either way, what bliss

I’m evil but all my evil friends betrayed me and I’ve decided that the best revenge is to ruin their evil plans. Yes, this means I’m a “good guy” or whatever. No, I don’t like it any more than you do.

I was evil but all my evil friends betrayed me and now I’m going to latch onto the first person who shows me kindness. If that happens to be the protagonist, I am totally fine with realigning my morality to match theirs.

I never wanted to do what I did, and now the biggest obstacle to me switching sides is convincing me that I’m not a living weapon.

Well as long as you’re imprisoning me in this magic amulet I might as well give you pointers on your technique. I mean come on if you all die I might be stuck here for millennia! It’s not because I like you and don’t want you to die. Nuh uh.

‘I’m a woman-leaning bisexual and you know what pisses me off? The fact that I’m dating a skinny white man and I love him and I’m happy, like what the fuck.’

And I just have to say. What pisses me off as a bisexual woman is that TikTok.

This is the Woke version of ‘my wife is the ol’ ball and chain, doesn’t it suck to be married,’ jokes. It’s not funny. Your queerness is not negated or tarnished by opposite-gender attraction, dating men isn’t inherently worse than dating women.

Love your partner.

Cherish them.

I’m getting REAL SICK of that “bisexual means I’m attracted to all women and two men” joke. I’m getting equally sick of the implication, in a thousand ways, that men are bad and it’s inherently worse to be attracted to them. If you’re a woman or woman-adjacent and you fall in love with a man, there’s this horrible and easy-to-internalize idea that you’re taking the lesser option.

Like y’all. Y’all? You know that’s gender essentialist radfem bullshit, right?

If you didn’t, I’d like to gently suggest you consider the idea that “Men are problematic (read: sinful) and violent, women are pure, beautiful and loving” is just conservative Christian ideology in a gay hat. We are not advancing towards equality for all genders by flipping which end of the scale is The Bad One ™.

I’m bisexual. I make a point of talking about being queer (because it’s my identity and culture, and that’s important to me), and I present mostly in the androgynous area of the spectrum. People often assume I’m only/mostly interested in women.

That’s actually not true. I like all genders, but when it comes to specific people, I’m most often attracted to men. And it makes me sad – really, genuinely sad – how many times I’ve felt ashamed to talk about that. Even though I’m not a woman, liking a man has made me feel “not queer enough.” Hell, some days it still does.

I’m gonna say this, even though I know a lot of people won’t like it. And I will also say in advance that I am not accepting criticism and I don’t argue on the internet as a personal mental health policy.

That said, here is the statement: This too is a closet.

If you’re a man, absolutely do not date someone who thinks their attraction or affection for you is something they ought to be ashamed of.

Me, googling this information frantically: Okay now you guys have GOT to be fucking with me, there’s NO way he could’ve actually–

Fantasy books written by women are often assumed to be young adult, even when those books are written for adults, marketed to adults, and published by adult SFF imprints. And this happens even more frequently to women of color.

This topic’s an ongoing conversation on book Twitter, and I thought it might be worth sharing with Tumblr. And by “ongoing,” I mean that people have been talking about this for years. Last year, there was a big blow up when the author R.F. Kuang said publicly that her book The Poppy War isn’t young adult and that she wished people would stop calling it such. If you’ve read The Poppy War, then you’ll know it’s grimdark fantasy along lines of Game of Thrones… and yet people constantly refer to The Poppy War as young adult – which is one of its popular shelves on Goodreads. To be fair, more people have shelved it as “adult,” but why is anyone shelving it as “young adult” in the first place? Game of Thrones is not at all treated this way…

Rebecca Roanhorse’s book Trail of  Lightning, an urban fantasy with a Dinétah (Navajo) protagonist has “young adult” as its fifth most popular Goodreads shelf. The novel is adult and published by Saga, an adult SFF imprint. 

S.A. Chakraborty’s adult fantasy novel City of Brass has “young adult” as its fourth most popular Goodreads shelf. 

Tasha Suri’s Empire of Sand, an adult fantasy in a world based on Mughal India, has about equal numbers of people shelving it as “adult” or “young adult.” 

Book Riot wrote an article on this, although they didn’t address how the problem intersects with race. I also did a Twitter thread a while back where I cited these examples and some more as well. 

The topic of diversity in adult SFF is important to me, partly because we need to stop mislabeling the women of color who write it, and also because there’s a lot there that isn’t acknowledged! Besides, sometimes it’s good to see that your stories don’t just end the moment you leave high school and that adults can still have vibrant and interesting futures worth reading about. I feel like this is especially important with queer rep, for a number of reasons. 

Other books and authors in the tweets I screenshot include:

Witchmark by C.L. Polk

A Ruin of Shadows by L.D. Lewis

The Starless Sea by Erin Morgenstern

The Day Before by Liana Brooks

A Phoenix First Must Burn edited by Patrice Caldwell

Shri, a book blogger at Sun and Chai

Vanessa, a writer and blogger at The Wolf and Books

If that scene you meant to be emotional, jaw-dropping and climactic isn’t working right, try taking a step back. 

All the usual aspects of a good scene also apply to the buildup toward a good scene. As well as including all these aspects into the scene itself, remember that at the point where your awe inspiring scene hits…

The reader should already feel deep, ‘positive’ emotions for the characters involved, whether that be love, intrigue, or an I love to hate them feeling.

The reader should already understand and have witnessed the characters struggling in some way with the goals they are working towards during that scene.

The reader should already have a clear picture of the character’s relationships and emotions, and understand which direction they are moving.

The reader should already be well-based in the plot and have a good understanding of every piece of information they need order to be fully immersed in the scene. 

The reader should already have a clear picture of the current stakes and playing field, so they can decide what outcome to root for. (Or in some cases, they can feel the same desperation the pov character has as they realize there are no good outcomes.)

Most importantly, remember that there are no perfect first drafts, and barely any half-decent second, third, or fourth drafts either. If you need to rewrite and rewrite a few times over, that’s okay. 

1. Eurydice trips and Orpheus turns to help her because he loves her.

2. Orpheus cannot hear Eurydice behind him, and fearing that he's been tricked, turns to make sure she's there.

3. Orpheus makes it out of the Underworld, and so full of love and excitement to be with Eurydice, turns to embrace her, forgetting that they both need to be out of the Underworld.

So two religios leaders in the town, Thomas Stanley and William Mompesson, got together and came up with a plan. They would put the entire village of Eyam under quarantine. And they did. For over a year nobody went in and nobody went out.

They put up signs on the edge of town as warning and left money in vinegar filled basins that people from out of town would leave food and supplies by.

However, they did successfully prevent the disease from spreading to the nearby town of Sheffield, even then a much bigger town, and likely saved the lives of thousands of people in the north of England through their sacrifice.

Here’s the thing. One third of the residents of Eyam died during their quarantine, but the Black Plague was known to have a NINETY PERCENT death rate. As high as the toll was, it wasn’t as high as it should have been. And a few hundred years later, some historians and doctors got to wondering why.

Fortunately, Eyam is one of those wonderful places that really hasn’t changed much in hundreds of years. Researchers, going to visit, found that many of the current residents were direct descendants of the plague survivors from the 1600s. By doing genetic testing, they learned that a high number of Eyam residents carried a gene that made them immune to the plague. And still do.

And it gets even better than that, because the gene that blocks the Black Plague? Also turns out to block AIDS, and was instrumental in helping to find effective medication for people who have HIV and AIDS in the 21st century.