so my campus is currently hosting an ENORMOUS conference of scholars who study medieval history. they’ve been completely flooding the tiny cafe where I work and drinking our coffee faster than we can make it, but the good news is that they provide some PRIME people watching, including:
the fact that all of their name tags include pronouns so that I won’t feel bad assuming anyone’s gender in this post
the woman RANTING about one of her colleagues on the following grounds: “he thinks he understands it from some class he took in 1996! FUCK OFF, TOM.”
the man who was loudly and earnestly discussing the “influence of the Harry Potter fandom on our modern political discourse” while he got a soda
before he was out the door he’d switched topics to his preferred methods for teaching students about elves
the two nice extremely polite young British lads who I could not tell apart to save my life. their name tags indicated that they were apparently not twins, but cloning does not seem impossible.
the sheer number of people graciously volunteering to buy lunch for people they’ve just met
an unexpected number of very handsome soft butch women involved in medieval studies. I am bisexual and weak.
the guy in the flannel shirt who had the coldest, softest, most feminine hands I’ve ever encountered. I fell in love with him for a good 60 seconds. I am bisexual and weak.
people who aren’t from America being cheerfully confused by our money, including my favorite, a Canadian woman who told me “I’m slow with American money because it’s all the same color.”
I’ve learned that people who aren’t going to be in the country for more than a few days don’t give a SHIT about their change and will toss all of it in the take a penny/leave a penny jar. I collected so many quarters, y’all.
also a nice British woman called it the penny pot, which is the cutest shit I’ve ever heard and absolutely its new name.
just in general the EXTREMELY good grace and patience with which everyone accepted that we only have 2 cashiers and that it takes about seven minutes to make more coffee.
SEVERAL times after I apologized for the coffee wait (because this is customer service and minor inconveniences mean we have to grovel) the response was ‘lmao no worries this just means I get a fresh pot’
a woman approached me to day with a fucking enamel pin of that old illustration of a nun gathering dicks from a tree (you know the one) and I said immediately “oh my god, is that a pin of the penis tree?” and she looked stoked and said “yes it is the penis tree! you’re only the second person to recognize it!” what kind of boring ass medieval scholars has she been hanging with???? she was probably so fucking excited to finally have company where she could wear that pin and nobody said anything??? rude.
you know, this one
I have more:
every single person who said “cheers” when I gave them their change.
the painfully hip young man who was dressed entirely in standard academic business casual EXCEPT FOR his shiny silver doc martens.
me: “you boots are amazing.”
him: “!!!! thank you!”
the man who walked in, spotted the selection of high octane energy drinks, and nearly cried with relief. when he came to the register to pay for what was probably enough caffeine to kill a horse he looked me dead in the eye and said cheerfully “thanks, I’m jet lagged as shit and I can’t be expected to function right now.”
the dude who overheard my friend Austin listening to Florence and the Machine, started chatting with him about it, and asked him out on a date
I sold a hot dog to An Actual Nun
I have a very important update for everyone who had questions regarding the penis tree pin (and there were many of you):
this post found it’s way to one Dr. Kara Maloney, who is in fact the proud wearer of the penis tree pin
as several people have suggested, it does in fact come from the Marginalia Paraphernalia kickstarter, so we can officially say we solved that mystery.
Taking place in England the owners of the yard slowly kept adding sections to the contraption so when the squirrel learned one section and got the nuts, they’d add another section. It took over 2 weeks to get to the final product you see in the video.
I love how it pushed itself along in the red cart. FASTER FASTER!
The interval between the start and the end of “I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles)” is 3 minutes and 30 seconds, and the International Space Station is moving is 7.66 km/s.
This means that if an astronaut on the ISS listens to “I’m Gonna Be”, in the time between the first beat of the song and the final lines …
… they will have traveled just about exactly 1,000 miles.
my favorite Millennial Thing™ is when a group of us are standing around and talking and someone asks a question that no one knows the answer to and suddenly it’s a race to get out your phone and google it and be the first to know, and then someone starts reading the Wikipedia article about the thing aloud to everyone else, and what started as a casual conversation is now A Learning Opportunity and we all walk away a little more knowledgeable about a random topic
Like, Boomers hate when we do that, but I think it’s one of the best things about us.
So long as we have internet or a cell signal, all of the world’s collective knowledge is at our fingertips, and damned if we aren’t going to use it.
SPACE LESBIANS GONNA COLONISE MARS, MAKE IT A BEAUTIFUL SAPPHIC UTOPIA ❤
its actualy really fascinating, the reason they are considering making the mission to mars all female ACTUALLY doesnt have to do with “impure sexual thoughts” or anyhing it has to do with a multitude of factors, for example (cis) women astronauts tend to be smaller and require less food, nasa also did a series of studies showing that in groups, all woman groups showed better cooperation and teamwork than mixed or all men groups, and also probably the most interesting reason is that (cis) mens eyesight is damaged in space travel for reasons we dont even understand yet, for some strange reason the vast majority of men who have been into space have suffered damage to their eyesight and yet almost no women have had this issue, and scientists are still trying to figure out why but in the meantime sending men into space for long periods of time is a huge concern because they may go blind over time … just thought that that headline was a little reductionist and sensationalist so i had to comment, that being said tho…
HELL YEAH SPACE LESBIANS
SPACE LESBIANS IN SPACE
IN SPAAAAAAAAACE
SPACE! THE LESBIAN FRONTIER!
“These are the gay-ventures of the Starship Lez-terprise”
After turning 18, every kid is required to go to special tattoo parlor
where the town’s resident mage gives them a tattoo. No one knows what
the tattoo will be until it’s done, not even the mage. The tattoo forms
itself into a symbol that will become very important in the person’s
life. On Character A’s 18th birthday, their tattoo forms itself into a
crown.
Character A convinces their best friend, Character B, to go get a
tattoo. Not wanting anything big, Character B gets a small flower on
their back. The next morning, Character A gasps when they see Character
B’s entire back covered in vines and leaves and flowers, and they only
seem to be spreading further.
Everyone gets one tattoo in their life, and that tattoo gives them a
power of their choosing. Character A really wants the power to see
through objects, so they get a pair of eyes. However, after a series of
visions, they come to realize the power that manifested was actually
seeing into the future.
“I’m a mage and have been searching for an apprentice for years by
pushing a little bit of magic into everyone tattoo I give, just to see
if anyone reacts to it. None had, until I gave you yours. The second the
needle touched your skin, ink started flowing into patterns everywhere.
Please stop freaking out” AU
When tattoos start appearing on one’s body overnight, it’s a sign that
they’re meant to join the War of Magic. However, Character A’s parents
are major pacifists and hate the war, so Character A begins their own
struggle as they try to hide the growing tattoos their parents.
“I’ve been told all my life that moving tattoos were normal – a sign of
being healthy. But I don’t think that means the tattoos are supposed to
come off of my skin and fly around? Cause that’s why I’ve been hiding
out in my room all week” AU
Disclaimer: I myself would click away from this article if I saw it a year or two ago. You see, I used to be (and still am) a writer who fears the p-word so much, I am scared that being associated with a simple post about it, even reading it, will somehow bring upon me the curse of being plagiarized.
Turns out, I was afraid of it for a reason.
First of all,
let’s look it up, shall we?
p l a •
g i a
•
r i s m
the practice of taking someone else’s work or ideas and passing them off as one’s own.
Synonyms: copying, infringement of copyright, piracy, theft, stealing, poaching, appropriation.
As some of you might already know, if you have been following this blog, way more than a year ago, I published my entire Greek mythology fantasy retelling novel Salt for Airon Swoon Reads.
Swoon Reads is a website where authors publish their finished and fully edited manuscripts for a chance at publication by Macmillan without an agent. (That is an extremely short version of what this amazing site dodes, but if you are interested in more, you are welcome to chek them out.) I had the best of times there, met the most wonderful and talented authors, many of whom are my friends to this day.
H O W E V E R
Tragedy struck when a random person whom I didn’t know (and wasn’t registered on the site) saw it, liked it, and proceeded to steal my title and entire parts of the opening scenes.
I, of course, immediately took it down, and emailed the staff, but they couldn’t care less and pretended they could do nothing about it, although I sent them all the places where she had published my novel. I was completely let down and disappointed by their dismissal of the whole thing, because they keep reassuring everyone on their site, in multiple places, that they will do the “best they can” to protect our manuscripts, and that the files they upload aren’t downloadable.
In despair, I turned to the Swoon Reads community on twitter, and my friends there helped me so much with encouraging words, similar experiences (!) and words of sound advice.
I let that person who had stolen my work know I had seen it, and she deleted it, but I have blocked her since, because she tried to deny it and harass me, so I have no idea what she is doing with it. Of course, that’s not the point. I know she can’t write the same exact story as me, nor make it as awesome as I have (just saying-lol)
The point is this:
It’s real, and I am a victim of it.
Inspite of what other “authors” or “publishers” on this or any other site or platform may tell you, it is a thing. There are desperate, ruthless, unscrupulous or (best case senario) just plain stupid people out there who will post your art without credit, copy your ideas, steal your words.
This is the internet, after all.
There are tons of empty people roaming about, looking for souls to eat. I know this sounds overly dark, but it’s true. And by “empty” I mean people who don’t have ideas of their own, no creative spark, but crave the attention and personal rewards of other creators of original content they see online. They might be better at advertizing themselves or their stolen “stuff” than you (as we all have seen in the past, in cases of famous authors, artists, and even scientists) but they could never in a million years have created it. And that’s the crux of the matter.
I put Salt for Air in a drawer, never to see the light of day.
Why?
Well, for one because I felt violated. I was violated. My rights had been trampled upon and I no longer felt safe in that world I had created laboriously, because someone had invaded, stolen, and shattered it. My heart was broken for so long, I couldn’t even remember what it had felt like to write without a constant feeling of deep despair.
You see, that person didn’t just steal my story. She stole part of my soul with it, she sucked the joy out of my entire creative process. That’s what plagiarism is all about.
But there’s a second reason. A second fear, even greater. The what if fear.
The fear that’s constantly in front of our eyes, in the success of people we know have stolen ideas and passed them off as their own, and made entire fortunes out of it. I won’t add examples, but I’m sure you had at least one pop into your head as you were reading that sentence. (The first thing that popped into my head was the example of a “physicist” who is widely known as the “inventor of things” and the “father of things” when he stole EVERYTHING from other scientists, and nothing of his was original. Fellow-nerds will know who I’m talking about. And sadly, no, it’s not just one person. Also, I’m thinking of an “author” who has stolen every word and character he/she ever wrote. I’m sure you have your own examples in mind.)
So, as I said before, Salt for Air is mine. It will always be the story in my head, which turned into pages on my laptop and eventually printed pages in my hand. It will always be mermen and Greek mythology and sea monsters and salty kisses and tears in the rain and fanfic writers of an imagined book.
Right now I know that this person who stole parts of my story isn’t likely to become widely-known based just on what she plagiarized from me. (Although you never know.) But what if it happens again? What if that fear stops me from writing another word?
I struggled a lot with beginning to write again after that, especially when i saw how little the publishing industry cares for human rights or even just creative rights. Which is zero. I don’t mind, thankfully, I’m not part of that industry, but the fear is still there.
I started to write the Robin Hood WIP, although it was the worst time in my life to be undertaking such a huge task, because I wanted to get back into the joy of writing and creating new worlds. Robin Hood and his world have always made me feel safe and protected for some reason, and I craved the feeling of creating that story.
But Salt for Air remained a wound in my heart, an empty hole.
Now, a year or so later, I finally mustered up the courage, given to me largely by the lovely community of The Book Robin Hoods and their camaraderie and support, to share a tiny peek of SFA (here). The response both on the site, on my blog, facebook and instagram, blew me away.
People heard that story for the first time (of course) and wanted more. So I realized I was being stupid, holding myself and my story back because of some immoral person.
But not quite as stupid as I’d been before.
I’m wiser now. I know that this is a real threat to all of us authors out there, especially the indie ones, that don’t have a team of publishers behind us. But you know what? I’ll take my team of reader and writer friends any day over that people I emailed over at SR who didn’t give a damn about my problem (largely created due to lack of professionalism on their site) -I think the problem might be the incompetence of the specific staff member who responded to my emails with rudeness and indifference, but no matter how much I asked to be referred to someone else, they refused to reply. Still, I feel so much safer with my friends than I ever felt with those “professionals” who couldn’t bother to answer my emails. Wouldn’t you?
I fully realize that the truth is this: No one can protect you from plagiarism. No one can promise you that no matter what, people won’t steal or repost your ideas.
No one can guarantee you that others will behave in a decent, humane way.
So what do we do? Keep our ideas, our stories, our art, in the drawer forever? No. I understand that now. That would be even worse. Then we ourselves would be robbing ourselves of the joy of sharing our art with the world.
The answer is the exact opposite: Be brave.
Now that the worst has happened, I find myself strangely free, as I begin the tentative process of dusting off my copy of Salt for Air, and looking to publish it.
I find myself unafraid as I keep sharing intimate details of my process of writing my Robin Hood WIP in these diaries with all of you. I share my ideas more freely than before.
Why? Once more, Robin has the answer.
Robin Hood, who has lost everything a man can lose, fortune, home, name and decency, and is still fighting with all he’s got and being merry in the process.
Because once what you were afraid of has happened, there’s nothing to fear anymore. You just do what you have to do, and fake courage until you actually feel it.
Letting bad stuff defeat me was far worse than what that person did to me. I realize that now. It took me a year and more, but thankfully I did. Better late than never, right? Letting the immoral people win, that’s the worst that can happen. Not plagiarism. Fear is the worst thing that can happen to you and me, and we have to fight against that with all our strength.
Because the worst thing a plagiarist can do is steal your basic idea, but you still have that brain that created your idea, so you can create an even better one. But if you allow another’s crime to stop you (which is totally understandable) you will be the one who commits the bigger crime: giving up.
And you must never, ever give up.
Stay safe, copyright-protect everything, watermark if you possibly can, and double-lock your pdfs and ebooks. (That’s a figure of speech, I don’t know if double-lock exists for pdfs). People can still step on your heart, of course. So what do you do?
I can’t tell you what to do, how much to share, or when to stop in order to protect yourself. Educating yourself about plagiarism and crimes committed against you will certainly help, and this entire article is written with that as a given. Apart from that, I can only tell you what I’m going to to.
I am going to be fighting against what had been done to me and against me, by sharing the hell out of my book(s) and not letting anyone intimidate me.
I will continue to share excerpts of my story generously, because that’s the one basic thing that makes readers want to read my books: the teasers. I will not post entire chapters until a few months before publication, but I will not be shy or stringent with my ideas. I will let the whole world know (or at least the few people in it who are interested.) I will not sit in bed and cry all day (well, not any more.) I will accept that I have a right to feel awful about what happened to me, that it wasn’t something I deserved in any way, and move on.
I will publish my stolen story, because it’s not stolen, it’s mine. I will polish it up within an inch of its life, and send it to betas, and rework it again, and then I will not be afraid to put it out there, free chapters, promos, aesthetics and all. Full on.
It took me a bit of time, but I’m finally doing it. I’m stepping out there. Out of my comfort zone, but also out of my pain.
I am a little high but what if people proposed with beautiful, intricate knives. Ladies would gather around the table and be like “guess what finally happened!!” And pull this beautiful, intricate dagger out of her purse and all the other ladies would gasp and congratulate her
And handmade is clearly better, because look at all the time and effort! Something unique but inexpensive would mean a lot more than something expensive but generic.
Steel Phoenix Studios 