physalian

[physalian]

It feels like I'm saying "I try not to make this blog political" as I say something political, is happening with increasing frequency.

But cancelling Colbert, not just him but the whole Late Show, could not be more obviously politically motivated. I don't really watch Seth Meyers or Jimmy Kimmel as much as him, I don't watch much TV at all I just catch the clips on youtube, but if Paramount gets away with this, there's little standing in the way of this administration coming for them next.

Going to see one of the show's tapings was on my bucket list, and idk if I can fit a trip all the way up to New York in before May. Colbert just has a way of taking the awful news and delivering it with kindness and if not a silver lining, a softer fall.

I'm not mad, in the rage kind of way, I'm mad in the devastated kind of way. I hope he keeps going independently. We need people like him, like all the late night hosts, who can exist louldly in public and be critical of their government.

I don't have a Paramount subscription to cancel, but I would have if I did.

[physalian]

Saw a post talking about the need for pulp fiction—since lost to app refresh, sadly—and I think it was saying that fiction that exists to be casual, easy, popcorn fun, or just indulgent, is necessary, and lots of modern books are having an identity crisis over whether they’re pulpy or something profound.

And I wanted to add onto that: Being able to own and embrace that the books you enjoy aren’t high brow and aren’t trying to be, that it really is ‘just for fun’ and you’re not taking it seriously, would help a ton in spaces like where romantacy is popular, taking what are very pulpy indulgent stories but read by readers who are so afraid of being shamed for liking “pulp” fiction that they’re desperate to defend these books as literary masterpieces when they’re not. The same people who crap on fanfiction as being cringey and not ‘real’ writing.

Meeting a critic who says “those books are dumb and indulgent” with “yes they are and I love them” leaves the critic with not much to stand on, vs trying to argue otherwise out of fear of being perceived as cringey.

And for that matter, let books be pulpy fun because not everything needs to be high brow to be worthy of the paper it’s printed on. Just recognize that there is and should be a difference between the two.

[physalian]

Thanks @rmhashauthor for making my point much more succinct.

I want to add that the intent behind someone’s choice to use AI determines how much shame people should be inclined to heap upon them.

If you’re that person, and we all know they exist, who doesn’t actually want to write, who, when given the choice to be creatives, dismisses the act of creation as something that can be fun and rewarding, and just wants profit even though they do have the time, money, and means to write, then yeah—they’re lazy and entitled and shame upon them.

AI wasn’t made just for those people, though. It’s advertised as this enticing, fix-all solution to your woes in varying levels. You just want an assistant to brainstorm? It’s okay, we’re here to help. And it leaves people thinking how bad can that be?

We know, you and me, how bad it can be. The presumption that everyone does is naïve. Most people don’t want to be lazy, they’re just drowning in stress, work, and debt and GenAI is the only hand reaching out to help them because of the system we live in and there are not enough of us fellow authors on here and out there reaching out harder and louder.

We’re all screaming into the void and too many times we’re ignored or told “Oh that sucks I’d help but it’s just not to my taste.” Not to mention the extra pressure by writers and readers of perfection and “deserving” attention only if you’re good enough, like you have to be Tolkien straight out of the womb.

Shame is not a teacher, it’s just punishment. So heaping shame onto someone at the mere whiff of them considering AI, without you considering why they’re doing it, what they want out of it, and what justifications they’ve made, says far more about you and your privilege than it does about them.

Ok I had a whole dissertation on this and nuance is lost on this website so this is probably a lost cause but.

The anti GenAI argument, which I am a full supporter of, is creeping toward “suffer for your art” and “art is for the privileged”.

Writing, the act of putting a pencil to paper and drawing letters, is free. The publishing journey is anything but, if not in money, then in time, and time is money. If you don’t have connections—which is a privilege—you have to pay for everything every step of the way.

I’m pretty privileged when it comes to the amount of time I have to dedicate to my passions. No kids, no partner, no commute to work, no one to support but myself. I was told recently that my inability to empathize with authors who cannot dedicate time to their passions was ableist, and… yeah, they’re right.

I have the free time, I have the resources to live semi-comfortably, I have the headspace to make the effort—usually, when I have writers’ block it’s severe—and I mostly have the money because I prioritize my writing over my grocery budget sometimes.

GenAI is not at all the solution to this problem. “We have no time or money or energy to write” should not be solved by “here’s a thieving robot to do your art for you” it’s “here’s a living wage and a reasonable work week and the disappearance of the unequal second shift and a robot to do all your chores and run your errands for you”.

One of these is a lot more appealing to the rich and easier for them to implement.

But in the anti-genAI argument there’s this creeping sense of “AI bad” in all its forms, and that if you’re too poor to afford all the publishing costs, don’t give into temptations, you’re just poor. I know that genAI is theft and plagiarism and bad for the environment.

Here we have the dichotomy between “poor author having ChatGPT turn their dumb ideas into a book from which they can claim accolades and think writing is effortless” and “rich privileged asshole paying someone to turn their dumb ideas into a book from which they can claim accolades and think writing is effortless”

One of these we tar and feather on this website, the other we accept as a symptom of life in capitalism. I know the difference is the “paying someone” part, but both of these people are cheating the system and the act of creation for an end product they did not create while claiming otherwise for profit. Both of them are probably terrible stories, but one of them, by virtue of being by the rich guy, will be lauded because it’s by the rich guy and with his name on it, there has to be something redeeming about it.

And if you think his book will automatically be better because it was ghostwritten by a human, you have not met some of the absolute insane egos, demands, and controlling behavior by some people who just want you to turn their fantasies into reality, nonsensical story, characters, and themes included.

So the blanket absolutes we shame AI users with (and I am one of them) with arguments like “you’ll find the free time, you’ll make the connections, you’ll find your people” is dismissing the reality that many people can’t, without suffering dearly for it.

I did not choose to have children, so I have the time not eaten up by children to write. A writer with three kids and no time to themselves is not any less deserving of the chance to find success in publishing.

“You’ll find the free time—” How? When? Because it’ll come at a cost. Neglecting themselves in lack of sleep or self-care for that extra hour in the middle of the night, or neglecting their family or their job in the middle of the day and if they're stressed and exhausted, they won't be writing their best.

And if you’re a full time parent and figured it out, congrats, we can’t all be you. People can’t all be me, either, and I took too long to recognize that.

The point I’m trying to make is the excessive shame we heap onto people who even consider the solution being advertised to them vs the “oh well” we grant toward the rich (rich in time, money, and/or connections) isn’t helping anything. Also this idea that if you want to be a writer you should have just known and planned your life out accordingly to have the means to chase your passions.

I did, somewhat. Doesn’t make me more deserving than a middle-aged mom who suddenly has an idea for something amazing in the middle of the night, fifteen years into parenthood and a 60-hour work week.

Having ChatGPT or anything steal your creativity from you isn’t the solution you’re looking for, and that sucks, I’m sorry. It is tempting, all your hopes and dreams held up on a silver platter with all these nefarious terms and conditions. It's tempting, and frustrating, when you see other people happy to take advantage and get their books on the market with such ease. It's tempting, and frustrating, when actual written books that are narrative slop still win awards because the average reading level in this country is 7th grade and many people just don't care.

I got this far without calling this the “piss on the poor” website but. If all you can do in your comfort and privilege is virtue signal to creatives who don’t have the wealth that you do, and not support them, not buy their books with all the money that you must have, not encourage them by interacting with their posts, then you’re part of the problem.

There's a quote that says it quite succintly by someone I think on twitter that I'm paraphrasing: "The problem in leftist spaces is that they're filled with people more concerned with doing nothing wrong than doing something right."

I have the privilege in time and money, so I’ve now bought three authors’ books on here and I read them and posted about them on this blog. What are you doing?

And if you’re a middle-aged mom who had an idea in the middle of the night during your 60-hour work week, who did figure it out, share your solutions!

Shift your perspctive just a little bit from "I figured it out, why can't you?" to "I figured it out, here let me show you."

The way to beat GenAI isn’t just to tell people “it’s bad trust me and you’re terrible for even considering it” it’s to give them a feasible alternative, encouragement to try the hard path anyway, and support of their work.

[physalian]

Ok I had a whole dissertation on this and nuance is lost on this website so this is probably a lost cause but.

The anti GenAI argument, which I am a full supporter of, is creeping toward “suffer for your art” and “art is for the privileged”.

Writing, the act of putting a pencil to paper and drawing letters, is free. The publishing journey is anything but, if not in money, then in time, and time is money. If you don’t have connections—which is a privilege—you have to pay for everything every step of the way.

I’m pretty privileged when it comes to the amount of time I have to dedicate to my passions. No kids, no partner, no commute to work, no one to support but myself. I was told recently that my inability to empathize with authors who cannot dedicate time to their passions was ableist, and… yeah, they’re right.

I have the free time, I have the resources to live semi-comfortably, I have the headspace to make the effort—usually, when I have writers’ block it’s severe—and I mostly have the money because I prioritize my writing over my grocery budget sometimes.

GenAI is not at all the solution to this problem. “We have no time or money or energy to write” should not be solved by “here’s a thieving robot to do your art for you” it’s “here’s a living wage and a reasonable work week and the disappearance of the unequal second shift and a robot to do all your chores and run your errands for you”.

One of these is a lot more appealing to the rich and easier for them to implement.

But in the anti-genAI argument there’s this creeping sense of “AI bad” in all its forms, and that if you’re too poor to afford all the publishing costs, don’t give into temptations, you’re just poor. I know that genAI is theft and plagiarism and bad for the environment.

Here we have the dichotomy between “poor author having ChatGPT turn their dumb ideas into a book from which they can claim accolades and think writing is effortless” and “rich privileged asshole paying someone to turn their dumb ideas into a book from which they can claim accolades and think writing is effortless”

One of these we tar and feather on this website, the other we accept as a symptom of life in capitalism. I know the difference is the “paying someone” part, but both of these people are cheating the system and the act of creation for an end product they did not create while claiming otherwise for profit. Both of them are probably terrible stories, but one of them, by virtue of being by the rich guy, will be lauded because it’s by the rich guy and with his name on it, there has to be something redeeming about it.

And if you think his book will automatically be better because it was ghostwritten by a human, you have not met some of the absolute insane egos, demands, and controlling behavior by some people who just want you to turn their fantasies into reality, nonsensical story, characters, and themes included.

So the blanket absolutes we shame AI users with (and I am one of them) with arguments like “you’ll find the free time, you’ll make the connections, you’ll find your people” is dismissing the reality that many people can’t, without suffering dearly for it.

I did not choose to have children, so I have the time not eaten up by children to write. A writer with three kids and no time to themselves is not any less deserving of the chance to find success in publishing.

“You’ll find the free time—” How? When? Because it’ll come at a cost. Neglecting themselves in lack of sleep or self-care for that extra hour in the middle of the night, or neglecting their family or their job in the middle of the day and if they're stressed and exhausted, they won't be writing their best.

And if you’re a full time parent and figured it out, congrats, we can’t all be you. People can’t all be me, either, and I took too long to recognize that.

The point I’m trying to make is the excessive shame we heap onto people who even consider the solution being advertised to them vs the “oh well” we grant toward the rich (rich in time, money, and/or connections) isn’t helping anything. Also this idea that if you want to be a writer you should have just known and planned your life out accordingly to have the means to chase your passions.

I did, somewhat. Doesn’t make me more deserving than a middle-aged mom who suddenly has an idea for something amazing in the middle of the night, fifteen years into parenthood and a 60-hour work week.

Having ChatGPT or anything steal your creativity from you isn’t the solution you’re looking for, and that sucks, I’m sorry. It is tempting, all your hopes and dreams held up on a silver platter with all these nefarious terms and conditions. It's tempting, and frustrating, when you see other people happy to take advantage and get their books on the market with such ease. It's tempting, and frustrating, when actual written books that are narrative slop still win awards because the average reading level in this country is 7th grade and many people just don't care.

I got this far without calling this the “piss on the poor” website but. If all you can do in your comfort and privilege is virtue signal to creatives who don’t have the wealth that you do, and not support them, not buy their books with all the money that you must have, not encourage them by interacting with their posts, then you’re part of the problem.

There's a quote that says it quite succintly by someone I think on twitter that I'm paraphrasing: "The problem in leftist spaces is that they're filled with people more concerned with doing nothing wrong than doing something right."

I have the privilege in time and money, so I’ve now bought three authors’ books on here and I read them and posted about them on this blog. What are you doing?

And if you’re a middle-aged mom who had an idea in the middle of the night during your 60-hour work week, who did figure it out, share your solutions!

Shift your perspctive just a little bit from "I figured it out, why can't you?" to "I figured it out, here let me show you."

The way to beat GenAI isn’t just to tell people “it’s bad trust me and you’re terrible for even considering it” it’s to give them a feasible alternative, encouragement to try the hard path anyway, and support of their work.

[physalian]

I don't care how many ads I'd have to see instead, do not put Quizlet behind a paywall when it's most useful for children who do not have the jobs to affort a goddamn subscription to digital flashcards.

What am I paying for? Their entire database is filled by user-entry and *we* aren't getting paid to do the hard work.

It wasn't like this when I was in school and now that I'm back in it I feel like I'm being gaslit into thinking it was always this way. It wasn't.

[physalian]

God the struggle against AI when it’s met with “writing shouldn’t be prohibitively expensive” is such a hard argument to maintain and articulate because it opens the door to the idea that anything worth having took a lot of money to produce, and that if you have no money your work is not worth sharing. Especially in this capitalist hellscape where things are arbitrarily expensive and that if something looks expensive, it's automatically going to be thought of as better quality than something that doesn't because it didn't have the funds for that extra polish.

Writing is expensive. Indie publishing is expensive. If you're indie, you're paying a monetary cost in footing the bill all on your own. If you're trad, you're paying a time cost waiting for an agent and a book deal and you still have to market out of pocket (on top of whatever you paid out of pocket during the writing process like on beta readers or developmental editors). And if you're indie and you want to stand up to the percieved quality of trad publishing, you have to pay to make that happen. If you want to get your name out there and be in the running for any kind of bestseller list before you're 50, you need money, connections, and luck, and if you have no connections, you need your work to be the best version of itself that it can possibly be.

And to be clear: writing is expensive and the act of creation shouldn't be held in a chokehold by the rich powers that be. That does not mean that dialing up ChatGPT to write a bestseller for you is the solution here.

Somebody sent me this audiobook AI voice generator and I can’t read audio books, for the same reason I hate talking on the phone. Not being able to multitask while being understimulated is a recipe for immediate frustration and gaps in attention where I’m constantly rewinding.

So I have very little experience with them and how they’re produced and the costs associated. And it is so, so tempting to be like “fuck it, why should I pay to produce this in an audio format? It’s still all my work, nothing is being generated except a voice reading my words”. Taking the high road feels like being stubborn for the sake of being stubborn. I’d only make one so that my work is accessible to those who need them. Pirate it, I don’t care, if it means you’d engage with my work when you otherwise couldn’t, I'm very aware that I will never be able to live off being a writer.

I'd make it so that it's accessible to my audience, not so that it's more accessible for me. That I can't read audio books does not mean that I’d half-ass it in its production.

What I wanted was something like an audio drama, some day if/when I have the money to produce it. Hiring voice actors to fit my diverse cast. But then with that demands me actually having to listen to my work being read back to me by real people so they get the pronunciation and inflections correct and I cannot, under any circumstances, tolerate my work being read back to me. It’s like nails on a chalkboard, I absolutely hate it.

People try to give me verbal feedback on specific lines, even if it’s praise, and I have to leave the room and tell them to write whatever it is down so I can read it. Rip my book apart over text and I can take it like a champ. Verbally tell me you really really liked this single line and I want to throw the book at you so you shush. Neither could you pay me to sit in front of an audience or a camera and either read my book or verbally discuss excerpts from it.

So even if bootstrapping this isn’t expensive, being forced to listen to hours upon hours of my book(s) being read back to me, I’d never, ever get it done. A robot that can’t judge me for it might make it a little less awful and it sure would be faster with less complications around searching, casting, scheduling, retakes, etc.

Just the idea of rejecting something that exists to lower the barrier to entry in this specific case out of pride feels like I’m the one losing here meanwhile authors who do not care are getting theirs on the market without any qualms. Even with the argument of "if a human didn't create why should I, a human, buy it?" feels nebulous here because I did create it, this is just a different format.

An audio book for my work will never exist without a program like this. Not generating text. Not generating cover art. Not generating any new ideas. Just a fancy text-to-speech software. There’s gotta be a line between virtue signaling like pissy vegans dying on a hill of misinformation and trying to use these things that are meant to be tools, not just slapping ‘ai bad’ in nuance-less absolutes onto it. I feel like the fuckin’ Onceler asking “How bad can it be?”

[physalian]

Idk if they’re going for popular fics or fandoms or completely random, haven’t gotten one myself. But what exactly is the goal here? These aren’t like the other ones threatening that your fic will be deleted for noncompliance unless the implicit threat is that you’ll be humiliated enough to delete the fic without being told to.

Farming engagement in Ao3 fic comments is wild. Scams everywhere else want your money. Trolls on here get the satisfaction of your public response. Sitting in your basement trying to wring some sense of accomplishment in your miserable life by having AI generate you hate comments for an Ao3 fic, on a site where any transfer of money is strictly prohibited… just why?

Maybe I’m missing something but what’s the point of coding and maintaining a spam bot on this site specifically. Like what do you get out of it?

It's so incredibly funny to get this kind of AI generated spam on a piece of *fanart* 🤣🤣🤣

[fanart] Kanto Cool Summer

[physalian]

“Make” as a filler word

I am horribly guilty of this and idk where it comes from. Disclaimer, ‘make’ is not a bad word and depending on genre and target demo it really, truly, does not matter. However, if you look at your sentences where ‘make’ is present, you might find yourself with repeated syntax and reworking the sentence to avoid ‘make’ can help your text feel more dynamic.

And make has a lot of uses.

You can make something, vs creating it

You can make something out, vs seeing it/understanding it

You can make something up, vs lying

You can make sure something happens, vs guaranteeing it

You can make someone angry, vs angering them

Something can make you feel empowered, vs empowering you

You can make yourself scarce, vs leave quickly

You can make something of yourself, vs grow and learn

You can make yourself presentable, vs dolling up

Some examples of when you can remove it!

“What inspired you to make this?” // “What inspired this?”

She makes for the door // She walks/heads/tiptoes/marches/etc toward the door

X makes him feel like the fool. // X has him feeling like the fool

They could make themself a life here // They could build a life here

He won’t make it out // He won’t escape

They can't make it out // They can't discern it

She won’t make it through // She won’t endure/fit/qualify

He’ll make something delicious // He’ll cook something delicious

List goes on and on and on.

Even if it works for the sentence, if you’ve got several occurrences in quick succession you can try to rework one or two of them to avoid that repetition.

General guidelines:

Make is sometimes the best word possible, for simplicity and readability, don’t change it just to change it

Make is sometimes there for emphasis or to achieve a lit device, the key is not overusing any one word like this

If removing it demands reworking the sentence to be overcomplicated, leave it

If you’re using it instead of a more precise verb, it’s filler (make vs cook/craft/build/earn)

Hope this helps!

[physalian]

Hey quick poll for people who wear sports bras for exercise:

Explain if you want in comments/tags. Not a judging thing like whether you “should” just what makes you more comfortable in public.

[physalian]

You ever stumble upon a bit of trivia that justifies a worldbuilding choice so well that you must now incorporate it into your story somehow?

TIL from Nat Geo that humpback whales will save other animals from orca whales. Seals, dolphins, other whales. Orcas are no joke, and adult whales have their size to thank for being able to do this because humpback calves aren't safe.

These whales will swim away from these little battles probably with injuries, and definitely burning through valuable energy saving an animal they're not related to and get no benefit from rescuing.

And it just so happens that I have a fantasy house whose house crest is a humpback whale, and they're known as the 'good' house relatively speaking, saving people fleeing all flavors of persecution. My deuteragonist from that house is a Fixer, jumping into battle constantly to save people that usually comes back to bite him.

I have yet to have actual whales on the page, despite them often being right outside their home in the bay they live on. Today's knowledge absolutely justifies a scene where these two at least pass each other by.

[physalian]

My editor sent me this short list of words I overuse, not filler words or crutch words, my personal crutch words, two books ago.

I just dug it out of downloads to check if I'm still overusing them and

yup.

My own personal call-out file.

[physalian]

“the cascading despair of human futility renders my pursuit of happiness moot.” See but I can totally see someone doing this for a bit--which is your point, flowery language has its place. Being dramatically esoteric and hyperbolic for the sake of it is something I and several of my friends have done, usually over something stupid like, burning a grilled cheese, especially if we're writers who have swallowed thesauruses and don't otherwise have an outlet to use all these poncy words.

So. Yeah. Irony and humor are a perfectly justified time to be flowery, playing it straight, however, and you can look ridiculous and pretentious real quick. They gotta serve a purpose other than you just trying to sound smarter.

Look, unless your character is a philosophy professor on day three of a meth bender, they probably don’t say things like “the cascading despair of human futility renders my pursuit of happiness moot.” They say, “I’m so tired, nothing matters, and my cat just barfed on my only clean shirt.”

Flowery language has its place. But if every character speaks like they swallowed a thesaurus and washed it down with existential dread, you’re not being deep, you’re being unreadable.

Good writing doesn’t need to be smart. It needs to feel true. If that means breaking grammar rules, go for it. If that means saying “kinda” instead of “somewhat,” do it. Voice matters more than prestige. You’re not trying to impress your old high school English teacher. You’re trying to connect.

[physalian]

Another horror novel pitch (or at least horror-adjacent):

An author is transported into their book. However, they haven’t finished writing it and have no idea which deleted version of the draft will happen. Their heroes figure out that they know something, assume they’re some sort of spy or plant from the enemy and the rest of the book is the author trapped in the unfinished lore of their own creation at varying levels of nonsensical dreamscape, running for their life from the heroes they made suffer so dearly.

[physalian]

Feedback like this also applies to original fic concerning the “correcting you might be their version of helping and showing that they care except it’s neither helpful nor coming across as kind”

And I second the notion: The *intent* of what you say does not shield you from the *impact* of what is heard.

I’m autistic, and I have a habit of talking about myself directly after someone shares a story about them in my attempt to show them that I’m listening and trying to empathize. Doesn’t always get appreciated in fact it can come across like I wasn’t listening at all and just waiting for the chance to talk about me.

I can either recognize that my impact is not my intent and be aware of this habit and when this kind of sharing is welcomed, or double-down and hide behind either a love language or my neurodivergence taking no accountability. Being aware of how others receive love is as important as knowing how you give love.

Especially when it comes to writing fiction, what is obvious and logical ≠ fun, compelling, and entertaining. Sometimes it does! Sometimes plotholes abound when the obvious, logical thing had no reason to be ignored.

But a lot of the times it doesn’t. I write fantasy, with both soft and hard magic systems. If I get feedback where logic is being brought into a soft magic problem, it feels like it’s entirely misunderstanding the point of what soft magic is, not you tinkering with what you would do in this situation.

Giving anyone feedback about how something is unrealistic, or that extraneous information is missing from a character’s skillset, without first asking yourself:

- is that extra information necessary to the scene, and is it worth the space it takes up?

- is it missing because a character isn’t Google, and is giving information to another character and not the audience like a Wikipedia page?

- is realism lost because of a mistake, or because of the nature of the genre? And is realism tossed aside by laziness, or by the rules of the genre?

Pointing out illogic can be helpful, but it feels like criticism when it’s given in a vacuum—you could take the time to tell them what they did wrong, but no time to compliment what they did right? Therefore you’re not enjoying yourself and just being mean. And if that “correction” is wrong or irrelevant, you look like a troll and a jerk.

We’re not mind-readers. If you like something, you need to say it explicitly, especially over text.

you guys if a character in a fic is wondering something that is easily googleable, chances are good the writer looked it up and knows the answer even if they didn't have the character do the same. you dont need to leave a comment answering the pondered question. like, i wasnt asking. are you enjoying the fic tho? you didnt say....

[physalian]

Writing kissing, when you hate kissing, is one of those things where you just have to trust the process. The problem is that I can read plenty of it, but I have no idea how much is embellished and fictional vs what real people actually enjoy—and I’m not here writing erotica where you embellish all the way. I mean I know stuff like 'tongues battling for dominance' isn't realistic. But more nuanced, subtle things.

I know how it works, I know that people like it, but even if I went the cliché route and found somebody to practice with for science, I would still walk away from it thinking I’ve learned nothing. I know the mechanics, what I don’t get is why anyone finds them titillating.

Kissing is weird. And gross.

[physalian]

In the “write what you know” debate, it’s not saying “you can’t write about astronauts if you’ve never been to space” but more “don’t go writing a story about the science of space engineering filled with scientific jargon you don’t understand”. You can still write about astronauts from the human side of things (though it still merits doing your research if this is any attempt at realism). You can write about their loneliness and isolation from earth, the pressure they’re facing to not screw up and break the very expensive satellite, or to be the first human to set foot on new worlds. The awe in what they’re able to witness and the humbling of being so small out there in the void, in how lucky they are to be able to be here.

I’m not an astronaut, but I sure loved The Martian. A lot of the science-babble went over my head despite my love of science. I loved it because of the protagonist and his human struggles, they were understandable (if not relatable).

If you want to write about war and you’ve never been in one, “what you know” isn’t going to be the intricacies of a military complex, but it can be your characters’ fears, hopes, dreams, aspirations, confusion, loneliness, homesickness. You’re not going to get away with writing a war story with zero understanding of the chain of command and how supply lines work, you do still have to research, but anyone can watch and enjoy and connect with a war movie without being a solider because human feelings and expressions are much more universal than human occupations.

[physalian]

Was thinking about all the contradicting complaints about the existence of bi characters and how “you can’t just say they’re bi without showing them interested in both men and women”

but also “you shouldn’t have to prove they’re bi by giving them obligatory and useless crushes on men and women when they’ll only be with one person”

and “please ffs just let them say they’re bisexual”

but also “we can’t always use modern colloquialisms in non-modern settings so implications are all we’ve got”

but also “well clearly they’re not bi because they haven’t actually dated a man and a woman for the same amount of time and whoever they’re with at the moment clearly means that they prefer this gender more”

but also “this is so unrealistic a bi person isn’t bean-counting their encounters with other people so it’s perfectly equal at all times”.

Yeash.