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SINNERS (2025) dir. Ryan Coogler

Johnny, rosin up your bow and play your fiddle hard 'Cause hell's broke loose in Georgia and the Devil deals the cards And if you win, you get this shiny fiddle made of gold But if you lose, the Devil gets your soul

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untraceable cyberbucks

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A note, because not everyone knows this: if you're driving and another driver flashes their brights at you, this is a signal to be on alert and slow down. There may be debris in the road, a cop out of sight, or an animal crossing ahead of you. (Or, alternatively, your brights are on and they're getting blinded.) Whatever the reason, it's a signal that you need to focus and reduce speed. And possibly turn your own brights off.

This PSA has been brought to you by the four fawns and does that ran out in front of me at various points on my drive home.

Let's court death with mama!

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Unreliable narrators are one hell of an idea. You can just write whatever, and if a reader points out "hey the way this scene happened should not be physically possible if it's done the way this character described it", you can just be like "yeah I don't trust that fucker either."

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they should invent a 2025 where good things happen

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Binggeyuan AU where the yandere kidnapping doesn't quite go according to plan.

Bingge originally planning to go in scoop up SY and return to his world only...Shen Yuan is clearly not well and delicate and he can't give him his blood yet, he needs a meal first.

Bingge just going househusband mode, he argues that he's wooing SY and things will go smoother when he's home... plus it''s nice to have time with him without the harem trying to interrupt or some random uprising.

Then Shen Yuan's siblings how up and 'WHAT DO YOU MEAN DEMON MAIN CHARACTER FROM THE NOVEL YOU 'HATE READ' IS REAL'

' DON'T LIE WE HAVE ALL SEEN THE MERCH PILE YOU TRY AND HIDE WE KNOW IT'S HIM'

Only... then they see 'Shen Yuan is eating...meals? Actual multiple meals a day?? he's healthier??' and see Bingge taking care of him and clearly smitten and all collectively decide to ignore the demonic was a web novel character thing and just 'Welcome to the family'

Bingge's not sure what happened to the original plan when he's sitting in the family home later his future mother and father in law gushing over his food and his mother in law insisting to help wedding plan.

He decides househusband in chill world where he can spend all time with his husband and has been adopted into loving family who care about him and not his status or power is far preferable to PIDW... so he just nopes out and does not go back.

No responsibilities just time with husband.

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huh !

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i remember when mdzs first came out and i didn't know shit about the genre yet, so my friend and i found it in a bookstore and she went "grandmaster of demonic cultivation???? what is 'cultivation'. google says it's practicing agriculture. how can you do that demonically." and i was like "farming evilly and deviously......"

anyways this exchange became ten times funnier when i read mdzs years later and got to the part where everyone thinks wei wuxian is establishing a horrible evil demonic sect with the wen remnants but he's actually just trying to farm so they don't starve. doing some straight up evil and demonic and devious farming.

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that thing where you're attracted to someone not in a platonic or romantic or sexual way, but in an 'i want to read about their exploits' kind of way

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Demonic gremlins and their sugar spouses

(CR: vk.com/ookamikiba. Translated and reposted with permission.)

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translation: “My sheep! [bah! bah!] You are my life. [bah! bah!] Walk behind me…[bah! bah!] Sing (after me).”

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Has anyone figured out what’s so viscerally wrong with this woman yet

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never forget the universal rule of the order of things: People Will Not Read It

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all RIGHT:

Why You're Writing Medieval (and Medieval-Coded) Women Wrong: A RANT

(Or, For the Love of God, People, Stop Pretending Victorian Style Gender Roles Applied to All of History)

This is a problem I see alllll over the place - I'll be reading a medieval-coded book and the women will be told they aren't allowed to fight or learn or work, that they are only supposed to get married, keep house and have babies, &c &c.

If I point this out ppl will be like "yes but there was misogyny back then! women were treated terribly!" and OK. Stop right there.

By & large, what we as a culture think of as misogyny & patriarchy is the expression prevalent in Victorian times - not medieval. (And NO, this is not me blaming Victorians for their theme park version of "medieval history". This is me blaming 21st century people for being ignorant & refusing to do their homework).

Yes, there was misogyny in medieval times, but 1) in many ways it was actually markedly less severe than Victorian misogyny, tyvm - and 2) it was of a quite different type. (Disclaimer: I am speaking specifically of Frankish, Western European medieval women rather than those in other parts of the world. This applies to a lesser extent in Byzantium and I am still learning about women in the medieval Islamic world.)

So, here are the 2 vital things to remember about women when writing medieval or medieval-coded societies

FIRST. Where in Victorian times the primary axes of prejudice were gender and race - so that a male labourer had more rights than a female of the higher classes, and a middle class white man would be treated with more respect than an African or Indian dignitary - In medieval times, the primary axis of prejudice was, overwhelmingly, class. Thus, Frankish crusader knights arguably felt more solidarity with their Muslim opponents of knightly status, than they did their own peasants. Faith and age were also medieval axes of prejudice - children and young people were exploited ruthlessly, sent into war or marriage at 15 (boys) or 12 (girls). Gender was less important.

What this meant was that a medieval woman could expect - indeed demand - to be treated more or less the same way the men of her class were. Where no ancient legal obstacle existed, such as Salic law, a king's daughter could and did expect to rule, even after marriage.

Women of the knightly class could & did arm & fight - something that required a MASSIVE outlay of money, which was obviously at their discretion & disposal. See: Sichelgaita, Isabel de Conches, the unnamed women fighting in armour as knights during the Third Crusade, as recorded by Muslim chroniclers.

Tolkien's Eowyn is a great example of this medieval attitude to class trumping race: complaining that she's being told not to fight, she stresses her class: "I am of the house of Eorl & not a serving woman". She claims her rights, not as a woman, but as a member of the warrior class and the ruling family. Similarly in Renaissance Venice a doge protested the practice which saw 80% of noble women locked into convents for life: if these had been men they would have been "born to command & govern the world". Their class ought to have exempted them from discrimination on the basis of sex.

So, tip #1 for writing medieval women: remember that their class always outweighed their gender. They might be subordinate to the men within their own class, but not to those below.

SECOND. Whereas Victorians saw women's highest calling as marriage & children - the "angel in the house" ennobling & improving their men on a spiritual but rarely practical level - Medievals by contrast prized virginity/celibacy above marriage, seeing it as a way for women to transcend their sex. Often as nuns, saints, mystics; sometimes as warriors, queens, & ladies; always as businesswomen & merchants, women could & did forge their own paths in life

When Elizabeth I claimed to have "the heart & stomach of a king" & adopted the persona of the virgin queen, this was the norm she appealed to. Women could do things; they just had to prove they were Not Like Other Girls. By Elizabeth's time things were already changing: it was the Reformation that switched the ideal to marriage, & the Enlightenment that divorced femininity from reason, aggression & public life.

For more on this topic, read Katherine Hager's article "Endowed With Manly Courage: Medieval Perceptions of Women in Combat" on women who transcended gender to occupy a liminal space as warrior/virgin/saint.

So, tip #2: remember that for medieval women, wife and mother wasn't the ideal, virgin saint was the ideal. By proving yourself "not like other girls" you could gain significant autonomy & freedom.

Finally a bonus tip: if writing about medieval women, be sure to read writing on women's issues from the time so as to understand the terms in which these women spoke about & defended their ambitions. Start with Christine de Pisan.

I learned all this doing the reading for WATCHERS OF OUTREMER, my series of historical fantasy novels set in the medieval crusader states, which were dominated by strong medieval women! Book 5, THE HOUSE OF MOURNING (forthcoming 2023) will focus, to a greater extent than any other novel I've ever yet read or written, on the experience of women during the crusades - as warriors, captives, and political leaders. I can't wait to share it with you all!