maddstermind

[maddstermind]

Hey everyone, I know it's going to be a busy day for a lot of people, but Google enrolled everyone over 18 into their AI program automatically.

If you have a google account, first go to gemini.google.com/extensions and turn everything off.

Then you need to go to myactivity.google.com/product/gemini and turn off all Gemini activity tracking. You do have to do them in that order to make sure it works.

Honestly, I'm not sure how long this will last, but this should keep Gemini off your projects for a bit.

I saw this over on bluesky and figured it would be good to spread on here. It only takes a few minutes to do.

[maddstermind]

basically I think that if your protagonist doesn’t want to fuck someone so bad it makes them look stupid, then there probably isn’t enough energy in your story. “Fuck someone” isn’t literal btw—they can want to uncover the secrets of their parent’s death, they can want to prove their worth, they can want a donut from one particular bakery—it can be anything so long as they want it so bad that they’ll make decisions that make any sane person go “are you a moron??”, with little to no forethought, or even tons of forethought and this is still the option they chose. Because they want to fuck that thing so bad.

[maddstermind]

if you're a writer the most powerful benefit of the internet is the ability to search up "parts of [thing]", go to images, and get detailed labelled diagrams of whatever you're trying to describe with all the specific terminology you need there on screen

[maddstermind]

Good trope: Character yelling, "It's not what it looks like!" while doing exactly what it looks like.

Great trope: Character yelling, "It's not what it looks like!" while doing something so unfathomable that the person who interrupted them can't even begin to attempt to figure out what the hell it is they're seeing.

[maddstermind]

Chaos can be creative

It’s perfectly fine to have a chaotic writing process. The most important thing is just getting words on the page.

There’s no harm or shame in throwing around ideas, writing scenes out of order, throwing your plans out the window, or not planning at all. The only thing that matters is that you write.

[maddstermind]

hey do you think you could expand a bit on separating the art from the artist? clearly you’ve done it with jk rowling but what are your thoughts on it as a general idea?

okay, but you’re not going to like the answer.

here’s the truth: you can’t separate the art from the artist. not entirely. HP Lovecraft was an incredibly talented, but much more incredibly racist man. It would nice to say you don’t agree with his views but you can enjoy his works without that leaking in but…. well, I’m afraid that would be misunderstanding his books entirely.

Consider, for a second, that Lovecraft’s works were horror stories about extradimensional alien monsters having mutant children with humans, they were about invasions from distant monsters, they were about the purity of quaint European towns being tainted. Consider how this may have all been inflicted by the fact that he just simply despised anybody who wasn’t white. Consider how is opinions on “mixing the races” might fight into this; consider why being unable to maintain the “purity” of white Europe was the scariest thing of all to him.

This extends to Rowling too.

I would love to say we can just acknowledge that she is an awful, racist, antisemitic, transphobic person and then say “but at least her books are good,” because, well, they are, aren’t they? I would say so, for sure. But to suggest that one can separate her from them is…. ridiculous.

Consider why an antisemitic woman wrote about a species of goblins who live among us, but who for the most part keep to themselvesand are maybe a little bit oppressed by the institution, but also hold all the cards, all the money, run the banks.

Consider why a racist woman would write about a species of slaves who loved being enslaved, who enjoyed working for no pay, and cleaning up after humans, with the only small caveat of that they didn’t want to be beaten. Imagine that only the most radical of their species wanted to be free, and he still spent the rest of his life working for no pay and helping out a little white boy and his friends wherever he could. Consider why the only person in the story who thought they should be free, that they should have rights, was treated as an overzealous joke, who was acting against the wishes of those slaves who really LOVE being enslaved. Consider that Rowling went on to say that she kind of considers that girl to be black, now.

Consider why JK Rowling, an open and proud transphobe, wrote Rita Skeeter as having a large square jaw, thick “manly” hands, and dressing incredibly gaudily with the most obvious fake nails and fake teeth and fake hair and fake everything. Consider why a woman who tweets about how trans women are “foxes pretending to be hens to get in the hen house” might write this Rita Skeeter to then illegally transform her body in order to spy on children.

Harry Potter is full of Rowling’s bigotry, start to finish. Not even tangentially, like, “oh the goblins are bad, Rita Skeeter is bad, the house elves are bad, but most of it’s good!” because the deeper you dig and the longer you think the more you realise the entire story is based on her prejudices.

Harry Potter pretends to be an aracial story about found family, but if that were true, why are Harry’s distant ancestors important to who he is today even in the seventh book? Why does Harry have to live with his cousin and aunt and uncle? Because magic inherently prefers blood ties. Whilst Rowling was writing a story that seemed to say, “your heritage is not that important and doesn’t make you better than others” she was still writing a story about a boy who got all of his money through his bloodline, who was protected by living with his bloodline, no matter how evil, who was uniquely able to stop Voldemort because his bloodline passed down the invisibility cloak for generations and generations. Any step Harry takes he is compared to his perfect parents who were exactly like him — he looks just like his father, but he has his mother’s eyes, you know! — consider WHY a woman who is racist might’ve written a story like this. A story that on its surface, condemns a blood caste, but still in every step it takes, validates the idea that blood is thicker than water, and your geneological origin is what makes you special.

You can enjoy Harry Pottwr, of course you can. There are fantastic parts. I love a small group of teenagers deciding to become anarchies rebels and train to fight against fascism in secret. I love the murder mystery plots, I love how the series tells kids that it’s a good thing to be brave, and a good thing to fight injustice, and a good thing to challenge the government. But I cannot separate it from its author because it is such a product of its author. All of the structures of the world, the way things work in the universe, and drenched in Rowling’s beliefs, her bigotries. Of course they are: she made them.

Again. This doesn’t mean you cannot enjoy it. But I think we are past the day where we can pretend that disavowing a bigoted author is enough, and that that somehow separates the text from its bigotry. I think we are past the day where we can pretend that Harry Potter isn’t a deeply, inherently bigoted piece of media. Even the bits we love. I think we are beyond the day where we can truthfully pretend to separate it from her, because she is present through all of it. We MUST recognise its flaws. We MUST admit that she is in every part of it.

[maddstermind]

Made this as a joke when bestie commented her writing fairy must have visited me to get me to pump out 3K words tonight.

[maddstermind]

ownvoices is all well and good when it comes to elevating vastly unheard and woefully underrepresented voices, but it's only good until it becomes a new way to gatekeep who can write what. if an afab author feels more comfortable writing m/m but are told they can't write it bc they don't have a "lived experience" (in other words: they don't have a penis, so they cannot claim ownvoices on writing m/m when both male characters have a penis--and yes, there are big 5 editors who have passed on afab authors' m/m for this very reason, that is a direct quote), that gatekeeper sounds as obsessed with a person's genitals as a conservative saying a transman can't use the men's bathroom despite the fact he is a man because he doesn't have the right genitalia, whether or not he medically transitioned.

i'm afab. i'm an enby. i have a vagina. i often find it more comfortable to write m/m because it removes my genitals from the equation and thus helps prevent gender dysphoria. i don't want to transition (i'm fine with my body as it is, genitals and all), so another reason i like writing m/m is because it lets me "experience" having genitalia i do not and will never have. it should not matter what's in my pants, nor should i have to out myself or talk about the above in order to justify why i like to write m/m--and i've had people on here say i have "fetish" for m/m because i happen to write it and they see this as wrong because, again, i have a vagina and not a penis, but they only know that because i have talked about it. if i hadn't? they'd be making an assumption which is ridiculously fucked.

yes, absolutely elevate ownvoices, but do not make the mistake of deciding who can write what based on what the hell is in their pants. they could have a fucking airport terminal down there, and unless you're about to have sex with them, that literally should not matter to you. don't be a fucking fed.

[maddstermind]

yeah okay "character whos powers get triggered when theyre extremely angry or annoyed" is cool and all but i will ALWAYS be a sucker for "characters whos powers get triggered by extreme sadness/grief/depression/guilt and their powers are destroying everything around them and they are just sitting in the center of everything, fully disconected from reality, tears dripping down their face, blankly mumbling apologies yet unable to stop the destruction and theyre causing to the people around them"

[maddstermind]

save me characters doing fucked up things out of self-preservation…..characters doing fucked up things out of self-preservation save me………..

[maddstermind]

hey sorry it's just that i don't think i'm very good at being a person. thanks for letting me try with you, anyway.

[maddstermind]

The divine right of kings but it's a curse

[maddstermind]

Obsessed with vampires but specifically when they're really pathetic

[maddstermind]

Send "🖍" and I will draw a random OC of mine

[maddstermind]

"writing about fucked up things doesnt indicate your values as a person" and "the way you write about things may indicate some of your values" are not conflicting statements if im going to be real

[maddstermind]

i think fiction should be abolished. if yo uwrite about a character dying you should be put on trial in real life for murder

[maddstermind]

I’m not naming names because I’m not trying to start anything but I’m seeing several mutuals claiming they always knew Gaiman was a bad egg and it was so obvious, as though they didn’t make me stand in line with them to get his signature and kept their signed copies of his books on a special shelf akin to a shrine.

And like, listen, you don’t need to pretend.

This isn’t the devil’s sacrament. You’re not tainted by association. You’re not morally bad for not immediately knowing when someone is being charming and persuasive to hide something they don’t want you to know.

Abusers don’t just groom their victims. They groom their witnesses too. You were never supposed to know something was wrong because it was intentionally hidden. It’s okay you didn’t know. You don’t need to act like you never liked him or his work. You don’t need to pretend. But you do need to stop being shitty to other people who also didn’t know because it reeks of victim blaming.

“Well I knew, so how come others didn’t?”

His victims were fans. Are you blaming them for not knowing?

Christ alive, I hope not.