that's rough, buddy @lycantropies - Tumblr Blog

there are a NUMBER of folktale Woman-Creatures like selkies who exist to make the inherently coercive nature of heterosexual marriage explicit and to externalize male anxiety about how if your wife had actual autonomy she very well might disappear and you might never fucking hear from her again

which is a FASCINATING category of Woman-Creature imo

creekfiend

someone said it's also a cautionary tale about mistreating your wife and I think that's spot on especially for other related types of stories e.g. the crane wife. like I think these stories are very much Husband Anxiety Stories. the Woman-Creatures are black boxes whose interior experience it is impossible to know and who have strange and often seemingly arbitrary rules that you must follow or else they will disappear. idk. like. that's why I think that any empowering-to-women-ness qualities of these stories is incidental. I think they're externalized anxiety about coercive societal heterosexuality and the inability to truly Know one's wife in such circumstances.

nayters

wordproblemapoligist

tom nook is NOT a landlord!!! he is a construction worker! he SELLS you a WHOLE HOUSE! He is not CHARGING YOU however many bells a month to live there! You PURCHASE a HOME that he BUILDS FOR YOU and then you PAY HIM FOR HIS SERVICE. He charges no interest he sets no time limit it is a relationship built on trust. the only penalty you get for not paying off your home is that he won't build more home until you pay him for the first one. A guy that builds you a house wherever you want him to and then charges you for the cost of construction is not a landlord you own the fucking home

brennacedria

He is, however, in the mafia

#reblog txt actually made me giggle out loud

cat-skull

imo the term "walkable" in "walkable cities" should be understood to mean "wheelchair accessible" as well, not just literally "possible to walk in". the act of walking in a city doesn't automatically make it walkable

solitairians

whenever I confess to people that i feel like I am just roleplaying as a normal person they're always like noooo you don't strike me as someone who's roleplaying as a normal person at all!!! :) and every time internally im like well yes that's because I am excellent at it

natnormalatall

roald dahl was antisemitic and misogynistic. george orwell was openly homophobic. edgar allan poe married his 13 year old cousin. dr seuss cheated on his wife (and was racist as well as antisemitic!). hp lovecraft was racist as fuck. anyways they’re fucking dead it’s not like you’re enabling their behaviors in the afterlife or something. then again I think they bleed into the books so uh keep an eye out for that

the difference between these old white guys and jk rowling is that the former group is all dead. jk rowling is alive and using your money to oppress trans people

willgrahamscock

how are you gonna be 31 and posting fandom content bro leave it to the teenagers

People 10 and 20 years older than me are writing your favorite fanfics, and drawing your favorite characters. You'd have no fandom without the people you think are 'too old' to have hobbies.

emachinescat

This mentality is so insanely frustrating. Why do teenagers think that people have to give up their hobbies, give up fun, when they reach a certain age? Like??

When I was a teenager writing fic, I remember finding out that one of my favorite authors was in her 50s and that just was SUCH a revelation for me!! What do you mean, 50 year olds can write fanfic?!? Does that mean I can write fics when I'm her age?? That's AWESOME! I seriously looked up to her so much. And now I'm 35 with a husband and kid, and I'm still writing fanfic and posting fandom content - and I have no plans of stopping!

If you try to drive 30+ people out of fandom, you're going to lose the backbone of said fandom!

evilwriter37

The ageism in fandom is fucking insane. It’s strange that people seem to have the idea that fandom was created by and for teenagers… It was not. It was created by adults. How would we have ao3 if only teenagers were in fandom?

I don’t want to sound like I am hating on younger people in fandom, but god, y’all need to stop it with the ageism. You don’t have to give up what you love once you’re an adult. Honestly, the belief that you have to is pretty bad. It sounds like it would make people afraid of aging. Granted, modern society is so very afraid of aging.

Don’t give up what you love just because you’re an adult. You don’t have to. And don’t try to force others to do it either.

finalgirldigital

People love natives in such a superficial way. People wanna stand with natives when we’re talking about the trees, and the land. People wanna stand with natives when we talk about philosophies of love and togetherness. But as soon as it’s time to talk about political side of being native. About dismantling a system built on the genocide of our people. About how we need a new system that isn’t built upon capital gain and benefitting white bodies. About putting up a fight. About how the colonial state we reside in is a disgusting imperial plague on this land. Suddenly y’all don’t wanna talk native.

neechees

"They spent hundreds of years trying to assimilate my ancestors, trying to create indians like me, who could blend in, but now they don’t want me either. They can’t make up their minds.

They want buckskin and face paint, drumming, songs in languages they can’t understand recorded for them but with English subtitles, of course. They want educated, well spoken, but not too smart. Christian, well behaved, never question. They want to learn the history of the people, but not the ones that are here now, waving signs in their faces, asking them for clean drinking water, asking them why their women are going missing, asking them why their land is being ruined.

They want fantastical stories of Indians that used to roam this land. They want my culture behind glass in a museum.

But they don’t want me." -Shelby Lisk

cutecipher

science has always been political. what gets studied. what doesnt. who gets to do the studying. on and on and on.

cutecipher

scientists on this post: yuuuup 👍

people who aren't scientists: um actually ☝️

elbiotipo

Also, regardless of your feelings on human nature or anything, I think that a world where children can go to school without fearing being bombed from an ocean away is a world worth aspiring to and worth fighting for. Okay we might never abolish war because the inherent human nature or whatever mighty idealism you have. We could at least try to stop these wars, though?

elbiotipo

Again. Everybody get more anti war right now.

userautumn

i love fics that feel so... grown. fics about adults that were written by adults who have years of life experience under their belts who pour that into their writing. fics where you can tell this is a person who has lived through a marriage or a divorce or a child or children or parent death or any number of Huge Life Events because the way they write with an emphasis on the highs and lows of the human experience rather than an emphasis on tropes (not throwing shade) is just so. oh man, it's just so fucking good. if my blorbos are grown men, grown women, grown people, i love it when they feel like grown people, not just extensions of the (young) author's imagination. (still not throwing shade). you know?

naryrising

The way you get more fics like this, by the way, is by encouraging younger and beginning writers. Everyone starts somewhere, and if you want the beautiful, lived-in, wealth of experience that comes with age authors, they generally need to first be the eager, silly, excited just to be here, more enthusiastic than skilled authors, and then they need to not get driven away from fandom by people being jerks to them or by the weariness of putting out effort and not getting anything back. So yes, appreciate the older authors who bring their experience to the table of the fic buffet, but don't neglect the budding authors who are just starting to grow. That's like wanting the fruit from the tree without watering the sapling.

kropotkindersurprise

On April 8 we celebrate the death of Margaret Thatcher, and remember all the lives she destroyed.

batmanisagatewaydrug

listen I ended up regretting saying anything about this on my old blog because people will interpret literally any and every statement maliciously on this hellsite but I want to start like. a helpline for people who are like “hey I pretty much only read YA but I’m like 22 now and don’t relate to teenagers as much, it’s such a shame that there are no fun books written for adults :(” because boy HOWDY are there some fun books for adults

batmanisagatewaydrug

maybe I’ll start a big google doc or something one day but for now *deep breath*

The Beautiful Ones (Silvia Moreno-Garcia) - absolutely BUCKWILD romance with a dash of telekinesis; nonstop high society drama and misunderstanding from start to finish, happy ending guaranteed. STRONGLY recommend if you, like me, are a basic bitch who enjoys a bit of Pride and Prejudice.

Binti (Nnedi Okorafor) - a math prodigy runs away from Earth to become the first of her people to attend a prestigious university in space, but shit gets real when a crew of hostile jellyfish aliens attack her ship.

Chilling Effect (Valerie Valdes) - a spaceship captain and her crew take on a series of convoluted missions in order to rescue the captain’s sister, who’s been frozen and held for ransom.

The City of Brass (S.A. Chakraborty) - an 18th century conwoman and a mysterious djinn team up to go looking for a legendary hidden city.

The City We Became (N.K. Jemisin) - a scrappy bunch of Chosen Ones have to band together to defend New York City (which is very much alive) from a huge ass monster.

The Empress of Forever (Max Gladstone) - a lady supervillain gets blasted into space and meets an even bigger, planet-destroying evil space empress. literally WHAT is not to like?

The Empress of Salt and Fortune (Nghi Vo) - high fantasy royal drama about a woman making her way to power in the wake of a political marriage that left without friends or allies.

Escaping Exodus (Nicky Drayden) - a space-faring clan are creating their latest spaceship from the insides of a giant monster when absolutely everything goes to shit (as things are wont to do in science fiction stories).

Fierce Femmes and Notorious Liars (Kai Cheng Thom) - a trans girl runs away to the big city, where she uses her martial arts skills to team up with other trans woman and form a vigilante gang to defend their own when police look the other way. a fascinating blend of poetry and prose and magical realism.

Finna (Nino Cipri) - two exes working at an IKEA have to team up to save a customer who disappeared through one of those interdimensional portals that all IKEAs have laying around. you know how it is.

Gideon the Ninth (Tamsyn Muir) - come on, you’ve heard about this one. it’s the one with the lesbian space necromancers? yeah, that’s the one. you got it.

In the Vanishers’ Palace (Aliette de Bodard) - a Beauty and the Beast retelling based in science fiction and Vietnamese fantasy, featuring a young woman falling in love with a “beast” who’s actually a motherly dragon after becoming a tutor to the dragon’s two powerful children.

Jade City (Fonda Lee) - urban fantasy gang wars, pitting one magically enhanced family against rivals and a new drug that lets anyone mimic their abilities.

The Library of the Unwritten (A.J. Hackwith) - hell’s librarian gets sent on a quest to find a runaway soul.

The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet (Becky Chambers) - aka one of my favorite books ever, essentially slice of life science fiction following an interspecies crew of deep space truckers making the longest and most complicated delivery of their lives. very warm and fuzzy.

Mort (Terry Pratchett) - one of many MANY Discworld books, but a very good one to start with, following the adventures of a boy named Mort after he’s taken on as Death’s apprentice. you know, like the Grim Reaper? that Death.

River of Teeth (Sarah Gailey) - historical AU in which the United States imported and domesticated hippos in the Mississippi River; follows a crew of hippo-riding crooks and hooligans as they plan one heck of a caper.

Space Opera (Catherynne Valente) - a washed up rock star and his old bandmate get roped into performing in an intergalactic singing competition that will determine the fate of the entire planet Earth. full of aliens, attempted assassination, art, and emotional turmoil.

This Is How You Lose the Time War (Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone) - time-travelling assassins from rival factions fall in love in a poetic and breathless story that spans centuries and reality.

Under the Pendulum Sun (Jeannette Ng) - fairyland is real, and Victorian England is sending missionaries. a woman and her brother attempt to bring the good word to the fair folk, but start to suspect the queen might just be screwing with their heads. PEAK gothic horror with a creepy fairy twist.

Witchmark (C.L. Polk) - a doctor and former soldier with magical powers of healing is trying to live a quiet life and avoid his controlling, aristocratic family’s plans for him, only to get tangled up in a massive political conspiracy when one of his patients mysterious dies. accompanying him in his investigation is a mysterious and gorgeous faerie man. romance ensues.

bittenwraths

The First Sister by Linden A Lewis. Three protagonists and all of them queer, a fun space opera. It’s not out yet, but I can tell you it’s really, really good. I highly recommend

Gods of Jade and Shadow another Silvia Moreno-Garcia book. It takes place in 1920s Mexico and has Mayan gods. A fun breezy book.

Kill the Queen by Jennifer Estep. If you like YA fantasy but want a little more swearing, violence and sex then this novel is for you.

The Bridge Kingdom by Danielle Jensen. This one I really enjoyed. If you like the winner’s curse then you’ll like this book.

Books I haven’t read but I’ve heard good things about

Trouble the Saints by Alaya Dawn Johnson. This one isn’t out it but I believe it’s got a black protagonist.

Empire of Sand by Tasha Suri. An Indian inspired fantasy novel. I haven’t read this one but I’ve heard good things about it.

Rage of Dragons by Evan Winters. A black fantasy novel.

The Unspoken Name by AK Larkwood. I haven’t read it but I know it’s got a lesbian protagonist.

Song of Blood and Stone by L. Penelope. Just started this book but I believe it’s for adults.

Tiger’s Daughter by K Arsenault Rivera. Lesbian protagonists and it’s still on my tbr.

chillgamesh-the-swing

A great way to get back into the habit of reading and discover new authors is to pick up an anthology of shorter works. You can find them in any genre, on all kinds of specific themes, by diverse authors, and if one story isn’t your jam you can move on. A couple of my favorites are:

Biketopia: Feminist Bicycle Science Fiction in Extreme Futures;

Solarpunk: Ecological and Fantastical Stories in a Sustainable World

A People’s Future of the United States

Sisters of the Revolution: A feminist speculative fiction anthology

plus a few more full length books i like:

Singing the Dogstar Blues by Alison Goodman - space college punk with a harmonica what time travel crimes will she commit, queerplatonic human/alien relationships, very fun all around

Becky Chambers has several excellent books in the same setting as Long Way to a Small Angry Planet!

Nnedi Okorafor also has a bunch of great ones including sequels to Binti and other scifi/Afrofuturist works do NOT sleep on her

The Last Girl Scout by Natalie Ironside - if u like trans lesbians fighting zombies and nazis and vampires in the Appalachian nuclear wasteland I CANNOT recommend it enough.

actualblanketgremlin

Bloodsucking Fiends/Bite Me/You Suck by Christopher Moore - two new vampires navigate un-living and love in San Francisco.

A Dirty Job by Christopher Moore - What happens when the grim reaper dies? A thrift store owner gets a mysterious letter in the mail–he’s been appointed to be the grim reaper for San Francisco. The plot kicks in when a couple demons arrive and try to steal the souls of the recently deceased. Plus, there’s some crossover with the Bloodsucking Fiends trilogy! This guy really likes San Francisco as a setting.

Practical Demonkeeping by Christopher Moore (can you tell I really like this author? Lmao) - A seminary student accidentally summons an ancient demon and gives away the object that would banish him again. He then spends 70 years tracking them down again. Only problem is, he has to keep feeding the demon, who won’t leave him alone, and who is invisible. Very funny, I love Moore’s writing style. Our main character makes the demon help him cheat at pool for car repairs.

#books to add to my ever growing list

guilhernunes

dogs on an unforgettable night at the club (commission)

txttletale

i have rule i semi-adhere to for media criticism which is to ideologically meet shit where it's at (or where it's presented to me). i like to call it the "i didn't make you market it that way" rule--like, if lancer's union was just presented as a sci-fi setting, that would be fine. i don't expect all sci-fi settings to be communist utopias! but when the creators of lancer use the word utopia like 20 times & bandy around words like 'mutual aid' and 'post-scarcity' and 'anticapitalist' when describing it, then to me that becomes absolutely fair game. similarly if someone says 'stardew valley is fun i like farming :)' then i'm not gonna reply with a long post about how it's ideologically petty-bourgeois--but if they say 'stardew valley is anticapitalist', then they've opened up that can of worms and it's fair for me to point out that the worms exist.

txttletale

it's the same phenomenon where a fantasy novel that says 'for the duration of this fantasy novel you need to just believe in the divine right of kings for the emotional stakes to make sense' is infinitely less objectionable than a fantasy novel that's also about restoring a king but takes painstaking time to point out how this king is A Good King who is Progressive and Nice and is going to do Nice Monarchy. when you try to sanitize something you end up turning any otherwise neutral or at least palatable depiction or framework you've included into a normative statement!