The always-great Angelica Jade Bastien reviews the new The Little Mermaid.

At the close of the inaugural #EndOTWRacism campaign (but hopefully there are many more iterations to come!), Stitch reflects on what fandom needs.

“The music of a bygone time, a simpler, better era, when cars weren’t sold by direct-to-consumer, the internet barely existed, and prices were negotiable and opaque.” Inside the National Automobile Dealers Association, a weirdly powerful force in the Republican party.

Maureen Ryan’s book Burn It Down promises to be a barn, um, burner. Vanity Fair excerpted a chapter about the racist, sexist, bullying culture on Lost.

Here is the update on Caroline Calloway, because you know we all needed that.

True crime got worse.

“The operative factor is the training to recycle their traumas through violence.” Why it’s not surprising that the man who killed Jordan Neely was a marine.

“Dark romance novels don’t fear abusive men—if they did, the books would be wiped clean of their assault scenes. Their ultimate fear is of non-normative desire.”

Here is what is up with the embarrassing Hannah Gadsby exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum.

The downfall of Tom Sandoval.

Why are there so many gd Persephone retellings!!

The ghost of carbon monoxide stories (a folklore perspective).

Writing for robots: The SEO arms race and all the garbage it’s left us with.

If you missed the recent Anne Carson discourse, please feel to treat yourself.

And a lovely piece on a poet shelved directly next to Anne Carson on my bookshelves: my beloved CP Cavafy!

Tressie McMillan Cottom perfectly explains why I dropped out of Ted Lasso, the first season of which I loved beyond reason.

“A deteriorating rest stop on the road to nowhere.” Last Angelica Jade Bastien link, I swear! This one’s a review of The Flash.

“And these efforts do not include plans for training or mentorship or support long-term career trajectory for up-and-coming BIPOC who may be thrown in the deep-end on the job, and be expected from the start to do it well.” Black women are being erased from book publishing.

“How I treasure any artwork that preserves a silence or recognizes a limit!” Zadie Smith reviews Tár.

The dueling realities of Caroline Calloway and Natalie Beach.

Leave the deep ocean alone. Leave it alone. Leave it alone.

What is a bottle episode? Kathryn VanArendonk is now the authority on all things bottle episode, and she has a handy guide to understanding what is and isn’t one.

A guide to the many queer bookshops of the UK. (This is not useful to me but I want UK readers to be happy too.)

Happy 75th birthday to “The Lottery,” a perfect jewel of a short story. Writers reflect on what the story has meant to them.

Every time I’ve heard someone wonder why all animated movies don’t look as good as Spiderverse, I have thought, there is a reason for this. And surprise, I was right.

Happy 4th to those who celebrate, by which I mean I hope everyone’s able to have a chill quiet weekend!

The post Links, links, links! A Links Round-Up appeared first on Reading the End.

I’ve been meaning to do this links round-up for approximately ten thousand years, so some of these links are a little older. You know what? Who cares! They’re still terrific!

Resy won the reservation wars. Here’s how.

“Despite the Black-film streaming guides that proliferated on the internet during last summer’s Black Lives Matter protests, the streamers themselves have been ill-equipped to fully articulate the wealth of important Black titles that are available.” The Black Film Archive is here to help.

While we’re on the subject of Black cinema, Slate and NPR have teamed up for a very cool project called The New Black Film Canon.

“Sudden, dramatic hair changes, she says, ‘are a big part of who I am.'” A profile of the lady who invented at-home rape kits, and how, uh, that’s all going.

Eurgh, the world is a hellscape, including TikTok.

This is a fascinating story about Black journalists who were hired to train Nigerian reporters in the 1980s.

A really stellar breakdown on SFF world-building, by TV writer Javier Grillo-Marxuach.

“Vitriol is a precious resource. Spend it wisely.” Steven Hyden contemplates the decline of the negative review. (He’s talking about music but I suspect it applies to other spheres too.)

“The hardest stunt I ever pulled off.” Stunt people are so cool.

This is a fascinating article about transnational corporate espionage.

Oscars-related things I am mad about: Jamie Lee Curtis winning over Angela Bassett or Stephanie Hsu. The Whale.

On the trope (ongoing!) of the disabled villain.

It has made me SO happy to witness Abbott Elementary come for the throat of charter schools.

A woman from Leicestershire devoted her energy to trolling Madeleine McCann’s parents on Twitter. When her involvement in the online harassment came out, she killed herself. Now her son is trying to find meaning (for himself and others) in her life and death.

Swarm dehumanizes Black women.

FINALLY, a deep dive on whump fic!!

The always-wonderful Linda Codega takes us inside the dysfunctional, sexist, unsafe offices of Wyrmwood Gaming.

Dara Horn asks if the focus on Holocaust education is, paradoxically, making anti-Semitism worse.

“There was a woman who was Irish, which was not her job, but, my God, she was good at it; she owns a pug who apparently is a successful working actor, which was also not her job.” Caity Weaver went on a package tour for millennials trying to make friends.

And Lauren Oyler went on a GOOP cruise. My cup runneth over.

Have a wonderful weekend, friends! Or if you do not have a wonderful weekend because the world is dumb and bad, at least know that you have not lost thirteen billion dollars in a single day. Yay!

The post I finally remembered to do this: A links round-up appeared first on Reading the End.

Here’s the definitive update on the indie romance writer who faked her own death. It is, perhaps not unexpectedly, a pretty sad story.

On the resemblance of dinner to a magic show.

There’s a growing conspiracy theory on the right about asexuality. Unsurprisingly, it has its roots in anti-transness and white supremacy.

How travel influencers use their white privilege to make their money.

This is an article about people who own super-yachts. I hate everyone in this bar. All of them, without exception. As one of the people quoted in the article jokes, it really HAS made me want to bring back the guillotine.

What it’s like to go to Antarctica on your honeymoon.

A review of Spare by someone who doesn’t give a damn about the royal family.

Pamela Paul wrote about American Dirt, for some reason. Here’s some edits for her piece.

The marvelous Gina Apostol explains the unexplainable José Rizal, and it is just as delightful as you’d expect.

“We’ve come to think of art–all art–as commercial goods that warrant this calculation of the ‘Moral Nutrition Facts‘ to ensure we’re not feeding anything ‘bad’ to our brains.”

Extreme content warning for sexually violent content, but this article on rape and child sexual abuse in Amish communities is really important.

How gig workers have become care workers.

When women gain financial or reproductive independence, backlash always follows. That’s where we’re at now.

LitHub has their giant list of books to look forward to in 2023. GO NUTS.

“‘People are stupid’ is the gateway drug to a lot of worse ideas.”

“This is like The Purge, if The Purge was solely about committing crimes against North American marsupials.” For five days a year in North Carolina, you can do anything you want to possums.

W h e n will there be justice for Gina Prince-Bythewood. ANSWER ME THAT.

Is there an end in sight to the New York Times trans panic? A massive group of NYT contributors wrote an open letter to the newspaper requesting more journalistic integrity when reporting on trans issues. The next day, the New York Times published an opinion piece by (again, inevitably) Pamela Paul entitled “In Defense of JK Rowling.” So like, yeah. No end in sight, I guess.

This article on Justin Roiland of Rick and Morty includes a quote from someone who describes his behavior as “the eccentricity of a genius weirdo.” Ha ha I hate it here.

The always-excellent Wesley Lowery talks about the racial reckoning that never came.

There is an enormous battle going on about How To Botanical Garden Correctly. I love this shit.

Stitch discusses the power of collective grief in Black Panther: Wakanda Forever.

What happens to our online presence after we die? The Archive of Our Own can point the way for other sites.

Speaking of the archive, they’ve introduced new muting and blocking functions, which is great!

“RICO charges have become a go-to strategy for taking down hip-hop artists.” (This is the first of a two-part article about crime, gentrification, and Cop City in Atlanta, so make sure to click through!)

I will DIE MAD about Sleepy Hollow. Here’s a look back at a buddy cop supernatural procedural that should have run for fifteen seasons, and how the showrunners did Nicole Beharie so, so wrong.

Dang, Pablo Neruda was poisoned?

“Bring back the oil paintings that fuck.” A history of the clinch cover on romance novels.

Andrea Long Chu’s reviews are always a good read, and here’s the latest, on the new HBO adaptation of The Last of Us.

Winnie the Pooh: Blood and Honey is… a win for creative freedom? (Seriously, though, it is.)

As a closer, I recommend subscribing to this newly launched queer epistolary romance, which you can get in installments in your inbox!

The post Lies, Conspiracies, and Scandalous Emails: A Links Round-Up appeared first on Reading the End.

Without further ado, some links:

“Blackness deserves a seat at the Seder.” (link)

Jay Edidin’s consistent fury with Professor X shines in this important work of journalism about X-Men sex ed. (link)

Gita Jackson (link), Mikki Kendall (link), Ijeoma Iluo (link), and Stitch (link) consider The Slap.

On a totally different note, Sara Novic considers CODA’s Oscar win and the movie’s mixed reception in the d/Deaf community. (link)

Jaya Saxena wonders if we need to keep telling Julia Child’s story. (link)

Two Twitter videos that made me very happy: one (link) and two (link)

A goblin historian explains “goblin mode.” (link)

I am terrified of TikTok, and I’m right to be. That is my final statement on the matter. (link)

Drew Magary is done with sympathetic villains. Bring on the straight-ahead monsters. (link)

“Bridgerton’s thinned notion of color consciousness only acknowledges racial difference in as much as it does not derail the story.” Kristen Warner considers the new season’s approach to representations of race. (link)

I will read literally any story about the drama that’s currently happening in some random niche online community. This week it’s herbalism! (link)

Serial killer expert Stéphane Bourgoin built his career on a scaffolding of lies. The internet found him out. (link)

Angelea Preston won the all-stars season of America’s Next Top Model, but her crown was unceremoniously stripped from her because of a brief stint doing sex work. She spoke to Bustle about her experiences.(link)

“But sometimes there is no proper way to go, there is no trick of perspective that makes everything clear.” Colin Dickey on cabins in the mountains, lateral thinking, and the COVID-19 pandemic. (link)

Charithra Chandran, who plays Edwina in the new season of Bridgerton, seems like an absolute delight in this Teen Vogue interview. (link)

Sean Campbell writes with sorrow and grace about the Black Lives Matter organization’s decision to use money from fundraising in summer 2020 to buy a $6 million dollar house. (link)

Deciding people’s worth based on the trauma they’ve survived is a broken, exploitative system, and the Mackenzie Fierceton story proves it. (link)

That’s all, folks! Have a tremendous weekend! I wish you all the best of luck in staying out of niche community internet drama, which is much more fun to read about than to participate in.

The post Yes, There Are Some Takes on the Slap Thing: A Links Round-Up appeared first on Reading the End.

Nasim Mansuri finds a way to love a book — CS Lewis’s The Horse and His Boy — that doesn’t love her back. (link)

The first generation of school shooting survivors has grown up. (link)

Who gets to go with their gut in the movies? Who gets to be the hero who saves the day? (SPOILERS, it’s men.) (link)

Anne Helen Peterson’s description of why Candy Crush is addictive and empty, and Wordle is fun and sweet, is so spot on. (link)

In news that will surprise nobody, Noom is just a diet app, rebranded. I hope the Maintenance Phase podcast does an episode on Noom soon, but I suppose that would be giving them more attention I don’t want them to have. Fuckin diet culture. (link)

Another review of To Paradise, this one getting into Hanya Yanagihara’s pretty messed-up attitude toward disability! Among other things! (link)

I absolutely love The Secret History, but even so, this essay about the moral vacuity of its world is very good. (But I still love it.) (link)

Do you want Bernardine Evaristo to recommend you some books, of course you want that. (link)

“Let people like things” is a credo that has stepped way beyond its original context. (link)

How much do influencers charge brands? NOBODY REALLY KNOWS, not even the influencers or the brands, but one company is trying to change that. (link)

“For kids today from poorer backgrounds, the path I took through education no longer exists.” A $4000 Pell Grant changed Tara Westover’s life. (link)

What is all the constant tracking and counting doing to our reading habits? (Despite having insanely read 31 books in January, I cannot relate to this article because I never set numbered reading goals.) (link)

Sarah Raughly considers what it means that it takes Black tragedy to get publishers interested in Black books. (link)

That’s all for now! Wish me luck on a very busy weekend!

The post When your favorite Narnia book is the racist one: A links round-up appeared first on Reading the End.

I have never heard of this alt-lit writer from a time before I was quite as online as I am now, but this profile of her was still fascinating. (link)

By contrast, I was around for the full four hours of the recent YA authors / NFT kerfuffle, and since it was very brief and ended up harming nobody, I pronounce it a very enjoyable Twitter kerfuffle. Here is the recap of this scheme that multiple people apparently thought was a good idea. (link)

Don’t feel guilty for your guilty pleasures! (Or, yet another piece of proof that what I have come to mean when I say “guilty pleasures” is not the same as what other people mean when they say “guilty pleasures.”) (link)

I swear this will be the last of my links about the bad art friend. (link) And this one too. (link) And that’s it. Sorry.

The plumber is not trying to kill you, and other thoughts on where white-lady true crime has left us. (link)

When people leave Q-Anon, they need support, and that support has been very hard to find. (link)

“Being complicit pays.” Kayleigh Donaldson pans the new documentary series about Brittany Murphy’s life. (link)

Social media work and audio producing are their own forms of ghostwriting. (link)

Another excellent Fan Service column from Stitch! This one’s about ways of thinking about the morality of darkfic. (link)

What online stories have you been reading, friends? Also, I don’t really think your hands are unlovable! That was only a figure of speech.

Also, today is Oscar Wilde’s terrible ex-boyfriend Bosie’s birthday. Celebrate accordingly, I hope by cleansing your house and mind of any traces of your own terrible exes.

The post A Few Kerfuffles: A Links Round-Up appeared first on Reading the End.

MUMSY READ THIS ARTICLE. Everyone in it is such an asshole. THANKS AND SEE YOU SOON. (link)

Did your mom keep buttons in that one kind of cookie tin? Priya Krishna goes long on food containers and how we repurpose them. (link)

In trying to rewrite sexist narratives about the women of the 90s (and other recent times), films and TV shows often flatten out their complexities. (link)

Someone’s gotta stop Disney. (link)

Here is a piece about Margaritaville in Times Square that’s really about our relationship to work and leisure and how fucked up it all is. (link)

BLOB COVERS. Now that someone’s pointed it out, I can’t unsee it. (link)

Jails and prisons were always unbearable. Under COVID, they’ve gotten worse. (link)

“If one race—black people—was essentially invented in order to be bought, sold, used, and enjoyed at will, the desire to transform oneself into that race, even imaginatively, amounts to the capitalist impulse to own.” Namwali Serpell on racial transformation. (link)

“Viewing the average R. Kelly defender as uniquely deranged misses the societal forces that empower people like him in the first place.” Shamira Ibrahim on her time among the R Kelly supporters at his trial. (link)

The dangers of stan Twitter. (link)

“There would be no River of Gender to cross and leave my old life behind.” Ryka Aoki (whose new SFF book Light from Uncommon Stars I reviewed this week!) on what Ranma 1/2 meant to her. (link)

Who coaches the life coach? (or, cultish nonsense, part eleven trillion) (link)

Have a beautiful and majestic weekend, my darlings! Remember to strive for ethical behavior in all things! And remember that even if someone does a slightly unethical behavior unto you, it’s wise to have a sense of proportion rather than stalking and harassing the person what wronged you over the course of five years.

The post I’m Sorry But I Need to Talk about It: A Links Round-Up appeared first on Reading the End.

The China seeds mystery, solved. (link)

IDK maybe we shouldn’t have poured so much money into mercenaries who are now wandering around doing coups, just a thought. (link)

Roxane Gay offers some theories for why people are so awful online. (link)

The Dear America books taught (mostly white!) girls that they had a place in history. (link)

Jenée Desmond-Harris, AKA New Dear Prudence, has a new column called Race Manners at the Times, and the first column is excellent. (link)

Star of Rutherford Falls Jana Schmieding discusses her passion for food and its place in indigenous culture. (link)

Soraya McDonald considers Recy Taylor and the history of interracial rapes of Black women. (link)

How did colonialism get to be such a popular premise for board games? (link)

One of my favorite genres of online writing is parents who have developed a white-hot passionate hatred for some piece of media their child consumes. Here is a ranking of all the trains in the Thomas and Friends Storytime podcast, based on how much the writer hates them. (link)

“I have the feeling that I am supposed to root for it, somehow, because LeBron is firmly established in the culture as A Good Dude, and because it can’t be very harmful to have a little fun with nostalgia, and what kind of asshole evaluates Space Jam: A New Legacy on its merits as a movie? Have some fun!” (link)

“But it never occurs to them that Whitehead and Gay come from a very different class to begin with, and are not necessarily standing in real solidarity with me.” On Black pop culture and who gets to shape it. (link)

Let’s celebrate LeVar Burton Jeopardy! week with this Esquire profile of LeVar Burton, a true American icon. (link)

CONFEDERATE VAMPIRES LITERALLY WHY (link)

“But, like, did Driver become the horse, or was he always the horse, deep down?” Ashley Reese, asking the important questions. (link)

“Aragorn occupies a unique position in the canon of formative crushes in blockbuster cinema in that he’s absolutely a sex symbol, while the actor who portrays him is absolutely not.” The analysis of Aragorn that my heart desired. (link)

“Uncle Sam first needs to get a grip on the problem. It needs to begin collecting hard data on the application and enrollment processes facing citizens, putting numbers to the time tax and analyzing it through the lens of race, gender, income, state of residence, and health and disability status.” This is such a good idea I almost cried when I read it. (link)

I am also so happy to report that the ?first? annual? TRANSreadathon is happening tonight! It’s a 24-hour readathon in which we’re celebrating trans and nonbinary authors by reading for 24 hours in a row, starting this evening at 8:00 PM EST. Amazing, no? You can read whatever you’d like! And meanwhile our social media accounts will be highlighting trans and nonbinary authors, so you can get plenty of recs for amazing books. I have a certain number of books to read by trans and nonbinary authors. Never you mind how many! It’s a normal, sane number of books! SHUT UP.

The post Mystery Seeds: A Links Round-Up appeared first on Reading the End.

All of this to say, please be gentle with yourself if you’re having a hard time right now. Here are some links!

Gabrielle Bellot writes about her long affection for Ms. Marvel and what Kamala Khan’s struggles have meant for her as an adult. (link)

What does it mean to write trauma well? (link)

“From the use of solitary confinement, which amounts to torture, to the punitive charges for phone calls, every aspect of the American system, major or minor, seems to be motivated not by the desire to prevent crime or to rehabilitate prisoners, but by the impulse to inflict spectacular, exemplary pain for the satisfaction of a general public that derives a furtive pleasure from its proximity to suffering.” Hari Kunzru on mass incarceration. (link)

Mara Wilson discusses The Narrative and the reasons Britney Spears never had a chance. (link) Also: Britney Spears is not in control of her image, and she never has been. (link)

Another excellent piece in Stitch’s series on fandom for Teen Vogue! (link)

Not seeing herself in the world of Lord of the Rings, Namina Forna decided to create her own. (link)

Arcadia is a perfect play, and that is the end of the matter. (link)

Variety reported on the sets of Joss Whedon’s shows and what the atmosphere was like. (Not good at all.) (link)

“The love-hate relationship with the musical form that made Dolly possible is a reflection of the push-pull of Southern culture for non-Southerners. They may hate country music but they have a ceaseless appetite for its white escapism — sonic, visual, and embodied.” Tressie McMillan Cottom on Dolly Parton. (link)

On the rightwing attack on trans women and girls in sports. (link)

“She was a shiny button.” Kelly Marie Tran deserves better and always did. But she’s succeeding in spite of the haters. (link)

I caught up on WandaVision and I liked it a lot! Except for that I was/am very mad that Monica Rambeau didn’t have more to do, considering that she’s the most beautiful human in the whole world. Here are some links about that:

• The puzzle box format that TV viewers have come to expect does a disservice to the emotional storytelling in WandaVision. (link)
• “WandaVision was always telling us what type of show it was. There was no greater mystery to figure out, no big puzzle that really even needed to be solved. All we had to do was sit back and tune in.” Carly Lane on the finale. (link)
• “Once we have found our way past so much grief, after so many spent and destructive illusions, what do we want? Who else can we try to be?” (link)

Having a bionic arm isn’t all it’s cracked up to be; or, a very useful article that all Stucky fanfic writers should take into account going forward. (link)

“White feminism has always been exclusionary.” Koa Beck discusses the archival records that show the history of white (and cis, and straight) feminists excluding all other voices. (link)

I only care what Black women have to say about the Oprah interview, so here’s a few:

• The hostility and trolling that Meghan Markle has faced is a pure example of misogynoir, and we shouldn’t look away. (link)
• “[Oprah is] something of an emissary, a reactive translator of emotion, a master weaver, pulling disparate revelations into a collective portrait that colonizes the mind.” (link)
• “I’ve rarely heard white friends discuss their parallel experiences of first realizing their privilege.” Salamishah Tillet on Harry’s racial awakening. (link)

Phew, this is an article about cops who danced with protestors at a Black Lives Matter event and then stormed the capitol. (link) SORRY THE LAST LINK WAS SO SAD.

The post Quarantinaversary: A links round-up appeared first on Reading the End.

What I learned in avalanche school, by Heidi Julavits. (link)

The “lunchbox moment” is a ubiquitous story for children of immigrants; Jaya Saxena explores the potential of its ubiquity to elide or flatten out food stories that don’t fit into this recognizable trope. (link)

Jess Krug posed as Black for years, until the whole house of cards collapsed last year. (link)

Surprising absolutely nobody, comedy has a white supremacy problem. (link)

I am truly extremely helped by these flashcards of the climate people on Biden’s climate team. (link)

Exciting news! You can enjoy a thing AND still critique it. Wow! (link)

“That’s the trouble with [Seth] Abramson’s interpretive threads. Pull on any one of them, and the whole tapestry unravels.” (link)

In the digital world, we encounter ghosts every day. (link)

Tessa Miller’s new memoir is frank about living with a chronic illness (Crohn’s disease) and avoids euphemism. (link)

“In answer to the question ‘whodunit?’, Clue says ‘who cares!'” I love Clue. (link)

“The shows certainly do gloss over the pain in the ass that is homeownership.” Roxane Gay on HGTV shows and what they say about our culture. (link)

Urban bobcats and coyotes are eating people’s pets! (link)

“This review is the product of empire.” On two new books about the British Empire. (link)

Historians of atrocities can be traumatized by the subjects they study, a genre of vicarious trauma that’s poorly understood. (link)

I don’t want to go to avalanche school! Not one little bit! Have a great weekend!

The post I do not want to go to avalanche school: A links round-up appeared first on Reading the End.