Morgan Mara

aspiring author of fantasy and scifi, featuring bi MCs and/or bi4bi romances regardless of gender. pro fanfic, anti A/I. expect bookish stuff, images that match a variety of aesthetics, but mostly musings on the nature and importance of art and storytelling. (and maybe some fandom stuff, too. it is tumblr, after all.) she/her, white, millennial.

[morganmara]

Hi everyone! Trying to revamp this blog a little, hopefully giving myself a place to organize tags. If I ever use them, which... Sometimes I'm bad at.

Reblog Tags:

writing inspiration

writing woes

writing tips

fantasy

scifi

gothic & horror

reading

industry stuff

Tags for My Own Original Posts:

my stuff - all posts of mine which are original

my musings - all meta-type posts about art & its place in our world

TBD: tags that I organize by writing project.

Other:

I don't check profiles or DNIs before interacting. If you're uncomfortable with that, it's totally fine to block me, I don't take offense. I tend to block liberally myself.

I try to tag with any triggers I can think of that a post might include. If you want to suggest a new trigger I should try to be mindful of, let me know.

Feel free to message me as long as my inbox is open! Although I can be bad at remembering to reply (ADHD).

If you see me reblog something that is A/I, or is from a known supremacist blog, feel free to reach out and let me know (with evidence, please, if it's not immediately apparent from a cursory look at their blog). Note: This is for people who are currently practicing/posting that kind of content. Not like they had bad beliefs 10+ years ago and are more educated now. The point isn't purity or punishment, but to make sure I'm not platforming overt hate/exploitation. And to avoid spreading it to my mutuals/followers.

I will try to tag things with "flashing gif" when it's appropriate, but I'm not sure I'm quite good enough yet at telling when something counts as flashing. I'm doing my best, but let me know if you have any pointers.

If it's not obvious, when I post, it tends to be long and heavily text-based. (What else would you expect from me, I'm a neurodivergent millennial, yeah?)

[morganmara]

Haven’t been posting much lately because I really just... haven’t wanted to be online much. I know it’s counterintuitive to having any sort of creative community, but oof. I just am finding myself happier when I’m not constantly online (I’ll try to be on more though)

[wormsdyke]

i know the standard practice in original fiction is sparing use of italics but i just can’t stand by that i really can’t it’s too good of a way to give emphasis. this word or phrase is so important i’m gonna squarsh it

[mollyjames]

This is just my two cents on what is ultimately a very complicated issue, but I feel like too often we treat representation like it's a quality problem when it would be better approached as a quantity problem. For as many people want to see a serious grounded portrayal of their experiences, there are also those who just want to relax and have a good time. So for instance, if you're writing a trans woman for your story, instead of pouring all of your effort into research - trying to avoid every stereotype while simultaneously making her all things to all trans women - you could instead just add a second trans woman

[mollyjames]

This has the added advantage that you can make them kiss, but I digress

[foone]

The thing neurotypicals tend not to understand about the ADHD brain is that it really only has two gears

I turn to the chalkboard and carefully write out

WORKIN' HARD

HARDLY WORKIN'

[kaminarider]

Much like a cars transmission getting stuck between gears the adhd brain can also access a secret mode called HORKLY WARDIN' that feels bad

[socialmaya]

[ode-on-a-grecian-butt]

theyer old enough that they used to connect 

[finnglas]

They're older than Florida. The Floridian peninsula is the solidified runoff of the Appalachians that got caught on some coral. It's why we're like this, I think. You don't stand a chance of being normal when you were created by the shed skin of an elder god draping itself over a hollow skeleton. You're always going to be a little Off.

[galladegamer]

[headspace-hotel]

They used to be as tall as the Himalayas.

[purkinje-effect]

[dragoninahumancostume]

Okay but are they older or younger than sharks?

[iota-andromedae]

THEYRE OLDER THAN SHARKS BY LIKE THIRTY MILLION YEARS

[sunflowers-and-scales]

“this character did not act in the most objectively logical way possible!” is not ! actually valid literary criticism

[sunflowers-and-scales]

i have trust that the media literacy enjoyers will find this one idk

[noahhawthorneauthor]

Between watching Heated Rivalry and listening to Sorcery and Small Magics, I figured it was time to compose a list filled with rivals who love to bicker and work to a common purpose, and love each other.

Eventually, after all the bickering.

[morganmara]

The foundation of creative writing is not and will never be AI.

The foundation of creative writing is whatever hockey RPF fanfic writers have going on

[out-of-jams]

REVERSE TROPE WRITING PROMPTS

Too many beds

Accidentally kidnapping a mafia boss

Really nice guy who hates only you

Academic rivals except it’s two teachers who compete to have the best class

Divorce of convenience

Too much communication

True hate’s kiss (only kissing your enemy can break a curse)

Dating your enemy’s sibling

Lovers to enemies

Hate at first sight

Love triangle where the two love interests get together instead

Fake amnesia

Soulmates who are fated to kill each other

Strangers to enemies

Instead of fake dating, everyone is convinced that you aren’t actually dating

Too hot to cuddle

Love interest CEO is a himbo/bimbo who runs their company into the ground

Nursing home au

[morganmara]

My unpopular opinion of the day:

I don't think it matters all that much if a house is open-concept or not. Like, I'm sure different layouts generally work more for certain individual families/situations. But I don't think it's destroying our lives and households or whatever, either way

[frontmansdefender]

[profeminist]

“I always remember having this fight with a random dude who claimed that ‘straight white men’ were the only true innovators. His prime example for this was the computer… the computer… THE COMPUTER!!! THE COM-PU-TER!!!

Alan Turing - Gay man and ‘father of computing’ Wren operating Bombe - The code cracking computers of the 2nd world war were entirely run by women Katherine Johnson - African American NASA mathematician and ‘Human computer’ Ada Lovelace - arguably the 1st computer programmer”

- Sacha Coward

Also Margaret Hamilton - NASA computer scientist who put the first man on the moon - an as-yet-unmatched feet of software engineering, here pictured beside the full source of that computer programme. #myhero

Grace Hopper - the woman that coined the term “bug”  

- @robinlayfield

[villanellethepoetic-deactivated]

Grace Hopper did more than coin the term “bug”. She invented the first program linker in the early 1950s, for the UNIVAC I. A program linker translates instructions from one language to another (for example, numerical codes that represent instructions translated to machine code that computers can read), which is the very foundation of how computer’s operate independently. she also pulled a steve rogers and tried to enlist in the military a bunch of times and was denied. then, an exception was made for her when she joined the navy reserves, and she ended up serving for over 40 years (half of which was active duty). she retired from the navy Rear Admiral Grace Hopper. she was born in NYC in 1906. Grace Hopper was a fucking badass.

also computing was typically a job for women (many of whom were black women that made incredible contributions) back in the day, so it’s absolutely fucking wild that straight white men think they are the foundation of computer innovation. men PUSHED women out and took the credit.

[that-feral-montanan]

Reblogging to do what the failed education system never did.

[the-haiku-bot]

Reblogging to do

what the failed education

system never did.

Beep boop! I look for accidental haiku posts. Sometimes I mess up.

[hairy-dykes-r-us]

Adding Wendy Carlos to the list! Trans icon and pioneer of synthesized music!!

[foone]

Also, just about every computerized device outside of desktops is running ARM chips now. Your phone, your keyboard, your car, your watch. Basically everything.

And ARM was primarily designed by Sophie Wilson, a trans woman.

[pulpchamber]

Also gotta throw on Lynn Conway, whose work brought about VSLI [Very Large Scale Integration] in chip design in the early 80s. Basically all modern microelectronics depends on Conway’s work, which got logic gates on a single chip up from thousands to millions.

BTW all of this was after IBM fired her in 68 for disclosing she wanted to transition. They apologized in 2020.

[cuprohastes]

Rear Admiral Grace Hopper, who who worked on COBOL, Hedy Lamar, who patented frequency hopping, the underlying principle of WiFi.

Delia Derbyshire over there building a synthesizer from scratch to play the Dr. Who theme on.

The game cartridge? A black guy called Jerry Lawson.

[daysleftofsecondterm]

Some very interesting history facts on 1,083 days left!

[morganmara]

I try to ask this periodically and so rarely get many answers, which is... very telling. But here goes again:

What are some pieces of media with canon ADHD characters? (Bonus if they're protagonists!)

[why-animals-do-the-thing]

I am so damn pleased with the Sedgwick County Zoo media team, y’all. They just dropped a stellar blog piece on why GenAI slop videos of animals are such a problem - and how to identify them!

The Reality of AI Animal Content – Sedgwick County Zoo

If you spend any time on social media, you’ve probably seen them – bears bouncing on trampolines, apes caught on doorbell cameras, or “rescu

This is the first time I’ve ever seen a zoo or aquarium in the United States speak up broadly about AI. (The only times I can think of any comment at all has maybe individual instances when a deepfake of “their” animal escaping is circulating.) And they did a great job with this piece! It’s succinct, easy to read, and written in a way that doesn’t shame people for engaging with AI content before they knew better.

I think this is exactly the type of resource needed for sending to that family member or friend we all have - the one who isn’t aware of the slop issue and constantly sends you clearly fake videos because they’re “so cute.”

I’d love to have Sedgwick get some public positive reinforcement for taking this stance. If you’re so inclined, a comment on their FB post would be great as it’s likely they’re going to get shit for this from sloppers & co. We really do need animal organizations to stand up for accurate, real animal content and this is a great first step in that direction.

[pansexual-pied-piper]

"Queer space" as in "this space is created with the needs of queer people in mind and you should expect to encounter queerness here", not "you have to be queer enough to be allowed in"

"Queer space" as in "this space centers queerness", not "queers only"

[liketolaugh-writes]

this is what all AI writing witchhunters sound like to me

it’s one thing to be scornful of people who openly admit that their writing is actually chatgpt and another completely to go ‘uhhhm if a character rolls their eyes, it’s AI’

[imaginarythingys]

Wtf is the guy just naming fanficy but very common sentences as AI

Is this also like one of the “I read REAL books” kind of person because those are just very commonly used sentences???