I just looked at my little self-memo this morning and realised... I have FIVE WEEKS left of writing this dang book.
Five weeks until I take a week (or more) off from novel writing before doing the deep dive into a trilogy. There will be world-building. There will be tears. There will be desperate attempts to get someone to consult on things I might be accidentally insensitive to.
Multiple someones would be better. The more people to let me know about unnecessary cruelty in a fantasy novel, the better. The good news is that research shows the medieval attitudes towards people of colour were way better than they are today. I couldn't find much in the way of trans-attitudes in the medieval periods so I could easily assume that -for the most part- people didn't care.
Just like Autism was invisible in the era because people tended to stay local and everyone knew everyone's quirks... perhaps transness was invisible because if you wanted to live like another gender - folks just didn't care.
That said, there's some pretty stringent gender roles in the atmosphere, but if I make it a more generic fantasy world, then I can ease off of those more than a little.
I shall keep you informed with the worldbuilding, folks.
And speaking of Worldbuilding... I saw the latest Hellboy movie, last night.
Things that irritated me and why:
- The Burnbright advertisement. So... Autistic people are both aliens and monsters now, huh? Fan-fucking-tastic. Wonderful. Speaking as an alien monster, I want to track down the people who thought this was a brilliant idea and kick their behinds. This is NOT how you prevent "autism parents" from mercy-killing their kids, folks. This is NOT how you prevent nypicals bullying autistes. At all. 0/10, see me after class.
- Rasputin. Okay, little history lesson, people. Rasputin was leeched onto the Romanov royal family and, though definitely a villain, was amongst the ALLIES. There's no way in hell that he'd be (a) away from the Romanovs at all, (b) anywhere close to the Nazis or (c) doing that kind of occult magic. He was allegedly Christian, though his particular flavour said that it was vital to sin in order to enjoy forgiveness. They could have made up literally anyone else and it would have been FINE.
- Do your fucking homework, people! Rasputin wasn't fucking bald. There are numerous pictures of this dude all over the interwebs. Definitely worth a google.
- Arthurian Legends... look. If you're going to fuck with the Arthurian stuff, at least fucking mention Morganna L'Fae. I mean. Automatic baddie, right there. On a gold platter.
- Also, if you're going to narrate, "One swing of his sword," you should probably only show that swing. Shit. That was just plain disorganised. Get your crap together.
Even though they don't have the amazing Ron Perlman under all that red crap, the movie was brilliant. There was a definite "I didn't see that coming" betrayal moment, and they used more than Western Lore and Legends for stuff, so I'm happy.
Any movie with Baba Yaga in it is a definite win.