#are there valid critiques?

[xoxoemynn]

Unfortunately for you all, the more crankiness I see about S2, the more I am obligated to love it. Gonna love those gay pirates, both active and retired, so hard. 💖

[bajoop-sheeb]

PLEASE for the love of the universe read anti-colonial science fiction and fantasy written from marginalized perspectives. Y’all (you know who you are) are killing me. To see people praise books about empire written exclusively by white women and then turn around and say you don’t know who Octavia Butler is or that you haven’t read any NK Jemisin just kills me! I’m not saying you HAVE to enjoy specific books but there is such an obvious pattern here

Some of y’all love marginalized stories but you don’t give a fuck about marginalized creators and characters, and it shows. Like damn

[fahye]

Swordcrossed - UK cover reveal

THE SWORDS. THE DRAMA. THE PINK AND GREEN.

(I am, no lie, wearing a pink & green striped jumper today and it was entirely unintentional. it's just a perfect colour combination.)

UK preorder links

US preorder links

The inestimable @sarahreesbrennan was hypnotised via dastardly means into reading it, and said, "Freya Marske's books catch my heart with a butterfly net, because I believe in her characters so utterly . . . Swordcrossed proves there's nothing in fantasy – or queer romance – Marske can't do."

And if you've only just wandered in here and are wondering what the hell the book's about (beyond......swords. crossing.), read on:

Mattinesh Jay, dutiful heir to his struggling family business, needs to hire an experienced swordsman to serve as best man for his arranged marriage. Sword-challenge at the ceremony could destroy all hope of restoring his family’s wealth, something that Matti has been trying – and failing – to do for the past ten years. What he can afford, unfortunately, is part-time con artist and full-time charming menace Luca Piere. Luca, for his part, is trying to reinvent himself in a new city. All he wants to do is make some easy money and try to forget the crime he committed in his home town. He didn’t plan on being blackmailed into giving sword lessons to a chronically responsible – and inconveniently handsome – wool merchant like Matti. However, neither Matti’s business troubles nor Luca himself are quite what – or who – they seem. As the days to Matti’s wedding count down, the two of them become entangled in the intrigue and sabotage that have brought Matti’s house to the brink of ruin. And when Luca’s secrets threaten to drive a blade through their growing alliance, both Matti and Luca will have to answer the question: how many lies are you prepared to strip away when the truth could mean losing everything you want?

(tl;dr - two disasters fall in love! freya did a lot of research about the wool industry and is going to show it off! and someone does, in fact, put the point of their sword under someone else's chin.)

[will-pilled]

Why is Angel's SA literally the only one taken "seriously" (if you can even call it that.) Every other one is either made into a joke or punchline (Pent or Mox) or completely ignored and they pretend it isn't happening (Blitz) Why is Angel's the only one that matters???

[shedidntevenswear]

I enjoy discourse around pretty much everything Taylor does here in this space because I can trust that everyone involved actually knows what they're talking about and has some level of investment in the fandom, but going on more algorithm-driven sites and having to see every human who ever lived spout their opinion about every breath she takes with wild amounts of unearned confidence that they know enough to be speaking is SO EXHAUSTING like truly too many people in our family business

[lenny-zesty]

when im in a give a shitty excuse to hate a female character competition and my opponent is an uzi hater

[choccy-milky]

bruh i need to vent about a rude comment i got on my recent chap and also about clora, cuz its something thats been on my mind for a while now. it has spoilers to my most recent chap tho so im putting it below

so in my most recent chap clora gets hit by the killing curse but thanks to seb sacrificing himself for her, it doesn’t work/she survives. and I got a rly rude comment about how that’s super cringe and that clora is a "shoe horning of every possible manifestation of Mary-Sueism I have ever seen." theyre dropping my fic after almost 500k words bc apparently THAT’S where they draw the line and that "just somehow pulling it out the bag and surviving a killing curse from the power of love. In simpler terms, it’s absolutely cringe worthy" and "forgive me if I rolled an eye at the yet again invincible nature of Clora Clemons-the-one-eighth-Veela-extraordinaire"

BUT LIKE LMAO TELL ME U DIDN’T READ/WATCH HARRY POTTER WITHOUT TELLING ME. that’s literally what happens to harry??but its only cringe when it happens to our "mary-sue" clora? like yeah sure love magic might be a bit cringe but IM LITERALLY JUST PULLING FROM THE SOURCE MATERIAL. of all the things to take issue with in my fic and interpretations, theyre taking issue with something that’s canon BAHAHA.

and since im on the topic of clora being mary sue can I just say I hate the misogyny/internalized misogyny that i've seen some people (NOT A LOT, THANKFULLY) treat her with. like i get it, im not pale and blonde and as conventionally pretty as clora is, but even if I was, is that a reason to hate me?? and does being beautiful and well-liked = mary sue? bc as far as I know, mary sue is a chara who is just naturally amazing at everything and doesnt need to try hard and theyre just inexplicably great for no reason (like mc in the base game BAHHAA) if anything the mary sue in MY fic is seb LMAO (but hes a boy so its ok). like clora has worked hard and studied magic all her life due to being a squib and wanting to make up for not being able to DO it. she isnt good at flying, seb is still better at her than duelling, shes really short sighted when it comes to doing/thinking whats best for others and can be a huge idiot.... and like. the only guys that have even shown interest in clora on a real scale have been seb and leander (and then lawley for blackmail purposes, and also bc he hates seb) so its not like literally everyone is falling over themselves for her?? like her interactions with the main cast of boys (ominis, garreth, amit) theyre all indifferent to her LMAO but still, the fact that shes pretty and guys here and there might look at her and go o shes cute! doesnt make her a mary sue SORRy thats just called being attractive idk its just annoying that ppl automatically see a nice kind beautiful female character without any VISIBLE flaws and go SHES TOO PERFECT!! MARY SUE!! WAH IM JEALOUS! and like I get it bc when I was younger I probs would have been annoyed by clora as well due to my own insecurities and internalized misogyny but hey, how about u just realize that’s ur own problem and your own jealousy, and not a real one HAHAH anyway ive since evolved bc I used to be a ‘not like other girls’ type girl back in highschool. trying to be super tomboy-y bc I thought being feminine was cringe and too basic but now ive embraced it and love girly things and dresses and charas like clora who are still strong and showcase their strengths and weaknesses in subtler ways, and I want to smooch her and make out with her. get behind me clora ill protect you🤺🤺🤺

[sexhaver]

one of the funniest parts of 2014ish era tumblr was when someone would make a capital-B Bad post and everyone would dogpile them to explain in excruciating detail exactly why it was bad and you'd click through to their blog and their most recent post would be a suicide-baiting anon they absolutely sent to themselves and replied to with "yea h i gu ess, i m j just a wor thless fuckup;;;" and it would have 3 notes from their most loyal dickriders. this breed of poster died off once everyone realized that telling people online to kill themselves is a morally neutral act so now they have to forage through the notes of their Bad post for the 1% of people misgendering them or being ableist or something instead

[theflashjaygarrick]

I hate this scene so much. Just to be clear I know that this does reflect a real experience a lot of women and girls go through growing up, the realisation that you don't actually hate feminine things and you just were taught to. And to give him credit I feel like Tom King read one feminist think piece about internalised misogyny and girls growing to like pink so congrats for the effort I guess.

But the problem is, did it have to be Cassie? Cassie is one of the few characters in the Wonder family, and honestly in DC, to be gender nonconforming (in presentation). And DC if full of kickass feminine women who can hold their own and fight. Hell, that is literal the entire point of the Wonderfamily and the amazons. Cassie being butch could have been shown girls and women that there are all sorts of ways to be a woman. That being gnc or more masculine doesn't mean you have to hate other girls or femininity. It just means that it isn't you. And that's okay.

Some gnc Cassie panels:

And sure, this isn't the worset thing that happened to Cassie (New 52 was a bad time) but it still frustrates me. To me this scene low-key implies (perhaps intentionally) that Cassie being a tomboy as a character flaw that she had to grow out of and did after meeting the Wonders. That the more butch elements of her characterisation that a queer fans saw themselves in was actually just her not believing feminine women could be powerful. And considering this is written by a cishet man (not a woman reflecting her own experiences with the struggle of femininity) I am not a fan.

[chamerionwrites]

Intellectually I understand where people are coming from, but personally I do THE biggest double take every time someone boils down conservative Christian ideology (and/or secularized cultural reflections thereof) to a kind of dour puritanism that proclaims happiness is sin/suffering is a moral good/everyone should be miserable all the time. Like I get it! I do. But also, institutionally, I have never met a group of more passionate worshippers and vicious defenders of their own comfort than evangelical Christians. There is a reason the common thread between my various weird triggers more or less boils down to "toxic positivity." There is a REASON my exvangelical tag is #walking away from omelas.

[tarantula-hawk-wasp]

At a certain point blaming the school system for failing to teach you every fact becomes an excuse to absolve yourself from learning on your own time as an adult. Maybe you had bad teachers and curricula, maybe you never did the assigned reading, maybe you were taught propaganda, but it’s okay to start now. It’s okay to learn geography from online games. It’s okay to get entry level books from the library on a subject. It’s okay to explore Wikipedia and other reputable websites as a start. You can learn as an adult. You should continue learning as an adult.

[tskumoyuuma]

oh my god im gonna start punching things. the point is that you dont know whats fucking going on. even the last thing gh says is just a theory he has that hes been keeping in for a while. the entire point of why this is so unsettling is that all forms of communications are gone so no one knows anything about anything. the characters are in the blind and so are you. they probably will never figure everything out themselves and so we dont figure out everything ourselves. the unknown of it all is what makes it horrifying. im going to scream

[fanyeline]

people love hating on lore olympus for like, inaccuracies regarding the myths & it's like that is a feature not a bug. also people hate lore olympus for being vapid, girl. it's doing a lot of work on sexual & parental trauma that I have NEVER seen any other medium do, while ALSO having a plot, while ALSO having the cutest fashiony outfits, while ALSO making references to pop culture & the world at the time it's made....while also being funny and cute......

have y'all made anything in your entire life?

[i-really-like-phrogs]

When someone else’s art is so good you physically can’t look at it because of artistic jealousy

[rollercoasterwords]

yeah u can put "i hate jkr" and "fuck terfs" in ur tumblr bio but. can u listen + reflect when a trans woman criticizes hp fandom without immediately getting defensive.....

[grouchythefish]

As terrible as the Borderlands movie was, if your main criticism of it boils down to "lol Cate Blanchett and Jamie Lee Curtis are OLD why are these GRANDMAS in an action movie, someone take them back to the retirement home" I'm just blocking you. Appreciate the GILFs or get off my lawn.