this man won an oscar for screenwriting and it shows

I’m a little bit obsessed with makeover/dressing scenes where the reveal is an undeniable downgrade from what the character started out with. Top tier comedy

This absolute disgrace…

“don’t reduce this female character down to a love interest” does not translate into “this female character shouldn’t have a love interest.”

preventing female characters with strong, compelling narratives from experiencing love, intimacy, and affection is just as regressive as reducing them down to sexual accessories for male characters. it assumes that women must choose between a romantic interest and depth of character and ignores a far more productive message: that women are capable of possessing both. 

rick riordan off the shits

rick riordan made his bones with pretty vanilla YA fantasy and then when he was too successful to stop hit em with the Muslim valkyries and the genderfluid homeless teenagers

Y'know, I’m really loving the return to a “tropes are good” mindset. Embrace the cliché. Use the overused. If it makes you feel good to read and write, don’t stress if it’s not completely original. It’s so much more fun to not agonize over having to make every aspect of a piece revolutionary

Just because a story is predictable, it doesn’t mean it’s not a good story.

Just because a story is predictable, it doesn’t mean it’s not a good story.

Better to write a fairy tale than season 8 of Game of Thrones.

why is it always a male character going mad avenging his dead wife and never a female character cradling her dying pure of heart husband in her arms then dragging the whole world down with her

I can’t wait for the day a woman’s strength isn’t dictated by how much abuse she can endure

SLAMS REBLOG BUTTON

@ got writers

I have a new arch-nemesis and it’s the uneducated cis people who write the blurbs of books about trans people. 

Here’s Theo’s guide on how NOT to write blurbs about trans characters:

1). Please don’t deadname and misgender the character in the blurb - I promise you can demonstrate that he’s trans without doing this. 

2). Don’t use words like “decide” when talking about them being trans - it’s not a choice. 

3). “Transgendered” is not a word. You mean “trans.”

4). A closeted trans girl is still a girl! Don’t state that she’s a boy. 

5). Don’t say “wants to be.” She IS a girl. Trans people are our genders.

Okay this one my issue is with the title but 

6). I get what they were going for, titles have to stand out. But this framing makes trans people seem like something weird and freaky - the whole draw of the title is how odd it would be for someone with a penis to be named Jessica.

7). It might even have been better to call it “My Sister’s Name Is Jason” even though that would be deadnaming. Calling her “brother” in the title reinforces the idea that she’s actually a “boy dressed up as a girl” rather than the truth - that she IS a girl. It shows us that no one in the book or writing it sees her for who she is. 

This one really bothers me because the whole thing is written in weirdly romanticising fetishy way (is that just me?) We’re just people. 

8). “Transforms himself into” No. She already is a girl, regardless of how she is dressed.  “with help from his sister’s clothes and make-up.” Again, the clothing and make-up do not make her gender but also - can we not reduce being a girl down to this, please? 

-

I know a lot of this seems nitpicky but the problem is, it all reinforces harmful things that people already think about us. People already see me as “a girl named Theo” - this makes that worse. And you can tell that by how people talk about the characters in reviews.

Most of the reviews by cis people end up calling the character the wrong name, pronouns or gender or just talking about being trans as if it’s a costume or a choice - because that is how these books and blurbs present it to them.

So please, when writing about trans people, be careful how you talk about us. Make sure you aren’t spreading misinformation or furthering already harmful ideas.

Don’t feel bad if you’re sensitive to negative feedback because apparently after one particular bad review Hans Christian Andersen was found just sobbing while lying face down in the dirt

YOU LEFT OUT THE BEST PART THOUGH! HE WAS CRYING FACE DOWN IN THE DIRT IN CHARLES DICKENSEN´S YARD!!

WHERE HE HAD BEEN STAYING FOR WEEKS, LONG OVERSTAYING HIS WELCOME, AND WAS ANNOYING THE FUCK OUT OF DICKENS

Dickens: Where’s Anderson…?

*peeks out the window*

Anderson:

Dickens:

Presented by myself and @goodluckdetective without comment

That. That is the entire high literature summed up. You just broke all man-written novels

yeah writing fiction is hard but at least we don’t have to list all the sources

You know what I find interesting? How I Met Your Mother just like… disappeared from culture after the finale aired. Like sure you might still hear the odd, “Challenge accepted” or use that gif of Marshall hugging the pillow as a reaction image, but no one really uses the phrases in vernacular, no one talks about the episodes.

And I think it has to do with the fact that the finale betrayed fans badly.

Take Friends for instance. It still is a lasting cultural thing. I think we can all agree now in hindsight, that Ross is an absolute douchecanoe, but at the time, the majority of fans wanted Ross and Rachel to get together because it had been this thing that the show had told us through cues was MEANT to be.

In HIMYM, the entire show was predicated on MEETING the Mother, and we had ruled out that Robin wasn’t the Mother. More than that, they had shown us that Barney and Robin were actually perfect for each other. They had spent episodes and seasons redeeming Barney, and softening Robin and showing us why they were meant to be. And to see BOTH of those relationships forced apart for a series finale that they had written all the way back in season 1 that didn’t make any sense for the story they eventually told, was damning for the show’s legacy in culture.

I firmly believe that writers should be able to write the story they want, and if you want to listen to constructive criticism or do a little fan service along the way then great, but when you get to the finale? That right there is 100% for the fans. The finale is when you let go of the story completely. The finale is a love letter to the people who made your show continue for as long as it did. Good finales are why shows survive.

When you’re writing a work-in-progress, sometimes you have to abandon your original plan. Let that be a lesson.

it’s the most wonderful time of the year: the Literary Review’s Bad Sex in Fiction Award

I AM DYING!!! AND THESE ARE ALL WRITTEN BY MEN, PUBLISHED AUTHORS, SO I DON’T WANT NOBODY COMPLAINING ABOUT SEX SCENES WRITTEN BY FANGIRLS EVER AGAIN!!

“it is as though he had grown up in a single suck”

tropes that need to die: redemption arcs for abusive fathers

Accurate representation of a first draft

@thebibliosphere

rather than death of the author i subscribe to a critical framework i like to refer to as Schrodinger’s Author where the authors intentions are important except for when i dont like them

A tip for smutfic writers: the word “sizeable” will never be sexy in any context whatsoever.

“Idris Elba brought me roses and a sizeable homemade tiramisu.”

That is the sexiest sentence I have ever read.