Wide-Eyed & Wandering

A place that is all mine. To dream, to think, to write, to play - E.

[emilycarey]

every episode of criminal minds in emojis

👱🏻‍♂️🔪👩🏻->😵🏃🏼‍♂️

👩🏼🗂👩🏻👨🏾‍🦲👦🏻🙎🏻‍♂️👴🏼👩🏼‍💻

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👩🏼🤝👮🏼‍♂️

👩🏻👨🏾‍🦲->👩🏽‍⚕️

👦🏻📍🗺

🙎🏻‍♂️👴🏼💬

👩🏼‍💻📱👨🏾‍🦲💬🥰

👱🏻‍♂️🔪🔪🔪👩🏻->🏃🏼‍♂️

👦🏻💬

👩🏻👨🏾‍🦲👴🏼🙎🏻‍♂️🚔🚨😵🏘

👩🏼👩🏻👦🏻👨🏾‍🦲👴🏼🙎🏻‍♂️💬👮🏼‍♂️👮🏻‍♂️👮🏽‍♀️

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✈️💬👦🏻💤👨🏾‍🦲🎧👩🏼👩🏻😳

[coolcurrybooks-deactivated20230]

Fantasy books written by women are often assumed to be young adult, even when those books are written for adults, marketed to adults, and published by adult SFF imprints. And this happens even more frequently to women of color.

This topic’s an ongoing conversation on book Twitter, and I thought it might be worth sharing with Tumblr. And by “ongoing,” I mean that people have been talking about this for years. Last year, there was a big blow up when the author R.F. Kuang said publicly that her book The Poppy War isn’t young adult and that she wished people would stop calling it such. If you’ve read The Poppy War, then you’ll know it’s grimdark fantasy along lines of Game of Thrones… and yet people constantly refer to The Poppy War as young adult – which is one of its popular shelves on Goodreads. To be fair, more people have shelved it as “adult,” but why is anyone shelving it as “young adult” in the first place? Game of Thrones is not at all treated this way…

Rebecca Roanhorse’s book Trail of  Lightning, an urban fantasy with a Dinétah (Navajo) protagonist has “young adult” as its fifth most popular Goodreads shelf. The novel is adult and published by Saga, an adult SFF imprint. 

S.A. Chakraborty’s adult fantasy novel City of Brass has “young adult” as its fourth most popular Goodreads shelf. 

Tasha Suri’s Empire of Sand, an adult fantasy in a world based on Mughal India, has about equal numbers of people shelving it as “adult” or “young adult.” 

Book Riot wrote an article on this, although they didn’t address how the problem intersects with race. I also did a Twitter thread a while back where I cited these examples and some more as well. 

The topic of diversity in adult SFF is important to me, partly because we need to stop mislabeling the women of color who write it, and also because there’s a lot there that isn’t acknowledged! Besides, sometimes it’s good to see that your stories don’t just end the moment you leave high school and that adults can still have vibrant and interesting futures worth reading about. I feel like this is especially important with queer rep, for a number of reasons. 

Other books and authors in the tweets I screenshot include:

Witchmark by C.L. Polk

A Ruin of Shadows by L.D. Lewis

The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern

The Day Before by Liana Brooks

A Phoenix First Must Burn edited by Patrice Caldwell

Shri, a book blogger at Sun and Chai

Vanessa, a writer and blogger at The Wolf and Books

TLDR: Women who write adult fantasy, especially women of color, are presumed to be writing young adult, which is problematic in that it internalizes diversity, dismisses the need and presence of diversity in adult fantasy, and plays into sexist assumptions of women writers. 

[howlsmovinglibrary]

Never forget the amount of hate R.F. Kuang got for explicitly stating that The Poppy War, one of the most triggering books I’ve ever read, should never be shelved as YA. She did so out of extreme concern of the content getting into the wrong hands without warning.

And then two days later Jay Kristoff said the same thing about Nevernight…and nothing happened.

[thotsxo]

[homofied]

Fourth: “honey” but like condescendingly

[dignitea]

“bitch” but like endearingly

[thewinterclown]

#worlds deadliest assasin turned comedy king SEBASTIAN STAN as Bucky Barnes —The Falcon and The Winter Soldier | 2021

[ludy-blackthorn]

[In a bar]

Jesper: I gotta go

Inej: Aren't you forgetting something?

Jesper: Uh... [kisses her in the forehead and leaves]

Inej: No! Pay your bill!

Inej: Damn, who raised you?

[rylandgrac]

Kaz Brekker + Inej Ghafa in Shadow and Bone

[reidgifs]

don’t you recognise a rocket when you see one?

[ladymapple]

The Falcon and The Winter Soldier (2021)

Here's a screenshots of Bucky flirting with Sarah and Sam's reaction to it. LOL!

[starryevermore]

“i don’t always think of it immediately.”

[johnmulaneys]

#it’s what she deserves

[phy-be]

the triumvirate

[kilo-charlie7]

Katara.

[buttpoems]

[madlori]

Get the vaccine.

If you have the opportunity, get it. If you’re eligible, get it. If you’re NOT eligible and you have a chance, get it.

If it’s due to a condition. If it’s due to your job. If it’s through a “hey our doses will expire, anybody available come quick” situation. And yes, even if it’s through a “my sister can get me in” situation.

This isn’t a selfish act, no matter how you get it. Every single person who is vaccinated helps everyone. This is a group project. There is no ethical issue with getting vaccinated “ahead of someone else.” That is not a thing. This isn’t a single-file queue and it is impossible to vaccinate everyone in an exact order of priority, all we can do is emphasize higher-risk people, which is being done whenever possible. 

If you can get it, get it. You are only helping.

[ladyeowyn]

And then Adams looks directly at me, speaking the academy motto. “We the Legion. We the light. Burning bright against the night.” “… Yes sir,” I reply. “Burn bright, Legionnaires,” de Stoy says. “The cargo you carry is more precious than any of you can know.” “Maker be with you.” Adams nods.

[makiema]

—It is important to draw wisdom from different places. If you take it from only one place it become rigid and stale. Understanding others, the other elements, the other nations, will help you become whole. It is the combination of the four elements in one person that makes the Avatar so powerful. But it can make you more powerful too. 

[ms-demeanor]

I am absolutely not joking at all when I say that The Sixth Sense should be required as teaching material when you’re trying to get kids to learn about why color matters.

No, the red DOESN’T mean love or violence or passion, however the creators set it up so that in this particular work red means OH NO A SCARY GHOST IS HERE.

When I was in college (as a lit major) I ended up sitting down and talking to a returning student who was having trouble in one of our classes. He liked books, and he had GI bill money so he decided to be a lit major.

He was VERY confused about the “The Curtains Are Blue And It Means Something” approach to symbolism and I remember that he very seriously got out a notebook and a pen, sat down, and asked me “Okay so what to stars mean as a symbol?” 

And I was at a loss because of course I was! Stars-as-a-symbol can mean a thousand things and are heavily dependent on context. Are you reading a book about sea travel? Stars mean a map. Are you reading Maus? Stars represent faith and community and the way that the Nazis dehumanized Jewish people. Are you reading something by a romantic author who has a thing for the classics? Stars probably have something to do with heroism and destiny. Are you reading science fiction? Stars are probably just stars but if you’re reading Whipping Star by Frank Herbert they are literally people and our entire conception of stars is reexamined.

So one one the things that I think a lot of people are missing in their high school English classes is that whether the curtains are blue matters or not depends on the work.

The fact that Hamlet is wearing black is an important part of the story and the antagonist commenting on it it is almost the first thing that happens in the play.

What color dress is Lizzy wearing at the first dance in Pride & Prejudice? It doesn’t matter, the curtains are just blue.

And that’s one of those things that it takes a lot of time and a lot of exposure to different kinds of stories to learn and when you’re in high school you just don’t have that experience and your teachers are just now telling you for the first time “sometimes it matters why the curtains are blue” and I know you’re going “okay, sounds fake” but the goal is to get you to look at blue curtains and ask if they do matter, which is why they hand you books with big obvious examples of the kind of shit they’re talking about. You read A Tale of Two Cities because it’s full of binaries and line motifs and it’s the perfect thing to teach a fifteen year old how to look for a motif because there are a shitload of them. You read  The Scarlet Letter to look for color symbolism and to ferret out biblical allusions.

“The curtains are just blue” is just “yet another day has gone by and I haven’t needed algebra.” Most people aren’t going to need algebra in their day-to-day lives but it’s handy to know how to do a bit when you need it and it’s good to learn that the concept exists.

If you’re reading books just because they’re fun and you like them then that is cool and I’m glad you’re having a good time and you absolutely do not have to give a fuck about symbolism.

But I am going to laugh my ass off at you if you’re one of those folks who is like “the curtains are just blue it doesn’t matter” and then whines about why scifi and comics and cartoons and video games are all political these days. They were always political, you just couldn’t tell because the curtains were red.

(also because you were socialized to see certain things as apolitical and value neutral but if you’re going “WHY DO THEY PUT SERIOUS MORALS AND SHIT IN A KID’S SHOW, STEPHEN UNIVERSE IS FOR TEN YEAR OLDS IT’S NOT THAT DEEP, LOONEY TUNES WASN’T LIKE THIS” I’m afraid I’m going to have to refer you to all the actual war propaganda made by Disney and Warner Brothers.)