#obviously queer people can be just as shitty as allocishets but

[wahoopli]

last night I hung out with two women who have only slept with cis men and man. things are rough out there

[no-1-rosalind-lang-apologist]

ok one of the things that i really dislike about booktok and similar online book communities at least from like. my experience with them because i avoid them most of the time now. is the thing where there's one half that doesn't really care and is usually the "let people enjoy things" group and will read sjm and colleen hoover or like all of the popular problematic booktok books or whatever. and then there's the other side that is a lot better about reading diversely and social justice issues in general which is great in theory and certainly has a positive effect to whatever extent but like. it all seems so weird to me because the point of all of these communities doesn't seem to be to just like talk to other people about your love of a book or even use it as a public reading journal it mostly seems to be about having a platform. and then whatever book you read and talk about on your platform you're either endorsing or condemning. so at some point it just feels like a huge percentage of it is just virtue signaling? like i'm sorry but i'd rather talk to an sjm reader who checked acotar out from the library and can acknowledge that a lot of it is shitty while still enjoying it for the escapism or whatever than someone who's bought and read every single book on whatever booktok list of new releases by queer and bipoc authors and took nothing away from any of the books. like ok great thank you so much for that list of x type of books written by authors from x marginalized group can you actually tell me what the book is about and what you got from it or is the most meaningful thing about it to you the fact that you read it which means you can now recommend me a book written by an author from [insert marginalized group here]? and this isn't every single person who has one of those platforms like there are definitely people who genuinely care it just seems so widespread and it's so fucking weird. like i have personally tried to find representation for myself by looking at these lists and i'm disappointed almost every time because believe it or not! a book having representation doesn't make it good or make the representation good or make it something you would actually enjoy reading!

then also like. sure yes. half of the issue is that on an individual level people need to do more to support marginalized authors and read things outside of their experience because that is a thing you should do because obviously (though i don't think it's going to do much if you're not willing to develop the reading comprehension to actually take anything away from it). but also. publishing companies are absolutely horrible and from my understanding booktok certainly is not making it any better, especially for marginalized authors. authors should not have to be able to sell a persona on fucking tiktok and be conventionally attractive enough for people to watch your tiktoks to be able to get published. not every book should need to be consumable to a large audience and incorporate whatever fucking tiktok trope is currently trending to sell. and if you genuinely want to help marginalized authors and are building a platform for yourself in an online book community why the fuck are you promoting and partnering with and doing free marketing for deeply bigotted publishing companies that pose systemic barriers to marginalized authors that are arguably much more of a threat than some allocishet white girl at barnes and noble who only reads colleen hoover books. and i don't know what the solution to this is but jesus christ this is driving me insane. like oh? you read one of the three new releases x publishing company was willing to publish despite their quota on the number of books they're willing to publish each year with a protagonist from x marginalized group? and they even gave you a free copy?? to promote it for them!! for free?!? wow. congratulations. would you like a free sticker. that also promotes their publishing company. so you can do more free advertising for them. instead of them actually giving enough of a shit about marginalized authors to put effort into promoting them that goes beyond free advertising on fucking tiktok and like. a post that features authors from x marginalized group on their instagram once a year.

[depressedsightwitch]

A list of things that annoy me in the book community

- mackenzi lee being a white feminist and also remember that time was trying to tease people that some MC in one of her books /might/ be asexual and people were like it's a yes or no question like???? She implied it was a spoiler or something I think. Also I'm pretty sure i saw she tried to police someone's bisexuality or something to that effect and idk if that's true but even if it is yikes. (*add on* the original wording was bad, so it was changed, I thought I'd saved the thing I saw about this and as far as I can tell I haven't. This is also not trying to say she's evil and antibi (she's bi I'm pretty sure) but in case she pulls the classic messy queer move as she's been pulling a lot of messy shit 🙂)

- the annoyance at Jodi Meadows having the first YA fantasy book (that we know of) published with a black girl on it, knowing full well other POC should've gotten that honor first and then saying nothing about it or any of the issues in the book (ive heard that most of the males- who are black- are aggressive and it mostly just features the mc being fucking tortured in a prison cell but yay for a white lady writing a black character)

- maggie stiefvaters constant racism

- i still feel awful that cclare is so fucking big, like i enjoyed tid (obviously) but hot damn she fucked a lot of ppl over and that whole copyright situation, meaning she copyrighted herself not the darkhunters lady is Yikestm. Also all of her books kinda read same? But thats more a me thing 🤷🏼

- oh right people still stan sjm and I'm????? She's racist, sexist, ableist, and probably more! Not to mention her books go on for too long with virtually no content (im looking at you empire of storms) and are so fucking similar literally empire of storms and court of mist and fury had the same ending. Also, can we talk about how people were seeing lines not just from other people's books but from HER OWN books that were in ACOWAR (which still looks like 'a cowar (d)' to me, coincidence, i think not) and wasn't there that whole thing were she was a asshat to her closest author pal (s), and to her fans and shit? Like, IDK she was nice to me when I met her but the fact that she ran from social media when people criticized her was telling and I wouldn't put that past her.

(Side note, I don't hate her or want her dead or harmed, that's awful, I just want her to have virtually no sales, like therw is no reason this person should be famous)

- harlequinteen and their messy ass needs to go home like? Stop with The Continent and The Black Witch and Zenith.

The Continent is racist and anti native, with a healthy doce of white savior.

The Black Witch is every kind if -ist, -ism, anti-, you can possibly think of, but it's passed of as okay/funny/progressive for the sake of our very white, very allocishet, and able MC.

Zenith is like some mess they tossed together at the last minute but it's okay, apparently they have "diversity". Despite no character ever being describe one of the characters is a WOC? Also that book is just a fucking joke, i think theinsanereader on youtube puts it best, plus literally just goodreads it.

- also epic reads needs to chill with continuing to rec books that came in 2012 that the WHOLE WORLD KNOWS ABOUT okay, Throne of Glass, The Hunger Game, Cinder they've come and gone, move on please. Also stop with messy books like Carve The Mark it looks bad on you.

- and can we please talk about how authors will drop issues of suddenly become indifferent to criticisms once they get a deal. They could be screaming about problematic people, protect the teens, more diversity but it's like the second they sign with some big company. Not that the company matters, all of the self pub authors I know of/followed where pretty sketchy or asshats, so there is that.

ADD ONS

- im also still annoyed about that tristina wright shit, like 1. She was cancelled when her book fucking sympathized with colonizers, 2. She was double cancelled when her apology wasn't even an apology like???? Also, I HATE how much that highlighted ppl having to pick, like the shitty race and coloniser narrative for queerness? Alright, will do? But now she's a sexual harrasser too, so triple done with her. I wonder how Entangled Teen is handling this?

- authors who suddenly have diversity in there books? What the fuck was with the sudden diversity in King's Cage? Why wasn't all that there before? Likely because the author didn't think to put it in until people criticised her for it. Same with SJM, people criticised her and instead of actually doing anything about it she "actually-ed" in her books by plunking rando queers into the story, but i doubt she takes the poc thing seriously because "but she has the summer court!" Okay jan, yes the queen of diversity love 👀

-also wtf is it with the "here's a black nation and my nation is all white" in fantasy, what is that why do people do that, why is your fantasy world segregated, at SJM and Sara Raasch, like I loved Snow Like Ashes but it has that in it. I think I've heard of other fantasy books having it too, like Kiss of Deception but I could be wrong.

-how little the YA community cares about the demographic these books are written for. I joined as a teen and literally everyone cared about the opinions of adults more than us? If you don't like or value teens then go somewhere else? These stories are supposed to be for them and about them and y'all are out here speaking over and attacking them? Yikes.

(Add on) because this isn't apparent this is me being annoying and annoyed. This are all things I've heard about/read about at some point and I'd dare say a good portion of these you could look up and read more about!

If any of this pisses you off feel free to fight me (i hope you read in that 13yos viner girls voice) and if you think I'm wrong feel free to challenge me 🙂)