#is an ENORMOUS effort

[thelaurenshippen]

this is a genuine question not at all meant as a rude gotcha, but I feel like I've seen lots of people cite the relatively low barrier of entry as a huge advantage of podcasts as a medium, "if you have access to decent audio tech you can make a podcast" etc etc. So where does the need to sell a script come in? Is it a financial thing, and IP thing, something else?

this doesn't read like a rude gotcha at all, it's a really good question! there is a much lower barrier to entry when it comes to podcasts compared to tv, film, theater, etc. (though not as low as writing a book if we're talking about hard resources - you can technically write a book with just a laptop and a dream and then self publish! though as a writer who has written a lot of scripts and four books (3 published) writing a book is a much bigger psychological burden imo lol).

the need to sell a script, for me, is entirely a financial thing. if I had the money to produce podcasts at the level I want to entirely independently, I would! I know how to do it! but, unfortunately, I really only have the funds to produce something like @breakerwhiskey - a single narrator daily podcast that I make entirely on my own.

and that show is actually a great example of just how low the barrier is: I actually record the whole thing on a CB radio I got off of ebay for 30 bucks, my editing software is $50/month (I do a lot of editing, so this is an expense that isn't just for that show) and there are no hosting costs for it. the only thing it truly costs me is time and effort.

not every show I want to make is single narrator. a lot of the shows I've made involve large casts, full sound design, other writers, studio recording, scoring, and sometimes full cast albums (my first show, The Bright Sessions had all of those). I've worked on shows that have had budgets of 100 dollars and worked on shows that cost nearly half a million dollars. if anyone is curious about the nitty gritty of budgets, I made a huge amount of public, free resources about making audio drama earlier this year that has example budgets in these ranges!

back in the beginning of my career, I asked actors to work for free or sound designers to work for a tiny fee, because I was doing it all for free and we were all starting out. I don't like doing that anymore. so even if I'm making a show with only a few actors and a single sound designer...well, if you want an experienced sound designer and to pay everyone fairly (which I do!), it's going to cost you at least a few thousand dollars. when you're already writing something for free, it can be hard to justify spending that kind of money. I've sound designed in the past - and will be doing so again in the near future for another indie show of mine - but I'm not very good at it. that's usually the biggest expense that I want to have covered by an outside budget.

but if I'm being really honest, I want to be paid to write! while I do a lot of things - direct, produce, act, consult, etc. - writing is my main love and I want it to be the majority of my income. I'm really fortunate to be a full-time creative and I still do a lot of work independently for no money, but when I have a show that would be too expensive to produce on my own, ideally I want someone else footing the bill and paying me to write the scripts.

I love that audio fiction has the low barrier to entry it does, because I think hobbyists are incredible - it is a beautiful and generous thing to provide your labor freely to something creative and then share it with the world - but the barrier to being a professional audio drama writer is certainly higher. I'm very lucky to already be there, but, as every creative will tell you, even after you've had several successes and established yourself in the field, it can still be hard to make a living!

anyway, I hope this answers your question! I love talking about this stuff, so if anyone else is curious about this kind of thing, please ask away.

[ley-med]

I had a week long vacation not long ago, so I finally have enough energy to talk to non-medical friends once again. And I just realized once again, I'm not sure how to talk to them.

They tell me all the things they participated in, and I'm truly happy for them, all the while thinking I would never have half that much energy. They ask me how I am, I tell them I'm good, finally had a vacation. What did I do? Oh, literally nothing, tried to sleep off the worst of the exhaustion and tried to avoid interaction with other humans. How's work? You know, just the usual, it's good. It is good, and I love it, but how could I tell them all the horrors witnessed? That's right I don't, but what else do I have left to talk about? Most of my fun work stories are tainted with the shadows of tragedies... And unfortunately, I wouldn't trade it for anything.

So I just read their cheerful message and leave it on read, contemplating what to answer. And just hope they won't take offence to my agonizingly slow replies...

[anewp0tat0]

this is technically inspired by @nullb1rdbones 's post. it's quite different, but I still give credit where it is due.

it's crazy I was totally just gonna post this on its own, but suprise its Sebastian Die Day, so now I'm claiming this is planned and Ciel told him he had to do this if he lost and Sebastian agreed cause he's stupid

[tenspontaneite]

Pearmaster.

[lhrry]

ok, so that I'm not just vaguing here all day. yesterday I made this post about hearing from fans and seeing them talk about the fact that as queer fans they no longer feel safe at harry's shows, that they worry about bringing their rainbow flags, that if they do so they have not so nice encounters with other fans (to put it mildly) etc. and I voiced my own hesitation regarding bringing my rainbow flag to harry's show. partially, the lack of rainbow flags is inevitable, given by how broad and general harry's fanbase is, by how many casual concert-goers are going to be in such huge venues, by how he has been marketed etc., but a part of it is also fans from our part of the fandom no longer feeling safe to do so, despite harry still picking up those rainbow flags, despite him encouraging people to be who they are and so on. since I made that post, more people began to comment on their own unpleasant experience, several people came to tell me they're glad they're not going to a harry concert because of this (apart from other people who I have seen say this before) and i really hate that this is happening. so what I'm here weighting the pros and cons of all day is starting a more general rainbow project for harry's shows (matilda offers itself, but since harry seems to have chosen lights up to be the flag song and I find that very meaningful and it would also work with colourful lights, I think it would be best to opt for this one), which would boost the presence of lgbt support at those shows. now, I'm under no illusion that this could be in any way similar to what's happening at Louis' shows now and know who the majority of the people going to those concerts is, so I am worried this could a) flop, b) just ramp up hate towards out part of the fandom, but at the same time I'm thinking about the fact that it may give people a reason to bring those flags, to say it's for a project, to give them the confidence to do so, to help people feel at least a bit more welcome and also for harry to see more of those flags would be nice. but, ultimately, there are big cons and the pros are uncertain, but I'm throwing it out there that this is what I'm mulling over here. if you guys have any ideas/opinions about it, I'll be happy to hear it all! 

[mummer]

submitted to a playwriting competition and a workshop program w/ a stipend please pay me money for my stupid bullshit i just wanna write dude.

[aeide-thea]

do you ever think abt like. how it takes you twice as much work to arrive at half as much personhood and by the time you've managed to scrape yrself together that far the ppl you were trying to join in with have moved on

[singlecrow]

Small things in the US that make things very hard in the morning: stove top kettles and no cafetières. I don’t think I can buy one for 10 days? I can’t do that. Can I?

[bread-tab]

i bought a cheap squishy toy and it smells like something i should definitely not be inhaling at all (kind of like gas/petrol but more factory-plasticky? i'm a retail drone not a chemist) and, of course, it was made in china.

("of course" not so much because of the price or quality but because everything is. at every price range and standard, tbh. i'm not trying to say everything made in china sucks. for the tumblr-pedantic record. rip to the workers in the stinky plastic factory though. :/)

so i was like "if this was made in america i could figure out where. we put the company address on everything here. but can i do that with an overseas company?" and the answer is yes maybe (i found the import/middleman companies and there are "trading" websites that track this stuff) but also no because i can't read mandarin. (sorry ancestors)

anyway that's how i find out about this place

yiwu "market" aka "international trade city." alleged "world's largest wholesale market." the mall to end all malls. this place sells stuff to the entire world by the shipping container. didn't even slightly exist in 1980; now does billions of dollars in trade annually which supports a city of 2 million people. which previously was just. like. a farming village.

(btw take this info with a grain of salt *please* i got it from youtube, google and wikipedia and i'm existing in an incredulous sleep-deprived haze)

literally miles of showrooms of every random manufactured item you can imagine. toys, clothes, electronics, household goods, christmas decorations...

i cannot stress enough that we do not have this kind of thing here. (... do we?) but. we have the stuff. this is where all the stuff is from. all roads lead to yiwu, apparently

sometimes you just get reminded... world big. but also. world interconnected. not so small after all. but so connected.

[kaus-quietis]

the reason he doesn’t have a yet  r e l e a v ed older brother is that we co||ective|y do not deserve a Mikhail

[unopenablebox]

it’s impossible to get anything done ever because we cannot stop cuddling

[ponyartistbrainiac]

Im gonna smooch anyone who reblogs the paintings i work so friggen hard on even if they don't understand what it means

Your support keeps me sane and helps me make more insane paintings in the future

I could always use the encouragement

[roobylavender]

It's always weird to see people who want Jason to have a pure hatred kind of relationship with Damian or Cass or Tim. Like when you see these so called sibling dynamics and Jason gets relegated to that it's like yeah I don't like happy batfamily either but really? Or when people don't want any kind of relationship between Jason or Damian because of how great a relationship he has with Dick when like Damian and Jason have/should have a relationship with Talia and have some connection, but I have also seen that Talia wouldn't want Jason anywhere near Damian. And then their is the problem with Damian like I have seen people who just straight hate Jason as a character (which based on what he has done in canon is valid) but then go and love Damian's character and are able divorce the bad parts but like how do you divorce Talia from that when part of it is so essential to who Damian is. Like Jason varies so widely but Damian really doesn't.

Like don't get me wrong I understand Jason getting inserted in everything and people getting annoyed but idk.

i mean i think a lot of this is due to the damage of jason's writing post-under the hood and the inability to really distill any consistent ideology from him thereafter despite the fact that notwithstanding winick's glaring flaws he did at least have a concrete character sketch for jason in mind. i've never understood the need for writers to draw jason into the greater family drama because frankly speaking jason shouldn't even care. like i cannot conceive of the other sidekicks being remotely relevant to his overarching goals with the exception of damian who like you said would probably have some connection to him through talia. i like to think there's an alternate timeline wherein upon the death of the red hood and jason's rebirth as something else he would have helped talia secure damian from ra's not only out of sense of a personal debt but because doing so would be emblematic of his own ideology with respect to children. to me the only way children should factor into jason's field of vision is either as direct victims of crime whom he needs to save or as the collateral of his war against crime because he fails to remember that even criminals have families of their own. it's the internal dichotomy of intentional good will and unintentional malice. batman editorial explicitly abrogated that concept when it had jason willfully go after other members of the family even though he had no realistic reason to and if anything that concept would make way more sense the other way around. i can totally see dick and tim and cass willfully intruding into his life and operations both out of a sense of loyalty to bruce and due to their own distinct conceptions of the bruce-jason relationship. and i haven't read enough jason fic to know if this is really the case but i imagine that a lot of fans' frustration is owed to fic writers unintentionally mirroring editorial by making jason be the one to initiate contact when realistically he would probably begrudge it and view it as an irritating distraction

[th3e-m4ng0]

obsessed with the megop fics you’ve read oml

good. i love reading fics that make me laugh 🙏🙏🙏🫡

[birchbow]

Thank you for PoF it literally rewired my brain a normal amount eons ago when I first read it. Every time I make a new character for anything and I start to worry maybe they're just a little too unhinged, I remember PoF, and know that I'm valid and so are my insane little horny characters 😌❤️

I am so excited that you say this because it's important to my heart! Insane little characters with strong wild opinions or reckless horniness or huge blind spots or weird personality quirks or frequent fuckups they often learn very little from are the heart of stories that keep my interest and provoke reaction from me as a reader!!!!

Let every character be a character!! I have never been more bored as a fanfiction reader than the other day, when I read a fic where only the villains were allowed to be rude or irrational or petty or angry without immediately apologizing in uniformly articulate and modern "I've learned what people are supposed to say in apologies" speak. Because they're a Main Character! They're a Good Guy! But sometimes good guys and main characters are going to fuck up!! Sometimes they're going to be bizarre! Sometimes they're going to be at odds with other characters who are Good Guy Main Characters, over things that may or may not be a big deal for their characters!

Listen!! Sometimes I write a character talking shit and I'm wincing the whole time, not just because they're being an asshole, but because I know they're going to double down on it later! Because they just,,, don't think or feel the same things as the person they're being an asshole to! Do I the author agree with one more? Probably! Do I necessarily have to resolve "and this one was right, so the other one apologized"? No! Characters conflict with the other characters! It's uncomfortable to write sometimes! But my level of comfort or discomfort with the uncomfortable is part of writing stories where THINGS HAPPEN and goddammit I am out here for things happening otherwise what is even the point. >8U

[altschmerzes]

Okay so I just went on a bit of a binge of all your posts about your upcoming baby!Jamie fic and...I am somehow even more excited than I was before. It just has SO MUCH that I'm so damn excited to see - little!Jamie getting some much-needed love from the team, protective!team, the revelations of what's going on in his home life and having people to actually be there for him and support him (especially since the poor kid is actively living with james in this AU, oof) - this is going to be SO good

yooooo i'm so glad you're looking forward to it!!!! i am too, and i'm beyond thrilled that people are stoked about it. figured for sure this was a self-indulgent little daydream that should probably stay that way, to the extent that without some prodding and enabling from a friend i probably never would've actually thought to write it out into something real.

there's SO MUCH in here that's gonna be so fun (both actual fun and well. y'know, writing/reading fun that's not even close to fun for the characters lmao) and those things you named there are core to a lot of them. it's gonna be a bit of a slow burn to get to the point where people actually put together what's going on and are able to do anything about it, and honestly that kind of excites me too. i do love a slow unraveling and i hope anyone who reads this thing will too.

(i'm following much of the show's own timeline with some adjustments and expansions and whatnot here and there particularly when we get to the season 3 of it all so do what you will with that vis a vis how things are gonna go down and when)