The mess that you wanted...

1.5M ratings
277k ratings

See, that’s what the app is perfect for.

Sounds perfect Wahhhh, I don’t wanna
mebesidemyself
mebesidemyself

We are so lucky to have Greta, and her friendship with Jo and Jess and the others. So often in media femmes are presented as closer to "normal", separate from their more visibly queer counterparts.

A League of their Own destroys this misconception entirely. I could imagine a straight audience watching and thinking there would be some rift between Greta and butch characters like Jess and Lupe, but instead all you find in the show is solidarity trust comfort and genuine friendship. She and Jess do their nails on her bed - and it's clear not only that Greta feels more at ease with Jess than with straight cis society, but that Jess, who is viscerally uncomfortable with feminine-coded beauty care in a cis- and hetero-normative context, feels fully at ease to do her nails with Greta, the perhaps most visibly feminine person on the show. This is also of course evident in her friendship with Jo, but I think it speaks even more volumes how easily she falls into this with new people.

I don't think we can really know how Greta would present nowadays or just in other contexts - so much of her feminity is a crafted shield. But in general what a gift -- no, straight audience, Greta is not like you. She is not for you. She is one of us.

a league of their own living and breathing this show because of the NUANCES the levels of queer culture explored i feel so safe in this show please make a season 2
monsteronthehill
rovermcfly

hey. hey look at me. I need you to look at me and listen to me:

A League of Their Own (2022-) is about queer women.

and I'm not talking subtext or one gay kiss or a dead lesbian. I'm talking about the overwhelming majority of the characters are queer women. even black queer women. even a black trans man.

I implore you to support this show. get a trial month on amazon or borrow someone's password to stream, boost the show on social media, do whatever it takes but please. please don't let this show fizzle out after one season into obscurity. it is finally a show about sapphics that is good and complex and both entertaining and emotional and it's about real history and it still said "we will make them all queer". at least let the world know there really is a demand for these stories. stop posting about that show you hate for killing the one queer woman or for being about lesbians but being really biphobic or racist and instead start posting about this one. please.

even if you don't like the show, do it for all the shows centering queer women and telling diverse stories that will follow if it's a success.

a league of their own i need multiple seasons please
wtfoctagon
no-this-is-ryan

I don't know what's in the air in Brazil that makes Brazilian people genuinely batshit. We're just built different

no-this-is-ryan

I don't know how to explain to gringos the concept of gambiarra without making it sound like the entire country of Brazil is set to creative mode

dukedark-ness

Please try anyways, bestie ❤

no-this-is-ryan

So gambiarra is the art of finding solutions with what you have. The art of improv. Not always the best solution, but the solution you're capable of. I'll get some examples

no-this-is-ryan

These are some amazing Brazilian gambiarras

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Are these the best solutions? Probably not. But the important part is that the problem is solved

as an indian it makes me proud that other countries have a name for this very batshit concept we call it jugaad tho
wtfoctagon
elumish

People talk a lot about how reading is necessary for writing, but when you really want to improve your writing, it’s important to go beyond just simple reading. Here are some things to do when reading:

Note how they begin and end the story. There are a ton of rather contradictory pieces of advice about starting stories, so see how they do it in the stories you enjoy. Don’t only look at the most popular stories, but look at your more obscure favorites.

See what strikes you. Is it fast or complicated scenes with a lot of emotions? Is it stark lines? Pithy dialogue? What do you remember the next day?

Pay attention to different styles. It’s not just whether they use past or present tense, first or third person. It’s whether the writing is more neutral or deeper inside character’s heads. Do they use italics? Parentheses? Other interesting stylistic choices? Take the ones you like and try them out in your own writing. See what works and what doesn’t.

Keep track of how they deal with other characters. Do we see a lot of secondary character each for very brief periods of time or are there a couple that show up a lot? How much information do we get about secondary characters? Do they have their own plots or do their plots revolve entirely around the main characters? 

Count how many plots there are. Is there just one main plot or are there multiple subplots? Are the storylines mostly plot-based or character-based?  

Pay attention to what you don’t like. If you don’t like what’s going on in a book or even just a scene, note what it is. Does the dialogue feel awkward? Are the characters inconsistent? Does the plot feel too convenient or cobbled together? Does the wording just feel off? See if you can spot those issues in your own writing, especially when reading a completed draft or beginning a later draft.

grittygambit

(Great advice! I wanted to tack on other things I look for when reading)

Pay attention to how they introduce characters. Very rarely will it be all at once, and I guarantee the author went over the intro of each major character again and again while editing, so I always like paying extra close attention! Did the intro endear you to the character? Make you dislike them? How did the author impart that emotion?

Note instances of worldbuilding/info dumps, especially parts that don’t seem like worldbuilding/info dumps. Maybe the character mentions something offhand about a location you’ll see five chapters later. Maybe the internal dialogue makes a comparison to the character’s childhood. Was the information effective or did it leave you wanting more? Make note of anything that made you go, “ooh, neat!”

After you finish the story, try to find foreshadowing that you missed the first time through! It can be as simple as skimming and looking for phrases you know are important after finishing the story. Most authors add foreshadowing in the editing stage, so I tend to ponder how the story would read before they added it. Ninety-nine percent of the time, the story seems more magical for it and it’s just nice to appreciate.

What plot structures could the story fit into? We all know about the three arc stories, hero’s journey, etc. Sometimes stories can fit into more than one category. During the read and after, keep it in the back of your mind. Can you predict where the climax of the story will hit? Is it man v man or man v nature? Does the predictability (or lack thereof) add to or take away from the story?