#the gentile writer

[ariel-seagull-wings]

Who is your favorite character from Latin American folklore?

@themousefromfantasyland

Bear in mind that I mainly focus on my country, Brazil, because its the biggest one in the continent with stories yet to be discovered.

I'm not yet qualified to play a favorite with characters that are from my neighboring countries.

That said, the trickster Pedro Malartes (also known as Pedro das Malas Artes and Pedro de Urdemalas), that originated in the Iberian Peninsula and became popular in Brazil and its neighboring countries is an old favorite of mine: in each story, while he is a trickster, what motivates him to con people will vary from tale.

Sometimes he wants to speak truth to power, other times he wants revenge, other times he is simply concerned about how will he eat, other times he only wants to get a laugh at someone's expense.

[velvettapeworm]

IN THE HOLLOWS WHERE I'VE LAIN - a (Jewish) gothic literary horror novel-in-progress.

‘Ariel is dead but not gone. It is the God-appointed task of Malach HaMavet to care for his lingering soul until the very moment it dissolves from his corpse forever.’

[tomorrowusa]

Conflicts take lots of patience and determination to win. It also helps if you call the other side's bluff.

When the Writers Guild of America went on strike five months ago, the studios clearly thought they had the upper hand. They dismissed the majority of the guild’s demands without so much as a response. They taunted writers with anonymous threats about an admittedly “evil” scheme to impoverish us and drive us from our homes (a plot point so outlandish, the writers would have scrapped it). They bragged about all the cash they would save, as entertainment companies, by no longer making entertainment. And they confidently assured investors that they had nearly infinite libraries of film and television stockpiled, with one CEO insisting, “We have a lot of content that’s been produced,” and another boasting, “We’ve been planning for this … consumers really won’t notice anything for a while.” By late summer, the CEOs were berating guild negotiators to their faces about how generous the studios’ proposals were, and leaking the details to members in a desperate (and pointless) bid to go around leadership. Actors joined the writers on strike. Stars walked off red carpets. Picket lines swelled. Polls showed overwhelming support for the strikes among the general public. The stock prices of nearly all the major entertainment companies had taken major hits by then, with Disney shares falling below $100 to a nearly nine-year low. Warner Bros.-Discovery confessed to Wall Street that it would lose $300 to $500 million due to the strikes.

It certainly helps to gain public support and to encourage allies with a common interest to act.

Clearly, the studios had misjudged things. They came back to the table earlier this month. The two sides struck a tentative agreement this week. And the strike is now over as of Wednesday. [ ... ] Guild leaders have called this agreement “exceptional.” Variety reported that “the WGA prevailed in forcing Hollywood’s largest employers to address the guild’s major priorities.” And The New York Times wrote, simply: “The Writers Guild of America got most of what it wanted.” The lesson is clear: Strikes work.

It can be painful in the short run. But if you display solidarity and show intelligence in bargaining then you can win.

It was at that moment that I realized just how wrong the studio propaganda had been. We hadn’t picked the worst time for a strike; we’d picked the best time. Which is to say, any time that your bosses refuse to properly recognize your value as a worker, or offer you a litany of excuses for why you can’t have the fairness and dignity that you deserve.

We hope that SAG-AFTRA and the UAW stick to their guns and remind the super-rich CEOs that it's the workers rather than overpaid senior executives and shareholders who produce the actual products and services which make the companies profitable.

[readingoals]

The Mystery Writer was one of my most anticipated books of the year. I still felt a little slumpy when I picked it up, in the hopes that a thrillery mystery type story from an author I love would help pull me out of it. Unfortunately it didn't quite work but I did enjoy the book, just not quite as much as her other two.

Gentill's writing is spectacular though. She does a fantastic job of making you worry for the characters. I felt so paranoid of every new character introduced and eventually of all the others too, which really fit with the headspace the main character was in.

Not my favourite of Gentill's works but there were some very interesting ideas in there around the publishing industry and online identities. I'm excited to see what she comes up with next!

[luma-az]

Je vois...

Défi d’écriture 30 jours pour écrire, 11 août 

Thème : Voyance/la vie d’un pigeon

. .

Ne croyez pas ce que vous disent les films. Une bonne voyante ne commence jamais par « je vois ». D’abord, il faut qu’elle prenne du temps pour connaître son client, ses souhaits, ses résistances. Du temps pour qu’elle se connecte réellement à lui. Puis à son avenir. Alors seulement, si tout se passe bien, elle voit.

Celle-ci n’est clairement pas une très bonne voyante.

« Je vois… je vois…

Ce qu’elle voit, plongée sur sa boule de cristal, c’était sans aucun doute la vie d’un pigeon. Je n’ai jamais nié l’être. Je paye beaucoup pour quelques mots de réconfort. Un peu d’espoir. Et si le message n’est pas assez positif, je change de crèmerie.

Mais est-ce qu’on peut vraiment s’auto-catégoriser pigeon ? Si on sait pourquoi on paye, on n’est pas déçu, non ? Et ça reste moins cher que le téléphone rose. Enfin je crois.

— Je vois… de l’eau.

— De l’eau ? Une île ? Je vais partir en vacance sur une île ?

L’idée me plait bien. Peut-être qu’après tout, j’avais mal jugé la dame. Elle n’a pas assuré en matière de spectacle, mais si on part directement sur les fantasmes de tropiques, ça me va.

Elle a vite douché mon enthousiasme.

— De l’eau stagnante. De la vieille eau. Dans un lieu humide.

Beurk. Ce n’est pas avec ce genre d’avenir qu’elle peut compter me garder comme client. Je tente quand même de la remettre sur les rails.

— Un lieu humide, comme une grotte ? C’est une visite ? Un bel endroit à découvrir ?

— Je vois la mort. Une scie. Une cave.

Ah. Ça, ce n’était pas prévu.

— Je vois une femme terrifiée. Un meurtre. Une valise.

Tsss. Une bonne voyante devrait être capable de prévoir les conséquences de ses visions – et à quel moment elle devrait fermer sa gueule. Je cherche du regard un objet contondant à portée de la main. Tant qu’elle concentrée sur la boule, son crâne est sans défense.

— Je vois du sang. Tellement de sang. Des vêtements brûlés.

Ça va, ça va, pas la peine de me faire un dessin, j’étais là, je m’en souviens très bien. Vieille saloperie. J’avais demandé mon avenir, pas mon passé !

Et puis merde. En terme d’objet contondant, j’ai tout ce qu’il me faut sous la main après tout, et j’attrape la boule….

« Mains en l’air ! Bougez plus ! »

Les flics débarquent, envahissant le petit espace du cabinet de voyance, et je me retrouve menotté avant d’avoir eut le temps de dire ouf. Et alors que les policiers essayent de réconforter ma voyante, qui  a l’air d’aller très bien, elle me dit avec calme :

« Une bonne voyante commence par prédire sa propre journée. Ça peut aider quand on croise des cas comme le vôtre… Mais ne vous en faites pas : je vous prédis une très longue vie, dans un environnement pas trop ensoleillé, et aux frais de la princesse ! »

.

.

[the-mountain-flower]

Fuck, I recently realized an original fantasy species I've created accidentally falls into several anti-semitic tropes 🤦‍♀️

Ofc I'd rather rewrite a lot of that area of worldbuilding than perpetrate harmful stereotypes, bc that's the obviously right thing to do, but seriously this is why research is so important!!

[of-all-things-macabre]

The Mystery Writer: Review

This is my best attempts at a spoiler free review

I already really like Sulari Gentill’s work, with Woman in the Library being one of my favorite mystery books I think I have ever read ( genuinely!) I also really want to try with this review and future ones to not compare to other existing works and talking about the book for what it is!

For one, I think that the premise of the book is very interesting! I love the way that Gentill writes about writers. There’s something about the way she writes their perspectives that 1) makes me wanna be a writer and 2) enjoy the way the characters ( in this case Theo) interacts with the world around them.

The characters are also very well written, Theo the main character is just someone I found myself rooting for as things went on, as well as getting to know her brother Gus and his friend Mac and all of their interactions. They feel very down to earth and real to me. You get very invested in what’s happening because of how well they are written, it becomes more than solving the mystery, you want to see them win.

For the mystery part of The Mystery Writer, Gentill once again gives us a book with very satisfying twists and turns that keeps the reader turning every page. I’d finish a chapter going “ last one I swear!” Before starting the next one cause I just needed to know what was happening. It also all culminated into a wonderful and satisfying ending.

It is highly worth the read, all her works are worth the read, and I cannot wait too we what else she comes up with.

See You In the Shadows!

[a-skirmish-of-wit-and-lit]

Book Review: The Mystery Writer by Sulari Gentill

Theo Benton quits law school, showing up on her brother's doorstep in Kansas with a half-written manuscript and a dream to become a writer. She starts working in Bender's cafe, a coffeeshop, where she meets a famous author named Dan Murdoch, who is working on a manuscript that details various conspiracy theories. The two strike up a friendship, which turns to romance, which then abruptly ends when he is found murdered.

Before she knows it, Theo is entrenched in a mystery that puts herself, her brother, Gus, and a private agent named Mac at risk. Not only are the theory conspiracists abounding, but there are doomsday preppers as well as a shady publishing agency to contend with.

Usually I am all about a mystery-writer-within-a-murder-mystery plotline, but this one didn't land with me. Theo was too damsel in distress exhaustive for my taste. While I appreciated her relationship with her brother, especially their unconditional love and protectiveness of one another, the plot got too convoluted, too weighed down by conspiracy theory meta, and didn't focus enough on building complexity in the characters. I felt disconnected from them as a result.

Thank you to NetGalley and Poisoned Pen Press for the ARC in exchange for my review.

2/5 stars

**Follow me on Goodreads

[jolenes-book-journey]

Book Review of The Mystery Writer by Sulari Gentill

Book Review of The Mystery Writer by Sulari Gentill The Mystery Writer by Sulari Gentill My rating: 4 of 5 stars Theodosia Benton went to school in Australia to become a lawyer. Halfway through she drops out of school and runs to her brother in America. What she really wants to do is become a published author. She has a burning desire to create wonderful stories and get a traditional publishing…

[dilfsisko]

Writers will look at a character made famous by Jewish actors and other Jewish writers and go ‘how can I make them as gentile as possible?’

[ghostieagere]

this is partially inspired by @tinymoon-beam's regressed french rain ficlet (as well as all her other french rain fics !!!) so please go check those out, she's a really incredible writer <3

also just a general disclaimer that french is not my first language, i am very much still learning !!! some of the weird grammar/spelling things are to mirror the way i write the english-speaking regressed ghouls, but if you spot any other mistakes then i welcome gentle corrections <3

cw: regressed rain, regressed aeon, caregiver dewdrop, french rain, language confusion, rain not understanding english, aeon not understanding french, multilingual dew, a few tears of frustration but it's all okay in the end

~

“Arrête!” (Stop!) Rain’s raised voice catches Dew’s attention. He looks up from his book to see Aeon giggling as they nudge their finger against Rain’s tower of blocks. The tower wobbles as Aeon nudges it again, threatening to fall.

“Arrête, arrête!” (Stop, stop!) Rain cries again, trying to push Aeon away and save his tower.

Dew puts his book down. “Aeon, bubs?” The little quintessence ghoul looks up at the sound of their name. “I don’t think Rainy likes you messing with his tower, okay? He’s telling you to stop.”

Aeon pouts. “If I don’ un’ers’and him, how ‘m I supposed to know?” Their question prompts the both of them to look over at the little water ghoul, his gaze shifting between them, his brow furrowed in confusion.

“Je compren’ pas, Papa,” (I don't understand, papa) he says, voice small as tears well in his eyes.

Dew stands from the couch and makes his way over to the two little ghouls on the floor. He crouches in front of Rain and holds his hands out near his face, letting Rain lean into his touch on his own time. When he does, Dew smooths his thumbs over Rain’s cheeks, wiping away the single tear that fell in his confusion. “Ça va, mon cœur?” (Are you alright, my heart?)

Rain nods. “Ouais, ça va.” (Yeah, i'm okay) He sniffles as he speaks, but with Dew’s warm hands on his face wicking away the sadness, he seems to be feeling a lot better.

Across the other side of the block tower, Aeon whines. “I don’ un’ers’and, Dada.” Dew has to bite back a smile at how similar Rain and Aeon are, even if neither of them are quite aware of it at the moment.

He walks around to the other side of the tower and sits next to Aeon, holding out his hand for the little quintessence ghoul to take a hold of if they want. “You don’t have to understand, little star,” he reminds them. “You just have to–”

“I jus’ have to be kiiiiiiind,” they finish for him, drawing out the ‘i’ in ‘kind’ as they struggle to pronounce it.

Dew smiles widely. “That’s exactly right, Ae! Such a good memory you’ve got there, bub. Well done.”

Aeon grins back up at Dew, beginning to rock side to side in happiness from the praise as they turn their attention away from Dew and Rain and back to their own pile of blocks in front of them.

Once Dew is sure Aeon is completely absorbed in their play, he turns back to Rain, finding the water ghoul looking completely lost by the lack of French all over again. “Rain, t’as compris?” (Rain, did you understand?)

Rain looks over at Dew and shakes his head. “Non, j’ai pas compris. Desolé…” (No, I didn't understand. Sorry...) He looks back down at the ground, embarrassed.

“Non, non, mon cœur,” (No, no, my heart) Dew consoles him, holding his arms out in an offer for Rain to crawl over to him and be held. “C’est pas grave.” (It's not serious) They both hum happily as Rain settles himself in Dew’s lap, rubbing his cheek against the fire ghoul’s shirt and purring contentedly at the warmth of Dew’s body heat. “J’ai dit à Aeon qu’iel devait être gentil avec tu et ton tour,” (I told Aeon that they needed to be kind with you and your tower) he explains, smiling when he feels Rain smile against him as he understands the words Dew is saying. Dew continues to explain what he said to Aeon about understanding and being kind, and when he asks the same question of Rain, he gets a very enthusiastic “Je dois être gentiiiiiiil” (I need to be kiiiiiiiind) in response, the little water ghoul dragging out the ‘i’ in the exact same way as Aeon did.

“Très bien, Rainy,” (Very good, Rainy) Dew encourages. “C’était parfait!’ (That was perfect!)

Rain giggles softly and claps his hands as well as he can while he’s squished up against Dew’s chest.

“Est-ce que tu veux jouer avec Aeon maintenant? Ou tu veux rester là pour le moment?” (Do you want to play with Aeon now? Or do you want to stay here for the moment?)

Rain hums while he thinks through his choices. Dew can practically guess what the little water ghoul is thinking. If he plays with Aeon, they can make more block towers together and it’ll be tricky to understand each other, but it will still be so much fun. Or if he stays with Dew, he’ll be comfy and cosy with his Papa, but he won’t get to play with his friend. After a long while, Rain buries his face further into Dew’s shirt. “Là,” (Here) he says, voice muffled in the fabric.

“Tu restes là?” (You want to stay here?)

Rain nods.

“D’accord, bon choix, mon petit chou.” (Okay, good choice, my little darling) Dew rubs Rain’s back comfortingly as he speaks, watching Aeon over the little water ghoul’s head. They seem more than happy playing with their block and chatting away to themselves for the moment, but regardless, Dew’s glad Rain’s made the choice to stay with him because it means he’ll be able to interact with Aeon much more easily if they come to ask him something.

“Et– Et– Et après,” (And– And– And after) Rain starts, looking up at Dew with big, hopeful eyes. “Après, p– peut-être que je peux jouer avec Aeon?” (After, m– maybe I can play with Aeon?)

Dew nods down at them enthusiastically and feels his smile widen at the idea of his two little ones playing together without conflict. “Ouais, bien sûr, Rain.” (Yeah, of course, Rain)

The little water ghoul wriggles happily in his lap, letting out a very, very quiet “Youpi!” (Yippee!)

At the quiet celebration, Aeon looks up from their stack of blocks. “Wha’s happening, Dada? Why Rainy so happy?” They ask earnestly.

Dew redirects his attention to Aeon and quickly gives them a recap of the conversation in English. “Rain is going to stay here in my lap for a bit, and afterwards, he thinks he might come and play with you and the blocks again, okay?”

Aeon gasps, mouth wide open and eyes practically shining in excitement when they hear their playmate might be joining them again soon. “Rainy gonna come an’ pray again?”

“Yeah, bubba!” Dew responds, grinning. “Rainy might come and play with you soon!”

“Yippee!” Aeon shouts, giggling and smiling widely. “I like prayin’ wif Rainy.”

Dew watches them play for a few more moments before turning back down to the little water ghoul in his lap. “Tu as entendu ça, Rainy?” (Did you hear that, Rainy?) Dew asks, leaning down to talk directly into Rain’s ear. “Iel aime bien jouer avec toi.” (They really like playing with you)

It takes a while for Rain to reply, which makes Dew think he might be close to falling asleep if he hasn’t already, but eventually, Rain responds very quietly, his sleep-laced words muffled against Dew’s shirt. “J'aime bien jouer avec toi aussi, Aeon…” (I really like playing with you too, Aeon...)

[josiebelladonna]

a while back, i got into it with a (now former) follower on instagram about that one region in the middle east and i pointed out to them how the idf found copies of mein kampf in every household and there’s paraphernalia everywhere in the territories, but especially the gaza strip, and just to really drive it home, who we refer to as the palestinian arabs were on the side of hitler during ww2. they didn’t want the jews there… and now you know why.

it shut her up. seriously, i got no response from that (and in the times i’ve tried talking to them, they just scream “free palestine” at me).

i threw that out to someone else just a bit ago and got nothing.

jumblr, dear sweet jewish tumblr… your friendly neighborhood kitchen witch-slash-artist-slash-writer-slash-longtime stem student GENTILE may have just found the solution to hitting back at these people instead of being forced to turn your pockets inside out. tell them they’re literally supporting nazis (that is if you haven’t already 😉 do it more!) it will induce an existential crisis on their part.

[benevolentbirdgal]

Is it appropriate for non-jewish authors/designers to take inspiration from jewish mythology and writing? I’ve seen a lot of media that does that especially in fantasy.

That's a loaded question, and while I certainly don't Speak For All Jews Everywhere - I am Not The Jewrax, I basically hold that it'd be fine in theory but in practice, it's almost always problematic because few gentiles bother to engage with Jewish perspectives on what they're using.

I'm not 112% sure on what you mean by mythology and writing, nor am I 112% sure what you mean by inspiration, but I'm going to make some educated guesses and invite both you to DM me or ask again and other Jews to float other possibilities.

I'm imagining you mean something to the impact of the use of Jewish folklore, theology, and stories in non-Jewish media, like art and literature, so I'm answering in that context. Specifically, I feel like you might be asking about angels and demons, Lillith, and golems, although that is very speculative and just because Those Are The Things Gentiles REALLY Want To Use.

The TL;DR is that I think while in theory, it's fine for gentiles to incorporate elements of Jewishness into their story, in practice they usually screw it up pretty badly if not veering into antisemitic trope-age altogether. There are a few factors that make this the case.

On the one hand, I want to see more representation of Jewish stuff, and not just the same three stereotypes ad nauseam. I legitimately do want more Jewish elements in stories, and I recognize the quantity I want would heavily benefit from, if not outright require, some contribution from the 99.8% of people globally who are not Jewish.

With that said, I think that gentiles tend to fuck up Jewish representations, both from a folklore perspective and a Jews Are People That Exist perspective. It's not some fatal flaw to view other cultures through your own lenses - it's only human, but it is challenging to address and something to be aware of. I see Christianity, Islam, and other religions (and atheism, for that matter) through the view of a Jew who was raised in and lives in a Christian-dominated society. Gentile writers see Judaism through the lenses of their own backgrounds and the backgrounds of their society. For reasons that merit their own post, gentiles tend to forget that Jewishness exists independent of and predating many of their own lenses. For many of the same reasons, many gentiles have no interest in actually consulting Jews or Jewish sources on Jew things - we aren't regarded as minority enough or different enough or whatever to merit research, even among many gentile creators who normally research cultures they are not part of. Without getting into it, a lot of people also A) really can't handle the idea that Some Things Are Just For Jews (like Kabbalah) or accept closed and semi-closed say what they mean on the tin and B) have (at the very least) implicitly supersessionist attitudes in their approach to Judaism - applying other religious and cultural contexts backwards even if they're directly at odds with the original Jewish ones. They learned about Jew Stuff in their Christian, Wiccan, Muslim, Unitarian Universalist, Atheist, etc. spaces, and how those spaces approached Jew Stuff (and the attitudes inherited from those spaces) are prioritized over what the Jews think of their own Stuff. This often results in Jewish "representation" being filtered through the eyes of the dominant culture group (i.e. Christian), even if that's not the intent. This happens a lot with depictions or appropriations of Kabbalah, Lillith, and the Golem - specific cultural and theological biases are superimposed to the detriment of original context and meaning.

If you want to represent or take inspiration from a group, you need to understand that group. It doesn't mean you have to know EVERYTHING (no one does) but it means engaging with and researching the community beyond this One Cool Thing You Liked. The degree to which you do this depends on what you're using, but you want to be able to use stuff without stripping it of its original context.

Writing, mythology, and folklore are broad categories. If you want to use the zayde from Something From Nothing or make Sammy Spider real, that's way less loaded than taking traditional folklore and going Mine Mine Mine a la the birds in Finding Nemo. Good questions to ask when determining if you want to use a thing: is it explicitly closed or semi-closed? Has it been used to cause violence against its community of origin? Is it and its uses considered sacred?

Specific topics that you just shouldn't use because they are closed and/or have been used against Jews to cause us great pain: Lillith, Kabbalah, Golems, anything that implies or uses the blood libel, any kind of Jews-and-horns thing, or anything leaning into antisemitic conspiracy theories. I'd also tread very lightly and get sensitive readers on anything to do with angels and demons, circumcision, and kosher. [above list is def non-exhaustive, other Jews please add stuff]

Also stay away from any "this is the SECRET meaning of this Jewish Thing And The Jews Are Wrong And This Proves My Religion/Conspiracy Theory/Worldview." Even if it does not promote a specific worldview, there's some major ick in saying "no this is what your holiday/beliefs actually mean/imply." Don't Da Vinci Code us, basically.

If you are wanting to write or make something with Jewish elements, consult Jews on the specifics! Seriously, most of us are SO happy to help you workshop.

Again, I do not speak for all Jews, but this is my personal take, and the kind of stuff I've heard a lot of other Jews opine as well.

[gynandromorph]

It's okay not to answer, I know it's broad territory, but I really respect you as an artist and writer. How do you handle people misinterpreting or missing elements of your work, especially when they may still enjoy it and get something out of it? As an artist I'm struggling lately with knowing my work will always inherently be read differently from what I intended as a matter of the human experience, as well as me being autistic complicating my ability to communicate.

An addition to that last ask. I don't know if it's clear what I'm asking so I'll give some examples. A 50 year old man and a 21 year old woman will get different things from a movie due to their lived experiences. As a gentile reader I might miss jewish narrative themes in a piece of work. That doesn't mean it's bad for us to have experienced it, but as an author I find it frustrating when something is missed or misinterpreted, and I don't know how not to be a control freak about it.

i feel you, i have ocpd and being misinterpreted when i agonized and stressed about how to present my wording makes me want to light myself on fire and it's something i'm working on. writers are supposed to expect and account for different perspectives ahead of time, so it always sort of shocks me when i hear interpretations i wouldn't have thought about at all. i know logically i can't predict all outcomes, but it's still surprising anyway!!! but i generally feel a lot of distress about being misinterpreted because i'm afraid it'll label me as A Bad Person, so i think that's where the experience diverges. maybe investigating why you need to or want to control the way your work is interpreted would help as a starting point? i think having a larger audience helps, too... it means more people will misinterpret your work, but it also means you're more likely to have at least One Guy who interprets it just right and makes fireworks go off in your brain, but there's no way to control how big your audience is!

anyway, the ways to control how your work is interpreted, to the degree that you can:

you can make it simpler. the more parts a story has added to its complexity, the more it's going to be misinterpreted.

you can make the intended message more blatant. you can have a character say exactly what you want the audience to think or hear, or something very close to it. don't want a detail missed? make it bigger.

you can reprioritize parts of the story. basically think of a group of interpretations you want the audience to have if you can, and then put them in order of importance. then the story has a hierarchy to lean on wrt artistic decisions.

you can give the story multiple meanings. more targets to hit. if they're mutually exclusive, i find this works better... i like making my stories ambiguous with conflicting interpretations a lot. yeah, people are going to interpret the story wrong, because it was made in a way that will guarantee it is interpreted wrong in some way.

you can layer the meaning so that less literate audience members will at least get SOME of what you intended. basically, close to the previous strategy, but like a hybrid of that and "make it simpler" imo because you're constructing multiple interpretations that are all supposed to lead to one conclusion (like a persuasive essay or something), but can act as an adequate conclusion on their own.

all of these options have obvious qualitative losses. if you have anything in particular that is repeatedly misinterpreted or missed, it's a good idea to think about Why you're making those choices. consciously committing to a higher-risk artistic choice will help you feel more in control of what happens to it once it's done. the way your art is interpreted isn't totally out of your control, you are making decisions that add to or mitigate the risk of misinterpretations, and you can bring those choices to a more conscious awareness to see them and appreciate them. sometimes it'll feel like a begrudging compromise, but it'll still be Your choice ultimately.

on an emotional level... hopefully this makes sense. there's always going to be the piss-on-the-poor scenario and sometimes i just remind myself that some people are not as literate as me, but it's great we were still able to connect through a work that was probably difficult for them!!! it was a privilege to get to grow up with a good education, access to art and technology, strangers who want to look at what i made, and there are times where i take this for granted, and my expectations of readers are actually kind of unreasonable!!! some people are younger than me and say stupid things like i did, but they aren't able to understand things like me yet, and it's important for them to learn by figuring it out on their own!!! i was and will always be That Guy to other artists and other writers, and i want to give other people the same grace as i get. some people have wildly different life experiences compared to mine, and these experiences can be much more nuanced than i could ever imagine, but it's a little gift that they made my world larger by sharing theirs through my art!!! it's terrifying and embarrassing knowing that i don't know much of anything, even about something i have total control over, but the consequences of that aren't always negative. and possibly the saddest but most common way i deal with this is nothing more than accepting that no one is ever going to understand me on the level that i want to be understood. sometimes my frustration has come from a place of miserable alienation, where the need to feel Seen can be quite desperate. i've made art explicitly about Me, and i've made art deliberately hostile towards its audience, art that's said they don't get it and they never will, but they still bothered to try. i made a game that said no one will win here and they still played it with me, and i can appreciate that. in many cases, they actually know more about me than i know about them. but more importantly, it isn't my audience's job to take care of that emotional need -- in fact, as much as art is made out to be a mode of pure self-expression, i don't think they can. it's a reality that i don't like, but i accept it. art made to benefit others is a one-way mirror: you make them feel seen, but they should never see you, because if they see you, the mirror isn't working.

[gayhenrycreel]

i cant be antizionist because the first definition of zionism i was introduced to was something i already agreed with beforehand, and i cant be a zionist because its associated with states which is against everything i stand for.

the only form of zionism i agree with is a form i rarely see mentioned in which israel/palestine are a stateless society where the significance of the land to judaism is respected. i also see some people say this is not zionism.

antizionism vs zionism is an ultimately pointless binary that causes people to fight over words rather than what they actually believe.

that first definition i was told is "zionism is the belief that jews have a right to live in israel (the land)".

isnt that just basic leftism? people should be allowed to live where they want. the earth belongs to every living thing. no one can or should own a piece of a planet. some people have an ancesteral connection to land, and that land is part of earth.

note that this definition doesn't even mention ownership of israel, just living in it.

i hate that people are so willing to argue and destroy their relationships over words that have such flexible meanings that it doesn't actually help communicate what people mean. like how "problematic" could mean trump threatening to take away the right to vote, or it could mean that a writer portrayed a lesbian as a vampire and puritans dont like that because vampires are in a role of dominance.

at this point when someone says they are antizionist i wonder if they mean anarchist or they believe that expelling millions of people is somehow a leftist thing to do (i can usually tell from if they have a star of david in their pfp. i do not trust gentiles to be normal about zionism unless they give me a very good reason to trust them).

when words lose meaning there is no point in fighting over it.

[racefortheironthrone]

Why has the American comics industry been so adverse to unionization? I've been reading through the Comics Broke Me hashtag on Twitter and I've realized how difficult it's been to even get meager compensation for work that provides the backbone for billion dollar smash hits.

I would highly recommend Abraham Josephine Riesman's biography of Stan Lee, True Believer, both as an excellent portrait of the man himself and how his industry changed across the decades. (Bell and Vassallo's Secret History of Marvel is also quite good on the early history of the company.)

When the comics industry emerged out of the pulp and magazine industry in the 30s, it was not the "backbone for billion dollar smash hits" that it is today - it was a low-rent, fly-by-night industry that was associated with pornography and organized crime. Notably, it was also an low-cost industry that sold a very cheap product (the original 10-cent comic was about $1.80 in today's money) to children. More on this in a bit.

Even when it suddenly experienced a sudden increase in popularity with Action Comics #1, everyone in the industry thought that it was a passing fad that would be temporary - and so there was less resistance to the work-for-hire system that bosses like Martin Goodman used to keep their costs down. Not no resistance - as Riesman notes, Jack Kirby and Joe Simon got pissed when Goodman started stiffing them on the profit-sharing from Captain America, so they started moonlighting at D.C, Stan Lee found out and snitched on them to his cousin-in-law/boss, and that led to them getting fired - but less.

However, there was another reason why it was hard to start a union in the comics industry, which is that a lot of comics creators were vaguely ashamed or embarrasse to be associated with it. Even before Wertham and the moral panic of the 1950s, comics were (as I've noted above) seen as a bit scuzzy, a form of disposable crass commercial entertainment aimed at an undiscerning audience of children, and certainly not respectable Real Art. While they were trying for their big break into the more prestigious worlds of fine art or literary fiction, writers and artists viewed their work in the comics industry as a day job that was best kept a bit under wraps - hence why Stanley Lieber only used the nom-de-plume Stan Lee for the comics, because he wanted to keep his then-real name for the career in novel-writing that he wanted to have.

Moreover, there was a particular ethnic angle to this distancing. As I've written a bit about before, there was a tendency among Jewish creators of this generation to keep Judaism subtextual and to change their names to keep their own Judaism subtextual - hence Stanley Lieber taking on a more gentile-sounding name, hence even a proud and pugnacious Jewish man like Jacob Kurtzberg choosing to go by Jack Kirby. Partly, this was done as a means of achieving economic opportunity in a society that wasn't exactly welcoming to creators with Jewish surnames. (Hence the line in the West Wing about Toby Ziegler going by Toby Ritchie when he worked as a telemarketer.) This is another reason why these Jewish creators were working in comics in the first place, because the "Mad Men" who ran the advertizing industry wouldn't hire them.

But partly it was done to avoid becoming a shanda fur die goyim - a Yiddish expression that means "a shame in front of the gentiles" - by associating the Jewish community with a (heavily Jewish) industry that was viewed as little more elevated than the schmatta trade in comparison to the prestigious world of art and literature. It's an old story - literally, it's the plot of The Jazz Singer, the first talkie about a Jewish entertainer (in blackface, unfortunately) and his conflict and eventual reconciliation with his more traditional family.

After comics went through its first big boom in WWII and then survived the crash in the 50s and saw the second big boom in the 60s, a lot of creators realized that the handshake work-for-hire deals that they had started with had screwed them out of a lot of money. This started some very high profile long-running lawsuits, as first Siegel and Shuster and later Kirby and Ditko sought to get a portion of the rights to the characters they had created. (Some of these lawsuits settled only a few days ago, and some are still ongoing.)

As Riesman explains, the Copyright Act of 1976 created an opening for comics creators by requiring that there be a written agreement between a work-for-hire creator and their employer establishing the transfer of copyright. This created an existential crisis for the Big Two comics companies, and the new Marvel Editor-in-Chief Jim Shooter immediately tried to get his creators to sign one-page contracts transferring their rights. Hotshot artist Neal Adams urged creators to not sign the contract and invited them to a meeting at his place to discuss forming a union. Shooter retaliated by threatening to black ball anyone who joined Adams' organization - and this blatant violation of U.S labor law cowed comics creators into signing the contracts and signing away their rights and the drive to unionize comics died the same way a lot of union drives die.

Things have gotten a bit better in recent decades - the 90s comics boom and the departure of the Image guys improved the situation for creators' rights somewhat due to competitive pressure, but there are still significant problems when it comes to comics creators' access to health care, pensions, and other benefits. There have been some recent union wins - the Comic Book Workers United organized Image Comics - but these tend to be unions of staff workers rather than creators. There is the Cartoonists' Co-op, which is looking to move in the direction of acting like a union but is a very nascent organization that's a long way away from that yet. And it remains galling that the most that creators see from the billions made by Disney and Warner Brothers Discovery are $5,000 checks dispensed to keep them quiet.

It's not going to get better until writers and artists unionize.