Il requiem della maschera @persychan - Tumblr Blog

Chang Huasen's photoshoot for Sword and Beloved

Always a treat when we get glimpses of the hot evil demon lord Wenren E actually is (as opposed to the himbo with 1.5 braincells, dubious morality, & good intentions he is for most of the book)

datsderbunnyblog

This comment was left on a post about making the most of the Libby app. "Excessive use of generous lending policies" is the most absurd phrase I've ever seen anyone use to discuss libraries.

catboycommunist

evergreen

batmanisagatewaydrug

looked up Heidi because I'm a journalist

for reasons I can't imagine this publisher of sexless Alaska love stories is averaging under 20 likes each on posts about her books, so if I can be so honest I kind of have my doubts that her books are getting read even with the excessive use of generous lending policies

ariaste

Also her claim that authors are not getting paid per borrow is.... wrong. With ebooks (which is what she's talking about here with Libby) there are two forms of licensing for libraries to lend out ebooks.

The first kind is that they buy a license for a pre-determined amount of check-outs. I'll just make some numbers up for the sake of illustrating what that looks like: Let's say $20 for 20 borrows. When the ebook has been checked out 20 times, the library has to renew the license and pay more money in order to continue lending out the ebook. The author gets a cut of that $20 as their royalties.

The second kind is literally paying per borrow. (Again just making up numbers here) Let's say the library pays 50 cents every time the book is checked out. The author still gets a cut as their royalties. Is it just 10 or 20 cents per borrow? Yes, but that adds up! AND it means that people who otherwise wouldn't have been able to read my book at all are able to read it, which is great! AND it means that the library is thriving and being used, which is also great!

So yes, authors DO get paid from library activity!!!!!!

Do not feel guilty for using the library. I don't know one single author (except this Little Miss Ma'am in the screenshots, apparently) who would resent their readers for using libraries.

pitviperofdoom

I try not to fall into the "I never liked their work anyway" ditch when an artist/creator reveals themself to be a terrible person

BUT

a feeling I do have and will stand by is "While I enjoyed their work overall I did have some gripes that I overlooked out of affection and whimsy, but now that my loyalty is gone and my affection tainted there is nothing holding me back from enumerating my many grievances, to which the revelations of the creator's shittiness may or may not provide a new and infuriating context."

beatrice-otter

#such a good summation of this actually#because yeah there’s usually things that were always present#but which were easy to overlook or give the benefit of the doubt#that suddenly become relevant after a revelation about the creator#and it’s really not the same thing as the self-defensive “’I never liked it anyway’

tags via chimaerakitten

bugsnbites

Grace making huge advencements in the Eridian medical field.

Turns out there's a childhood disease to the tune of measles that erodes the carapace, and the first symptom shows up about a week before any actual damage is caused.

Grace comments to Rocky that one of his students seems to be turning oxidisation-green. About a week later that student has to be hospitalised for this illness.

Eridian scientists realise pretty quick that Grace can detect the illness long before any of their equipment can, and when caught that early it is much, much easier and safer to treat.

Not only is Grace celebrated in the scientific field for his knowledge and for his part in saving the world, he becomes a beacon of hope for doctors and parents and children on Erid.

redsparrow12

The first early diagnosis test involve the equivent of sending a polaroid of the kids to Dr. Grace, who can write "OKAY" or "GREEN" on it

type-blaze0

Quickly after that, rocky's color gun can be found in basically any school or clinic. Turns out in the time they've been coming back home, they've accidentally invented a tool that can eradicate the disease

avoid-avoidance

Except Rocky's gun isn't a color gun, exactly, it's a light gun, taking old Eridian camera-tech (likely developed for very niche scientific purposes, to study phenomena in Erid's upper atmosphere or in orbit) and modifying it for hand-held use. If I recall correctly, it wouldn't function in the pitch-dark that is Erid's typical environment, so the medical device that gets created to test for this disease would be Rocky's gun plus a little flashlight attached.

In the future, Eridian children would get regularly checked out with that device to confirm that their carapace reflects only the expected amount of "middle-rough" light frequency. Passing those checks is a prerequisite for the child to go to classes, etc.

And so eventually, the phrase "given the green light" becomes an idiom for "given the go-ahead" on two different planets, for two very different reasons.

pronouncingitwang

at some point in your life you will be boiling fruit, water, sugar, and lemon juice in a pot to make a syrup or jam. the instructions will tell you to simmer for a certain amt of time. your timer will go off and you will look at the pot and go, "hm, this doesn't look thick enough. maybe i'll let it go for another 10 minutes." this is the devil speaking. it's only so liquid right now because it is at boiling point. it will thicken when it cools down. learn from the follies of my youth and do not let this happen to you

yokowan

at some point in your life you will be making a sauce or a stew in which you need to add cornstarch to thicken it. and you will prepare a slurry of starch in cold water and think "this looks like way too little starch to thicken this amount of liquid." this is the devil speaking. cornstarch instantly polymerizes at 95°C and if you add too much it will turn into an impossibly thick goop.

le-jardin-inculte

at some point in your life you will be making some sort of cream based dessert that requires gelatin to thicken it. and you will soak some gelatin sheets in water and think "this is too few gelatin sheets for this amount of cream." this is the devil speaking. it will thicken in the fridge and if you add too much you will end up with milk jelly

shithowdy

at some point in your life you will be baking cookies. you will take the sheet out after twelve minutes as the recipe instructs and the cookies will still be glistening and soft. "these don't seem cooked enough," you will think to yourself, "i should place them back into the oven until their edges are nice and golden." this is the devil talking. this is how you get dry, overdone cookies. the cookies will continue to bake on the warm sheet for several more minutes and then harden up after sitting on a rack for a while. trust the process. trust the process.

whitachi

at some point in your life you will be adding a small pasta to a soup and you will think "that is not enough small pasta." this is the devil talking. the pasta will absorb the stock and expand. this is how you end up with a soup that is a solid mass of soggy ditalini.

ccattnipp

Act like a ’90s anime villain power couple.

tshortik

I could have never imagined in my life that I would illustrate official Mighty Nein Art for Critical Role, what a huge honor...

LET'S GOOO ♥️🫶

heyfruitcake

Now that everyone is discussing Nolan's Odyssey movie, I feel like it's a good time to let non-Italians know that the production dumped plastic props into the Italian sea. Weirdly enough I could not find any article in English about it but it's a fucking problem nonetheless.

I might translate this article later today. This one was the most complete one, even in Italian news it's not talked about that much.

Non è la prima volta che la produzione solleva un vespaio in Sicilia. A Lipari una squadra di sub sarebbe però già impegnata a bonificare i

ignitelimelight

They dumped plastic skeletons in environmentally protected areas, against the literal contracts they had to sign to get the permits to film in environmentally protected areas. Like they not only did a bad ecological thing that freaked out some divers, they literally broke environmental protection laws and their contract with the Italian government

thehumantrampoline

This is your reminder today that Irene Adler in the original Conan Doyle story is literally not a criminal. She never commits a crime.

thehumantrampoline

Nor is she a seductress in any kind of negative or manipulative sense - she has a mutual relationship with a powerful man who then breaks up with her, and afterwards she keeps protection against him in the form of evidence that the relationship existed. She HAS blackmail material, she even waves it at him threateningly because he treated her like shit, but she never even uses it.

Irene Adler is not a thief, femme fatale, or blackmailer. She's just a cool lady that wants to be left alone.

thehumantrampoline

@delphi-star You do recall correctly!! She does not give a shit about that man! She's happily married! She tipped him for being a witness at her wedding!

If your Sherlock Holmes adaptation has a character whose identifying qualities are that she is a seductive criminal in love with Holmes, you have created a character that is basically the literal opposite of Irene Adler and you should name her something else.

tzikeh

She's also -- and I cannot stress this enough -- from New Jersey. IMO this is the single most important detail missing from all the adaptations -- IRENE ADLER IS FROM NEW JERSEY.

Please just once in my life I would like to see this adapted faithfully it would be the funniest fucking thing ever.

bendingsignpost

My ideal adaptation would be one where the king builds her up with the usual adaptation nonsense. She's a thief, a femme fatale, she'll seduce anyone!!!!

Smashcut to a New Jersey opera singer happily engaged to the most boring person you've also met (also from New Jersey).

movementnudge

Movement nudge, back pain, tight hips

mckitterick

hey writers, desk workers, and others who sit too much:

if you want to retain mobility and don't want a permanently stiff back, this is important!

lutheban

Grace goes swimming! Rocky is not thrilled.

Eridians cant "hold their breath" like humans do, their vents dont close completly so water can still get in, if they fall in water they drown and die. safe to say rocky is not a fan of when grace does it for fun xD

(i got the inspo for this from this fic: Enrichment by alatarmaia4, please check it out it is so funny)

More art of Rocky Stressing™️ about human biology

willgrahamscock

I think we are focusing on the wrong thing when talking about mainstream romantasy adult books, instead of shaming straight cis women for reading kinky books, we should tralk about how most of the newer books aimed at that demographic are just conservative propoganda, rebranding patriarchy as a kink.

willgrahamscock

There's nothing inherently wrong about liking the types of kinks that are present, control, power imbalance, dark themes, but when you really look at the top performing novels (which they are mass prodicing at questionable speeds) it's hard to ignore the ever present morally grey man, who's posessive over the heroine who starts off as otherworldly different from the 'regular woman' aka damsel in distress), is cruel to everyone except her, and the fantasy world revolves around the control of women, especially when it comes to forced pregnancy.

willgrahamscock

I'm seeing a lot of responses to this saying "this is why I read queer stories" but you're missing the point! You can relate to queer media because you're queer, cis straight women should also have material that aren't turning their opression into kinks in almost every. single. book. If they want to choose to read those stories, that's absolutely fine, again nothing wrong with exploring those dynamics, but the concerning part is how fast they're being made with the rise of booktok, and the looming threat to women's autonomy.

Remember when all mlm stories were borderine assault stories in the early 90s-2000s? and how long it took for other queer stories to be made? we all used our voices to make a change, it didn't magically stop we fought for it to not be the only type of story.

lyricwritesprose

And the solution to this, for people who are wondering, isn't to try to suppress romantasy books because they're not "good for women." That's an old, old game and never goes anywhere good. The solution is not less kink and less porn. The solution is more kink and more porn.

Because when you think about it, the problem isn't that you can go to your chosen bookseller and find a story where Sparklia Special gets semi-forced to have babies for Broody McDarkenfay (it's okay, she's into it). The problem is that it is unnecessarily difficult to look a little further down the shelf and find a vampire princess domming the hell out of the hunter who knows he shouldn't love her. Reducing people's choices always serves the reactionary agenda one way or another. Expanding choices. That's where it's at.

(If this sounds like I am making a pitch that we should write porn to defeat fascism, that's…not entirely a mischaracterization. I mean, of course it won't defeat fascism, but I do feel that while we work to defeat fascism, we should at least have diverse and satisfying porn.)