#a thing that is both normal to want and possible to achieve

[copperbadge]

Howdy! I am considering submitting manuscripts I've written to a publisher or possibly self publishing. The publisher states on their website that authors must maintain an active social media presence. I'm not normally a social media type, Tumblr is my only one. What would you reccommend for such? Is it worth it to pay someone to make a website for me? Thanks and many virtual kisses for Dot and Deebs!

Honestly, I haven't submitted to a publisher since before a lot of modern social media existed. :D

It is my understanding, but this is secondhand information, that publishers want you to have either a twitter or a tiktok, preferably both, where you're frequently active and have a high follower count, because they want you to be able to publicize your book on it. One of many reasons I don't even consider trad publishing anymore is that I don't want to spend a significant chunk of my time filming videos for the sole purpose of hawking my books.

Now, as I said, that's an inference I've drawn; you may want to speak to someone who has been trad published recently to get the inside scoop (readers if you work in publishing or have been published recently, feel free to add commentary; remember to comment or reblogs, as I don't repost asks sent in response to other asks). I do have an author website but I built my own; I don't know what the going rate is for paying someone to build one these days but most website platforms are pretty intuitive to use -- I built mine on Wordpress and I'm building a new one on Wix currently, and at this point both are very drag-and-drop oriented. I do think a website is a good thing for an author to have, but I wouldn't pay someone to build one for you until you've taken a swing at DIY and decided it's not where you want to spend your time and energy.

In terms of self-publishing, the good news is that none of the rules apply; this is also the bad news. :D Because the thing about selfpub is that you either pay or DIY for...everything. It can be very inexpensive; when I publish a book the only direct monetary cost is what I pay for an ISBN and a proof copy of the book, which I will make back in the first 10 sales or so. However, I am "paying" in man hours in terms of typesetting, cover design, uploading the PDFs to lulu.com, proofing the initial copy, correcting the proof and reuploading (which usually involves further typesetting), and of course all the publicity -- website design and redesign, copywriting, tumblr posting. And while my profit per copy sold is well above what most authors with traditional publishers will make, that's because the publisher is doing a lot of the work for you. And, because I don't have an active twitter or tiktok or a publisher, my books are not very widely publicized. Undoubtedly I sell fewer copies than I would if I had a robust twitter following, but catch me touching that rancid wasteland without inch-thick gloves on.

So -- I think it's probably pretty important to understand that I have deliberately rejected trad publishing for good but not lucrative reasons, and I'm considered at best an iconoclast and more commonly a crank for having done so. If you can go the tradpub route, I would, but I also wouldn't put any money you're not prepared to write off as a loss into that pursuit. Definitely I would see if there's anyone in the industry you can reach out to who can answer these questions with a more thorough understanding of what publishers look for in an author and how to go about achieving that than I possess.

In any case, good luck! It's a journey regardless and I hope you enjoy your time on the path wherever you end up. And I'll give the cryptids a special cuddle for ya.

[turbo-virgins]

you ever see a post and think “oh [mutual] would love this” but you hesitate to reblog it and then later see that mutual reblog it from someone else and then you’re like NOOOO I missed out on those mutual-approval-points

[jyminie]

god every time i join a new fandom on here it's like i've forgot that even though i've left 2012 behind, some people haven't. "lokius this" "sylki that" i don't care!!! why can't none of you jut eat your own bread and shut up

[cinematicnomad]

i did barre this past weekend, i have a yoga class later this week, and i signed up for an intro pilates class next month. AND i scheduled a physical with a new primary care doctor so. look at me being a fucking adult!! 

[agox]

Actual thought I had at the playground: "If I throw their ping pong ball back, maybe I can be friends with the Cool Dads!"

[strade-fuckers-anonymous]

me whenever Gato puts a funny react emoji on a message I sent in the discord

[sunlitmcgee]

broke: cpurpled is besties with cbenchtrio

woke: cpurpled is exposed relentlessly to cbenchtrio's silliness

[celerrie]

we don’t have faceclaims for them yet but:

eve

elias/xu fu

qin shi huangdi

there are right and wrong answers

THE PRESSURE'S ON

Eve is such a smash. In fact, I am down on one knee for her. I have a ring. I am begging for her to look my way.

Elias/Xu Fu is also a smash. I would live a thousand lifetimes just to be the person on set with him doing his hair and makeup at the crack of dawn before a day of filming tbh

Qin Shi Huangdi is a pass but he doesn't care because he can, at any given moment in time, actually take his terra cotta army and go fuck himself

[lemonplanter]

Does having the whole "recommended for you" section be people that I already follow mean that I'm doing tumblr right?

Am I winning at tumblr?

[birdmenmanga]

I think there's no greater indication that disco elysium is sympathetic towards communism when it literally says "communism is failure" and then the literal gameplay itself rewards trying and failing. The most obvious one being the Shivers check at the FELD mural, which is an Impossible 20 check BUT opens itself up again and again the longer you spend in the world doing things, but even just looking at sheer probabilities, for any given white check, rolling first and THEN putting a point into that skill upon failure is more likely to grant you success than putting a point first and then rolling, but that would require failing first.

Other things too: Precarious world saying you'll 100% fail red checks no matter what (not necessarily a bad thing, btw!! throwing the boule into the sea is a success but like. in some other ways one would want a perfect petanque throw instead. but people wouldn't typically assume that failure is desirable sometimes from the start) persuading you to accept that you'll fail some things that is irrevocable, for a world where everything is just a tiny bit easier.

The faux game over screen when you faint after reading Dora's letter— emulating a sense of failure on the scale of the entire game. When it rolls up most people go "What?? Game over?? No way, what did I do wrong!!" and waking up after that, with no huge or lasting impact on Harry's health or morale really tells the player, "Sometimes things will seem so bad that it all seems like it's coming to an end, but it's not the end, it's really not the end, go drink so water, you can still go on despite this failure"

I'm sure there are other things as well that are eluding me but like. The literal gameplay rewards failing and succeeding far more so than simply succeeding every single time, and I think you get a fuller experience of Elysium that way too

[thiefree]

source: mayamanuela

[tarucore]

Dick with a habit of going to a new therapist under a persona, talking to them vaguely about a trauma, whatever he needs to get out at the moment, and then dumping them as soon as they tell him what he wants to hear

“You seem to be very well adjusted.”

“It’s understandable for you to respond that way given an impossible situation.”

“You are remarkably self aware.”

“I feel like you need to ask yourself how much more you are willing to sacrifice for him.”

[humanbeanisnotamused]

also PLEASE imagine the kind of relationship laerryn would have had with elias when he was little and just. around.

"yes i care immensely about the wellbeing of your little person. yes i would put my body between him and danger in a heartbeat. no i do not want to hold him. he is sticky."

[finelyageddragons]

Currently in love with the relationship between the Grey Wardens and being doomed by the narrative, especially with how the HOF subverts that relationship so here's a 3am rant about it. Enjoy! The wardens are ghosts. They are born by letting go of everything you had before and drinking poison to bind your fate to the darkspawn and promise that your life and perhaps more importantly, your death belongs to them. The whole joining is a terrifying experience, you're drinking the blood of monsters and seeing a corrupt god in your mind and waking up to see those who died around you and being told you'll meet the same fate soon enough you've just been given more time to get there because to sacrifice, to die is a warden's purpose. Even if you survive becoming a warden, your best case scenario is sacrificing yourself to end the blight but it's far more likely you'll die fighting darkspawn or even more likely lose your mind and have to go to the deep roads to be lost and have your death be your last act of defiance in the face of this overwhelming wave of evil waiting to rise again. The best thing that can happen to a warden is to die in a meaningful way because you gave away your life the moment you drank that blood. All you are now is a soldier waiting to die in war and hopefully take the enemy down with you. It is tragic and haunting and noble and so full of grief. Grief for the live you gave behind and for the one you'll never have. Every warden spends every day of their life hoping not for a future or any life for themselves but simply to make their death mean something which is an incredibly interesting mental state and I could go on about how that effects individuals and messes with their values so that corruption is rife but what started this whole thing is Fereldan.

A wonderful post by @sapphim (which I don't know how to cite but I wanna give credit so if there's a way please tell me) discussed how beneficial it was for the wardens that the fifth blight occured in Fereldan and how much they lost by it being solved so soon. To put it simply, they wanted to sacrifice Fereldan as a lost cause and use it as an example of why they wardens shouldn't be neglected. They wanted it to be known of how much of a sacrifice they make an how important their duty by letting the country of Fereldan be an example of what happens when no one is there to do it and that the narrative has doomed everyone, that the world's crimes will be paid for unless someone is willing to be selfless and bear the burden to give the world another chance. Andraste would have been a great warden I'm sure. In the eyes of the warden, Fereldan is tainted just like their blood, it is promised to the darkspawn just like they are, willingly or not it bears the duty that all wardens do and must make the sacrifice they do too. For the greater good. To stop the darkspawn. It's better you having a death that matters than a life that lasts. This is the psychology of the wardens and they are applying those same beliefs to all of Fereldan. Why must they be the only ones doomed by the narrative? There is no surviving this story and there is saving the world there is only killing the darkspawn before it kills you. Thedas is at war with the archdemons and until they're all dead, there is no peace, there is only preparing for the next battle. There is no building a life, no building a country, there is nothing to protect because it is all doomed.

The way duty and sacrifice and the promise of the Grey Wardens must alter their values and perspective on life is fascinating and there is so much to explore here but what's important for this post is that the foundation of their entire order is that they are already dead.

This then brings us to the HOF and cheating death. Duncan is like the grim reaper in Origins the way he comes and snatches your soul at the end of each origin which I honestly love and it ties in so well to the idea that wardens are ghosts given you die in every other version of the story without him but that's the story of all wardens. They all die a symbolic death at the joining so that's okay but then Ostogar happens. Flemeth happens. You should have died. Fereldan should have been lost. Remember, the duty of the wardens is dying not surviving but you did survive, snatched away by a god. Every other warden has died thinking their paying the price for an absent god yet this goddess not only favours you, she changed fate for you. Every other warden throughout history has paid the price but not you. Not Fereldan. You get to cheat the fate while it dooms everyone else. Can you imagine how that must have felt for the other wardens? How much they must hate the hero for stealing the martyr Fereldan was set to be and making all their losses naught but a tragedy when it could have been so much more? Not only did you escape your own death but you stole the value of theirs. You survived which goes against everything the wardens are made for.

Going even further than that, you have the dark ritual where you can actively choose to cheat death again. When every other warden has had to give their life, had to sacrifice and lose and grieve and poison their humanity as they did their bodies, you get to escape it all. Wardens have struggled for decades to have a foothold in Fereldan but you'll go so far as to choose their ruler for them without any consultation. You have been a warden less than a year, ended a battle that they prepared for over hundreds of years and sacrificed more hundreds of years fighting in the past and not only have you defied everything they defined themselves by, you have made them look like fools and decided their fate for them. You have stolen the meaning of the death of every warden, you have stolen their martyrs and the justifications for their actions and by keeping your own life and humanity, by resisting their poison you have made them all look like monsters.

The hero was doomed by the narrative as all wardens are but they rewrote fate, they stole their life back so many times and by surviving, they created a whole new narrative that ruined everything the wardens were built upon. The wardens were made to be ghosts, not heroes. They're meant to die and be remembered nobly so they can be redeemed for they had to do to get there but not you hero. You get to shame us all, don't you?

[trainingdummyrabbit]

Muichiro 3, 4 and 12 for the ask game :>

goooood morning! hell yeahg.

3) A song that reminds me of them

sugar song to bitter step. yknow, that one anime ed. ohhh my god the minute i put it together it was All i could think about for Days. its. on my animatic list actually.. (which like, no promises but his birthday IS coming up...)

4) How many people I ship them with

uhhhhhhh none, really! because--

12) Sexuality hc!

aspec mui propaganda! greyaro+ace, specifically. i definitely dont Mind a lot of the ships i see commonly w him (re: genya and tanjiro, theyre very cute!) but... i just dont see any romantic context with him, with anyone really! a lot of his arc feels very personal, to him specifically i mean, in that a lot of it is focused on how He feels and that happiness that He wants-- which makes it feel that much more important that he just... Gets It. he feels like he understands himself, and that, genuinely, he Is happy with those he's around-- in the way that they are around each other. does that make sense? basically, when he's around others, he feels very self-assured. i cant really explain it well (because i personally cant explain it being aspec myself WAHAHA) but he just. he just Is! and i think he's happy with that. like... theres definitely Something going on re: him and gen and tan, but i cant say i think its Romance (whether its because we just dont see as much of them casually as we could or for whatever other reason.) like... they feel like they Go Together, inherently, 'obviously', and . the more i think about it the more i think i might just interpret them as some sort of qpr or something actually. like not quite, but . i cant explain, just. hang on.

yeah.

[yukipri]

Question for any folks who have experience with Batuu Bounding/Disneyland!

I'm going to Galaxy's Edge for the first time very soon, and I'm both extremely excited but also terrified I'll do something wrong. I've been wanting to go since it was first announced, and I'm not sure when I'll get another opportunity so I want to make this count!

I love dressing up so of course i want to try Batuu Bounding (dressing up in-universe), but my personal sense of what counts as costumey or not is extremely skewed. Adults are technically not allowed to wear costumes inside Disneyland, but people are also encouraged to "dress like a local" when visiting Batuu, aka Galaxy's Edge, aka Star Wars land. This creates a very gray zone on what counts as a costume and what is Batuu bounding.

I've tried to do a ton of research on my own, reading the official rules, blogs, and even reddit, but would appreciate any feedback, especially if you have personal experience! Note, I'll be going to Disneyland, aka Disney West, aka Anaheim, California.

So my question: Do you think they'll let me in with these outfits?

Technically I'm following their guidelines:

-Not attempting to look like any official character

-No robes/cape (just a scarf that can be adjusted)

-No weapons except lightsaber (yes, it's the Visions one from Lop & Ochō. I'm Japanese, I thought it fitting I get the Japanese lightsaber lol)

-No hard armor—except the back of glove plates, which are really small and I think I've seen people with those? After receiving advice on Twitter, I'm just gonna leave the gloves off entirely, better not to risk it plus they're gonna be uncomfy anyway

-Nothing dragging on ground

-No costume pieces; both of the above outfits are a combination of traditional Japanese-style, J-punk/rock, alternative, and natural cotton/linen fashion, all of which I wear regularly as part of my daily wardrobe (see what I mean by "my sense of what counts as too costumey is extremely skewed" LMAO)

-I know they have a "no masks" rule, but mine is a COVID mask, and they allow those right? If the outer mask protector is too costume-y, I can defs take it off, but I ain't going without any mask.

-My "I am not a cast member" item is the jetpack backpack, but idk I don't think I look like a cast member

I was gonna make the black dress one main but I think I liked the second one with vest and kama more (let's see if I can tolerate wearing pants all day lmao). Everything is layered, can easily mix 'n match tops/bottoms, I have a few other color variation tops I can mix in too. I also think Cali is gonna be way warmer than I'm expecting so I may shed layers. For now I'm thinking of making my main day the second one, except instead of a green shirt under the green vest, I'll wear a black one.

Also, note that while my True Mandos leather patch is skewed on the green outfit in the above photos, it'll be properly attached on the day of. I just wanted it lightly attached for a quick try-on photo, but it can securely attach via pins on the back! (also yes, that is a mini Fennec-inspired light-up Greeblie <3 )

Also a few more closeups:

The empty strap thing is a harness to carry a Droid Depot droid, which I have a reservation to build on the first droid. The casings holder thing on the strap that makes it look like a bandolier are kyber crystal holders. I also have an empty leather holder for a detonator soda can and yet another kyber crystal holder on my belt. After getting advice on Twitter, I'm going to put all of these in my bag when I enter the park to reduce how cluttered I look at the entrance, since they're technically all things to carry stuff I will be buying inside the park but do not yet have.

I have a giant mythosaur brooch on my scarf, but it's not solid metal, but a resin-metal mix. I think it should count as a "pin" and not armor.

The thing on my left arm is a decked out Magicband+. I still have no idea how to use it but I hope it will be intuitive ^ ^;

(yeah, so many Etsy sellers have received my money over the past half year that has passed since I started planning for this trip lmao)

I also received feedback on Twitter that my lightsaber sheath looks too much like a katana which may trigger security, so I'm going to be making a little end cap for it to make it look blunter. It's a nice Pixel blade attached to an expensive Proffie lightsaber, so I do want to protect it, and hope a blunted endcap will make it clearer that it's a lightsaber.

I'll probably only bother with the droid carrier + lightsaber + kyber crystal bandolier on one of the three days I'm there, so I can travel lighter on my other days!

I'm really hoping I'll get to talk to Boba/Fennec/Din on at least one of the 3 days I'm there, which is one of the reasons why I've got so much Mando stuff on (in addition to just, trying to make a "bounty hunter" look, and also eyyy Mandos). Idk if it's too subtle or if they'll ignore me bc I'm trying too hard sobs

So yeah, with my aforementioned modifications, do you think they'll let me in?

Any feedback, opinions, or even general advice for a first time visitor to Batuu would be immensely appreciated <3

Thanks so much!!! ;A;