#the book example is not longer in print

[puppys-tiny-space]

👑Tips for littles on a budget👑

This is some tips for tinies (or carers looking for gifts for kiddos) on a budget! Of course you don't need any gear to be a good regressor but a lot of us like toys etc. and it's okay to want them!

🧸thrift stores, a lot of thrift stores have toys and plushies, sometimes they are a bit broken or dirty but there are lots of tutorials on YouTube for cleaning and restoring plushies and toys🧸

🐾e-books, you can find kids books online as e-books which are often pretty cheap or you can watch tiktoks of people reading those books🐾

🩷diy onesies, a lot of regressors like onesies but the prices are pretty steep, if you can't afford them don't fret! Its super easy and affordable to make one yourself all you need is an old t-shirt and snap buttons plus a way to attach them, just get a big t-shirt, sweatshirt or even hoodie and add 2-4 snap buttons in the crotch, boom you have a super cute and discreet onesie!🩷

🧸diy toys, there are lots of toys you can make yourself either by sewing or crafting and there's lot soft videos on YouTube for it, or get creative🧸

🐾mobile games, I love to play video games when im regressed but game consoles are expensive so free mobile games are a great alternative🐾

🩷dollar store etc, while you shouldn't rely on stores or websites that use cheap labor for everything it's okay to make exceptions every now and then, especially for toys, pacis, sippy cups and similar🩷

🧸pull ups, instead of cute printed diapers get big kid pull-ups in the baby-section or medical diapers from a drugstore, they are less then half the price of a pack of adult diapers from brands like tears etc.🧸

🐾learn to diy, making things yourself is often the most affordable thing to do, not with everything obviously but with a lot of things, learn as much stuff as you can so you can make lots of gear yourself🐾

🩷look for affordable stores, lots of paci stores on Instagram are very affordable and the ones that aren't often have sales so keep an eye out for that, lots of shops also have promoter codes they are happy for you to use, for example with my code 'bunnybab' you get a small discount at pacisbybunnie and cozypacicorner🩷

🧸buy second hand, thrift stores are a great place but if you want little specific stuff looking on vinted, swoop or even insta is a great idea! Lots of people sell gear they no longer connect with🧸

Fun fact of the day: Bluey's pilot was only a minute long and never actually aired

[headspace-hotel]

Just spent a couple hours digging into this book. I'm not even sure what has worse environmental impacts, the paper the book is made of or the opinions printed within.

Is "post-colonial" literary theory a joke? It's distressing that a book printed in 2021 by a reputable academic press can be so painfully Eurocentric, and I mean PAINFULLY. The philosophical and literary frameworks drawn upon in most chapters are like what some British guy in 1802 would come up with. In most of the chapters, every framework, terminology, and example is inseparably fused to Latin, Greek, and/or Christian philosophers, myths and texts, even down to the specific turns of phrase. You would think only Europeans had history or ideas until the 20th century.

Don't get me wrong, non-european and even specifically anti-colonial sources are used, and I don't think all the writers are white people, but...that's what's so weird and off-putting about it, most of the book as a whole utterly fails to absorb anything from non-European and in particular anti-colonial points of view. The chapters will quote those points of view but not incorporate them or really give their ideas the time of day, just go right back to acting like Plato and Aristotle and Romantic poets are the gold standard for defining what it means to be human.

In brief, the book is trying to examine how literature can shed light on the climate crisis, which is funny because it completely fails to demonstrate that literature is good or helpful for the climate crisis. Like that is for sure one major issue with it, it shows that people *have* written stuff about climate change, but it sure doesn't convince you that this stuff is good.

Most of the works quoted are rather doomerist, and a lot of the narrative works specifically are apocalypse tales where most of Earth's population dies. The most coherent function the authors can propose that literature fulfills is to essentially help people understand how bad things are. One of the essays even argues that poetry and other creative work that simply appreciates nature is basically outdated, because:

“One could no longer imagine wandering lonely as a cloud, because clouds now jostle in our imaginations with an awareness of atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide and other atmospheric pollutants” (Mandy Bloomfield, pg. 72)

Skill issue, Mandy.

The menace of doomerism in fiction and poetry is addressed, by Byron Caminero-Santangelo, on page 127 when he references,

the literary non-fiction of a growing number of authors who explicitly assert, some might even say embrace, the equation between fatalistic apocalyptic narrative and enlightenment…they are authoritative in their rejection of any hope and in their representation of mitigatory action as the cliched moving of deckchairs on a sinking ship

He quotes an essay “Elegy for a country’s seasons” by Zadie Smith, who says: “The fatalists have the luxury of focusing on an eschatological apocalyptic narrative and on the nostalgia of elegy, as well as of escape from uncertainty and responsibility to act." Which is spot-on and accurate, but these observations aren't recognized as a menace to positive action, nor is the parallel to Christian thought that eagerly looks forward to Earth's destruction as a cathartic release from its pain made fully explicit and analyzed. Most of the creative works referenced and quoted in the book ARE this exact type of fatalistic, elegiac performance of mourning.

I basically quit reading after Chapter 11, "Animals," by Eileen Crist, which begins:

The humanization of the world began unfolding when agricultural humans separated themselves from wild nature, and started to tame landscapes, subjugate and domesticate animals and plants, treat wild animals as enemies of flocks and fields, engineer freshwater ecologies, and open their psyches to the meme of the ‘the human’ as world conquerer, ruler and owner.

This is what I'm talking about when I say it's dripping Eurocentrism; these ideas are NOT universal, and it's adding nothing to the world to write them because they fall perfectly in line with what the European colonizing culture already believes, complete with the lingering ghost of a reference to the Fall of Man and banishment from the Garden of Eden. It keeps going:

“Over time, the new human elaborated a view of the animal that ruptured from the totemic, shamanic and relational past.”

Okay so now she's introducing the idea of progression from shamanic nature-worshipping religions of our primitive past...hmm I'm sure this isn't going anywhere bad

“While humanity has largely rejected the colonizing project with respect to fellow humans, the occupation of non-human nature constitutes civilization’s last bastion of ‘normal’ colonialism. A new humanity is bound sooner or later to recognize and overthrow a colonialism of ‘nature,’ embracing a universal norm of interspecies justice.” (pg. 206) 

OKAY????

Not only denying that colonialism still exists, but also saying that humans' relationship with nature constitutes colonialism??

Embracing limitations means scaling down the human presence on demographic and economic fronts…(pg.207)

ope, there's the "we have to reduce the human population"

Embracing limitations further mandates pulling back from vast expanses of the natural world, thus letting the lavishness of wild (free) nature rule Earth again” (pg. 207) 

aaaaaaand there's the "we have to remove humans from wild nature so it can be freeeeeee"

don't get me wrong like I am a random white person with no particular expertise in anti-colonialist thought but I think this is an easy one. I'm pretty sure if your view of nature is that colonialism involving subjugating humans doesn't exist any more and actually humans existing in and altering nature is the real colonialism so we should remove humans from vast tracts of earth, your opinion is just bad.

Anyways y'all know I have an axe to grind against doomerism so it was probably obvious where this was going but good grief.

[cognitivelypartiallyfurnished]

Things Haikyuu Boys would do in a relationship (pt. 4)

-Ushijima, Tsukishima, Oikawa, Bokuto, Osamu

Part 1: Sakusa, Kita, Asahi, Hinata, Tendo

Part 2: Nishinoya, Iwaizumi, Suna, Kuroo, Yaku

Part 3: Kenma, Kageyama, Terushima, Akaashi, Atsumu

⋆｡ ﾟ☁︎｡ ⋆｡ ﾟ☾ ﾟ｡ ⋆

Ushijima Wakatoshi: Helping you put a necklace on

Wakatoshi likes to spoil his girlfriend, especially on your birthday. Right now you are struggling to put on the beautiful necklace that he gifted you, special to you because of the engraving on the back. “Toshi can you help me?” you ask him and his hands are immediately on your neck, closing the necklace around it. He is looking at you in the mirror while letting his hands linger a little longer than necessary on your nape before putting your hair back in place and stretching out his hand to take you to the dinner reservation he made to celebrate your special day.

Tsukishima Kei: Deep convos about random shit

Normally he doesn’t talk that much and especially not over something so seemingly unimportant but with you he is conversing without any snarky remarks or hesitation. Kei could talk for days about the deeper meaning of a recent book you two happen to have read, a theory regarding his most beloved fossils or everything else that’s running through his head. You always admire his way of thinking and you are happy each time he gives you insight on what’s happening in this smart head of his. The way you are listening and talking to him never fails to make him want to shut up again and just kiss you, after all he is better at showing his emotions through actions than words.

Oikawa Tooru: Having a special song

It was the song that was playing in the small copy shop where you were waiting to receive your printed pictures when you met Tooru. He wanted to print out some pictures to craft a photo album for his nephew when he noticed you humming the melody of the song absently. On your third date in a mini golf arena the song started playing again and since then it’s been the song to which you have the best memories. If he ever gets the chance to marry you, he wants this song to play during your first dance.

Bokuto Koutaro: Randomly looking at each other and saying, “I love you so much”

Currently you were suffocated with the weight of your boyfriend who was laying on top of you but you wouldn’t be able to catch a breath anyway because suddenly he told you that he loved you. That was the first time he told you and you weren’t able to say it back until he moved to look at you because you’ve been silent for too long. After that it happened at the weirdest times. For example, when Kou asked you which type of rice to bring or when he walked in on you sitting on the toilet or even in front of all of his team when you came to watch the MSBY team practice. After hearing it some more in unexpected situations you even started to learn to say it back to him in time.

Miya Osamu: Hugging the back of them and putting your face on their shoulder

There is no better feeling after a long exhausting day than coming home to find Samu standing in front of the stove working on some meal for you to eat. You make your way into the kitchen and collapse against his broad back while leaning your face on his shoulder, humming in appreciation. You follow him around the kitchen like this until he leads you to the table and places a plate of incredibly good smelling food in front of you and him. Over dinner you ramble to him about your day during which he reminds you with a soft smile to eat before the food gets cold. After the dinner you two spend the rest of the evening cuddling on the sofa, both enjoying the soothing warmth of each other’s bodies.

⋆｡ ﾟ☁︎｡ ⋆｡ ﾟ☾ ﾟ｡ ⋆

[tyrantisterror]

When I first took over as the lead teacher of the older school age room at my daycare, one of the activities I introduced into the room was making bead critters - a 90's kid tradition that has proved to have a timeless appeal, even if there's no longer books of patterns for this project to buy anymore. I mean, there's probably used ones, but I don't know any titles to look up on the usual sites so yeah they're more or less unavailable to me. Luckily, the internet has some patterns on it, and I printed out, like, 15 at the time and put them in my room. It's been a consistently popular hobby for the kids - sometimes they start up little production chains ad sell their creations to their classmates for the in-classroom currency we use, it's pretty rad.

Well, this summer they surprised me by finding and bringing in new patterns they found with their parents' help, and some of them had techniques I'd never seen before, which got my monster-maker brain working. So I went out, bought some pipe cleaners and beads of my own (both because I don't want to waste materials the center bought for my kids to use, and because the cheap pipe cleaners my work buys are made of aluminum and provoke a mild allergic reaction in me when I use them), and brought them in to do some experiments.

...and now we have some very big, very complex bead critterr to go with the initial batch of examples I made a couple years ago (as well as the lizards I used to decorate some of my cabinet doors). I'm especially proud of the big red and black dragon, it came out well. The downside is that the kids want to learn how to make it and, like, that was a frustrating three hour project for me, an adult with years of experience doing bullshit like this, I don't know if I want to inflict that on a kid.

But I could make it one of the new class prizes - "earn fifty varsity bucks and Mr. Will will make you a bead dragon, you get to choose the colors."

There's one new technique in the patterns they dug up that I only briefly experimented with today, but am proud I figured out how to do - it allows you to make protrusions in the middle of the critter, instead of just on the sides. Which means the one monster my kids suggested I make might be possible.

I could make a bead Godzilla.

Gonna need to buy more pipe cleaners, though.

[owenbroadcast]

Hey Tumblr. I'm just a guy, not a company. I released a book (of comics) last weekend. I would like to tell you about it.

It's called 'Babyology'. It's mostly about my dog and baby:

I'm there also, with my wife.

It's part anthology: the first two years of this series about us having a kid and starting a family, and all the weird stuff I'm into.

It's also longer comics I've kept behind the scenes until now.

The other main theme in the book is 'weird American religion'. Sometimes we go into atypical Christian history stuff, or just interesting ideas I come across - for example, what Mormon philosophy has to say about why evil exists:

Or... why the Virgin Mary apparently mostly appears to kids:

The world of ‘weird spiritual and religious ideas’ is just something I'm really into, and that stuff dovetails in an interesting way with having a kid. Actually, my wife and I don't really fit into any "group". Some of the comics are about that:

It's not pushing any particular religious conclusion. It goes back and forth between, "here's this weird idea", and then:

People seem to like it so far:

That's it really. If you have any friends who just had a kid, this would be a killer Christmas gift for them, but I'm running this ad because I think it makes a great gift for almost anyone. It's a real certified weird item from the internet that I put a ton of myself into. It's 360 pages, printed black and white newspaper style (so it's only $28) - comics all the way through. Weird enough for your freak friends, but normal enough for your mom. Thanks for reading this, here's the link if you're into it: http://amazon.com/dp/B0CPC9T741

[jessamine-rose]

♱ Dance with the Devil ♱

Against my will, I was inspired to write more for WHB. Istg some of these characters aren’t even my biases but their paraphilias are too creative. I hope you all enjoy reading this <3

Characters:: Sitri, Leviathan, Astaroth, Glasyalabolas, Paimon, Amon, Marbas, Gabriel, Minhyeok

Note:: Nsfw, pls take note of each character’s paraphilia before reading, noncon for Gabriel, MH-2 spoilers for Minhyeok, MINORS DNI

♡ If you like black tea, you are a perfect fit for Sitri. He often brews your favorite drink for the purpose of enjoying your satisfied smile, your bittersweet kisses, the melody of your palpitations as he makes love to you. If you ever send him a recording of your heartbeat, he will save it on his phone and listen to it religiously in your absence. Just don’t be shocked if he uses your gift for impure reasons; his imagination can only do so much.

♡ Leviathan enjoys the sensation of your hands around his neck, but what more if you were to experiment with his kink? Does he get more excited when you use your bare hands? Does he prefer the metal chill of rings or the soft lace of gloves against his skin? Would he come faster if you dig your fingernails into his throat—and if yes, what if your nails were longer, sharper? There are so many factors at play and you have all night to find out~

♡ Astaroth’s kink is perfect for literature lovers!! If you write erotica, he will gladly proofread your work, going so far as to enact the scenes and his suggested revisions. Another time, you asked him to read you a “bedtime story” and he complied after much pestering. He accepted your book and read it aloud in his soothing voice…then upon reaching a raunchy scene, he looked up from the page, met your cheeky gaze, and joined you in bed <3

♡ Once you were done kink-shaming Glasyalabolas, you decided to indulge him. His paraphilia is creepy, to say the least, but you knew what you were getting into. The best method? Play dead. You can’t resist the occasional moan or involuntary shudder, especially when he is touching you, but it certainly does wonders for his arousal. You’re his Ophelia, his Sleeping Beauty—beautiful, voiceless, and completely at his mercy.

♡ The only thing Paimon enjoys more than your blood is the sight of your body decorated with cute bandages!! Once he’s had enough of you, he will treat your wounds and present you with a set of printed Band-Aids. Here, would you like a pink one for your finger? What about a heart pattern for your thigh? A smiley face on your neck? Even better, what if your Band-Aids match the stickers on his horns? Take your pick~

♡ Sometimes, you wonder if Amon gives you tasks which he knows you will fuck up. There are telltale signs—his constant gaze, a hint of a smile, empty reassurances which somehow lead you to his bedroom. It begs the question: How would he react if you were to make a mistake in bed? Would he still smile after you “accidentally” touch a sensitive spot or ruin his orgasm? How will he react once he realizes you’re doing it on purpose?

♡ If Marbas were to cite an example for the term “heaven and hell,” it would be your moments of intimacy. He encourages you to restrain him to the best of your ability—tying complicated knots, using strong materials, testing his new set of regular restraints—then use his body as you’d like. It’s difficult to say who enjoys it more, especially when you are relishing the sight of him beneath you, totally submissive and desperate for your touch.

♡ Considering your history, your sadism towards Gabriel is warranted. So once he is defeated, in a church no less, you waste no time in humiliating him. If he refuses to yield, it only takes a few minutes to bend him over the altar and force him to face the image of his God. How does it feel to be watched by the passive, artificial faces of his creator and fellow angels? At any rate, the stained glass casts such pretty shadows on his defiled body~

♡ Of course Minhyeok knows your underwear preferences. The color, the style, the type of fabric, every detail. So when he finds a black lingerie set in your closet, he recognizes it as a new purchase—but for who? The next thing he knows, he is visualizing the lingerie on you and  calling you for answers. Whether or not he understands your invitation, that specific underwear will frequently disappear from your room.

♡

Sitri fic ๑ Lucifer fluff ๑ More headcanons

Fun fact, a day after I wrote Glasyalabolas and Sitri’s headcanons, they came home in my gacha pull. D-Did I summon them?? (´⊙ω⊙`)

So far, my favorite devils are Leviathan, Sitri, Astaroth, and Satan but the other characters’ paraphilias are…….interesting to write about, to say the least. Cheers to more hornii xD

Tag a WHB enjoyer!! @sparkbeast20 @2af-afterdark @d34dlysinner @pinkaditty @og-in-a-bog @h2o2-and-baking-soda @paradivis @potol0ver @obeythisass @gr0tesquerom4ntica @dobaekki @binar-es @ushitoshiii @yanmaresu @beelsjuicytitties

[t00thpasteface]

UPDATE 6/16/2024: TABLET IS FUNDED!! Digital commissions will reopen as normal. This page is to remain up as an archive and for possible future reuse.

These will work similarly to my digital commissions, only with a far quicker turnaround time and less emphasis on super fine polishing, hence the seriously slashed prices. LIMIT 3 CHARACTERS for halfbody; LIMIT 2 CHARACTERS for fullbody!

For purchases, questions, examples, and absolutely anything else you may be wondering about:

ADD ME ON DISCORD @ shebbz (preferred method!)

EMAIL ME at toothpaste.commissions@gmail.com

or message me here on Tumblr!

To futher entice you, I'm offering COUPONS! Redeem at checkout to get a discount on any purchase of a halfbody or fullbody:

$2 OFF if i've drawn this character before

$5 OFF for a drawing of a ship i ship

Coupons DO NOT stack; limit one per purchase!

CURRENT SLOTS:

closed for now!

SEE BELOW for what I will/won't draw (same rules as my digital commissions), as well as terms, conditions, and more:

Buyers will receive their artwork privately at full resolution in .PNG format. All commissions are signed and dated.

All commissions will also be posted here on my Tumblr, at a smaller resolution with a prominent additional watermark, after the buyer has received and approved the final piece. The buyer may be tagged in the post, or may choose to remain an anonymous.

Payments will be through PayPal. I will give you my PayPal once I agree to your commission. All payments are due up front in full.

Payment

After being completed, the commissioned artwork will be sent to you, the buyer, in .PNG format through email to ensure a near-lossless file. Alternate delivery methods are available upon request.

You must pay the entire price in advance, but only if we decide to go through with the commission.

Termination

You may cancel the commission at any time and receive a full refund of your payment until the commission is completed and sent. If I have already sent you the completed .PNG file of the commission, you are no longer able to request a refund for any reason. 

I may cancel the commission at any time and fully refund your payment if I feel I am being coerced into drawing something I am uncomfortable with, but I will not cancel a commission without giving several clear warnings first.

Rights

You may use the commission for any personal or educational purposes, including most social media profiles. You may repost the commission to social media or other websites as long as I am credited by clearly linking my Tumblr. You may use the commission for an icon, header, background, etc. on your personal (i.e. not business) social media profile as long as I am credited.

You may not use the commission for business purposes or profit off of it in any way, such as using it on icons/banners/promotional materials on a for-profit social media account (ex. Twitch, Etsy, official business Twitter accounts), uploading it to merchandise printing sites (ex. Redbubble, Cafe Press, TeePublic), tracing/spoofing the design in your own creative works, incorporating it into a larger creative project (ex. a book, game, or comic), etc. You may not license the personal/educational usage rights to third parties. You may not edit or repurpose the commission in any way that supports hate groups, promotes hateful or bigoted ideology, incorporates iconography and/or dogwhistles of hate movements, etc., whether implicitly or explicitly.

I reserve full legal ownership of the commission and I may repost it to any site. I may use, edit, and reproduce the commission for any and all purposes. In the event of a cancelled commission, you forfeit all usage rights for the incomplete assets and may not edit or repurpose them in any way.

By commissioning me you agree to these terms and conditions.

[wearesorcerer]

This could potentially be big. Screenshots from someone in a Facebook group providing his professionally-affected opinion:

Basically, if any of this is true, you could expect Paizo et al to sue WotC/Hasbro. I would love to see that happen, personally, but it all depends on how likely any of the above actually is to work. Like, if 5.5/6e turns out to be as crappy as 4e was, this will just be WotC shooting itself in the foot again (though probably not enough to kill it). So far, I've only heard good things mechanically and bad things for the playerbase, but they have all been vague suggestions with no concrete details.

A Concrete Example

The Hypertext d20 SRD was constructed under 3.5 as exactly what its name suggests: a self-interlinked reference document for everything in the system. Prior to its existence, the SRD was a collection of (possibly rich) text documents without page numbers or other means of easy reference. The Hypertext SRD included all OGL material from print sources it could find, so includes ~85% of the Player's Handbook, Dungeon Master's Guide, Monster Manual, Expanded Psionics Handbook, Epic Level Handbook, Arcana Unearthed, and some bits from Deities & Demigods. It has other useful tools, like an encounter calculator and spell search. For the longest time, it was the only thing like it. Other sites (DnD Tools, Forgotten Realms Helps) eventually sprang up with more content; DnD Tools has been taken down numerous times for violating the OGL, while Realms Helps has stayed under the radar for some reason.

At some point, the d20srd webmaster updated it to include Pathfinder (seemingly all, but arranged by book like how Paizo's PRD was, which is deeply unhelpful) and some 5e (limited entirely to the core three books). This was long after d20pfsrd launched; that site is modeled off of the 3.5 d20srd site in organization and is amazeballs.

Since this webmaster has published 5e material on this site and since the new OGL possibly interprets that as accepting its terms, if this new OGL were legal, he could be sued to take down his entire site (or at least the perennially helpful portions) because it is no longer valid. (Per the screenshots, this is only half hypothetical: I know WotC did do this when 4e came out to fanpages that had 3.5 and 4e material because they didn't want competition from their own product.) This would leave only unauthorized (DnD Tools) or status unclear (Forgotten Realms Helps) archives. We've already lost reams of 3.5 material because WotC deleted its 3rd ed. archives (they used to publish stuff online regularly).

[itsclydebitches]

Things I Adore About Diamond Dog Trent (in Chronological Order):

Intense confusion over Beard barking that becomes Roy scaring the shit out of him (again) as he slams the door

"Oh, I'm in." IMMEDIATE. NO HESITATION. 100% COMMITMENT. Keep in mind that he's just been told they share their "most initiate thoughts, feelings and experiences" like oh, I don't know... the fact that you're gay? But Trent is Ted's The Lasso Way's #1 Fanboy so he's feeling safe and validated, baby!!

This is very much enhanced by the return of the rainbow mug

30 seconds into his new membership and Trent has gotten used to the barking enough that he can manage an awkward little wave of acknowledgement. 10/10 very cute

Subtle eye-narrowing of judgment at Ted right after Beard's "Unbelievable." They really are on the same wavelength this episode I'm digging it

"Can I just talk whenever?" OH I'M SORRY, IS TRENT "BRINGING THE HEAT" CRIMM POLITELY REQUESTING PERMISSION TO ASK POINTED, PERSONAL QUESTIONS? We love us some character development, yes we do

Teeny tiny smile when Higgins agrees with him. He's! So! Proud! Of! Himself! And he should be!!

Copying Beard's pointing. It reminds me of him subtly flipping Jamie off but also kinda pretending like it's a coincidence. Trent wants to be included so, so badly and he's someone who displays that by mimicking the actions of those around him. Something, something, Isaac's study of body language

The fact that for once Trent isn't holding his notebook and doesn't stop to grab it. He has a good handle now on what can and cannot go into his book. "Don't print that" is a running gag he no longer needs

A more meta-y take, but I love that Trent's first meeting is the perfect example of what the Diamond Dogs are meant to be accomplishing. It's not just a place to vent or get platitudes (though it's that too), but rather to receive the honest, sometimes hard-hitting advice so you can make better and more informed decisions. Ted went in looking for sympathy and got a doozy of a wake-up call instead, which I think highlights the group's purpose for Trent far better than many other meetings might have

You can see Trent open his mouth a little bit while the others are howling like he wants to join in (because he does HE DOES) but doesn't quite have the courage yet. It's only when the others quiet down - when he's not 'imposing' on 'their' thing - that he lets out that little *woof!* of his own

The woof. Yes, that gets its own bullet point

[tokidokitokyo]

How to Improve Your Handwriting in Japanese

Learning to write in Japanese, teaching others to learn to write in Japanese, and watching Japanese people write in Japanese has taught me that it’s hard to write in Japanese. Remembering how to write the kanji in the first place is hard (especially with the ease of writing in Japanese on the computer or phone), remembering the stroke order and then figuring out how to fit the character into the space that you have - these are all difficult. And then on top of that, you don’t want these beautiful characters to look like you were bouncing up and down on a dirt road while you wrote them.

Handwriting in any language varies by person. There are people whose handwriting is sloppy in Japanese, just as in any other language. My handwriting in English isn’t perfect either, but I want my kanji to look less like shaky squiggles and more like, well, a native Japanese speaker’s characters. So I decided to break down how I go about improving my Japanese handwriting.

Practice

When you learn to write in English, you practice your letters over and over again. When you first learn kana and then kanji, it is also a good idea to write them over and over again. This helps many people to remember the characters (stroke order, spatial placement of each part of the character), and by writing the characters over and over again you will be able to write more quickly. You also won’t have to look up simple characters over and over again when you want to write a composition or a letter.

When I first started writing compositions by hand in kanji I remember looking up a character in the dictionary to check stroke order or to check how the kanji was written more often than not. This is a difficult way to write anything and takes a lot of time. Practice will help you to remember the characters and not have to stop to check your dictionary as often.

A high school friend told me that her mother would sit her down at the table every night and force her to work on her penmanship until it was what her mother deemed suitable. When we wrote our AP English essays in class, her penmanship was impeccable, although it took her much longer to write the essays than most of the other students. The result of what she considered torturous practice was amazing handwriting that made me jealous. If I had spent every night laboriously perfecting my penmanship I might also have attained that kind of handwriting - but I did not.

This is an extreme example, and I’m not saying you have to have perfect handwriting, but if improving your handwriting is something you would like to accomplish, taking the time to practice will certainly help your penmanship.

Books

There are Japanese books dedicated to this, because beautiful handwriting is desirable in all languages, but they are written in Japanese and I personally didn’t want to buy a book for this purpose.

Websites

Websites are a bit more difficult to come by because most people want to make some money off telling you their penmanship secrets. However, there are a few websites with some examples of good penmanship.

Links

Here are some online links for handwriting practice:

Chibi Musu Drill is where I look for kana practice for my toddler. They have a variety of drill print-outs that you can use to practice writing the characters correctly. This is especially helpful if you are self-studying as it helps with the shape of characters and the stroke order, and how the stroke should be finished (i.e. abrupt stop or drag and fade out to a tail). There are also tests you can print out for kanji. The site is all in Japanese.

Hiragana | Katakana | Kanji 

Seiho’s YouTube Calligraphy School - VIDEO - Only in Japanese but the videos are easy to follow since she uses a red pen to highlight where to pay attention. This is more in-depth but has helpful hints on improving your kanji balance, but you can search 字がきれいに書く方法 to get more results.

Yumefude Penji on Instagram has videos showing how to write kanji properly.

How I Practice Handwriting in Japanese

For Kana

To practice handwriting kana, I find an example of good penmanship from a website. It’s best if the example is larger, or if I can blow it up. Then I print it out with darkened font. Drill print-outs also work well as they have characters for you to trace, then space for you to practice on your own.

I put a sheet of clean paper on top of the print-out and make sure I can read the characters through the clean paper. You can also get tracing paper. Then, I trace the characters multiple times. I try to feel the flow of the character as I trace it and to note if the stroke ends abruptly (とめ), has a kink in it (はね), or if it fades out to a tail (はらい).

Lastly, I practice on my own. I use the feel of the character I traced and try to replicate it. I compare my own work to the original sample, and try to determine how to get the characters to look closer to the original sample. My character might be too skinny, too round, or have a stroke out of place. I usually only do one character at a time until I am satisfied, and then move on to the next.

For Kanji

When practicing kanji, first, I use blank paper, download genkouyoushi (Japanese composition paper), or a notebook with wider line spacing for writing practice than I would for simply writing down vocabulary or notes. You can also buy special kanji practice notebooks. I do this so that I have the space to cleanly write out kanji with more strokes, rather than having to bunch together the strokes so that I can hardly read it. This way, I can practice the strokes with more room and pay attention to how the kanji fits together.

Then, I write the character several times. I try to get a muscle memory going for the character, remembering the individual parts, the radicals, the stroke order and what the kanji means. This helps me to remember the kanji, and then to understand how the individual parts fit together.

I am careful to not copy the typewritten Japanese characters, for these are often different than the handwritten characters. Using a kanji textbook or a website where they teach handwritten kanji is the best way to learn to handwrite kanji. Some dictionary apps also show stroke order and will show the handwritten version so you can see the difference.

9 Tips for Better Handwriting

Source

1. Hold your pen properly / ぺんを正しく持つ

2. Sit with proper posture / 正しい姿勢で座る

3. Create a calm setting where you can concentrate / 落ち着いて集中できる空間を作る

4. Write using the correct stroke order / 正しい書き順で書く

     a. From the top to the bottom / 上から下へ

     b. From the left to the right / 左から右へ

5. Take care with the Stop - Wing - Sweeping Stroke / とめ・はね・はらいを丁寧に

Showing stop - wing - sweeping stroke in kanji

6. Modulate the size of the character and write slowly and carefully / 大きさにメリハリをつけながら、ゆっくり書く

7. Make sure the characters rise to the right / 右上がりになるようにする

8. Make sure the spacing between lines is equal / 線と線の間隔が等しくなるようにする

9. Write with the intention of being read by others / 人に読まれるつもりで書く

My handwriting in Japanese is far from perfect, but when I have a chance I like to hand write characters to get a better feel for them and for their meanings. I hope this guide helps you to improve your penmanship!

[kingsbridgelibraryteens]

What Do Library Staff Do All Day?

Sometimes we weed books and other items!

We weed our collections using different criteria including shelf space, circulation stats, and condition. Here are examples of two items that we weeded for poor condition yesterday — the book for (a LOT of) water damage and the DVD for being so scratched up that it would no longer play correctly.

While we're on the subject, please please PLEASE remember to take good care of items that you check out from the library. When items are damaged, we need to weed them from our collections. Unfortunately, we can't always afford to replace them until we have enough money in our budget ... and if the damaged items are out of print, then we can't replace them at all!

📚☹️💽

[neil-gaiman]

Hello Mr Gaiman,

If one day you woke up and decided that actually, you hate Stardust 2: Star Duster, and wish you had never published it, would you be able to legally do something about it? And should you be able to? I'm talking for example, about you asking all stores and libraries to please return all copies at their cost so you can ensure no one ever reads them, or anything like that.

I'm asking this because some of my favorite songs are no longer legally available anywhere, and I'm heartbroken. The artists are still alive and in fact more successful than ever, but they have decided that their old work no longer represents them, and because music has become mostly about streaming, that means they were able to essentially delete their songs from reality (not really - I pirated all of them). Because I'm emotionally compromised in this, I can't tell right from wrong. I feel as if the artists have wronged me. I imagine this is a bit like what waking up to an empty apartment after a fun night feels like. But it's their art, and maybe that should mean if they don't want it out there, they should have the power to do this?

Some of the songs had only ever been uploaded as YouTube videos. And it's good that people are available to delete their YouTube videos. But on the other hand, art can have a massive impact on people and taking it away after people gave experienced it just feels... callous? Maybe?

I'm sorry if this is too long of a ramble, but I could really use some perspective from someone on the other side of this experience.

No, I couldn’t do that. I could refuse to sell a book that is out of print to publishers and keep it out of print forever though. I’ve done that. And I could rewrite or revise a book I wasn’t satisfied with and then let the previous version drift out of print, so after a while you could only buy the revised version. I’ve done that too.

And I think that the people who make the art can decide what to do with it, and if they want to take down something they can. They can’t come to your house and delete or remove things you’ve paid money for — but I’m not getting the sense that you’d bought the music, only streamed it. So yes, they can do that.

I do my best to buy music I like. Either get it from Bandcamp, or buy it on vinyl. It’s a way of supporting people making music, but it also means I have music, if the music goes away.

[marrogerson]

Hi Margaret,

I absolutely adore Sorcery of Thorns. As an aspiring writer, I wanted to ask you how you started worldbuilding? The world just seemed so lively and detailed, just as if it was real. While reading I imagined it like in the Victorian era, were there special things you researched? Worldbuilding just seems so daunting to me.

Sending you all the best wishes, and I‘m waiting patiently and excited for new stories from you :)

Hi anon,

Thank you for the lovely ask. I was also daunted by worldbuilding when I started trying to write books. (Key word, trying... my attempts didn't work out too well for the first few years.) Since this is turning out to be a longer post, I'll put the rest under a cut.

Initially, the thing I struggled with the most was having a great idea for a world, fleshing it out, and then trying to populate it with characters and an interesting plot. This worldbuilding-first strategy works for some writers I think, but it didn't for me. I personally had a breakthrough when I started instead focusing on creating the main characters/their central conflict first, and then constructing the worldbuilding around them to support the story's needs. For example, the premise of the magic system in Sorcery of Thorns (sorcerers who summon demon servants at great personal cost) was one that I created specifically to facilitate the angst between Nathaniel and Silas.

I always say that I don't consider myself much of a researcher, but then I glance across my desk and see the stack of books that I ordered secondhand from Ebay because they're no longer in print. If you're writing in a similar time period, I highly recommend The Victorian City by Judith Flanders (this one is still in print and easy to find). The most curious one (to me at least) is probably The Victorian Bathroom Catalogue which is a book full of historical advertisements including illustrations of old bathroom fixtures.

My best advice when it comes to research—if it's something you struggle with—is to try reading things that are fun, which you would enjoy reading anyway even if you didn't have a reason. The most useful research I've ever done was just-for-fun reading that I did not realize was important research until much later. Forgive my weird analogy, but all that reading turns into sort of a yeast culture in the fridge of your brain, which you can draw from when needed instead of having to go searching for yeast every time you need it. And the yeast culture will also creep into your bedroom at four in the morning, and whisper tantalizing ideas into your ear... ok, let's stop there.

The nice thing about writing fantasy is that you don't need to sweat the small stuff. Just worry about writing a fun story first.

Some of my favorite specific topics that I've researched online lately include elevators in the first half of the 1800s, and whether gunpowder would have been used to demolish a large building just prior to the invention of dynamite.

Best of luck!

[bettsfic]

goooood morning betts! do you have any advice for developing a better grasp of syntax and comfort with sentence complexity? like, REALLY long sentences. i admire the prose of writers that can enfold clause after clause without sounding structurally repetitive; one of my writing pet peeves is when the same sentence structures are used over and over. a lot of my own sentences tend to be shorter and "to the point", and i think getting better at longer ones would help my prose to be more flexible.

in very loose rhetorical terms, this is called hypotaxis (compared to parataxis). what i would do is pick up Lydia Davis's translation of Swann's Way (Proust), open it up to any random page, and pick a really long, meaty paragraph. read it. read it again. then transcribe it either by handwriting it or typing it out. give yourself the physical sensation of creating the sentences you admire most.

repeat with Woolf, Nabokov, Henry James. any book, any paragraph. you don't even have to read the whole book, in fact it's probably better if you don't, if you read it divorced of the tension of the plot.

i actually did this recently with a passage from The Ambassadors:

“What I hate is myself—when I think that one has to take so much, to be happy, out of the lives of others, and that one isn’t happy even then. One does it to cheat one’s self and to stop one’s mouth—but that’s only at the best for a little. The wretched self is always there, always making one somehow a fresh anxiety. What it comes to is that it’s not, that it’s never, a happiness, any happiness at all, to take. The only safe thing is to give. It’s what plays you least false.” Interesting, touching, strikingly sincere as she let these things come from her, she yet puzzled and troubled him—so fine was the quaver of her quietness. He felt what he had felt before with her, that there was always more behind what she showed, and more and more again behind that. “You know so, at least,” she added, “where you are!” “You ought to know it indeed then; for isn’t what you’ve been giving exactly what has brought us together this way? You’ve been making, as I’ve so fully let you know I’ve felt,” Strether said, “the most precious present I’ve ever seen made, and if you can’t sit down peacefully on that performance you are, no doubt, born to torment yourself. But you ought,” he wound up, “to be easy.”

the first time i did an exercise like this was in a workshop with Claire Messud, who printed out a copy of a single paragraph of Sebald, from The Emigrants i think. and we spent an hour and a half dissecting it word by word. at the time i was irritated by it; i thought it was a pedantic exercise. but it wasn't. it helped me learn how to close read, and i've more or less made a career out of my ability to do that.

for those who don't subvocalize when they read, i think reading aloud is important so you can internalize the rhythm of sentences. if you do subvocalize (most of us who learned to read via phonetics subvocalize when we read, which means we "hear" the words in our heads; those who learned to read without phonetics or before phonetics had been introduced to them can just take the meaning of the words in mental silence), start snapping out the rhythm when you find a good phrase or clause. i mean physically snapping. using the above example, "interesting, touching, strikingly sincere" -- find the emphasis of each word: INteresting, TOUCHing, STRIKingly sinCERE. if you repeat it over and over, it starts to become a song. you can hear the drumbeat in it.

and then you have the alliteration of "quaver of her quietness" and "the most precious present." and the paratactic "that it's not, that it's never, a happiness, any happiness at all, to take." and then there's "the wretched self." i don't have a rhetorical device for why that's such a banger, it just is.

if you transcribe a couple hundred sentences that you really admire, then take the time to comb through them and pick out what's beautiful about them, your writing will definitely improve. it's worth it to develop the habit of close reading everything you find beautiful.

[magicturtle]

Can I ask your opinion of a RPG writing trope? I listen to a podcast “System Mastery”, that reviews old RPGs that are no longer in print or first editions of RPGs that are on new editions now. One of the things they can’t stand is the trope of American Indians and Mexicans reverting to horse back, tepees, human sacrifice, worshipping spirits, building pyramids, and etc…. after some kind of apocalypse happens or they go out into the stars or different dimension. Something happens to separate them from the “white men .” They find the idea preposterous and pretty cringey because these books are written by white men usually and show an idolized version of the “noble savage”. They feel, why would natives give up cars, modern medicine, houses, roads, and bunch of other modern things just because there has been some kind of reset.

I can see that point. And I can think of all the games I have seen that trope, Shadowrun and Gamma World are good examples. I have also seen it in some other sci fi games. Interestingly White Wolf has a version of this in the world of darkness setting. The supernatural creatures are worshipped as gods or spirits by the natives. Werewolves by shamans and vampires as descendants of the bloody gods of the Aztecs. On the surface this all does seem ridiculous and can be dismissed as all just being fiction.

However, there is a lot of resentment by natives of having their culture, beliefs, language and so much more being stripped away by people that are invaders. Would they gladly undo the negatives and positives that were introduced by these invading cultures if given the chance? Would they rebuild what they lost just as it once was? I have read some articles and seen some videos about Latin American gangs worshiping their version of the old Aztec gods. And new gods that they have invented for the current times. There are also less violent new gods that have been invented. I saw how some of the old Mayan shamans are keeping the old beliefs alive in the rural parts of central America. And how there is still a lot of blending of native beliefs and Catholic beliefs throughout Latin America.

What do you think? Is there a long simmering longing for the old ways just below the surface just waiting to be released by some sort of catastrophic event?

To this day colonized peoples either maintain their old beliefs or hold some syncretized version. All you have to do is look at the way the Loa or the Orishas survived in the Caribbean, the supplicants of heretical saints like Santa Muerte, or culturally negotiated holidays like Carnaval or Dia de Muertos. Often white people in the US don’t know much about these current practices because A) they don’t care and B) many are private or even secret. Instead our cool, white dude writers and game designers focus on what they DO know, the ancient history of these groups. This is why white coded populations evolve, but non-white coded ones “revert”. It would be nice to see someone who actually knows these groups extrapolate current cultures into futurism, post apocalypse or “returned magic”. I haven’t read Coyote and Crow, but I hear that’s what they’re going for.

I will say that even in the defense of marginalizes groups being “reverted” there is a clear bias. Why would a community give up cars? …Are cars good? Can we honestly look at our communities, our cities, our environment, and unequivocally say, “this is clearly a net good for the world”? Traditional medicine is also frequently shot down by “logical people” until decades in, scientists “discover” analgesic or antibiotic properties. Isn’t it great that we’ve started unlocking the potential of cannabis only 1000 years after the Nahua were using it medicinally?

Hope this addresses your question.

Thanks for writing in!

[copperbadge]

We recently got into a discussion of producing audiobooks for small press, indy, and/or selfpub authors on another post, but we had strayed pretty far from the original post, and @genedoucette very kindly gave permission for me to slice his comment off the end of that post and put it into a new one.

genedoucette

I have been very, very lucky when it comes to audiobooks, so I'm hesitant to offer advice without adding a huge YMMV caveat at the top. For most of my self-published novels, I used ACX and paid a narrator out-of-pocket (rather than 50-50 proceeds split), which just means I'm paying an agreed-upon X dollars per finished hour, prior to making any money off f the audio editon. Every book I did this with paid for itself, sometimes within the first two or three months, sometimes longer. (YMMV: I did a lot of this during what I would call the audiobook bubble, when demand was higher than supply.) I had another novel series--Tandemstar--that I brought to an audiobook company, who brought it to their distributor, who agreed to pay for the production costs of the book and to pay me a (small) advance. To date, the royalties from that series have not made up the cost of the advance, but the good news was that none of the production costs came from my pocket and the advance meant I did make something out of the deal. The rule-of-thumb I always heard was, don't expect books that haven't sold well to sell any better as audiobooks. But my experience, with ACX/Audible, is this: about 50% of my monthly earning come from audio sales. How long is the book in question (word count), and what is the genre? Because it is absolutely possible to get a not-terrible narrator at a not-terrible cost on ACX. If it's a low word count book with a decent sales record, I'd 100% do it. If it's a high word count book with few sales, maybe not.

Thanks so much for this! I am admittedly always suspicious of Amazon writ large, but it's not like I've never partnered with them before, and often for indy authors they're one of a very few games in town.

50% of sales via audio impresses me a lot -- I'm not really in the industry so my sense of scale may be off but my eyebrows went up at that. And looking at ACX, a split-profits model would be appealing. I'm more interested in providing the reader with more options than I am with making royalties, so I don't mind low payout, but I also don't want to exploit a narrator if I can avoid it.

I doubt I'm selling near the level you are, but it's pretty consistent, at least -- for the last literary novel I published in 2021, and for the four genre romances published in the past year-and-change, it's generally 200-250 copies (epub and paperback) in the first 6 months, and about 40 per year after that. None of them are over 100K words -- the first of the romance novels, the one I'd be most likely to have done as an audiobook to trial, is around 50K, and the other books are all between 60K and 90K or so.

There's some fine print I'm not nuts about -- exclusivity to Amazon/Audible/iTunes for example -- but I can see why it's a necessary business model for them. There's not a ton of clarity on cost per hour for a book, but it looks like for a flat fee it starts around $250 per finished hour? So I'd probably be looking at minimum $1K out of pocket, which is probably roughly (I haven't done the math) royalties per book for a full year. It could be fun to give it a swing regardless, although reading the ACX site made me realize I'd actually have to give notes and feedback to a reader which sounds nervewracking.

It looks like the readers for ACX are repped by SAG-AFTRA, which means that for now I have time to consider while the strike is going on. (Obviously not all of them are union but if it's an entertainment format where the union is involved, I don't want to cross the picket.) And the ACX site is pretty comprehensive in terms of figuring out how it all works, so if I did want to source a narrator elsewhere and perhaps not distribute exclusively through ACX, I now have a grounding from which to research other options too.

Sorry, a lot of this is just me thinking aloud, but I truly do appreciate the info and also something to bounce off of in terms of considering it. And I appreciate the opportunity to share it with my readership too, thank you!