A Swab, a Huh? and a You’ve Got to be Kidding Me

Well, today got off to an “auspicious” start. First there was waking at 0300 with a fully realized scene from something that IS NOT the current WIP. If I’m lucky, I’ll be able to write the scene quickly and then get back to Ashes. After making a couple of notes on my phone, I rolled over and went back to sleep. Only to be awakened at 0400 by the cats recreating the Battle of the Bulge complete with screaming, wailing, and the breaking of things. By 0430, the dog had been fed, the elderly cat reassured that I wouldn’t let the younger cat (named both Brat and Dickface for obvious reasons) kill her and sleep was not to return. Oh, and at 0700 I was getting ye olde Covid test in preparation for some minor surgery later this week. 2020 can’t end any too soon.

So if today’s post is more incoherent than usual, now you know why. Too little sleep, too little coffee and a death scene I really don’t want to write but am going to have to before getting back to the current project.

This “ooh, shiny” seems to be happening more and more in the last six to eight months. Hmm, could it be my subconscious rebelling against all the idiocy being aimed at us by local and state governments? (That’s a rhetorial question because the answer is at least partly “yes”.)

Without going into politics, at least not too much, I find myself pushing harder than ever before to get work out. I wish we had a viable alternative to Amazon–not to mention the other outlets–but we don’t. So I am doing everything I can to keep up with Amazon’s changes and put out as much as I can.

I don’t think Amazon is going to risk losing the money it makes from all the indie and small presses that use its KDP platform. But I do think we will see more pressure from the Left to try to delist our work if it doesn’t meet the cause du jour. We’ve already seen how Target overreacted to a single tweet about a book and removed it from its shelves last week. It’s apologized and, iirc, returned the book. But this knee-jerk reaction to the woke crowd is more than al ittle disturbing.

The idiocy seems to grow with each week that passes. Just this month, Baby Yoda was “cancelled” by the woke crowd because he dared eat the eggs of a sentient being. How dare this “Child” do that! Bad Baby Yoda.

But that’s not the only scene from The Mandalorian to catch the eye of the woke crowd this month. In a more recent episode, cries of outrage were heard through the interwebz because of a character’s armor. 

Boobz armor is bad according to Anita Sarkeesian.

Why do I think she’d have been outraged if the lady Mando armor was exactly the same as Mando’s was? After all, then they could be accused of trying to erase the female form. 

But, but, but it’s not “real”, as one commenter points out. No shit, Sherlock. It’s a fucking show. It’s fiction. Not that the Sarkeesians of the world care as long as they can show their woke card.

And, yes, they will come for those writers they feel aren’t giving out the right message–especially those more successful than they are. And that presents a danger to all of us. Will the venues we’ve been using to sell our books remain open to us in their current forms or will we have to start tailoring our books to their demands?

(something I’m not willing to do.)

Honestly, I don’t see Amazon caving. They are powered by the almight dollar and money isn’t in being woke. All they have to do is look at what’s happening to Disney to see that. However, I’m not as convinced about the other venues where books aren’t a major moneymaker for them. After all, Apple relies much more on iTunes and the app store than it does iBooks. Kobo? They proved years ago with the cover debacle that they will give into the feelz of a few. There are still some of us unable to sell certain books becuase of covers they claim were “inappropriate”. I’m still trying to figure that one out because my book that got caught up in it showed no skin, was not sexually provocative or anything else. But it got banned on the site. Then there’s B&N. If they manage to survive in anything resembling their current business model, I’ll be surprised.

So, I work as hard as I can and I keep a close eye on what’s going on with Amazon. I recommend each of you do the same.

But, for all that seems negative, there is a positive. People want things to read. They want to be able to escape for a few minutes or hours into a world that isn’t as worrisome as the one we currently live in. So I write. I write as much as I can and as quickly as I can. Now if I could just get the muse to cooperate and not keep jumping between projects like she’s doing right now.

Maybe I need some more coffee. . .or a hammer to beat Myrtle the Evil Muse over the head so she lets me get back to work on what I want to write instead of chasing off after some story that’s not even on the schedule yet.

Featured Image by Daniela Realpe from Pixabay.

36 thoughts on “A Swab, a Huh? and a You’ve Got to be Kidding Me”

  2. Mandalorian was just very publicly handed over to the guy….k, if you’ve watched the Avengers movies? The heavy set guy who works with Tony Stark? (Actually heavy set, not code word for “bucket of lard.”) That’s Jon Favreau, Disney just handed a TON of stuff over to him to fix, because he’s a geek who can tell stories.

    So they’re desperate for destroy the show, now, since it’s one of his babies and he MUST BE DESTROYED.

    So, suddenly, the girl Mandalorians having armor that’s almost identical to what it was in the CGI series is a horrible thing.

    1. On the other hand, it’s also Anita Sarkeesian, who was last relevant sometime around Gamergate and is desperate to try and regain said relevance. AFAIK no one outside certain “geek feminist” circles pays her any mind.

      1. The “geek feminist” circle is exactly who is pissed about…whatzername, Kennedy… being booted for failure to perform when handed a golden goose.

        1. Kathleen Kennedy. A true heir to the artistic and technical abilities of George Lucas.

            1. ???

              Lucas found someone to learn his actual skills, that happened to have the exact same deficits as a storyteller when left to their own devices.

              I’m a little bit under the weather, and easily confused.

  3. No, I can’t see Amazon deciding to deplatform books by independent and insufficiently-work authors, either. They’ve got too much at stake and too long an experience of selling a wide variety of authors – but I can see committed and loudly-woke activists going all jihad and trying to get books pulled by Amazon. I believe and hope that Amazon is made of sterner stuff than Target, who (temporarily) pulled a book critical about the transgender fad on the basis of a single activist complaining.

      1. I seem to remember hearing that it was more about Vox Day violating Amazon Procedures than about his views.

        It also applied to his publishing company (owned by him).

        1. Wasn’t that the “they’re banning all BadThink” to-do that ended up being the publishing company pulled for repeatedly not getting books to Amazon at the time they’d committed to?

          There’s been so many “Amazon is evil for sure this time!” things that fell apart when looked at, I have trouble keeping track.

        2. I’m sure you did. In other news, we just had a fair and honest election. Pay no attention to the rewriting of election laws on the fly.

          Amazon’s procedures are whatever Amazon needs them to be at any moment. Because who can afford the fight? See also Disney and Alan Dean Foster.

          1. The vast differences in the evidence offered should make you think twice before giving that example.
            The “I don’t like them, so all accusations must be true” thing is a bad logic, and corrosive exactly because of the boy-who-cried wolf effect.

            1. Yep, Snelson is “stuck” in the “Amazon Is A Great Evil” trap. 😦

          2. Snelson134, we’ve had this discussion before. We get you don’t like Amazon. We get that you will take any opportunity you can to diss them–with or without reason. We get you just LOVE to try to turn discussions to politics. You’ve been warned before about this. Consider this your final warning. Veer off-topic again, take it into politics without reason (and bringing up the election in this post is without reason) or slamming Amazon without offering a viable option and face losing, at least temporarily, the ability to comment here.

            You are more than welcome to comment on the substance of our posts, as long as you are doing more than drive-by hitting, which your Amazon comment is BECAUSE YOU OFFER NO DATA TO SUPPORT YOUR POSITION AND NO VIABLE ALTERNATIVES.

              1. However, I reserve the right to point out the hypocrisy of people who want to complain about FascistBook censorship while exercising it themselves……

      2. Mary, nothing is every absolutely sure. I’m not saying they haven’t made mistakes becuase they have. But they usually are pretty quick to correct them. The fact Vox’s books are available proves that. Honestly, almost every instance of a book being removed has been because Amazon’s terms of service have been violated. That is why it is so very important for authors to regularly check the ToS to see if they have been updated. That is a responsibility we should not abdicate, no matter how tedious the job might be.

  5. The likes of Anita Snarksneezian are exactly the reason why my Valkyries have too-short skirts and “form fitting” chest plates on their armor. Because why wouldn’t they? They’re girls, they like to show off their fabulous forms.

    Additional retort, the next time some damn fool starts going on about “boob armor” just show them the breast and back plates of Roman armor. That would be the ones with the muscles molded in, to show off the extra-studliness of the Legionary wearing it. If women fought for real, ever, their armor would have double Ds.

    1. Antonina’s armor in Fortune’s Stroke! 😛

      (or was it Destiny’s Shield? So much story, hard to remember how it’s divided up)

    3. Of course, attractive female form =/= attractive male form as far as intimidation factor goes, but it is a major morale and outreach consideration.

      “She’s hot, and she could totally kill me” seems to push a lot of buttons in guys’ heads. 😀

      1. Just think that armor, but female, on a 20 foot giant. Wearing that skirt and carrying the chain gun off an attack helicopter. That’s a Valkyrie. Comes toward the end of Unfair Advantage by Edward Thomas, which people can actually buy. Because I actually published it, finally. ~:D

        The point of the sexy armor and short skirts in the book was to -stop- fights. They turned a potentially ugly standoff into a practical joke that way, soldiers too busy staring. I don’t know if that would work in Real Life, I guess it would depend on who the soldiers were and who was wearing the short skirts.

        But as a piece of -fiction-, written for the purpose of having fun and imagining something cool, I had a blast with it. Fabulous robots for the win!

        1. In the first Wearing The Cape book, Hope/Astra meets Atlas for the first time when he’s out of uniform and is very surprised.

          While he’s obviously fit (not over-weight), he’s not as “rippled” as he is in uniform. Apparently, most male (and perhaps female) Super-Strong heroes wear uniforms that shows them as more muscular than they are in “real life”.

          Of course, when it comes time for Hope/Astra to get her uniform, she’s very pleased by how it makes her look. Hope is around eighteen but could pass for fifteen. While her uniform still makes her look young & petite, it makes her breasts seem more adult size than her actual breasts. Oh, apparently most female heroes have uniforms that make their breasts seem larger.

          In both cases, it’s “Marketing”.

          All of the Heroic Super-Beings have modeled them selves after the Super-Heroes of the Comic Books.

          Of course, while the “Capes” are actual working heroes, part of “paying the bills” is Action Figures, Movies, TV Shows and other Merchandise. 😀

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