SIGN UTERUS

So, for instance, I couldn't say "this book didn't give its characters strong agency or goals". I instead had to say, "the characters in this book acted in ways that often felt misaligned with their characterization as if they were being pulled by the plot."

I think this is really important because a lot of "critiques" people give, if subverted to address what the book does instead of what it doesn't do, actually read pretty nonsensical. For instance, "none of the characters were unique" becomes "all of the characters read like other characters that exist in other media", which like... okay? That's not really a critique. It's just how fiction works. Or "none of the characters were likeable" becomes "all of the characters, at some point or another, did things that I found disagreeable or annoying" which is literally how every book works?

It also keeps you from holding a book to a standard it never sought to meet. "The world building in this book simply wasn't complex enough" becomes "The world building in this book was very simple", which, yes, good, that can actually be a good thing. Many books aspire to this. It's not actually a negative critique. Or "The stakes weren't very high and the climax didn't really offer any major plot twists or turns" becomes "The stakes were low and and the ending was quite predictable", which, if this is a cute romcom is exactly what I'm looking for.

Not to mention, I think this really helps to deconstruct a lot of the biases we carry into fiction. Characters not having strong agency isn't inherently bad. Characters who react to their surroundings can make a good story, so saying "the characters didn't have enough agency" is kind of weak, but when you flip it to say "the characters acted misaligned from their characterization" we can now see that the *real* problem here isn't that they lacked agency but that this lack of agency is inconsistent with the type of character that they are. a character this strong-willed *should* have more agency even if a weak-willed character might not.

#sobbing over perrito comforting puss through a panic attack

1. Go to a news site that has the vibes/credibility/subject matter you want to bullshit about. I’m going to NPR’s science section.

2. Find an article with an image that works for the flavor of bullshit you’re looking up. I’m picking this first story about an asteroid that is almost certainly not going to hit us.

3. Use the ‘inspect element’ feature of your browser to open up the html for the page.

4. Use the ‘select’ tool to select the text you want to change.

5. This will bring you to the section of the html that contains the text, usually behind a three-dots icon. Click that to see the text you want to change.

6. Change the text to bullshit

7. Do the same with any other text you want to change, screenshot the whole thing, then copy it into a tumblr post:

Boyd Holbrook | The Block - 2017

Protesting the high school dress code that banned slacks for girls, Brooklyn c.1940

Depeche Mode - In Your Memory

Siouxsie And The Banshees - Dazzle

The Smiths - Handsome Devil

New Order - Age Of Consent

Sisters Of Mercy - Temple Of Love (original version)

Ministry - Every Day Is Halloween

Depeche Mode - Something To Do

Billy Idol - Rebel Yell

Japan - Methods Of Dance