#before i was on tumblr i was on facebook posting the most heinous things as a kid

[derpinette]

there should be a poke feature here like there used to be on facebook

[sansimeonsims]

On Politics, History, and Blog Policy

"Who Controls the Past Controls the Future" - George Orwell, Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949)

It's almost election season here, and things are getting pretty heated.

Nothing makes people do dirty things in this country better than politics. The angry Filipino netizen who sends death threats to someone who criticizes their pet politician is a well entrenched stereotype both here and abroad. One of the casualties of this hostile, heavily politicized climate is history.

Unfortunately, it's become impossible to be neutral just by being historically accurate or authentic. History was removed from the Philippine general education curriculum and political disinformation often relies on historical negationism and distortion on a wide scale. Too many people today parrot blatant falsehoods like the fictitious states of Ophir and Maharlika, or the crackpot theory that Jose Rizal was Jack the Ripper and Hitler’s grandfather.

Thus, while I can do my best to keep this blog and related social media accounts nonpartisan, I cannot keep it nonpolitical. This page cannot be truly "politically neutral" on the matter of history. If an entire politician's campaign revolves around lying about history, anything I post will be in opposition to it by default. After all, nobody but a fascist or a communist hardliner will ever sing praises of Hitler or Stalin.

I made a solemn promise on my Facebook page that my project will not be used for political endorsement of candidates. My full policy is as follows. Italicized and bolded bits are added for context, as this will remain up long after the time of writing until updated. Bolded items are part of the original text, but emphasized.

I do not *endorse* candidates on this page, or anything else in my social media related to my Sims 3 projects. All political material is restricted to my personal accounts. Anything I share in seeming favor of a candidate was done before most of the active campaigning began some time in the past two months (i.e. before November 2021, 6 months before the Philippine General Election). Any subsequent PSA that comes from their offices that I share does not equate endorsement.

This page does take a stand when it comes to actual politicized hot-button issues related to matters of history and to a lesser extent video gaming. I do make sure that I focus on the issue rather than the personalities behind it. I believe I made my stance on historical distortion and the destruction of heritage structures clear both [on Facebook] and on Tumblr. That it may involve named politicians is irrelevant to the matter.

None of the restrictions apply to a politician who is already dead. They can't run for office. Camilo García de Polavieja can burn in Hell.

Now, the last one is important. If you somehow feel that my criticisms of an already dead person affect an existing candidate, that's on you. You are free to unfollow my project if it bugs you enough.

I have spent the past few years cultivating goodwill through my work in recreating history in a long-outdated game. Now, the reach of this game is restricted to a very small community and I don't want to alienate people who want to learn about history. But like it or not, there are political factions that base their entire existence on a distortion of history, mostly to hide their crimes against humanity. Through this project, I hoped to invite people to learn along with me. Sometimes the lesson I learn is "this guy was an even bigger scumbag than I previously thought."

History is a long list of people doing heinous things to one another. If we don't learn from this, we are doomed to repeat the mistakes (or worse, atrocities) committed by our ancestors. In the interests of transparency, I chose a policy that puts the emphasis on the crimes committed in the past, and let the sources speak for themselves on who is the person to blame.

Summing up. I will not use my Sims 3 pages to endorse a living politician in any capacity. I can guarantee that my opinions will be restricted on my personal accounts. That said, a dead politician is fair game.

[knightsandjedis]

Let the pettiness commence

Let me be frank here when stating that if the quarantine weren’t happening I would probably remain the type of blogger to just re-blog posts without commenting or making my own posts. I enjoy looking at things more than commenting what can I say? I should say thanks and welcome to all the followers I’ve gained these past few years. You all are awesome and hope you all are staying safe during these troublesome times!

Alright, I’m going from civil to petty here and I should forewarn you if you’re a fan of Sarah J. Maas and her novels you’ll prefer to stay away then listen to my rant. Just being polite and giving a heads up.

Listen, there are periods where atrocious books become a major part of trending pop culture. Eventually, the hype dies down and people can take a deep inhale of relief. Around the 2010s time-period, the hype was focused on Twilight books. No matter where you went you felt suffocated by the hyper-fixation people had on this series. I’ll be honest I was an avid Twilight lover for a period until I wised up and had to recognize these books are horrendous and having a bad influence on teens during my era. Teens were getting Aids from drinking each other’s blood literally, they were drinking someone’s blood literally. While they’re still popular main society’s attention has begun to wane.

Pop culture has an new interest in Sarah J. Maas’s series: Throne of Glass (ToG) and A Court of Thorns and Roses (ACOTAR). At one time I was part of the fan-base obsessed with her books. During a bleak period where every book I purchased ending up a dud despite strong premises; Maas’s first books, in both series, were a breath of fresh air. They had characters you found hysterical and enjoyed the story-lines (even though the storytelling was meh at times) and you couldn’t help anticipating future novels to see where the novels took these characters. Both series died for me at the books: Queen of Shadows and A Court of Mist and Fury.

These novels were my wake-up call to Maas’ manipulative storytelling patterns and her inconsistent characterizations. She completely morphs characters depending on the scenario. A noble, decent character is turned heinous to either add unnecessary drama or to make readers turn their affections towards another character Maas’ manipulates into becoming “the hero”- typically a love interest. Usually, the first-or second in TOG- love interests are noble characters with a few flaws but nothing to make readers despise them other than the fact they’re not the prettiest men in the series. Literally, readers adore the male characters that are otherworldly attractive than an average looking male who is humane and unproblematic. Problematic much? The message I’m receiving is you should fall in love with a pretty face rather than explore the person’s entire being (this includes past history, personality, characterization, etc).

People will say I’m petty because I’m annoyed Chaol and Tamlin did not remain the love interests. This is absolutely untrue. I’m annoyed Maas had to pull absolute garbage reasoning out of her ass to make the characters despicable.

Let’s start with Throne of Glass. Celaena (I refuse to call her Aelin because the name visually repulses me, it sounds like something Maas stole out of better high fantasy novels) realizes she doesn’t find Dorian compatible and finds Chaol more of an equal. Chaol has flaws but his main one seems to be he’s good-looking but only average in comparison to Dorian and Rowan- whose sex on legs apparently. Maas realizes people will deny Rowan as a love interest (after he gets into a punching match with Celaena) so she has to make Celaena despise Chaol and interact towards him with hostility despite her recognition Chaol had his reasoning's for certain events in previous novels. Then, Maas takes Chaol’s character, who is known for being awkward around women and loyal to a fault, and make him have one night stands, cheating on women, and apparently the scapegoat for everything that goes wrong because Celaena can’t own up she made mistakes. Nehemia also died to give Celaena that necessary push to go against the king but it’s entirely Chaol’s fault for Nehemia’s death since Celaena can do no wrong. Horseshit I say.

Dorian is not a match, Chaol is the bane of Celaena’s existence so Rowan is her champion. Gag. I actually liked Rowan in Heir of Fire but I found it repulsive how Celaena keeps throwing herself at him in Queen of Shadows and growing dependent on him. When she put him in a bath and started throwing her favorite shampoos in I found it to be the most awkward scene. It’s a moment someone with limited knowledge of sexual encounters would conjure up. “Let me give my love interest a bubble bath!” I’ve read these type of bath scenes in other novels but they’re more maturely done. Although I have to remember these books are written for teens. Then, they become mates. A contradicting setup because he had a mate in the past. But, no one is compatible unless they’re mates in Maas’ world. So, mates are stuck together and seem to have a servant/master relationship in certain portions of the stories. Yuck, just yuck.

Readers if you have to state someone is someone else’s mate so you’re aware they’re a thing then it’s probably not a healthy relationship since you’re staying they own that person in Maas’ world-building.

I’m going to stop while I’m ahead when writing about Rowan and Caelena because they repulse me. Buuuttt not to the same extent as Feyre and Rhysand. I absolutely despise these characters with every fiber of my being. This is one of the most unhealthiest relationships I’ve ever read. Before I jump into why they’re disgusting let me just say I love how everybody hopped on the Feyre adoration bandwagon only when she got into a relationship with Rhysand. Nobody liked her until she got.into.a.relationship.with.Rhysand. Wow!

Listen, I understand why Feyre couldn’t stay with Tamlin after what he did (ahem what Maas decided he should do). However contradictory Tamlin’s characterization was the relationship had turned unhealthy. Yetttt, no one batted an eye with Rhysand was giving Feyre date rape drugs, forcing her to give him lap dances making her sick when she came out of the haze, and her being entirely repulsed when he made-out with her. Plus, I read Rhysand as a gay or bi character when he was introduced. I think he would be a better character as a gay male seeking a friendship than their disgusting love story. He goes from giving her roofies and at least seeming like a morally gray character to Feyre’s champion. Yeah, not buying the bullshit.

I pity Tamlin’s character truly- he was butchered beyond recognition. He goes from allowing Feyre to wander to her heart’s extent- as long as she wasn’t in dangerous areas- to locking her up because he thought it made sense. He’s suddenly possessive of her in the most disgusting ways (but Rhysand isn’t possessive in the slightest even when he calls Feyre his “mate!”). All these details were added to make Rhys’ character more heroic. Rhys goes from being a somewhat tolerable character in his actions to a fucking messiah. Rhysand goes from roofie expert to whisking Feyre away for her own safety. Rhysand assists Feyre under the mountain unlike Tamlin! (Because the queen didn’t give a shit about Rhysand and he wasn’t under her radar to the extent as Tamlin). He loves reading stories with Feyre unlike Tamlin. (Hmm, Tamlin offers to teach Feyre to read which she stubbornly refuses because she’s independent but Rhysand forces her to learn and he’s romantic!). And gasp, Tamlin ended up being the one who murdered Rhysand’s family hence their animosity (hahahaha how desperate are you Maas, I mean seriously how pathetic). Feyre, just like Caelena, was forced into this relationship with another abuser painted as a hero in storytelling. Rhysand and Rowan are constructed into heroes to make their disgusting actions justifiable in comparison to Chaol and Tamlin’s ruined characters.

I’m mostly focused on the main relationships since that’s all I keep hearing about. Changing subjects briefly, Maas’ does not acknowledge PoC or LGBTQIA unless readers are pointing out lack of representation. If they’re introduced you’re guaranteed either they die to promote the white lead’s agenda or forced to become a villain. What kind of statement does that make, Maas???? Also, her world-building is beyond odd. Random characters get introduced in weird scenarios that she has to force into the story-line just for sprucing purposes (Manon and the 12 and the 12 princesses from Earth or whatever). Really, what were the purposes of these characters???? And these kingdoms are written so bad. One realm has everyone wearing Renaissance era clothing while the next realm has people dressing hipster I mean wtf?

The reason for my rant is that I needed to get it out of my system. Lately, I cannot get away from these garbage novels. I’m on my Kindle the books are recommended. I’m on Goodreads her books are recommended and keep winning Book of the Year despite better novels being on the same list. I go on Facebook someone mentions deciding to give the series a spin under quarantine. I’m on tumblr (if you’re a fan then that’s fine, enjoy what you love) and artwork keeps popping up. I love it’s typically Feyre giving Rhysand lap-dances in the earlier part of the series where she’s desolate and sicken by these moments. People are quite forgetful when they want to ignore something in order to make Rhysand babe. I wish I knew how to block anything Sarah J Maas on here because I’m trying to escape. I want to read other authors’ novels and not have Maas’ smug face pop up on my recommendation lists. (Her books are on every list on Goodreads- every freaking list!) Hopefully, when quarantine ends the hype will quiet again but I’m getting ticked off here.

Just had to get it off my chest. I’ll probably go back to quietly ignoring the recommendations and artwork but I’m having a moment here.

[chaseagainstonision]

A personal call out post

Let me preface this with having y'all not send her hate. I just wanted to bring awareness to this on Twitter as well as here becuaes I'm agitated and fed of with people who are constantly toxic to those around them and having stans/simps who back them up at every turn and enable them.

---------------------

I wanted to talk about @babblingartblog @naughtybabs and the drama I have surrounding her. I want to cover some of this: https://drive.google.com/drive/u/1/folders/17c7F4GZXCVtqVqKPXNc4lWHS0T9pHZz2 and touch on some of the bigger things in each folder since I didn't quite do that last time since I was pissed.

Note that these folders will constantly be updating. I still have some caps that I have not tossed in these folder as I have not edited out usernames for privacy reasons. I have a folder on my desktop that is also uncensored for my own reference.

Starting off with Art and Caps (https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1J_dwVDk396Cx-gZROZqK1dCB2ih5LJ6E?usp=sharing), this should be pretty straight forward. Some videos I have here are of her blatently tracing or stealing images from Google or elsewhere. I have tried to find sources for as many of these as I could. No true artist worth their salt would actually trace for a piece, especially not for commissions. Some of the other images are just some critiquing and stuff. The critiques are just personal gripes about her art that I feel could be improved upon.

For Facebook (https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/11-374WefqZaE4YWVC3HNpsyWLrnkF6Or?usp=sharing), a few things stand out more than others. The first thing is something that happened at a larp she attended. She claims that she didn't do this, but multiple other people attest otherwise. It's an incident where she tried to break up a married couple and call the man's wife a bitch and what have you. She's also expressed some rather NSFW kinks/fetishes in these larp spaces that have made others uncomfortable. She had even gotten temporarily kicked from one larp group due to these actions. Another thing that stands out more than others is her promise to change and then falling right back into old habits. There are several of these posts and I think also a few tweets, but I'll touch of tweets further down. Anyway, there are countless times that people have told her that she needs help and needs to be a better person and she basically just shrugs it off and keeps up with her toxicity.

The final thing that I'd like to touch on in this section that's a red flag is how she treated her former place of residence. Without going into too much detail as I don't want to involve her former roomies in this more than I have to. She's claimed numerous times that her former residence was abusive when it wasn't anywhere near what she's said. She was the one creating a toxic environment and people were getting tired of her shit. Between her quitting jobs with no good reason, to not paying rent and spending what should have been rent money on larps and fast food and other such luxuries and accusing a former roomie of something heinous, she brought down the mental health of everyone in that house.

There are various other things that you can look through that I haven't even touched upon that set off more red flags. There were also some DMs that I had omitted that I won't release but can summarize if need be later. Also, I realize that some of these caps are ant sized, so if you need me to transcribe them, feel free to ask.

For Tumblr and Misc (https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/152bkOkTiH4ZfWk3t9g3JhHMwSz2J-YjT?usp=sharing), there's not much there. Just some asks about the larp things I mentioned in the Facebook section, her GoFundMe, which I'll also touch upon in the Twitter section, and some caps from Youtube about her tracing.

For Twitter (https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1pGqz6qTFuvKZDYPuxQTk6CLxGgJokYa8?usp=sharing), there are a ton of caps. There are only a few things that stuck out to my with these caps, too. Outside of the Hazbin Hotel drama, that is, since there are quite a bit of caps there.

The first is the most recent and the thing that kicked me sharing all of this originally. It relates to a Slenderman series creator names Adam Rosner who was outed as a piece of shit who did some unsavory things with a few people underage, as well as some other horrible, heinous shit. She claimed to be friends with him and that she "still can't believe that [she] ignored [her] gut" about how much of a creep he actually was. I called her out the two times that she spoke out about this because I knew, from personal experience and from also knowing Adam and interacting with him at a limited capacity (I just thought he was kind of a snob originally and was fame hungry), that she had been lying and had only really been an acquaintance, much like myself, and also had limited interactions with him.

Touching on the GoFundMe that I mentioned earlier, though, and she admitted that she, herself, donated her $1400 stimulus check from 2020 to inflate the amount she received from her GFM. The GFM was taken poorly from some former friends as she owns them money and she, instead of trying to pay some of that back, dumped her money in the GFM to inflate it.

She's also brought up a few times where she would like friends who wouldn't crucify her and that calling her out on her bad behavior and holding her to a standard means that you're stalking her or being mean or something. This piggy backs off of the point from the FB section about her saying she'll get better then doesn't.

For Videos and Caps (https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1vukA5KmVvbF56pC91GGD4s-FCZaXwW6W?usp=sharing), there are uhh... some questionable things in here.

The first is stuff that I had transcribed since it's in parts. This, against, cycles back to her attempts at fundraising for herself. She had gotten angry about various BLM protesters had gotten money for bail and lawyers and what not and that no one was, essentially, donating to her cause donating to small creators isn't "trendy" or "popular" or some such nonsense. Then, tried to back peddle by saying that capitalism sucks and how she shouldn't had used her GFM to compare to BLM but that the poor, LGBT+, black, etc aren't accessories or something but really still giving a nonapology.

Which brings be to a related but not really point about the stutter that she had. She's done this weirdly forced stutter in a few videos and I asked around if it was a thing that she had done before and it wasn't and is, indeed, a forced reaction to garner sympathy.

Swinging back around the the fundraisers she posted on FB and the bit about her roomies, there was a video that she had made accusing one former roomie of some nasty things, as well, when it never happened. The actual story, without getting into too much detail, was that she had pined after this roomie for a bit and was enamored with him but he had (and still has) a girlfriend.

As for the other videos, there's just a lot of depressed posting and what not. Like, a lot of depressed posting.

Some general statements: Normally I wouldn't dump on some of these things if it were anyone else, but knowing her personally and talking to some former friends and what have you and knowing how she is after all of this observation, there have been a lot of red flags that popped up. Like, I'm not here to victim blame or laugh at someone over mental illness or any of that shit. But I also know that she siphons personality traits and whatnot from the people around her.

[toplesstopics]

Website post: https://www.toplesstopics.org/join-freethenipple-fight-re-uploading-video/

DOWNLOAD THE UNCENSORED VERSION FOR RE-UPLOAD: https://vimeo.com/258899988

DOWNLOAD THE CENSORED VERSION (if you must): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2uhTBb2nOQ

Hello, fellow fighters for topfree equality! As you may have gathered from my last few posts to the website, I’ve been having a very rough time with ALL the social media sites growing ever more aggressive in their constant banning and censoring of my #freethenipple content, even on years-old videos, even when I have all the heinous female nipples censored out!

So, all that stuff I said before about when and why I was going on hiatus remains true–for the foreseeable future, I’m done making new content for Topless Topics. Without reprising this whole post, the TL;DR version is simply that I’m too exhausted right now to spend so much time and energy making the videos, AND dealing with the haters, AND dealing with the websites themselves constantly taking down my stuff. So I’m outtie, I’m keeping the content I already made up for as long as I can (Vimeo is paid through for the next few months at least, as for Youtube etc. well it depends when they ban another years-old video and hit me with the final strike that means my whole account will get erased). So feel free to keep rewatching the old videos if you miss me, I’m sure there are some out there that you haven’t seen before, or might be worth rewatching!

Or, better yet, please make your own #freethenipple content and send me a link so I can feature it here! It can be a whole video, a picture, even just a written post on Tumblr–the important part is that you MAKE YOURSELF HEARD, not just as a byline comment on a video someone else made (which btw your comments will get deleted along with the video if/when it’s taken down). However much you are willing and able, take part in the fight, and bring awareness to those who haven’t thought about the gender discrimination of topless laws before, or maybe who have a skewed view on equality that they might be willing to change if they read a sufficiently compelling argument.

However, if you’re stuck on what to write/post/do, or you feel too vulnerable in your personal life to take the risk of being an outspoken advocate for #freethenipple, I have another option for you:

Consider this my official endorsement and indeed ENCOURAGEMENT that you download this video and re-upload it to your own account!

That’s right! I’m ENCOURAGING you to download this video and upload it to your own accounts, whether that’s Youtube, Facebook, MeWe, your own private website–wherever, whenever you are willing to post it, please do!!

Will you get your social media account banned if you post the uncensored version? Probably, but we can’t make progress towards equality if we don’t take on some risks. Also, you can make an anonymous alternate account to upload to, if that’s your fear!

Will you get rude and/or weird comments and insults for posting this video? Probably, but at least most of the comments will be about -me- as the subject of the video! Also, if you honestly want to see nipple equality become a thing in our lifetime, we can’t be afraid of speaking out for fear of what others might say about us! As long as you know -yourself- that you’re in this for equality, not some weird fetish or whatever other dumb insult others try to use to shame you into silence, then who cares what others think! (Don’t get fired at your job for my sake though, please x.x)

I’m looking now into the best way to upload the video file so that you can just click a link and download it. Until I figure that out, please use Vimeo’s “download video” feature, which I have enabled on this video.

!Here is a guide for how to download Vimeo videos that have that option enabled!

Here is also the full, uncut version of this video, which I filmed with very little planning and a lot of anger so please understand that my anger is directed at these websites for constantly banning me, not at you, my very valued supporters!! It’s true I get frustrated that I have a hard time finding others willing to make topless videos like I do myself, but I also understand it takes quite a lot of bravery and privilege to be able to make these videos without fear of getting fired from a job, ostracized by family, etc. So please forgive my frustration, I’m really just mad that we seem to be unable to make any progress towards topfree equality, year after year!

But I’m choosing to go out on a hopeful note, even though it juxtaposes with me “giving up.” I’m taking a breather, yes, but I’m doing so in the hopes that others will “pick up the torch” and continue the work in my place. It’s never too late to join the fight for equality, or any cause that you care about! Just be loud, be proud, and don’t let anonymous internet haters scare you into silence! Their insults mean nothing, and together we are strong!

Until next time!

~Cleo

[thefeministbibliothecary]

CW - general transphobia, sexism, all the JK Rowling shit, etc

So. I have some thoughts. Most of you are surely aware that JK Rowling has had some heinously bad takes, and that recently she has doubled down on a campaign of disseminating transphobic bigotry. Her words and actions lately have been truly appalling, and it's something I've definitely been struggling with privately (separating the art from the artist, whether or not I can continue to enjoy a series of books that not only improved my childhood and influenced me immensely but that also were there for me when I struggled a lot despite knowing that the author is bringing harm to a huge swathe of the public), but it's something that I have largely chosen to deal with on my own rather than write about it. I don't have any words that haven't been said by other readers and writers, and probably better than I could say it, and many have certainly spoken from a greater position of impact than I ever could. I have shared on facebook, retweeted on twitter, and reblogged on tumblr posts that I hope make clear that I think her behaviour and words have been heinous, and that this page will never tolerate transphobia in any way. The things she has been saying have gone down a path of not just intense transphobia, but have emphasized incredibly ableist narratives as well, which are definitely hard to read as a disabled woman. Some of her most recent posts regarding what she will and will not ignore on social media (note: will ignore porn sent to children sharing their art; will not ignore people misrepresenting her in her eyes), have been disturbing to say the least. If I'm honest though, I feel wholly unqualified and inadequate to give these issues my own words. I do intend to continue to uplift others, and I wholeheartedly condemn the things she is saying and doing. 

That's not what I wanted to talk about in the moment, but it is relevant, and I don't feel that I can adequately say what I came here to say without first making clear that transphobia is not acceptable under any circumstances and the transphobia that has led me to write this post is heinous and harmful. Any transphobic comments that might appear will lead to the commenter being blocked as the safety of my trans followers is of the utmost importance to me. 

The tweet in the image below is what I wanted to talk about. While many of us condemn the things Rowling has said, unfortunately there are still many transphobic bigots who support Rowling, especially in the name of women's rights. Naturally this has led to a lot of TERF takes online, written on a variety of subjects. In this case, we see a person argue that women authors before Rowling were unheard of. Women authors before 1997 did not exist. This is not true, obviously, and while I have seen others criticize this user for not having at least googled this basic fact, I think it's actually fairly clear that this user had no interest in fact checking, but was more interested in reminding readers of the impact Rowling has had on the literary world post-Harry Potter. While her impact and influence is undeniable (and is the reason we are all aware of her horrendously bad opinions), I think this notion is insidious specifically because it ignores the realities of the women who laid the groundwork before, during, and after Rowling that has given us the literary landscape we have today. 

I have constructed a blog and social media presence under the name The Feminist Bibliothecary. This is because feminism is important to me, books are important to me, and the only way I can be totally satisfied is when the two are combined. For me, this looks like understanding a diverse and broad history of literature, especially written by women and by a broad variety of marginalised groups and people. It can be easy to feel hurt and overwhelmed when someone so influential, someone so many of us were personally influenced by, has posted something so harmful so many times. It can be especially frustrating to see her awful statements supported by so many, and to see people support her specifically because she is an influential woman is frustrating when people specifically identify her as though she were the only, the first, or the most important influential woman. 

And so we come to the reason for my post: This is a reminder that women have been writing for as long as writing has been a tool of humanity. Women have influenced literature for millennia. While it’s okay to be sad that these things are being said, this is a great chance to remind ourselves of the ways women have influenced the world through literature across hundreds of generations. This is both because the poster of this tweet is very wrong, and because I think it’s important for readers to acknowledge the vital history of literature that we can all hold on to.

The earliest recorded poet and the earliest author whose name we know was Enheduanna, a Sumerian High Priestess whose work writing poetry and hymns took place roughly 4300 years ago. 

Murasaki Shikibu lived in eleventh century Japan, and she was a lady-in-waiting at the Imperial court. Her book, The Tale of Genji, is based within the Imperial court, and it is the earliest known novel in history. 

Many 19th century English language works of literature were written by women, although most courses on 19th century English language literature fail to mention more than a few women authors. Jane Austen, Mary Shelley, Harriet Ann Jacobs, Anne Bronte, Charlotte Bronte, Emily Bronte, Harriet E. Wilson, Elizabeth Gaskell, George Eliot, Kate Chopin, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Louisa May Alcott, Francis Watkins Harper, and countless others. 

Women are among the earliest science fiction and fantasy writers. These include Margaret Cavendish (1623-1673), an English writer known for her sci-fi utopian novel The Blazing World; Mary Shelley (1797-851) famously wrote Frankenstein when she was only a teenager and published it at the age of twenty; Gertrude Barrows Bennett (1884-1948) wrote novels ranging from dystopian to lost world and is considered to have invented dark fantasy. 

In more recent decades, many women have created many modern classics of science fiction and fantasy, including the authors Octavia E. Butler, Ursula K. Le Guin, Madeleine L’Engle, Jane Yolen, and Anne McCaffrey, all of whom have been publishing since at least the seventies (many since before that), all of whom wrote for decades, and some of whom are still living and writing today.

The first young adult novel was The Outsiders (1967) by S.E. Hinton when she was only a teenager. In the decades since, women have continued to have a strong presence in young adult literature, often dominating the category. 

Not only do writers pave the way for other writers, but activists often pave the way for writers of the future, especially writers of the most marginalised identities. Thanks to these activists, today we also see many more BIPOC authors, disabled authors, LGBTQIA+ authors, and more. 

I think the best thing we can do here is to recognise the countless women who have contributed to literature in the past and continue to do so in the present. We don’t need to excuse transphobia to do that. We don’t need to cling to one deeply problematic person to do that. Instead, let’s take this opportunity to explore the diverse elements of literary history and to support authors changing the literary landscape today. I’ve included some links for ideas for your next novel.

8 Fantasy Novels by Trans and Nonbinary Authors https://electricliterature.com/8-fantasy-novels-by-trans-and-nonbinary-authors/

15 Trans, Nonbinary, and Gender Non-Conforming Writers to Support

https://bookriot.com/trans-non-binary-authors/

25 Black Queer Books to Honour Protests and Pride Month

https://www.lambdalegal.org/blog/20200612_25-anti-racist-black-queer-books

10 #OwnVoices YA Books with Trans and Nonbinary Characters

https://www.epicreads.com/blog/ya-books-with-trans-characters/

20 Books to Read if You Want to Get Into Black Sci-Fi and Fantasy

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ariannarebolini/best-afrofuturism-books-black-speculative-science-fiction

Queer and Trans Black Authors Through the Decades 

https://www.portlandmercury.com/blogtown/2020/06/17/28543690/reading-list-queer-and-trans-black-authors-through-the-decades

10 South Asian LGBTQ Books That Changed My Life

https://www.autostraddle.com/10-south-asian-lgbtq-books-that-are-about-more-than-coming-out-393164/

5 Incredible Two Spirit and Queer Indigenous Writers to Read Right Now

https://caseythecanadianlesbrarian.com/2017/05/12/5-incredible-two-spirit-and-queer-indigenous-writers-to-read-right-now/

[Image description: a tweet from July 6, 2020 reads:

"Not long before Rowling was published, women authors were unheard of

Now, your generation gets to take us further than my generation ever could because we aren't living your lives

But at least acknowledge that we laid the groundwork for you to take us on the next step"]

[simmyshuno]

I’ll be quite honest. I’m terrible at being in communities.

This is a huge TLDR/personal post and seriously, you can ignore. That’s not some manipulation tactic. It’s here for people who want to know genuinely why I keep coming/going the last two years and where my inconsistency is coming from, as well as why I run headfirst into the community and then just disappear without warning.

Sims posts will follow. This is just something I felt I needed to talk about. In short: yes I’m fine. Yes I’m handling things well. No I don’t need crisis care. I’m actually doing well considering. Sims has always been my go-to comfort. I didn’t know about the community until I met @invadersim many moons ago on LiveJournal, and Tumblr was in it’s infancy. As well as the things mentioned under the cut, I also feel like I’ve withdrawn from social media a lot since I turned 30 (I’m 31 now). I just stopped needing to belong and sort of settled in where I was at. Like I said, Sims have been my comfort. Sometimes I sit on Facetime with another IRL friend who also Sims and we just chat like one would on Skype only with our games running and Facetime going on our iPads. It’s fun. She discovered my game is utter chaos incarnate while she micromanages everything. She likes hearing me talk about my builds. I like hearing about the random TV show characters in her game that she tosses in (like the shenanigans her Dean Winchester Sim gets up to). Sims, to me, is ‘home’. The place you return to on holidays when you’ve been away to school or the warm cup of tea waiting for you during a cold, snowy day. Sims is my home away from home - when other games have frustrated me, or when my mental health is doing poorly and I either cannot focus on anything or I’m too depressed or anxious to do much at all. Which, leads into the TLDR portion.

So my last time posting was August I believe. I had just installed TS4 for the first time and was leery. I’ll say this now: I fucking love TS4 and probably won’t go back to fix my TS3 game ever to play it. It became my new go-to comfort and I’m loving that I am still learning things about TS4 that I didn’t already know. With TS3, I knew so much about the game that it started to become boring. I was always adding mods and CC and then just doing the same old boring shit in my games.

Right now I don’t have “Cats and Dogs” but I have everything else, so it’s forcing me to play the rest of the game without the addition of pets. It’s nice. I also don’t use much CC and I have only one core mod in my game (I don’t even use MC right now). It’s just nice playing a completely vanilla game. I can think of a dozen things I want to recolor (and thanks to @blindingechoes teaching me now, I likely will sometime early 2018) but otherwise I’m enjoying things again: enjoying building. Enjoying the gameplay. Enjoying how smoothly things run. But that’s not really why I’m posting. I’ve had my inbox filled with worried messages and I want to address things for those who don’t have me on Facebook already.

Yes I’ve been dealing with a malignant narcissist and yes this person was once a close friend, and yes I knew they truly had diagnosed sociopath behaviors but I also knew them for so long that I had the totally naive thought of it could never be me. The thing with abuse is, the second you think that? It’s likely already too late. I should’ve seen things coming and I didn’t until it was too much at once and I decided to cut this person out (their version of the story is that they cut me out first which is not true, and I have ‘receipts’ to prove this).

This person did truly heinous things to me between the end of January 2017 until October 2017, when things finally stopped. I won’t get into major detail (though this post is marked so anyone browsing in safe mode won’t get to see it, I feel a lot of people following me are slightly younger and I don’t feel anyone really needs to know details) but some of the things done to me over nine months were: having my personal info (name, address, phone number, mother’s name - who is sick (she’s had many strokes and lives with me so I can take care of her) - as well as her personal number posted (ie, doxxing) online to a website which is notorious for some crimes in the past (members who met up and literally plotted to kill their families and succeeded). It’s home to a lot of skeevy, disgusting people and this person literally outed my personal information to thousands of people who are potentially dangerous.

From that moment on I spent three months having child pornography, gore porn/snuff, gory images of dead animals and the type of stuff you’d find on Rotten or Ogrish on my damn phone - being texted daily - by throwaway numbers. I reported this to my phone company and blocked all the numbers I could but it didn’t stop. I did everything I could but in the end I was the one who was losing their phone service as a result of “breaching telecommunications laws” and had to pay a fine of 400-something dollars (I forget the exact amount, I do have copies of the legal docs though), as well as paying to have my phone turned back on.

I acquired paperwork for a restraining order but couldn’t serve it until recently. I have been working with a defamation and libel lawyer pro bono to get this person to leave me alone. They’ve made threats to “skin my cat”, to “throw acid on me in the street” as well as to have one of their junkie friends who is HIV positive “throw their used needles at them like darts”. I have copies of the messages where these discussions and plans were made.

Cops most definitely were notified. It has been a huge drawn out process and they’re basically claiming they’re “mentally ill and won’t go to jail” even though they’ve been harassing and abusing me for nine months straight. There is so much more than what I posted above but needless to say, when this all became really freaking bad I just left the internet. I stopped posting on a lot of places and that was when I came back to the Simblr community then promptly left again.

Around this time I started prepping for Preptober which is the month of October where those of us who do Nanowrimo (National Novel Writing Month) start prepping for November and our novel. On October 29th, right before the Kick Off party our Nanowrimo region holds, our ML (Municipal Liaison) -and close friend of mine- was found at his home unresponsive by another writer friend and after being taken to hospital by them, was found to have three brain tumors. The primary cancer ended up being in his kidneys (three more tumors) and the secondary cancer was the tumors in his brain. He went for surgery immediately and his current treatment is radiation as palliative care. I don’t think I need to explain more where this is going.

November was busy as I had to step up as ML and run a region of 200 writers where we had write-in’s (where you go to write with a group of Wrimos, or what we call Nanowrimo participants) leaving me running these groups 6 days a week (I took one day off) from 6-9pm and sometimes two in a day (9am-12pm, then 6pm-9pm). I have severe agoraphobia and social anxiety so you can imagine how difficult this was. While mentally and physically exhausting (it also screwed with my sleep schedule which is already a mess from a sleep disorder) it was one of the best November’s I had in awhile because I had always wanted to be ML but it was legit so fucking exhausting I had no time for anything else.

No gaming. No Sims. No social media. Nothing. Things have sort of evened out now but since it’s December I’m back to feeling irrevocably depressed (holidays always do that as I’m 1) poor, literally at the poverty line despite being on disability so I can’t afford anything for myself or others at Christmas and this also means no celebrations with dinner or decorations because all of my money is spoken for. As well I have no where to go/no family to be with.

Secondly, I’m finally catching up on the screwed up sleep schedule of November. As a result I’m sleeping 20 hours a day sometimes. I’m awake maybe 10-12 hours and back to sleep again. It’s terrible. I also had walking pneumonia all of November and I’m still sick from that. It’s a huge clusterfuck and things were just terrible. If it wasn’t for coping skills from CBT and DBT I seriously don’t know how I would’ve managed the last year.

ON THE PLUS THOUGH - even though this month is hell and I’ve no where to go, I’m playing the Sims again and plan to post screenshots and random things and re-engage with the community as much as possible. If you read it this far, you’re awesome and thank you.

In terms of uploads and such, I won’t have anything for awhile. I’m using a pirated copy of the game as I have no way to buy it online from Origin (I’ve no money to be spending on gifts and I don’t expect it as a gift or anything so it’s not likely something I’ll be owning legitimately for quite some time). The game version I have doesn’t get updated often and I don’t want to risk breaking my game and having to do a huge re-install just to add “Cats and Dogs” as well as game client updates so I can’t be sure anything I create or recolor will work with your guys’ games. 

Thanks for sticking around and sorry to keep leaving but hopefully this gives some idea of why I’ve just not been around and neglected things.