Above the Clouds: Ultimate Writing Resource List →
a massively extended version of ruthlesscalculus’ post
General Tips
WriteWorld: On how to write a "goodie two-shoes" character →
Anonymous asked: How do you write a goodie two-shoes type character without having them become flat (having no substance besides being the good one)?
This triggered a quote I remembered, so I’m going to start this off by referring to this. Made none other than by…
Fuck Yeah Character Development!: This Is a Towel: Character Questionnaires →
- Character Development Questions for Writers (113 questions; geared toward supernatural narratives)
- 30 Character Questions (30 questions; very basic)
- The Mother of All Character Questionnaires (382 questions; extremely in-depth and geared toward tabletop role-players)
- Character Questionnaire
If Common Sense Was Used in Government and the U.S.
- Citizen: I don't believe in abortion.
- Government: Then don't get one.
- Citizen: I don't believe in birth control.
- Government: You don't have to use it.
- Citizen: I think gay marriage is a sin.
- Government: Don't marry the same sex then.
- Citizen: I want my kids to learn about creationism.
- Government: Take them to church.
50 Shades of Abuse Flyer - Canada
Use, redistribute, print.
Click image and magnify for large version.
Okay. I understood all the flack Twilight got for being an abusive relationship. Because it was and it was being read by a very young and impressionable audience. But ffs, 50 Shades is an ADULT NOVEL. Iit is about a BDSM couple. Which - newsflash - do exist. It is a completely consensual form of dominate/submissive sex play. The whole concept of domestic violence and abuse is that one side exerts control over an unwilling victim. I don’t recall Anastasia, or whatever she’s called, protesting to Christian’s form of sex. If I remember correctly, she quite enjoyed it! So before you condemn a work of romanticized fiction, actually consider it’s audience and remember that they are mature and capable enough to know the difference between reality and fiction.
so i guess you didn’t read the parts where he coerces her and the part where he continues after she has used her safeword and acts like a fucking creep whenever they aren’t having sex
it is the worst possible introduction to BDSM i could imagine
i know my shit okay
im hoping the people defending this book are 1. never getting into BDSM 2. not currently into BDSM 3. havent read the book bc i dont want to believe anyone is that fucking stupid
Let me
just
fucking
drop
some fucking
knowledge on you right now.
Wanna know the BDSM mantra? Safe, sane, consensual.
So let me explain why this book was devoid of all three of these things.
Safe - In the first few chapters of the novel, Christian Grey tracks Ana’s cell phone to find her at a club. Takes her home when she’s drunk, changes her when she’s so intoxicated she doesn’t remember him doing so,and informs her he will be keeping tabs on her for her own benefit. This is not the behaviour of a respectable Dominant. This is the behaviour of a power hungry, abusive asshole who really can’t take no for an answer.
Sane - One of the most important parts of BDSM is aftercare. Scenes can be extremely traumatizing and intense for the submissive. Aftercare is anything from petting to cuddling to holding to sweet talking, whatever degree of gentleness a bottom would need to pull them out of “subspace”. How does Christian provide aftercare? He submits Ana to a traumatizing first time spanking experience AND THEN FUCKING LEAVES. AND GETS MAD THAT SHE DIDN’T TELL HIM SHE WAS UPSET. He’s the one who should fucking know better! That, again, is not the act of a responsible Dominant. It’s the act of a selfish abuser.
Consensual - Did I mention he undressed her when she was belligerently drunk? Tracked her phone to locate her? He also buys her a new car despite her saying no countless times. Now, consent is important for any kind of sexual activity at all. Consent means informed, consent means enthusiastic. Informed, enthusiastic consent. This is crucial in a BDSM setting. Scenes can be extremely intense, especially for the bottom. What is Christian’s form of obtaining consent? Handing Ana a fucking contract highlighting all the things he wants to do her asshole and asking her to sign it. She was a virgin (Don’t even get me fucking started.) who had never before been exposed to BDSM. Entering in that kind of relationship takes a gargantuan amount of trust and knowledge so you know exactly what you’re getting into. Not reading a list of kinks on a piece of paper and signing your rights to say no away. Christian didn’t offer her resources, he didn’t offer her information. He gave her an ultimatum. That is not the sort of consent a responsible Dom/me would seek from their submissive.
Fuck. This. book. It’s written in a shitty way, it’s a terrible example of a BDSM relationship (ask anybody already involved in the lifestyle and watch them go blue in the face just thinking about it), which is already faced with enough prejudice and misunderstand, and it romanticizes and glorifies abuse.
^I’m just going to stand up for this and clap
IMPORTANT SHIT, PEOPLE. Abuse is not romantic. Stalking is not romantic. PERIOD.
This! THIS IS WHY THIS BOOK MAKES ME SO FUCKING ANGRY I CAN BARELY SPEAK WHEN IT’S BROUGHT UP IN CONVERSATION!
“As soon as teenage girls start to profess love for something, everyone else becomes totally dismissive of it. Teenage girls are open season for the cruelest bullying that our society can dream up. Everyone’s vicious to them. They’re vicious to each other. Hell, they’re even vicious to themselves. It’s terrible.
“So if teenage girls have something that they love, isn’t that a good thing? Isn’t it better for them to find some words they believe in, words like the ‘fire-proof and fearless’ lyrics that Jacqui wrote? Isn’t it better for them to put those words on their arm in a tattoo than for them to cut gashes in that same skin? Shouldn’t we be grateful when teenage girls love our work? Shouldn’t that be a fucking honor?
“It’s used as the cheapest, easiest test of crap, isn’t it? If teenage girls love a movie, a book, a band, then it’s immediately classified as mediocre shit. Well, I’m not going to stand for that. Someone needs to treat them like they’re precious, and if nobody else is ready to step up, I guess it’s up to us to put them on the path to recognizing that about themselves.”
a character from The Devil’s Mixtape. (via valjeans)
Every now and then, something comes along on your dash that opens your eyes and makes you question assumptions you didn’t even realize you were making.
This former teenage girl fell in love with Rush, RPGs, Russian literature, ancient history, sci fi flicks, and Led Zeppelin. I’d say she had pretty good taste. So why have I always defaulted to marginalizing or dismissing the tastes of other teenage girls? Why have I always counted the large teenage female presence in fandom as a black mark against it, or at least something that needs to be explained or surmounted for older fans to participate or engage? Why have I assumed that teenage girls as a whole are incapable of critical analysis or meaningful engagement with the same media that I enjoy, when it was the critical analysis and meaningful engagement of a teenage girl that got me into much of the same media I enjoy now?
Wow. Talk about not even recognizing the patriarchy at work.
(via sabrea)
seriously, this just made me feel like a fucking asshole, which is always a sign that i’ve learned something important.
(via methodistcoloringbook)
I think I like the commentary above more than even the quote itself. It’s cool when just a quote can make people really rethink their positions.
(via feministdisney)
just shut up.
First, a story.
So, my first semester of my freshman year of college, I took this Intro to Women’s Studies class. The class met for five hours a week, one two hour session and one three hour session, and the breakdown of students was what I eventually discovered to be the typical sampling in any Women’s Studies class with no pre-recs at my mid-sized, southern Ohio state school. There were a number of girls who would become, or were already part of, the feminist advocacy groups on campus; there were a number of girls who would prove themselves to be opposed to feminism in both concept and practice, one of whom I distinctly recall giving a presentation on the merits of the “Mrs. Degree,” while my professor’s eye twitched in muted horror; there were a handful of girls and at least one guy I’d come to know later through assorted campus queer groups; and there were, of course, the three to six dudebros, self-admittedly there to “meet chicks,” all but one or two of whom would drop the class after the first midterm. At eighteen, I was myself a feminist in name but not in practice—I believed in the idea behind feminism (which is, for the record, that people should be on equal footing regardless of gender, not that we should CRUSH ALL MEN BENEATH THE VICIOUS HEELS OF OUR DOC MARTENS GLORY HALLELUJAH), but I didn’t actually know anything about it. I could not identify the waves of feminism. Intersectionality and how the movement is crap at it were not things of which I was aware. Never had I ever encountered the writings of bell hooks. In a lucky break, you do not need to know about the waves of feminism, or know what intersectionality is, or have read bell hooks to read this essay! (But you should read bell hooks. Everyone should read bell hooks. bell hooks is FUCKING AWESOME.)
The first couple of weeks of this class were about what you’d expect. The professor was fun and engaging, but she was not exactly pulling out the eye-opening stops on our wide-eyed freshman asses. There were handouts. There were selections of the textbook for reading. There was a very depressing class about domestic violence, abuse, and rape that was the typical rattling off of terms and horrific statistics that everyone winced at, but that nobody really internalized. The dudebros snickered in the back corner, grouped together like they would be infested by cooties if they spread out, occasionally chiming in with helpful comments like, “Dude, the lady on the back of this book is smoking,” and getting turned down by each girl in the class, on whom they were hitting in what I can only assume was a pre-determined descending order of hotness. The queer kids, myself included, huddled in the other corner making pithy comments. The up-and-coming active feminists glared at the bros, who leered back, and the Mrs. Degree-friendly crowd mostly texted under their desks and made it very clear that they were only there for humanities credit. Again, it was a fairly typical southern Ohio state school class full of fairly typical southern Ohio state school freshmen. Nobody was super engaged, is what I am saying here. Nobody, myself included, was really eating it up with a spoon.
And then one day, my professor opened the class with, “So, who here has seen Beauty and the Beast?”
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