on when they were in the recording studio in New Orleans on December 13, 2022?

Because when I find out I'm going to be claiming that track(s) for myself. Whatever it was, it will have been recorded less than a mile from my house. I'm still (*jokingly*) mad at Taylor for having the audacity to hang out in the recording studio in my neighborhood and not DM me -- at least for neighborhood to-go restaurant recommendations.

Like, Blondie, I am a great secret keeper and I know the good food in my neighborhood -- please love me and at least trust me enough to let me give you a list of food recs when you're in my ZIP code. I can recommend the type of places where the main staff and customers are the variety of boomers who won't instantly recognize you. Or I'm willing to act as your personal DoorDash/UberEats person and pick up food for you in exchange for a hug (which is the same standing offer I have for all of my friends when they're in a pinch). I'm fully vaccinated AND I'm willing to mask up for said hug.

[timandlucy]

hi suz! i hope the rest of your week was good!

i know what you mean about 2x05 especially, it always bothers me. i swear, on my death bed i'm gonna be like "the drew crew's treatment of nancy in 2x05 was unfair and while they "apologized" i wanted a more substantial apology, especially because nancy never forced them into anything with the agleaca" and everyone is gonna be like "okay, can you please move on from this?" lol. i agree about the wraith storyline, i think that one and nancy being lucy and ryan's daughter are the strongest storylines they had on the show and were the best executed (but regardless, the writers always managed to leave me surprised, they definitely knew what they were doing!)

i love that rep is so special to you 🧡 i love that about taylor albums; she seems to always release something when someone needs it most. what's your favorite song from rep? mine is probably call it what you want, but i always go feral when don't blame me, i did something bad, or look what you made me do come on hdsbfsdabfldsa the eras tour transition from dbm into lwymmd??? absolutely brilliant.

awwww the lakes is such a gorgeous song! i know what you mean, it makes me feel so soft and i love that. atw 10 will always be that bitch for me, it's just iconic! the great war is absolutely the nace song of all time, like holy shit they WENT THROUGH IT but they really did survive the great war 😭 every taylor song is absolutely about nace, i will not be taking questions at this time. and yes, that line of long story short absolutely makes me think of them, especially "and he feels like home" bc of "ace is my person" and timeless works so well, especially with the whole "ace will always be able to find you" thing. temperance may have put a death curse on them, but in the end she just made their connection even stronger so, joke's on you, blondie!

not state of grace for ryan and lucy i'm gonna lose it 😭😭😭😭 no but really that's so perfect for them.

i'm never sorry when asking taylor swift questions, i could talk about taylor's music all day long! i know i already asked your favorite taylor song, but what would you say are your favorites from each album? (i love asking people this question lol)

i do celebrate thanksgiving and had a nice relaxing time at home, thank you! are you looking forward to the holiday season? do you have any traditions that you're looking forward to?

lots of love, your secret sleuth 🧡🔎

Hi! My week was okay, busy, but I got some stuff done, so I'm just glad it's a new week and I can rest a bit more. How about yours?

I am so happy someone agrees. I usually always see people defending the crew, but so rarely do I see someone actually saying that their treatment was wrong and there should have been more apology for it. And yeah! The writers were great at plot twists for sure. I never saw them coming.

That's tough because rep is full of bangers! But I do also go feral for Don't Blame Me (the reputation stadium tour version is like... stuff dreams are made of). I think top spot would go to either call it what you want OR king of my heart, with honorary mention of getaway car. And I just named like half of the album. Rep is just that bitch! Also, the transition from DBM to LWYMMD was WILD. Like out of this world religious experience, 11/10, would recommend to everyone.

taylor swift truly never beating those nace shipper allegations, ykwim? Also have you noticed that this verse of long story short:

And I fell from the pedestal / Right down the rabbit hole / Long story short, it was a bad time / Pushed from the precipice / Clung to the nearest lips / Long story short, it was the wrong guy

was literally written about nace?? Fell from the pedestal - Nancy recanting her testimony against Everrett to save Ace's life. And clung to the nearest lips - Gil, Park, take your pick...

Haha well I'm glad, because I definitely, ahem, got carried away again. I'm just very passionate about taylor swift lyrics and nace okay. That's fine.

Oh, such a fun question!

Debut - gotta go with Picture to Burn, such a fun song I never get tired of singing in my car.

Fearless - The Way I Loved You (also Mr Perfectly Fine)

Speak Now - Last Kiss and Timeless

1989 - Out of the Woods (but the og, they really changed it on TV and I can't listen to that version)

reputation - call it what you want / king of my heart

lover - death by a thousand cuts

folklore - exile / illicit affairs

evermore - willow

midnights - would've could've should've / the great war

That's great! I'm glad you had a nice time ☺️ I am... not the biggest fan of the holidays 🙈 It's not usually the most fun time for me, but I am determined to make the most of it, so yeah, I'm looking forward to old Christmas songs and mulled wine and good food, and most of all, my SS gift! I'm so excited bc I feel like we're vibing and you get me, so it'll be perfect. How about you? Any fave traditions I can steal?

Lots of love to you my secret sleuth, and I your message totally made my week. Thanks for letting me ramble about taylor swift and nace.

[unforth]

This...isn't entirely right. I highly recommend you read the version of this thread with input from @foxofninetales, because it gives the codes that the publishers ACTUALLY put into BISAC, Ingram, and Baker and Taylor. These do NOT match what Amazon did. You can read that version of this post here:

https://foxofninetales.tumblr.com/post/670650541639188480/i-wish-i-could-say-this-surprised-me-but-if

My day job...I actually AM a book publisher. I own a small press, and have for almost a year, and spent 5 years before that planning and preparing. AND I've self-published. AND I've worked with others who self-publish. AND I've got a background in libraries. This is a topic I know about.

For Amazon and B&N, if a person is a small publisher or a self-publisher, yes, they enter that information by hand and make the choice themselves. I've done it. But if it's a larger release/publisher and they're handling distribution through Ingram and/or B&T, the whole point of using distributors and paying distributors is that it automates a lot of that. Amazon just pulls the listing more-or-less automatically, as far as I know. Which means that someone at Amazon saw an Asian title, LGBTQ+, Fantasy, Historical, and Graphic Novel, and decided this was obviously yaoi manga.

With DMBJ, there IS some reason to think these decisions might have been at least in part the publishers fault, but with TGCF, MDZS, and SVSSS, there's really not (based on the data that foxofninetales shared) and I wasn't even going to respond to your post but I really don't want people who scroll through the replies to my original post seeing what you wrote and thinking that Seven Seas Danmei is the reason this happened, because that's not supported by the evidence. They're NOT the ones lumping these categories together, and aren't guilty of the casual racism it reflects. Someone at Amazon is.

Further, I appreciate your argument that it's to help people network, but will that really work? If someone buys this thinking that it's a yaoi manga, and then they get it and it's...so not...will that do anyone any favors? And, do we really think that most of fandom is coming in from being other readers? That's never been what's driven their popularity before - part of what's so remarkable about the popularity of MXTX works in Western fandom is that it's pretty much been entirely a fandom-driven, word-of-mouth phenomenon. Yes, I'm sure that having them max out the manga categories helped some people become aware of them - how could it not - but without having any access to conversion stats to know how many of those people then actually investigated and purchased, it's impossible to know if that had any significant impact. What I can say for sure, since I was on Tumblr all day when they were announced, is that they sure didn't GET to number one on the strength of that. They got to number one on the strength of all of us here, and on twitter, and on reddit, and on Discord, going absolutely fucking feral with excitement, and pre-ordering it instantly. (tho personally I pre-ordered from a small local place because fuck Amazon.)

Based on the information provided by the publisher, the MXTX books SHOULD be shelved/sorted in LGBTQ+ adult fantasy.

And Amazon and Barnes & Noble just decided...nope. Clearly they know better. So I repeat: it's racist, and infantilizing, and really wrong, and not the publishers fault.

So as part of a discussion on "why the fuck are SVSSS, MDZS, and TGCF getting shelved/sorted in manga and/or young adult categories, where they clearly don't belong," (a topic about which I ranted to my wife last night, like, they have explicit porn, so they're not YA, and they're literally neither comics nor Japanese so they're not manga, just fucking shelve them in fantasy/sci-fi, whyyyyyyy are they being put in manga or young adult? Oh right, we know why)...and along the same lines I just discovered that DMBJ is, on Amazon, shelved in...

Yep, that's right. "Children's Asia Books." "Children's Science Fiction." You know what's in "Children's Science Fiction?"

Dear Amazon: WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK?

This led me to check some of the other categories...so here's some highlights.

Other works in "Asian Myth and Legend:"

Ah yes, that masterful example Asian myth (checks notes) J.R.R.' Tolkien's book about Santa Claus. The Asian-est.

Yaoi Manga:

At least these are all actually Japanese and actually shonen-ai...except the How To book, which again, what the fuck.

Meanwhile, tops in fantasy right now?

Oh hey look a bunch of books by fucking white people. Now, I will say, APPARENTLY they ARE cross-posted there...

But for fuck's sake, why is Amazon telling me that HOB is "#1 in Yaoi Manga" when it's LITERALLY FUCKING NOT YAOI MANGA and NOT telling THE ENTIRE FUCKING WORLD that this book is #16 in all of Fantasy on their entire fucking website like that's a huge fucking deal it's up there with Harry Potter (fucking HP) and Robert Jordan (who is hugely popular and just had entire TV series come out so is on the rise rn) but no instead they bury that information in favor of "#1 in a sub-genre that it's not even part of."

I'm sorry, but I'm so goddamn steamed about all this.

The casual racism, infantilization, lumping-together-of-all-east-Asian-cultures, and just flat-out dangerously incorrect nature of these shelving choices is really really REALLY fucking pissing me off.

Like, majorly.

DMBJ has graphic violence, constant swearing, horror aspects, body horror, I could go on, and Amazon has it shelved in the same sections as "read to me electronic Spiderman" and thinks it's appropriate for 8 year olds.

WHO THE FUCK IS IN CHARGE OF THESE DECISIONS AND HOW DO I SEND THEM A STRONGLY WORDED LETTER EXPLAINING HOW INCORRECT THEY ARE?

AAAAAAARGH Americans WHY.