#it's not that good but publishing it might give me accountability

[towersofviolet]

v v v pleased that i managed to write something tonight. i made a lil game out of it where i wrote down a bunch of media and characters and locations, and did a wheel spin to generate a prompt for myself. i successfully completed a short (800-word) fic and the experience wasn't terrible. my war against decade-long writer's block rages on.

[drdemonprince]

At one point he was down in between my legs, fingering me, and he made a throwaway comment about probably being Autistic. 

I leaned back, trying to relish what pleasure I was getting. “Well, we can talk about that subject, if you like,” I said vaguely, not really wanting to bring my professional life into things. 

He kept working away at my body, kissing between my lips and thighs. “Oh I know who you are,” he said suddenly. “Your book changed my life. In a way, I guess this is me thanking you.” 

I made him exit my body and we went to the kitchen to hash it out. It turned out he was a big fan of many things I’d written. 

“I’ve seen you around the neighborhood many times,” he confessed. “But you posted online that you don’t like when people come up to you, and so I always decided to leave you alone.” 

He said, “Your book is the reason I got divorced, actually. My ex-husband was a therapist, and when I showed him your book and said I thought I might be Autistic, he didn’t believe me. We have been separated for a year.” 

He asked, “Did I just make this weird, telling you when I did that I was a fan?” I told him that if he’d said it sooner, I would have never fucked him at all. 

People never realize that when they approach me, what they are doing is dragging me into work. It doesn’t matter whether I was at breakfast, or an orgy. I was just some guy standing there, enjoying his beer, but now they have made me the known scholar and author. And sure, my job might be meaningful, but that doesn’t mean I like to work. 

I tell my friend that I no longer want to be a public figure, and that I am planning how to make it all end. She tells me, “You’ve got to do what is the best for you, even if it’s something that the rest of us wants and can’t imagine giving up.” 

I ask myself, did I want this? It would be more flattering to say I didn’t, and play the role of the hermetic author whose work developed its own life purely because it was so good. But that isn’t true. 

From the moment I got a Myspace account in high school, I was publishing essays about my political views. I serialized multiple novels on Tumblr, guerilla marketing them with giveaways and custom-made images until they hit the Kindle sales charts. I have made memes, tried starting viral trends, coined phrases, and given hundreds of hours’ worth of media interviews. I write prescriptive nonfiction, for Christ’s sake. Of course people seek guidance from me. I offer it up! 

I have been strategic about how I dress, and my video backdrops, and retaken clips of myself speaking over and over again until they sounded right. I’ve hosted debates with my most vicious critics while I’m in the shower, started public beef with creators who had larger accounts than I did, and rushed to my keyboard when upsetting news broke, because I alone was possessed of the most correct take on it.

I wanted this. I didn’t know what this was, this internet fame I was chasing, but I did all I could to make it mine. I thought that by writing so much, I would one day be able to escape myself, maybe really feel connected to other people. Instead it has meant never being able to stop thinking about myself: how I am seen, what I am working on, how it all fits together, what comes next. It has also meant being spoken about, theorized about, and criticized, and developing a firm exoskeleton of disdain between myself and the world. 

I believe now that that it is immoral for any person to be listened to by ninety thousand other people. Holding authority and status like that runs counter to my anarchic ideals. I am not more important or correct than anyone. I should not be trusted to tell people which commodities to buy, which companies not to support, what to read, what to think, what words to use, or how to conduct their lives. 

All the other animals know there is no one way that a creature “should” live. There is only the way that it does. The world has no consciousness, no beliefs. It cannot pass judgment. We only feel so watched and evaluated because we have covered the planet with so many millions of our eyes. But we can stop performing dignified human goodness at any moment. 

I think that celebrity is an evil, corrupting force that pits the human instinct for bonding against itself. Instead of appreciating the singing of our friends around the fire, we stream Chappell Roan until stalkers break into her house. Rather than playing card games together, we stan Twitch streamers, filling up their chats with highlighted messages until they acknowledge us. We long to be famous novelists because then we would have the social permission to write, and we don’t have the money or time to enjoy the activity on its own. 

I wrote about Chappell Roan, stalker stans, and how turning art into content creation ruins the work, and the creator's life. It's free to read in full (or have narrated to you by the app!) on Substack.

[genericpuff]

CHAD ANON-

Alright so I've been meaning to post about this for a couple days, but we gotta talk about what's been going on in the /r/webtoons subreddit the last couple days.

Every now and then, the heavens part and an anonymous creator will descend with their experiences with Webtoons. And they're almost never good. And that's good in the long run, because that means we have more ammunition to support Webtoons being an ass platform that benefits no one :))

Obviously the anons here are risking a lot posting this sort of stuff, so before I go ahead, let it be known that I'm gonna try and keep speculating to a minimum and just touch on what anon has provided. When it comes down to it, this post hasn't been verified in any way, so it might not even be 100% real, though there's a lot of evidence to suggest it is based on the responses from other users that validate many of the points anon makes.

I will also mention that any opinion I have regarding the contract outside of what's been provided by anon is from reading other accounts from creators who have spoken up and just generally being a community member for a long time who's been around the bend and heard a lot of shit from Originals creators. I am not an Originals creator and I have never been offered any of these contracts.

So let's get into this!

The contract 'evolving' over time was definitely something that a lot of us were at least semi-aware of, as it seems that a lot has changed since 2020 as verified by many creators who have spoken up on their contracts (or at least said what they could in light of the NDA's that WT uses to prevent them from saying anything). But I had no idea the extent to how far WT was going with it, how much they were trying to get away with. Automatically having the ability to buy 100% of the creator's IP? That is a huge, massive no-no. I've had some creators heavily imply to me in the past that they've sold off portions of their IP, but WT being given the automatic pass to buy 100% is severely unethical.

For anyone out of the loop, IP means Intellectual Property. It means whatever content is being made, it belongs to the person making it. Lore Olympus is Rachel Smythe's IP. City of Blank is 66's IP. Of course, copyright law gets dicier when it comes to stuff like fair use, trademarking, etc. but for the sake of this topic, IP just means "if you made it, you own it". Webtoons typically buys digital print rights, meaning if you sign on as an Originals, that means you can only post that comic that you sold to the Originals section. It doesn't mean you can't use other platforms for other comics, just that for the comic you sold, you have to post exclusively to Webtoons.

Webtoons is essentially trying to take that from creators by going "if you sign on as an Originals creator, you don't just lose your distribution rights, you lose all of your rights." They might still be able to run Canvas comics separate from Originals, but whatever they sold to Originals is no longer theirs to own. And the kicker is that it's, of course, for a very low fee. Buying out 100% of someone's IP should NOT come cheap, but WT is undoubtedly offering pennies in the hope that someone bites for that 'exclusive' Originals offer.

This. This is a big one. I'm not a lawyer, but I'm pretty sure this is massively ILLEGAL.

Just like with the IP rights, creators should not automatically have their printing rights taken from them by a digital publisher. They can make offers, sure, but they can't force creators into giving up their rights for physical publishing when they themselves are not a physical publishing house. Some series do get physical prints through other publishers like Random House (ex. LO) but a digital printing platform should NOT be able to restrict the printing rights of a creator who has only sold their series for the purpose of digital distribution. Especially because, again, printing rights are usually sold for massive gains for the person selling them - not a portion of month's rent for people living in a shitty New York apartment in 2024. That is what Webtoons thinks your printing rights are worth.

This is one that I've been very certain of for the past little while, particularly due to my past discussions regarding LO's merch. Because let's face it... it isn't good.

But I don't hold Rachel accountable for this shit because she's not the one making it, it's almost certainly some in-house designer at Webtoons or some other third party through Random House Worlds. Sure, it says "By Rachel Smythe" but that's more so just for marketing at this point, because no one wants to buy merch made by Chuck the Penguin House merch guy.

Remember when I said LO's partnership with Inklore / Random House Worlds was gonna be purely for cheap merchandise in the realm of cookbooks and card decks?

Yeah.

Point is, it's clear a lot of creators who are part of Webtoons' merch program may not even have any say or choice in the matter. Of course, I don't know what Rachel's contracts specifically are like, so I won't speculate on that too much, but there's a lot of evidence to suggest that she may not own as much of LO as she used to. She was definitely a part of the older contracts from 2018 at one point that didn't have the more predatory tacked on bullshit like the Minimum Revenue Threshold, but... she's renewed her contract since then. So it begs the question of how much LO has suffered not just on her account of being bad at managing a team and writing a long-form story, but at the hands of Webtoons dipping too much of their hands into her work.

Oh look, another highly unethical if not outright illegal thing! Digital print publishers can't be your agent! Repeat after me -digital print publishers CANNOT be your agent! As anon explains here, it would make it far too easy for publishers to steer their creators into directions that only benefit the company. Agents are like lawyers for artists, their job is to protect writers, actors, artists, anyone who's trying to enter some kind of media industry. Most publishing agencies won't take unsolicited manuscripts for publishing, which means writers need agents who are willing to vouch for them and help them connect with publishers. Webtoons being the publisher AND the agent for creators... seriously, that's fucked up. It means Webtoons can direct creators to do whatever benefits the company itself, not the creator. But hey, we already knew that was the case as soon as we saw "Webtoon would be able to automatically buy 100% of your IP" LOL But if you needed more to support the sheer predatory audacity of Webtoons as a company, there it is.

This is the sad reality for a lot of content creators. Comics aren't a new industry, but webcomics are and a lot of the people going into them are either extremely young or just never learned how to navigate the professional world. We talked about this issue last week and now here it is in action - a lot of creators don't even realize they're supposed to hire lawyers for contracts like these, and those who do... can't afford them.

And again, I'm very aware that this reddit post isn't exactly substantiated by anything beyond anon anecdote (such as a copy of the actual contract) but a couple other people in the thread who were offered contracts also came forward to express the similarities - and differences - between what they were offered and what OP was offered.

(these responses are actually gone now but that's why we have the power of screenshotting as the thread was happening LMAO yay me)

This thread is also being discussed on Twitter:

For those who are as old and falling apart as I am (/hj) and remember when Youtube was still coming into its own as a platform, what Webtoons is doing to webcomic creators is very similar to what businesses like MakerStudios did to Youtubers back in the day - signing creators into predatory contracts with the promise of fame and fortune, just to pull the rug out from under them with shit pay, shit management, and less perks than they had just doing it all on their own time and dime.

Webcomics, as a blooming industry, are now going through the same problem as Youtube did back in the late 2000's/early 2010's. No one knows how to navigate the industry. A lot of people and businesses don't even know how to profit off it, at least not sustainably (and for some platforms definitely not ethically). Very few people have come out of this industry with the money and fame they were seeking in the long-term, both because it's easy to burn out quickly but also because there is no long-term yet due to this being such a new industry... and those who have come out with those victories are often people who are still just pursuing the traditional comic publishing ways of glory, by seeking out agents, signing print deals, and doing everything that any other freelance or contracted comic creator would do, because it's safer and offers more structure than what webcomics are offering on their own. There are no regulations, no protections in place looking out for creators, it's basically just a free for all of young people looking to monetize their creations and businesses willing to take advantage of those people for a quick buck.

I don't think any of this means that webcomics have to be exclusively relegated to being a "stepping stone" for traditional print comics or grander media like film and television. They're a medium in and of themselves, a very accessible medium to boot, that welcomes anyone regardless of their status, technical skills, or background. They're wonderful for that and I think more people should be willing to give webcomics a try as a medium if they want to express themselves on their own terms.

But as I've talked about in the past time and time again, there's still going to be a separation between doing webcomics as a passion project or a hobby, and doing them as a profession. When it comes to the latter, you have to be willing to treat it professionally. You have to recognize that there will be those out there who will take advantage of you for money, because that's what the professional world is all about. This is unfortunately something a lot of creators just don't realize, because we're going through those same growing pains a lot of Youtubers have gone through (and still go through) - learning how to navigate our passion as a job, with all of the legal mess, dotted lines, and legal stipulations that come with it. And we're in the midst of that learning now, by seeing the actions of companies like Webtoons that only seek to exploit creators rather than foster them. It unfortunately will take more creators getting screwed over before anything changes. But we have to be willing to talk about it, every single time. We have to be willing to separate the creator and their own faults from the faults of the platform that's hosting them - a creator can be both lacking in their own skills as a creator as well as lacking in support which makes it impossible for them to hone those skills.

And yes, I say all of this because it concerns the criticisms I make of creators like Rachel Smythe. I think there are a lot of things she does that are indicative of her as a creator and her inability to act professionally in this industry, from LO's rampant misogyny and objectification of women to her own misfires when interacting with her fandom. But there are also just as many things that can be potentially traced back to the platform - it's hard to make better content when you're constantly being exploited and hung out to dry.

Like anon, I too hope that more creators will be willing to stand up and speak on behalf of themselves and their peers, to push back against these contracts. It's gonna suck. It's gonna be hard to want to make those moves when just about every creator is just trying to put food on the table. But for every anonymous creator who stands up and speaks, for every person who isn't willing to sign those contracts and talk about the reasons why, for every storyteller who uses their skills to spread the message, the power they have grows. We have to make it impossible for Webtoons to continue to ignore.

After all, it would be a real shame for more of these stories to come to light just as Webtoons is seeking an initial public offering in the stock market. Wouldn't that just be so unfortunate for them? :)

[johnnyutah]

average adam faulkner stanheight fan: if adam isn’t in saw xi we riot! @lionsgate @kevingruetert @jameswan #adamlives #justiceforadam #corpseinconsistencies

average john kramer fan: What people don’t realize about John, is he’s such a genius that even when he makes mistakes, he planned on making the mistakes. He is the greatest villain of all time

average jill tuck fan: Appreciation post for the Women of Saw 🩷 [the same ten photos that get posted once a week]

average lawrence gordon fan: last night i watched a 2004 tv movie about serial killers called ‘the riverman’, followed by the cheesy family rom-com ‘a castle for christmas’. today my friends and i are going to binge the entire third season of netflix’s ‘stranger things’. none of us have seen a single episode of the rest of the show and we don’t plan on it. then we might rewatch ‘another country’ together

average amanda young fan: sorry i haven’t been online in 4 weeks i’ve been too busy trying to get the new pig cosmetic in the rift [posted 7 weeks ago]

average mark hoffman fan: [underneath a gifset of costas mandylor in a republican christian propaganda ‘sci-fi’ movie] #hes so fucking hot #i would give anything to put him in a sports bra and make him do jumping jacks in front pf me i would literally do #ANYTHING #i need to make him into a marionett and fist him lol

average daniel rigg fan: Here’s a quick low effort doodle I did of Daniel! I just love him so much ❤️ [a literal masterpiece, the best art you’ve ever seen in your entire life] [3 notes]

average allison kerry fan: i am hardcore attached to ONE ship which is probably either allison/amanda or allison/lindsey and my whole blog is devoted to them. there are dozens of us DOZENS

average lynn denlon fan: okay so i know bahar is a realtor now but in her last instagram post where she’s congratulating her son on some new achievement, both the first and last words in the post have 11 letters, AND there’s an X and an I visible in the background of her post 👀?? is this a reach???

average jeff denlon fan: No seriously let me finish seriously when you compare him to the other shitty men in Saw he’s NOT that b

average david tapp fan: i’m 39k away from publishing my 40k tappsing Everybody Lives AU <3 this is going to be epic [account has been deactivated for an indeterminate amount of time]

average brit stevenson and mallick scott fan: Hey I stayed up making this instead of writing my thesis paper for grad school. Here’s a 30,000 word document about the implications of Brit’s promotion within the Marshford group and how it would lead to her eventual demise and also how she rose to the top in her group. It also delves into her relationship with Mallick, whose existence, I believe, is an obvious literary reference to an ancient Roman play read by only me and three other people currently alive. I translated relevant passages and included them in my work. I got understimulated around page 8 so I did take a break to pierce myself in the same spot that I believe Mallick would have a piercing. If you read my fics on AO3 you will already be familiar with the location.

average peter strahm fan: haha peter does CRACK cocoaine haha i think he sniffeds some drugs! why else would he be so MANIC HYPER CRAZY!!! i love my crazy JUNKIE man LOL get him some andderall STAT!! if hoffman didn’t kill him the SPEED certianly would of! LOL!

average lindsey perez fan: i love lindsey perez i’m such a big fan of the character lindsey perez

average matt gibson fan: i literally would eat garbage out of a dumpster

average ezekiel banks fan: holy shit i just finished spiral what a good movie what the hell!!! what a cool addition to the saw universe! i bet everybody else loves this as much as i do! let me take a big drink of water as i check tumblr dot com to see all the nice things people will have to say about darren lynn bousman’s Spiral

average william schenk fan: my hobbies include: being a fujoshi,

average cecelia pederson fan: [pic of cecelia yanking on the metal loop around her neck and smirking] https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vT3f5IIzt5PG-M7G9_Z-gjY4gZaiUneTdMlYrFAcdBGcJo0-N-RDQcj2JfxOaBTxKa6J_DiDQNgqVpg/pub

average logan jigsaw fan: What people don’t realize about John, is he’s such a genius that even when he makes mistakes, he planned on making the mistakes. He is the greatest villain of all time

[elumish]

My Experience With Digital-First Royalty-Only Publishing (Part 2)

Disclaimer: just my experience, may not reflect other people's

Part 1 (What is this sort of publishing; how did I get published; what does the submission, contract, and editing process look like)

Book Release:

My [redacted] book came out in April 2024. It is available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and the publisher's own website, where it is listed for a couple dollars less than on Amazon/B&N. It's available both digitally (in multiple different file formats) and for print (paperback).

I can't speak for whether this is standard across these sorts of publishers, but it probably isn't unusual. This does mean that the book can't be available on Kindle Unlimited, given how Kindle Unlimited's requirements work.

The timing for this sort of publishing is extremely fast compared to traditional or even small-press print publishing. I signed the contract in late August 2023 and sent in the final draft to my editor in late October 2023, and the book was released in late April 2024.

Book cover:

For designing my book cover, they pointed me towards where they pull stock images from and asked me to describe the sort of cover I would want, including possible stock images. They also asked for physical characteristics of my characters, which is when I realized that I had no clue what my characters look like.

The stock image website included AI art, as well as regular non-AI stock images. I specifically requested no AI art, including no AI-generated stock images. As far as I am aware, they respected that request.

Once they created one, they sent me a mock-up and asked about minor changes (typography, etc., from what I remember). I didn't have any changes. Overall, my cover looks like what I described to them, and I'm really happy with it.

Marketing:

My marketing experience with my publisher has been decidedly underwhelming. They seem to have started to revamp their marketing process right around when my book came out, so my book didn't receive/hasn't received a huge amount of marketing support from them.

What they gave me marketing-wise: a few marketing images for pre-release/post-release, including Twitter and FB header images, etc.; general marketing guidance for what I could/should be doing; a couple of mentions on their publisher Instagram post-release and a mention in their weekly newsletter

What they didn't give me marketing-wise: connection to reviewers, including sending an ARC or providing a list of reviewers that might be good to work with; marketing materials for sites like TikTok or Instragram; a meaningful amount of airtime/mention on their accounts; a large following of their own

Overall, the marketing is what is probably most like self-publishing--a huge amount of it is on me (and I am terrible at it). It will be interesting to see what their revamp brings, but they are starting from a minimal following and not a lot of previous activity on their accounts, and so they also need to build their reach to make their marketing on their accounts more effective.

Royalties/payment:

I get paid on a monthly basis through PayPal. I also receive a royalty statement that lists days, amount/type sold, etc. so I can reconcile with what they have paid me. From what I have seen this royalty statement is pretty standard.

So far, they've been prompt and haven't had issues with payments.

However, because of (among other things) their general lack of marketing, my royalty statements have been fairly low. So far (and, granted, the book came out less than 2 months ago) I have made very little money on this.

My Path Forward:

I've thought a lot about whether I will continue to do this sort of publishing. I am currently querying my "main" books, and I don't plan to publish them through this sort of publishing, even if the publisher would likely accept them.

My contract stipulates that my publisher has right of first refusal for the rest of the books in this series. I am currently writing book two, and I plan to also write a third, as I had initially discussed with them. Beyond that, I'm not sure. I don't mind working with them as a company, but I don't know if they have the processes in place for me to make money publishing with them.

One thing I will likely do is explore other romance publishers that accept unagented submissions. They have a much lower barrier of entry and they are often willing to accept books that trad publishers might not want to spend money/reputational risk on.

As such, I would likely submit to these publishers stories that I don't think traditional publishers/agents would likely to be willing to publish, including more niche subgenres and less standard lengths that are easier to publish digitally.

Why do I redact the name of my book?

Honestly because I'm a coward and because people are weird about romance, especially certain subgenres of romance. I also plan to use this account for my main agented publishing, if I ever reach that point, and I don't necessarily want those two pen names associated.

Any other questions about this sort of publishing?

[writingquestionsanswered]

hey i just saw this happen online, but basically an agent PUBLICLY asked for someone to write the concept of a querying author, and basically said the author wasn’t strong enough of a writer but the concept was really good. here’s the link incase you don’t know what i’m talking about. my question is, how on earth does a querying author protect themself from this?

Agent Tweets Concept of Rejected Query

Oof.

Well, consider this a developing story because the literary agent in question seems to have deleted their Twitter account, presumably due to the fallout... Literary agents are supposed to adhere to confidentiality guidelines and professional standards that demand discretion when discussing specific details about rejected queries and manuscripts. Rejecting a query because the opening wasn't strong enough, then tweeting the concept via comp titles and entreating others to write it better certainly doesn't feel discrete, respectful, or confidential. I think there are those in the publishing sphere who would argue that "comp title x comp title" doesn't constitute "specific details," but it's less about that and more about the breach of trust, not just for the querying writer but for any querying writers who--like you--are left wondering if their concepts are safe in the hands of the agents they query.

And, regardless of the argument against comp titles constituting specific details, I think it's fair to say that the more unique the comp titles, the more specific the concept would be. Yes, you could still give a specific concept to three different authors and get three wildly different novels, but that's not the point. The point is this writer had a unique concept, and now it's in the hands of the public.

Aaand... I think some would further argue that since the writer didn't use the comp titles in their query, it shouldn't count as a breach of trust, but if that was their concept, that was their concept. From an industry standpoint, I think there's no question this will be seen as unprofessional behavior by most, and it will be interesting to see how this shakes out over the coming days.

Having said all of that, I genuinely don't think this is a common occurrence, so I don't think it's something you have to worry about when querying. If things were getting a little loosey-goosey in terms of literary agent confidentiality guidelines and professional standards, hopefully this will serve as a wake up call that discretion and respect are still very much desired by querying writers.

Do me a favor? If you see further development, would you let me know? I'll keep an eye out, but I don't use Twitter so I might miss something. Thanks, and potentially stay-tuned! Update: KT literary, the agency who employed the agent in question, has "parted ways" with them and is reaching out to affected clients to discuss their representation options.

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

I’ve been writing seriously for over 30 years and love to share what I’ve learned. Have a writing question? My inbox is always open!

♦ Questions that violate my ask policies will be deleted! ♦ Please see my master list of top posts before asking ♦ Learn more about WQA here

[carrrrino]

HELLO I am very excited for this project! I wanted to express a concern though…it’s rather hard to find the any info on the project aside from what’s on the blog (which isn’t…very much information wise) I’m not sure if that’s an intentional decision…

I know when I first found the info I….kind of didn’t believe this?? That sounds odd. I suppose what I mean is, it didn’t seem the most legit. I did digging through the blog, read all the links, searched for a Twitter and YouTube accounts and had a hard time doing that as well…Simply because there is very little information on it. Which there’s nothing wrong with…I was wanting to suggest (as an outsider) that you and your team put more announcements/ marketing into this…?

I REALLY hope to see this project grow, it’s absolutely deserved, and very few people seem to know about it. I’d hate that to be something people miss out on. I don’t really expect an answer on this but I thought I should share the concern as an outside perspective. 💛

I really hope this project is going well for you and that it gets the deserved recognition as it’s coming out!!! So excited!!!

I'm so happy that people share the same excitement and concern for the series. Also, the fact that you guys think it's worthy of success Is truly inspiring! I think it's time I SAY something though about my current situation.

TL;DR - Our team basically went inactive after the summer; everyone returned to their lives and I'm the only one who can keep up with the project unconditionally. I didn't mean to dishearten you guys! It's a pain in the ass to work alone - excluding voice actors and SFX producers. The OUTBREAK blog will change entirely, it will be used for info and marketing. This blog will just be general art created by me (&no-namestuff). I will continue to work on the series independently, but I'll definitely give out more info as requested and make things more legit whenever I can!

Over the summer, a group of us began working on the project together, but as most of my friends returned to school and their regular lives, it became almost impossible to keep going. Currently, only a few are available to help, but they're too busy.

I didn't want to worry anyone by saying that it's basically just me working on the project; it's tough to balance animating, scripting, marketing, planning, publishing, AND funding by myself. Over time it (advertising and insightful communication) just became indifferent to me, I even considered going silent for a while until I had a mother-load of progress, but that's really not fair.

The project was a bit of a mess when we started. We didn't plan on making it a big deal, my animations were half-assed and incomprehensible; I barely knew how to work Adobe and could barely even pay it off, the sound was going to be recorded via iPhone, the script wasn't even halfway done, and voice actors weren't thought of until the Prologue. After more than six months of work, Verse 1-4 (or 6?) was deleted because of issues with the file.. this really drew the line for everyone.

So here I am, despite everything; I revised the script, which is barely halfway done, redesigned the characters, read more into the multiversal conundrums of AUs and UNDERTALE, built a portfolio, studied poses for the action scenes — and there’s still a lot that I have to learn. I'm working on Q&As, asks, and the teaser / test / project animations. I don't want people to be confused or hesitant, so I appreciate you a lot for reminding me of this. As requested, I will provide additional details about the project too :) !

No-Name's theme is in progress (thanks to Synth Mints), I've invested heavily in software for good quality animations, talented voice actors from this fandom (some you might even know) have agreed to voice for me - I'm extremely grateful for their help. Even if it takes years to release an episode or pilot, I'm still excited about the outcome. Who knows, I might even have a genuine team by then! :D

aw geez sorry for the whole bit-life story, I'm just trying to shed some light on the situation for you all. I do care, I want everyone to know that, it's just hard work.

Until the next teaser animation, please have these lil' pieces of teasers / lore as an apology!

SD by @/galacii ERROR by @/loverofpiggies / CrayonQueen

LASTLY today is my birthday yayyy 🥳🎂

[onlycosmere]

REGARDING AUDIBLE

Brandon Sanderson: Hey, all. Brandon here, with what I consider to be some pretty exciting news. Many of you may remember when I wrote last year about my worries regarding audiobook royalties (particularly for independent authors). You can read it HERE, but some of the main bullet points are as follows:

I seriously worried about the opacity of reporting to authors about audio sales. We didn’t know what a sale meant, how much of an Audible credit was given to authors when a book sold via one, and how royalties were being accounted.

I felt that the industry was taking advantage of authors because of their lack of powerful corporate interests to advocate for them. While video game creators and musicians get 70–80% (88%, in fact, on two major platforms) of a sale of their products in a digital platform, Audible was paying as low as 25%–with the high end being instead 40%.

I felt I could have gotten a better deal for myself, but the entire state of this industry was seriously concerning to me. So, I made the difficult decision NOT to release the four Secret Projects on Audible, costing me a large number of sales, to instead try to bolster healthy competition in the space, highlighting some of the smaller Audible competitors.

I hoped this wake-up call would prompt change. I didn’t refuse to put my books on Audible out of retribution or to declare war; I did it because I wanted to shine as powerful a light as I knew how on a system that highly favored the audio distributors over the authors. I was convinced that the people at Audible really did love books and writers, and that with the right stand taken, I could encourage them toward positive change.

I’m happy to say that this stand has borne some fruit. I’ve spent this last year in contact with Audible and other audio distributors, and have pushed carefully–but forcefully–for them to step up. A few weeks ago, three key officers high in Audible’s structure flew to Dragonsteel offices and presented for us a new royalty structure they intend to offer to independent writers and smaller publishers.

This new structure doesn’t give everything I’ve wanted, and there is still work to do, but it is encouraging. They showed me new minimum royalty rates for authors–and they are, as per my suggestions, improved over the previous ones. Moreover, this structure will move to a system like I have requested: a system that pays more predictably on each credit spent, and that is more transparent for authors. Audible will be paying royalties monthly, instead of quarterly, and will provide a spreadsheet that better shows how they split up the money received with their authors.

This part looked really good to me, as I understand their decisions. I tried poking holes in the system, looking for ways it could be exploited, and found each issue I raised had already been considered. This doesn’t mean it’s going to be perfect, and people smarter than me might still find problems that I didn’t. However, I think everyone is going to agree the new system IS better. We will better be able to track, for example, how Audible is dividing money between books purchased with a credit and books listened to as part of their Audible Plus program.

It’s all very technical, but I have to say I’m impressed with the effort they have made. The people there listened to my complaints, and have tried to improve. I’m not at liberty to explain in its entirety their new structure right now, as they’re still tweaking it, but they did say I could announce its existence–and that I could promise new, improved royalties are on the horizon.

Now, before we go too far, I do anticipate a few continuing issues with the final product. I want to manage expectations by talking about those below.

What I’ve seen doesn’t yet bring us to the 70% royalty I think is fair, and which other, similar industries get.

Audible continues to reserve the best royalties for those authors who are exclusive to their platform, which I consider bad for consumers, as it stifles competition. In the new structure, both exclusive and non-exclusive authors will see an increase, but the gap is staying about the same.

Authors continue to have very little (basically no) control over pricing. Whatever the “cover price” of books is largely doesn’t matter–books actually sell for the price of a credit in an Audible subscription. Authors can never raise prices alongside inflation. An Audible credit costs the same as it did almost two decades ago–with no incentive for Audible to raise it, lest it lose customers to other services willing to loss-lead to draw customers over.

These are things I’d love to see change. However, this deal IS a step forward, and IS an attempt to meet me partway. Indeed, even incremental changes can mean a lot. When I was new in this business, my agent spent months arguing for a two-percent change in one of my print royalties–because every little bit helps. These improvements are going to be larger than two-percent increases.

Because of this, I will be bringing the Secret Projects to Audible very soon. I consider Audible to again be a positive force for the industry, and I have decided to shake hands with them. Audible has promised to release their new royalty system for all authors sometime in 2024, though I should be testing it in the next month or so.

And…if you’ll allow me a moment, I’d like to say that this feels good. It isn’t what I wanted, but I’d begun to think that nothing would ever change–that even my voice, loud though it can be, wouldn’t be enough. Yet change IS possible.

I know that there are plenty of people out there who are tired of hearing about me and my works (I’m sorry–I do have quite the group of evangelists, and we can be an enthusiastic lot). However, for better or for worse, I am one of the bestselling authors in the world. Historically, one of the best ways to change things in my industry is for authors like myself to force it to happen.

Feeling this responsibility, when I was first talking to Audible about these issues in 2022, I made it very clear that I wasn’t just seeking some quiet deal that gave me an individual advantage. I wanted to see positive change for all authors. And while I don’t think I can take sole credit, I do feel like my efforts this year have had a significantly positive effect. Soon every independent author who publishes on Audible (and maybe, eventually, traditionally published authors with the huge publishers–depending on what New York decides) will be getting a larger cut of the profit, with more transparency about how that cut is allocated.

So, for those who have been waiting until Audible had the Secret Projects, you’ll get your chance soon. I hope you’ll support them, and support Audible for their decisions. And thank you to all of you who shared the news about my problems with the audio industry last year; I believe that pressure really did help. This is a victory for all of us, because happier authors able to make a better living (particularly those authors who are struggling in the midlist trenches) make for a more vibrant world for everyone.

[hyperfixation-fix]

Alright girls, guys, and gays - welcome to...

A Newby's Guide to the Marauders Fandom

You keep seeing your mutuals post about this Harry-Potter-adjacent fandom. It seems cool, and pretty damn gay, and you're kinda curious to know more. Except there's one problem: there is little-to-no actual canon.

How do you get into a fandom with little-to-no canon material?

Well friends, I'm here to help! Consider this post your roadmap to the fandom - useful locations are noted, major landmarks and tourist destinations are starred, and recommended routes are highlighted.

But where you actually go is up to you.

Level 1: The Basics

If you're the freshest of fresh meat to this fandom, you may like to start with a nice little overview of our chaos-fanon. Here are some YouTube videos that give you a good tl;dr:

a deep dive into the marauders fandom by uncarley (YouTube video, general topic, no major content warnings) - this is a great starter video, especially if you're not a fandom person usually. It's digestible, fun, and not too lore-heavy.

The Marauders Era Fandom Deep Dive! by Coffeekoe (YouTube video, general topic, no major content warnings) - alternatively (or in addition), this is another great starter video, but possibly more from a fandom-familiar perspective. Also Coffeekoe just has great vibes and I want to kiss them on the forehead. Mwuah mwuah mwuah.

Marauders Era Ships Deep Dive! by Coffeekoe (YouTube video, several different ships, no major content warnings) - after you've got the gist of how the fandom works, you might want to know a bit more about the common Marauders ships. This video gives an awesome (and comprehensive) overview.

Level 2: The Canon in the Fanon

You're going to have a pretty tough time in the fandom if you're not at least somewhat familiar with The Fanfic™️, All the Young Dudes. This fic is as highly revered (if not more so) than the real actual canon text (obligatory fuck JKR).

First off let's understand what it is.

All the Young Dudes is a long-form fanfiction written by MsKingBean89 and published on Archive of Our Own. And when I say long-form, I mean long-form - this thing is a monstrous 188 (chunky) chapters long. It spans from 1971, when the Marauders start their first year at Hogwarts, until 1995, when Remus dies. Speaking of which, it's also canon-compliant, so I'll save you some heartache and tell you right now that all of the characters die in pretty tragic ways. I'm not going to lie to you, it's a pretty heavy story - there are strong themes of child abuse, homophobia, underage drinking/smoking, drug abuse, abusive relationships, and trauma. BUT. I really enjoyed it and have read it twice now, simply because the happy bits are worth the painful bits.

With all of that in mind, here are (my recommendations for) your options for acquiring your ATYD education:

All The Young Dudes Deep Dive! by Coffeekoe (YouTube video, ATYD, some light discussion of triggering topics mentioned above, spoiler heavy!!!) - yep that's right, it's Coffeekoe again. Mwuah mwuah mwuah. This video is a super duper great alternative to reading ATYD, or a great way to dip your toe in and see if you want to commit to reading it in full. Obviously it's spoiler heavy, so if you already know you want to read ATYD and spoilers bug you, just skip it.

All the Young Dudes by MsKingBean89 (AO3 fic, mostly Wolfstar, triggers as mentioned above) - here's just a straight up link to the fic. You may need an account on AO3 to access it.

All the Young Dudes by BIBLIOBIBULI (YouTube, same as above) - if you're like me and love the idea of reading a long-fic, but don't actually have the time/energy/patience/stamina to do it, an audiobook might be the way to go! This one is great, and complete. You're welcome 🫶

Level 3: Fics of Note

Okay! By now, you should have received your official Marauders Fandom Certification in the mail (or, I guess, via owl), and you're pretty much free to go and explore the fandom on your own. You may, however, still come across references that confuse you. Those (probably) come from one of the many, many, many popular fics in the fandom.

Here's just a few of the major ones and links to them, for your convenience (asterisks indicate fics that require an account to access):

NOTE: This is not a rec list. Approach with caution and read all the tags.

Crimson Rivers by bizarrestars*

Just Lovers (Like We Were Supposed To Be) by bizarrestars*

Best Friend's Brother by bizarrestars*

Choices by MesserMoon

Kill Your Darlings by MesserMoon

All the Young Dudes - Sirius's Perspective by Rollercoasterwords

The Cadence Of Part-Time Poets by motswolo

Art Heist, Baby! by otrtbs

Only the Brave by Solmussa*

Level 4: You're On Your Own, Kid

You're still here? Why are you still here? You should be out there, enjoying your newly acquired fandom!

Fine, one last piece of advice and then you really have to leave:

Engage.

This fandom is unique because it is the weird, Frankenstein's-Monster-esque lovechild of thousands of strange little obsessive gremlin people like you and me. Sure, it only has one eye and far too many nipples, but who cares? We made this and we love it. And it's your job, as someone in the fandom, to keep it alive by engaging. Yes, this is true for every fandom, but even more so here. Comment, reblog, share, recommend fics, ask for fic recs. Fuck it, create too - write, draw, share headcanons, make playlists. It doesn't matter if it's "bad" or "wrong", there aren't any fucking rules.

Add another nipple, by all means! Eyes are overrated anyway.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

An interoperability rule for your money

This is the final weekend to back the Kickstarter campaign for the audiobook of my next novel, The Lost Cause. These kickstarters are how I pay my bills, which lets me publish my free essays nearly every day. If you enjoy my work, please consider backing!

"If you don't like it, why don't you take your business elsewhere?" It's the motto of the corporate apologist, someone so Hayek-pilled that they see every purchase as a ballot cast in the only election that matters – the one where you vote with your wallet.

Voting with your wallet is a pretty undignified way to go through life. For one thing, the people with the thickest wallets get the most votes, and for another, no matter who you vote for in that election, the Monopoly Party always wins, because that's the part of the thick-wallet set.

Contrary to the just-so fantasies of Milton-Friedman-poisoned bootlickers, there are plenty of reasons that one might stick with a business that one dislikes – even one that actively harms you.

The biggest reason for staying with a bad company is if they've figured out a way to punish you for leaving. Businesses are keenly attuned to ways to impose switching costs on disloyal customers. "Switching costs" are all the things you have to give up when you take your business elsewhere.

Businesses love high switching costs – think of your gym forcing you to pay to cancel your subscription or Apple turning off your groupchat checkmark when you switch to Android. The more it costs you to move to a rival vendor, the worse your existing vendor can treat you without worrying about losing your business.

Capitalists genuinely hate capitalism. As the FBI informant Peter Thiel says, "competition is for losers." The ideal 21st century "market" is something like Amazon, a platform that gets 45-51 cents out of every dollar earned by its sellers. Sure, those sellers all compete with one another, but no matter who wins, Amazon gets a cut:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/09/28/cloudalists/#cloud-capital

Think of how Facebook keeps users glued to its platform by making the price of leaving cutting of contact with your friends, family, communities and customers. Facebook tells its customers – advertisers – that people who hate the platform stick around because Facebook is so good at manipulating its users (this is a good sales pitch for a company that sells ads!). But there's a far simpler explanation for peoples' continued willingness to let Mark Zuckerberg spy on them: they hate Zuck, but they love their friends, so they stay:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/08/facebooks-secret-war-switching-costs

One of the most important ways that regulators can help the public is by reducing switching costs. The easier it is for you to leave a company, the more likely it is they'll treat you well, and if they don't, you can walk away from them. That's just what the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau wants to do with its new Personal Financial Data Rights rule:

https://www.consumerfinance.gov/about-us/newsroom/cfpb-proposes-rule-to-jumpstart-competition-and-accelerate-shift-to-open-banking/

The new rule is aimed at banks, some of the rottenest businesses around. Remember when Wells Fargo ripped off millions of its customers by ordering its tellers to open fake accounts in their name, firing and blacklisting tellers who refused to break the law?

https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2016/10/07/497084491/episode-728-the-wells-fargo-hustle

While there are alternatives to banks – local credit unions are great – a lot of us end up with a bank by default and then struggle to switch, even though the banks give us progressively worse service, collectively rip us off for billions in junk fees, and even defraud us. But because the banks keep our data locked up, it can be hard to shop for better alternatives. And if we do go elsewhere, we're stuck with hours of tedious clerical work to replicate all our account data, payees, digital wallets, etc.

That's where the new CFPB order comes in: the Bureau will force banks to "share data at the person’s direction with other companies offering better products." So if you tell your bank to give your data to a competitor – or a comparison shopping site – it will have to do so…or else.

Banks often claim that they block account migration and comparison shopping sites because they want to protect their customers from ripoff artists. There are certainly plenty of ripoff artists (notwithstanding that some of them run banks). But banks have an irreconcilable conflict of interest here: they might want to stop (other) con-artists from robbing you, but they also want to make leaving as painful as possible.

Instead of letting shareholder-accountable bank execs in back rooms decide what the people you share your financial data are allowed to do with it, the CFPB is shouldering that responsibility, shifting those deliberations to the public activities of a democratically accountable agency. Under the new rule, the businesses you connect to your account data will be "prohibited from misusing or wrongfully monetizing the sensitive personal financial data."

This is an approach that my EFF colleague Bennett Cyphers and I first laid our in our 2021 paper, "Privacy Without Monopoly," where we describe how and why we should shift determinations about who is and isn't allowed to get your data from giant, monopolistic tech companies to democratic institutions, based on privacy law, not corporate whim:

https://www.eff.org/wp/interoperability-and-privacy

The new CFPB rule is aimed squarely at reducing switching costs. As CFPB Director Rohit Chopra says, "Today, we are proposing a rule to give consumers the power to walk away from bad service and choose the financial institutions that offer the best products and prices."

The rule bans banks from charging their customers junk fees to access their data, and bans businesses you give that data to from "collecting, using, or retaining data to advance their own commercial interests through actions like targeted or behavioral advertising." It also guarantees you the unrestricted right to revoke access to your data.

The rule is intended to replace the current state-of-the-art for data sharing, which is giving your banking password to third parties who go and scrape that data on your behalf. This is a tactic that comparison sites and financial dashboards have used since 2006, when Mint pioneered it:

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/12/mint-late-stage-adversarial-interoperability-demonstrates-what-we-had-and-what-we

A lot's happened since 2006. It's past time for American bank customers to have the right to access and share their data, so they can leave rotten banks and go to better ones.

The new rule is made possible by Section 1033 of the Consumer Financial Protection Act, which was passed in 2010. Chopra is one of the many Biden administrative appointees who have acquainted themselves with all the powers they already have, and then used those powers to help the American people:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/18/administrative-competence/#i-know-stuff

It's pretty wild that the first digital interoperability mandate is going to come from the CFPB, but it's also really cool. As Tim Wu demonstrated in 2021 when he wrote Biden's Executive Order on Promoting Competition in the American Economy, the administrative agencies have sweeping, grossly underutilized powers that can make a huge difference to everyday Americans' lives:

https://www.eff.org/de/deeplinks/2021/08/party-its-1979-og-antitrust-back-baby

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/21/let-my-dollars-go/#personal-financial-data-rights

My next novel is The Lost Cause, a hopeful novel of the climate emergency. Amazon won't sell the audiobook, so I made my own and I'm pre-selling it on Kickstarter!

Image: Steve Morgan (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:U.S._National_Bank_Building_-_Portland,_Oregon.jpg

Stefan Kühn (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Abrissbirne.jpg

CC BY-SA 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en

 - 

Rhys A. (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/rhysasplundh/5201859761/in/photostream/

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

[yjzine2024]

Yellowjackets Zine - Applications Open!

You might have seen the poll going around for interest, and well, it convinced me enough to start this up. A zine for Yellowjackets! Yeah!

The plan is to make this a relatively small but hopefully exciting project to cross the current lack of things between seasons. Think you have a good idea? Submit it!

You can apply for the zine via this form

So far I'm thinking of keeping it at max 30 participants, but this mostly comes down to a first-come-first-serve basis. Fear not, I may include you if you have a really cool idea for a submission.

Guidelines for applying are copied below but will also be in the form.

Cheers!

What is a zine? "Zine" is short for magazine. What a Yellowjackets zine would entail is a small, digital booklet with artworks, writing, collages, lists, etc. related to the show that it's all connected to. There are zines that have a print run alongside digital versions, but to keep it all running smoothly, I'd like to keep this digital only. So I can't offer compensation in financial means. This is first and foremost a passion project, and also things would get tricky on a legal front if there were to be any money involved.

So if I want to contribute, it can be anything? Basicallly! But there are some hard rules I would like to be followed for it to stay coherent.

Canon Compliant. Writing or art, hard AUs aren't really something for this zine. It's a little celebration of the show that is there, and tonally there might be too much dissonance if AUs are included in this. Guesses at the yet to be seen months in the Wilderness, or in the present day are very much welcome!

Self-contained works. Putting chapter 1 of your fic in a zine isn't really ideal. For art this is easier to accomplish, but written submissions should be completed within the pages they are on.

Not just shipping. Yes, I know, shipping is big. But like I put in the first point, I would like to keep things more generally on events, plot, characters, and a neat discussion of it. There's of course degrees to how much you can ship within canon in a show like this. It's totally cool if you put something in that is (Basically) Canon (f.e. TaiVan but also JackieShauna) or Has Strong Potential (f.e. LottieLee, MistyNat). Don't come to me with something like Shauna/Walter. Explorations of characters and relationships are of course okay! But don't make it a smut fest.

Nothing too NSFW. This is Cannibalism Show (TM) we're talking about, so there is some leniency. But let's say if you would rate it as E on Ao3, then maybe try to get it a bit lower in rating or think of something different.

(Previously) Unpublished works. This may be a given, but a zine is the most fun when it's full of original content. You are of course free to publish what you made on your own accounts/profiles once the zine is online.

Other than that, it's pretty free to fill in for yourself! What can be published should be able to go in a hypothetically printed magazine, but if you would write fic, and essay, compile a mixtape list, make some meta newspaper article on the events, graphics, collages, a poster design, or banger fanart, it's all up to you as long as it gets you excited to work on it!

I'm splitting them up in written and graphic types of contributions, but there's room to give a pitch for your specific idea.

Practical stuff!

Max wordcount for written contributions should be about 2500 words. I'm not going to be too strict, but keep any overflow within reason.

Graphic works should be able to be displayed well on a 2100x3000px canvas on. This is the size of page I'm using at the moment.

How much time would there be to prep? For now I'm thinking of putting the final deadline on November 30 so hopefully everyone will have time to work on their submission (from scratch). I also gotta get the hang of a publishing design program lol.

[bumblebeehug]

Massage Misunderstanding

Summary: Happy comes to the conclusion that Lucy and Natsu really should stop making such suggestive sounds when massaging. Notes: I honestly don't know what this is supposed to be. It's already published on my ff.net account but I thought y'all might like it here too. Translation - Ao3 - FF.net

***

It was just a normal day in the Fairy Tail guild where everyone was having a happy time, one or two small fights in the background and Mira serving drinks to the guild members. Natsu, Happy and Lucy had just gotten home from another mission, and Lucy dramatically laid her head on the table where they sat.

"Urgh, my muscles are killing me!" She groaned, vincing at her slightest movements.

"Come on, it wasn't that bad Lucy!"

"Yeah Lucy! I told you that you should have gone with us on our morning runs," Happy exclaimed. "You're just out of shape!"

"I'm not going to get up at 5 in the morning to go on runs with you two. Our stamina isn't even close, you just run ahead anyways," Lucy answered with a pout. "Besides, you never let me sleep a full night's sleep. I can't sleep with fur in my face and an overgrown baby taking up all the space!"

"That's why I keep telling you that we should cuddle, I wouldn't take any space that way."

"No, but you would overstep my personal boundaries. Now shoo, let me recover in peace."

Natsu just frowned, ignoring his partner's attempt to get him to leave her alone.

"Is it really that bad?" He asked with a slight concern. He knew that she would be okay after a few days, but he really didn't like seeing her in pain. "Your back I mean."

"I'm not dying or anything, but I could really use a massage. I'm gonna ask Kinana to give me one if she has a moment to spare," the blonde explained. "She must have been gifted with the hands of a God, I don't think anyone can fix soreness as well as she does!"

Happy snickered as he heard Lucy's praise.

"Lucy, did you know that Natsu also is really good at giving massages," he revealed.

"Wait, seriously? Natsu, is it true? How come you've never told me this?" Lucy's eyes widened in disbelief. How could Natsu, whose only skill is burning things and fighting people, be good at giving a massage?

"Meh, Happy is exaggerating." He just shrugged. "I've only given a handful of them, I wouldn't know if they're any good," he explained. Maybe that was a lie. He had given massages to a good bunch of the guild, and had gotten just as many compliments.

"I'm totally not exaggerating!" Happy exclaimed. "Well it doesn't matter, you'll get to decide that for yourself Lucy. Come on Natsu, give her a free trial!"

"No way. She doesn't want me to anyway, let's just go fishing or something," Natsu said, trying to get away from this forced labour. He found it so incredibly boring to give massages. There was never a reward for him, it was just a big waste of time in his opinion.

"Wait a second mister, who said I didn't want you to give me a massage?" Lucy protested, feeling curious about this new skill she had found out about the dragon slayer.

"I'm not gonna give you one either way." Natsu stood his point this time. Last time he did it the requests kept coming, keeping him from doing anything productive that day, He was not going to have that again.

"Pretty pleaseee!" Lucy gave him her best puppy eyes, but at no avail. "I'll cook food for you the entire week, I really need a massage as soon as possible!"

Natsu's interest peaked slightly. He would get something out of it if he did it, and he never refused food.

"Two weeks or no deal. And don't tell anyone, got it?"

"Deal!" Lucy chirped. "Come on, let's do it now! I think the infirmary is empty!"

Natsu just sighed as he watched Lucy skip there in advance.

"Happy, if my entire day gets ruined, then it's your fault."

"Yeah yeah, whatever, let's just go now before anyone catches on!"

As Natsu and Lucy prepared to satisfy the blonde's poor muscles, the rest of Team Natsu entered the building.

"Gray-sama!" Juvia's sweet voice filled the guild hall, informing everyone about his arrival.

"Hello Juvia," Erza greeted, leaving Gray to her. "You haven't seen Master or Mirajane, have you?"

"Ah, if Juvia's not wrong she believes that she overheard that Master is in a meeting with the council. Juvia hasn't seen Mira-san today, but she believes you may possibly find her behind the counter," Juvia answered before turning her attention back to Gray.

"I see. Thank you Juvia. I just wanted to tell Master that we're back from the mission, but if he isn't here I'll just inform Mira. Well, if I can find her."

"You're not just gonna leave me, are you!?" Gray mustered to say, feeling a bit sweaty in Juvia's tight embrace.

"Sorry Gray-san," Wendy timidly excused. "I'm feeling a bit tired from the mission so I was planning on finding Lucy-san and Natsu-san."

"They owe her a pastry for ruining hers last week," Carla further explained.

"I wonder why Happy hasn't come to greet you yet Carla," Wendy teased. "He's usually the first one to notice us when we come back from missions."

Carla let out an annoyed puff.

"I haven't noticed. I'm just glad that Tomcat isn't pestering us today."

"It's still odd though," Gray said. He had gotten himself a free moment while Juvia ran to get some new handmade gift. "I usually can't even get a moment to relax before Fire Breath tries to pick a fight."

"Maybe they went on a mission alone?" Wendy said.

"They said they wanted to rest a bit though before taking a long mission with a big reward." It was Erza's turn to invite herself to the conversation. "I'm not sure if it has anything to do with Natsu and Lucy, but Mira was lurking outside the infirmary. She seemed excited so I didn't want to interrupt."

The gang started asking the rest of the guild about the original team Natsu's whereabouts, but no one seemed to know where the three members held house.

"I'm gonna talk to her," Gray finally said. "She's been gasping at the door for ten minutes, whatever she's doing can't be more important than knowing where our friends are."

"Juvia agrees. Mira-san should probably go back to work soon anyways. Let's ask her."

As they all came closer to the door to the infirmary Wendy started blushing. Did she really hear..? No, she must have been mistaken.

"What's the matter Wendy?" Carla asked quietly.

"No, no, it's nothing… I think. Unless!" Wendy gasped. Maybe that was the reason Mira's ear was pressed to the little gap between the floor and the door. But was it really Lucy and Natsu she was hearing? Maybe she was a bit too tired from the mission to think right. The voices must be distorted from exhaustion.

As they got closer more members of the group started hearing what Wendy was suspecting. They tried to ignore it while talking to Mira. Whatever two members that were having fun in there could keep doing what they were doing - the group just wanted to know where three of their team members were.

"Sorry to interrupt you Mira but can we ask you something?" Erza said, taking the lead.

"Ah!" Mira finally started to get back from her dreamland. "Yes of course. Welcome back by the way. I must have missed your arrival," she pardoned herself.

"It's fine, we were just wondering if you have any idea where Natsu and Lucy have gone? They were supposedly in the guild before and no one saw them leave so we feel quite confused," Erza explained. Mira burst out in a fit of giggles.

"Yep, yep, I know exactly where those two are! They're a bit occupied right now though."

"Well, where are they? We wanted to say hi at least," Erza insisted.

Instead of answering, Mira just pointed to the door that led into the infirmary. The rest of the group couldn't believe their eyes.

"You're joking, right?"

"There is no way!"

"Juvia knew it!"

"I really shouldn't be listening to this…" Wendy blushed as she held her hands over her ears.

"It's quite inappropriate." Carla shook her head disapprovingly.

"In the guild hall? That's bold." Gray snickered tauntingly.

"Wait, does that mean that Happy is there too?!" Erza exclaimed as she came to the realisation.

"Gross!"

The group felt confused by their discovery. None of them knew what to do with this new information, but it was hard for them to just leave Natsu and Lucy to it. They might have wanted this to happen a bit more than they cared to admit, and they weren't going to lie - they were quite curious about what they were doing.

Let's head a few minutes back where Natsu and Lucy had just arrived at the infirmary. The blonde had just taken off her shirt, and laid down on the infirmary's only massage bench as Natsu locked the door.

"So, let's see how good you really are," Lucy mumbled confidently. She already knew that Natsu had dry and calloused hands, so it couldn't feel that good, right?

"Take off your bra too."

"H- huh?" Lucy stuttered as she felt her face warming up slightly. Was that really necessary? Kinana usually found ways to go around the bra, and that worked perfectly well. "W- why?"

"I'm gonna use oil so that I don't scrape your back. You don't want your clothes ruined, right?"

"Ah, of course…" With a blush embracing her cheeks she unclasped her bra and pulled her arms out of the loops. In one smooth movement she removed the bra under her and then tossed it to her left, where her shirt laid neatly folded. She took a moment to consider if it was worth pulling down her skirt too, and since she definitely didn't want to deal with washing an oily skirt, she decided to drag it down slightly, just so that it still covered her buttcrack.

While Lucy was stripping down, Natsu had turned around to grab the oil. He remembered where it was since he'd given the rest of the guild massages, and after moving around a few bottles he found the small, cylinder shaped container. It was only half full (or was it half empty?) but it would be plenty for one massage.

When Natsu turned back around he was met with the sight of his best friend half naked, with her head facing him.

"Ya ready to be blown away?" Natsu joked, his signature grin dancing across his lips. Lucy let out a small giggle.

"Do your worst." Lucy winked playfully. Little did they know that Mira-Jane just happened to walk by the room, hearing all of the following conversation.

"I'll start out slow," Natsu informed, finally placing his slightly warmed up hands on her stiff shoulders, earning a quiet groan from Lucy. Knowing it was probably a groan of slight discomfort having sore muscles kneaded, he decided to ease up on the strength he put in. "You okay there Lucy?" he whispered, keeping the voice down in an attempt to be calming.

"Mmh, yeah… God, that feels good," Lucy groaned. She figured the secret behind these magical hands must be heat, because while it was only barely the same temperature she took baths in, they were still hotter than Kinana's hands.

A minute passed with Natsu just slowly rubbing his hands up and down her back to get her blood circulating, when he decided to begin the real kneading. He started out lightly, beginning at the nape of her neck (exactly where she smelled the strongest) and working himself slowly to her shoulders and down to her arms. Now, while he had massaged many people, he had never before massaged such a loud person. At almost every motion he made, Lucy let out a small sound. If he didn't know better he would think she was moaning.

"God, Natsu… gnh… harder," She whimpered out, blushing slightly for a moment when she realised how it sounded. She didn't have time to worry about that though since Natsu followed her order, making her groan out louder.

Natsu himself actually found that he got weirdly flustered by her sounds. The fact that he could hear a gasp coming from outside didn't really help either since it made him feel like he was doing nasty stuff - stuff he only thought Gildarts or that nasty Gajeel would like to do. To cover up his reaction to Lucy's pleading, he immediately followed through, only resulting in also adding speed to the massage.

"Does it feel good?" Natsu heaved out in an attempt to ignore the heat in his lower belly.

"Uh, oh yeah, a bit sl- ahn~… slower though."

"Oh yeah, sorry, got a bit too excited," he quickly apologised. Now that her shoulders felt kneaded through he carried on down on Lucy's upper back. He could feel some really tight knots there, and he felt a bit bad for her, knowing how much of a bother they must have been. Natsu himself had really good blood circulation, so he was only sore for a few hours if he strained himself too hard, but Lucy had to deal with that pain for multiple days, if not weeks sometimes.

"Happy, could you get me some water?" Lucy managed to get out. She got a bit sweaty from the heat in the room.

"Aye!"

Soon enough she had a glass of water in her hand, and with wobbly arms she managed to take a few sips before accidentally spilling it on the floor. Lucy didn't have time worrying about that though, as Natsu carefully dragged his hot and oily fingers along her waist.

"Look at how wet you are," Natsu whispered out in an attempt to tease her for getting her arms and hands wet. "You're even dripping, Lucy"

"Ggnhh~ come on Natsu, it's not- mmh… it's not funny" She managed to get out. Natsu had just poured on some more oil and was now caressing her hips.

"You're making a mess," Natsu commented smugly. Lucy could hear his grin in his voice.

"Well so are you," she answered, aiming at his overuse of the oil.

"Everything to make the princess feel good" Natsu witted. He didn't really care about the multiple new smells that now lingered outside of the room. He didn't even know how long they had been there, but he also didn't care as he currently felt like he was in a fog of Lucy's smell and whimpering.

Natsu had now worked through every single knot he could find, and was topping off the treatment by dragging his nails loosely over her entire back. Lucy let out a loud sigh in relief - she definitely loved how his hands had felt, working so thoroughly on her body, but it made her surprisingly tired. A quick run over her armpits made Lucy gasp out loudly, giving Natsu one last sound that he never really had heard before. Weren't people supposed to laugh when they got tickled? Well, it didn't really matter since he had gotten a response either way.

"Let me clean you up before you get clothed," Natsu said sincerely, happy to see his friend so satisfied.

"Alright. Thank you for this Natsu, seriously. It felt great. And I promise, I won't tell the others about it. It'll be our little secret." Lucy blinked playfully, happy that she had her own secret masseur. She definitely didn't want to share, that much she knew.

After they both got cleaned up and Lucy got clothed they finally got a good look at each other. Both looked sweaty and had a small blush, probably from the adrenaline kick from keeping a secret from the guild, and Lucy's hair was messy. They grinned at each other before opening the door that kept them apart from the rest of the gang.

As Natsu and Lucy walked out from the infirmary they were met with half the guild, who all were blushing furiously.

"I can't believe they-"

"Shhh, not with Asuka here!"

"Lu-chan oh my god! It finally happened! How did it feel?"

"I must say I'm quite surprised you both kept your relationship a secret for so long!"

"Juvia would like to apologise to Lucy-san for thinking she was a Love Rival."

"I can't believe flame-head lost his virginity before me!"

"Wa- wait! You're all misunderstanding!" Lucy finally gasped out. "He's not-, we're not-, I'm not-!"

"Meh, let's leave them Lucy. I'm really hungry, let's go back to our place and get some food." Natsu grabbed Lucy's right wrist and started tugging her along and through the crowd.

"OUR place?! Last time I checked it was me who paid the bills!" Lucy argued. "AND it's me who does the grocery shopping! You can't even fold your own laundry!"

"That's just because your way of folding it is too complicated. Why does my drawer have to look as neat as yours anyways, it's not like anyone checks them."

"I only started doing that folding because a certain person and a certain cat wouldn’t stop looking in my panty-drawer!" Lucy burst out, forgetting the crowd behind them.

"Jeez Luce, we're just confused how you can wear that stuff. It doesn't cover anything!" Natsu tried to defend himself, earning a light smack on the head.

"Don't go talking about what my panties cover-" "or doesn't cover" Happy added, "in public! Urgh, just be quiet until we get home."

The rest of the guild looked wide eyed at the door which Lucy and Natsu just left through.

"Do you think they got married on a mission or something?" Someone in the guild asked, not expecting an answer.

"What do you mean? Lucy and Natsu have always been like this." Happy said.

"Are you telling me they've fucked all this time!?" Levy burst out in shock. Wendy screeched at her choice of words.

"What? Natsu was just giving Lucy a massage" Happy revealed before leaving the guild behind, catching up to Lucy and Natsu.

A bunch of sighs and groans filled the guildhall as they got back to their day to day business, rather disappointed.

"Are those two never going to get together?" Mira cried out with a defeated look on her face.

"Welp, at least Natsu's still a virgin," Gray shrugged, taking a seat at the bar where a gloomy Juvia held place, muttering something about love rivals. "Some things will never change."

[iwaoiness]

It happens on the fourth day of the second week of the VNL. Akane Yamamoto finally gets the chance to interview Iwaizumi in person, who is happy to speak with her again and compliments her about her new role as a sports journalist at the renowned television network.

The interview flows in an engaging and even fun manner. All the questions focus on JNT, the most problematic players he has encountered, his routines, and his professional future with the team. Iwaizumi laughs at a few responses, and Akane really enjoys the conversation.

Then, Hajime's smartwatch starts to vibrate remembering the meeting with the technical team and the coach.

Akane apologizes and asks for just five more minutes, which Iwaizumi happily grants, postponing the alarm. She quickly reviews her notebook, sighing in relief when there is only one last question left to ask. She then looks up at the athletic trainer again, her smile widening.

"Iwaizumi-sensei, there is one last thing all the viewers want to know before we say goodbye and wish you the best of luck for the match against Poland. Since today is your birthday, what would be the perfect gift for you?" she asks, directing the microphone towards Iwaizumi.

Akane hopes he will respond with something as cool as winning today's match or securing first place in the tournament. Or perhaps he will simply wish for health and a bright future for the JNT. Or maybe he'll ask for a raise for being the professional babysitter of the monster generation. Or he might just laugh, unsure of what to wish for.

What Akane doesn't expect is for Iwaizumi to smile warmly and soft, his gaze fixed beyond her, and then to gesture in that direction with his chin.

"That."

In a flash, both Akane and the camera held by her cameraman swiftly turn around.

Near the billboards, just a few meters away, Oikawa Tooru is kneeling in front of a little girl no older than ten, scribbling on a towel resting on his thigh. He looks radiant, his hair tousled from his recent victory over Germany, his blue shirt clinging to his broad torso like a second skin, his new compression sleeves wrapping around his chiseled muscles of his arms, and his knee pads now resting at his ankles.

He smiles genuinely at whatever the little girl is enthusiastically telling him, oblivious to the camera and Hajime's gaze. When he finishes signing the towel, he hands it to her, and she squeals with delight, proudly showing it to her mother before giving Oikawa a high five and saying goodbye.

As Tooru stands up, a shy young boy approaches him, holding a volleyball under his arm and a black marker in his hand. And Oikawa greets him with the same genuine happiness as before.

Both the cameraman and Akane return to Hajime. The journalist, cheeks flushed, closes her mouth, which she had unconsciously left open, and blinks at Iwaizumi like an owl. He looks at her, amused, with his hands in his pockets.

"Isn't my gift so pretty?"

That segment of the interview goes viral within days (just a few weeks before the All Star Match, for Kuroo's delight). Countless theories are published, the most popular being the true meaning of the ring Oikawa always ties to his shoelaces during every match—not a good luck charm, but a real engagement ring (Tooru didn't help by responding to the entire thread with a simple o(≧▽≦)o). A certain Hanamaki begins accepting interviews (with payment upfront, of course) only to answer ambiguously and send greetings to his mother from various networks. A certain Matsukawa gives away I <3 IwaOi shirts with the purchase of a coffin. And Oikawa finally re-uploads all the photos with Iwaizumi to his public account, from the selfie where Tooru playfully bites Hajime's cheek while he laughs, to the photo of his hand on Iwaizumi's solid, muscular, and broad back, his long fingers caressing the scratches at the height of his shoulder blades and the trail of hickeys on his neck.

...

every june day it's iwa's day

u can find me on my ao3 🍉

[writingquestionsanswered]

I'm planning on publishing my written fiction online in both Portuguese (my native language) and in English (the other language I speak which might help to share the story with more people), but something is worrying me.

I watched a movie where the a main character (a writer) had a book that wasn't popular and another character "translated" into her language (what she actually did was rewrite it as an erotic novel) and the book was super loved there (the readers didn't know the book was supposed to be different)

Sometimes I see artists who allow fans to share translations of their comics, but I'm concerned on what could happen if someone asked for permission to translate. Do you think it's worth the risk of someone making my story popular with something that goes against my values, like supporting disregard to a human right or making it erotic when it was supposed to be family-friendly?

Worried About Fan Translations

I want to be clear that this advice is specific to fiction published online versus e-books or print books, which are a different matter entirely. First and foremost, if you post a story online, give permission to a fan to translate it, and then they rewrite it into something else, that is plagiarism and a copyright violation, and you have every right to ask them to take it down. If they refuse to cooperate, you can threaten them with a lawsuit, even if you don't really have the means to follow through. That could be enough to get them to take it down. If not you can report them to the platform for stealing your work. You can also let your fans know that this person has stolen your work and to please block them or refuse to engage with them.

If you post a story online and are approached by a fan who asks to translate it into their native language, there are some things you can do to potentially protect yourself:

1 - Do not give them permission to post the translation on their own account. Thank them for their offer and let them know you're happy to let them translate the story, but they will need to e-mail it to you so you can have it vetted and post it on your own account with credit. Be clear that you do not give them permission to post a translation on their own account. That way, not only does it dissuade people who are only interested in plagiarism or benefiting off your hard work, it also means you keep full control of your story and its translations.

2 - Do your best to vet the translation. You can try to find a beta reader who is fluent in that language who can read it and make sure it's a good translation, though you'll likely have to pay them, which is worth it to make sure the translation is accurate. Or you could copy chunks of the story into Google Translate, which isn't a great translation service, but at least you'll see right away if the person has added erotica or written anything that's drastically different.

3 - Do your best to vet the translator. Another thing you can do is try to vet the translator. Ask them if they've ever translated a story before, and if so, ask them for examples. Look at their account and see if they have posted other translations or have posted links to translations. Investigate the authors of the stories they translated and see if there are any complaints. Read through the comments of the original story and the translation (you may again have to use Google Translate if it's a language you're not familiar with... not perfect, but just fine for this application...) are similar. If a lot of comments on the translation mention elements that aren't mentioned in the source story comments, that's a potential red flag.

I hope that helps!

•••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••••

I’ve been writing seriously for over 30 years and love to share what I’ve learned. Have a writing question? My inbox is always open!

♦ Questions that violate my ask policies will be deleted! ♦ Please see my master list of top posts before asking ♦ Learn more about WQA here

[azure-cherie]

ᑭᗩᑕ : ᗷᒪᗴՏՏIᑎᘜՏ ᖴOᖇ ᗪᗴᑕᗴᗰᗷᗴᖇ ꨄ︎

⊹₊┈ㆍ┈ㆍ┈ㆍ✿ㆍ┈ㆍ┈ㆍ┈₊⊹

It's been some time , I've been on hiatus , how have you guys been ? Choose a pile using your intuition and take what resonates, claim for yourself 🤍 lmk if it resonates 🫶

⨯ . ⁺ ✦ ⊹ ꙳ ⁺ ‧ ⨯. ⁺ ✦ ⊹ . * ꙳ ✦ ⊹⨯ . ⁺ ✦ ⊹ ꙳ ⁺ ‧ ⨯. ⁺ ✦ ⊹ . * ꙳ ✦ ⊹

Pile 1:

December will bring you a lot of things back i feel so , like a compensation for a forfeit in your past could be monetary or materialistic, like i hear ancestral property or material or something, like seems like a rediscovery for sure. You will get in touch with your native culture again like learn more about where you stay , will bring you promotions at work and revelations, work with your boss and observe the people around you , whatever your seeking can be found if you stop and observe, stop denying yourself the love you give others , buy yourself what you need , i specifically think someone really should buy boots for themselves, accept the fact that you have worked so hard and it's time for recognition yes you yesssss you did it !!!! Whatever your achievements are small or big people are looking at you admiring you , wanting your guidance . You will gain more strength and maturity, you might get hotter , you will be a popular but dedicated person with a career , solitude will be beautiful as it might help you in getting greater insight into your intuition . Happy holidays stay blessed 🤍

⨯ . ⁺ ✦ ⊹ ꙳ ⁺ ‧ ⨯. ⁺ ✦ ⊹ . * ꙳ ✦ ⊹⨯ . ⁺ ✦ ⊹ ꙳ ⁺ ‧ ⨯. ⁺ ✦ ⊹ . * ꙳ ✦ ⊹

Pile 2:

December is a month of rest and relaxation for you , moving around with friends etc , seems like a soft Christmas movie to me , i think you will be spending time with your lover communicating feelings for one another , how you did good or bad things and will correct your mistakes . There's definitely some uncertainty going on , leave it to the universe, as your angels to help , they will guide you , you will be spiritually blessed , like journal about spirituality, if your into spellwork your power will increase , like i think the next full moon will be important for you be ready uwu , you are moving away from something that hurt you in the past , maybe people or situations i think things went down bad , take care and take necessary action, you will get more into the academic sphere of life . Life will be relaxing for a while be prepared for something big though, a spiritual awakening is around the corner, be ready to level up .Happy holidays stay blessed 🤍.

⨯ . ⁺ ✦ ⊹ ꙳ ⁺ ‧ ⨯. ⁺ ✦ ⊹ . * ꙳ ✦ ⊹⨯ . ⁺ ✦ ⊹ ꙳ ⁺ ‧ ⨯. ⁺ ✦ ⊹ . * ꙳ ✦ ⊹

Pile 3 :

December will bring you clarity , love confessions, travels and gifts , if you were investing into something you will get a positive response, you will be spending time with the person you really love , you will get a fresh start emotionally, like maybe a new relationship also ,take into account your dreams and interpret them , someone of you might news about pregnancy too , you're at the end of the cycle , new things are beginning for you , a lot may not make sense at first keep going trust yourself, you might get a paper work published or pursue higher education , don't wait whatever is chosen is good for you , your angels are rooting for you , you're also asked to change your eating habits , eat high vibrational foods your will see the changes coming in, you will be really satisfied this month , gifts coming in as well , i think you will get what you desired . If you're in school , you might be getting new friends. your relationship with the masculine figures around you might get better as well . Happy holidays stay blessed 🤍.

⨯ . ⁺ ✦ ⊹ ꙳ ⁺ ‧ ⨯. ⁺ ✦ ⊹ . * ꙳ ✦ ⊹⨯ . ⁺ ✦ ⊹ ꙳ ⁺ ‧ ⨯. ⁺ ✦ ⊹ . * ꙳ ✦ ⊹

Thank you so much for reading, have a great day/night ahead .

[scotianostra]

On 21st July 1796 Robert Burns died in Dumfries, he was just 37.

Rather than go over Rabbie's life, this post mainly covers the last few weeks of his life, and him dealing with his iminent demise………

It is apparent from Burns’s correspondence, his poetry, and even from his First Commonplace Book that the bard was plagued by ill health on several occasions throughout his short life. ‘A Prayer in the Prospect of Death’, first published in the ‘Kilmarnock’ edition of Burns’s Poems, Chiefly in the Scottish Dialect is believed to have been written in 1784 when the bard was just twenty-five years of age and suffering a bout of ill health: O Thou unknown, Almighty Cause Of all my hope and fear! In whose dread presence, ere an hour, Perhaps I must appear!

Burns gives this poem the longer, more explanatory title, ‘A Prayer, when fainting fits, & other alarming symptoms of a Pleurisy or some other dangerous disorder, which indeed still threaten me, first put Nature on the alarm.’

Indeed, we might consider that the threat of illness never truly left the bard: there are several references throughout the poets’ correspondence to rheumatic episodes, hypochondria, physical injury, toothache and periods of ‘melancholy’. However, the first signs of the illness which would eventually claim Burns’s life began in the winter of 1795 when the poet was confined to his sick-bed for several weeks. His health declined over the course of the months that followed, and from the bard’s correspondence in the summer months of 1796 it would appear that he sensed the finality of this particular episode of ill health. In a letter to George Thomson on the 4th of July hewrote: ‘ I received your songs, but my health being so precarious nay dangerously situated, that as a last effort I am here at sea-bathing quarters. – Besides my inveterate rheumatism, my appetite is quite gone; & I am so emaciated as to be scarce able to support myself on my own legs.’ If you remember my last post about Burns at the beginning of the month where he sought the healing powers of the Brow Well and bathing in the Solway Firth near Ruthwell. Burns was soon aware that the sea-bathing was ineffective, writing to his father-in-law James Armour on the 10th of July that;

‘I have now been a week at salt water, & though I think I have got some good by it, yet I have some secret fears that this business will be dangerous if not fatal.’

Tragically, Burns’s final letters became increasingly desperate, and the poet expressed deep concern for the welfare of his family, it became clear the bard was preparing for the worst when he wrote to his brother Gilber:

God help my wife & children, if I am taken from their head! – They will be poor indeed. – I have contracted one or two serious debts, partly from my illness these many months, & partly from too much thoughtlessness as to expense when I came to town that will cut in too much on the little I leave them in your hands.’

Burns was right to be concerned. Indeed, he died in significant financial difficulty, overshadowed with the threat of debtors’ jail. Burns himself acknowledges this in a letter to his cousin, James Burness, on the 12th of July in which he states: ‘When you offered me money assistance, little did I think I should want it so soon. A rascal of a haberdasher, to whom I owe a considerable bill, taking it into his head that I am dying, has commenced a process against me, and will infallibly put my emaciated body into jail.’

Before this threat could be realised, Burns died surrounded by his family and close friends on this day in 1796.

While biographers and critics have offered several theories surrounding the cause of Burns’s death (many of which are fanciful and without evidence, some even hinting at conspiracy), scholars and medics who have examined the poet’s own account of his illness, together with those of his contemporaries, agree that the poet most likely died from bacterial endocarditis: a serious complication of his recurring rheumatic illness. Of course I dn’t think his like of alcohol helped though.

Robert Burns’s funeral took place at midday on the 25th of July 1796, I will cover it in more detail in a few days……