dncingthrghlife

[dncingthrghlife]

FWIW, "mauve" was one of the coal-tar dyes developed in the mid-19th century that made eye-wateringly bright clothing fashionable for a few decades.

It was an eye-popping magenta purple

HOWEVER, like most aniline dyes, it faded badly, to a washed-out blue-grey ...

...which was the color ignorant youngsters in the 1920s associated with “mauve”.

(This dress is labeled "mauve" as it is the color the above becomes after fading).

They colored their vision of the past with washed-out pastels that were NOTHING like the eye-popping electric shades the mid-Victorians loved. This 1926 fashion history book by Paul di Giafferi paints a hugely distorted, I would say dishonest picture of the past.

Ever since then this faded bluish lavender and not the original electric eye-watering hot pink-purple is the color associated with the word “mauve”.

[dncingthrghlife]

honestly i just think we all need to slow down

[dncingthrghlife]

not to be a nerd but it’s so crazy how he (Bernini) really did that from cold hard stone……. truly a spectacle, truly breathtaking, an honor to behold

[dncingthrghlife]

25-35 is such a weird fucking age because you’re 100% a bread-and-butter Standard Edition Millennial but the cool teens are like “ok boomer” because you have a Real Job but the actual Boomers at your job are like “I’m not going to listen to a literal fucking child” as they download 16 self-replicating viruses and meanwhile the Gen Xers are telling you to refinance a mortgage for a house you don’t have and you’re sitting there at the Adults Table with the pretty tasty casserole you cooked because you’ve finally figured out how to do that now but everyone is eating the Boomer’s store-bought macaroni instead and admittedly they do sort of taste similar so it probably wasn’t worth all the trouble of cooking from scratch and you’re trying to comfort the freshly-graduated sobbing 22-year-old next to you because she just woke up here and doesn’t know where she is but you have like maybe 5k dollars in a savings account labelled RETIREMENT that grows approx. twelve cents a year and you keep eating dry macaroni while smiling incomprehensibly and periodically blacking out like ??????????

[dncingthrghlife]

a weighted blanket is not enough please compress me into a .zip file

[dncingthrghlife]

so back in 2021 i wanted to do a rewrite of avatar: the last airbender but with avatar zuko- i actually wrote a lot of world building and was planning to like rewrite episode by episode but gave up on it before then, so- I'm just going to post it here-

Prior To Story. 

Canon Story 

Kyoshi died in the year 82 BG at the age of 230. 

Roku was born in the year 82 BG and died in the year 12 BG. 

Azulon was born in the year 0 AG and died 95 BG. 

Monk Gyatso was born at 78 BG and died at 0 AG. 

Aang was born at 12 BG and woke up 100 AG. 

Canon Divergence 

Kyoshi died in the year 52 BG at the age of 260. 

Roku was born in the year 82 BG and died 0 AG. 

Zuko was born in the year 52 BG. 

Monk Gyatso was born 22 BG (in the South Pole). 

Aang was born at 88 AG (in the South Pole). 

Sozin had wished to wait until Kyoshi had passed for his plans for war, knowing her lack of hesitancy for ridding the world of Chin the Conqueror. News of Kiyoshi’s demise was delayed to the Fire Nation, thus it was assumed she died eighteen weeks before Prince Zuko, First Born to Sozin was born. When news reached Sozin, he began his re-education for the people of the nation. Installing propaganda into the Culture of the Fire Nation, making them believe that: 

The Danger is Grave and Growing. 

War will be easy and cheap, (but only if they act now.) 

War will solve all (or at least most) of their problems. 

The enemy is evil. Or crazy. Maybe both. 

Peace is unpatriotic. 

Sozin and Roku grew as close as brothers could. Each had attended each other's weddings as best men, and when there when their children were born. When Zuko had been born, with no spark to speak of, Roku convinces Sozin that it could very much be delayed, which is true, but very much of an understatement. Throughout Zuko’s life, Sozin is not present. Roku takes on the role of a father to the young boy, educating him in the way of the old Fire Nation, him disproving of Sozin's leadership, yet being none the wiser to what his dearest friend really wants. 

On the day of Zuko’s birth, a dragon from the “abandoned” Sun Warriors Temple had flown down in the Courtyard. It was rare to see the said dragon and Zuko separated. Druk had been waiting for his companion for twenty years, to the point where he was a young adult at ten feet tall. Roku takes Zuko around the world to see the lies that Sozin is spreading are far from the truth, it is also where the Roku at the Southern Air Temple, when Zuko is ten, he learns of Zuko’s status of the Avatar as the Monk of the Temple shows him of the toys that prove of his Spirit.

Zuko began training at age four, even when his katas were cold. When Zuko is eight, he takes on the art of the sword, as he is ambidextrous, he learns to master the Dual Duo. 

Zuko grows up under the teachings of Roku, learning that what Sozin is doing is wrong, but as he grows up and accompanies Sozin to his War Meetings. He holds his tongue until he learns of Sozin's plan for the Great Comet and the Genocide of the Air Nomads, it frightens him to his very core the fact that late into the night he calls for several messenger hawks to warn the four temples of the Air Nomads to run and hide. Many heed his warning and take refuge (along with Air Bison and Winged Lemures) in towns of the Earth Kingdom and the Water Tribes as well as the Swamp. However, not all do and stay to protect the temples. When reports come that many of the Residents of the Air Temples have escaped, Sozin learns of Zuko’s betrayal and soon goes to kill his own son. Sozin burns the left side of Zuko’s body, his burn travelling from his eye to his ear, down his neck, ending on the back of his hand. 

Roku interferes, distracting Sozin enough to bring Zuko to Druk, with supplies that include his Dual Dao, and ends up sacrificing himself to save them, sending Druk to fly to the South Pole. 

On the way there, Zuko wakes up, still very much injured during a storm, causing Avatar State to freeze both Druk and him in an iceberg.

Before Avatar Zuko 

Canon Divergence 

With Zuko’s warning, while many Air Nomads, the monks at the Northern and Southern as well as the nuns at the Eastern and Western, stayed. There were many that had escaped and years into the hundred year war, Airbenders could be found all across the world, Swamp, South Pole, Si Wong Desert, Ba Sing Se, etc. 

Due to the help of the Airbenders, abandoning their pacifist morales, simply for the fact that the Fire Nation would not offer the same mercy, while preferring to offer non-violence at first, then resorting to defending themselves at the expense of the lives of the Fire Nation. The South Pole is not as decimated as it had been in the canon story. 

There are several villages and far more waterbenders in canon. Some tribes consist exclusively of airbenders, some of those of watertribe members and others of both airbenders and watertribe. While the South Pole is nowhere near the structure of the North Pole. 

Waterbenders have learned to hide their waterbending, meaning that the Fire Nation raids have become few and far between. With raids becoming scarce, Kya lives. Aang, Sokka and Katara grow up together, being thick as thieves. Aang most definitely is still a master airbender, and while Katara is so much better than she was in the beginning, there are most definitely gaps in her knowledge. Bato and Hakoda still very much leave for war, and Gyatso stays behind with Gran-Gran and Kya. 

Sokka, Katara and Aang are on a fishing trip when they find something in an iceberg…

[dncingthrghlife]

like 99% of "men and women are soooo different!!!" comedy is literally just describing the experience of not understanding other people. like it's not that women never say what they mean talking to other people is just like that. it can be hard to understand what other people are thinking. bioessentialism really rots the brain

[dncingthrghlife]

[dncingthrghlife]

Facebook? sorry.. i only know about Fae's Book

[dncingthrghlife]

We need to lay more blame for "Kids don't know how computers work" at the feet of the people responsible: Google.

Google set out about a decade ago to push their (relatively unpopular) chromebooks by supplying them below-cost to schools for students, explicitly marketing them as being easy to restrict to certain activities, and in the offing, kids have now grown up in walled gardens, on glorified tablets that are designed to monetize and restrict every movement to maximize profit for one of the biggest companies in the world.

Tech literacy didn't mysteriously vanish, it was fucking murdered for profit.

[dncingthrghlife]

I think the biggest problem with bad dialogue is that it is misplaced.

If it is a clarifying/establishing line happening before another scene, it shouldn’t be information that the characters logically should’ve said long before that establishing scene. Perhaps lampshading it in a passing, “As I’ve already said…” could help, but it doesn’t stop the disconnect of dialogue that exists only for the audience and not the world of the characters.

#writing dialogue #dialogue ideas #writing is hard

[dncingthrghlife]

who the HELL wrote the dialogue in the new Spiderwick Chronicles

you have an aged up cast and lush production and you give it… “we’re moving to get your brother the psychological help that he needs”

when you greenlight a script of placeholder dialogue, you get punted to the Roku Channel!*

*i know that it is even a miracle we can watch the show after it got murdered by Disney+ so i’m glad i can critique it at all

#the spiderwick chronicles #spiderwick #holly black #tony diterlizzi #sorry to tag you for this writing

[dncingthrghlife]

How can I make money writing fiction?

I'm gonna be straight with you. There is no guarantee that you'll make enough as an independent writer to make it worth your time. You very well might -- I make a liveable wage as an independent writer -- but many don't. Most writers I know also have a job. And luck plays a big part in it.

If you're interested in going forward in spite of this, you have two main options for monetisation open to you, and you are going to have to pick one. I call them the sales model and the sponsorship model, and you are going to have to pick one.

The sales model involves writing stories and selling them to readers. You can put books up on Amazon or Smashwords, sell them direct from your own website, enlist the help of a traditional publisher to handle that for you and let them decide where to sell, whatever -- the point is that your money is made from the sale of books to readers. If you go with a traditional publisher, you're using this model (though they will give you some of the money ahead of time in the form of an advance). Most indie authors also use this model, publishing through draft2digital, Ingram Spark, direct through Amazon, whatever. I've never relied on the sales model and can't give you any advice on how to do this, but Tumblr is full of indie authors who probably can.

The sponsorship model involves soliciting small amounts of money from various readers over time. This is ideal for web serials, and it's what I use. I use Patreon, which is designed specifically for this purpose, but you can use other sites such as ko-fi. This model involves providing regular content for free, with bonuses for those who support you.

"Can't I do both? Sell books and have a Patreon?" You absolutely can! I know several indie authors with a Patreon. I sell my completed books as ebooks and will eventually sell them as paperbacks. But your time and attention is limited, and so is your audience's, and you're going to have to half-arse one of these in order to have enough arse to whole-arse the other. You're going to make a lo of decisions that benefit either the sponsorship model or the sales model, not both. So pick your primary income source early and commit.

I can only advise on writing web serials and using the sponsorship model, so I'll go ahead with that assumption. If you want to make a liveable wage doing this, not only will you need luck, you'll also need patience. This is not a fast way to build a career. at the end of my first year of doing this, I had one single patron, and they were a real-life friend of mine. When I reached an income of $100/month, I threw a little party for myself, I was so happy. It had taken such a long time and was so much work. I reached enough to cover rent/mortgage after I'd been doing this for more than four years. It's a long term sort of career.

Here are some general tips for succeeding in this industry, given by me, someone with no formal training in any of this who only vaguely knows what they're talking about:

Have a consistent update schedule and STICK TO IT

The #1 indicator for stable success in this industry (aside from luck, which we're discounting because you can't do much about that) is having a consistent update schedule. Your readers need to know when the next chapter is coming out, and it should be coming out regularly. Ideally, you should have no breaks or hiatuses -- if you're in a bus crash or something, that might be unavoidable, and your readers will understand if you tell them, but if you're stopping and starting a lot for trivial reasons, they WILL abandon you. You can't get away with that shit if you're not Andrew Hussie, and I'm pretty sure Andrew Hussie doesn't message me for career advice on Tumblr. If you find you need a lot of hiatuses to write fast enough then you're updating too often; change your schedule. A regular schedule is more important than a fast one (ideally it should be both, but if you have to pick between the two, pick regular).

2. Pay attention to your readership, listen to what they want from you

Your income is based on a pretty complicated support structure when you're using the sponsorship model. this model relies on people finding your story, liking your story, and continuing to find it valuable enough to keep paying you month after month. This means that your rewards for your sponsors should be things that they value and will continue to pay for ('knowing I'm supporting an artist whose work I enjoy' counts as a thing that they value, to my great surprise; there's a lot of people giving me money just for the sake of giving me money, so I can pay my mortgage and keep writing for them without needing a second job), but it also means supporting the entire network that attracts readers and keeps them having the best time they can with your story -- being part of a rewarding community. Because this is advice on making money, I'm going to roughly divide your readership into groups based on how they affect your bottom line:

sponsors. People giving you money directly. The importance of keeping this group happy should be obvious.

administration and community helpers -- discord moderators, IT people, guys who set up fan wikis, whoever's handling your mailing list if you have a mailing list. You can do this stuff yourself, or you can hire someone to do it, but if you're incredibly lucky and people enjoy being a part of your reader community, people will sometimes volunteer to do the work for free. If you are lucky enough to get such people, respect them. They are doing you a massive favour, and they're not doing it for you, but to maintain a place that they value, and you have to respect both of those things. My discord has just shy of 1,300 members and is moderated by volunteers. I'd peel my own face off if I had to moderate a community that large. If you've got people stepping up to do work for you, you need to respect them and you need to make sure that they continue to find that rewarding by doing what you can to make sure that the community they're maintaining is rewarding. Sometimes this means taking actions and sometimes this means staying the fuck out of the way. Depending on the circumstances.

fan artists. Once you have people drawing your characters, writing fanfic of your stories, whatever, treat these like fucking gold. Give them a space to do this, and more importantly, give them a space to do this without you in it. Fanworks are a symptom of engagement with your work, which is massively important. They are also a component of a healthy community, an avenue for readers to talk to each other and express themselves creatively to each other. Third, fanworks act as a bridge for new readers. When readers share their art on, say, Tumblr, it can intrigue new people and get them into the story. Your job in all of this is to give them the space to work, encourage them as required or invited (I reblog most TTOU fanart that I'm tagged in on Tumblr, for instance), and other than that, stay the fuck out of their way. These people are vital to the liveblood of your community, the continued engagement of your audience, and the interest of your sponsors. Some of the fan artists will be sponsors themselves; some won't be. Those who aren't sponsors are still massively valuable for their art.

speculators, conversers, theorists, livebloggers, and That Guy Who's Just Really Jazzed For The Next Chapter. Some people don't make art but just like to chat about your story. These people are a bedrock of the community that's supporting your sponsors and increasing your readership, and therefore are critical to your income stream. Give them a place to talk. Be nice to them when they talk to you. Sometimes, they'll ask you questions about the story, which you can choose to answer or not, however you feel is appropriate. They'll also want to chat about non-story-related stuff with each other, so make sure they have a place to do that, too.

that guy who never talks to you or comments on anything but linked your story to ten guys in his office who all read it now. Some of your supporters are completely invisible to you. You can't do anything for these people except continue to release the story and have a forum they can silently lurk on if they want to. But, y'know, they exist.

If you want to focus on income then these are, roughly, the groups of people that you will need to listen to and accommodate for. You can generally just make sure they have space to do their thing, and if they want anything else, they'll tell you (yes, guys, paperbacks will be coming eventually). Many people will fit into multiple groups -- I have some sponsors that are in every single one of these groups except the last. Some will only be in one group. A healthy income rests on a healthy community which rests on accommodating these needs.

3. If you can manage it, try to make your story good.

It's also helpful for your story to be good. Economically, this is far less important than you'd think -- there are some people out there writing utter garbage and making a living doing it. Garbage by what standards? By whatever your standards are. Just think of the absolute laziest, emptiest, hackiest waste-of-bandwidth story you can imagine -- some guy is half-arsing that exact story and making three times what you'll ever make on Patreon doing it. And honestly? Good for him. If he's making that much then his readers are enjoying it, and that's what matters. Still, one critical component of making money as a writer is writing something that people actually want to read. And you can't trick them with web serials, because they don't pay in advance -- if they're bored, they'll just stop. So you have to make it worth their time, money and attention, and the simplest way to do that is to write a good story.

This hardly seems mentioning, since you were presumably planning to do that anyway. It's basic respect for your audience to give them something worth their time. Besides, if we're not interested in improving our craft and striving for our best, what are we even writing for? I'm sure I don't need to tell you to try to write a good story. The reason I list this is in fact the opposite -- don't let "I'm not a good enough writer" paralyse you. The world is full of someday-writers who endlessly fuss over and revise a single story because it's not good enough, it's not perfect, they're not Terry Pratchett yet. Neither was Terry Pratchett when his first books were published. If you're waiting to be good enough, you won't start. I didn't think Curse Words was good enough when I started releasing it -- I still don't. I started putting it out because I knew it was the only way I'd get myself to actually finish something. I don't think it's all that great, but you know what? An awful lot of people read it and really enjoyed it. And if I hadn't released it, I'd have been doing those people a disservice.

Also, it taught me a lot, and based on what I learned, Time to Orbit: Unknown is much better. If I'd never released Curse Words, if I hadn't seen how people read it and reacted to it and seen what worked and what didn't, then Time to Orbit: Unknown wouldn't be very good. And it certainly wouldn't be making me a living wage, because it was the years writing Curse Words that started building the momentum I have today.

And Time to Orbit: Unknown as it is today has some serious problems. Problems that I'm learning from. And the next book will be a lot better.

So that's basically my advice for making money in this industry. Be patient, be lucky, be consistent. Value your community; it's your lifeline, even the parts of it that don't directly pay you. And try to make your story as good as you can, but make that an activity you do, not a barrier to prevent you from starting.

Good luck.

[dncingthrghlife]

I have been working on this comic “Undergrowth” for the past month and I’m so happy to finally be able to share it with you!! This is the reason I haven’t been posting as much art on tumblr. I was very inspired by people who depict personal growth as a potted plant, and I wanted to do my own take on that idea: I think of it more as an entire forest or ecosystem within a person.

I hope reading this will inspire you to keep improving as a person even though it’s a process that is so difficult and convoluted.

[commission] [ko-fi] [Please do not repost my work!]

[dncingthrghlife]

i love you record player, i love you dvd collection, i love you discman, I love you still functioning vhs player, i love you radio, i love you newspaper, i love you physical ticket, i love you cash, i love you board and card game, i love you museum, i love you concert, i love you paint, i love you film camera, i love you instrument, i love you needle and thread, i love you book, i love you physical and tangible world of entertainment and information i live in, interact with and feel

[dncingthrghlife]

Indubitably 🧐

[dncingthrghlife]