thefrogsthewaterturnedgay

[thefrogsthewaterturnedgay]

reblog if you're corny and insufferable

[thefrogsthewaterturnedgay]

I have to go running at eight this isnt fair

sports season is upon this unwilling athlete and suddenly the insomnia has struck

[thefrogsthewaterturnedgay]

[thefrogsthewaterturnedgay]

If ANY of yall EVER do this shit to me, im deleting every single fic out of spite.

If I ever catch one of yall doing this to another author and I know youre a follower of my work I will block you personally on every platform

None of yall are the fic police. I DESPISE genai. I think its an insult to art, humanity, and the planet itself. But aint not a single fucking person here qualified to pick apart a strangers fic looking for a gotcha moment to make yourselves feel superior. If you think something is ai you can ask the author (most are proud of the ai use and will just tell you straight up) if they say yes you have your answer and can warn people. If they say no and you dont believe them you block and quietly keep it between you and maybe a close group of friends. Spreading misinformation is DANGEROUS. And NONE of you doing this shit are anywhere near qualified to do it.

THIS GOES DOUBLY FOR ARTISTS.

[thefrogsthewaterturnedgay]

you'll be hanging out with the sweetest person ever and they'll randomly tell you a childhood experience that would have vaporised you and you're like oh we should find your parents and murder them irl

[thefrogsthewaterturnedgay]

sports season is upon this unwilling athlete and suddenly the insomnia has struck

[thefrogsthewaterturnedgay]

the crows are so young. they're so young. they make fun of wylan for playing the flute and being a bad criminal. they love waffles. they mock kaz's bad haircut. matthias mentally addresses kaz only with insults for nearly the whole two books. they have all been jealous of each other showing other people attention at some point -- jesper is jealous of anyone kaz gives attention to. matthias is jealous of anyone nina gives attention to. kaz is jealous of how comfortable the others are with each other. wylan is jealous of kuwei flirting with jesper -- they're all insecure at some point. nina gets mad at them for eating her cookies. they're all horny and fantasize about their crushes while actively running for their lives. they all want to kill the woman they kidnapped because she's whiny. they tease inej for sounding philosophical. they have secret hand signals. jesper and nina make sex jokes all the time and love to make others blush. they spite each other. they threatened to tattletale on each other to each other. they compete over who has the biggest bounty on his head. inej uses "being a matthias" as an insult. kaz and jesper have a physical scrap and have to be pulled apart by an Adult. i adore them so much

[thefrogsthewaterturnedgay]

That Time a Published Author Told Me to Un-Queer My Novel

So, I don't think I ever shared this story on Tumblr before.

As you may know I've spent the past ten years turning my old Welcome to Night Vale fanfic into a stand alone novel called Echo of the Larkspur. Now, I haven't been working on it ten years straight. I'd pick it up, do a bunch of editing and rewriting, submit it to agents/publishers, get turned down, put the book away, wait 2-3 years, dust off the book, re-edit and rewrite, etc etc. A cycle that repeated itself far too many times that I would like.

Well, during one of these cycles when I was in the 'get rejected by every agent and publisher I submit to' stage I asked the writing group I was in what I was doing wrong. Because at this point I had reached a hundred total rejections and I was starting to suspect that the issue was with me.

One of the members of this writing group, a male author who was traditionally published, offered to read my first chapter and give his advice on how to fix it. This was, in retrospect, a mistake. But I was desperate. I sent him the first chapter and waited for his response.

Folks. The email he sent me changed my life.

First he said that agents wouldn't publish my novel because it was Sci-fi with hardcore gay erotica in it. This is curious because while the book certainly is queer, at no point in the conversation with this man did I say it was hardcore erotica. Nor did the first chapter feature any. It's almost as if he assumed that just because something was gay, it had to be hardcore erotica. Interesting.

He went on to say that a Human/Robot pairing was weird and that there was "No Way" my story could seriously address the issues of a relationship like that. Once again, he only read the first chapter. He just...assumed I wouldn't think of that? And that my book wouldn't cover it?

The author then said “I also felt that the LGBTQ inclusion really seems to cloud things.” Direct Quote.

And then this is when he said my favorite quote of them all:

The idea of a book being a sci-fi with romance AND a mystery is a Modern Art Marzipan Owl. It's just too confusing! No one can handle a story that is a mystery in a sci-fi enviroment AND has a romantic subplot! THEIR BRAINS WOULD LITERALLY EXPLODE!

Thankfully he had a solution to my book problem. His answer? Turn the book into an Action Spy Thriller and turn S.A.G.E., a robot that identies as a gay man, into a sexy lady robot who needs a MAN to teach her what it means to be human.

(I assume the male lead will teach the 'confused' female robot how to be human via his penis.)

Now my favorite part about this advice is that at no point did he outright say "Remove the gay part". No, instead he sneakily changed the robot love interest into a female robot as if I wouldn't notice. Just sort of swept away the gay bits as something totally unneeded and just mucking up the narrative. Also that's not the plot of my story, I have no idea where this virus thing came from.

(Also note that the female robot can't be robotic-like at all. Must preserve the average straight-man sex drive at all costs I guess)

He then finished his email basically saying that I should remove everything that 'traditional publishers' don't like (aka the queer parts) and make it easier for 'your average reader' to digest and my book will be good as published!

When I said this email changed my life I meant it. Because it made me realize I'd rather be self published and unknown than traditionally publish milquetoast trash like he suggested. Like holy fuck. If I removed all of the "Difficult" to digest stories out of Echo of the Larkspur then there wouldn't be a book left!

So here I am. Self publishing my Marzipan Modern Art Owl of a book. I know it'll never see the inside of a bookstore or top the charts on Goodreads but hey, I'd rather it speak to one person than have a thousand people get excited for the part where the male lead teaches the lady robot how to be human (via his penis).

If a Queer Sci-fi/Romance/Mystery novel sounds like your jam then consider preordering it!

Looking for something to read now? Can't afford the book? Willing to read in exchange for an honest review? You can join my ARC book readers here!

EDIT:

ECHO OF THE LARKSPUR IS AVAILABLE ON AMAZON NOW!

[thefrogsthewaterturnedgay]

why did no one tell me you can skin knees with fabric :(

[thefrogsthewaterturnedgay]

Little Next to Normal thing, I think they had Jack Wolfe play the anesthesiologist in the ECT scene because the thought of him puts her to sleep. He's the one thing that helps her sleep at night

And the thing that tries to put her to rest for the final time

[thefrogsthewaterturnedgay]

I'll serve cunt later now it's time to be a sensitive bitch

[thefrogsthewaterturnedgay]

As someone who studied vocal emission and vocal performability and wrote an MA on it, I really want to ramble about the fantastic job Tom did as Dream. And if you want to ramble with me, please do, I'm going crazy 😅

To my ear (judging by promo interviews i have seen)he is a higher sitting baritone, which is usually not a classically deep voice, has a bit of a "rumbly" quality in the lower notes, has naturally a pretty bright pitch and the open vowels transition pretty smoothly.

So for a voice like that to go deeper in his chest and still sound natural, requires a lot of self awareness and a lot of pinpoint vocal placement training. He laughed in one interview that during first days he was scolded not to sound like Batman, which is exactly what i mean. It's easy to jump into comical, raspy vocal depth, especially if you have the range. And yet, except from lowering his placement, he still added that breathy quality to it, which is very hard to achieve with lower chest voices, as it automatically makes the voice want to go higher into the head, or lose vocal power and go into whisper. But he somehow combined both, used it CONSISTENTLY, and made it sound natural and ethereal at the same time. Which is amazing to me. I might be crying into my pillow. Tom Sturridge, the actor that you are.

Edit: just to add, bc some of you make great points.

Personality and nature play a huge part in our vocal performance and it's a hard work to train yourself out of it(that's why some actors sound the same everywhere or rely heavily on physical acting to help their voices). Tom seems to be a lovely, soft but also highly emotive, excitable and animated person, especially when talking about something he loves. So to be able to restraint himself physically to allow that level of vocal focus and performance, where all his emotions go through the voice and don't fall flat? I CAN'T STRESS ENOUGH how acutely physically aware he has to be and how great his craft is.

Also, i mostly notice that amount of awareness and work with either musical trained actors or shakespearian actors, which might have something to do with that. Because in modern Hollywood i see it very rarely with blockbuster names.

[thefrogsthewaterturnedgay]

[thefrogsthewaterturnedgay]

🌍 Gaza is starving to death — and the world must not stay silent.

❗This is not just a headline. It’s our reality.

No food. No medicine. No safe place left.

We cry out in every language, hoping someone hears us:

غزة تموت جوعاً

Gaza is starving to death

Gaza meurt de faim

Gaza se muere de hambre

Gaza verhungert

Gaza sta morendo di fame

Газа умирает от голода

加沙正在饿死

ガザは飢えで死にかけている

가자는 굶어 죽어가고 있다

Gazze açlıktan ölüyor

गाज़ा भूख से मर रहा है

Gaza está morrendo de fome

Gaza sekarat karena kelaparan

غزہ بھوک سے مر رہا ہے

غزه از گرسنگی در حال مرگ است

Η Γάζα πεθαίνει από την πείνα

Gaza svälter ihjäl

🆘 Please don’t scroll past this.

Every share, every donation, every voice counts.

Vetted!!!

(#167 on the verified fundraiser list by el-shab-hussein and nabulsi) (but we had to make a new gfm campaign cuz our old organizer stopped contacting us).

# dlxxv-vetted-donations

[thefrogsthewaterturnedgay]

I don’t know what to say or what to write to ask for help from you. I don’t know what word will be effective so that you can help us and donate to us. Is it (the word hungry, afraid, or displaced and immigrant)? What should we say so that you can help us? We have said a lot, but no one cares about us as if Gaza no longer exists. I want to remind you that there are people in a spot in your world called Gaza where there are 2 million hungry, besieged people. Don’t forget us. We are being exterminated with all kinds of weapons from all countries (Israel, America, Britain, France, and countless countries that send weapons to Israel so that they can attack us with them. It is as if we have become a testing ground for new weapons. If there is a country that wants to test a new weapon it invented, it sends it to Israel so that it can use it on us under the pretext of fighting terrorism. What kind of terrorism is this that you killed 60,000 innocent, defenseless people with? What kind of terrorism is this? Is a child a terrorist, a woman a terrorist, an elderly man a terrorist, or are the youth who aspired to achieve their dreams terrorists? They all died.) You destroyed You destroyed our dreams, you destroyed our youth, you destroyed our future, you destroyed entire generations, and you are still destroying us, killing us, and starving us. Fuck Israel and everyone who supports and backs it.

[thefrogsthewaterturnedgay]

It's fun reading writers who clearly grew up in suburban/urban environments as someone who grew up on a farm because they're always like "oh it was so creepy, woods at night, eerily breathtaking, something was living in there..." and it's like yeah that'll be the deer.