Online MidWinter Seminar 2024

Something Mighty Queer: queerness in fantasy, science fiction, speculative fiction, and other mythopoeic work

February 17-18, 2024 Via Zoom and Discord

Guest of Honor: Taylor Driggers

Join us for a virtual conference centered around queerness in fantasy, science fiction, speculative fiction, or other mythopoeic work. “Queerness” is an intentionally ambiguous term, demonstrating the diversity of queer experiences, and the necessity of situating queerness as a liminal, complex paradigm. Queer theory is wider than the study of gender identity or sexuality, extending to taking positions against normativity and dominant modes of thought, and engaging with the indefinite.

Register online: https://mythsoc.org/oms/oms-2024.htm

Y’all. I need us to recognize how awesome it is that an organization like the Mythopoeic Society is standing up to all the fuss and bigotry that happens when you talk about Queer Readings of Fantasy/Sci-Fi/Speculative Fiction/Mythopoeic Works, and saying “not only do these readings continue to be important, but here’s a whole entire online seminar we’re having to make sure those voices of both fans and academics are centered, documented, and included in the record.”

And like… you don’t have to be a society member to attend these two days or programming. The cost for the entire conference is like…$20.

A Simple Trick for Fic Writers

Hey, if you're a fic writer and a character speaks in a different language, you don't just have to add the translation in the notes. Use the following HTML coding to add 'text on hover' to the word(s). If the reader is on a computer they can hover over the text to see the translation.

<div title="This is the text in the box!">This is the text that shows in your fic!</div>

Here are some examples from a fic on my AO3.

This coding here <div title="a fool, idiot (lit. emptyhead)">Eyn utreekov</div> will show this on hover.

This next example shows that you can add a lot of text. The formatting is the same as above.

PS: When doing this, there may be spacing issues, but you can edit the text through AO3's html or rich text editor. From there you can add italics (like I did), bold, etc, and fix any weird spacing issues. Just be careful not to delete the coding that you worked so hard on 😂

'Sensitive ears' | Full pic here in my twitter

Yes I am shipping trash. No, I do not care. I do this for me and maybe, the other 5 people I know who are into this ship or the precious OT3 that happens when you add Disa ¯_(ツ)_/¯

“he’s an accessory and not even one of the cool ones” he just gets it

I played with Ken. My Ken dolls kissed and my Barbie dolls kissed.

Anyone who was surprised I turned out Bisexual was t paying attention

shave meaning full shave, not trimming or maintenance UNLESS it's eyebrows. if you trim or maintain ur eyebrows u don't get to check no. it's the rules yeah

the amount of people saying none of these options apply because their parents make them shave is making me violent 👍

I hate when people refer to exploiting a concept for money as "milking" cuz I'll put on a nerd video to listen to in the background and I'll hear "Disney's really milking Luke Skywalker these days" and I'll think "if they actually were maybe I'd pay for Disney+"

In fact, Luke Skywalker aggressively milks other creatures, and I still have qualms about it.

hold on i have a take that’s going to upset people

a queer woman dating a queer man is just as queer as two people of the same gender dating

btw it’s not “straight passing” or a “straight relationship” it’s a queer relationship. cause we’re queer. cope and seethe etc ✌️

I live to about 400 years old, and am good at boats. Possibly bad at relationships, if the worst of my line are anything to go by.

This post is so important.

List of Vocal Sounds for Smut

I present to you a - probably quite incomplete, I’m sure I’m missing a lot of speech sounds - reference list and a bit of a guideline for the different ways one can describe the sounds your characters make whilst writing smut. I’ll definitely be referring to it, because I sometimes get stuck on exactly how to describe a particular noise. (aka, “he can’t groan again, he just groaned last paragraph”)

Sounds (noun, both independently and describing speech): breath/breathe, gasp, moan, groan, pant, whimper, whine, shout, yelp, hiss, grunt, cry, scream, shriek, sob, growl, curse, sound, sigh, hum, noise, squeak, snarl, howl, roar, mewl, wail, choke, keen, purr

Sounds (noun, describing speech): rasp, husk, drawl, plea, murmur, whisper, beg

Descriptors (adjective): loud, hushed, quiet, low, high, high-pitched, little, tiny, soft, deep, unrestrained, restrained, strained, breathy, rough, sudden, short, drawn-out, sharp, harsh, hard, thick, smooth, thin, heavy, impassioned, insistent, hungry, passionate, repeated, filthy, debauched, sweet, slow, deliberate, guttural, languid, surprised, husky, distracted, happy, pleased, satisfied, wordless, cut-off, bitten-off, contented, hoarse, extended, long, depraved, aching, choked, strangled, broken, helpless, shuddering, shaky, trembling, urgent, needy, desperate, wanton, shattered, pained, eager

Combine a descriptor and a sound for best effect - for example, “needy moan,” “pleased hum,” or “sudden scream.” You can even use two: “low, rough grunt,” “sweet little cry,” “desperate, filthy noise,” as long as you don’t repeat a word that means the same thing, unless you really want to emphasize it. Avoiding repetition is pretty key here. You don’t usually want to say “hushed, quiet gasp” except on rare occasions when it’s very important how soft the sound was.

Use your own common sense, as well; some sounds and descriptors don’t generally work well together. “Deliberate shriek” probably wouldn’t work well, and neither would “languid grunt,” but again, this is all very situational - play around! Have fun.

Feel free to add to my lists, use for your reference or pass them around. It would be fun to see a randomized generator made, too, I’m just too lazy to do it myself. ;)

I promised to post this alternate version of the cover art just as soon as @daughterofelros posted the next chapter. So here it is!

Read the excellent Bourne Identity/Roswell New Mexico fusion on Ao3.

Both versions of the cover art on Ao3

I love it so much!!!!

“Someday you will be old enough to start reading fairy tales again.” ♡