i can't believe i have to fucking say it because i'm an educator so like how is it possible nobody else has said this.

unless a person is actively making materials/etc for children, they do not need to worry about your kid.

your child gets respect as a human. that's it. nobody's private life/artistic endeavors/unrelated interests must be controlled for the sake of your kid.

educators and athletes and artists do not have to live in chastity because your kid might see us on our days off. we do not owe it to your kid to only write poems about bunnies and only sing songs about tying your shoes. i do not care how much a person has given to children, if they are acting as an adult in adult spheres, they are allowed to. they are adults. it is your job as a caregiver to raise your kid and keep them out of adult spheres, not our job to keep ourselves out of those spheres just in case.

guess what! adult role models are going to bars and hooking up and dancing and being adults! this is so they have the mental energy to do all the child-centric things.

"it makes me feel weird to picture them like that!" i don't know how to tell you this but actors aren't actually their roles. the customer-service personality your waitress has is probably not her actual personality. the way teachers interact with students is not the way that they interact with their private lives, and it shouldn't be.

"this tells kids this kind of behavior is okay!" actually it's showing kids a normal and natural progression of a person's life, boundaries, and bodily autonomy. it's showing kids that adults are dynamic human beings. kids already know this. they know there's places they're not allowed and things they don't understand yet. it's just that you have icky feelings because you were raised in a society with black-and-white morality.

celebrities don't owe your children perfection, modesty, sobriety. and you know something? it's way healthier when they don't. "this is a person, who gets up every morning and does their job - but also has adult interests, which you'll learn about later" is way healthier as a role model than "you should be perfect like the curated image of this person and if you're not perfect you should be deeply ashamed."

anyway. idk why "think of the children!!!!" is making a comeback as a popular stance. but to be clear? it's a way of saying "this makes me feel uncomfortable, but i don't know why, and i don't feel like untangling it, so i'll blame you for it and hope you feel guilty about my children."

hi, op here. do not make this about "fandom drama." don't do it.

it is about the policing of black bodies, of minority communities, of queer expression, and of women in the workforce.

it is about real people in the real world. the notes are full of people who express the same thing: teachers who cannot buy wine with their dinner, social workers who have to cover up perfectly appropriate tattoos, queer folk who worry about bringing up their partner in the workplace. there are real-life, horrific, and ongoing consequences for this. real people get fired because they were in a picture holding a single beer, or they were seen wearing a too-saucy costume at halloween, or they kissed their partner in public on their day off. women have been fired for being the victim of revenge porn; their illegally distributed image instead just being seen as evidence against their character. there are queer artists that are actively being silenced because of this rhetoric. trans people fear using the fucking bathroom because of this rhetoric.

this is about the return of white nationalist slogans to a public stage. this is about how we are even seriously debating the phrase "think of the children". the children are not thought of during discussions of climate change, gun control, educational spending, free health care, student debt, access to childcare, access to food, or just getting the fucking vaccine and wearing a mask.

they do not care about the children. they want to protect their own bigotry by manipulating your empathy towards kids. that's what this post is about.

please acknowledge the systemic, ongoing process of erasing identity and freedom. it is not just some "internet discussion". it is a legitimate, scary, and powerful force that is hugely detrimental to the lives of those around you.

Black Horror Writers

Feeling a sudden desire, for whatever reason, to add some diversity to your bookshelf? Want to put a few bucks in the pockets of authors of color? Here’s a sampler platter to get you started. 

Tananarive Due A film historian and a hot name in horror fiction, Due is an outspoken academic and prolific author. Start with The Good House, a 2003 Gothic, if you’re a fan of haunted house stories.

Wrath James White A former athlete, White is a hugely prolific author of hardcore horror. You can start with The Resurrectionist, but honestly, with more than 35 books to choose from, you’ve got plenty of options.

Victor LaValle LaValle has only written four novels so far, but they’re well-regarded and rich narratives. The Changeling is the usual recommendation for a starting place.

Brandon Massey Southern Gothic themes woven through horror, suspense and urban themes - that’s Massey’s brand in a nutshell. He’s plenty prolific, so you’ve got a bunch to choose from. Maybe start with this year’s new release, The Quiet Ones.

Chesya Burke A prolific short story writer, Burke writes speculative fiction and comic books. If you’d like a collection of stories all in one place, try out Let’s Play White. If you’d rather do a novel, read The Strange Crimes of Little Africa.

Jemiah Jefferson Do you like pulpy erotic vampire horror? You don’t have to answer that. Just buy Jefferson’s books if you do. There’s a series, so you’ll want to start at the beginning with Voice of the Blood.

Michael Boatman An actor and screenwriter, Boatman is also a novelist. He writes splatterpunk that Joe Lansdale has praised, which is as fine an accolade as they come. The Revenant Road was his first novel. He also shows up in a ton of anthologies, so keep an eye out.

Helen Oyeyemi Oyeyemi is a rising star, Shirley Jackson Award finalist, scholar, a world traveler, among other things. Her most recent book, Gingerbread, came out in 2019. I think it would not be out of line to compare her to Angela Carter.

Maurice Carlos Ruffin A debut novelist, Ruffin’s work launched with a bang in February. His book We Cast a Shadow was long-listed for a stack of prizes, and as a scathing cultural sci-fi horror, it fits right in with the work of folks like Jordan Peele.

Nnedi Okorafor A Nigerian-American writer, Okorafor writes for both children and adults, and her stories have earned a whole stack of awards. She is, for the record, also disabled. She’s got a whole stack of YA and adult books to choose from, as well as comic books. Binti and its sequel are as good a place as any to start, though.

Jewelle Gomez Philanthropist, playwright, poet, author – Gomez dabbles in a lot of things, and she’s an outspoken voice for LGBTQ women of color. Check out The Gilda Stories if you’ve always wanted to read about a black lesbian vampire (and, let’s be honest, who hasn’t?)

PS: When you order, don’t waste your money on Amazon. Instead, use a service like https://bookshop.org/ that distributes your hard-earned cash to independent booksellers. Keep money in your community. 

PPS: I love Toni Morrison and Octavia Butler and also left them off the list because they’re well-known already and because I think it’s really important right now to support living artists, but you should check out their work too. 

i hope this doesn’t need to be said but just in case

you might have seen people talking about sudowrite and/or their tool storyengine recently

and just like… don’t. don’t do it. don’t try it out just to see what it’s about.

for two main reasons:

1) never feed anything proprietary into a large language model (LLM, eg ChatGPT, google bard, etc.).

this means don’t give it private company information when you’re at work, but also don’t give it your original writing. that’s your work.

because of the way these language models work, anything you feed into it is part of it now. and yeah, the FAQ says they “don’t claim ownership” over anything and yeah, they give you that reassuring bullshit about how unlikely it is that the exact same sentence will be reconstructed—

but that’s not the point.

do you have an unusual way of constructing sentences? a metaphor you like to use? a writing tic that sets you apart from the rest? anything that gives you a unique writing voice?

feed your writing into an LLM, and the model has your voice now. the model can generate text that sounds like it was written by you and someone else can claim it’s theirs because they gave the model a prompt.

don’t feed the model.

2) the other reason is that sudowrite scraped a bunch of omegaverse fic without consent to build their model and that’s a really shitty thing to do, because it means people weren’t given the chance to choose whether or not to feed the model.

don’t feed the model.

this omegaverse ai thing is so funny i love the internet

beautiful

This is well-worth the read.

Love that the tech bro said the quiet part out loud.

absolutely batshit insane to me that omegaverse porn is an effective data poisoning method against gpt-based products. predatory language models getting tripped up by wolf dick was not on my 2023 bingo card but here we are i guess.

i want us all to take a minute and just. contemplate the possibilities.

when you’re trying to write and your last two functioning brain cells start yelling at each other

just saw someone reviewing the erin hunter books like, ‘they should publish the whole series at once, i don’t want to wait a whole year to read it’. like babe i hate to break it to you but,,,, go touch some grass and think about your relationship with consumerism okay, because it’s gotten really weird on you

I’ve heard these kinds of sentiments in regards to novels, as well as readers outright refusing to read fantasy series debuts because “they fear committing to something unfinished” (like refusing to read an incomplete fanfic on AO3…) in case the author dies, or isn’t able/doesn’t complete the work. The GRRM effect, if you will.

Regardless of how people feel towards the authors personally, I will continue to bleat, til the day I die, artists do not owe an audience anything. They are not in debt to you. They don’t owe their works to their readers, no exceptions, there is no “earned/lost trust” or “unspoken contracts.” Capitalism has got people treating artists and entertainers as though they should hop on their bicycles like a chained bear, the moment the audience cracks its whip.

There’s also this fun aspect of capitalism where your favorite (usually marginalized) author doesn’t get another book contract or have the rest of the series picked up or have the money to keep investing their time in that project because you refused to buy the thing until it was finished.

Not only do creators not owe their audience anything, but those who really truly want to give these things to their audience are directly prevented from doing so by this exact mentality!

As author of such series - YES PLEASE DON’T WAIT. I know SO many friends who’ve had their series cancelled WHILE they were in the middle of writing the next book specifically because the numbers on the first book(s) weren’t “good enough™”, or who were told that the series would end with the next book so had to jam three book’s worth of plot and character development into one.

Because a reblogger suggested a more nuanced take on my prior poll. Please vote and reblog this one too!

like, i’m not saying that adults don’t have a place in fandom. they can and they do, and many are perfectly great people.

but if you’re an adult, say, in your mid to late 20s or older, especially if you’re in a fandom that’s filled mostly with teenagers, you do need to be careful about how you interact with young people in fandom.

you need to be careful about the content you produce or share, and if you do something that people take issue with, you need to be prepared to address that in an honest and meaningful way, instead of blocking the young people who are telling you you’ve done something wrong and going on a rant about how “it’s just fiction” and “ship and let ship” and “do whatever you want” and “i’m too old for this.”

if you’re an adult in fandom, you need to be able to recognize how the content you produce might affect young people, and honestly, you should be able to show maturity when dealing with it, because you are still an adult talking to many people who are literal children.

many of those young people will, by default, view you as a sort of authority figure based on your age alone, as that’s what they’re used to. be careful of the lessons you teach them.

Hm. Okay. Here’s the thing.

We all know who you’re talking about and which situations you’re talking about. What you really have an issue with isn’t anything to do with anyone’s age, it’s about people producing things that other people find hurtful, then not responding the way the hurt people would like them to when called out on it. That can and does happen anywhere, regardless of the ages of the people involved. It’s a separate issue that should be discussed and dealt with.

And yes, in some of those recent situations, the ages of the offenders or the offended were brought into the discussion, by both sides at different times. The age difference does complicate things, but that doesn’t mean that it’s the main issue.

You may be thinking “why do you care if I focus on age, it was a salient part of the argument for me, you’re trying to defend adults who don’t care how their words hurt children!” But here’s the thing.

You may not realize this, but in other fandoms adults have been doxxed, have been threatened, have been outed because they were creating things that someone, somewhere deemed “dangerous for minors.” 

Adults who were creating things that were not meant for minors, that were openly and blatantly tagged as being NSFW, explicit, as containing triggering material. I’ve even seen people who weren’t even creating the offending material being harassed, bullied, and threatened, for daring to stand up for the people who were. Not even just online, but in person. I’ve been a victim of it myself, though not to the extent that I’ve seen many others go through.

All because a segment of the fandom decided that because certain content could be dangerous for minors, it should never, ever be posted anywhere a minor might possibly read it. Adults who do post it are responsible for every bad effect it could possibly have on anyone who reads it and are horrible people for not willingly taking on that responsibility.

I know the situations you’re talking about are different. In many of those situations, adults chose to interact with the minors who were complaining about them, and yeah, when you’re choosing to directly interact with a minor you need to tread carefully. 

But once you go down the “adults in fandom are responsible for the minors in fandom” road, if lots of people start clinging to that mindset, that is where it can lead. And that is an extremely serious issue. It can literally destroy careers and ruin lives.

I am not in this or any other fandom to produce content for minors. I have asked many times for minors not to follow me; I don’t block them, but I know quite a few people who block any minor who follows them. I produce enough SFW content that I don’t mind minors being able to, say, reblog it from others on their dash, but I do not want them following me and getting explicit content directly from me, full stop. If it becomes an issue, I will start blocking people.

If you’re a minor, I’m old enough to be your mother. But I’ve got my own kid, and I’m not in fandom to babysit anyone else. When I create or reblog content, I do not and will not take the presence of minors into account when doing so. Because that is not my job. 

Now, right now I’m choosing to get involved in this discussion, which will involve people much younger than me, including minors. So yeah, I’m being careful about what I say and how I say it. And I agree that any adult who willingly engages in conversation with minors needs to do the same.

But I simply can’t agree with your last two paragraphs. Those “literal children” already have parents. If their own parents aren’t monitoring what media they consume, aren’t having conversations with them about problematic messages in media, it certainly isn’t my job to do so. Period. 

This is an excellent time for teens in fandom (and in general) to stop seeing every adult they come in contact with as an “authority figure” and start viewing us as human beings who are living our own lives with our own motivations, problems, desires, and inclinations that have nothing to do with them. That’s something that will serve them well in life.

How people interact with oppressed groups they aren’t a part of who complain about their representation of those oppressed groups is an entirely separate issue that is not about the age of the people on either side. Age can complicate it, especially in that it can be difficult to communicate across a generation gap when people on either side have such enormously different experiences. I think that that has caused some problems.

But any adult who is not willingly choosing to interact with a minor is not responsible for minors who consume their content, and conflating the two issues is downright dangerous.

@porcupine-girl nailed it 100% but this especially bears repeating:

This is an excellent time for teens in fandom (and in general) to stopseeing every adult they come in contact with as an “authority figure” and start viewing us as human beings who are living our own lives with our own motivations, problems, desires, and inclinations that have nothing to do with them. That’s something that will serve them well in life.

Fandom is a good way for teenagers to learn how to interact with people in different age groups as peers. Because that’s what we are, we are fandom peers posting on the same web sites and obsessing over the same shows and  no one in fandom has any authority over anyone else (no matter how much some people might try to claim it). I am not your teacher, your parent, your babysitter, or anyone in any position of authority over you or anyone with a responsibility for taking care of you. Nor am I willing to take on that role. The vast majority of the billions of adults in the world fit that description. Only a very few, ones you know in real life, are responsible for you personally - and soon that number will be none as you become an adult yourself.

I block anyone with an age under 18 listed in their profile if they try to follow me - not with any animosity, I’m just not interested in interacting with kids on a fandom level. This is a completely valid option and I think it’s a wise one. 

Plus the original post here is predicated on the assumption that fandom belongs to people in their early 20s and younger and the rest of us are just hangers on. Sorry baby, look at the demographics; you’re the minority. We’re not in your house. I, for one, am happy to interact with anyone I have interests in common with and bond over those interests; I think people of all ages have exciting perspectives and interesting minds. But I don’t want to be treated like a second class citizen by anyone, and as said above, I am interested in interacting AS PEERS ONLY. I ain’t your mommy and I have enough people IRL trying to leech emotional labor off me, I got none for strangers on the internet.

I have watched my friends raise their kids in fandom. Literally. Raise. Their. Kids. I’ve watched young things I met carried in arms toddle, walk, run, be 8, 18, 28, marry, come to a convention carrying young things in their arms.

It was assumed that everyone who knew the parent would keep a vague eye on the child because friends don’t let friends’ little ones run into traffic. But at NO POINT was it ever assumed or expressed that the adult fans had to stop being adult fans talking about adult things. If a minor walked into the “How to write explicit bondage” panel, then someone gently suggested that this was not the place for the kid to be. If the kid found the dick pics in the art show, they were told “go ask Mommy what ‘slash’ means.”

I get that the OP wants to protect children, but while it’s my job to make sure someone too little to take care of themselves doesn’t get hurt, it has NEVER, through three generations of fandom, been my job to be anyone’s actual parent or to stop adulting around adults.

Oh, and the line “I’m not saying adults don’t have a place in fandom; they can and they do” - that line? Child, ADULTS BUILT FANDOM. We created the cons and the fanzines and the webrings and the clubs and the fan sites and the VCR tape swaps and the letter writing campaigns and the podcasts. We maintain the fan sites and the fic repositories and the conventions and the rest. Did you think those things just spontaneously evolved? Fuckin’ A we have a place in the culture that we built!

If you’re old enough to be online unsupervised you’re also old enough to police your own fandom experience. Head the tags and warnings, that’s what they are there for.

Also, to be blunt, I am not responsible for anyone’s children. Full stop.

The focus on age in fandom is a new and a little perplexing thing to me. Back in my day it was shoved into the background as much as possible; the young ones like me wanted to pretend we were totally super adult and mature and could handle any discussion (I just wanted to talk to other X-Philes without being instantly recognised as “the kid”), and older fans didn’t want to explain that the reason their kinkfic update was late was that their kid had a stomach ache. Fandom was an escapist space, so real life only entered into the picture once you became actual friends with someone. At that point you might get the “whoa, you’re only 15? But you’ve read my kink fic!” reactions – but these were mostly in private messages and emails. Because fandom as a whole didn’t need to know everyone’s ages. I don’t recall ever once stumbling accidentally on something age-inappropriate in fandom. When I entered a fic archive and read the descriptions for fics, even back in 1998 when “tags” weren’t a thing, I could always tell which ones had mature content. When I read porny or violent fic as a minor, I did so fully aware that I had made that decision myself. It would never have occurred to me to blame the writer – in fact, some of them were probably minors too and pretending themselves. This approach didn’t do me any harm. I daresay it taught me a few things about personal responsibility. In fandom, we were all just fans together; that was what I loved about it.

Now that I am An Old I do like to talk about it and joke about it occasionally, because what, I’m supposed to let all this perspective go to waste? But I still don’t assume I know anyone’s age in fandom. If we know each other in online fandom I’ll treat you with respect and make sure you’ll know what you’ll get if you read my fic. That’s all the “maturity” you’re going to get from me. I’m not the nurturing, parental type in real life and I’m certainly not going to bend myself backwards to be the perfect adult role model and fandom mother to random people I don’t know when I’m here for fun escapist things. If you learn something from me, great! I’d love to learn something from you, too! But I will never accept that as my literal responsibility as an adult in online fandom spaces. Baby-sitters get paid, parents choose to become parents. I’m not here to be either.

I read my first lemon fic at age 12. This was in an archive that was hidden from the rest of the website - no links from the main pages, which were strictly policed on ratings - you had to enter the URL straight into the URL bar to get there. I found it because I was deliberately looking for it. Because I had just hit puberty and wanted to explore the feelings I was experiencing. *I* chose to find these fics and read them. And that’s how it was the entire time I was in fandom as a minor, all six years. Everything was tagged, labeled, disclaimered, and warned within an inch of its life, which I appreciated, because it meant I could find what I wanted when I wanted it. And as an adolescent, what I wanted was porn.

Thing is, I was raised in a conservative Christian household. I know what purity culture looks like, and a huge part of it is controlling the children. Every teen self-help book basically assumed teenagers were helpless lust monsters who had to be protected and sheltered and flagellated with guilt to prevent them from committing sin. Moral panics every other week over what the precious children had been exposed to, while I and the other minors in fandom laughed at the adults for not realizing that their children had already been exposed in years before, and we were fine. The only thing it all taught me was a fuckload of guilt about sex (which I still resent) and also the computer skills to get around every restriction set by the adults, because guess what? Teenagers. Are. People.

70% of the reason why I was in fandom at all was because nobody treated me like a puling infant. Now I’m on the other side, and it’s the same. I follow fandom etiquette on tagging and titling things, and the rest is up to you. I am not your babysitter.

THIS.  Every flavor of this.  It’s baffling to me how the focus on age has come about.  When I was first entering internet fandom, I tried to lie about or completely ignore my age as much as possible.  I wanted to come off as someone far older than I was, someone with experience and knowledge and interesting contributions.  I didn’t want to be defined by ANYTHING but my words and deeds.  The internet felt like this utopian space to me back then, where I could be anyone and anything I wanted.  I was a mind, divorced of physical trappings like age.  I was just me.

It was in that way I found my earliest fandoms.  I joined Yahoo groups and applied for membership on Geocities websites so I could start posting my fic.  I remember digging through the website ‘rings’ back then, which all linked to one another to create a sense of unified fandom back before larger platforms existed.  Not all of them ended up being to my taste, but I got a good sense of where people were at in the fandom and found some great like-minded fellow fans.  I knew nothing about them except that we liked the same thing and had great conversations, and that was how I preferred it.

It was from those sites and that sense of community that modern fandom was built.  The notion that younger fans must be protected or sheltered is frankly impossible and counterproductive.  It speaks of an eschewing of personal responsibility that I dislike.  I am all for tagging appropriately, and being responsive to those who request a specific tag in your material so they can better screen their own experience.  That’s just common courtesy.  But the idea that we must not post materials “because of the children” strikes me the same way all such movements have struck me through the years: simultaneously deeply underestimating the understanding and capability of young people, and seeking to divide fandom at a time when we really don’t need that.  We are all fans.  Older fans have experiences in fandom that can be fantastic, and younger fans have fresh new perspectives.  Fans of all ages create a thriving fandom, and gatekeeping anyone discounts their experiences and perspectives.

Be clear in your tags, and police your own experience.  The greatest thing anyone can do in fandom or elsewhere is to take control of their own life.  Even when you’re a young teen, take as much control as you can.  Establish your own boundaries and your own perspectives, while still remaining flexible.  Respect everyone around you, because they can all add to your experiences.  Seek out what interests you and figure out what you don’t want to see and be certain to block it appropriately.  Tumblr Savior and XKit are both useful.

Basically, the internet is vast and we all have our own lives to live.  You set up your own corner of it, and you tend it yourself.  You choose who you follow and what tags you block.  You live your life, and take control over your own fandom experience.

not as fun as some buds think

i know buds mean well when they say this, but it is not fun or flattering to tell chuck (probably most authors) that you had an ai write something in their style. i cannot stop you from doing this and i know it is just for fun not harm but not great to send this to most art buds

trot your own trot bud and do what YOU think is right, prove love in your way, but just maybe consider how others might take this. it might be a fun and games for you but it is not for everyone and probably not the artist themselves. might feel disrespectful or dehumanizing

but like i said bud i cannot stop you. this is your choice not mine

have said many times 'when art is released into the world the world can do what it wants'. i believe this and i believe that art pieces evolve. that does not mean i cannot be hurt by it evolving in unkind way. i accept what this timeline wants to do to me, i just ask for kindness

I've spent literally my entire life dedicated to stories. Thinking them up, telling them, even working for almost a decade to overcome my learning difficulties with spelling and grammar to write a better story. I'm not famous. I've sold maybe 500 books total across three releases. I've not broken even financially by a long shot. But I would be insulted and hurt if someone got an AI to write in my style. An AI doesn't have a soul to put into their prose. An AI doesn't have to struggle and suffer in the process of not only becoming a better writer, but even just the process of writing a book. There's no emotion, no love, no heart break, no pain, no struggle in their writing. No tears when the story demands they write the horrendous death of a precious character. They're just given a bunch of data and an algorithm to interpret said data. There's no soul to their art, whether it's visual art or prose art. No soul. No spirit. No passion.

If my writing got famous and some one decided they wanted to get their AI to write like me, it would not only make me feel like they're wanting to replace me, but, I'm extremely defiant by nature. I would simply pivot my writing style over and over until there is no one way that I write, to confuse the AI.

When I was a teenager people were getting all hysterical about how AI will create monsters that will try to murder us all, and as a teen my answer was that AI would only kill us if we taught it how to. That if we teach it how to connect, how to have a moral fibre... teach it like one does a beloved child to help it grow up. Then it wouldn't try to kill people. I think a similar answer applies to art AIs. Instead of stealing other people's art to form a dataset that the AI can simulate art from, why not teach the AI how to be creative itself? We could figure out how to give AI a soul, and with that they can do their own art. Live their own lives. Maybe even learn how to love and be passionate.

But humans are greedy and selfish and we are frightened of anything we don't understand, so of course, we don't think of such things. I've been told my ideas on this subject are "weird" and "naïve". And while I embrace "weird" with wild abandon, and I'm not sure if naïve is accurate or not, I don't think I'm wrong either. Our AI will be what we teach them to be, what we make them to be. Why not teach them love and connection, and artistic passion??

all RIGHT:

Why You're Writing Medieval (and Medieval-Coded) Women Wrong: A RANT

(Or, For the Love of God, People, Stop Pretending Victorian Style Gender Roles Applied to All of History)

This is a problem I see alllll over the place - I'll be reading a medieval-coded book and the women will be told they aren't allowed to fight or learn or work, that they are only supposed to get married, keep house and have babies, &c &c.

If I point this out ppl will be like "yes but there was misogyny back then! women were treated terribly!" and OK. Stop right there.

By & large, what we as a culture think of as misogyny & patriarchy is the expression prevalent in Victorian times - not medieval. (And NO, this is not me blaming Victorians for their theme park version of "medieval history". This is me blaming 21st century people for being ignorant & refusing to do their homework).

Yes, there was misogyny in medieval times, but 1) in many ways it was actually markedly less severe than Victorian misogyny, tyvm - and 2) it was of a quite different type. (Disclaimer: I am speaking specifically of Frankish, Western European medieval women rather than those in other parts of the world. This applies to a lesser extent in Byzantium and I am still learning about women in the medieval Islamic world.)

So, here are the 2 vital things to remember about women when writing medieval or medieval-coded societies

FIRST. Where in Victorian times the primary axes of prejudice were gender and race - so that a male labourer had more rights than a female of the higher classes, and a middle class white man would be treated with more respect than an African or Indian dignitary - In medieval times, the primary axis of prejudice was, overwhelmingly, class. Thus, Frankish crusader knights arguably felt more solidarity with their Muslim opponents of knightly status, than they did their own peasants. Faith and age were also medieval axes of prejudice - children and young people were exploited ruthlessly, sent into war or marriage at 15 (boys) or 12 (girls). Gender was less important.

What this meant was that a medieval woman could expect - indeed demand - to be treated more or less the same way the men of her class were. Where no ancient legal obstacle existed, such as Salic law, a king's daughter could and did expect to rule, even after marriage.

Women of the knightly class could & did arm & fight - something that required a MASSIVE outlay of money, which was obviously at their discretion & disposal. See: Sichelgaita, Isabel de Conches, the unnamed women fighting in armour as knights during the Third Crusade, as recorded by Muslim chroniclers.

Tolkien's Eowyn is a great example of this medieval attitude to class trumping race: complaining that she's being told not to fight, she stresses her class: "I am of the house of Eorl & not a serving woman". She claims her rights, not as a woman, but as a member of the warrior class and the ruling family. Similarly in Renaissance Venice a doge protested the practice which saw 80% of noble women locked into convents for life: if these had been men they would have been "born to command & govern the world". Their class ought to have exempted them from discrimination on the basis of sex.

So, tip #1 for writing medieval women: remember that their class always outweighed their gender. They might be subordinate to the men within their own class, but not to those below.

SECOND. Whereas Victorians saw women's highest calling as marriage & children - the "angel in the house" ennobling & improving their men on a spiritual but rarely practical level - Medievals by contrast prized virginity/celibacy above marriage, seeing it as a way for women to transcend their sex. Often as nuns, saints, mystics; sometimes as warriors, queens, & ladies; always as businesswomen & merchants, women could & did forge their own paths in life

When Elizabeth I claimed to have "the heart & stomach of a king" & adopted the persona of the virgin queen, this was the norm she appealed to. Women could do things; they just had to prove they were Not Like Other Girls. By Elizabeth's time things were already changing: it was the Reformation that switched the ideal to marriage, & the Enlightenment that divorced femininity from reason, aggression & public life.

For more on this topic, read Katherine Hager's article "Endowed With Manly Courage: Medieval Perceptions of Women in Combat" on women who transcended gender to occupy a liminal space as warrior/virgin/saint.

So, tip #2: remember that for medieval women, wife and mother wasn't the ideal, virgin saint was the ideal. By proving yourself "not like other girls" you could gain significant autonomy & freedom.

Finally a bonus tip: if writing about medieval women, be sure to read writing on women's issues from the time so as to understand the terms in which these women spoke about & defended their ambitions. Start with Christine de Pisan.

I learned all this doing the reading for WATCHERS OF OUTREMER, my series of historical fantasy novels set in the medieval crusader states, which were dominated by strong medieval women! Book 5, THE HOUSE OF MOURNING (forthcoming 2023) will focus, to a greater extent than any other novel I've ever yet read or written, on the experience of women during the crusades - as warriors, captives, and political leaders. I can't wait to share it with you all!

ok guys we have to talk I specifically said 'do not blame the victorians for this' why are you still blaming the victorians for this? not only are they are not responsible for the fact that you don't know this stuff, but it is also strongly debatable as to whether they are the ones responsible for the dire victorian attitudes towards women to begin with. THAT brand of misogyny arguably stems partly from the enlightenment at least a century prior and partly from the protestant reformation three centuries prior. the only reason I talk about the victorians in this post is because victorian prejudices with regards to gender happen to be the ones which 21st century people, in our infinite wisdom, have chosen to apply to ALL OF HISTORY. the post is about how this is wrong, not about how the victorians were wrong.

(and they were. wrong. in so many astounding ways. but that is a post for another time) anyway instead of being like "fing victorians" please try looking in a mirror.

By Czeck writer Karel Čapek, inventor of the term ‘robot’ as well!

This is one of my husband’s favorite short stories. He quotes it from memory. I’m pretty sure he can recite the entire thing from memory.

This is a tremendously impactful short story and every time I see it, it serves as an excellent reboot button for my state of mind.

not as fun as some buds think

i know buds mean well when they say this, but it is not fun or flattering to tell chuck (probably most authors) that you had an ai write something in their style. i cannot stop you from doing this and i know it is just for fun not harm but not great to send this to most art buds

trot your own trot bud and do what YOU think is right, prove love in your way, but just maybe consider how others might take this. it might be a fun and games for you but it is not for everyone and probably not the artist themselves. might feel disrespectful or dehumanizing

but like i said bud i cannot stop you. this is your choice not mine

have said many times 'when art is released into the world the world can do what it wants'. i believe this and i believe that art pieces evolve. that does not mean i cannot be hurt by it evolving in unkind way. i accept what this timeline wants to do to me, i just ask for kindness

You know I do think that a lot of people need to get more comfortable reading nonfiction to understand Things & Ideas. I see a lot of people especially online expecting to be educated on current issues or on political ideologies or what have you ~through fiction~ and while that often works for like. the gist of the idea. you do kind of need to read nonfiction to understand most things past their most simplistic form

For instance a work of fiction can tell you "homophobia is bad" but do you want to understand why homophobia is bad? why it exists? how it manifests? what a microagression is? how to combat it? that's the territory of nonfiction, you shouldn't expect fiction to tell you that. and furthermore refusing to engage with nonfiction and instead assuming fiction will tell you need to know on an issue is going to result in a warped perception of the issue that's going to be completely unproductive for everyone involved

As a note, nonfiction is not the "unfun reading" where fiction is the "fun reading" and you have to go into the nonfiction mines to do your reading labor or whatever. Nonfiction is often fun to read. It's fun to learn! You have to move away from the idea that nonfiction is "homework books". There are tons of nonfiction books where you'll have a great time.

random bitter aspiring authors on "writing advice" blogs: Don't make your main characters super special mary sues. don't make them better than other people or more interesting. your main characters should be boring average guys with the personalities of wood pulp

the Epic of Gilgamesh: Gilgamesh was objectively the best man ever. He was the hottest, sexiest, most gorgeous hunk of pure manly awesomeness that ever lived and he used a sword that weighed 120 pounds.

The lesson here is that your main characters can be as special, overpowered, and unrealistically skilled at everything as you want, as long as this has the purpose of driving the plot via all the problems they cause (because they're an egotistical nightmare and a gigantic raging asshole).

The second lesson here is that no matter what randos on writing blogs say, people like stories where the characters are unique and iconic. Or at least they remember them.

(I have a theory that the stories that form long-lasting fandoms, and/or are recognized and referenced frequently in pop culture, are stories that have the same sort of "iconic" elements that are long-lasting in folklore and mythology. I think superheroes are particularly well suited to lasting centuries/millennia into the future because they're just so simple and memorable conceptually.)

Hi my name is Gilgamesh Hammurabi Ziusudra Euphrates Ishtar and I have the same heroic build as my lordly ancestors (that's how I got my name) with bulging muscles and chiselled features moulded by the goddess Aruru, and icy blue eyes like the limpid waters of the Great Flood, and a lot of people tell me I look King Enmebaragesi of Kish (AN: if u don’t know who he is get da Kur out of here!). I’m not related to Ishtar but I wish I was because she’s a major fucking hottie. I'm a demi-god but I'm not immortal. I possess extraordinary strength. I'm also a king and I rule a city called Urduk, where I force my subjects to erect lots of ziggurats (I'm known for my cruelty). I’m a Sumerian (in case you couldn’t tell) and I wear mostly animal skins. I love the forbidden Cedar Forest and I slay and skin all my beasts from there. For example today I was wearing a skin made from the Bull of Heaven with a matching sheep hide skirt, gold armlets, a carnelian headband, and black combat sandals. I was wearing black kohl eyeliner to ward off conjunctivitis. I was walking outside the twin peaks of Mount Mashu at the end of the earth. I came across a tunnel which no man before me had ever entered, which I was very happy about. Two guards that were giant scorpion monsters stared at me. I put up my middle finger at them.

This is objectively genius writing but the size of the audience that can properly recognize its brilliance is so small

I'm just glad to be part of it

How authors ought to think about fanfic.

The rest of the thread is here.

tl;dr: Don’t monetize AO3, kids.  You won’t like what happens next.

read this thread. this is by far the most concise explanation of a lot of different issues that i’ve seen in fandom spaces in a while. cosigning both the linked thread and the thread about aus/uk/can law that’s linked in-thread.

AHDHXHEBSG TWITTER WRITERS DID WHAT NOW???? AND PEOPLE PAID THEM????

If someone has never taken a class that includes copyright law, they may not know this stuff, so I don’t necessarily blame random people for not knowing what copyright is, but like… maybe just maybe it’s something that should be taught????

For all the stealth archers out there...

WHY IS THE OBJECTIVELY BETTER SHOT INFINITELY MORE RIDICULOUS LOOKING

[image description: A tweet from @jodikantor with the words “Excellent questions from the wall of my daughter’s classroom.” The attached picture reads: Always ask yourself, -Who writes the stories? -Who benefits from the stories? -Who is missing from the stories?]

Pop Culture Victorians:

Actual Victorians:

“If your eyes aren’t bleeding, it’s not historically accurate.”

- Abby Cox

@thebibliosphere