wendynerdwrites

[wendynerdwrites]

Hnngh. The Audible "hack" is making the rounds again, with people claiming you can use your Audible credit to listen to a book and then return it "for free." While I am the first among many to say "fuck Amazon and we should gullotine Jeff Bezos," I need you all to know it's not Amazon refunding you.

It's the authors.

They take that out of our royalties. And that's after they take 80% of our royalties on sales we do make.

(Note: Also, do not assume that your credit is worth the price listing that Amazon shows. Amazon does not pay us the cost of the listing. ((WHICH THEY PICK, we cannot set our own prices on audiobooks and then that forces us to use the Amazon price for the rest of the market!!)) What we get is 20% of the credit's value, so my book might appear on Audible for $20-30. However, if you received an Amazon credit for one of those $4.99 deals, I'd get 20% of $4.99. Yes, it's fucked, it's all fucked. Yes, other audio retailers do the exact same thing. This is one of the reasons authors don't make half as much money as people think they do.)

This became such a big issue that they had to make it impossible to return books after a certain point without talking to a customer service representative, because people were using Kindle/Audible and Amazon's return policy "like a library," and some authors (myself included) were getting royalty checks that showed negative income.

At this point, I don't even know if the Audible "hack" still works (Amazon has made changes to protect authors from this kind of thing at a glacial pace), but I need you to know it's not Amazon that's refunding you. This isn't a fun little "fuck Amazon" thing. The way Amazon has it set up, it's directly fucking the authors over.

So, yeah. Obviously, if you download something and can't get into it, or if something pops up on the author's side that makes you not want to support them anymore, yeah, process that return. Yeet the bitch. But please don't use it "like a library."

It's really harrowing to see your predicted income based on sales and then find out you're getting one-tenth of that because of refunds. And it's not even because people didn't like your book. They're just using the wrong place like a library and fucking over your algorithm as well, because once you get too many returns, you stop getting promoted.

Try using a library. You can access places like @queerliblib for FREE provided you have a US library account that you've hooked up to Libby. It's a little bit of work, but once you've got a card number, you're golden.

Just, y'know, throwing it out there because I don't think people realize this is how it works. You're not taking something back to Walmart, and Walmart is eating the refund before dumping the item in the garbage. Amazon takes the refund, turns to the author, and takes it off our plates.

Note: this does not affect Kindle Unlimited. Flip through the end pages to give the author maximum pages read, and then return that bad boy so the author can get paid. But also, please, maybe think about switching to a Kobo+ account instead. It offers the same subscription-based membership without demanding exclusivity, so authors aren't locked into just Amazon the way they are with KU. (Royalty rates are roughly the same, but it's a better deal in terms of allowing broader market access.)

This has been a rambling and exhausted PSA from your local peddler of weres.

[wendynerdwrites]

it's crazy that you used to be able to look up specific clips from a tv show on youtube. now regardless of your search terms you get 6 unrelated promo reels from the show's official account, 6 unrelated clips of literally anything else youtube thinks you might click on, 6 unrelated promo reels from the network's official account, 6 more completely arbitrary recommendations, 6 show trailers and publicity videos of the actors by content mills called 'pop glutton' and 'comedy chunk' and finally raw gameplay footage of a mobile freemium slots game and a video essay called Liberals Can't Belive It: 10 Times Hitler Was Shockingly Woke

[wendynerdwrites]

"Solas is so evil for thinking the people of modern Thedas weren't real people" Apart from the fact that he changes his mind in a High-approval run (and I could argue that by the beginning of DAI he was already falling in love with the people of the new world, whether he realises or not, but that's another post)... None of the non-spirit companions in DAI consider spirits real people at the beginning. One could argue that the evolution of their relationship with Cole through the party banters shows a change in that, at least partially. But they do not think of them as people in any way at first, and even loving, caring Varric outright says that spirit route Cole is not a real person. Solas argues for the personhood of spirits in part because he's arguing for his own personhood, in a world were the immense majority of people would systematically deny it, because that's what they know, and they haven't had the occasion to be exposed to spirits long enough to change their mind. In the face of Solas arguing for the spirits' and his own personhood, the Inquisitor may double down and basically say no, you're not real people and you cannot change my mind.

Are the DAI companions and an Inquisitor that's not sympathetic to Solas intrinsically and irredeemably evil? Are most people in Thedas, with the exception of the Avvar, the Rivaini seers, and the kindest among the Mortalitasi, fundamentally evil?

[wendynerdwrites]

I need you folks who are going back to school to understand this, sleep deprivation is not something to be proud of. You are being fed capitalist propaganda to make you believe that working yourself to the bone is a good and smart business model from a young age. If all you do is “get 3 hours of sleep” because you’re studying, you’re just gonna burn out quicker, forget the information you’re trying to cram, and cause your brain to cannibalize itself.

Do not compete by making unhealthy habits. This will only fuck you up in the long run.

[wendynerdwrites]

[wendynerdwrites]

Steven McRae and Akane Takada in The Dream (Royal Ballet, 2017)

[wendynerdwrites]

Emotional Walls Your Character Has Built (And What Might Finally Break Them)

(How your character defends their soft core and what could shatter it) Because protection becomes prison real fast.

✶ Sarcasm as armor. (Break it with someone who laughs gently, not mockingly.) ✶ Hyper-independence. (Break it with someone who shows up even when they’re told not to.) ✶ Stoicism. (Break it with a safe space to fall apart.) ✶ Flirting to avoid intimacy. (Break it with real vulnerability they didn’t see coming.) ✶ Ghosting everyone. (Break it with someone who won’t take silence as an answer.) ✶ Lying for convenience. (Break it with someone who sees through them but stays anyway.) ✶ Avoiding touch. (Break it with accidental, gentle contact that feels like home.) ✶ Oversharing meaningless things to hide real depth. (Break it with someone who asks the second question.) ✶ Overworking. (Break it with forced stillness and the terrifying sound of their own thoughts.) ✶ Pretending not to care. (Break it with a loss they can’t fake their way through.) ✶ Avoiding mirrors. (Break it with a quiet compliment that hits too hard.) ✶ Turning every conversation into a joke. (Break it with someone who doesn’t laugh.) ✶ Being everyone’s helper. (Break it when someone asks what they need, and waits for an answer.) ✶ Constantly saying “I’m fine.” (Break it when they finally scream that they’re not.) ✶ Running. Always running. (Break it with someone who doesn’t chase, but doesn’t leave, either.) ✶ Intellectualizing every feeling. (Break it with raw, messy emotion they can’t logic away.) ✶ Trying to be the strong one. (Break it when someone sees the weight they’re carrying, and offers to help.) ✶ Hiding behind success. (Break it when they succeed and still feel empty.) ✶ Avoiding conflict at all costs. (Break it when silence causes more pain than the truth.) ✶ Focusing on everyone else’s healing but their own. (Break it when they hit emotional burnout.)

[wendynerdwrites]

People in the UK especially, please don't give your ID to Spotify

[wendynerdwrites]

I saw this post on Facebook today, and was gonna make a joke about how he's so good in the lab because, when it comes to experiment samples, he knows you gotta keep 'em separated.

But I happened to search the lyric online really quick, and found this:

AMAZING. It's actually where the line came from! Bravo, sir.

[wendynerdwrites]

[wendynerdwrites]

im reading a book & uh. wow. trans men&mascs really have been getting institutionalized as insane and killed for centuries huh

[wendynerdwrites]

[wendynerdwrites]

Pride & Prejudice (2005) dir. Joe Wright

[wendynerdwrites]

[wendynerdwrites]

They’re calling me every slur under the sun over on twitter for this post

[wendynerdwrites]

I just realized that in that so‑called “official commission” artwork Rhaelya fans love to flaunt, there’s a Martell sigil right there in the Summerhall scene. Think about it: Daeron II built Summerhall to commemorate the union of two houses and the peace of the Seven Kingdoms, yet Rhaegar abandoned his Martell wife Elia, plunged Westeros into chaos, and played his wretched harp with his mistress in Summerhall, right under the Martell sigil. Thick‑skinned as the Wall. This honestly cracked me up.

Daeron II is Rhaegar’s parallel in every respect — as a mother’s son, a king’s heir, and a wife’s husband, Daeron II truly lived up to each role. Rhaegar, born in a place that symbolized peace, brought nothing but destruction, destroying that very union and shattering that very peace. The things others had worked so hard to build, Rhaegar smashed one by one.

[wendynerdwrites]

LMFAO