#writer's rights

[thatrandomblogsays]

I’m so happy for them

[Image Description: Castiel from Supernatural is saying I love you, underneath is an image of Dean Winchester with the caption: “After four months of striking the WGA has a reached a tentative agreement & finalizing the contract. If all goes well writers will get to return to work with better pay and protections. They did it. Go unions”]

(Source)

[soy-sauce-and-mothra]

Hey! Are there blacksmiths in your story? I'm a hobbyist blacksmith and I'm here to help!

Blacksmithing is one of those things that a lot of people get wrong because they don't realize it stuck around past the advent of the assembly line. Here's a list of some common misconceptions I see and what to do instead!

Not all blacksmiths are gigantic terrifying muscly guys with beards and deep voices. I am 5'8, skinny as a twig, have the muscle mass of wet bread, and exist on Tumblr. Anybody who is strong enough to pick up a hammer and understands fire safety can be a blacksmith.

You can make more than just swords with blacksmithing. Though swords are undeniably practical, they're not the only things that can be made. I've made candle holders, wall hooks, kebab skewers, fire pokers, and more. Look up things other people have made, it's really amazing what can be done.

"Red-hot" is actually not that hot by blacksmith terms. when heated up, the metal goes from black, to red, to orange, to yellow, to white. (for temperature reference, I got a second degree burn from picking up a piece of metal on black heat) The ideal color to work with the metal is yellow. White is not ideal at all, because the metal starts sparking and gets all weird and lumpy when it cools. (At no point in this process does the metal get even close to melting. It gets soft enough to work with, but I have never once seen metal become a liquid.)

Blacksmithing takes fucking forever. Not even taking into account starting the forge, selecting and preparing metal, etc. etc. it takes me around an hour to make one (1) fancy skewer. The metals blacksmiths work with heat up and cool down incredibly fast. When the forge is going good, it only takes like 20 seconds to get your metal hot enough to work with, but it takes about the same time for it to cool down, sometimes even less.

As long as you are careful, it is actually stupidly easy to not get hurt while blacksmithing. When I picked up this hobby I was like "okay, cool! I'm gonna make stuff, and I'm gonna end up in the hospital at some point!" Thus far, the latter has yet to occur. I've been doing this for nearly a year. I have earned myself a new scar from the aforementioned second degree burn, and one singe mark on my jeans. I don't even wear gloves half the time. Literally just eye protection, common sense, and fast reflexes and you'll probably be fine. (Accidents still happen of course, but I have found adequate safety weirdly easy to achieve with this hobby)

A forge is not a fire. The forge is the thing blacksmiths put their metal in to heat it up. It starts as a small fire, usually with newspaper or something else that's relatively small and burns easily, which we then put in the forge itself, which is sort of a fireplace-esque thing (there's a lot of different types of forge, look into it and try to figure out what sort of forge would make the most sense for the context you're writing about) and we cover it with coal, which then catches fire and heats up. The forge gets really hot, and sometimes really bright. Sometimes when I stare at the forge for too long it's like staring into the sun. The forge is also not a waterfall of lava, Steven Universe. It doesn't work like that, Steven Universe.

Welding and blacksmithing are not the same thing. They often go hand-in-hand, but you cannot connected two pieces of metal with traditional blacksmithing alone. There is something called forge welding, where you heat your metal, sprinkle borax (or the in-universe equivalent) on it to prevent the metal from oxidizing/being non-weldable, and hammer the pieces together very quickly. Forge welding also sends sparks flying everywhere, and if you're working in a small space with other blacksmiths, you usually want to announce that you're welding before you do, so that everyone in a five-foot radius can get out of that five-foot radius. You also cannot just stuck some random pebbles into the forge and get a decent piece of metal that you can actually make something with, Steven Universe. It doesn't work like that, Steven Universe.

Anvils are really fucking heavy. Nothing else to add here.

Making jewelry is not a blacksmithing thing unless you want jewelry made of steel. And it will be very ugly if you try. Blacksmithing wasn't invented to make small things.

If there's anything here I didn't mention, just ask and I'll do my best to answer.

[z34l0t]

[thoughtportal]

join a union

the power of collection action

[multidimensional-trashcan]

and

EDIT:

sure why not:

tags via @littleredplanetnumberfour

EDIT 2:

someone asked for a sag-aftra one:

[littlebigmouse]

"What if my favourite show is delayed due to writers strike?"

With respect, no one cares about your favourite tv shows.

This is about real people fighting for their real livelihoods, for their futures.

I cannot articulate sufficiently how unimportant the production of some tv show or other is.

[annmariethrush]

CAS IS GONE AND DEAN SUDDENLY WANTS TO KILL HIMSELF??? A THING WHICH THEY EXPLICITLY STATE IN THE EPISODE??? THAT DEAN WANTS TO DIE?? AND THEN HE FINDS OUT CAS IS BACK AND ITS LIKE THE WHOLE GODDAMN WORLD IS MADE OF SUNSHINE AND RAINBOWS?? THEY ALMOST ROMEO AND JULIETED THESE BITCHES!!! CAS WAS ALREADY ALIVE AGAIN. DEAN FINDS OUT WITHIN AN HOUR OF GETTING REVIVED AGAINST HIS WILL????

THEY ALMOST ROMEO AND JULIETED DEAN AND CAS ARE YOU FUCKING ME???

[the-spark-bug]

We may face the death of creativity, but we won't go quietly into that goodnight. Rage Against the Machine!

[baby-girl-aaron-dessner]

Palestinian poet, Mahmoud Darwish

[aquitainequeen]

The WGA has two main stipulations. First, the guild wants to make sure that “literary material” — the MBA term for screenplays, teleplays, outlines, treatments, and other things that people write — can’t be generated by an AI. In other words, ChatGPT and its cousins can’t be credited with writing a screenplay. If a movie made by a studio that has an agreement with the WGA has a writing credit — and that’s over 350 of America’s major studios and production companies — then the writer needs to be a person.

“Based on what we’re aiming for in this contract, there couldn’t be a movie that was released by a company that we work with that had no writer,” says August.

Second, the WGA says it’s imperative that “source material” can’t be something generated by an AI, either. This is especially important because studios frequently hire writers to adapt source material (like a novel, an article, or other IP) into new work to be produced as TV or films. However, the payment terms, particularly residual payouts, are different for an adaptation than for “literary material.” It’s very easy to imagine a situation in which a studio uses AI to generate ideas or drafts, claims those ideas are “source material,” and hires a writer to polish it up for a lower rate. “We believe that is not source material, any more than a Wikipedia article is source material,” says August. “That’s the crux of what we’re negotiating.”

In negotiations prior to the strike, the AMPTP refused the WGA’s demands around AI, instead countering with “annual meetings to discuss advancements in technology.”

The looming threat of AI to Hollywood, and why it should matter to you by Alissa Wilkinson

[tommy2020]

I’m a boy and I kiss other boys.

I’m a boy and I was not born a boy.

I’m a boy and I use unconventional pronouns.

I’m a boy and I want to live as a boy.

I’m a boy and I want to be free to say that out loud.

I’m a boy and I want to live without fear of being hurt.

Just like the other boys.

My friend is a girl and she likes boys.

My friend is a girl and she was not born a girl.

My friend is a girl and uses she/her.

My friend is a girl and she wants to be called a girl, not a slur.

My friend is a girl and she should be allowed to live as a girl.

My friend is a girl and she shouldn’t be assaulted because she is a girl.

Just like the other girls.

My sibling is nonbinary and they like every gender.

My sibling is nonbinary and they were not born that way.

My sibling is nonbinary and uses whatever pronouns they feel like.

My sibling is nonbinary and wants to be perceived as a person too.

My sibling is nonbinary and should be allowed to choose what they call themselves.

My sibling is nonbinary and shouldn’t be shoved under the rug because their gender identity “doesn’t make sense”.

Just like other people.

WE ARE PEOPLE.

TRANS RIGHTS ARE HUMAN RIGHTS.

[anneapocalypse]

So, just curious how many writers and creators will have to be forcibly outed by relentless harassment before we acknowledge that "This queer characters was written by a cishet person and that's why they're bad" is not good criticism.

[emeryleewho]

I keep seeing posts talking about the WGA/Sag-Aftra strike, which yes, good, but in all this "support writers" sentiment I'm seeing no one talk about book writers, which I think is something people should know more about right now.

We are at an all-time high for book bans, namely targeting queer & PoC-authored books. This means that a lot of schools and libraries are no longer stocking diverse YA books, and if you're not in publishing, you may not realize this but school & libraries are by far one of the biggest markets for diverse YA books.

This means that in 2023, YA book sales are down. This is also in part because Barnes & Noble (the largest physical book retailer in the U.S.) is no longer really stocking YA hardcovers. This means that marginalized authors and debut authors are struggling to sell books.

But it's a LOT worse than that. In the past couple of years, marginalized authors are *really* struggling to get new book deals. Most books are acquired by a publisher about 2 years before they release to the public, so this isn't all that noticeable yet, but a LOT of marginalized authors I've spoken to (myself included) have been unable to sell a new YA book since 2020. So while I had a book out last year, even if I sell one right now, you won't see it until 2025-2026. That's three to four years without a new release or the income I get from publishing those books.

On top of that, Big 5 publishers have started closing imprints (namely their diverse imprints) and have started telling their marginalized YA authors to just go. I've had multiple authors tell me their publisher basically said, "eh, we don't care to put in the work for you anymore. You can just go somewhere else". Of the authors who *are* getting offered new contracts, we're being offered pay far below the cost of living and we're being handed contracts that split our payments 4 or 5 ways and require we sign over our work to be used to train AI so they can replace us a few years down the road.

Authors are freelancers who own our IPs, which means we can't unionize the way Hollywood writers can, and despite authors showing up in droves to support HarperCollins employees when they went on strike for fair wages, we're being hung out to dry when it comes to our own rights.

If you enjoy diverse books, especially diverse YA, please understand that many of the authors you loved over the past 3-5 years are being forced out of the industry. We're being exploited, and we have no way to defend ourselves. Our books sales are drying up thanks to anti-queer legislation, our rights are being eaten up by AI, and our publishers are degrading us while profiting of us and refusing to share those profits with us.

Within the publishing industry, we've all been watching this decline happen over the last decade, but outside of it, I know most people have no idea what's going on so please spread the word. And if you care about diverse books especially in YA, please support marginalized authors in any way you can. The industry needs to be reminded that it needs us before we're all eliminated from it.

[wordsmith30]

You know what makes me the most upset about the use of AI in our culture? It's not just removing artists from art or devaluing human creativity -- it's treating people like they're disposable.

Oh, you're not that special. We have computers to do that now. If you died tomorrow, we have your image. We have your voice. We have your biometric data. We can just duplicate you, it's no problem. Who needs flesh and blood? Who needs agency and free thought? Who needs the human soul? You're just a tool. And when we're done with you, we'll just toss you aside and find someone else.

Creatives, listen to me, and listen to me good: you have a voice and it matters. There is no one in the history of the world who is exactly like you, in this time or this place. There is no one who thinks like you, acts like you, speaks like you, moves like you. There is nobody else built like you. Nobody else with your unique experiences and outlook of the world. You are a product of history, of culture, of art, of love, of pain, of possibility. Don't let them take that from you.

[thoughtportal]

Why won't the studios just make a deal with the writers and actors already? We know they can afford it.

[charliejaneanders]

Writing any kind of story is a scary proposition, especially if it deals with personal stuff. And writing about trans people during a bogus moral panic is especially daunting -- it's easy to either pull your punches, or feel as though the burden of good trans representation weighs on your shoulders. The good news is that we are living during a time of extreme riches when it comes to trans stories, and a ton of wonderful authors are writing trans tales that defy categorization and bust through boundaries. So please write the story that speaks to you, the story that only you can tell about your own obsessions and dreams. It can be scary or funny or comforting or escapist, or all of the above — don't worry that what you write will be singled out as the One True Trans Story, or seen as a representation of all trans people. Just write your story.

Writing Trans Stories For Fun (and Liberation) --- My latest newsletter!