from the river to the sea

agender he/they who is a fuck-up and a half. msgs turned off due to inability to differentiate between real and spam. i also reblog a variety of stuff. please give my blog a look-through before following if you're following me

[theshitpostcalligrapher]

req'd by @zeithemis

me every fucking day of my life

text: I'm just sitting here executive... exec... ex *dysfunctions*

[polyamzeal]

[snedgehogs]

i wish we saw more between shadow and commander tower because imagine waking up from stasis and the loser kid that used to call u a freak is now the head of a military organization. and it's the same organization that killed the person you both cared so much about

on the other hand imagine spending half a lifetime moving on from the ark, the trauma, and the horrible weird alien creature thing that was on it, and then suddenly the creature is back and it has a gun

[briannyssey]

Oh easy mistake. Yearning actually rises from the floor and longing hangs from the ceiling

[briannyssey]

🥺🥺

[mottled-dead]

You can't have a character with significant scarring and not give them the non visual aspects ot scarring (numbness, chronic pain, mobility issues, itching, temperature disregulation, etc.), thats just disability erasure

[fuckyeahchinesefashion]

OP: On July 14, 2026, heavy rain pounded Jilin, triggering the Songhua River’s first flood of the year. Water levels surged, and currents turned dangerously violent. A kitten got stranded on a tiny clump of willow branches out in the river, trapped for two full days with waves threatening to sweep it away at any moment.

The river was far too rough for regular boats, leaving no obvious way to rescue it. Crowds gathered on the bridge, scrambling to figure out how to help. A drone pilot heard about the kitten and rushed over with his gear. His plan: hang a blue bucket from the drone as a rescue pod, baited with cat food to lure the kitten inside.

First attempt: The kitten was too scared to step into the bucket. Failed. Second attempt: It climbed into the bucket, but panicked and jumped back onto the branches the second the drone lifted off. Everyone watching held their breath. Third attempt: Another pilot on site guided the drone from a different angle. The kitten finally hopped safely into the bucket.

The rescue worked. The drone carried the kitten steadily back to shore, and nearly a hundred onlookers on the bridge cheered out loud.

Weak and underweight after its ordeal, the kitten was rushed to a vet. It has since been adopted and is steadily recovering.

[randomalistic]

mourning dove moodboard (made of choclate chips)

[thehoney-queen]

Team sonic as The fun gang art work I made last year

[yodaprod]

[shencomix]

[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.

[ferrettaur]

So like an hour ago I just lear🪨︵︵ned that— what the fuck was that. Someone just skipped a rock across my post did you see that

[kikmessenger]

sits on my own blog like it’s the edge of a lake wistfully

[kikmessenger]

skips a stone over a few posts

[pointless-letters]

One of the best letters I’ve ever seen just popped up on my Facebook memories. Still makes me laugh.

[pointless-letters]

As today is the 50th anniversary of the moon landing, it’s a great time to revisit Dinah from Devon’s memory of this historic event. And yes, still makes me laugh.

[pointless-letters]

Today is the 54th anniversary of the moon landing, but Dinah’s diary entry is still absolutely magnificent.

[pointless-letters]

57th anniversary of the moon landing and the best diary entry in the history of diary entries. Sit down Samuel Pepys, it’s over. UGH.

[columbiforme]

can you imagine if people cared anywhere near as much about blaze's layers of repression as much as shadow's. if they saw her facade for what it is rather than just buying into it. god

[columbiforme]

she's a TEENAGER with INCREDIBLY DANGEROUS POWERS who JUST GOT FRIENDS like what. a year ago. and oh yeah those friends live in another dimension (one of them in another time entirely!!!) and she is the protector of her own so she can't just be there without Thinking About It. let's all explode

[flightyalrighty]

How does the host - only the host - feel when the parasite takes 100% control on the moment? It’s like feeling pain while being asleep?

It feels like the entire world is out to get them, because the parasite is never controlling her host. The host is making the decisions. All the parasite does is turn the host into the embodiment of Cornered Prey Animal Aggression.

Sometimes the host gets "turned off," like what we're seeing with Sonic. That's a bit like sleepwalking. Depends on the life stage of the parasite, though.

[wickedcriminal]

Time and music taste