#and this author gets it... they really do...

[bagelqaq]

the cutest girl perhaps ever! and definitely the normalest

based on transfer stations by airblue

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Presenting: My growing collection of Odysseus in adaptations.

[darlingofdots]

ten years ago as part of my creative writing degree we had a class on professional development where we learned how the publishing process works for different mediums and how to choose an agent and what the role of a publishing house is and back then, the advice was "self-publishing has its advantages but a traditional publisher will provide editorial support and market your book and if your book sells well enough they want to invest in your future" and now basically none of that is true anymore. books make it to shelves with noticeable errors and structural issues that could be addressed with one or two more rounds of developmental editing, authors are expected to do more and more of the marketing themselves to the point that they are expected to be social media influencers in their own right, and publishers appear to be prioritising flashy debut novels with huge advances they don't outsell, which means the author is less likely to get a follow-up deal.

Obviously a publisher is a business and a business needs to make money, but the idea used to be that you'd have a couple of very successful authors who bring in so much cash that they subsidise the new kid who is building a back catalogue of books that sell okay until they get name recognition and pay for themselves. I was told back then that a couple thousand pounds was very reasonable for a debut novel because you want to get royalties for the sales exceeding your advance and that way the publisher sees you as a profitable investment. The last couple of years I keep hearing about six figure book deals for debut (!) literary fiction (!) novels, what on earth?

I'm not saying that the publishing industry is uniquely awful or that it's worse than it's ever been or whatever, but especially in a time when reading and talking about books is trendy and there is so much money in books, it feels very, I don't know, symbolic? Prioritising flashy one-time projects over sustained and sustainable growth. Investing only enough resources to make your product fit for sale but not enough to make it good because people will buy it anyway. It's frustrating to me as a reader and as an aspiring writer and as a person existing in a capitalist system.

[pierogiy]

thriller bark was a strrrrruuuuuuuggleeeeeeeee

[thewingedwolf]

i have a whole rant about this (as i always do) but the point is that i actually really do like hudson’s approach to shane being autistic as like, there is no actual justifiable reason anyone in his social circles would realize he is autistic & then encourage him to get a diagnosis. yeah someone like shane WOULD just be called weird & high strung - and in fact that exactly happens throughout the season! - and no one would actually realize shane is autistic but that doesn’t mean he is not autistic. he very much is. but it is very easy to just write off his behavior as “quirky” and not in an ~ambiguous disorder~ way but in the very real “if no one around you knows this word could possibly apply why would they ever even bring it up?” sort of way. they DON’T shy away from making shane autistic; he just isn’t diagnosed, in a realistic way.

[novelconcepts]

I really hate how many people have shown themselves to be awful, but more than that, I hate how it's become a gotcha game whenever that happens. Like "ohhh you actually BELIEVED they were a decent person? ohhh you seriously THOUGHT they were pretty good?" Yeah, dude, I did. Because my baseline assumption for just about everybody is "they're probably a decent person." Surprise! That's actually a way kinder way to move about the world. Shockingly, I'm not actually walking around wondering what nefarious secrets everyone is hiding, because that thought makes me physically ill! Because everyone's a person, and therefore no one is pure and perfect! Because I like to lend grace to my fellow human beings, as I would hope they'd extend grace to me!

Every time a celebrity is outed as having done vile things, there are pages upon pages of comments saying anyone who didn't already know is a fucking moron, and like??? No??? I don't default to assuming strangers are monsters, actually. That would mean never leaving my house again. I always try to think of the time I was standing in a Meijer checkout line with my wife and a old white dude in camo was eyeballing us. Felt really dangerous! Felt really scary! And then he opened his mouth to tell us about his lesbian niece and how much he loved her and just wanted her to be happy, because happiness is all there really is in the end. And yeah, it's good to have guards and boundaries, because sometimes those people do mean you harm. It's good to pay attention and read a situation for what it is. But just assuming everyone is cruel by default? No chance, man. That's an awful way to live.

When someone proves to have done awful things or supported awful situations, that isn't on me for having assumed them to be decent. That's on them for having chosen to do something fucked up. It's a bummer every time, but I refuse to let it change my tendency toward seeing the good in people. Anything else just isn't worth sticking around for.

[jaimiofalltrades]

What it feels like to read Ranked Competitive Breast Growth. It's simultaneously one of the most spectacular stories I've ever read and one of the most incredibly frustrating stories I have ever read.

And I'm a fan of the Spider-Man Clone Saga.

(original art by punkitt)

[fisheito]

new shamelesscooper fic dropped