might not be such a big deal but the fact that finnick lent his rope to katniss in the bunker and to peeta when coin sent him on the mission so they would keep themselves busy tying knots instead of thinking about their trauma is so important to me.

So like, I have been having this weird experience analyzing the Harry Potter books lately, and please indulge me while I talk about J.K. Rowling's weird writing.

My goal was simple: read the Harry Potter books to find which parts were influenced/inspired by actual magic that people do in real life. My theory was that there was a lot more magic in the earlier drafts of the books, and that she took a lot out due to fear of backlash from America's ongoing reenactment of the Satanic Panic. For instance it's quite obvious some of their magic lessons got dumbed down so that very little of what's in the books could actually be tried in real life, and I think she took out a lot of astrology.

I also wanted to do a couple errands along the way, one of which was to check and see if it's explicitly written in the books that Harry is a cis man. I'm a trans man, SO I'D KNOW. (I'm a slow reader so all I can say for now is: the FIRST book does not explicitly state Harry is cis, but if he's trans, there's some implied worldbuilding with items like the Sorting Hat that comes into play. Also I'm fairly sure the Dursleys would have gone along with him being trans because that meant Petunia could reuse Dudley's old clothes instead of having to get girl stuff. I'mma save any other explanations on the topic for a video on it.) The reason I'm doing this read-through is because I think J.K. doesn't know anything about trans people and didn't think to make sure her wizard world was trans exclusionary. AND IT TURNS OUT THAT WE TRANS MAGIC USERS HAVE A WAY OF WIGGLING INTO MOST PLACES UNDETECTED BY NORMAL MEANS.

While I was doing the re-read I encountered two sort of broad revelations:

There's a lot of old stuff in there like Latin and Greek and tradcraft stuff, but also modern magic of the more recent era... but the incorporation of modern magic cuts off somewhere before the 80s. These books read like they were written by a early 70s magician. Like they honestly read like J.K. is a magical practicioner who just didn't read any magic books written after 1972 and never discovered what Chaos Magic is, (and also, never heard of most of what happened in the Cold War). I have never found a writer, in fiction or non-fiction, more dedicated to referencing magical stuff that most magicians alive today just don't care about anymore.

J.K. Rowling's knowledge of child abuse laws and general social mores regarding treatment of children also ceased to update itself by about the 80s. I keep getting distracted by this and having to make more side-notes about corporal punishment and researching stuff like when caning was banned in England. (HInt: it was banned before Harry went to school, so in Book 1 it's fuckin weird that he assumes that Wood is the name of a cane he's about to be whipped with.) Like, this woman raised children in the modern era, she should know when canes stopped being used.

So like, when I mention that I'm doing some research in this area, this is the sort of stuff I'm reading for and the sort of stuff I'm encountering. I haven't been talking much about this journey because it seems like any time anyone brings up anything Harry Potter up whatsoever, we've got to talk about how J.K. is a terf in every other sentence. But like, y'all: I hope you slow down and re-read the books, because J.K. Rowling is a terf who is also a child abuse apologist and normalizer. She is a terf who is also a horrible fat-shamer. She is a terf who is also an ableist with a huge problem writing about mental illness. And she's a terf who's also a sexist who undermines feminism with her actual writing of female characters.

And I honestly think she double and triples down on the terf stuff so that people will only talk about that. I think it's worth talking about the fact that not only is she an awful person in the terf way, but like, every other way imaginable too. I think it's worth talking about the fact that with all the obvious biases she has, the group she CHOOSES to publicly marginaiize is trans women, and I think she makes that choice because she thinks that she'll get more allies that way. That if she wore all of her issues on her sleeve like she wears the terfness, that she'd lose a lot of allies, that a lot of prestigious charities would stop having anything to do with her. That she uses the identity of "terf" as a shield because she knows that certain people will protect a terf, and she does this specifically so people won't notice how much of a sexist, abuse apologist, ableist, fatphobe etc she ALSO is. Opinions that could lose her a lot of money and clout if people remember them enough.

She's trying to pick on who she thinks is the most unpopular kid in the class out of the hopes that the bullies in class will be her friends instead of pile up on her, but if the bullies knew what she really thought of them, THEY wouldn't even be her friends.

Also like... I just want someone else to read the actual words in these books and see what fucked-up choices she made as a writer. I think a LOT of people remembering these books are actually remembering the movies, which are way more different from the books than you might expect.

stumbled across a ballad of songbirds and snakes critique video and I couldn't even watch it because the person so did not get what the book was doing and saying and the comments were complaining about the unnecessary romance when it's super obvious it's not intended to be a romance. suzanne collins is, yet again, ahead of her time because I remember the hate mockingjay got when it came out for killing prim and having katniss vote for new hunger games when those plot points are crucial and are meant to act as a commentary

2023 reads // twitter thread

The Sun and The Void

Venezuelan inspired high fantasy

follows a young outcast swordswoman taken in by her grandmother, the dark sorceress for a noble family, who relies on the magic to keep her alive after being attacked by monstrous creatures

and a young noblewoman who’s the shame of her family because of her mixed heritage and desire to use magic

both are manipulated by those with more power than them into a plot to free an ancient evil god

mineral based magic, politics, nonhuman MCs

WOULD YOU GUYS LIKE TO SEE MY FUGLY UGLY ASS ALLEGORY OF THE CAVE X FAHRENHEIT 451 CROSSOVER DRAWING THAT I WAS FORCED TO DO FOR SCHOOL….. ITS SO UGLY AND MONTAG IS

WHITE.

AND THE HOUNDS ARE DISGUSTING THE COLORING IS SO SHITTY AND MILDRED …. Well ok she looks alright kindof but the COLORING ….. SKETCH WAS BETTER but do you guys. Do you still want to see it…….,,,,,,

ALSO NO OFFENSE TO WHITE PEOPLE PLEASE I LOVE YOU GUYS 🫶😁👍 within reason

I am TIRED of hearing the whole "there is NO reason a paragraph shouldn't be more than four lines" writing critique. If Ursula Le Guin can write an asshole psychiatrist monologuing for a page and a half straight, it is FINE, actually.

You can have characters monologue, you can have a long bit of description, you can give exposition in chunks—the issue is when there's no PURPOSE to it and it's treated as a prerequisite dump of information rather than a curated telling.

As long as you're making choices about language and what is being conveyed so that it's relevant and matches the style, it's fine.

.

Oh I just had a thought - when Dean's accounting business closed after he died, you could dig up the files and stuff because it's only been 6 years since he died and you have to keep records for 7 years so

i TRUSTED my friend who rec’d me tgcf (the actual novel) and now idk if i should have. help maybe its just the translation. but aside from the prose there have been some scenes where i just want to jump out of my skin and find mxtx and just like. kill her

i read 12 books in september (133% of my yearly goal) and 3933 pages (147% of my yearly goal). my favourite was gideon the ninth (locked tomb #1), and my least favourite was rooks and romanticide by j.i. radke. i did not finish bringing down the duke (the league of extraordinary gentlewomen #1) by evie dunmore [review]

full breakdown of star ratings and reviews under the cut! 🖊📚

the book of salt by monique truong 4 ⭐ [historical, queer] [review]

the serpent’s tale (mistress of the art of death #2) by ariana franklin 4 ⭐ [historical, mystery] [review]

the house of dudley: a new history of tudor england by joanne paul 3.75 ⭐ [history, biography] [review]

the needle’s eye: passing through youth by fanny howe 2.75 ⭐ [poems, essays] [review]

rooks and romanticide by j.i. radke 1.75 ⭐ [alt history, steampunk, queer] [review]

crying in h mart: a memoir by michelle zauner 4⭐ [memoir] [review]

dr. mütter's marvels: a true tale of intrigue and innovation at the dawn of modern medicine by cristin o'keefe aptowicz 3 ⭐ [science, medical history] [review]

the living is easy by dorothy west 3.75 ⭐ [classics, historical] [review]

gideon the ninth (the locked tomb #1) by tamsyn muir 5 ⭐[fantasy, queer] [review]

far from the madding crowd by thomas hardy 3.75 ⭐ [classics, romance] [review]

grave goods (mistress of the art of death #3) by ariana franklin 3 ⭐ [historical, mystery] [review]

love beyond body, space & time: an indigenous lgbt sci-fi anthology by hope nicholson (ed.) 3.75 ⭐ [sci-fi, queer] [review]

wow .the murderer was with them on the train now .....

OHHHHH MY GOD. EATS THIS

I think everyone needs at least one unassuming media they read way too much into and like it only counts if you sound absolutely insane talking about it like you Cannot Be Normal about it, mentally you’ve got all the characters and plot points pinned up on a wall and your putting all these strings around and it’s largely incoherent but makes sense To You.

Reading When The Angels Left the Old Country and I’m so enamored by every page, like the writing is just so wonderful and i’m in love with the characters and also i’m Very Nervous about events 

The cis male ability to mansplain a subject I myself brought up astounds me. Like I actually want to study them under a microscope. My guy, I brought it up. Why are you explaining it back to me?

Ahhhhhh I forgot how much I liked the Destruction of Mankind <333333