a knife and rat

I fucking hate this goddamn site I'm only back for the memes FFXIV Tumblr: FFXIVilthyRat art???? idk if I'll use it: rays--helll

[batsandboba]

when i say “girl” randomly as an interjection i’m speaking to the omnipresent all knowing being of Girl. asking her for mercy. taking girl’s name in vain

[reicharei]

Red Hood redesign I did a while ago 🦦

[dogpuppy]

[dogpuppy]

[themysteriousmurasamecastle]

[doramilaje]

ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT

but it’s just iconic lucille bluth memes

[kosmogrl]

Dont blame yourself for not having known a lesson only time could teach

[ntrider]

noncon friendship

[sonyvegas9-deactivated20241118]

Coworkers

[ryukisgod]

Your friend’s boyfriend

[foie]

he he ha ha

[getanshi]

wears a big t-shirt that says I ♥️ WHEN CHARACTERS ARE NASTY AND FLAWED AND ANNOYING AND HURT EACH OTHER AND THEMSELVES

[l0stvegas]

Some time ago (I think in 2021) I had to go see a neurologist over really scary symptoms that resembled seizures. I was a nervous wreck about what I was feeling and had barely slept all week, which seemed to be apparent to the doc’s assistant when I sat down in the exam room for questioning or whatever. Dude was pretty young and soft spoken, around my age. He was laser focused doing something on one of those tablet-laptop Surface things as I spoke, presumably writing down my symptoms.

Midway through talking about my symptoms my voice audibly started shaking as I was describing them, clearly upset.

In the middle of my monologue he turns the tablet to face me, closes whatever program he has open and the wallpaper is this fucking collage of pictures of lord farquaad from shrek, lovingly decorated. Dude just sat there placidly smiling at me until I noticed and stopped dead in the middle of a sentence. We sat there in silence like this for like a solid minute before I started wheezing laughing. Before I could even say anything else or process it he picked up the tablet and wordlessly left the room, and I just sat there dumbfounded until the doctor showed up. 10/10 doctor experience tbh

I didn’t own a cell phone at the time to get a photo so this rendition from memory is all I can provide you

[snow-nose]

ID: a digital drawing of a man in scrubs sitting on a wheeled stool, serenely smiling with his elbow on a rolling cart, where a tablet is flipped open to show an approximation of the Lord Farquaad screensaver. end ID

[enigma-absolute]

[l0stvegas]

Reblogging this bc it’s making rounds again

[dogpuppy]

[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.

[systembomb]

TBH this whole thing is also about why we *need* to be pushing back against "write from the heart, wanting to get paid is clout chasing/immoral/scamming/whatever" takes.

[knife--rat]

Another thing I'd like to add, many publishers will not pay out royalties to authors/artists until production costs have been made back from sales. This includes costs of things like printing, shipping, marketing, administration fees, and design work (even if it's done in-house). Also if your book is returned, that often is deducted from a creator's royalties.

I have books that are nominated for awards, have won awards, and still have yet to see any royalties for work I finished 3-6 years ago, and likely will never see royalties. One of my books would require a reprint for me to sell enough to earn royalties, and unfortunately that publisher will often let books never be reprinted so they don't ever have to pay out royalties. It's a dogshit system for creatives.

[fuckthisshit-ugh]

please read this even if you're not indian. especially if you're not indian.

you've seen the jokes. india is "dirty", indians are "everywhere", why don't they fix their own country. ok. let me tell you why, and what's happening right now while nobody's watching.

first, the history you skipped: britain ruled india for two centuries and drained it. economist utsa patnaik's research estimates around $45 trillion in today's money was taken. the india that got independence in 1947 was one of the poorest countries on earth. every "why is india like this" question starts there. you don't get to profit off a robbery and then mock the crime scene.

now, what's happening RIGHT NOW:

in may the question paper for NEET leaked. that's the national medical entrance exam. over 2.2 million students took it. cancelled. years of studying, families' savings poured into coaching, gone overnight because someone sold the paper. students died by suicide after. these were kids who wanted to be doctors.

and out of that came a protest movement. a gen z group called the cockroach janta party, started by a 30 year old named abhijeet dipke, got 22 million instagram followers within DAYS. they've been doing a sit-in at jantar mantar in delhi demanding education minister dharmendra pradhan resign.

and then there's sonam wangchuk. if you've watched 3 idiots, he's the real engineer the character was based on. built solar schools in ladakh. invented ice stupas so himalayan villages have water. spent his whole life on education. he's 59 and he's been on hunger strike for 17+ days now. reporters went to see him this week and he was too weak to talk. and the troll armies are calling him "anti national" and "foreign funded". a man starving himself for other people's children. that's the thing here, anyone who asks a question is suddenly a traitor.

it's not one incident, it's everywhere you look:

• infrastructure worth thousands of crores failing within months of the ribbon cutting. tunnels collapsing in regions where heavy rain is a guarantee, not a surprise.

• youth unemployment near 10% for ages 15 to 29, 13.6% in cities. in a country of 1.42 billion where more than half the population is young.

• only about the top 3% of indians earn above 10 lakh a year. meanwhile billionaire wealth keeps ballooning and the headlines celebrate it.

• manipur burned for over two years. an ethnic conflict, tens of thousands displaced, and the prime minister barely said the word manipur while it happened.

• journalists raided. critics' houses bulldozed. activists sitting in jail for years without trial under laws like UAPA. our press freedom ranking has cratered.

• even the petrol is a fight now, ethanol blending pushed through while drivers complain about their engines and get no straight answers.

and through all of it, the PM, who came to power on religious polarisation (americans, sound familiar?), travels abroad for photo ops and has not held one single open press conference in over a decade. not one.

what i'm asking:

if you're not indian: share this. our media mostly won't cover any of it because the big outlets are owned by the same billionaires the government serves. the only reason wangchuk's fast is getting any coverage is people refusing to look away.

if you ARE indian: speak up even if you're comfortable. especially if you're comfortable. join the protests. add to this, correct me, translate it. staying quiet is a choice when nothing in this post touches your life.

india is not "dirty". india was robbed, and it's being robbed again, from the inside this time. but it's also the country where a 59 year old will starve for strangers' kids and 22 million young people will rally behind a party literally named after cockroaches, because cockroaches survive everything.

we can still save her. but only loudly.

reblog. share. don't scroll past.

[potatocrisp]

I think he’d be good with plants

[potatocrisp]

hey now,

[taylor-titmouse]

methods of binding a wizard

figure 1: anti-magic cuffs. the most expensive--but most dignified--method of binding a wizard. their exact alchemical makeup is difficult to replicate, and so they are usually only found in the possession of powerful magic-users who can construct them themselves, and royalty who can afford to commission them. there are several lost pairs floating around in various black markets. any magic-user bound in the cuffs is rendered completely magically inert*, unable to perform even basic cantrips. such cuffs are most frequently used in trials by the wizard's consent. they are, after all, less humiliating than the more practical options.

figure 2: iron and leather. this is the most common way to bind a wizard, used largely by mercenaries, law enforcement, and anyone else with experience dealing with them. the hands are forced into fists within tight leather mittens, and the mouth is kept gagged with either a leather belt or metal bit. this prevents him from making hand gestures, tracing seals, or speaking spells. binding his ankles prevents an especially wily wizard from drawing seals on the ground with his feet. the collar is to remind him he's a little bitch.

figure 3: cloth, rope, and a sack. the most accessible way to bind a wizard, and by far the most degrading. the preferred method of peasants and angry mobs, it takes a 'better safe than sorry' approach by stripping and blindfolding the wizard. one can never know what enchantments he's sewn into his garments, and what curses he can cast with a look. the sack should be filled with a thick material, like flour, horse-feed, or mud. anything to keep his hands still. this method is also frequently employed by other wizards, the humiliation being the point.

*this includes tattooed seals. cadogan, bound this way, would regain his breasts, higher voice, and the function of his uterus. he would still prefer cuffs to being bound any other way.

[taylor-titmouse]

important additions to the wizard binding demonstration

[reasonsforhope]

Bumblebees Increase by More than 100x in ‘Remarkable’ Scotland Rewilding Project–From 35 Bees to over 4,000

But by 2023, just two years of letting "nature take the lead" one can find 4,000 bees, with the number of different bee species doubling.

"A Scottish field once home to mono-crop barley has become a pollinator’s paradise after intervention from a local trust saw bumblebee numbers increase 100-fold.

Entitled Rewilding Denmarkfield, and run by the Bumblebee Conservation Trust, the project has also seen a sharp increase in the number of species passing through the rolling meadows after they were reclaimed by dozens of wildflower species.

The area north of Perth is about 90 acres in size, and surveys of bumblebees before the project began rarely recorded more than 50. But by 2023, just two years of letting “nature take the lead” that number has topped 4,000, with the number of different bee species doubling.

“This superb variety of plants attracts thousands of pollinators. Many of these plants, such as spear thistle and smooth hawk’s beard, are sometimes branded as ‘weeds’. But they are all native species that are benefiting native wildlife in different ways,” Ecologist Ellie Corsie, who has been managing the project since it began in 2021, said.

“Due to intensive arable farming, with decades of plowing, herbicide, and pesticide use, biodiversity was incredibly low when we started. Wildlife had largely been sanitized from the fields. Rewilding the site has had a remarkable benefit.”

Similar increases have been recorded in the populations of butterflies, with a tripling in the number of these insects seen on average during a ramble through the field.

The numbers of both insects are now so high that Rewilding Denmarkfield offers bee and butterfly safaris to visitors.

Local residents told the Scotsman that on spring and summer days, the field is awash with color, and hums with the sounds of bees and birds. Even as multiple housing developments expand around the Denmarkfield area, the field is a haven for wildlife."

-via Good News Network, December 2, 2024