#realized that i've been posting a fair bit about what i'm reading to dreamwidth

[kitewithfish]

Wednesday reading meme

What I've Read

The Golden Enclaves by Naomi Novik - Oh, this is how you end a trilogy. This books took the relationships and themes and even the monsters that have followed the main character from the very first book, and hunted them all down to pull the last thematic dregs from their depths. I didn't quite cry when I found out what really happened to Orion, but man, it hurt. It hurt so good. El Higgins will always live in my heart. 

Mutually-Assured Destruction by Sineala -  Bucky/Tony 616 Marvel comics in the 1960s - Identity porn! 1960's Tony Stark is Iron Man and nobody knows. So when the Winter Soldier comes out of the Soviet Union to ask to join the Avengers on the condition that he doesn't ever tell anyone his name or reveal his face, even to Captain America.... Tony thinks, oh, maybe we could be friends? Maybe I can be a little bit myself with this one? And things snowball from there. This is a great fic by an author that loves the 1960s comics version of the Avengers, and honestly, the tone fits those comics so well. This fic was slipping into a warm bath - angsty just in measure to the comfort. I was following updates from Sineala's Patreon while she was writing it and I was so glad to see if come out!

a simple thing- Chapter 47-  by iridan - Star Wars, Mandalorian, Boba Fett/Din Djarin. - Chapter 47 just hit this week, which means we are ONE CHAPTER FROM THE ENDING OF THE FIC,this is not a drill. This fic is 765K words and Chapter 47 alone was 27K words, and I heartily recommend it if you want to watch someone really live into their tags that say " Din 'I Can't Talk Right Now I'm Doing Queer Person With Religious Trauma Shit' Djarin" and "rebuilding a culture is hard." Honestly, great work on the cultural stuff about how there's been tons of contradictory ways of portraying Mandalorians in Star wars, and this fic makes them all feel like people who have been out in the world, trying their best. 

Fic Rec based on Scholomance series: If you want a smaller, single person version of the themes in The Scholomance Trilogy, I heartily recommend two other works by Astolat (aka, Naomi Novik in her fic writing persona) -

-Heal Thyself a Draco post-canon character study about what damage using Dark Magic does to a person, and what it takes for Draco to really come out of it the other side. (Technically Harry/Draco, but only towards the end, well after Draco has done the work of fixing himself.)    

-Victory Condition: A Tranformers fic in which Megatron and Optimus Prime have to actually talk thru their world views, and Optimus Prime has to face that the Golden Age he remembered was built on the suffering of people he didn't see. (Honestly, I kind of recommended The Scholomance series to someone based on the idea that El Higgins is a Megatron with a bit more support and Orion the human is pretty clearly based on Orion Pax aka Optimus Prime, but with some complicated history.) 

Honorable mentions to fic that didn't quite make the novel-length cut: Don’t be afraid. by spqr -Star Wars, Anakin/Obi-Wan, ages reversed. I... I find this pairing normally not for me, and I am aware that this is working on me because I love fic where a traumatized character is confronted with love and care, and well, this did the job. 

What I'm Reading

Homeworld Elegy - Ashcroft Writes - Star Wars AU - Obi-Wan/ Cad Bane - 138K words -Once I got some momentum on this fic, I'm just flying thru it. I'm in a section that creates a whole history for Cad Bane and Duros and their world and his childhood romance with a friend, and I'm like, I thought this was just a mean blue man in a big hat, and now you are making my feel emotions??? It's just working for me really well. 

Two Old Women by Velma Wallis - I'm just not finishing this very quickly, dunno why. The voice just feels like listening to someone telling a story. 

What I'll Read Next:

Library books are on hold for this week because I'm going to be traveling, unless I get finished with them before I go. 

Darth Maul: Lockdown

Whale Rider

Thrawn -Heir to the Empire 

Maybe Spinning Silver 

Tiger's Daughter

Things I own:

Might re-read City of Lies in order to get back on the page for the sequel book. 

Hunting Towards Heartstill -blackkat

Think of England - KJ charles

[olderthannetfic]

Hey friend. Well, an apparently a post I made has exploded. And a super friendly person has said that we're anti-ao3 and about censorship because the post was asking people to stop being cruel in bookmarks. I was pleasantly surprised, tbh, by the reception of the post. And then utterly shocked when it sped right past my usual ~50 note count to spread like fire. Right now it's at 14k notes, and while I'm really sad at how many people have said they have had cruel and hurtful comments- the overall reception has been good! A few people didn't know and adjusted their bookmarks. Many people just liked it. But about... 5? People doubled down insisting bookmarks are for readers and we shouldn't tell them how to use them. It's utterly baffling- the willful misunderstanding of the request. But this last one is accusing us of censorship and you know? I figured I'd reach out to accounts more used to handling this shit. So I'm talking to you, as you're quite level headed in the discourse I've read. Whether or not bookmarks are for readers... is really a moot point, isn't it? But asking them not to be cruel in their notes, as we are, is it truly so unreasonable? (Horribly optimistic, I know, but asking doesn't harm.)

--

Well... I think it's really a question of what "cruel" means to you, you know?

For me, direct insults to the author are too cruel. I'm talking stuff like "This stupid cunt can't write." Insult insults against their actual person, not just "I think this fic was poorly written". Threats are, of course, not acceptable.

I've been sent your post already, and I don't think I entirely agree with how you see bookmarks. Perhaps the tone of the pushback put your back up a bit, but underneath all that is a legitimate fundamental disagreement about what bookmarks are for and how much concrit or negativity should be visible publicly.

My view is that a very high level of concrit and even negative reviewing is fine in public... But not in the author's space.

The author's space is the comments on their fic, comments or reblogs on their posts, their email, etc. Basically, places you know will directly send the author notifications or emails to their inbox are places you post when you want to shove your comment in the author's eyeballs. I think unsolicited concrit and/or negative reviews are undesirable in such places.

Now, bookmarks on AO3, bookmarks on pinboard, recs posts on tumblr, recs communities on Dreamwidth, and the like are not the author's space. They're readers' spaces to discuss what they thought. It's true that sometimes what readers think hurts to hear. That's a good reason for authors to be careful about looking.

I do think that some AO3 users don't realize their bookmarks are public by default, and for them, a post like that is a good reminder.

But for others who are just using the bookmarks as fanfic Goodreads... that's what the bookmarking feature is for, and they're not doing anything incorrect.

So, again, does "cruel" mean insulting the author as a person, calling them rude words and slurs? Or does "cruel" mean bookmarking them with "1/5 stars, DNF, needs SPAG edit"?

AO3 has had an increased bullying problem in recent years, so I can well believe that people are getting bookmarks I too would consider cruel, full of personal attacks and anti bullshit. But I also see a lot of people calling "1/5 stars" cruel, and I'd consider that fair game and useful to other readers.

--

But as for the virality part, it will probably die down before too long. Most people won't remember that you're the OP of that post or have any particular association with your username from it. Anything that involves feedback for fic or AO3 itself tends to make the rounds like wildfire and people have a lot of passionate opinions.

I think the worst thing you can do is get defensive. If most of the replies are agreeing with you already, it's kind of petty to be really upset about the 5 that aren't. Being petty tends to attract more wank than just going "Whatever. I've thought through my philosophy, and I'm sticking to it."