The thing is, both in Babel and Yellowface, RF Kuang shows that there's no end to a white woman's victimhood. Obviously this is not to generalise, but a white woman crying over the racism others face without understanding an iota of it is always going to get more sympathy and empathy than a woman of colour going—hey this is fucked up.

I've noticed that white women always bring up their queerness and their neurodivergence to excuse themselves from taking any accountability. How can I be racist when I'm queer and autistic 🥺

Like those two things aren't mutually exclusive babe. You are always more privileged compared to woman of colour. Yes, facing sexism bonds us together but if you don't check your privilege at the door and don't realise that being a white woman means that certain things are infinitely easier for you then the bond is hard to maintain. Because tell me why I'm consoling a white woman when she's profusely crying and saying "I promise I'm not a racist!" because I told her not to call a dupatta a Scandinavian Scarf. Like just apologise and move on 😭

And RF Kuang shows this perfectly in Babel and Yellowface. Both Letty and June feel victimised. Letty feels victimised because her friends of colour aren't as happy as her, how dare they?! All the racism they faced?! And June felt that Athena owed her success to her diversity and not her craft. Which INHERENTLY is a racist thing to think, that a person of a certain race is there just fill a quota and their success cannot be alluded to the years they spent honing their craft.

I am going to end this by quoting Rick Riordan when he wrote to defend Leah Jeffries.

"You either are not aware, or have dismissed, Leah’s years of hard work honing her craft, her talent, her tenacity, her focus, her screen presence. You refuse to believe her selection could have been based on merit. Without having seen her play the part, you have pre-judged her (pre + judge = prejudice) and decided she must have been hired simply to fill a quota or tick a diversity box....

...Friends, that is racism.

Racism/colorism isn’t something we have or don’t have. I have it. You have it. We all do. And not just white people like me. All people. It’s either something we recognize and try to work on, or it’s something we deny. Saying “I am not racist!” is simply declaring that you deny your own biases and refuse to work on them."

Do tell me your thoughts on this!

Does anyone have any bookish tattoos? Either a quote from your favorite book, a symbol, a character or just straight up a tattoo of a book?

I’m considering getting one! I am working on getting my sleeve done (it’s a parchwork sleeve rather than a a full themed sleeve) and wanna include something for my love of books! Still brainstorming though.

You ever just have plans to like, do nothing lmao, and hit your reading goal for the day when someone tries to invite you out somewhere? As in they want to hang out in a couple of hours. And then they get upset when you say no? Like I'm sorry but no, you should've told me a million years in advance. The throuple in my book has just mentioned the strap. I WILL be busy. 💀✋️

please please give me any and all bookish youtuber recommendations!! this could be dangerous because my tbr is already so long, and the only two youtubers i watch currently are jack edwards and haley pham and they always make me write down more books i wanna read. but i’d love to learn about more youtubers that also vlog and make cozy content. any genres too, for more diverse content! <3

Hey booklovers,

What’s an underrated book that deserves more attention?

Hello PB club, i'm looking for manga recs. I'm personally not into manga at all, but want to gift one or more as comfort and distraction to someone something bad happened to recently. I've never read manga and there are so many it's difficult to find one that fits on my own. So, the manga i'm looking for is: •fast paced, lots of action. If it's boring for more than two pages they'll dnf •a nice fandom. They like to engage with ao3 a lot. If half the fic authors of that fandom should be in jail, it's not the right manga. (Don't concern yourself with this too much, i will check all recs myself) •nothing nsfw, absolutely no sa elements, no hypersexualised characters, no "she looks nine but actually she's 300", no age gaps •not focused on romance. If there is romance, queer is best •if there's cats thats great, dragons are also nice •a subtle message of self confidence, self love, self forgiveness (NOT forgiving someone else. At all.), and a nice portrayal of familial (not patchwork) and platonic relationships i would really like, but it's not required •not horror, not too scary, it's for a teen

A manga i know they've read and liked is the diaries of the apothecary. They've also watched an anime that has the same or a very similar name and loved that too. They've also watched at least parts of mha and like it. In general they like White Collar, Criminal Minds, Sherlock bbc, Merlin bbc, Good Omens, Harry Potter, The Mentalist... In total: Fantasy, Magic, murder, crimes. And Cats.

what do y'all do for a reading slump? do you ride it out or try to power through and keep on reading? (and does it work?) asking for a friend,,, im tooooootally not in a slump right now :((