Sarah Waites

ICYMI: I wrote about the corporate-IP-ification of fanfic, and how heavily normative biases inflect what's being plucked out of fandom for big fancy book deals.

With the Serial Numbers Filed Off: The Problem with Trad Pub Fanfic - Reactor Jenny Hamilton looks closer at three Dramione fics-turned-novels publishing this year.

"Feed fanfic into capitalism, and it comes out shaped like capitalism."

@readingtheend.bsky.social dissects the trend pulling fanfiction through the traditional publishing pipeline (and what it means for fandom):

reactormag.com/with-the-ser...

Today would have been @thez.bsky.social’s 29th birthday. Happy birthday Zoe. I miss you every day.

My advice to people, as it has been since the USENET days, is simply this: Everything that can be made public on the Internet one day will be made public. Say what you want and what you feel is necessary, and remember it will be found.

It’s an absolute shame that DC fired Gretchen Felker- Martin for exercising free speech and then @bsky.app suspended her account. Every writer here should be decrying this because we have to stand up for each other! This is ridiculous.

Yep. I waited a week to go in for abdominal pain and got asked, “why did you wait?” When they found a large cyst cutting off blood flow to my fallopian tube.

They found endo while taking it out but never told me. I found out by requesting medical records.

cover of NOT POUNDED BY THE PHYSICAL MANIFESTATION OF BISEXUAL GATEKEEPING BECAUSE ITS SUPER GROSS AND IF YOU DO IT YOURE NOT THE HERO YOU THINK YOU ARE YOURE ACTUALLY JUST A JERK featuring ladybuck on the right in a cool outfit with striped shirt and a hat she is in a forest and there is a glow next to her where a large sentient gate floats

NOT POUNDED BY THE PHYSICAL MANIFESTATION OF SOMEONE ELSES DOUBT IN MY PLACE ON THE AUTISM SPECTRUM BECAUSE DENYING SOMEONES PERSONAL JOURNEY AND IDENTITY LIKE THAT IS INCREDIBLY RUDE SO NO THANKS featuring a handsome buckaroo in a suit and next to him is a floating questing mark with a very skeptical look

ABSOLUTELY NO THOUGHTS OF POUNDING DURING MY FUN DAY WITH THIS KIND T-REX BECAUSE IM AROMANTIC AND SEXUAL AND THATS A WONDERFULLY VALID WAY TO PROVE LOVE IS REAL featuring ladybuck in black dress with purple hair and a redhead t-rex standing in a vineyard

NOT POUNDED BY BI ERASURE BECAUSE MY CURRENT HETERO-PRESENTING RELATIONSHIP DOES NOT INVALIDATE MY QUEERNESS featuring ladybuck in red suit that is super dang cool and next to her is a floating sentient eraser that looks very upset

YOU HAVE ENTERED THE TINGLEVERSE. THIS IS A NO GATEKEEPING ZONE

I like the ambiguous supernatural elements in some of her books!

A phrase I strongly recommend everyone add to their lexicon: "I haven't read widely in ___."

It's factual, doesn't make a judgement about the genre, doesn't pass off an opinion as an objective assessment, and acknowledges that genres overlap and labels are subjective.

100% this. One of THE most important things you will learn or ought to learn as a bookseller (OR writer OR reviewer OR avid reader) is that all genres are valid, there is groundbreaking work happening right now in Every Single Genre, and to STFU on reductive, condescending takes.

I also made myself like romances! In the process, I think I learned a lot about myself and what my story preferences are.

Wait, which book? I love her work.

In the last year or so, I've read several fantasy books that are 1) by & about queer people and 2) set in Appalachia (more or less explicitly). Here they are!

There are traditions and conversations within every genre and literature tradition that go unseen and unacknowledged by people who think that Dune defines sci-fi.

I just! would love to retire the idea that criticism is inherently a destructive force.

it can be, and we can all think of cases like that (ahem ahem Star Wars fandom), but thoughtful criticism is highly CONstructive.

important part of a creative ecosystem! in my opinion! end of thread! 14/14

I feel so frustrated any time a post goes around suggesting that it's mean to criticize art because art is hard to make.

there are two ways to read the word "criticism" here, and whichever one this most recent post means, I ardently disagree with it. 1/

So many publicity emails for romantasy are all, "She's a scrappy working-class underdog with traumatic backstory! He's the heir to the throne, a power-hungry force of savage destruction! He's the embodiment of everything she loathes and cannot trust, but he's SOOO hot and can't stay away from her!"

It’s been down for a year or so — I just don’t really have the time or energy to keep it running anymore unfortunately!

A second cityscape study. I'm trying to get textures of brick and stone across with few brush strokes. This one was also about two hours.

Thank you!

Thank you! Although I feel like some of it is that I ran out of steam near the bottom lol.

Today's study... a cityscape. I think I'll focus on urban scenes for a bit. This took me two hours, and I want to get that time down.

A rough sketch of a mountain landscape.

I'm trying to get back into digital painting studies. Here's a landscape painting I spent 40 minutes on. I want to practice some more landscapes, cityscapes, and different textures.

Also, I'm experimenting with Rebelle, a new-to-me painting software.

A religious ceremony in ancient Minoan culture: a young female priest, dressed in white, under an olive tree. In the background, two more women doing some kind of dance and strewing red petals on the ground. The scene is full of dappled sunlight.

The Hallowed Grove

For the boardgame expansion pack "Minos: Dawn of Faith" I was asked to imagine what religious ceremonies in ancient Minoan culture could have looked like. This is one of 4 illustrations I made for them on this topic, a kind of harvest ritual.
Client: Board&Dice

#art

Illustration of a slightly top view of two legs standing in a spot of light in a field of wild grass with white small white flowers. The flowers are growing over the legs, climbing around the white tight and tearing it in some place, scratching the skin underneath in some places.

Overgrown 🌱

cover art for Black Sun by Rebecca Roan-horse

This one is done for @thebrokennbinding , cover art for Black Sun by Rebecca Roanhorse

Next year's WorldCon is in Los Angeles, and the theme appears to be Westward Expansion or possibly Manifest Destiny. The guests are referred to as Pioneers and the venue as The Frontier. This year the awards were swept by Indigenous writers. The choice is stunning in its ugliness.

Congratulations!

Nice to meet you too!

Finis Academy: Societas Mortis Architecti. A map of a college campus with a central tower.

Finis Tower. A map of a cutaway inverted tower.

Two maps for lesbian romance author Sacha Black's new dark academia, Architecti!

These two maps (Finis's campus and the cutaway of the inverted tower at the center) are two of the most detailed and complicated maps I've ever drawn.