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blairwitchapologist · 1 year

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Hiya! I wanted to ask you or your followers for some advice since you're a reader. I want to get into reading but I'm having a hard time starting.

Idk really what kind of books I like. I've read articles talking about reaching out to people who may know you (me) and have them suggest something, but idk anyone who reads, lol.

I have a pretty bad attention span, so I feel I have to write about the book as I go (to make sure I'm understanding it or remember what's happened), but I also feel that will push me away from reading more.

This is probably a lot to put on you or anyone, so I do apologise, but any tips or advice would be greatly appreciated!

Thank you in advance if you do answer! 🫰🏽

ok ok i actually feel kind of weirdly qualified to answer this question bc i do read a lot but i am So Fucking Bad At It. like unless i’m reading a book that i had been anticipating for a while, i have the hardest time motivating myself to just pick up a book and fucking read it, even if i’ve already started it and am enjoying it lol

so my go-to ways to find something new to read are:

1. my best friends wife is a librarian so i will just ask her what she’s been reading lol but you don’t have to be friends w a librarian to ask that question!!! if u go to a library and tell them your dilemma they will be thrilled to give you recommendations

2. i use the app storygraph to log the books i read, and they have a pretty good system for recommending books based on what you’ve logged!! i don’t think you can access that without paying, but a) i think they offer a free trial every year and b) it’s a really great alternative to goodreads (not owned by amazon but still does the same thing lol) so i personally don’t mind paying for it

and i also wanna say that it’s possible you do know people who read, they just don’t talk about it!!! a few years ago i put out an instagram story asking for book recommendations and i got so many responses from people who i just didn’t expect to answer and they had really great recommendations and i was thrilled to have something new to talk to them about hehe

and in terms of my attention span, the reason for my solution is a little embarrassing to admit lol but whenever possible, i will go out in public to read bc i am so self-conscious about looking at my phone too much when i’m surrounded by people lmao like i know that no one actually cares but i have this idea in my head that people are judging me if i sit on a park bench staring at my phone for half an hour, but no one will look at me if i’m reading a book. idk if it makes sense but it has worked for me!! i also love to read at bars (though i haven’t done that since i quit drinking so idk if it’s the same), i can’t really explain it but i kind of thrive when i’m surrounded by people who are talking near me but not to me/at me i guess lol. i also like to read in parks, and usually on saturdays while my boyfriend is at work i’ll go to lunch by myself and read while i eat :) i know this kind of solution might not work for you but that’s what’s worked for me!!!! good luck, and also feel free to send another message if you wanna tell me some stuff and see if i can recommend any books for you!!!!!! ❤️❤️❤️

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i-did · 3 years

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hi hello i couldn't sleep last night so i was scrolling thru all ur asks and stuff and ur opinions and analyses are so interesting!!! and then afterwards i was thinking about what u were saying about mlm smut and i'd also been thinking about such things a little bit recently bc like.....at a certain point it becomes quite clear that the vast majority of smut-writing is just imitation. like there's the sex noise verb list and all and the whole general mechanics of the sex and those things just .... replicate over and over. and the whole thing w people writing mlm vs wlw smut regardless of their own sexual orientation..... like i feel like a big part of that is just a self-perpetuating thing. like if u have not had sex and u r getting all ur (pleasure-related) sex ed from fandom (even if u do watch porn, that doesn't rlly tell u how to describe stuff? idk) regardless of What fandom , the majority is going to be mlm smut. which is itself majority imitation of other mlm smut, imitating and imitating back to whoever knows what the first smut fanfic was etc. there's just way More to mimic than there is on the women side of things. which then becomes a self-perpetuating thing, bc the mimicry continues and generates more and more. and---if there are fundamental misunderstandings of anatomy involved---those self-perpetuate as well. and maybe even exaggerate. and yeah. does this all make sense? idk i was just thinking about it. like all the stereotypes and stuff continue bc writers are getting their inspo from other writers rather than their own brains. or something. idk!!!!! it's just all... divorced from reality? bc words. or something!! i hope u get what i'm trying to say. just thoughts i've been thinking. anyway i think ur thoughts are cool. and ur writing. ok bye have a good day!!

Okay yeah this is kinda messy but hope u see this, uhh yeah I think you're right about the echo chamber effect fr about stuff. I think it's a mix of projecting too sometimes. talk more under the cut and also link to a video essay since I love video essays.

Here’s a video that sort of touches on this topic:

“Gay fanfiction” by Sarah Z. (has CC)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H8E_C00dKwI

This video begins to talk about fetishization at the end, but also… not really. The words “gay fanfiction” is used as a catchall, when really gay fanfiction is largely mlm written by non-mlm.

Fandom is a largely women's space dominated by the female gaze in a media industry world that is dominated by men and the male gaze. I'm really glad women have this space to explore creativity and queerness, and I don't expect the female gaze to go away, but I am still ultimately bummed out I can’t read most fanfic or interact with most fandom spaces without having fetishization in my face.

So about 80% of fandom is women, and most of those women aren't straight, but 90% of those women prefer mlm ships. Why don’t they prefer wlw ships? Well definitely part of it is the fact that queerbaiting is centered around white straight men, and then there is also the fact that women tend not to be written as well charcter wise. But the fact still remains that you get jerjean getting priority over Layla and Alvarez who are in canon just as much and are a canon wlw couple who actually interact as well as Alvarez could likely be a woc because of her Hispanic last name. Korasami doesn’t get nearly as much hype as zuko and saka, despite the fact that they are 2 fully dimensional characters who canonly kiss and hold hands, something the creators fought for and ended up having to sacrifice another reboot for.

I do believe the fandom echo-chamber is largely responsible for… a lot of things, like you're saying. But what's interesting is that the complaints I've heard about visual porn from non mlm in the fandom space is that they can’t get off to it because its for the male gaze and misogynistic usually. But they also don't seem to notice how the mlm smut circles has the female gaze and is also… almost always mlm. If it was a pure anatomical not knowing thing, I get that, but I also think that leads to the question of “then why the male body for porn, and not your own? The one you know and are familiar with?”

I know some people want to get outside of their own body for porn and don’t want to think of their own anatomy at all, but overall I'm still uncomfortable. If an anglo said “well I watch porn of only Mexicans so I don't self insert” I'm gonna be like … hhhh in a similar way. I understand people “like what they like” but I wish they also noticed said patterns in the first place. I understand the t4t tumblr porn circle, and how it's different from cis people who only watch trans porn.

I actually wished that instead of fandom focusing on mlm ships where some asshole guy hits on bottom troupe charcter for top troupe character to save, was instead… a wlw character experiencing said shitty getting hit on and other wlw swooping in. what's interesting is fandom writes a lot about misogynistic experiences without often realizing it. Ive read fanfic where guys get called sluts for sleeping with people or called bitch for speaking their mind, these arent things men usually experience, but rather women. Fandom has a lot of internalized misogyny and also queerphobia imo. Women characters often get pushed to the sidelines and men become the canvas for female fans to project onto.

There is this natural inclination to mlm. When people are talking about “gay shipping” or “gay books” or “gay feels” or even just “gay” mlm is what’s largely in mind. I honestly am kinda saddened by this because if gay fanfiction was really solely about writing more to feel represented, then you would see a lot of bi and ace and lesbian rep, but this isn't the case. Queer women are seriously underrepresented, and I want to hear their stories and read them in fanfiction as well as published. 50% of lgbt literature is mlm, and of that its largely written by women. Becky Albertalli, Rainbow Rowell, Maggie Stiefvater, are the YA big names and are all women writing mlm. Red white and royal blue is written by Casey McQuiston and Captive prince (which is not YA) is written by C. S. Pacat, who is non-binary, but is also TME and not mlm. These are all the big names in mlm lit, behind them is some gay men, but honestly their stories aren't preferred, they're not the right “flavor” for the consumers usually, who are largely women. In general YA consumers and authors are women, but I wish that they… just wrote about women too. I think there is a certain… snowball effect to the overrepresentation of mlm representing the whole LGBT community that leads to fetishization, as well as misogyny playing a factor in: less women characters being written well to write fanfic on, when they are written well they're taken less seriously or the audience struggles to relate to them, they're less marketable then men.

Idk I never feel “seen” or “represented” by any of the books above, which don't address boyhood and manhood and queerness intersecting really, and AFTG doesn’t either. I relate to AFTG as a trauma victim who has experienced a lot of what many of the characters go through and have gone through in the EC as well as them just overall being very well written characters, but I don't relate to it as a mlm really. I've never seen like.. gay voice or being straight passing or femphobia or how boyhood can be affected from a young age by those around you sensing you're ‘other’ or if you didn't experience this you feel outside the mlm community. Let alone sub cultures like bear and leather and pup, at most you see the word “he's such a twink” in fandom which... i fr hate non mlm using that word because it's usually used to replace the f-slur essentially, used derogatorily or to call him “such a bottom” and stuff like that. It’s like a joke or an insult.

Long story short, idk mang this was a ramble and I think I'm coning down with something. I wanna see more queer women rep and women authors writing about being a queer woman too. I think it's a complex web of fetishization and a bit of forbidden love yaoi culture (or it used to be in the BOYXBOY days) as well as misogyny on an industry level, creator level, as well as reader/consumer and fandom level. I don’t think it’s inherently wrong to explore other peoples stories and what we read has to be segregated, “only mlm are allowed to read and write mlm, only wlw are allowed to read and write wlw,” but I also think author’s intent and audience and background is telling, as well as overall statistics. Like about an hour ago I was looking for cookbooks in spanish or in english, and I was looking for some mexican food cook books, but I had to look for them using words in spanish because otherwise what came up was a bunch of “fiesta party, easy as uno dos tres authentic cooking!” and I was like… hm. Since I could tell they were marketing to anglos. (also the author’s last names were like michelle smith, james cooper, and this could be for a variety of reasons, but I trust Hispanic names more tbh and deadass would look at the authors pictures and if they had other books in Spanish or what their specialties were.)

anyways. not sure how to end this. uhm if anyone has any book recs (my to read list is like 500 books tho no joke) preferably not YA white mlm written by a white lady, hopefully queer women written by queer woman, LMK, I need more wlw and queer women stories on my list. I have a decent amount but always looking for more. I kinda wanna link my goodreads or my storygraph but I also don't want to get doxxed and it has my legal name on it so.

Also, I'm dyslexic and using spell check but if there's like some wild typos my b.

#ask #fandom politics #fandom culture #fandom psychology #mailob

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canonicallyanxious · 3 years

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2021 reading log: jan-july [ish]

i’ve been pretty lax about keeping track of what i’ve been reading and my thoughts on those books so i thought i’d experiment with a quicker format of jotting down notes and ratings, idk if i’ll keep with this one either lol but we’ll see! i’ve been a bit choosier with what i’m reading this year which means i’m reading much less but also pretty much everything I’ve read this year I’ve enjoyed which is a real nice feeling, highly recommend being picky af with your media consumption. anyway here are the books I have read in the first half of this year [not including goodreads links bc WORK but here’s my gr profile for posterity]:

Winter - Ali Smith; 4.5 stars

Recommend for: those who already read Fall by Ali Smith [though not strictly necessary] and were really into not knowing what was going on but feeling a lot of emotions about it anyway

Autobiography of Red - Ann Carson; 5 stars

Recommend for: maudlin poetry lovers who saw the quote “i’ll take care of you” “it’s rotten work” “not to me not if it’s you” on tumblr and wondered what a whole book written entirely by the person responsible for this translation would be like

Ancillary Justice, Ancillary Sword, Ancillary Mercy (Imperial Radch trilogy) - Ann Leckie; 5 stars overall

Recommend for: any sci-fi fan tbh i’m coming out strong and saying i think this series should be mandatory reading for sci fi lovers

Winterkeep - Kristin Cashore; 4.5 stars

Recommend for: those who have already read and enjoyed the Graceling trilogy and whose main request from the books was MORE POINTS OF VIEW

Felix Ever After - Kacen Callender; 4 stars

Recommend for: anyone who would read a tagline like “simon v the homo sapiens agenda meets you’ve got mail” and think “hey that sounds... kind of yikes actually” [aka me] and then someone [aka me after reading this book] ran up to them yelling “WAIT but also it has a trans protagonist of color and the you’ve got mail part is handled pretty well actually and also BEST FRIENDS TO LOVERS” and their next reaction was “........ go on”

Alias Grace - Margaret Atwood; 4.5 stars

Recommend for: people who think murder mysteries should be more character driven but also are into it when the character that is driving the story is someone you spend the entire book not knowing you can trust because they’re a hella unreliable narrator but you can’t help but root for them anyway because their internal monologue is just so compelling

An Artist of the Floating World - Kazuo Ishiguro; 4 stars

Recommend for: people who already like Kazuo Ishiguro

Monstress (vols 1-5) - Marjorie M. Liu & Sana Takeda; 4.5 stars overall

Recommend for: graphic novel fans who like dropdead gorgeous art, intricate worldbuilding, steampunk aesthetic, and a female centric ensemble cast but also have a very high tolerance for gore/blood

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet - Becky Chambers; 4 stars

Recommend for: any sci fi lover who is into the idea of a lighthearted character driven space opera with interspecies queer romance and a good ol found family dynamic

Exit West - Mohsin Jamid; 4.5 stars

Recommend for: literary hoes who like omniscient narration and magical realism that also doubles as social allegory

Fence (vols 1-4) - C.S. Pascat; 4 stars overall

Recommend for: sports manga fans who think the homoerotic subtext in sports manga should be less subtext and more homoerotic

Here Comes the Sun - Nicole Y. Dennis-Benn; 3.75 stars

Recommend for: people who are in the mood for a difficult to read book about enormously complicated and deeply flawed queer characters and women and the relationships they form with each other

The Dictionary of Lost Words - Pip WIlliams; 4.5 stars

Recommend for: word nerds who like well-imagined historical fiction, complicated female protagonists, and don't mind heterosexuality

The Princess Bride - William Goldman; 4.5 stars

Recommend for: fans of the movie as well as anyone who likes sharply witty satire/parody, swashbuckling adventures, and men who are ass over heels in love with their female love interests

Red, White, and Royal Blue (reread) - Casey McQuiston; 4.5 stars

Recommend for: people whose first pick in an ao3 tag is the 100k word fic tagged with “slow burn, enemies to friends to lovers, idiots to bigger idiots”

Cemetery Boys - Aiden Thomas; 4 stars

Recommend for: YA readers who like pseudo-murder mysteries, cute stories about boys falling in love, and rich narratives steeped in family traditions

Fangs - Sarah Andersen; 4.5 stars

Recommend for: anyone who’s looking for a cute slice-of-life paranormal romance that’s super easy to burn through

Provenance - Ann Leckie; 4.5 stars

Recommend for: sci fi fans who think heist stories rife with political machinations are the perfect vehicle for a good found family dynamic

One Last Stop (read 2 times) - Casey McQuiston; 5 stars

Recommend for: anyone who is gay

Why Be Happy When You Could be Normal? - Jeanette Winterson; 5 stars

Recommend for: people who read Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit and thought “this was pretty good for a sad semi-autobiographical novel but what if it was SADDER and also 100% AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL”

Gideon the Ninth - Tamsyn Muir; 5 stars

Recommend for: ex-Homestuck fans and/or people who enjoy a healthy dose of memery while causing themselves emotional harm and/or think the concept of lesbian bone magicians in SPACE is the tightest shit they’ve ever heard of and/or think homoerotic subtext only works when there is no kissing and/or go absolutely feral at the concept of the king/lionheart dynamic but also what if THEY HATED EACH OTHER [but also very secretly love each other]

Harrow the Ninth (read 2 times) - Tamsyn Muir; 5 stars

Recommend for: people who finished Gideon the Ninth with an almost obsessive need to find out what happens next and are willing to sit through a book that will actively and consistently lie to you about what happened in Gideon the Ninth for over two thirds of the story in order to do so

Klara and the Sun - Kazuo Ishiguro; 4.5 stars

Recommend for: fans of unreliable narration that plays with memory and time, ethical questions about bodily autonomy and the humanity of artificial intelligence, and stories that contemplate the meaning of ~love~

#sarah.txt #reading recap #please note these notes are meant to be facetious ksjnfskjnfskn #i don't intend to fully represent how good these books are with an incomplete sentence #you can see from the high ratings that i enjoyed all of these books #i just wanted something quick and simple for myself #so i don't spend multiple hours burning myself out while writing unnecessarily detailed reviews skjnfskjnfsk

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