So, when I was in junior high, back in the Cretaceous Period, 😉 I checked out a book from the library about a junior high girl who is a photographer and whose sister gets cancer and dies. It was a beautifully written book, and I enjoyed angst because I was, you know, a junior high girl. 😉 So I read it over and over and over again. I checked it out from the library dozens of times.
One day, my mother noticed and asked what I was reading, and I started waxing enthusiastic about the book and what happens in it and I was just really happy to share, and she asked me, “Why do you like reading that? Do you want your sister to die?”
I didn’t respond well.
Now that I’m an adult, I understand that my mother primarily read for wish-fulfillment (historical romances, mostly), and that she furthermore believed that this was why everyone else read.
This is not why everyone else reads.
Many people read because they want to know what it would be like to be someone else. Someone of a different gender. Someone who lives in a different place. Someone with different skills. Someone whose life is completely different from theirs. Some of these people are happiest when a character is complicated.
People do this to authors, too, by the way. They assume that authors who write convincingly about rape or child abuse have been raped or abused themselves. This is not necessarily true. Mystery writers are not all homicidal maniacs. I know that will shock some of you. 😉
Stories are important. They teach us about life.
To make a long story short, if you think you can psychoanalyze a fan (or an author) based on their reading (or writing) preferences, you are wrong.
To drag this over to what prompted the rant, a fan telling another fan that they think Snape is a racist and therefore if they like Snape they are also a racist is approximately as valid as insisting that everyone who likes the Harry Potter series wishes both of their parents had been murdered.
theres a new product by verzion called “hum” that allows your parents to track your car and places you go, if your parents are controlling like mine please check under your steering wheel to make sure that they havent installed this
here is what it looks like installed:
you can read more about it here, and here– this excerpt sums up what information Hum will send:
“a car’s owner will be able to get notified on their phone when the vehicle leaves a pre-determined area or drives faster than a set speed… [Hum] will enable location tracking and a driving log, which measures travel times, engine idle times, and average speeds.”
People in abusive relationships, please check your cars.
Bulgaria just appointed a facist and neo-Nazi, Valeri Simeonov (who is also Deputy Prime Minister), to lead their council on how to “deal” with the Romani people in Bulgaria.
Valeri Simeonov literally talked about creating modern concentration camps, and in 2016, when speaking of Bulgaria’s Roma minority, he told the parliament: “They are brazen, feral, human-like creatures that demand pay without work, and collect sickness benefits without being sick. They receive child benefits for children that play with pigs on the street, and for women that have the instincts of stray dogs.” His party has literally called for the demolition of “Gypsy ghettos” and for Roma to be instead isolated in closed reservations that could “generate income as tourist attractions”
Asides from this Ilian Todorov from the far-right ATAKA party (ultranationalist, racist, especially antisemitic and anti-Roma, xenophobic, especially anti-Muslim and anti-Turkish) is now Bulgaria, Sofia’s regional governor.
The opposition party, Yes Bulgaria, warned that this “toxic national-populism” can only divide society and “heighten the risk of stirring up ethnic enmity” when we have already long gone past the “risk” stage as proven by recent submissions of the European Roma Rights Center and the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee – Both reports detail recent violent events which include mass attempts to storm Roma neighbourhoods, an increase in hate speech, failures by the authorities to deal properly withracially motivated hate crime, as well as incidents such as the brutal assault in April by police of a Romani father and son outside the village of Bohot in Pleven province. The son sustained serious injuries, but his father died at the scene of this assault. The authorities justified the police action by claiming that the men were found in possession of stolen pesticides and had resisted arrest.
The former vice-deputy of the ATAKA party, went on TV to praise the police for “neutralising the two thieves,” for sending a clear message, and spreading the kind of fear that will cause “all crooks and thieves to lay down.”
The situation of Roma in Bulgaria is worsening. And if those events listed are not enough already Roma are still racially segregated in education and housing, being forcefully evicted and having their properties demolished as well.
The worst trick a childhood anxiety disorder pulls is, you spend your early years being applauded for being so much more mature than your peers, because you aren’t disruptive, you don’t want any kind of attention, you don’t express yourself, you keep yourself to yourself – this makes you a pleasure to have in class, etc etc – and you start to believe it’s virtue. But you’re actually way behind your peers in normal social development, and who knows if you can ever catch up.
Never heard a truer thing in my life.
Thanks for the advice and support. I feel a bit better.I’m trying to find honest, kind things to say to myself and my kids. Hopefully there will be more of that than the criticism.
Hello there, anxiety and depression. I need you to stop whispering poison in my ear. I do NOT actually want to die. These are intrusive thoughts and they can fuck right off. JUST STOP!
Beltainefaerie's Flights of Fancy 