soup brain chaos unleashed

arie. 25. they/she/he creature. tumblr vet but also a twitter refugee. may get horny on main so begone under 18s! this is my one and only blog for rn. will i make another? will i?? *pensive incomprehensible silence*

[televisionenjoyer]

"if tumblr dies you can find me on bluesky" "if tumblr dies you can find me on Instagram" if tumblr dies you cannot find me. It's over. I'm free.

[madmonksandmaenads]

I wish I could make white people(and not just white Americans) understand how diverse the pre-columbian Americas were. The history, religion, culture, politics was at least as complex as Europe's. There was the full gamut of religions, from monotheists to animists to ancestral religions. There were city building empires, village farmers, nomadic traders, and so many other ways to live. This is all just based on what we know, the fragments left behind and the stories of survivors of an apocalyptic plague. All this before the most extended campaign of genocide in history was waged in an attempt to wipe out those survivors.

Over 500 years spent trying to cut down a whole trunk of human culture.

Do you understand how much poorer our whole species is because of it? Can you imagine where art, religion, and science would be if we still had these vast bodies of knowledge? The stain of the colonial project will never be fully washed clean. We owe more than just the land to those we stole from. We owe them a whole future, a future that could have been brighter for all of us. If only greed and fear weren't allowed to rule this land.

[pangur-and-grim]

I won't publish the ask (they asked me not to), but I thought I'd still answer it publicly!

no, royalties are not a significant source of income for most authors. if you wrote something like Project Hail Mary, then absolutely, the royalties would be substantial! but that's like winning the lottery. Ryan Gosling is not starring in the movie adaption of most books.

when you sell a book to a publisher, you get what's called 'an advance against royalties'. it's usually split into multiple parts, so you might get one third for the initial sale, one third for the final revised manuscript, and one third on the publishing date.

an advance against royalties is the publisher saying "we believe you will eventually make X amount in royalties, so here it is ahead of time." and then you don't actually see any money from royalties until the advance is paid off. most books do not make enough in royalties to pay off the advance (I have two children's books and one fiction book, and have yet to see royalties for any of them).

advances are still great, but you need to make them stretch! for instance, last year my net income was about 30k Canadian (21k USD), which is fantastic when you consider that I mostly made it through writing. but I'm definitely not a millionaire. I can live off my writing (not trying to undersell that!) but I'll probably remain in a low income bracket for the foreseeable future.

this isn't meant to discourage anyone from seeking out writing as a career! however, there is a reason that many authors have alternate jobs with writing on the side. or, you know, rich spouses.

[pangur-and-grim]

this isn't me making a fuss about pirating (I've pirated way too many shows to run my mouth on that lmao), but there IS actually a financial incentive to having people buy your books!

buying books shows the publisher that they can make money off you, which means they're more likely to give you advances for future books. and advances are what authors live off (if they don't have a side job). that's why I always push pre-orders so hard! you have to be a racehorse worth betting on, or else they send you to the glue factory....

if I can offer one alternative to pirating: asking your library to stock the book also helps authors, and doesn't cost anything. the only downside is the patience required.

[pangur-and-grim]

OOPS yes, @stjohnstarling makes a good point! everything I'm saying is from the perspective of traditional publishing, but it's a very different game if you're a self-published author

[gollancz]

I will also add that this is why pre-orders can make a HUGE difference to authors - because if there's enough hype, publishers can pull more levers to build that momentum and reach more readers to help authors earn out their advance faster.

[gudgercollege]

Trad publishing contracts person here to co-sign everything in this post. If you want to support an author you really like but are broke as hell, then you can buy their book when it's discounted, buy it used, borrow it from a friend, or use the library. The first step as an author is to get your book read, not to get it bought. The important thing for you as a reader is to spread the word about how good the book is so the publisher knows the audience is there even if sales aren't spectacular. Piracy of books, especially books from small/indie publishers, means the publisher will print fewer copies of their next book, and sometimes if it's an ongoing series the next books in the series will be canceled, either to be replaced by a book with a different premise or they'll cancel the contract for the next books entirely. The "hack" where you buy the ebook or audiobook and then return it for a credit also takes money directly out of the author's pocket since those payment/royalty systems are set up differently than if you were to buy a book from a bookstore and return it. In that situation the bookstore absorbs that loss, but returning the ebook means the money gets clawed back from the author's advance or royalties and they'll have to earn that back.

Pre-orders and Amazon/Goodreads reviews are used as a gauge by publishers to predict how many copies they are likely to sell and therefore how many copies they want to print. They want to sell most of what they print rather than print too many and end up with a bunch of copies no one wants that they'll have to pay to store or sell at a huge discount or recycle, which is what happens to unsold books. Most publishers have a limited amount of money and manpower to dedicate to any particular book, so if there's a book building up a lot of buzz, that'll give them reason to put their resources towards promoting that book to get a better return on their investment. If the publisher can't make money off a book or author they'll dump them.

Generally, every aspect of the publishing and book industries, including writers, agents, publishing employees, librarians, and booksellers are overworked and underpaid. Unless you're Stephen King or already famous, you don't make money off of books. We do it for sheer love of the game.

Use your library! Publishers have a whole department dedicated to selling their books to libraries and the author gets part of those sales. Increasing circulation of library resources means the libraries can make a better case to get more money from the government to buy more books that you want to read and they're a place to hang out for free. Libraries are the best gift humanity gave itself, use yours as often as possible.

[catgirlbulge]

this might be my favorite tiktok i have ever seen. absolute gold through and through

[awakefor48hours]

Every once in a while, I wish the friendship meter from the Sims was real so that way when people tell me "I used Chat-GPT" they can visually see just how much respect I just lost for them in that moment.

[berkelbites]

One time an acquaintance told me she entered Snape's star chart into chatgpt and I could physically feel that meter dropping three separate times over the course of her sentence

[kaijuyuri]

i like how all cats regardless of species can either look rlly badass and cool or just incredibly silly stupid

[kaijuyuri]

my proof

[magicratfingers]

me in my brain me in my selfies

[mens-rights-activia]

[mens-rights-activia]

I would like to note that I left flowers for her afterwards, just as a “sorry for using your grave for content”

[hollowwish]

After a certain point Maomao is so funny to me. "I shouldn't do xyz it might piss someone off and get me killed" girl the emperor likes you. His wives like you; you give them explicit porn and save their babies. His mom likes you. They let you practice medicine illegally. His secret son wants you down crazy. You could kill a bitch and they'd probably cover it up

[sreegs]

[ps192]

$6 coffee oh ill see myself out

[clottedblog]

[everythingfox]

Most unserious animal

[ceescedasticity]

That looks like an "I'm going to run through all my tricks until you reward me for something" to me.

[sodomit]

I was looking for photos of one physical condition that happens to penises and came across this photoset.

[karnalesbian]

level 271 penismancer demonstrating his arcane might

[elliespectacular]

Deeer

A YTP of a bowhunting instructional VHS. I picked up a copy of this tape at a flea market and was delighted to find that it had been digitized and uploaded to YouTube.

Initially I had some inexplicable technical headache with the project file and had to start the whole thing over, but I'm happy I could preserve what I'd started and produce a hefty 10+ minute video.

Full YTP with captions here!

Thanks <3

[northerlyfilms]

15 years of aeiou

july 17 2010

[forest-woman]

[laurierrose]

we need to start legally protecting these like make this kind of bathroom part of the national park system

[lastoneout]

Sorry we really went from free the nipple, take back the night, slut walks, and ending gender/sex segregation in sports being fucking milquetoast feminism 101 concepts to fucking girl dinner and "I just worry about fairness if we let trans girls play against cis ones" and "it was right of that woman to call the cops on a black man for existing near here in public during the day time because men are all violent monsters" and "radical feminism isn't transphobic we just need to kill all men including trans ones those oppressive traitors" and I will legit never be able to be normal about it. What the FUCK happened. I'd say I wonder what the feminists of my youth would say about this but I'm one and lemme tell ya I want to throw up. Go fucking read bell hooks or do something else useful please because all of this learned helplessness, gender essentialism, and transphobia dressed up as feminism is actively holding us back.

[beardedmrbean]

[poetrylesbian]

this sculpture is from 2011 by artist sara swink

[killer-fille]

cats have been bothering humans since at least 2011