industrialistDragon

It's pinned, so it's not thread necromancy, right? Have you been following the Merriam-Webster's Dictionary twitter? You should be. I'm posting this here to point out that "neopronouns" are not new. Thon is a neopronoun old enough to be most people's grandparent. (it's also really fun like "moose" in that it has only one form)

That sounds really interesting! If it ends up somewhere available to the public you should share a link! (and if it doesn't, let me know the cite when you have it so I can mooch university databases to get it... :3 )

Or, what is #ownvoices, really? #ownvoices is a hashtag, relatively recently created, that got adopted as a marketing shorthand and catchall for several related ethical issues. These issues have been around in fiction for much longer than the tags and the current discussion. As defined by Corinne Duyvis (which is also a concise well-written FAQ), who coined the tag, as a shorthand for when"the protagonist and the author share a marginalized identity." The use has grown to encompass when (or if) an author outside of a marginalized group should publish stories that include marginalized characters, as well as the most ethical ways of doing so, and best practices for avoiding common pitfalls in writing marginalized groups outside of one's own experiences. It's also been used to draw attention to how much of mainstream publishing is stacked against marginalized writers, between the lack of diversity in the industry, unconscious biases, and prevalence of stereotypes (both of marginalized writers, their characters, and "what will sell"), and the resulting push to specifically feature marginalized writers (the #weneeddiversebooks hashtag also covers this, but has its own set of ethical issues). It's also used to highlight authors and works that fall into the original #ownvoices definition. That's a lot! This is not a clear-cut, black/white issue -- or even one issue at all. Marginalized groups are not monoliths, and individuals differ on their interpretations of what is ethical or "right" in a given instance. From my personal research, it seems that most of the #ownvoices discussion agrees: That supporting, signal boosting, and seeking out marginalized authors is a good thing; That no one should be outright barred from *writing* anything they want; That authors outside a marginalized group should think carefully about the issues surrounding both the publishing industry as a whole and the marginalized group in particular before seeking to *publish* work featuring protagonists inside that marginalized group; That research is absolutely vital. Here are a few articles and blogs that I have found useful in understanding the issues. "Should Authors Write Characters of Another Race?" Two authors on either "side" of the debate (though, they agree on many things so I'm hesitant to use "side") discuss the ethics of writing outside one's own race. Interview with Corinne Duyvis In which she discusses what #ownvoices is and why it matters Writing the Other -- Classes, seminars, books, research, videos and resources. Extensive and very good! Uncanny Magazine: "Writing the margins from the centre" one author discusses how to write marginalized characters with tact 12 Fundamentals Of Writing "The Other" by Daniel Jose Older Don't let the hosting site dissuade you, this is a great article. Book Riot: Why Not All Diverse Stories are Created Equal The Root: White Writer Black Characters Should Ethnicity Limit What a Fiction Writer Can Write

Dear god, Torchwood. I'm going to jump in here with a warning, @kaisa -- the premise is "everyone's bangable" based off a an amazing crazy character from Dr Who, however the treatment of "teh gay" will make you so, SO angry. There is fridging (s3, but still. big ol' icebox, right up front and center), and a couple other lazy-writing tropes that made me so angry I had to stop watching it. I can count on half of one hand the number of times I've ended a show mid-season and not gone back to it. It also relies HEAVILY on the viewer having a background in Dr. Who, to give the main male protag any sort of character and to flesh out the surrounding universe. I love the bits of it that're good, but I hate the rest of it and without the Whovian background, much of the good is going to fall flat.

Thing 1: The publishing industry is overwhelmingly white. Like, make a polar bear in a blizzard look grey white. Publisher's Weekly 2016 Salary and Demographics survey for the publishing industry : 88% white (2015: 89%; 2014: 89%) Lee and Lowe Books 2015 Diversity Baseline Study : 86% white Thing 2: Humans are predisposed to favor things that are like themselves. Unconscious or implicit bias doesn't make you racist, but it does affect your subconscious decision-making processes Study: 3-month-olds prefer own-race faces Study: Humans tend to sit next to people who resemble themselves NYT overview of studies on unconscious bias Psychology Today: Humans are predisposed to be attracted to people who look like themselves Scientific American: Humans tend to choose friends that are like themselves Corollary to Thing 2: Having an "ethnic-sounding" name hurts your prospects when all people have to go on is your name and your cover letter Study from USA Study from Canada Study from Sweden Study from Germany Meta-analysis of studies from 1990 to 2015 Thing 3: Of the books published that feature minority characters or are about minority issues, a tiny fraction are actually written by someone from the subject minority CCBC survey of diversity in children's books : in 2015, out of 3400 books received, 278 were about black or african american issues, and only 92 were by African American Authors Fireside Fiction's Diversity in SFF report : in 2015, out of 2038 stories published, 38 were by African American authors These numbers largely hold true for most of the English-speaking, Western world, and unconscious bias applies to literally all humans. As a part of the dominant group, it is important to respect and support marginalized voices because being part of the dominant majority means that it is difficult or impossible to understand the biases at play for anyone outside of it. What seems like "too much" or "unnecessary" to those inside is barely a drop in an ocean to overwhelming numbers like these, no matter the genre.

If you're looking for a "big name" author's experiment with this, John Scalzi's "Lock-In" is written in the first person entirely without pronouns for the main character.

lol, the interconnectivity of service marks, trademarks, patents and copyrights is fascinating. Well, if you're me. Most sane people find it deathly dull and overly lawyerly. Basically and briefly: trademark protects logos, design, and "brand image" on things (shoes, watches, etc); service marks protect logos, design, and "brand image" for, well, services (cleaning your house, serving you a meal, delivering your packages, etc. I once did a little presentation on stuff like this using lol-speak and cat macros. Can haz inteelekshuu-al prop-purr-tee?). It's entirely possible to have a thing that's registered under both, as well as copyrighted, and potentially patented to boot. And that's just US law. Then you can get into the different ways different countries handle their logos &etc, and then how all those different guidelines mesh together...

All right, here I go again... I dig the binary chapter numbers... even if i always read them backwards and forget the '1' digit. XD What's with all the TM marks all over everything? Why is Autocab marked, but Park Hyatt not? The marks're really jarring to me, and, IRL, not necessary in text, even for existing properties. (besides which, Autocabs would probably be a service mark *AND* if I was a far-future space-attorney I'd totally sue for generic-ness of name (unless it's the physical object/car itself that's trademarked, and not the automatic driving service, in which case, if you were being pedantic, you'd want both TM/SM, and I'd still probably sue for the service mark at least (depending on the look of the vehicle) and it would be extra silly and extra distracting and probably not what you intend at all 'cause I've just written, like, a paragraph about two completely irrelevant superscript characters already) ) "were eight people ... ten now. one in each corner ...." Okay so. Quirk, Toni, guide, doctor -- that's four. Which leaves 6 people to be "one in each corner" ...so the room is a hexagon? (not counting M, who is stated to be unnoticed until pointed out, but even counting her, that's still a pentagonal room...) None of the mail program names got the mark, but the live wall did? I am confused. Is there a Jumping in the Middle Syndrome reason for what gets the trademark symbol and what doesn't that I'm just not getting? His name is an acronym? I love it! sorry, it's a pet peeve -- one feels *nauseated*, not nauseous. Yes, I know it's one of those mostly-accepted shifted meanings things that ought to just be left to grammar trolls, but it still sounds wrong to me, and it's my feedback post and I'm going to say something so there! cLive, no mark. Monte Blanc, no mark. Having the contract terminate on death of the girl kind of is an incentive for her to die, if one wanted to be rid of the contract's obligations. Though, much as he's making a to-do, I feel kind of like Quirk might not mind having a kid around - or at least be curious about it. Not that he'd admit it, never ever not-ever. But I'm sure the far-future space-lawyers the mob employs have enough other sectiosn in there that Q didn't read to work around that... I don't think I have enough chapters under my belt to speak to the in-characterness of Q. I enjoyed the chapter -- i'm not sure i could NOT enjoy a chapter with quirk -- however, it did feel ... a little more rushed? than the previous one. Like, from a technique standpoint, the sentences felt more jumbled, and I caught more grammar issues and fast-typing slips (the ones where your fingers put in/leave out a word/s that spellchecks as okay, but reads as weird) than I did last chapter.

Hello! Here are my thoughts as I read... Oh, it's fighting practice. From the way the intro is written, I thought he was being spun around purposefully in some kind of odd tumbling drill. what's a dirt pad? I thought they were fighting in some kind of clearing, outdoors (because of the rocks and the fence...) -- is it something else inside? Also, wouldn't you have to have, like, a sandbox's depth of sand in a fighting area to reap any of its cushioning benefits? (I honestly know next to nothing about martial arts training surfaces that aren't covered in foam. I'd always thought the sand was there for traction, and maybe, like, absorbing sweat or something and not much else) Is he talking about two uncles or only one? I'm very confused right now. I expected P to be older than just 12. Huh. (Note from future me: you do a good job of cementing his age later, he just seemed older at first!) I like his hero-worship. it's cute. Some of this dialogue feels a bit stilted, especially when they meet up with the uncle's friend. I tried saying a few of the lines out loud and got a bit tongue-tied. references to wars and forgotten technology? Are we post-apocalyptic? I thought it was fantasy at first. Fun! "Petro held his breath and saw the young soldier frown" -- this sentence is very confusing. I can't figure out how the parts of it go together. I really like how hard he tries to please his uncle. It helps set his age. Overall, I felt like this was interesting, but could probably stand to be condensed quite a bit. The other soldiers do add color, but the scenes with them tend to drag. I don't think anything needs to be cut outright, but changing some of the lulls would really help make it flow better.

Hooray another Troper! I include that warning the first time I link to TVTropes because I *HAVE* have people get legit angry at me for not telling them how dangerous it would be to click past the first link.

it's an in-joke from another forum about a million-and-half years ago. "Dragon" works, if there's not another one around. Chekhov's Gun is a reference to Chekhov the author. it's the name of a genre trope for a thing mentioned in passing at the beginning of a work that turns out to be suuuuper important later. (I thought I linked it... lemme see... Chekhov's Gun (TVTropes link) Still getting the hang of this forums code.)

Lol, is 'thank you' or 'i'm sorry' more appropriate? either way, the alpha trope is so well-ingrained into the collective popculture psyche, you basically have to go looking specifically for it to find the refutations. I lucked into it some years ago through the sort of internet-rabbithole that has you start at shopping for underwear and ending up at how-to-train-your-goldfish videos. You might need to make these issues more clear, hammer on them a little more, or somehow otherwise show that this is only easy because your protagonists have special training (standard TVTropes warning: it WILL devour your time the way my school loan consumes my paycheck. be warned!) Aha. That makes a lot of sense. I think I sort of see it, but yes, it could be clearer.

Hello, I'm new. Longtime lurker, first time poster and all that. Diving in... Some thoughts as I go... Right off, I'm sorry to say the intro sentence is not very interesting. I would not be late for work reading "just a little farther" with a chapter lead-in like that. I agree, jasmine is indeed overdone. So are lavender and vanilla, just in case. Oh, i see lavender pops up later. As a generic scent for a rent-a-car, that's not too terrible. Overdone makes sense there. This might be Jumping in the Middle Syndrome, but I'm 3 pages into this chapter and feeling like nothing much has happened. I've had a summary of an idyllic shopping trip and (scifi?) paradise surroundings (I think), and a potentially interesting interaction with a street-corner kook that was bundled off into summary-nowheresville, with me craning my neck after it like a kid watching a neat dog go by on the other side of the street. Not that it needs to be super actiony, but summaries... gloss things over? There's nothing for me to latch onto or get invested in. Which again, isn't bad per se, (especially in middle chapters) but it could be so much better. If he's enjoying his time with his Ladyfriend, why not live in the moment a little more? ... And honestly, that bum was the most interesting part so far. Is this a Chekhov's bum? Is he going to come back? He was saying important things, wasn't he? You should always listen to street bums, they know that all the conspiracies are true... (Chekhov's bum, a reference to Chekhov's Gun, over here at TVTropes: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ChekhovsGun Also, Standard TVTropes Warning: TV TROPES IS A SUCKING BLACK HOLE TIMESINK OF THE INTERNET CLICK AWAY FROM THE PROVIDED LINK AT YOUR OWN PERIL) I agree, Q really seems like he'd be more creative with his cursing. I highly recommend this linguistic blog post on creating fabulous compound expletives http://www.languagejones.com/blog-1/2017/2/9/linguists-have-been-discussing-rust-gibbon-i-argue-its-not-entirely-about-gibbons because he really seems like the fabulous compound expletive sort. adding my vote to the "cop is too hokey" pile. Nobody should ID themselves by their stereotypes non-ironically, not even throwaway characters. (...It was the bum, right? it was totally seeing the bum that brought Bad-Trope-Cop down on poor Quirk and the bum was like some kind of super-secret secret agent infected with a alien plague that the public can't know exists and Quirk and Ladyfriend like totally almost blew his cover and there would have been panic in the streets if they'd talked and THAT"S why Trope-Cope is Bad Cop Trope-ing so hard!) CCTV = Closed Circuit Television? I know you mean, like, super far future CCTV that can do all that stuff (and it is a lot of stuff you're having it do), but it feels incongruous to have an existing tech name (especially one that's kind of junky, despite TV making it out to be otherwise) do all the fancy stuff you're having it do.... Oddly i don't have a problem with the cop-cam or audio feed: to me those feel general enough to work in this context. got a tense change with the "I mean" but otherwise a very strong scene end! I really like Quirk, even from just this small bit. "brown torment" hehehee I am 7... That was an odd little interlude. I'm not sure what it had to do with anything, but I expect that's Jumping in the Middle Syndrome again. and now another POV with a stereotypical retired gangster and a stereotypical mob boss? This piece has a better intro than Quirk's but I can't say I like this guy as much. The poison is interesting, but I'm unclear on how G survived its delivery. Did he? And won't Quirk have trouble meeting a dead mob boss? (but really, what's up with that bum?)

Hello, I'm new. Longtime lurker, first time poster, and all that. I enjoyed this story! That said... I'm not sure quite what you're looking for in this crit, so I'm just going to generalize instead of go page-by-page... Catching some grammar issues... but it looks like most of them have been caught by the others here. It's not my area of expertise, but the "alpha" wolf theory is pretty well debunked by now. It was coined back in the '40s (based on a study of captive unrelated wolves), gained prominence in the '70s and perpetuated by werewolf fiction. Pack leaders fighting for dominance and maintaining their position by force just isn't really a thing. Here are some links: http://knowledgenuts.com/2014/01/11/the-alpha-wolfe-is-an-outdated-myth http://io9.gizmodo.com/why-everything-you-know-about-wolf-packs-is-wrong-502754629 http://www.wolf.org/wolf-info/basic-wolf-info/in-depth-resources/scientific-publications/ http://www.cracked.com/article_22767_5-ridiculous-myths-about-animals-you-probably-believe.html http://www.sketchyscience.com/2014/08/the-alpha-myth-real-science-of-wolf.html Even if all you're doing is including the nomenclature, it throws a pall over your work for those of us who know it's based on outdated science. Plot-wise, my hey-wait-a-minute takeaway is: If they were taken down that easily by just two people, why in all the world were the Ice people left to fester for so long? Your standard fighty Northmen couldn't rustle up/hire a tracker over the course of the decades before the protagonists arrive? I am also slightly annoyed we didn't get any resolution with the whole finding-J-and-the-girl thing. I was slightly confused by the bard framing story. It didn't seem to have much relevance to the meat of the story. Contrariwise, I enjoyed the focus on the fighting. You did a very good job with all the fight scenes. The moves were clean and believable, and the combos seemed to logically follow one another.