Seanan McGuire: A charming soul has left a comment on my Instagram saying they like everything about my books except the "feministic viewpoints and evolution undertones." And I...what?

A charming soul has left a comment on my Instagram saying they like everything about my books except the "feministic viewpoints and evolution undertones." And I...what?

Evolution UNDERtones? UNDERtones? I feel slightly insulted here. I thought I was way more aggressive in my evolutionist viewpoint than that.

This was my precise thought! I apologize for you having to encounter someone who does not have good reading comprehension today. I hope that person one day finds someone who writes what they want to enjoy in a novel.

I'm wondering what they looked about the books? The font? The taste of their e-reader screen? The taste of the font, perhaps?

"Evolutionist"? That's like calling an astrophysicist "relativist". It's not a belief system, it's reality. Life evolves, relativity applies in Einsteinian space. Them's just facts.

The wonderful thought put into the murdermaids* (perfect, plausible, absorbed with nary a ripple that would jar a reader out of the book and into a 'Hang on, that's not... right...') was apparently too subtle, along with every other book/novella/short story? *at my forefront due to recent rereads

Cearly, they were blinded by the Feminism.

Wait, the Oberon-Maeve-Titania thing isn’t a metaphor for the holy trinity and a refutation of the theory of evolution by saying all life was created by that trinity?

Aha brilliant!

I don't know what they were looking at to then have to look underneath to find these themes. They're not undertones, they're tones. If they say they like your writing except for those things, they don't like your writing. They like the version of your writing in their heads.

Maybe they skimmed and think the Covenant are the good guys..?

*Under*tones. There is not a big enough *what* in the world lmao

ALL CAPS is the key from here on out.

Hope you don't feel too insulted - they're clearly lacking in understanding so can't be expected to recognise all the strands of your work that could be described as general knowledge!

Maybe they meant in more of the music version, reaching down lower? Almost certainly not, but it's a fun thought experiment.

I read this to Paul, cackling, and he guffawed. You’re enraging the right people.

So you know when some Hollywood types tried to option Mort and told Terry Pratchett that they loved everything about the book, only could he lose that whole "death" bit? Yeah. That.

"I like everything about this cake except the frosting, the filling and the cooked batter"

Wow, gross. How dare you believe people should be equal and also in science?

You just know this is one of those people that thinks Star Trek has "gone woke" too. The ability of some folks to miss the blindingly obvious in pursuit of their own awfulness will never cease to amaze me.

feministic. sorry mate, going to have to revoke your internet access for spelling it like that

Yeah, that was a new one on me.

BEWARE THE FEMINOIDS or something like that.

sounds like the manosphere's been messing with the dicktionary again

This is like the one reviewer who said that they liked Gail Carriger’s the Parasol Protectorate series except for the bisexual rep, and Gail was like, but yet you read the whole series???

Found the original review! bsky.app/profile/gail...

Just reminding you of this gem.... Happy Pride!

Except feministic view points? Um. What part of the books do they even like then??

lmao I'm sure you'll get right on fixing that in all future books because someone complained to the books' manager

And then the truth is revealed: Seanan *is* the manager...

Oh, my mistake! I should've known that cats are always in charge. :D

Manager sez she has benefitted from evolution, it can't be bad.

that looks like the CEO to me

So pretty 🧡

She would like to speak to the manager.

😂

Hallmark needs a line of “sorry I emasculated you” cards.

Brilliant!

So, do we now get a story from Tybalt’s past where he punches Bishop Wilberforce in the throat to refute the accusation of undertones?

I liked everything about George Orwell’s Animal Farm except the political allegory. Talking animals are totally my jam…just don’t have them say stuff.

So they just like the parts where Toby/Verity/etc beat people up?

I guess? Only maybe no, because sometimes they beat up MEN, and that's just WRONG.

Unless the people they beat up are THE BAD GUYS, which would make it ok. But the male protagonist is supposed to be the one who does that.

Sometimes Tybalt beats people up too! I bet that's ok.

He's a male cat, so that's fine. Complainer probably dislikes cats, though.

Oh yeah I mean cats are basically women. Because dogs are men. That makes it quite complicated. Just like evolution undertones are.

So, the cover art?

you have run into one of those people who thinks pokemon is satanic, i say have fun messing with them using a combination of sock puppets, a thundersheet, and flipping the lightswitch on and off several times

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