@thebibliosphere look what I found? I saw it and thought of you.
in a good way, i promise!!!
I love the caption that says “they’re baaaack” both implying there is more to this, and the author is a 1980s equivalent of s shit poster.
I have. THREE. Of these books. They are a collection of short stories featuring the ridiculous fantasy tropes of women warriors. It’s a group of lady writers taking the piss out of lazy male fantasy writers and they’re FANTASTIC. If you ignore the shitpost covers.
TO AMAZON USED MARKETPLACE
I was gonna add that these books were fucking great.
READ THESE. They are so funny and clever and they take a literary morningstar to the patriarchy.
There are six books in this series. Five of them came out between 1995 and 2004; Book Six came out in 2015 after an 11-year hiatus, so here’s hoping for more. They are, in order:
Chicks in Chainmail
Did You Say Chicks?!
Chicks ‘N Chained Males
The Chick is in the Mail
Turn the Other Chick
Chicks Ahoy! (trade omnibus of the first three books, no new stories)
Chicks and Balances
One of the things I love best about the series is that the various authors will often write short stories for them about the same set of characters: there are several stories about the Ladies’ Aid & Armor Society, a support group/workers union for women in the army; merc-for-hire Hallah Iron-Thighs and her partner in violence Gerta Dershnitzel; single mother/also merc-for hire Rivakonniva; etc.
So yes, go out and buy them, they are so fun.
Also edited by the same person, but not in the same series:
Well, fuck me, is there a vampire/horror series!? Don’t leave me fanging!!
UPDATE: It’s the Suburban Fantasy Anthologies.
I need this in my life. Bless my dash and bless you ppl for spreading this
*adds to to-read, buy-if-possible list*
Esther Friesner is a blessing to fantasy literature and should be canonized as a fandom saint. If you can track down her Majyk By Accident series, it’s amazing and hilarious.
IMPECCABLE TIMING
I neeeeeeed more things to read at work!
Esther Friesner is my faaaaavorite.
geneticist: sequences every nucleotide in my dna
my dna: AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
geneticist: what the fuck
Hi so please vote Hillary so trans people can stay on hormones and go to the bathroom.
It would be nice if you could save your shows of write-in candidate bravado for a year when trans people aren’t being openly attacked and attacks on them literally aren’t part of the Republican platform.
I mean Bernie gave Hillary his endorsement and if he’s obviously gonna vote for her and not himself or a third party I think it’s time to vote for Hillary to not wreck a bunch of people’s lives for the sake of a spiteful political gesture.
This trans person says thanks.
Also, please vote for the 469 congress seats opening this year! As a friend pointed out, if you want to see real change, you have to stop focusing on the parlor politics. Vote Bernie for Speaker of the House. Vote Dems into congress. Vote progress past the White House, so we can actually make good things happen in this country instead of getting blocked every time there is a progressive idea brought up.
Seriously. If you are unhappy with the quality of presidential candidates, now’s the time to help someone better get a start on their political career so we can have better ones down the road.
In any case, this is, as you might imagine, very important to me. I say “i had nightmares when i was a kid” like i dont still get night terrors as a 22 year old adult. The first panel of this is actually based on a photo my mom took of me in a sleep study when I was fifteen. It was one of the harder times in my life, honestly, but things have been steadily getting better since then. all the dreams here are based on ones i actually had, and theres a ton of old comics and drawings of them on my old deviantart from when i was a teenager.
that’s all really, theres no end goal here, nothing im looking to accomplish other than sharing.
Would either of you happen to have resources on this or know someone who might? (tagging House of Chimeras since this seems related to system stuff.)
Unfortunately I can’t really think of any resources for guardian personalities specifically that aren’t drenched in “everyone with personalities/headpeople/etc has DID and everyone’s DID works according to this specific model”, because the idea of people with specific roles in a headspace really got bound up with that in the literature.
(Also, I just really like this comic in general? Like, I don’t know, just the way it’s presented just feels very normalising. Just like “yeah this happens to people sometimes”.)
@star-anise, you have any potentially useful stuff on this?
Here are ten questions to ask that will not put your friend in a tough spot, but will still give you some useful input on your novel:
1. At what point did you feel like “Ah, now the story has really begun!” 2. What were the points where you found yourself skimming? 3. Which setting in the book was clearest to you as you were reading it? Which do you remember the best? 4. Which character would you most like to meet and get to know? 5. What was the most suspenseful moment in the book? 6. If you had to pick one character to get rid of, who would you axe? 7. Was there a situation in the novel that reminded you of something in your own life? 8. Where did you stop reading, the first time you cracked open the manuscript? (Can show you where your first dull part is, and help you fix your pacing.) 9. What was the last book you read, before this? And what did you think of it? (This can put their comments in context in surprising ways, when you find out what their general interests are. It might surprise you.) 10. Finish this sentence: “I kept reading because…”
Your friend is probably still going to tell you, “It was good!” However, if you can ask any specific questions, and read between the lines, you can still get some helpful information out of even the most well-meaning reader.
This is really useful advice, especially if the person you’ve shared your story with hasn’t had much/any experience critiquing.
It does a great job of asking for a balance of both positive and negative feedback in a way that’s comfortable for both the author and reader.
Ooh, these are excellent, and I have a hell of a time coming up with good questions to get more than a cycle of “I liked it!” “Great, what did you like about it?”
Kimchi and Justice 