swords-and-scribes

  ✿ ah geez ✿

[maria-aegyptiaca]

pareidolias

[sloppystyle]

[homuras]

— Until we meet again. Yes, that will be… September 1st, in Yorknew City!

[killuachild]

so do you guys remember when killua literally kissed gon in the hunterpedias?

because I do

[fantasyartwatch]

Dragons by John Park

[epees]

Some resources for those writing medieval-type stories:

list of medieval jobs

more medieval jobs

lords of the manor

ladies of the manor

medieval ladies

medieval weapons

medieval names

more medieval names

guide to medieval terms

more medieval terms

how to write sword-fight scenes

armor

[shamanmashiara]

this is sexy.

[kyloren]

A man can change his stars. I won’t spend the rest of my life as nothing. Heath Ledger as William Thatcher in A Knight’s Tale (2001) dir. Brian Helgeland

[fantasy-art-engine-blog]

Master of Golems by Sergey Samarskiy

[injuries-in-dust]

Forgotten By History

Female firefighters at Pearl Harbor (1941).

Donna Tobias - the first woman to graduate from the US Navy’s Deep Sea Diving School in 1975.

Brave women of the Red Cross hitting the beach at Normandy.

Dottie Kamenshek was called the best player in women’s baseball and was once recruited to play for a men’s professional team.

Kate Warne - Private Detective. Born in New York City, almost nothing is known of her prior to 1856 when, as a young widow, she answered an employment advertisement placed by Alan Pinkerton. She was one of four new agents the Pinkerton Detective Agency hired that year and proved to be a natural, taking to undercover work easily. She had taken part in embezzlement and railroad security cases when in 1861 the Pinkertons developed the first lead about an anti-Lincoln conspiracy.

Catherine Leroy, female photographer in Vietnam.

The three women pictured in this incredible photograph from 1885 – Anandibai Joshi of India, Keiko Okami of Japan, and Sabat Islambouli of Syria – each became the first licensed female doctors in their respective countries. The three were students at the Women’s Medical College of Pennsylvania; one of the only places in the world at the time where women could study medicine.

Female Samurai Warrior - Onno-Bugeisha - Female warrior belonging to the Japanese upper class. Many women engaged in battle, commonly alongside samurai men. They were members of the bushi (samurai) class in feudal Japan and were trained in the use of weapons to protect their household, family, and honour in times of war.

One of the most feared of all London street gangs from the late 1880’s was a group of female toughs known as the Clockwork Oranges. They woulde later inspire Anthony burgess’ most notorious novel. Their main Rivals were the All-female “the Forty Elephants” gang.

Maureen Dunlop de Popp, Pioneering female pilot who flew Spitfires during Second World War. She joined the Air Transport Auxiliary (ATA) in 1942 and became one of a small group of female pilots who were trained to fly 38 types of aircraft.

In 1967, Kathrine Switzer was the first woman to run the Boston marathon. After realizing that a woman was running, race organizer Jock Semple went after Switzer shouting, “Get the hell out of my race and give me those numbers.” However, Switzer’s boyfriend and other male runners provided a protective shield during the entire marathon. The photographs taken of the incident made world headlines, and Kathrine later won the NYC marathon with a time of 3:07:29.

[oliviapaigewrites-deactivated20]

So, I heard that some of you were having issues with the download. Here’s my outlining guide just as is in photos. Same quality. Enjoy!

[lynndjung]

how not to write an east asian character

• ‘golden skin’ • ‘almond-shaped/tilted/slanted/ch*nky eyes’  • a strong accent despite being born in or growing up in an English-speaking country • helicopter parents/a tiger mom • scrawny, short genius stereotype • for Chinese characters: (especially older ones) loud in public stereotype • cheap for no reason • research your food… we don’t live off of noodles and dumplings • girls who are quiet and submissive • also east asian kids/teens who have a chunk of dyed hair and rebel against their family for no reason • ABGs are people too, your one dimensional caricatures of girls who like makeup and clothes ain’t cute • stop fetishizing east asian women and making them prostitutes in fantasy • e asians playing lackey/sidekick to the All Powerful Whitey is ugly • Asian Americans grow up with a weird blend of their family’s traditional values and the values of America (or whatever country they grew up in. I know Koreans who grew up in Mexico, New Zealand, Canada, Thailand, Greenland, the Netherlands, France, China, and more). That cultural and personal dichotomy is really interesting to me, but I rarely see it discussed in any media because y’all are too hellbent on sweeping us under one big stereotypical rug… Cool I guess • also forget that Asia is a massive continent containing nearly 50 countries!! There are so many cultural differences between China, Taiwan, and Singapore ALONE, Japan and Korea should never be conflated because there’s bad juju there, the fucking L/unar C/hronicles were such a mESS, I could go on but it’s lunch time. 

thanks for coming to my ted talk, note that these aren’t necessarily automatic do alls/end alls, but they are really really gross, and if ‘short, nerdy and awkward’ is the only characterization you can come up with for your east asian characters, if any at all, maybe try again. Representation matters.

[megan-writes7-deactivated201902]

Hi! Thank you so much for this post <3

I did have one question: if I’m writing a fantasy world in which there is no analogue for East Asian countries (and I cannot say he’s Chinese/Japanese/etc), how should I go about describing the character?

Right now, I have something along the lines of fair skin; dark, angled eyes with a slight upwards tilt; ink-black hair. Were he from our world, he would be of Chinese descent – a fact that I want to make clear, so that the audience knows he is *not white*. Does this description read as problematic? If so, how can fantasy writers respectfully describe their East Asian characters?

Thank you for any answer you may give and for taking the time to educate us on these issues!

[lynndjung]

Hi Megan,

There are scores of smarter, cooler East Asian people who could probably cover the issues with describing our eyes as ‘tilted’ better than I can, but I’ll do my best. Thank you for reaching out, first of all—I really respect that you’re actively trying to improve your rep and find respectful ways to be inclusive. 

I am leery towards the ‘angled/tilted’ Asian eyes descriptor because… our eyes don’t actually look like that (most of the time). This is an outdated, racist caricature that came about because SOME Asian people have an epicanthic fold (monolid), creating a ‘hooded’ appearance to the lid. But not everyone has a monolid, and even those who do don’t really have ‘slanted/angular’ eye shapes, so coding an Asian character in this way relies on perpetuating deeply seated racist perceptions, not real life. It’s such a common descriptor at this point that I don’t fault people who unwittingly fall prey to this, but god, reading it makes me cringe.

I see questions like this about writing fantasy a lot, and I understand why it stumps people. East Asians look ‘different’ from white people, yes, but East Asians are in the same shade range! How can we mark them as an ‘other’ when we are basically the same color? 

To this I ask: what makes us different? It’s not physical appearance alone—Asian people can pass as white, and vice versa. My half Mexican, half white friend consistently gets mistaken for Chinese. I’m 100% Korean and frequently assumed to be Latinx. There is no ‘one way’ to look a certain ethnicity, and therefore there is no true way to accurately code a character as a certain race based on physical description alone. If you describe a character as having ‘dusky skin,’ that person could be black, or Mexican, or Indian, or Filipino, or any number of ethnicities. ‘Angled’ eyes could describe anyone from around the globe. (Taylor Swift, anyone?) Human diversity is a beautiful thing! 

So really, the only thing that could reliably be used to code someone as a certain ethnicity is their culture. Avatar the Last Airbender is a good example of this. At a first glance, none of the characters are explicitly drawn to look like caricatures of their ethnicities—Aang could be white if you didn’t have context. But the showrunners crafted worlds with distinctly recognizable real life influences—Tibetan monasteries, Imperialist Japan, Inuit culture. We know Aang is Asian, even though he’s never drawn with slanted eyes, because we recognize the culture he’s from, the clothes he wears, the values he carries.  

So in conclusion, I know you said that there’s no analogue for any East Asian countries, but there should be. In my perfect world, writers would rely on (carefully, thoroughly researched) cultural context to code a character, rather than simple, racist physical markers. 

[2hunted-deactivated20220906]

*main character becomes a villain* oh my GOD… oh MY GOd do that again

[chradi]

*main character becomes a villain against their own will* oh my GOD… oh MY GOOOODDDDDDDDD

[keyblack-hl]

*villain gets a redemption arc and becomes a main character *

[chipper671740-deactivated202006]

#i’m all of these at once

[today-only-happens-once]

To Tired Writers. To the people out there whose hearts very, very much want to write and work on WIPs, but who are just mentally and physically exhausted right now. It’s okay. It is okay to rest sometimes. Allow yourself time to rest. 

[writing-ideas-inc]

[bryankonietzko]

BIG NEWS. Very excited to be able to share this. And very excited to be working with Mike again on this simultaneously new and old adventure. Give him a follow too if you haven’t already, as we chronicle this journey: @michaeldantedimartino

Here’s our quote from the press release: “We’re thrilled for the opportunity to helm this live-action adaptation of Avatar: The Last Airbender. We can’t wait to realize Aang’s world as cinematically as we always imagined it to be, and with a culturally appropriate, non-whitewashed cast. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime chance to build upon everyone’s great work on the original animated series and go even deeper into the characters, story, action, and world-building. Netflix is wholly dedicated to manifesting our vision for this retelling, and we’re incredibly grateful to be partnering with them.” — Bryan Konietzko & Michael DiMartino

Huge thanks to John Staub for this beautiful concept art. https://www.artstation.com/dustsplat

More later, but for now: https://deadline.com/2018/09/avatar-the-last-airbender-live-action-series-netflix-1202467089/

Love, Bryan

💙

[petchwritesbooks-deactivated202]

Me to my own wips: Once I figure out how to write, balance school and creativity, and sleep for more than two hours, it’s over for you bitches.

[fantasyartwatch]

Dragon Sunset by Swang

[studytothehd]

resource for procrastination

if you’re anything like me, working on a computer is a dangerous thing. i’ll get distracted by everything - that one email i should respond to, all the pictures of my dog, tumblr, and so on. I recently discovered an amazing resource to stop that.

it’s called writer’s block, and is free to download! 

when you open it, it shows this screen, where you can choose either a time limit or word goal

then when you start, it opens a document that fills the entire screen like this

and you cannot quit the app or open anything else until your word/time quota is filled. i just wrote half of my english speech that i’ve been putting off all morning, and it took only 20 minutes!

so yup, it’s called writer’s block and is free for both mac and windows. enjoy!

[danafaithwriting]

It’s now called Cold Turkey Writer and you can find it here :)