#in which tim curry delivers the performance of his life in a muppet film

Before the pirates of the caribbean movies, muppet treasure island was hands down the best pirate movie.  I dunno, might still be

The way some folks on this site talk about justice is like, okay, I admire your enthusiasm, but you are definitely one of those people who would lead a successful revolution, gain access to the levers of power, and immediately start murdering each other over microscopic differences in ideology.

The cast of the Original Trilogy had cliched, boring character concepts that were executed wonderfully enough for it not to matter. 

 The cast of the Prequel Trilogy had interesting concepts that were executed poorly enough to make them seem utterly stupid. 

The cast of the Sequel Trilogy had amazing, thought-provoking concepts that were executed in the town square and put up on pikes as a warning to others.

This is actually probably the best summary of star wars I’ve ever seen

I just got my audible report for the audiobooks and I want to scream and not in a good way.

... how bad? :/

Out of a total of $1,162.73 in sales, I earned $290.68 after Amazon took its cut. That's before tax.

And it will actually be a lot less than that because out of the 80 sales I made, 26 Amazon credits were returned within 7 days.

I want to say they were returned in good faith because the persons realized the book just wasn't for them, but a sizeable chunk probably just wanted their credit back to use on something else after they were done listening to it.

And like... yeah, thank you for everyone who did buy it on Audible that's still $290 I wouldn't have. But considering Audible made $872.05 in profit from my book and I'll be the one paying for the refunds I am... yeah.

Yeah.

Anyway, here's my Payhip and a list of alternatives to Audible.

Flirting Edition. Fluff Edition.

Also, please use library lending services instead of abusing Amazon's return policy. I am outright begging at this point. I made negative money on ebook sales for the last month due to that TikTok "hack."

I hate it here. And by here I mean "this timeline in general."

Holy shit. please don’t do this yo your authors guys, I had no idea it was that bad.

@thebibliosphere is there anywhere people can go to buy your book without giving money to amazon?

I linked them in the post above. Payhip and then the links under Flirting and Fluff Edition.

@thebibliosphere for those of us who have bought your book already, is there anywhere we can just donate to you or otherwise help you out?

Thank you, that’s very kind of you to ask.

My ko-fi tip jar is pinned to my top post in case anyone ever wants to toss a coin my way and ensure Holly Mop gets kept in turkey chews and squeaky toys.

https://ko-fi.com/joyde

I’ll actually be working on updating it later today with discord integration. Unfortunately I can’t link any of my work there due to ko-fis ban on NSFW content, otherwise I’d make the books available there too.

If your library doesn’t have these books, request they get them.

If you want a deal on audiobooks that doesn’t cheat the author, Kobo has an audiobook subscription service that charges $10 a month for 1 credit which buys you 1 audiobook. @thebibliosphere can correct me here, but I believe the author gets full royalties. You then own the audiobook. There’s none of this “take backsies” bullshit Bezos/Amazon is using to screw authors over.

I’ll need to double-check, but I think for Kobo, I get a 45% royalty rate for audiobooks, which is 20% higher than Audible. (I get 80% for ebook off the top of my head)

I’m uncertain if you use the subscription service if it means I get 45% of the $10 as opposed to the actual price listed on the book (I’ll look into it), but that still makes the earning through Kobo audio subscription higher than Audible, even though Audible costs more per month.

So, if you’re in the US and looking to switch from Audible, please consider Kobo a valid alternate!

They pay authors better and also don’t demand exclusivity to pay the higher royalty rate, unlike Audible, which would pay me 45% royalties if I agreed to go Exclusive and not sell anywhere else at all for seven years.

At present I am locked into a seven year contract at 25% royalties with Audible because that’s what they demand for distribution. I can alter the files if necessary, but I can’t take them down. I also can’t set the book's price or control when it goes on sale.

I’m currently toying with the idea of not using Audible in the future again just because seeing the numbers in black and white is so bleakly depressing. By contrast, this morning, I’ve sold ten copies on Payhip at the minimum price and already out-earned what I earned from eighty sales on Audible. That is quite a difference; I’m sure you’ll agree.

Again, thank you to anyone who did buy through Audible; it’s still more money in my pocket than I would have had otherwise. You didn’t do anything wrong by using Audible.

I just wanted to show how little we actually make from sales via Amazon, and why using Amazon like a library is devastating for indie authors because I feel like people don't truly get it and think authors are crying into our big wads of cash.

We’re not: we’re starving on scraps while the most prominent retailer and, therefore, our best possible source of income because everyone uses it, eats our profits, and makes us pay for their “easy” refunds.

[Gif: Mei from My Neighbor Totoro laying face-down in the rain. End ID.]

@thebibliosphere i have never returned an audible book so please don't think that's why I am asking and your answer will not make me start, does audible make you pay the full refund price not just your cut?

I don’t know as this is the first time I’m dealing with audible and none of the payment processing has gone through yet.

I know there is some confusion over the ebook returns costing us more than our cut, but some people are saying that’s down to exchange rates and not Amazon charging us the full amount of the book vs our actual royalties. I’ll know more when I actually get paid, the refunds process and can compare all the numbers.

No, it's just 'our cut'. But the thing is, people doing returns feeling like they are 'sticking it to Amazon'... Amazon flat out don't care. All they are doing, for their 60-75% of the sale price, is hosting and distributing the files. And they have more server space than anyone else in the world (AWS is their biggest money earner these days, not the retail operations) so it's no skin off their nose if you return the book. It's not like they give your money BACK. You can only return it for another credit, which you then have to spend on another audiobook anyway. It's us, the author, who is being cheated. You're* taking something WE paid to create, consuming it, and then exchanging it for another one. It's the equivalent of going into a small independent coffee shop, ordering a coffee, drinking it to the last dregs, and then telling the owner/barista you didn't like it and you want another one now. They are going to be RIGHTFULLY PISSED and tell you to get out and never darken their door again, right? Unfortunately, we can't do that. Amazon just don't give a shit. They'll happily pour you another coffee and tell you to come back tomorrow and enjoy again!

*not 'you' specifically, the hypothetical audiobook returner who thinks they are sticking it to big business.

Thanks for clarifying @caitlynlynch and yeah, that describes what’s going on perfectly.

And the absolutely infuriating thing is, at least with Audible, is that they promote this as a feature and not something that absolutely devastating to authors.

I was watching a YouTuber yesterday and there was a “this episode brought to you by Audible” ad and they outright promoted the return and reuse policy of the credit—so I went and sought out multiple Audible ‘ads’ and they all read the exact same way, like everyone is reading from the same script with minor changes to suit the audience.

Meaning, this message is Amazon approved to the point of official promo, but conveniently does not comment on the fact that they are taking the refunds from the author.

The richest conglomeration in the world, and they force refunds out of the pockets of the people forced to use their services because they have a chokehold on the market. For a product which can cost $2-7k to make (audiobooks are not cheap to produce, y’all) in the first place, even if you hire a voice actor through them.

Which is something I likely would have had to do if I wasn’t friends with @caitlynlynch, a phenomenal voice actor btw, who was able to fit me into her schedule and who talked me through the process of using alternative distribution sites.

Otherwise I likely would have been forced to use Amazon exclusively and would be trapped into a 7 year exclusive contract, steadily losing money faster than I gain it, because of Amazon’s predatory return policies.

Like I knew the royalty rates going in. I knew them because I had to agree to them and I was sick to my stomach doing so, knowing that they’d get 75% of my income, but seeing those numbers in reality and how the return system is abused makes it so much more rage inducing.

Fuck Audible. Fuck Amazon. Buy direct from creators wherever you can. And if anyone wants help setting up a Payhip store front let me know. I’ll help.

I've reblogged this before but new content at the end makes the timeline even darker.

I do both. Speaking out loud is extremely effective for the reason mentioned. You will feel in control.

Holy cow this actually rocked my world, esp the part about 'journaling' using voice.

news is good sometimes.

Given that "fish" isn't a biological term, its just a catch all for everything we gesture at when we say "fish", yeah, this totally checks out

This is the exact opposite of the Catholic Church in the Middle Ages categorising beavers as fish so they could eat them during Lent.

Breaking News: Catholics can now eat bees during Lent

Forest Gardens: Create a Food Forest in Your Backyard

If you live somewhere with space for growing food, a forest garden or food forest is one of the best ways to grow it.

What is a Forest Garden?

A forest garden is a garden designed to mimic the interrelationships that exist in the natural environment. As your forest garden gets established it becomes more and more hands-off except for harvesting, creating less work for you and letting nature take the reins.

When you intentionally group and place plants like wild trees, shrubs, ground-cover, and vines together they'll grow symbiotically, requiring no additional fertilizer, water, pest/disease control. This grouping of mutually beneficial plants is called a guild. When you put lots of guilds together you get a forest garden.

A well-known example of a guild is the three sisters, an Indigenous method of growing corn, beans, and squash together in the same mound. The corn grows tall, providing shade for the squash and a trellis for the beans to climb. The beans fix nitrogen in the soil to fertilize the corn and squash. The squash covers the ground, creating a living mulch for the corn and beans. The plants fulfill each other's needs and grow better together than they would separately.

There are infinite ways to create guilds and in turn forest gardens! Fruit tree guilds like these are a great example.

Designing a Forest Garden

You don't need a space the size of an actual forest to grow a forest garden. Even a small bit of land can hold food producing plants. The key is finding a group of plants that all benefit each other so you can create guilds even in small spaces.

Here's a basic guideline to creating a guild:

For every large/tall food producing plant/shrub/tree, include a nitrogen fixing plant/shrub/tree, a plant that attracts beneficial insects, a plant with a deep tap root to pull up nutrients from the soil, and a ground cover to create a living mulch.

This is a step up from the three sisters, and it can go even further! Forest gardens can be as huge or as small as you want them to be.

Consider the sun. All of your plants will need adequate sunlight, so plant your tallest plants to the north, then moving south plant your smaller trees, vines, herbs, and ground covers.

Figuring out What to Grow in Your Food Forest

So many plants can thrive in a food forest. What you grow is going to need to be tailored to your space, your needs, and your climate.

Both annuals and perennials work well, but perennials are often preferred.

Grow plants native to your area. Learn your growing zone and research your native plants. If you live in the United States this tool from the National Wildlife Federation will show you your native plants by typing in your zip code.

If possible, connect with other permaculturists in your area or growing zone (either on social media or in person!) and learn what they're growing and how they have it organized.

Keep on reading and learning! Books, classes, websites, blogs, YouTube videos, there's so many great resources out there. Gaia's Garden by Toby Hemingway and Edible Forest Gardens by Dave Jacke and Eric Toensmeier are considered some of the best books on the subject. I've found lots of helpful books on free websites like Z Library and the Internet Archives!

Creating a food forest takes a lot of planning, but the end result is so worth it. Better for the land, easier on us, and we still get incredible harvests. Happy growing!🌱

Source

PSA! You're not "screwing over the man" by shitting on independent authors. You're just taking their livelihood. And we're not talking about KU books.

[Image ID: A screenshot of a tweet by username @KBrombergDriven. The text reads:

"1/2 Every time you return an ebook at Amazon, the author is charged back more than what they were paid for the sale. Yes, that means we could owe Amazon at the end of the month. Since TikToks went viral saying 'it's okay to return ebooks'

2/2 most authors returns have skyrocketed. Reading and returning a book is stealing. If you want free books, try the library app, Libby (among others) #AmazonisNotALibrary"

/.End ID]

As a self-published author who has minimal sales and ended up with a negative publishing account last month, you are SERIOUSLY hurting no one but the actual author by doing this. It absolutely sucks. I’m struggling with rent already, stop making me pay your print costs and ebook costs on top of that.

fuck google docs so fucking much

i've just lost hundreds of docs and pdfs and i'm beyond pissed right now

they're all permanently gone

actually they're not holy shit

okay so, gonna tell ya'll something awesome rn

google drive is a mess sometimes with its storage things and if you're unlucky it might delete some of your files and you won't realise until it's well past the point where they won't be in 'trash' anymore and you're fucked

all is not lost however!

if you're on drive via browser, hit the little ? in a circle next to the settings cog and select "help"

search for "file recovery"

it'll show you the ways to try and recover your files on pc, android, and mac etc

these don't matter

you need to scroll down to the bottom and just hit the "contact us"

you'll be logged out automatically

log back in

click the little box to give google permission to attempt to restore your files for that account

click "submit"

give them some time to work but it's an automatic process

i've got most of my files back in less than 10 minutes

all is not lost! rejoice!

I'm gonna reblog this again bc wow but was it helpful to learn!

REBLOGGING TO SAVE A LIFE

I’d be honored to have someone download my work, but I’d feel bad if I come back later, find a huge mistake and not be able to fix it for that one reader. 😂 (Poor reader…)

Maybe readers want to have that work with them to read on when they can’t access it online? That would be the case for me; where I live, losing internet connection is common.

And yeah, imagine if a fic we really cherished is suddenly deleted. 😱And all of us would look for that one person who downloaded it so that we can have it. And blood will be spilt…

Download fics to save a life. 😂

If you want to be sure, maybe you could ask if the author doesn’t mind. Though I’m sure, as long as you’re not reposting their works or anything, that no harm is done.

I’m gonna say that I don’t mind at all if you download my fics for your own personal enjoyment, but don’t repost them anywhere (even with credit.)

Followup question: if the author does delete it, is it okay to go around looking for someone with enough foresight to have downloaded it, to beg them for a copy?

Again, as an author, I’m super okay with that. I dont speak for all authors in that instance, of course, so be mindful when you do. That said, I have saved and shared files of favorite fics within my fandom (Transformers) and haven’t heard of any of those authors being upset later by hearing that we were passing those stories around still. I promise that mileage will vary on the response, though.

Straight up, no.  Posting works that the author has decided to take down is absolutely disrespectful. Author probably left fandom because it was toxic, and by someone else, NOT THE AUTHOR, recirculating their works, they are guaranteeing it’s toxic.  Authors of fanfic don’t have publication rights, per se, but we are all part of a fandom COMMUNITY and shitting on an author’s wishes by recircing a fic they deliberately wanted OUT OF CIRCULATION violates that fandom community. It’s a dick move.

Wolfie the Werecat and his wonderful Enchanted Forest Kitty Sanctuary.

Photos by Wolfie

Cat Tree made by Hollywood Kitty Company

straight vampires are so unrealistic

imagine being heterosexual for all eternity.. pass

Like vampires (in western Christian mythos) were supposed to embody everything that was rejected by Christianity into one fearsome creature therefore vampires are basically everything the church hates and therefore?? not straight

NNNNNNNNNOOOOT exactly.  The vampire as most people in the West understand it is basically straight out of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Which he wrote during and because of Oscar Wilde’s trial for perversion. And if you actually read the book there’s PUH-LENTY of queer stuff about Dracula, from his physiognomy to the hairy palms to his incredible charm he uses on both genders.  Polidori’s “the Vampyre” also has a lot of queer traits. 

DON’T EVEN GET ME STARTED WITH CARMILLA where the whole point is lesbianism.  The whole. Freaking. Point. 

The whole Christian stuff comes earlier (when ‘vampires’ were basically ‘corpse eaters’--almost indistinguishable from lichs) and later. But in the early literary vampires, there was almost no Christian influence. It was basically a big gay middle finger to staid Romantic notions of class, gender and sexuality. 

Warning: I DO use dude, man, bruh, and bro as completely gender neutral terms, HOWEVER if I call you one of the above and it bothers you, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE tell me.

This has been a PSA 

Something I always forget…

Don’t forget you can use “dude” and ‘bro” not as vocatives (addressing someone) but also as asseverations, like ‘whoa’ or ‘wow’.  In those cases, there really isn’t an invocation of gender.  

English: why it’s the hardest fucking language on Earth to learn, part 587 

ATTENTION PEOPLE WITH PERIODS!

Kimberly-Clark issued a recall on their Kotex tampon products and it’s definitely worrying Canadians. Not only has there been a recall on the feminine care products, but there have also been multiple reports of injuries, claiming that pieces of the tampon were left inside of their bodies after use.

Retailers across the U.S. and Canada are recalling some of their Kotex tampons after citing numerous complaints taht the product unravelling inside the body, prompting some customers to seek medical attention to remove the tampon pieces from their bodies.

The complaints also include reports of infections, vaginal irritation, localized vaginal injury and other symptoms. The recall includes U by Kotex Sleek Tampons manufactured between October 7th, 2016 and October 16th, 2018 and distributed between October 17th, 2017 and October 23rd, 2018.

Check the serial numbers affected here: https://kimberlyclark.gcs-web.com/news-releases/news-release-details/kimberly-clark-announces-voluntary-recall-u-kotexr-sleekr

Uh, guys.  Here’s what they’re not saying: TOXIC SHOCK SYNDROME. 

  It’s why my mom never let us near tampons, and the whole dang reason menstrual cups exist and are awesome.  That ‘other symptom’ can fucking kill you.  

What’s interesting to me as an Old, who went through Strikethrough on LJ, is seeing how it’s being remembered now in the Discourse here on Tumblr. I’m seeing a bunch of “it was a lot of people who wanted to post child porn” and ok yes that is certainly a take one could have. I’m also seeing “fandom should police itself!” and again, yes, that is certainly a take.

Pull up a chair, friends, let’s discuss.

What people forget about Strikethrough is that while fandom was Loud As Fuck and also, yes, ridiculous (I thought so at the time for that matter I mean COME THE FUCK ON there was a theme song) and possibly the most widely affected group of people, fandom was not the most *profoundly* affected group of people. See, LJ was working off a list of journals handed to them by the group “Warriors For Innocence” who as far as anyone could tell just kinda…searched for some words? And let me tell you, friends, WfI did not distinguish between Harry Potter fanfic that involved Dumbledore and Harry in compromising positions and communities of child sexual abuse survivors. Those second communities? They got shut down, too. So did communities of sexual assault survivors, because one of the words that got targeted was “rape”.

It’s just that the communities of survivors did not have a theme song and icon sets and of course it’s not nearly as ~funny~ and ~woke~ for y’all to have your hot takes about how AO3 and DreamWidth were founded by a bunch of people angry their child porn got taken away when you factor in that survivors were getting hit, too. Kinda like Tumblr is protecting the children now but it’s harming eg sex workers who are following the rules.

None of the communities I was in got lost because of fandom. No, the community I was in that got deleted was sexual assault survivors. Where we were all trying to come to terms with what had happened to us and suddenly, boom, we were told that having “sexual assault” and “rape” in the community interests so that survivors could even find the place was *soliciting illegal activity*. Yeah. That was fun.

As for fandom policing itself, what exactly do people intend by that? Fandom has always had lengthy discussions about what’s acceptable, they were going on in 2007 around Strikethrough. At great and interminable and occasionally kind of nauseating length. One thing we’ve learned in the past 11 years though is that if you provide a reporting mechanism on a platform, it will immediately be weaponized to silence marginalized voices; cf the fash pulling their brigading on Twitter. People have always spoken up and said “that is really not ok” and others have always responded “we disagree” and the arguments have gone on and on and on and the only thing we’ve learned is that asking for platforms to give us a mechanism to report things ends up being weaponized to hurt people who don’t have a damn thing to do with the problem we’re trying to control.

All I really have for everyone for whom Tumblr’s TOS change is their first experience with this kind of thing is hey, listen, the *actual* history is important. Not what you think you know, not the hot takes and the super woke one sentence versions going around – know what actually went down when LJ pulled this shit, and who got hurt the worst by it. Because it wasn’t the Supernatural and Harry Potter fandoms, even though they were the ones being extremely loud and quoting “Hoist the Colors” and making banners and icons (it was a different time, ok). “Protect the children” as a motto will always be used in such a way that it will hurt people who are already marginalized and vulnerable and hurting, we’ve seen it before and we’re seeing it again and already we’re seeing the hot takes about how it’s perfectly acceptable because what’s wrong with you, do you want child porn?

And that’s why all of us who were around for Strikethrough and, for that matter, the actual birth of Tumblr, are tired. We’ve been here before. We’ve heard it all before, word for word. We know who’s going to get hurt, again. We wish people would freakin learn.

“Protect the children” has always, always been used to mean, “protect the white children of upper-class evangelical communities from having to realize that other communities exist.”

LJ, Twitter, and Tumblr aren’t doing a damn thing to protect Jewish children from assaults and doxxing by Nazis.

And as mentioned - LJ reactivated some of the Strikethrough journals because fandom made a hell of a lot of noise, but we weren’t the community that was hurt most by the changes. They were using interest lists - the closest thing that LJ has to global tags - to ban people, claiming that an “interest” in rape or child molestation meant that you were soliciting for criminal contacts in order to do more of it.

Note that they didn’t ban journals with an interest in murder or crime or drugs. Nor did they ban journals with interests like gaybashing. 

They banned survivor communities and individual survivor journals. They banned a Lolita book club, and several fashion communities, They banned RPG character sideblogs. And they banned Pornish_Pixies, a fanfic community with over 5000 subscribers - and that’s the group that had enough connections to get vocal about the changes.

(Boldthrough came later, and started with their attempts to tag  NSFW art, and ban the stuff they thought was too extreme. It went… poorly.)

Please reblog if you know anyone who might take party drugs.

this is so important

Also important information: A cop cannot arrest you for something you already took. You can tell a cop to his face that you just injected black tar heroin in your veins and as long as you don’t currently have any on you (including things like syringes or residue in a pipe), there’s fuck all he can do about it.

I take police reports for a living. The number of people who will happily tell someone “Well officer, this fight started because I smoked crack cocaine earlier,” is astounding and also not at all illegal. The criminal charge is for Possession of a Controlled Substance. If you don’t possess any at the time, there’s no crime. The only thing you can get dinged for is if you’re actively on a drug and driving, in which case - DUI.

Please, please, please tell EMTs what you took. They’re not going to rat you out to the cops and even if they did, you will still be okay.

Spreading the word, being honest with paramedics and doctors can save your life

Adding: Cops don’t really want to arrest low-level users.  They want the dealer, not you. ESPECIALLY if the dealer is dealing stuff that is so contaminated that it causes you, the user, to need EMS help in the first place.  If your stuff is laced with PCP or carfentanyl, you could LITERALLY DIE.  Bad shit gets out sometimes, and maybe the EMTs get to YOU in time, but maybe they don’t get to the next guy who also bought a bag of that shit in time.  That dealer? NEEDS TO GO DOWN because he has killed someone and almost killed you. 

You don’t HAVE to tell the cops, when they ask you who or where you got it from. They may tell you you have to tell them, but you don’t.  But think, that the next guy might die if you keep quiet, esp if you keep your mouth shut because you thought (mistakenly) that you would get in trouble.  

Drug users who need EMS are VICTIMS.  And all victims have a stake in making sure the person who hurt them gets put away.