¿?
― moose; squirrel (silby), Wednesday, 6 March 2019 12:54 (five years ago) link
has ilx had a good literary rockism clusterfuck
― imago, Wednesday, 6 March 2019 13:10 (five years ago) link
xp to silby: I know, it's pretty farfetched; but I just feel like, if you are someone who feels deeply invested in the personal moral & psychological development of young people*, even to the point of "wild self-importance"—that is a fine, very good thing! There are socially acceptable outlets for that: become a teacher, a mentor, a youth sports coach. But in the 21st century United States, for anyone raised in a middle-class-or-above household, choosing to become a teacher basically means consigning yourself to a lower standard of living than your parents enjoyed in order to do something you love. If precarious existence as a teacher is the "safe", responsible career choice, why *not* go balls to the wall and chase those dreams of self-publishing your way to Hollywood adaptation megabucks?
* Admittedly this is complicated by the fact that most YA readers are adults; still, the ideal of the "young person reader" is always in the background, and seems to drive (some) authors' aspiration to create works which serve a pedagogical purpose, albeit not in a standard classroom setting.
― The depressed somebody from the popular David Bowie song, (bernard snowy), Wednesday, 6 March 2019 15:14 (five years ago) link
Can’t we all agree that fewer YA novels is a good thing, regardless of how it is achieved?
― Mazzy Tsar (PBKR), Wednesday, 6 March 2019 15:34 (five years ago) link
YA as a concept is infuriatingly patronizing and aggressively commercial. There's less handholding outside of the English-speaking world when it comes to literature, thank fuck.
― pomenitul, Wednesday, 6 March 2019 15:44 (five years ago) link
tbh I was reading Michael Crichton books in middle school and uh some material in there could have used some policing
― mh, Wednesday, 6 March 2019 16:10 (five years ago) link
YA as a concept is infuriatingly patronizing and aggressively commercial.
Only when its adults who are herding the young, like sheep who must be kept inside the YA sheep pen. If young people find YA novels attractive, then their reading them is no more harmful than their reading what used to be called "comic books" when I was young.
The key thing is not interfering in the reader forming a relationship with reading and authors being allowed to tell the stories they want to write. When that process is aggressively channeled by adults, its just driven by greed and fear. Luckily, the young will eventually find their way into the channels that address their interests, not those of the adults around them. It's something teens are pretty good at.
― A is for (Aimless), Wednesday, 6 March 2019 16:58 (five years ago) link
regardless of how it is achieved?
― Mazzy Tsar (PBKR), Wednesday, March 6, 2019 8:34 AM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
oh the means justify the ends do they
― jolene club remix (BradNelson), Wednesday, 6 March 2019 17:06 (five years ago) link
I say more YA books, a more diverse array of characters and authors, and fewer circular firing squads.
― Trϵϵship, Wednesday, 6 March 2019 17:15 (five years ago) link
adults who exclusively read and think about YA novels should try doing other things with their time for a while
― (The Other) J.D. (J.D.), Wednesday, 6 March 2019 17:21 (five years ago) link
What's weird is that YA is missing the zero-sum element that, say, Hollywood has. Like, for instance, if there's a black filmmaker with a script about the Green Book, that movie is likely not going get made now. However if your Kosovo War novel is successful there will probably be 10 other YA Baltic war books published in the next two years.
― We were never Breeting Borting (President Keyes), Wednesday, 6 March 2019 17:28 (five years ago) link
srebrenica the teenage witch
― imago, Wednesday, 6 March 2019 17:38 (five years ago) link
ok no
Lol
― Trϵϵship, Wednesday, 6 March 2019 17:44 (five years ago) link
IRL lol.
― pomenitul, Wednesday, 6 March 2019 17:49 (five years ago) link
cancel cancel cancel
― jmm, Wednesday, 6 March 2019 17:51 (five years ago) link
most disgusting ilx post i ever read 2/5
― mark s, Wednesday, 6 March 2019 17:52 (five years ago) link
You mean you've never been so disgusted in your life.
― pomenitul, Wednesday, 6 March 2019 17:53 (five years ago) link
Unë kurrë nuk kam qenë kaq i neveritur në jetën time
― We were never Breeting Borting (President Keyes), Wednesday, 6 March 2019 17:58 (five years ago) link
i would like to apologise to everyone affected by this. my forthcoming book of YA atrocity-related puns is off to pulp city, my loves!
― imago, Wednesday, 6 March 2019 17:58 (five years ago) link
The harm, imago—think of the harm!
― Trϵϵship, Wednesday, 6 March 2019 17:59 (five years ago) link
also we're overlooking Keyes writing 'Baltic War', maybe a YA novel set amidst the Finnish guerrilla struggle against the Red Army is next
― imago, Wednesday, 6 March 2019 18:00 (five years ago) link
a YA novel set amidst the Balearic War of mid-noughties ILM
― imago, Wednesday, 6 March 2019 18:01 (five years ago) link
oh sorry, I'm cancelling my post
― We were never Breeting Borting (President Keyes), Wednesday, 6 March 2019 18:03 (five years ago) link
I feel like i’d be good at writing YA historical fiction tbh
― Trϵϵship, Wednesday, 6 March 2019 18:04 (five years ago) link
Whoever dares riff on the Ceaușescu years will be cancelled by my FPs.
― pomenitul, Wednesday, 6 March 2019 18:05 (five years ago) link
Treesh you should write YA set in Renaissance Italy obv
― imago, Wednesday, 6 March 2019 18:08 (five years ago) link
Angsty teen michelangelo and his faithful neapolitan mastiff Dante solve a series of mysteries in 15th century Florence, finding themselves more often than not on the wrong side of the Medicis
― Trϵϵship, Wednesday, 6 March 2019 18:13 (five years ago) link
“Looks like I’m not going to make it to the studio today!”
I’m already counting my money.
Round it off with a Chuck Tingle-style erotic interlude.
― pomenitul, Wednesday, 6 March 2019 18:15 (five years ago) link
These would be good books honestly
― Trϵϵship, Wednesday, 6 March 2019 18:17 (five years ago) link
― Trϵϵship, Wednesday, March 6, 2019 11:13 AM (three minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
lmao
― jolene club remix (BradNelson), Wednesday, 6 March 2019 18:17 (five years ago) link
I'm so on board already
― moose; squirrel (silby), Wednesday, 6 March 2019 18:20 (five years ago) link
tick.jpg
― imago, Wednesday, 6 March 2019 18:27 (five years ago) link
See you’re all joking about this & I’m thinking about this infamous supernatural fanfic that was set during the Haiti Earthquake aftermath and was about the two lead actors being white saviours. It was a MESS. Just this utter intersection of the grotesque and hilarious.
― gyac, Wednesday, 6 March 2019 18:42 (five years ago) link
Did someone drop the “rockist” bomb up thread? If so, yeah—there’s some valuable discussion here, but whenever the conversation veers away from awful YA fans into critiques of the thing itself I’m just reminded of Bill Maher’s rants, post-Stan Lee’s death, about how comic books and everyone who reads them are all stupid. The thing that bums me out about this whole trend is basically some stupid adults threatening to ruin the very good thing that is the current onslaught of diverse representations in stories for younger readers.
― Timothée Charalambides (cryptosicko), Wednesday, 6 March 2019 18:54 (five years ago) link
didnt matthew pearl write this already
― god knows i want to fp (darraghmac), Wednesday, 6 March 2019 19:22 (five years ago) link
― gyac, Wednesday, 6 March 2019 18:42 (thirty-nine minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
i know youre just going to shout at me for saying this but...why are you thinking about this!
i mean you could think about *anything* why this
― god knows i want to fp (darraghmac), Wednesday, 6 March 2019 19:23 (five years ago) link
regardless of how it is achieved?― Mazzy Tsar (PBKR), Wednesday, March 6, 2019 8:34 AM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalinkoh the means justify the ends do they― jolene club remix (BradNelson), Wednesday, March 6, 2019 12:06 PM (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
― jolene club remix (BradNelson), Wednesday, March 6, 2019 12:06 PM (two hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
I just mean the fewer Harry Potters and descendants, the better.
― Mazzy Tsar (PBKR), Wednesday, 6 March 2019 19:45 (five years ago) link
xp because it was so incredibly weird as a concept and because there was so much discourse around it, just the “why????” sense of the setting
― gyac, Wednesday, 6 March 2019 19:48 (five years ago) link
see
thats what caught the publishers eye you just know it
― god knows i want to fp (darraghmac), Wednesday, 6 March 2019 19:53 (five years ago) link
the "publisher" of fanfic is the fan tho -- and i think by definition fanfic is looking to get a bit out of order, so limits are bound to be crossed somewhere
― mark s, Wednesday, 6 March 2019 19:56 (five years ago) link
― Trϵϵship, Wednesday, March 6, 2019 6:13 PM (one hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink
WOULD READ THO
― There's more Italy than necessary. (in orbit), Wednesday, 6 March 2019 19:58 (five years ago) link
i did not know we were discussing fanfic obv all involved should be braised
― god knows i want to fp (darraghmac), Wednesday, 6 March 2019 20:02 (five years ago) link
I can't get too worked up about any layer of this "scandal" I guess. I know there are good books in YA literary history that are set in another time or country or culture written by people who shared NONE of that history or country or culture--some of them are books I think of fondly and often. But it's not a good state of affairs. That should stop being encouraged in the industry, possibly even stop being allowed. More YA should come from people with personal experience in the topics & identities they weave into their books.
On the whole Jackson probably is probably getting unfortunately harsh treatment considering that he has several other complicated marginalized identities and deserves support and chances to succeed! Still, you'd think it might be possible not to A. set your work in the middle of a real historical genocide and B. not make the bad guy one of the persecuted minorities? I mean it's kind of a mess.
― There's more Italy than necessary. (in orbit), Wednesday, 6 March 2019 20:09 (five years ago) link
That should stop being encouraged in the industry,
hmmmm
possibly even stop being allowed
ah ffs madness. madness!
― god knows i want to fp (darraghmac), Wednesday, 6 March 2019 20:11 (five years ago) link
I know there are good books in YA literary history that are set in another time or country or culture written by people who shared NONE of that history or country or culture--some of them are books I think of fondly and often. But it's not a good state of affairs. That should stop being encouraged in the industry, possibly even stop being allowed.
What, like no more historical or science fiction? U extreme man
― We were never Breeting Borting (President Keyes), Wednesday, 6 March 2019 20:13 (five years ago) link
Hm yeah okay I probably could have tried harder to put that clearly: I mean like fiction in which the main characters are people of other countries or races of cultures that the author does not share any of, is not the inheritor of any of. Like a white American writing about the challenges & struggles of uh idk a young Chinese girl during the cultural revolution or something. White people should not be assumed to have the ability to just "impersonate" anyone of any group throughout history, we're not a neutral body that can absorb infinite other identities and accurately depict them and whatever their struggles mean to their current descendants.
― There's more Italy than necessary. (in orbit), Wednesday, 6 March 2019 20:20 (five years ago) link
otoh do we really need more books written about and from the perspective of white ppl? maybe it's best if the whites just stop writing fiction altogether.
― Mordy, Wednesday, 6 March 2019 20:22 (five years ago) link
i dont think anyone assumes that anyone has any ability in fiction tbh.
but i dont think theres anything to be gained by even nodding towards the direction of someone, anyone, not having the actual right to write fiction from any pov
― god knows i want to fp (darraghmac), Wednesday, 6 March 2019 20:24 (five years ago) link