For many lesbian daughters of working-class straight women, opting out of heterosexuality exposes the possibility of another life path, begging the question for mothers, “If my daughter didn’t have to do this, did I?” Heterosexuality is compulsory for middle-class women, too, but more likely to be represented as a gift, a promise of happiness, to be contrasted with the ostensibly “miserable” life of the lesbian. The lesbian feminist theorist Sara Ahmed has offered a sustained critique of the role of queer abjection in the production of heteroromantic fantasies. In Living a Feminist Life, she notes that “it is as if queers, by doing what they want, expose the unhappiness of having to sacrifice personal desires . . . for the happiness of others.” In The Promise of Happiness, Ahmed argues, “Heterosexual love becomes about the possibility of a happy ending; about what life is aimed toward, as being what gives life direction or purpose, or as what drives a story.” Marked by sacrifice, misery, and failure along the way, the journey toward heterosexual happiness (to be found with the elusive “good man”) remains the journey.

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A french one a friend sent me, we send each other pictures of doors for.... reasons.

The direct translation is "door out of use" and "just like us all", but the french word for "out of use" also means "doomed". So it would be something like "door doomed, just like us all".

Before anyone could object further, he swept her into his dark robed magic fae arms. She weighed roughly the same as a decorative throw pillow, or 300g for EU audiences. "Release me!"she slimmed thinly. "I cannot!" he bellowed bigcockly. "Why?" she waisted 20inchly. "Because books are 70k words, and also something curse three days shadow moon fate true love monster turning etc, etc," he exposition rubbing coins on his 10 pack bulging crotchly. She nodded sadly, accepting her fate. They then had hot morally grey sex in alternative chapters with a weird b plot about gnome genocide at the following locations: turret, throne room, glasshouse, bridge, haunted wood, haunted ship, sex dungeon, sex library. Ozempica discovered a book expositioning the gnome genocide in a shelovesbooks kind of way. "But I loved you!" She wept unproblematically. "How could you gnome genocide knowing I would oppose that thinly until more hot acrobatic oral sex?" Her tears landed tearingly upon the carpet and immediately transformed into tiny crystal roses worth approximately £4,000 each. To her horror, her beautiful voice had turned him to gold. "No, true love I love you true love true love kiss kiss," she wept into his gold abs. He turned back into dark robed darkness. "Now you have loved me the curse from chapter 3 is broken and also I understand genocide is bad and won't do it again," he announced hornily. Reader, she banged him.

On the subject of AI, I have a confession to make: I use it. Not to write for me, but to help me check for inconsistencies, to brainstorm ideas, to write outlines, to give me a couple of lines when I've been stuck for hours, to be my beta reader, if you will. Generative AI is bad? Yes, but it also a useful tool if one isn't lazy. I don't ask: write me a story. I go with my story and ask: help me with continuity. Look, this paragraph is clunky, how do I make it better? The demonization of generative AI is fair, but to be honest, I also understand people who use it. Maybe they're afraid of writing themselves, maybe they're insecure and don't trust their prose. Maybe they have brilliannt ideas but they need help to make them become fics.

To me, this is very much connected to my last ask where I was talking about how we don't have enough mentors in fandom to support the influx of people entering it.

All of the things that you're asking AI to do used to be done by a beta reader (or more than one!). A fandom friend (or even a random stranger who volunteered) would read through your work and help you with those issues.

Betas are amazing. They can help with grammar and spelling. They can regionalize language. They can provide sensitivity reading if they're from a marginalized community that you're writing about and aren't a member of. They can track canon, help with research, even just be a sounding board to discuss ideas with.

And sometimes, they're just a cheer reader - someone reading your story and telling you how awesome it is because they love it just as much as you do.

I understand turning to AI if you 1) don't know beta readers exist or 2) don't know how to obtain one. The need for that kind of support doesn't go away just because you can't access it.

But for anyone out there who needs this kind of help and wants to avoid Gen AI, you can write a post on your blog, add it to an author's note, check out resources like @needabeta or - if the time of year is right and you have the funds - place a bid on beta reading services during @fandomtrumpshate

Beta readers are often involved in fandom events like big bangs and exchanges, and if anyone is looking to host such an event, it's a great way to get people involved who aren't writers or artists but would love to help out.

I definitely recommend searching a beta reader within the fandom you're writing for rather than someone who knows nothing about it.

And when you don't immediately get a response, ask again. This comes from a person (me) who is now two and a half years into dating the girl who replied to my 'I need a beta reader' post that I was debating to reblog that day.

Sometimes I wonder where our lives would be if I hadn't reblogged it or if she had skipped past the post.

Fandom is a community of people with shared interests. It's supposed to make it easier for us to become friends, hang out and talk for hours.

Not a single AI tool in the world is capable of giving (fandom) writers/artists/creators what they actually need.

Struggling through a problem is a huge part of learning. Getting stuck, reworking things eighty times, realizing you need to delete half a page and try again, looking up random grammar rules you don't know--this is how you learn. This is also how you develop your own voice. These are necessary parts of the process.

By turning to AI every time something gets a little hard or goes a little slowly or sounds a little wrong, you are hamstringing your own development. You are preventing yourself from growing at all as a writer.

Betas absolutely can help with this growth. It's not the same as turning to AI. Other human beings spark your synapses in a way genAI simply does not. I'm not saying you shouldn't use betas.

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Sea wind blowing 16-1-22 - Nick Miller , 2022.

Irish , b. 1962 -

Satta la main Verte, “Through darkness comes light”

@delphi-star You do recall correctly!! She does not give a shit about that man! She's happily married! She tipped him for being a witness at her wedding!