Tansy Rayner Roberts's Blog, page 5
November 23, 2018
Tea and Sympathetic Magic (Patreon Exclusive, coming soon!)
Tea and Sympathetic Magic
“Marrying a Duke isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.”
Welcome to the Teacup Islands, where croquet is a magical sport, only gentlemen can travel by portal, and eligible Dukes don’t come along every day.
Miss Mnemosyne Seabourne is the only lady at the house party who does not want to marry her cousin the Duke of Storm. Mr Thornbury is a cranky spellcracker, hired to prevent the Duke’s ardent admirers from using sympathetic magic to win his hand.
When the Duke is abducted, Mneme must team up with Mr Thornbury and a crew of valiant ladies, risking their own future to save him from an unwanted wedding.
Put on your best dress and be prepared to throw some teacups.
“Tea and Sympathetic Magic,” a Regency magic novella exclusive to Tansy’s $2+ Patreon supporters in December 2018.
For $1 a month, subscribers get:
1. New ebooks every year, including a Non Fiction Book of Mystery, and several NEW fiction releases weeks or months before they are available for sale.
2. An exciting backlist of stories, novels and more since Tansy began her Patreon – including Musketeer Space, the Castle Charming series and more. Download so much reading material!
3. Exclusive reading access to Tansy’s brand new, never-before-read Mocklore novel Soapy Ballads.
For $2+ a month, subscribers get:
1. All the above, and:
2. Exclusive first-read access to THREE original TansyRR stories every year — including new novella Tea and Sympathetic Magic!
3. Access to the Galactic Suburbia Slack! Enter a friendly community of creative feminist SF fans.
November 6, 2018
All About the Creature Court
The next couple of months are going to be all about The Creature Court for me as I work to fulfil rewards for my Kickstarter, the most ambitious crowdfunding & publishing project I’ve ever been involved with.
Have you seen the gorgeous covers yet? Thanks to artist Kathleen Jennings and designer Cathy Larsen, we now have glorious book covers for the Creature Court trilogy, including ebooks, hardbacks and paperbacks.
If you didn’t back the Kickstarter, don’t worry, you will be able to get your own lovely copies of these books when the ebook and paperback are released for general sale in February 2019… which is sooner than you think!
Meanwhile, Cabaret of Monsters, the original prequel novella that I wrote for the Kickstarter campaign, is going on general sale NEXT WEEK. If art deco fantasy, bloodthirsty shapeshifting werewolves and backstage theatricals drinking gin and eating pastries sounds like your kind of book, you can preorder your copy of Cabaret of Monsters right now:
EBOOK
PAPERBACK
Because it’s published through Lightning Source, you should be able to order this book directly through your local bookshop.
ISBN: 978-0-6483291-1-4
Or check it out at an online vendor:
AND HERE’S THE GOODREADS PAGE!
October 11, 2018
Preorders Ahoy! Cabaret of Monsters & Halloween is Not a Verb
I have two books currently available for pre-order! Get in now and buy a gift for your future self.
Cabaret of Monsters, the prequel novella for the Creature Court trilogy, is dropping on November 15th! If you missed the Kickstarter, this is your chance to score a copy of this thrilling, theatrical art deco fantasy.
Saturnalia in Aufleur is a time of topsy-turvy revels, of the world turned upside down and transformed before your eyes. The city’s theatres produce an annual display of reversals, surprises and transformations. In Aufleur, flappers can transform into wolves. Even the rats are not what they seem.
Evie Inglirra is on a mission to infiltrate the theatrical world of Aufleur and discover what lies beneath their glamorous cabaret costumes and backstage scandals. Has she bitten off more than she can chew?
Cabaret of Monsters on Kindle
Cabaret of Monsters (paperback) on Amazon
Cabaret of Monsters on Smashwords
Coming even sooner is the latest story in the Belladonna University series about student share house friendships, witches and geeky rock music: yes, it’s Halloween is Not a Verb!
Young Aussie witches Hebe and Holly Hallow are bringing their friends home to meet their mums for Halloween! What terrible life choices will Sage and Jules make around the bonfire? Why is Ferd flipping out about poetry? What’s with all the butternut pumpkins?
Epic friendship and festive shenanigans with the magical students from Belladonna University.
Halloween is Not a Verb pre-order on Kindle (drops October 31)
Halloween is Not a Verb pre-order on Smashwords (drops October 31)
Halloween is Not a Verb – listen to it for free this month on the Sheep Might Fly podcast
Halloween is Not a Verb – download it RIGHT NOW if you subscribe to my Patreon for $2+ a month.
There’s a few more exciting things on the horizon, including a new Cafe La Femme book coming in 2019. YES IT’S TRUE! If you want to know more, sign up to the Livia Day newsletter.
October 3, 2018
Merry Happy Valkyrie
Coming soon! I have a Christmas fantasy novella coming out from Twelfth Planet Press later this year (ebook only) featuring a tiny Tasmanian town you’ve probably never heard of, and a whole bunch of Norse-ish mythology and magic.
Put Santa hats on your friendly neighbourhood murder of ravens, things are gonna get snowy around here.
October 1, 2018
Welcome to Pacific City!
I have a brand new superhero story coming soon in this shared world superhero anthology from SFF World. Check it out on Kickstarter, where there are earlybird discount tiers for those who pledge in the first few days.
Welcome to Pacific City is a melting pot of fantasy, horror and science fiction, a shared-world brought to life in fourteen original stories by authors from all over the world! But not every hero wears tights, and not every villain seeks global domination…
I’m excited to finally be able to share this story with readers! Here’s a sneak peek to help you decide if you want to back the book.
Excerpt from “Purrfect Criminal” by Tansy Rayner Roberts
“Welcome home, Queen Feline,” says the voice in her head. “This location is not registered as secure for the suit. Mundane disguise is recommended.”
“Um, okay,” says Flick. She’ll address that whole Queen Feline business shortly. “How do we ditch the suit?”
It slides off her in pieces, folding up again and again like the world’s tidiest origami. When it’s done, it looks like a tiny purse, the kind with one shoulder strap and no space for anything but a phone and a credit card.
Oh look, there’s a phone tucked in there already. Let’s hope the previous owner of the suit doesn’t have a Find My Stolen Stuff app activated.
“Welcome home, Felicity Faraday,” says the voice, in a slightly different tone. Flick does a double take for two reasons. Firstly, because the suit is in handbag over there, but the voice is still in her ear. Secondly, it knows her name. Her actual literal name.
She thought this was all some complicated, wrong-place-at-the-wrong-time epic mistake, possibly involving unexpected time travel, but this…
The not-suit knows exactly who she is. When it doesn’t think she’s someone called Queen Feline, that is.
Before she can ask more questions, the door clicks open and a stupidly handsome man saunters in. “Hi, honey.”
“Hi what now?” Flick splutters. She didn’t know this was someone else’s apartment too. She would really have liked to know that before this exact moment.
He doesn’t even look in her direction but wanders around the apartment, chucking his wallet and keys in a bowl, putting his phone on the charger, disappearing into the kitchen carrying a clinking bag (wine, that bag looks promisingly full of wine). He certainly seems to belong here.
I’m the one who’s out of place.
“I heard there was a super-battle a couple of streets away,” he calls out as he opens and closes the fridge. “Lucky Star getting the jump on Queen Feline for, like, the fourth time this week. Didn’t get caught up in it, did you?”
“No,” she says, in a voice of false brightness that she really can’t keep up. “I just, uh, had a nap on the couch.”
“All right for some!” He has a British accent, she thinks, or maybe Australian, something that doesn’t sound quite right to the ear. Speaking of ear…
“Who is this guy?” she whispers to the air, hoping her disembodied not-suit can still hear her.
“This is Scott Saylor, junior advertising executive at the Pacific City Tribune and your fiancé,” the voice advises her in a quieter version of its usual brightness, as if it is also trying to whisper.
Flick really needs some of that wine so she can do a spit-take. She doubles down on this feeling when Scott Saylor wanders back into the room, kicks his shoes off and places an open bottle of red and two glasses on the coffee table before settling on the couch.
There’s something about him that’s too bright, like a cartoon character. No one’s hair is that shade of orangey-yellow, no one’s shoulders are that square-cut and broad. But more than that… she finds herself staring at his feet, and the line of his neck.
“You’re him,” she blurts out without thinking. “You’re the dude from the fight.”
“Lucky Star, 14th ranked superhero in Pacific City. Motto: This isn’t your lucky day,” the voice chirps helpfully. “Has received three commendations for not destroying public municipal buildings in the fight for justice.”
Scott Saylor is staring at her in horror. “Felicity,” he says slowly. “What are you talking about?”
“You’re a supervillain,” says Flick, pointing at him.
“Superhero,” corrects the voice in her ear. “Queen Feline is a supervillain. 8th ranked in Pacific City, and rising steadily. Up three points since Christmas!”
“Superhero,” Flick says obediently. “You’re Lucky Star, and you’re a freaking superhero. But seriously, only 14th in the city, are you even trying very hard?”
Scott stands up, towering over her like she’s some child he needs to talk out of a tantrum. “Now honey, if that was true—and it’s not true, obviously—”
Flick blinks at him. “You have the same patronizing tone of voice and everything.”
“Lucky Star wears a mask and a suit,” he explains. “To protect the innocent.”
“But it’s clearly you. I’ve only met you for… I mean, look at you. You’re the same shape as him. There can’t be that many men in this city with sloping shoulders and an unnaturally small waist and… what even are those muscles in your feet? Feet aren’t for muscles! Feet are for comfy slippers.”
“You seem overwrought,” says Scott. “Maybe a bit hysterical? I can recommend a superhero paranoia therapist, several of my friends uh, well their partners use them a lot.”
“Okay,” Flick decides, “you are sleeping on the couch tonight, because you are a lying liar who didn’t tell his fiancée that he’s a goddamn superhero, though frankly she has to be PRETTY UNOBSERVANT NOT TO HAVE NOTICED!”
Want to read more? Order your copy of Welcome To Pacific City today on Kickstarter!
September 16, 2018
Patreon Halloween Special
Subscribers to my Patreon are about to have a bumper month of extra events, projects and rewards!
On Halloween weekend I’ll be hosting the first ever Inky Valkyrie Book Club, inviting all my Patreon subscribers to discuss one of my all time favourite children’s novels, the wacky and magical Which Witch by Eva Ibbotson.
Those who sign up at $3 or more before the end of September will get a special bonus reward, a “Witchy Reads” podcast episode made exclusively for you. This offer will end on September 30 2018 AEST so get in now!
Then there are the ordinary everyday rewards already built into the Patreon:
My current Sheep Might Fly podcast serial, Halloween Is Not A Verb, will be completed in October, and the ebook will drop for all subscribers before it goes on general sale.
My brand new Mocklore fantasy adventure serial, Soapy Ballads, is going to weekly updates instead of fortnightly! That’s double the hijinks. The first chapter has now been unlocked so check it out to see if it’s your cup of tea, but the rest of the book will be subscriber-only ($1+).
Essay of the Month — in August I talked about Failing at Fantasy.
And so many more rewards, extras and goodies for as little as $1 a month…
August 9, 2018
Diva vs Diva and Gentlewomen of the Press
So, exciting things are happening over at my Patreon this week. I released the annual Non Fiction book to all my subscribers — this year Gentlewomen of the Press, a collection of essays on the ‘girl reporter’ trope, many of which I wrote when promoting my Girl Reporter novella a little while back. They’ve been revised for the book, with some extra pieces looking at Lois Lane and other “gentlewomen of the press” that inspired in my childhood reading, from the March girls and their fake newspapers, to Anne Shirley selling a story about soap powder. Also covered: Press Gang, Sarah Jane Smith as a journalist, and the classic Rosalind Russell/Cary Grant movie His Girl Friday.
Subscribers of my Patreon get to download this book right now! You can sign up for as little as $1 per month.
But there’s more… a brand new Mocklore serial starts today, updating every two weeks, for Patreon subscribers only. Soapy Ballads is the infamous “lost” Mocklore novel, a manuscript that fell through the cracks back in the day, but somehow persisted through catalogues and an empty Amazon page for YEARS. Now, rewritten and fresh as a daisy, this story about bounty hunters, soap opera and goddesses which FINALLY resolves the Bounty & Luc story from Hobgoblin Boots, will be available for readers. I’m so excited to be able to share this very unusual fantasy story with my readers.
It’s diva vs diva in a new sword and sorcery serial about goddesses and soap opera!
Luc Triclover is an ex-hero running for his life, pursued by three goddesses demanding he pick which of them is the fairest of them all. Glamorous bounty hunter Bounty Fenetre wants to save her old friend from a fate worse than fate, but she still doesn’t have a plan, and he refuses to be rescued. Their stories converge in a muddy field, where a troupe of bards perform a daily soap opera for an audience of witches who watch their artificial world through crystal balls… a world where everything is larger than life, especially the hair and the heels.
This is Soapy Ballads, and the drama’s about to get real.
May 23, 2018
Emotional Masculinity and Lost Opportunities: Why Deadpool 2 is Better Than You Think (But Not As Good As It Could Have Been)
ALL THE SPOILERS seriously I’m gonna talk about every beat of this movie and you don’t want that, not if you’re planning to see it, so only read this without seeing the movie if you’re that person who seriously loves spoilers and thinks they make movies better, you know who you are.
Watch the movie first. It’s worth it. Or you know, don’t. I’m not the boss of you.
So hey let’s talk about Deadpool 2 and male heroes doing emotional work.
From the start, way back with the pre-publicity around the first Deadpool movie, the production team has played around with Deadpool’s alternative take on heroic masculinity — mostly for laughs, but it’s still significant in the history of pop culture. Many of the posters used provovative poses usually reserved for women, the first movie was released on Valentine’s Day and pitched as a date movie and a romance, and so on. This was also with the promotions around Deadpool 2. Movie Deadpool’s public image started to look a lot like the Hawkeye Initiative… except made by dudes.
Then we come to Deadpool 2, in which Wade Wilson’s girlfriend Vanessa is murdered in the cold open. Which is a problem.
Women in Refrigerators as a trope has been widely discussed for over two decades. If you missed that conversation, you really don’t know enough about superheroes. Which is disturbing because apparently the screenwriters of the movie didn’t actually know that was a thing.
It doesn’t matter how good your movie/comic/book is, if you have a female character die in order to progress the plot & emotional narrative of the male hero, you’re contributing to this super problematic trope. And it’s a common one. So common that it automatically makes your story LESS INTERESTING to people who have seen it as many times as they probably have. Once we’ve seen it, we can’t unsee it.
Frustratingly, Deadpool 2 uses this trope really, really well and does some very interesting things with it.
I’d add that Gail Simone, originator of the Women in Refrigerator conversation, has talked on Twitter about how she doesn’t think Vanessa’s death in Deadpool 2 matches up completely with the most problematic aspect of trope, largely because WiR is about a woman disappearing from the narrative to push the male hero’s story forward… and Vanessa does not disappear, continuing to play a role in the story & to have a voice of her own. I look forward to hearing more of Gail’s thoughts on this when she is less conscious of spoiling the movie.
Let’s start with Vanessa’s death, which happens directly after a scene in which our hero and his sweetie are celebrating their anniversary and about to embark on some epic babymaking. Yes, really. I should add at this point that Deadpool literally refers to lazy writing in this script at least twice, but not in relation to this plotline. Probably because, as mentioned above, the screenwriters didn’t realise they were being lazy because they had never heard of Women in Refrigerators.
Vanessa is killed by a stray bullet, Deadpool immediately gets his revenge on all relevant perpetrators, and the credits roll with comedy James Bond pastiche poses, challenging Deadpool’s “heroic” status while calling attention to what they just did with a series of text jokes that make it clear they know what they just did.
(Except of course, they don’t ACTUALLY know what they just did)
What I think THEY think they did was to satirise the heroic journey in which a hero’s gf/wife/baby mama is murdered, sending him on a spiral of righteous vengeance.
Unfortunately they did this by replicating that filming tradition so closely that… well. They did the thing.
Vanessa, who was so great in the first movie as Wade’s raunchy soulmate, a rare female character whose comedic dialogue is allowed to be as gross as that of the dude is relegated to an Angel in the House, a soft focus version of herself who posthumously teaches Wade about the value of love and the importance of his heart.
Yeah, that kind of sucks.
It really annoys me how much I loved the movie anyway.
Deadpool as a character is at his best when he punctures the heroic traditions, and Deadpool 2 does this brilliantly, in scene after scene. From the knowing dialogue to the comedy undercutting of film tropes (like what happens to the entire team he assembles OMG), along with the real emotions of the story and the literal commentary on so many recent superhero movie… Deadpool 2 is a breath of fresh air.
There are several great female characters in the movie, even including heavenly Vanessa. (Who… yes, dies in the opening sequence, but STILL has more interesting dialogue and acting opportunities throughout the film than for example Rachel McAdams in Dr Strange or Ant-Man’s ex wife, whose only contribution to their respective movie franchises is to be annoyed at the hero and occasionally placed in mild peril)
Negasonic Teenage Warhead continues to be criminally underused, but it feels like her general lack of screentime comes mostly from her character’s outright refusal a) be involved at all or b) to feed straight lines to Deadpool, which is legit. (Give her a movie of her own!) NTW does get a canon girlfriend, Yukio, who is so adorable that even Wade can’t be snarky about her, and some good if too-brief scenes. NTW is my favourite X-Man.
Blind Al, who I will always think of as Grannypool, is flat out awesome, as always, and her relationship with Wade is both delightfully soft and full of sharp edges. I would watch a movie that’s just the two of them all the way through.
Speaking of Needs Her Own Movie, Domino is so damned good. I loved how she was used in the film from her opening scene arguing about whether luck is a superpower (it is) through all the action sequences, and the emotional narrative kick we got in the final act when she realised her reason for coming along. She is a huge part of what made this movie so great.
Also, luck is her superpower, and considering I was still feeling bruised about the Vanessa thing, it was deeply empowering to see Domino stroll from crisis to crisis, completely untouchable even when the men around her were dying all manner of ignoble deaths.
Then there’s Cable. Like Deadpool, this badass super solder from the future is motivated by the violent death of his family (wife and daughter so that’s another 2 fridged). It’s a universal trope, sure, but it’s also boooooring. Again, this isn’t one of the choices called out for lazy writing but getting instant emotional gratification because the two male leads both have women to avenge? Yeah, that’s… not clever.
But.
What actually lifts Deadpool 2 from ‘not as good as the first one’ to ‘genuinely interesting action comedy’ is that despite the unoriginal backstory, the script actually does do something important and if not new, certainly fresh with both Deadpool and Cable.
Wade is an anti-hero — Deadpool has always been an anti-hero. The opening sequence in which he gleefully takes down ‘bad guys’ across a montage of Tarantino-style mob violence without thought of possible consequence establishes ‘anti-hero’ in a more traditional comic book sense. But the rest of the movie is far more about tearing down the heroic masculine narrative, and giving us something quite different.
Other action movies would revolve around Wade’s journey of vengeance against those who took Vanessa from him, scaling up the very violence that caused her death in the first place; this movie winds up that storyline before the opening credits. Instead, Wade is left suicidal and furious at himself because he blames himself for Vanessa’s death and can’t find any way to wreak vengeance on himself.
His self-loathing, blaming himself for her death, is articulated throughout instead of grimly implied, which is the usual Action Hero Emotional Beat Of Choice. He openly talks about his guilt, his responsibility, and his feelings.
Deadpool’s depression is played for comedic effect, as is everything else in his life, and yet there’s never any doubt that it’s real, it’s true… and it affects every choice he makes. Including getting himself imprisoned for a violent response to an abused mutant kid who needs his help… (A kid whose first response to prison is to try to shank the biggest guy in there, because he’s learned about life from brutal dude movies and also, we learn, deeply damaged…)
When Cable comes back from the past, Terminator-style, to kill the kid that Wade has made a reluctant connection with, a fairly obvious heroic path seems laid out before us: Wade will overcome his ennui, save the kid, probably get all self-sacrificial, and ultimately come to terms with Vanessa’s death.
Instead, we learn that Cable is after the kid because he’s destined to become a destructive super-villain, so Wade’s mission becomes to prevent that future from happening without letting Cable murder a child… through talking, and making things better for everyone.
Emotional work, in other words. It’s not about shooting, it’s about… working through complex feelings and helping others do the same. This is such a rare thing to find in a male-led heroic narrative. Xena and Buffy dealt with this kind of storyline all the time, but I really enjoyed watching Deadpool, Cable and the rest of them power through ‘bullets will solve this’ to ‘we’re all gonna need to talk about the hard stuff.’
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And can we talk about the beautiful shiny cinnamon roll that is Colossus in this movie? Colossus, who is the person who takes the most active role in trying to save Deadpool from his grief and depression, pouts and sulks when his method (forcing Deadpool to sign up to the X-Men and bury his loss in heroic acts) fails terribly, and responds belatedly to a Boom Box Declaration of Love, but comes through in the end thanks to the power of friendship.
(I was expecting some “acknowledgment” of Deadpool’s fluid sexuality via a hefty dose of Cable flirting in this movie, I was not expecting the deeply romantic narrative centred around Colossus and his personal need to “fix” Wade)
Colossus princess-carrying Deadpool in a fight scene gives me life, and I am not ashamed to admit it. But I think it’s so great that he is given this role in doing the emotional work to support Deadpool’s story, far more so than the women in their lives. It’s not Negasonic Teenage Warhead or Domino or Grannypool who work hardest to put Deadpool back together after his loss… it’s Colossus, with a side order of Russell and Cable doing their part.
Cable is fascinating here too — after the very 2 dimensional Thanos in Avengers: Infinity War, a cartoon alien whose definition of love translates as domestic abuse and whose biggest emotional beat is his chin, I was prepared to be equally disinterested in Brolin’s Cable. But despite the cheesy ‘my wife and child are dead’ cliche set up in the script, Cable is genuinely affecting here, conveying his love for his lost family and his resentment at being in the past that shaped his world, but also forming an emotional connection with Deadpool, the most annoying person on the planet (like, seriously, he works at that).
The ultimate sacrificial act in this story is not Deadpool letting himself be killed to teach Russell the power of love (a suicidal hero choosing Death By Supervillain doesn’t really count as a sacrifice), it’s Cable giving up his ride home to undo that death, for no reason other than personal empathy.
More to the point, Cable openly states he is staying to do the hard work in keeping the world from going to shit. Cable is so great.
I feel like I should be talking more about how amazing Domino is in this movie. That’s really a whole other essay. I’m so glad they gave her so many wonderful action hero moments rich with comedy and drama and emotion. Also, how fantastic is the overall ensemble? Great use of a very diverse cast, with even the much smaller new roles very carefully chosen. Though Terry Crews needs to be OK and come back for a much bigger role in the next one. Really. Truly. He’s OK, right?
It’s the portrayal of men in Deadpool 2 — men as friends, as mentors, men grieving, men awkwardly trying to connect to each other, which makes the movie feel worthwhile and utterly different, which is a rare thing to say about superhero movies. (There are comparisons to be made to Black Panther, which also has men talking about their feelings, and working through emotional baggage to get to peaceful solutions, plus the importance of listening to the great women around you)
Deadpool is an anti-hero — that’s not new. But here, in this particular movie, he delves so deep into the idea of ‘anti-hero’ that he challenges what the word ‘hero’ even means. Not because he swears a bunch, makes a lot of dick jokes and kills people regularly, but because he looks past his own needs to provide emotional support for a kid in danger of becoming even more messed up than he is… and shows Cable that you can solve problems without shooting at them. Or, well. While shooting at them.
Speaking of articulating important feelings and emotions instead of implying them through brooding moments of silence Action Hero Style, can we talk about how Deadpool talks about team-building as a substitute for family almost constantly through this story, signposting it as the main theme from beginning to end? It’s all very Lilo and Stitch. Despite all the guns, extreme violence and other Action Hero Tropes, despite Deadpool’s reputation and the way he’s glorified by some pretty unpleasant male fans… this movie had a soft, squishy centre to it, and I appreciated that greatly.
I’m tired of Women in Refrigerators. I’m tired of sexist, gendered film tropes — regardless of whether Vanessa counts as fridged or not, I’ve been seeing this dead girlfriend story since I watched Lethal Weapon 2 at 10 years old, and I’m over it.
Would Deadpool 2 have been a better movie if Vanessa had merely dumped Wade, as the screenwriters originally considered? Probably not… the raw emotion of losing her and the deep guilt he worked through is part of what made the movie really good. (Tropes become tropes because they’re narratively satisfying, which is why super problematic tropes often translate to “good” writing… until you’ve seen them done a zillion times and they make you want to set fire to things)
If this new generation of witty, male-led action hero stories are going to interrogate the masculine heroic ideals instead of indulging in a blind adoration of their genre’s Serious Problems then I’m probably going to keep watching. It helps a lot when those male-led action anti-heroes have women they listen to and respect on their teams… and more than ONE at a time would be nice. Killing off a great female character is slightly more forgivable when there are more great female characters in your franchise. (Please note, Black Panther killed off no women and was an amazing film, it is possible)
The worst part about Deadpool 2 is not that they killed off Vanessa, and it’s definitely not that they wrote a script that justified that narrative choice. The worst part is that apparently they had NO IDEA what they were doing. They weren’t thinking about Women in Refrigerators, or the over-use of the Dead Wife As Revenge Motive. They weren’t thinking about their female audience, or their critical feminist audience.
Like, if you’re making a Deadpool movie, and you’re gonna kill off the girlfriend, you don’t just set it up with lame jokes about baby names. You make jokes about fridges. You make jokes about refrigerators before AND after she is killed. Once Vanessa is dead and Wade is having dreams about talking to her, trying to reach her, and she has important messages to pass on, you don’t have her sitting in a weirdly tidy heavenly living room…
YOU HAVE HER SIT ON THE FRIDGE.
You have her set up heavenly afterlife inside the damn fridge. You spell her name out in fridge magnets. You own the fucking joke. You hang a lampshade on the joke and then you set fire to the lampshade.
Then, when you bring her back to life in the closing credits sequence (it’s canon, I refuse to believe it’s not canon), you do so by having Deadpool kill the assassin, not with a fucking butter knife, but with a REFRIGERATOR.
They didn’t do any of that that. Because they weren’t in on the joke. We got great jokes at the expense of Logan, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Winter Soldier, Batman, Green Lantern, John Wick and the first Deadpool movie… but the screenwriters were simply not aware enough of the gender issues in their movie to make knowing, smartass jokes about that too.
Which is a shame, because Deadpool 2 is a great movie with a few painful flaws in it right now… and if they’d just let a feminist comics fan or three read the script before they started shooting, it could have been SPECTACULAR.
April 22, 2018
Mocklore Box Set
This is the Year of Mocklore! In April 1998, a nineteen-year-old aspiring writer got a phone call that would change her life: her unpublished novel had won a contest and was going to be published by Bantam/Transworld later that year.
THAT WAS 20 YEARS AGO! I have a bunch of different projects happening over the year to celebrate my 2 decades as a published author. This is something I’ve been working on for a while — a digital collected box set of all current Mocklore releases (3 novels, 6 short stories/novellas) exclusive to Kindle.
Heroic women, comic fantasy, big boots & flying sheep. Check out the Mocklore Chronicles.
April 11, 2018
It’s the final day of the Creature Court Kickstarter! We...
It’s the final day of the Creature Court Kickstarter! We’ve come so far!
For the last day I’ve spruced up the stretch goals to make them even more exciting as we head to the finish line. (we’re currently at 16,938 so VERY close to making the next one.)
$17,000 – Tansy will send 2 Creature Court flash/micro fictions to Kickstarter backers before the end of the campaign!
$17,500 – 2 new ebooks added to the TansyRR digital bundle! Cranky Ladies of History, and A Trifle Dead.
$18,000 – Cabaret of Monsters (the prequel novella) will be released as a free podcast serial, read by Tansy, and a digital audiobook released to all backers. Estimated Delivery: late 2018
And yes I said all backers — even those supporting my Kickstarter at $1 will get the digital audiobook if we reach $18,000.
Only hours left to support my campaign and pick your reward level, including paperbacks, ebooks, enamel pins, hand-sewn felt mice, postcards, and more. Remember if you already own the trilogy there is a BRAND-NEW NOVELLA included in this campaign, and there are pledge levels that mean you’re not re-buying books you already have.
But if you do want the Creature Court trilogy in beautiful limited edition hardback, this Kickstarter campaign is your only chance to get them! Later releases will be paperback only.
THANK YOU EVERYONE FOR YOUR SUPPORT THIS MONTH!!!
