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batboyblog · 4 months

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Copy Right and Public Domain in 2024

Happy 2024 all! its also Public Domain Day! a magical holiday here in America where things enter the public domain. Works published in the year 1928 (or 95 years ago!) have entered the public domain, which means they belong to us, all of us, the public!

Mickey's Back!

Yes! I'm sure you've heard, but Mickey Mouse (and Minnie Mouse too) is entering the Public Domain today. This has been news for a few years and indeed Disney's lobbying in the late 1990s is why our copy right term is SO long. So what exactly is now public domain?

Most people know about Mickey's first appearance Steamboat Willie, but a second short film, Plane Crazy was also released in 1928 so will also be public domain. So what's public? well these two films first of all, you're allowed to play them, upload them to YouTube or whatever without paying Disney. In theory you'll be allowed to cut and sample them, have them playing in the background of your movie etc. Likewise in theory the image of Mickey and Minnie as they appear (thats important) in these films will be free to use as well as Mickey's character as he appears in these works will be free to use. Now Mickey's later and more famous appearance

will still be protected. Famously the Conan Doyle Estate claimed that Sherlock Holmes couldn't be nice, smile, or not hate women in works because they still held the copyright on the short stories where he first did those things even though 90% of Sherlock Holmes stories were public domain. It's very likely Disney will assert similar claims over Mickey, claiming much of his personality first appeared in works still copyrighted.

Finally there's copyright vs trademark. Copyright is total ownership of a piece of media and all the ideas that appear in it, copyright has a limited set term and expires. Trademark is more limited and only applies to things used to market and sell a product. You can have a Coke branded vending machine in your movie if you want, but it couldn't appear anywhere in the trailer for your movie as thats you marketing your movie.

Where trademark ends and copyright begins and how trademarked something in the public domain is allowed to be are all unsettled areas of law and clearly Disney in the last few years as been aggressively pushing its trademark not just to Mickey in general but Steamboat Willie Mickey in particular

Ultimately the legal rights and wrongs of this might not matter so much since few people have the money and legal resources of the Walt Disney corporation so they might manage to maintain a de facto copyright on Mickey through legal intimidation, but maybe not?

And Tigger Too!

All the talk about Mickey Mouse and Steamboat Willie has sadly overshadowed other MAJOR things entering the public domain today. Most people are aware Winnie the Pooh entered the public domain in 2022, but they might not realize his beloved friend Tigger didn't. Thats because Tigger didn't appear till A. A. Milne's second (and last) book of Pooh short stories, The House at Pooh Corner in 1928.

Much like Mickey Mouse only what appears in The House at Pooh Corner is public domain so the orange bouncy boy from the 1960s Disney cartoon is still on lock down. But the A. A. Milne original as illustrated by E. H. Shepard is free for you to use in fiction or art. His friend Winnie the Pooh has made a number of appearances since being freed, most notably in a horror movie, but also a Mint Mobile commercial so maybe Tigger too will have a lot of luck in the public domain.

Other works:

Peter Pan; or the Boy Who Wouldn't Grow Up

Peter Pan is a strange case, even though the play was first mounted in 1904, and the novelization (Peter and Wendy) was published in 1911, The script for the play was not published till 1928 (confusing!) meaning while the novel as been public domain for years the play (which came first) hasn't been, but now it is and people are welcome to mount productions of it.

Millions of Cats

The oldest picture book still in print, did you own a copy growing up? (I did)

Lady Chatterley's Lover

The iconic porn novel that was at the center of a number of groundbreaking obscenity cases in the 1960s and helped establish your right to free speech.

All Quiet on the Western Front and The Threepenny Opera in their original German (but you can translate them if you want), The Mystery of the Blue Train by Agatha Christie, and Orlando by Virginia Woolf will also be joining us in the public domain along with any and all plays, novels, and books published in 1928

for Films we have The Man Who Laughs who's iconic image inspired the Joker

Charlie Chaplin's The Circus, Buster Keaton's The Cameraman, Should Married Men Go Home? the first Laurel and Hardy movie, Lights of New York the first "all talking" movie, The Passion of Joan of Arc, The Wind, as well as The Last Command and Street Angel the first films to win Oscars for Best Actor and Best Actress respectively will all be entering public domain

For Musical Compositions (more on that in a moment) we've got

Mack the Knife by Bertolt Brecht, Let’s Do It (Let’s Fall in Love) by Cole Porter, Sonny Boy by George Gard DeSylva, Lew Brown & Ray Henderson, Empty Bed Blues by J. C. Johnson, and Makin’ Whoopee! by Gus Khan are some of the notables but any piece of music published in 1928 is covered

Any art work published in 1928, which might include works by Frida Kahlo, Georgia O'Keeffe, Alexej von Jawlensky, Edward Hopper, and André Kertész will enter the public domain, we are sure those that M. C. Escher's Tower of Babel will be in the public domain

Swan Song, Public Domain and recorded music

While most things are covered by the Copyright Act of 1976 as amended by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, none of the copyright acts covered recordings you see when American copyright law was first written recordings did not exist and so through its many amendings no one fixed this problem, movies were treated like plays and artwork, but recorded sound wasn't covered by any federal law. So all sound recordings from before 1972 were governed by a confusing mess of state level laws making it basically impossible to say what was public and what was under copyright. In 2017 Congress managed to do something right and passed the Music Modernization Act. Under the act all recordings from 1922 and before would enter the public domain in 2022. After taking a break for 2023, all sound recordings made in 1923 have entered the public domain today on January 1st 2024, these include.

Charleston by James P. Johnson

Yes! We Have No Bananas (recorded by a lot artists that year)

Who’s Sorry Now by Lewis James

Down Hearted Blues by Bessie Smith

Lawdy, Lawdy Blues by Ida Cox

Southern Blues and Moonshine Blues by Ma Rainey

That American Boy of Mine and Parade of the Wooden Soldiers by Paul Whiteman and his Orchestra

Dipper Mouth Blues and Froggie More by King Oliver’s Creole Jazz Band, featuring Louis Armstrong

Bambalina by Ray Miller Orchestra

Swingin’ Down the Lane by Isham Jones Orchestra

Enjoy your public domain works!

#Copyright #public domain #public domain day #2024 #happy new year #Disney #mickey mouse #minnie mouse #Tigger #Winnie the Pooh #Peter Pan #Charlie Chaplin #buster keaton #cole porter #louis armstrong #M. C. Escher

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harrysfolklore · 3 months

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hi bestie,, idk if u take requests buttt have u seen kieran culkin speech after he won his emmy & then him asking his wife for another baby on stage 😁🤭🤭 idk i thought that would a cute h blurb

that kieran speech was SO CUTE i just had to take this request !!! happy one year of grammy winner Harry for those who celebrate! i hope you like this as much as I do

MASTERLIST | MY PATREON

The night had been one for the books.

Harry became a Grammy winner for the second time within the first 30 minutes of the ceremony, getting the award for Best Pop Vocal Album, and your heart bursted with joy and pride and you watched him collect it.

He also delivered an amazing performance even though he had a stage malfunction that was out of his control, and after a few minutes of pep talk backstage, you convinced him that he should be proud of what he did no matter what.

Nights like tonight made you look back at your journey with Harry, from getting frustrated each year when the Grammys refused to give One Direction a nomination, to consoling him when his debut single Sign of the Times got overlooked and celebrating when they finally ave him his long overdue nomination for Fine Line. And now, being one of the most nominated artists of the night and a winner already.

Harry was not an artist that let awards or numbers define his career at all, but you knew that deep down he appreciated getting a nod and recognition for the hard work he puts into his music.

"What's on your mind, honey?" Harry asked and he noticed that you had been quiet for a few minutes, the show was on a commercial break so you could talk freely.

"Just thinking about how am I getting a picture with Beyoncé before the night ends," you joked, making him laugh along, "I'm also thinking about the bub, do you think she's okay?"

Harry couldn't help but smile at the mention of your daughter. Little baby Styles had been welcomed into the world a year and a half ago, looking like an exact carbon copy of Harry with curls, dimples and charming green eyes.

It's safe to say that she became Harry's entire world from the moment he saw her for the first time.

"I bet she's fast asleep by now after snuggling with mum for hours," you smiled at the thought, "You know she's obsessed with mum."

"She just loves her nana," you almost cooed, "And her Grammy winner daddy, even tho she doesn't have any idea what that means."

"You know," Harry began, and by the look on his face you knew he was up to no good, "She could become obsessed with her bay brother or sister too, if we decided to give her one."

The smirk on Harry's face after his statement was almost devilish, making you look him with wide eyes and a grin on your own.

"Are you asking me for another baby in the middle of the Grammys?" Harry shrugged, the smirk not leaving his face, "You're a menace. But, maybe if you win, I'll think about it."

Before Harry could reply, the lights dimmed signaling that commercial break was over and it was time for more awards, more specifically, the most important award of the night: Album of the Year.

Trevor Noah, the host, talked about the importance and meaning of the award, the fans the production had invited to support the nominees stood beside him in a line.

You could barely focus on what was being said because your eyes were fixed on Harry's hand gripping yours tightly, and you felt like throwing up from nerves if you looked at the stage.

And the Grammy goes to…” Trevor spoke into the mic, making a dramatic pause that felt way too long and made you finally look up no the stage, noticing that he was standing in front of Reina, Harry's fan.

And that was the moment you knew, the Album of the Year was Harry's House.

“It’s you!” both you ans Jeff whisper-yelled in unison, looking at each other with shocked faces and making Harry give you a confused look.

“What do you-” and before he could even finish his sentence his name was being called out and the trumpets from Music for a Sushi Restaurant filled the place.

Harry immediately covered his face in disbelief, shaking his head and taking in in the moment. You couldn't help but stand up and jump in your place, adrenaline and excitement, but mostly pride, running through your veins.

"My love, you won! Harry's House won!" you said into his ear when he finally wrapped his arms around you, pecking the side of yiur head repeatedly before kissing your lips quickly.

"I love you," was all he said before getting rushed into the stage along with his collaborators and friends.

"Shit!" was the first thing that came out of his mouth once he had his Grammy in hand, making everyone laugh, “I mean,shit! I’ve been so, so inspired by every artist in this category with me. At a lot of different times in my life I listen to everyone in this category when I’m alone,” he took a breath,"I think on nights like tonight, it’s obviously so important for us to remember that there is no such thing as best in music. I don’t think any of us sit in the studio thinking, making decisions based on what is gonna get us one of these.”

You stood with your hands clutched to your chest, your eyes filled with happy tears and nothing but love and admiration for him.

"I'd like to thank my mom and my sister for being my biggest supporters and giving me a great childhood, I would be nowhere without you," he paused to look directly at you from the stage, his eyes immediately watering again, "And of course my beautiful wife, YN. Thank you for sharing your beautiful life with me and giving me an amazing daughter who is the reason I do what I do everyday,"

You were unaware of the camera focusing on your and catching the moment you mouthed an 'I love you' to him from your place.

"I love you both so much, you mean the world to me. And YN," he paused, the devilish look from earlier making his way to his face again, along with a teasing raised eyebrow that told you that he was about to do something major, "I want another one."

The entire arena erupted into laughs and cheers, Jeff clapped and whistled from beside you and you couldn't help but cover your face in shock and embarrassment, astonished by Harry's anctics.

"You said, maybe if I won, and I did!" the crowd laughed even more, "I love you, so much. Thank you for this, I'll never forget it."

Harry got off the stage and you met him backstage to congratulate him properly, after a final performance the night came to an end and everyone headed outside the arena to celebrate.

"Do you feel like partying tonight? The label is throwing a celebration but if you feel tired we can skip it," Harry said as you both sat on the back of his Range Rover.

"Honestly, I just want to go home, kiss our baby goodnight and celebrate with my Grammy winner husband in private," you smiled at him teasingly, "Maybe get started on that second baby making."

The smile that appeared on Harry's face after hearing your words was bigger than the one from winning a Grammy.

"Home it is, then."

#harry styles fanfiction #harry styles imagine #harry styles writing #harry styles fluff #harry styles fake instagram #harry styles one shot #harry styles blurb #harry styles x reader #harry styles x you #harry styles headcanon #harry styles fic #harry styles au #harry styles fake social media #harry styles story #harrysfolklore #harry styles masterlist #harry styles fic rec #harry styles grammy #1k

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physalian · 1 month

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You don’t have to pay for that fancy worldbuilding program

As mentioned in this post about writing with executive dysfunction, if one of your reasons to keep procrastinating on starting your book is not being able to afford something like World Anvil or Campfire, I’m here to tell you those programs are a luxury, not a necessity: Enter Google Suite (not sponsored but gosh I wish).

MS Office offers more processing power and more fine-tuning, but Office is expensive and only autosaves to OneDrive, and I have a perfectly healthy grudge against OneDrive for failing to sync and losing 19k words of a WIP that I never got back.

Google’s sync has never failed me, and the Google apps (at least for iPhone) aren’t nearly as buggy and clunky as Microsoft’s. So today I’m outlining the system I used for my upcoming fantasy novel with all the helpful pictures and diagrams. Maybe this won’t work for you, maybe you have something else, and that’s okay! I refuse to pay for what I can get legally for free and sometimes Google’s simplicity is to its benefit.

The biggest downside is that you have to manually input and update your data, but as someone who loves organizing and made all these willingly and for fun, I don’t mind.

So. Let’s start with Google Sheets.

The Character Cheat Sheet:

I organized it this way for several reasons:

I can easily see which characters belong to which factions and how many I have named and have to keep up with for each faction

All names are in alphabetical order so when I have to come up with a new name, I can look at my list and pick a letter or a string of sounds I haven’t used as often (and then ignore it and start 8 names with A).

The strikethrough feature lets me keep track of which characters I kill off (yes, I changed it, so this remains spoiler-free)

It’s an easy place to go instead of scrolling up and down an entire manuscript for names I’ve forgotten, with every named character, however minor their role, all in one spot

Also on this page are spare names I’ll see randomly in other media (commercials, movie end credits, etc) and can add easily from my phone before I forget

Also on this page are my summary, my elevator pitch, and important character beats I could otherwise easily mess up, it helps stay consistent

*I also have on here not pictured an age timeline for all my vampires so I keep track of who’s older than who and how well I’ve staggered their ages relative to important events, but it’s made in Photoshop and too much of a pain to censor and add here

On other tabs, I keep track of location names, deities, made-up vocabulary and definitions, and my chapter word count.

The Word Count Guide:

*3/30 Edit to update this chart to its full glory. Column 3 is a cumulative count. Most of what I write breaks 100k and it's fun watching the word count rise until it boils over.

This is the most frustrating to update manually, especially if you don’t have separate docs for each chapter, but it really helps me stay consistent with chapter lengths and the formula for calculating the average and rising totals is super basic.

Not that all your chapters have to be uniform, but if you care about that, this little chart is a fantastic visualizer.

If you have multiple narrators, and this book does, you can also keep track of how many POVs each narrator has, and how spread out they are. I didn’t do that for this book since it’s not an ensemble team and matters less, but I did for my sci-fi WIP, pictured below.

As I was writing that one, I had “scripted” the chapters before going back and writing out all the glorious narrative, and updated the symbols from “scripted” to “finished” accordingly.

I also have a pie chart that I had to make manually on a convoluted iPhone app to color coordinate specifically the way I wanted to easily tell who narrates the most out of the cast, and who needs more representation.

—

Google Docs

Can’t show you much here unfortunately but I’d like to take an aside to talk about my “scene bits” docs.

It’s what it says on the tin, an entire doc all labeled with different heading styles with blurbs for each scene I want to include at some point in the book so I can hop around easily. Whether they make it into the manuscript or not, all practice is good practice and I like to keep old ideas because they might be useful in unsuspecting ways later.

Separate from that, I keep most of my deleted scenes and scene chunks for, again, possible use later in a “deleted scenes” doc, all labeled accordingly.

When I designed my alien language for the sci-fi series, I created a Word doc dictionary and my own "translation" matrix, for easy look-up or word generation whenever I needed it (do y'all want a breakdown for creating foreign languages? It's so fun).

Normally, as with my sci-fi series, I have an entire doc filled with character sheets and important details, I just… didn’t do that for this book. But the point is—you can still make those for free on any word processing software, you don’t need fancy gadgets.

—

I hope this helps anyone struggling! It doesn’t have to be fancy. It doesn’t have to be expensive. Everything I made here, minus the aforementioned timeline and pie chart, was done with basic excel skills and the paint bucket tool. I imagine this can be applicable to games, comics, what have you, it knows no bounds!

Now you have one less excuse to sit down and start writing.

#writing advice #writing resources #writing tips #writing tools #writing a book #writing #writeblr #organizing your book #outlining #shut up and write the book #google sheets #google docs

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eldritchravens · 2 months

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Welcome Home - The Homewarming Update : A compilation of the secrets I could find

⚠️SPOILERS AHEAD!⚠️

This post is simply a compilation of all the things I could find during my exploration of the website. I'm not going to delve too much into theories. Enjoy the read!

1- Statics

Every background is now filled with statics. I tried zooming out but I couldn't find anything. Not really a secret, but still interesting to note.

2- It's a dog! Oh, and a pea!

Found in the "Official Welcome Home Cook Book" in the merchandise page. I am... A little worried about Barnaby. For those who are aware, the pea is foreshadowing for a much bigger secret.

3- Audio distortion

Surprisingly, I was only able to find one instance where the audio distorts. In the "Homewarming Storybook Record", when Wally speaks here (timestamp is 18:16), the audio gets distorted. Please let me know if you found more audio glitches on the main website!

4- The page is breathing

I was able to capture something that made my skin crawl. Look very closely at this illustration. It's... breathing. I'm unsure if any other image in the website does that too. Very troubling.

5- Lost track of time

Uh-oh! Looks like our beloved writer is losing their perception of time itself. An effect of the black substance maybe? You can find this on the News page.

6- Pixels? Smudges? Oh, and a new friend!

In The Neighboorhood page, Home now has little white pixels around him? I'm unsure if this was intentional or not. Interestingly, the secret link under Home dissapeared along with every other traces of Wally.

The logo on certain pages looks... dirty? Look closely, there are brownish stains on some letters. This doesn't appear everywhere.

And! New friend! Hello new friend!

7- Symbols!

Okay, now onto the main course. Something I think we've all noticed straight away! There's a ton of tiny little doodles splattered around the website. The doodles are all named after a letter. Here is every letter translated from their respective symbol you can find on the website :

Home : M I O A Merchandise : P Y E R Media : Y G About us : A R Stickers : E News : T Neighboorhood : S F N E Wally : W Exhibition : N Ghestbook : W W W Transcript : Y

"www" huh? Interesting, like a web link. At first, all of this doesn't really mean anything, until we stumble upon this!

Fascinating, it's a code! Eddie here is giving us the translation to every single doodle. Next, if we solve the question here "What does Home wear at parties?", it gives us the next clue we need. The answer is "ADDRESS". Address? Now, remember the "www" thing? That's right! We need to assemble the letters we found to make a link!

8- Away from Prying Eyes

After assembling a link, you will be able to visit a secret page. In it is by far the biggest secret in this update : https://www.awayfrompryingeyes.net/

When I tell you I lost my marbles when I discovered this. There is a lot to say here! Firstly, one thing to note is that unlike any other secrets we had found in previous updates, Wally didn't put this here. Instead, it was this mysterious "W". Go read the whole thing! It's PACKED with information!

"W" purposely put this here for US to find. W is in distress, confused and scared; this looks like a call for help.

Might or might not be important, but the word "Paranoid" here starts with a capital. It did catch my eye, so maybe it is noteworthy.

This entire phone call is absolutely fascinating and gives us answers about the lore. I highly recommend people to give it a listen : https://www.awayfrompryingeyes.net/phone

AND THIS??? OH MY GOODNESS!!! Clown is spoiling us with gifts for this Homewarming! Truly, thank you Clown and the whole WH team, you're doing such a marvelous job. Watch the whole thing here : https://www.awayfrompryingeyes.net/commercials

And what's this hidden among the commercials? Eddie! Remember how I said the pea was foreshadowing? Eddie can hear Home's heartbeat. Well, our dearest mailman doesn't look too well :( Thankfully Frank seems to be looking out for him!

_________________________

Important things to note: This update is almost completely void of any trace of Wally infesting the website. The symbols were placed by the website manager here. Wally is not there anymore. Also, Eddie is purposely left out of the main update, only to be the center of attention in the commercial compilation.

Well! That's all I managed to find for now! Please let me know in the replies if I've missed anything. Thank you for reading, and Happy Homewarming! <3

Edit : Added some new things I just noticed!

#welcome home #partycoffin #welcome home update #welcome home secrets #welcome home puppet show #welcome home homewarming #homewarming #welcome home wally #welcome home home #welcome home eddie

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eyesofshinigami · 27 days

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3, 2, 1, Fight!

Rating: General Audiences

Tags: Meet Ugly, Steve and Dustin are brothers, pre-relationship

Written for the STWG daily drabble prompt: not a meet cute but a meet ugly

This is not at all how Steve pictured his Saturday going. He could be anywhere, instead, he’s standing in a comic book shop, fighting over a toy with another grown man who looks like he’s going to beat Steve over the head with it.

“Let go!” the guy yells, trying to tug the action figure out of Steve’s hands

“No, you let go!” Steve yells back, yanking it back. He has to give the guy props, though. He’s just as relentless as Steve is.

The guy sputters, an attractive shade of pink coloring his cheeks as his curly hair falls in his face. Wait, what? “Fuck off, why are you even here? Don’t you belong in a gym or something?”

Steve scoffs, still yanking. “Does it matter why I’m here? Just let go already!”

Dustin had been asking for this action figure for months now, talking about it and showing Steve newspaper clippings and TV commercials. Steve, being the good big brother he is, promised their mom that he would do his best to get it for him for his upcoming birthday. He’d be damned if he was going to let some punk, albeit a very attractive punk, take it away from him. Why did they only put three out on the shelf anyway?

They play tug of war for another few minutes, until the bewildered clerk, who had been watching their exchange, finally butts in and says, “Uh, I think I might have another one in the back? Can you wait here?”

They both nod, neither of them letting go of the toy. “I wish he would have said that in the first place,” Steve grouses, watching the clerk disappear behind a door. “Why they only put out a couple of copies of a toy I will never understand.”

It’s Hot Guy’s turn to sputter. “Toy? TOY? This, sir, is the limited edition statue of Kas the Betrayer that Wizard of the Coast put out to celebrate the anniversary of his DnD release! Not that you would care about any of that, you troglodyte.”

Steve has no idea what any of that means. “Oh, so that’s why Dustin wanted it. Makes sense now. He loves that guy.”

“Wait, it’s not for you?”

“Uh, no? It’s for my kid brother’s birthday. He loves that Dorks and Dragons game and he ran a Kas… uh… campaign? Last year? It was his first time. Kas is kind of a big deal to him.”

The other guy starts to look a little contemplative, but that’s when the clerk appears with another, much less rankled looking box. Steve immediately lets the one in his hands go and takes that one instead. “Thanks, man. I appreciate it.”

The clerk shrugs and heads back behind the counter. Meanwhile, Hot Guy tugs his hair in front of his face. “Uh, look. I’m sorry I said such shitty things over a toy. It’s just, Kas is kind of a big deal to me too. You could have just said.”

Steve waves him off. “No worries, I get it. But now we both have one.” He pauses and considers a second. It’s worth a shot. “You could make it up to me over lunch in the food court.”

Hot Guy’s eyes go wide. “Are you serious?”

Okay, wow. “Well, I was, but you can just say no, you don’t have to-“

“No, no, no!” Hot Guy says, waving his arms around, nearly dropping the box he fought so hard for. “No, I’d like that. Eddie,” he says, holding out a hand. That pretty pink flush is back. Steve kind of wants to see how far it goes down.

“Steve. Now let’s go, before any more wayward nerds decide they want to fight us over these.”

Eddie, dork that he is, bows and motions towards the cash register, “By your leave, my prince.”

Steve rolls his eyes. He always did like the nerdy ones.

#les writes things #steddie #stwg #demogorgon_dailies

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thebibliosphere · 2 years

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This is more of a problem on Facebook and Twitter, but there are some fellow authors who get a tad... upset when you talk about money and royalty earnings.

Needless to say, my frankness about how royalties work and just how little many of us are earning from our labor has drawn the ire of a few people, even here on Tumblr.hell.

I'm not particularly bothered by this. In my view, they're the same people who won't discuss wages in the workplace because they don't want anyone else to earn what they do. They know the system is unfairly rigged, but they like it that way because they're scared if more people are educated about how things work, they'll lose whatever competitive edge they think they have, thus enforcing the status quo.

Needless to say, I don't care for this view.

I'm very much a "holy shit, two cakes" kind of creator. I also very firmly believe in pulling people up behind me and spreading the wealth of information that was shared freely with me by other like-minded individuals who also believe that the mysteries around publishing are gatekeeping bullshit and everyone deserves the chance to earn money from their creative endeavors, not just the people who can afford to.

Anyway, David Gaughran's 'Let's Get Digital: How To Self-Publish And Why You Should' is an invaluable resource for indie authors and provides great insight into how publishing and distribution work. It is available for free through the retailers listed on his website.

If you don't want to publish exclusively through Amazon, draft2digital.com does global ebook and also paperback distribution. (I've only used it for ebooks, but I'll be trying out their paperback options for my next book.) You can pair it up with a books2read account to create easy-to-post buy links. Draft2Digital also allows for distribution through library lending services like Overdrive. So that's neat. (NB: if you use d2d, you can't use Kindle Unlimited, so be aware of what links you have active and where if you decide to enroll in KU. You can always opt for wide distribution again once your KU time expires.)

D2D also recently partnered with FindawayVoices.com for audiobook distribution. You can find voice actors there, or you can upload your own files if you already have them. You can submit to Audible through them, too, but you'll earn a pittance more if you upload directly through Audible. Findaway also allows for library lending distribution through Libby and several other global equivalents.

If you need ISBNs, you can buy them cheaper in bulk from Bowker at myidentifiers.com

Individual storefront options like Payhip.com and Gumroad.com are also great ways to allow people to buy directly from you, though I soured on Gumroad after the whole NFT thing and their CEO harassing people on Twitter over it. Payhip is now my preferred storefront, and as an added bonus, they calculate VAT in European countries as well, so that's one less thing for me as an indie author to work out. As an added bonus, Payhip can be directly integrated into your author website if you have one. It's a feature I'll be implementing soon.

itch.io also allows for the sale and distribution of ebook files, though I haven't used it yet.

If you don't have the means to hire a cover designer or the means to do it yourself in photoshop, Canva.com has some decent-ish ebook templates. Just make sure the images and fonts you're using have the right licenses for commercial use.

Editing and formatting are also extremely important, though I know not everyone can afford them. If you can, I highly suggest doing so and shelling out extra to have them format your work across mediums. Ebook formatting is different from paperback formatting, and it can look very strange if you just try to format an ebook into a pdf. It is a skill you can teach yourself (plenty of youtube videos) if you really want to, but I prefer to throw money at my editors, who provide formatting as an additional service. Whatever you can afford to do to streamline the process is money well spent.

Also, do not be shy about using affiliate links to sell your work. Authors lose a solid chunk of money to places like Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple, etc., in distribution fees. Whatever pennies you can scrape back through affiliate links for directing traffic to those sites is hard-earned--and it is literal pennies sometimes. You can also integrate any affiliate links you do have into draft2digital, so they auto-generate, which is handy.

When it comes to paperbacks, BookShop.org offers the best affiliate earnings, and a percentage of the sale goes toward supporting indie bookstores. They do not take that percentage from your earnings, they pay it themselves. Libro.FM is the audiobook equivalent of BookShop.org, and they also give a percentage of sales to supporting indie book stores.

Anyway, I hope that helps someone. Good luck out there.

Also, if you're the person who sent me the irate email about "giving away trade secrets," feel free to die mad about it. 😘

#long post #indie publishing #indie author #author resources #I've posted all this before #but I figure it never hurts to post it again #also lol at that email #what a sad and bitter view

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zot3-flopped · 13 days

Text

Sylvia Plath did not stick her head in an oven for this! When Taylor Swift took the Grammys stage last month to claim her award for Best Pop Vocal Album for Midnights, she saw that spotlight as an opportunity to announce her 11th studio album: The Tortured Poets Department. The follow-up cut to audience members—Swift’s music industry peers, mind you—told us all that we would ever need to know, and the collective disinterest across the crowd echoed through our TVs.

Folks from all walks of life took to social media to express a multitude of reactions. Swifties clamored to their beloved monarch’s forthcoming era, while others lambasted the terminally cringe title and artwork and ridiculed Swift for making a night recognizing musical achievements across an entire industry about herself—knowing perfectly well that it would send her fanbase into a surge that would, no doubt, overpower the excitement around the ceremony itself.

Quite a few people questioned whether or not that moment suggested that a critical—definitely not commercial—tide would turn against the world’s most-famous pop star. And, perhaps it has—but, to most, it will look like nothing more than a single ripple in Swift’s ocean of successes.

Swift remained relatively hush-hush about The Tortured Poets Department up until its release, leaving her fans, admirers and haters alike with nothing but an album title to ponder about. And it’s a bad title.

If you have never been in Swift’s corner, her taking the route of labeling her next “era” as “tortured” was likely catnip for your disinterest. If you are a fan—not necessarily a Swiftie, but even just a casual lover of her best and brightest work—you might be beside yourself about the first Swift album title longer than one word in 14 years.

In terms of popularity—certainly not always in terms of quality—no musician has been bigger this century than Swift, which makes it impossible to really buy into the “torture” of it all.

This is not to say that Swift being the most famous person in the world makes her immune to having multi-dimensional feelings of heartbreak, mental illness or what-have-you.

But, she has made the choice—as a 34-year-old adult—to take those complex, universal familiars and monetize them into a wardrobe she can wear for whatever portion of her Eras Tour setlist she opts to dedicate to the material.

Torture is fashion to Taylor Swift, and she wears her milieu dully. This album will surely get comparisons to Rupi Kaur’s poetry, either for its simplicity, empty language, commodification or all of the above.

And, sure, there are parallels there, especially in how The Tortured Poets Department, too, is going to set the art of poetry back another decade—as Swift’s naive call-to-arms of her own milky-white sorrow rings in like some quintessential “I am going to take pictures of a typewriter on my desk and have a Pinterest mood-board of Courier New font” iPhone fodder. 2013 called and it wants it capricious, suburban girl-who-is-taking-a-gap-year wig back!

Soaking our book reports in coffee or having our moms burn the edges with a kitchen lighter cannot come back into fashion; the cyclical notions of culture cannot make the space for such retreads.

There is nothing poetic about a billionaire—who, mind you, threatens legal action against a Twitter account for tracking her destructive private jet paths—telling stadiums of thousands of people every night that she sees and adores them.

Tavi Gevinson says it well in her Fan Fiction zine: “When 80,000 people are also crying, you become less special, too.” If Swift can return to one of her dozen beach houses across the world, kick up her feet and say “I’m a poet of struggle,” then who is to say that millions—maybe billions—of people with access to a notes app and a social media account won’t dream that dream, too?

Maybe that looks like a net-positive, but it’s inherently damning and destructive to take an art form that has long stood on the shoulders of resistance, of love and of opposition to power, systematic injustice and climate warfare and boil it down to the new defining era of your own 10-digit revenue empire. “My culture is not your costume,” yada, etc.

The Tortured Poets Department does begin with a shred of hope that, just maybe, Swift knows what she’s talking about—as she sneaks in a cheeky “all of this to say,” textbook transitional phrasing for poets, on opening track “Fortnight.”

But “Fortnight” unmasks itself quickly as a heady vat of pop nothingness, though it isn’t all Swift’s fault. “I was a functioning alcoholic, ‘til nobody noticed my new aesthetic,” she muses, attempting to bridge the gap between a behind-the-scenes life and on-stage performance—only for it to occur while propped up against the most dog-water, uninspired synth arrangement you could possibly imagine.

Between producer Jack Antonoff’s atrocious backing instrumental and the Y2K-era, teen dramedy echo chamber of a vocal harmony provided by out-of-place guest performer Post Malone, “Fortnight” chokes on the vomit of its own opaqueness.

“I took the miracle move-on drug, the effects were temporary,” Swift muses, and it sounds like satire. This is your songwriter of the century? Open the schools.

The Tortured Poets Department title-track features some of Swift’s worst lyricism to-date, including the irredeemable, relentlessly cringe “You smoked then ate seven bars of chocolate, we declared Charlie Puth should be a bigger artist / I scratch your head, you fall asleep like a tattooed golden retriever” lines glazed atop some synthesizers and drums that just ring in as hollow, unfascinating costuming.

Aside from the Puth nod, which I can only discern as a joke (given the fact that he is one of the 150-most streamed artists in the world and is one of the blandest pop practitioners alive—I don’t care if he can figure out the pitch of any sound you throw at him), I think Antonoff should stick to guitar-playing. Get that man away from a keyboard, I’m begging you.

Synths can be, if you use them correctly, one of the most emotional and provocative instruments in any musician’s tool-box. There’s a reason why keyboards defined the 1980s; they rebelled against the very oppressive nature existing outside of the cultural company they kept. There’s resistance in electronic music that, while they brandish an aesthetic that, to a layman’s ears, seems like technicolor hues for any infectious pop track, it’s a genre that aches to tell its own story. That is simply not the case here, and that electronica hangs Swift out to dry when she drags us through the lukewarm “I laughed in your face and said, ‘You’re not Dylan Thomas, I’m not Patti Smith’ / This ain’t the Chelsea Hotel, we’re modern idiots” lines, only to hit us with a softly sung F-bomb that sounds like a billionaire’s rendition of that one Miranda Cosgrove podcast clip.

I used to rag pretty heavily on Reputation—mostly because I thought (and still do, mostly) that it sounded like Swift had given up on making interesting, progressive pop music; that, in the wake of her (arguably) best album, 1989, it seemed like she’d lost the plot on where to go next. But as she’s put out Midnights and The Tortured Poets Department back-to-back, I find myself clamoring for the Reputation-era more than ever—at least seven years ago, Swift wrote songs like she had something to prove and even more to lose.

That was the always-obvious charm of Reputation, even despite the downsides—that she took a big swing from the echelons of her own musical immortality, that the comforts of winning every award and selling out the biggest venues in the world were no longer pillowing her aspirations. Even though that swing didn’t land, she still made it in the first place—and Swift is at her best either when she is clawing upwards (Reputation) or faced with nowhere to go but into the studio and noodle with the bare-bones of her own sensibilities (folklore).

You get something like The Tortured Poets Department when the artist making it no longer feels challenged, where she strikes out looking.

The mid-ness of The Tortured Poets Department will not be a net-loss for Swift. She will sell out arenas and get her streams until she elects to quit this business (a phrase decidedly not in her vocabulary, surely).

She will sell more merch bundles than vinyl plants have the capacity to make, and rows of variant LP copies will haunt the record aisles of Target stores just as long as Midnights has—if not longer.

Perhaps, in five or six years’ time, we will speak of this record just as we now do of Reputation. But right now, it is obvious that Swift no longer feels challenged to be good. The Tortured Poets Department is the mark of an artist now interested in seeing how much their empire can atone for the sins of mediocrity.

Can Swift win another Album of the Year Grammy simply because she released a record during the eligibility period? The Tortured Poets Department reeks of “because I can,” not “because I should.”

On “I Can Fix Him (No Really I Can),” Swift tries stepping into the shoes of the country renegades who came before her—the Tammy Wynettes and Loretta Lynns of the world. But her self-aggrandizing inflation of importance, glinting through via a seismically-bland bridge, is backed by a minimal set dressing of guitar, drum machine and keys.

“Good boy, that’s right, come close,” she sings. “I’ll show you Heaven if you’ll be an angel—all mine. Trust me, I can handle me a dangerous man. No, really, I can.” On “Florida!!!,” Swift calls upon Florence + the Machine to help her sing the worst chorus of 2024: “Florida is one hell of a drug / Florida, can I use you up?”

Even Welch, who is a fantastic pop singer-songwriter in her own right, delivers a grossly watery verse: “The hurricane with my name, when it came I got drunk and I dared it to wash me away.”

Not even the typos on the Spotify promotional materials for this album could have foretold such offenses. I won’t even get into the sonics, because Antonoff just rewrites the same soulless patterns every time.

What separates The Tortured Poets Department from something like Reputation is that, on the latter, Swift made it known what was at stake and who she was making that album for—herself, in the aftermath of her greatest long-standing criticisms (“Look What You Made Me Do” triumphs exactly because of this).

On The Tortured Poets Department, there is a striking level of moral nothingness. The stakes are practically non-existent, and the album sounds like it was made by someone who believes that they had no other choice but to finish it, as if Swift fundamentally believes that her creative measures are firmly embedded in the massive monopoly her name and brand currently hold on popular music. That’s how you get meandering pop songs about hookups, wine moms, Stevie Nicks comparisons, Jehovah’s Witness suit mentions, hollowed-out, tone-deaf nods to white-collar crime in lieu of empowerment and, topically, Barbie dolls.

(Don’t even get me started on the Anthology lyrics, which feature these absolute barn-burners: “Touch me while your bros play Grand Theft Auto” and “My friends used to play a game where / We would pick a decade / We wished we could live in instead of this / I’d say the 1830s, but without all the racists / And getting married off for the highest bid.”) This album and its hackneyed grasps at relevance exist as “Did I just hear that?” personified, but in the most derogatory sense of the notion.

My Boy Only Breaks His Favorite Toys” features another low-point in Swift’s lyrical oeuvre, as she sings “I felt more when we played pretend than with all the Kens, ‘cause he took me out of my box”—perhaps a measure of her capitalizing on the Barbenheimer mania that none of us could escape, not even the musician who spent most of 2023 flying across the world from one country to another.

But you, us, the listener—we want to believe that Swift makes these records because she has the artistic will, drive and interest to continue giving us parts of her story in such ways that they exist as an archival of her life.

But the problem is that, on The Tortured Poets Department, Swift is packaging her life into a form that is easily consumable for the 17 or 18 years olds who pour over her music. Just because her Eras Tour film is on Disney+ doesn’t mean she has to strip her songwriting (which we know can be, and has been, phenomenal) down for the sake of it being digestible by a wide spectrum of ages.

And, sure, maybe that makes the work accessible. But on The Tortured Poets Department, Swift makes Zoomer jargon her bag—titling a song after one of the most popular video games in the world and conjuring flickers of “down bad” and “I can fix him”—and it feels like she’s cosplaying because the Fountain of Youth was out of order.

Now that Swift is in her 30s, it sounds like she is infantilizing her own audience more than ever before—that singing to them at a level that could force them to reckon with something more akin with adulthood would be some kind of kink in the coil or her consumeristic threshold, that writing lyrics that sound like they were penned by a 30-year-old would, somehow, deter the interests of the billions of people who adore her.

If making one, continuous coming-of-age album is what Swift has been doing for 15 years, folklore and evermore were hiccups in the timeline—existing as the most fully-formed renderings of Swift’s own insecurities and concerns. They mirrored our platitudes towards an uncertain future with sweet, stirring remarks about isolation and heartbreak and the unavoidable, hard-worn truth about getting older. On those records, her larger-than-life living seemed, for once, to truly feel as close to the ground as ours.

Now, though, Taylor Swift is at the top of the mountain. Far better artists have made far worse records than The Tortured Poets Department, but you can’t read between the lines of this project. There is nothing to decipher from a place of quality.

Sure, Swift’s fan base will pour over these lyrics for the rest of their lives—insisting they know, for certain, which song is about who. But you cannot place a bad album on the shoulders of lore and expect it to be rectified.

We are now left at a crossroads. Women can’t critique Swift because they’ll run the risk of being labeled a “gender traitor” for doing so. Men can’t critique her because they’ll be touted as “sexist.”

And, sure, Swift is probably too easy a punching bag in this case—and most of the time, I would argue she is undeserving of being a victim of such barbs. But, you cannot write about someone being a “tattooed golden retriever” and get away with it and still retain your title as the best songwriter of your generation. You just cannot.

Sisyphus should be glad he never got the boulder to the top of the mountain—because Taylor Swift is showing us that such immortality and success ain’t all it’s cracked up to be. And, when you’re standing on the peak alone, who else is there left to hit?

In a recent interview with The Standard, Courtney Love said that Swift is “not interesting as an artist,” and I think The Tortured Poets Department proves as much. She has nothing to fight for, no doubters left to drown.

So where does she turn? Well, to boredoms of celebrity thinly veiled as sorrow everyone and their mother can latch onto—because we’ve all had to “ditch the clowns, get the crown” at some point in our lives, right?

The billionaire is having an identity crisis, but there are no social media apps for her to buy up. So she sings like Lana Del Rey and writes meta-self-referential songs about looking like Stevie Nicks.

What’s hollow about The Tortured Poets Department is that the real torture is just how unlivable these songs really are. No one can resonate with “So I leap from the gallows and I levitate down your street, crash the party like a record, scratch as I scream ‘Who’s afraid of little old me?’ You should be.” And normally, that wouldn’t be an end-all-be-all for a pop record—but when your brand is built on copious levels of “I’m just like you!” as the demigod saying it to their fans does so from a multi-million-dollar production set, it’s hard to not feel nauseated by the overlording, overbearing sense of heavy-handed detritus we’re tasked with sifting through on The Tortured Poets Department.

Love’s words to Lana, her advice to “take seven years off,” should be applied to Swift. Now, that doesn’t mean that, to make a good album, you must sit on material for years and labor extensively through the sketching, shaping and recording in order for it to be transcendentally landmark. But it’s obvious now that not even Taylor Swift wants to be the head of an empire—that she, too, can’t outrun the damning fate of being plum out of ideas by hopping in her jet and skirting off to God knows where.

See you at the Grammys.

****

#this review is everything #anti taylor swift #taylor swift #travis kelce #3.6 !!!#hope Pitchfork comes for her too #jack antonoff #taylor swift reviews #the department of tortured poets

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odinsblog · 3 months

Text

👉🏿 https://www.thenation.com/article/world/super-bowl-rafah-israel-gaza/

I am deeply saddened, but not surprised. Israel timed their massacre in Rafah to coincide with their bullshit Super Bowl commercial. Why? How does that help anyone, how does that keep safe any IOF soldier involved in the massacre? The answer is, it doesn’t. There was no military reason for coordinating this. It’s just more unnecessarily cruel, evil, inhumane, jingoistic bullshit.

Look, people keep saying, “But what about Hamas and the hostages?” and Oh My Fucking God, why do we have to keep explaining basic concepts like empathy, compassion, humanity and basic human decency?

FFS, this is such a basic ass concept that it’s a “bad guy” foreshadowing trope used in comic books and movies—even Padmé Amidala recognized that Anakin murdering an entire race (genocide!) in retaliation for killing his mother was wrong. Thor Odinson, notorious for his hatred of Frost Giants, refused to let Loki completely destroy the realm of Jotunheim, because Thor understood that genocide is wrong.

It sounds really silly using Star Wars and Marvel movies to explain why what Israel is doing is wrong, doesn’t it? But I’m Black, and I’ve seen how wayyy too many white people will be depressed and cry about the death of imaginary characters but then turn right around and not give a single fuck about actual living breathing, non-white people being systematically oppressed and methodically murdered.

Israel is committing ethnic cleansing, war crimes and genocide against Palestinians. They have already murdered nearly 30,000 noncombatant civilians, a full third of whom were small children.

(source)

When will Israel’s barbaric, uncontrollable desire to kill Palestinians end? When is it going to be enough?

Free Palestine 🇵🇸

#politics #palestine #rafah #gaza #super bowl massacre #super bowl #israel is a terrorist state #benjamin netanyahu is a war criminal

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notjustjavierpena · 21 days

Note

Doesn’t javier’s wife get tantrums when she is pregnant?

Unreasonable (Drabble)

Series Masterpost | Main Masterpost

A/N: She sure as fuck does. Javier is too in love with the idea of her carrying his child to get mad about it though.

Summary: First-time pregnancy and a husband who breathes a little too loudly is enough to make you rage.

Pairing: Javier Peña x reader (no y/n)

Tags: Domestic, pregnancy and all the following symptoms (e.g. puking), pregnancy rage, cravings, kisses, reader is hormonal and unreasonable

Word count: 1.5k

Unreasonable

“Could you breathe a little louder?” You ask from the bed. You throw your novel to the side, unable to concentrate, while sending daggers in your husband’s direction.

You are sitting against the headboard of your bed with all the decoration pillows scattered across the sheets, unable to find one that seems to do the job of supporting your aching back during your first pregnancy. This second trimester is hell on Earth; morning sickness, sore breasts and back, hormones running amok in your system, and no way of getting comfortable. It doesn’t help that Javier seems physically unbothered, daring to move around with ease in your shared home while folding laundry.

“Honey,” he says gently, turning towards you with a smile that you find provoking, “I’m not breathing differently than I usually do.”

You seethe from your position because you know he is right. The book you were reading amongst several candy wrappers lies face down next to you as if it’s hiding before Javier has figured that is what he should be doing too. You cross your arms over your chest but your boobs feel too big and sore for you to do it the way you normally would. Every instinct in your mind is telling you to attack because you have no way of seeming reasonable in this, “Do you have to squeeze a soccer ball out of your pussy in three months?”

Javier raises his eyebrows at your crude choice of words and your terrifying mental image, “No…”

“That’s right,” you huff and then suddenly you are off into a scolding interrogation that Javier can do nothing about but endure. Your stare can freeze the sun, “Let’s see. Do you have to pee all the time?”

“No…”

You go on, “Do you find yourself crying over commercials on the TV with no way of stopping it?”

“No.”

“What about your pelvic floor?” You think smoke might be coming out of your ears, “Do you feel like it is going to rupture when you try to reach something you have dropped on the floor?”

“Honey…”

“Does your back hurt so much that you contemplate if it’s easier to just pee your pants instead of getting up?” You ask. Ironically, you have the biggest urge to get up and pace around the room like a caged animal.

“I could massage your back,” he suggests so sweetly but not even that can calm your rage.

“Haven’t you done enough?” You growl, “This is your little fucking love-goblin growing inside of me and all you had to do was grunt like a caveman and roll over.”

Javier blinks, trying a feeble protest, “Baby… I don’t think tha—“

“Don’t you ‘Baby’ me!” You rage against him, heart beating rapidly in your chest, “I am here either suffering in bed or waddling around like a goddamn incubator! The least you can do is try to make me feel better!”

“I just offered a massage that you declined so maybe you want some time for yourself instead?” He tries again.

“Time for myself? How on Earth am I supposed to spend time for myself when you are breathing so loudly that our neighbors can hear it?” You avoid his gaze.

He opens his mouth to speak but you are not done.

“Not to mention the nausea that follows me everywhere I go. Quality time with good old nausea!” You throw your hands up in the air in exasperation, “If I had a dollar for every time I have puked up my guts since you put this baby in me, I could buy myself a private island and be rid of your wheezing airways!”

You inhale deeply and frantically as you run out of breath. It’s then you decide that you are done, scooting further down on the bed to lie down on your side with one of the pillows supporting your pregnant belly.

You fume quietly. Javier stands immovable.

Eventually, you pout too. Your husband moves to stand by your side but he doesn’t touch you, “How about we order some food? Do you want to order some food?”

“Actually, Javi, no, I don’t want to order some food,” you reply, still with an attitude.

“Are you sure, baby?” He gently presses on.

“Yes, obviously, otherwise I wouldn’t say it.”

“I’m gonna order some food for myself then,” he lets you know, walking back to pick up the laundry basket.

“Yes, fine, whatever,” you sigh loudly, “I don’t care.”

But you do care. As soon as the doorbell rings with Javier’s food delivery, you have thought about the million different things that he might have gotten for himself to eat and it has caused your stomach to rumble. You pout for real this time.

Eventually, it becomes too much and you get onto your feet, tiptoeing down the stairs to satisfy your curiosity. You don’t need the food; you just want to see if your guesses about Javier’s dinner menu are correct.

You peek out from behind the door frame, staring into the kitchen where he is placing the delivery bag on the counter. The whole house smells like pizza and fried food, the scent having dragged you downstairs to gaze longingly as your husband is rummaging through the plastic bag to empty it of its contents.

You spot the box of french fries next to a strawberry milkshake and frown, shifting slightly where you stand and trying not to feel emotional about your stomach growling for food. You lean your cheek against the doorframe and sigh loudly.

“Hola, mi amor (hello, my love),” your husband suddenly says and even if you purposely made him aware of your presence in the room, you still feel on the spot when he notices you.

“Hi,” you try to get a better glimpse of what he has ordered for himself, “What are you having?”

“I decided on that pizza place on the corner where you also get your haircut sometimes,” he says nonchalantly and you curse your emotions for getting the better of you earlier. You love that place.

“Really?” You whimper.

“Yeah,” he continues and stuffs a few fries into his mouth as he takes out a pizza box from the bag, “I really wanted one of their shakes. You know… the ones made from three scoops of ice cream? And then I thought I might as well get some fries because you taught me about dipping them into it, remember that?”

“Y-yeah,” you suddenly feel your bottom lip starting to tremble. The idea of not having a strawberry shake in your hand and their pepperoni pizza with a stuffed crust is close to torture, making you so unbelievably upset that you start to cry big and ugly tears.

Javier tenses. He abandons the food on the counter the second he hears you, taking long steps to get to you quickly. He wipes his fingers in his shirt so he can brush tears away from your face, cooing softly as you wail, “Honey, shhh… There’s no need to cry.”

“I’m sorry, I was so mean,” you blubber to the point where you are heaving for breath, pregnant belly jumping as your whole body trembles, “I didn’t know that I wanted their milkshake and pizza so badly and now it feels like I am missing out. It’s really stupid but… The baby wants that strawberry milkshake, Javi.”

“I know,” he soothes and laughs softly as he brings you into his arms, giving you a hug whilst you continue your miserable crying, “That’s why I got you one.”

“What?” You sniffle, pulling back to look at him and showing off your red, puffy eyes.

“I got you a shake,” he clarifies with a small smile, “And I ordered you a pepperoni pizza too.”

Relief washes over you and you cannot help letting out a little, shaky laugh amidst your tears, “You did?”

Javier nods, eyes soft and smile warm, “Of course, I did. Te conozco (I know you).”

“With a stuffed crust?” You ask, suddenly shy and looking innocently through your lashes. You feel like you’re thirteen again, crushing on your husband all over.

“Stuffed crust,” he confirms and the smile turns into a grin. He presses a kiss to your cheek and blows a raspberry until you giggle, “No need to cry. El bebé sabe que su mamá está triste (The baby knows their mom is sad)."

“Can’t have that,” you wrap both arms around him and repeatedly kiss his face; nose, cheeks, lips, chin. He closes his eyes, taking each with a sigh that’s nowhere near annoyed. You kiss his lips in the end, “Gracias, esposo (thank you, husband).”

“De nada, mi amor (you’re welcome, my love),” he lets go of you after one last kiss, walking to dig out one more strawberry milkshake from the plastic bag and then handing it to you.

You take a long sip and do a happy dance without thinking. Meanwhile, Javier gets out your pizza too and suddenly all memory of why you were so angry earlier is gone.

FOLLOW @notjustjavierpena-fics AND TURN ON NOTIFICATIONS 💖❤️💖❤️h

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forever-rogue · 1 month

Note

I’m really missing nurse!Steeb x pregnant reader lately, what have they been up to??🥺

AN | I love Nurse!Steeb and his clumsy girl! Besides being pregnant, again, things are as chaotic as always in the Harrington household! 💕

Warnings | Mild Language, Pregnant!Reader

Pairing | Nurse!Steve x Fem!Reader

Word Count | 2k

Masterlist | Steve, Main, Nurse Steve

─── ･｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

“Guess what,” you walked into your bedroom, inadvertently scaring Steve who had been reading intently. He yelped slightly as you offered him an apologetic grin and got into bed next to him, “sorry babe. But guess what!”

“What's up?” He set his book on his night stand before reaching for your hand and lacing your fingers together.

“I'm twelve weeks today,” it took him a moment to put together what you were saying but as soon as he did, his entire face lit up, “I think its time we told people, what do you think?”

“Yes. Yes,” he agreed eagerly. He'd been wanting to tell people since the day you told him you were pregnant but also understood why you had wanted to wait, “I can't wait to tell everyone. They're going to be so excited.”

“And what about you, Steve Harrington?” You clutched his hand tightly before bringing it to your lips and pressing a kiss to his knuckles, “are you excited? Truly?”

“Of course I am,” he scoffed sweetly as you relaxed, giving him an innocent shoulder shrug, “you know you don’t ever have to question that, sweetheart. I’ve been dying to tell everyone, but I know you wanted to wait. Which totally makes sense.”

“I was just worried,” you whispered softly, “I didn’t want anything to go wrong. I’m really glad it didn’t. I’m excited too.”

“I can’t believe I’ve got you, Cami, and now another baby,” his smile stretched from ear to ear as your face lit up, “I couldn’t ask for anything more.”

“What if I get weird cravings in the middle of the night?” When you were pregnant with Cami, there hadn’t been anything too crazy, but you wanted to be prepared. And you didn’t want to annoy Steve - not that you would ever be able to do such a thing, especially when you were pregnant, “what if I complain all the time? What if I can’t sleep? What if you get annoyed with me? What if Camila doesn’t want-”

“Hey,” he put a finger gently to your lips in order to tenderly cut off any more of your doubt, “I will never get tired of you. You know that. And even if all those things happen, we’ll get through them and I’ll try my best to help you. And I have a feeling that Camila will be very excited for a brother and sister.”

“How can you be sure?”

“She’s been talking about how some of her friends have little brothers and sisters that she thinks it’s really cool,” that made you feel immediately better, “trust me, she’ll be excited.”

“So we’re all excited?” you hadn’t realized a few tears had rolled down your cheeks until Steve gently wiped them away. You reached up and held his hand to your face, offering your husband a misty-eyed smile.

“We’re all excited,” he confirmed as he brushed his thumb along your cheek, “I love you.”

“I love you too, Stevie.”

─── ･｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

“Mama?” Camila's small voice cut through your internal monologue as you shifted your gaze to find her watching you with a worried expression on her little face, “what's wrong?”

“Nothing’s wrong, my love,” you wiped the tears from your face with the sleeve of your sweater, motioning for her to come over. She padded over and crawled onto the couch next to you, “I'm just feeling a little sad.”

“Why are you feeling sad?”

“There was a commercial with a really cute dog,” you sniffled as she looked at you in confusion, “I know it doesn't make any sense. When you're pregnant your hormones go all crazy and sometimes even happy things can make you cry.”

“Oh,” she considered what you were saying before shaking her head, “I don't think I could ever do that. What's the point?”

“Well, baby, that's how Daddy and I ended up with you. And I'm pretty glad we did,” you pulled her into your lap and pressed a kiss to the top of her dark curls, “and that's how we're going to end up with your brother or sister.”

“Daddy thinks I'll get a sister,” she grinned at you, a gap toothed little smile that you adored more than anything, “what do you think?”

“I think you're getting a little brother,” you whispered softly, “but we're just going to have to wait and see.”

“How much longer?!”

“Four months…ish,” you gently touched your ever-growing belly and sighed, “sometimes babies come a little early but it should be about four months.”

“I'm excited,” she said with wide eyes filled with wonder. She hesitantly reached over and touched your belly as well, “that's cool that they're in there. Does it hurt?”

“It doesn't hurt but sometimes it doesn't feel good,” and that was putting it lightly, “but it's worth It in the end.”

“I hope so,” she nodded solemnly before sliding off the couch and walking towards the kitchen, “can I have some ice cream?”

“Camila Mae,” you slowly stood up and walked after her, “only if you promise to share!”

─── ･｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

“Steven Harrington,” you pushed your sunglasses to the top of your head, raising an eyebrow at him, “my eyes are up here.”

“Baby,” he huffed, his eyes turning a pretty shade of pink. He had not so discreetly looking at your chest and your belly, “its not fair. You're so hot. Gorgeous. Sexy. Beautiful. All of it.”

“Please,” you rolled your eyes at him before gently pushing his chest, “I'm five months pregnant. I'm hardly anything but a beach ball.”

“You're gorgeous,” he insisted, settling his large hands on your waist as he pulled into him and pressed a kiss to your lips, “plus the bathing suit you're wearing? Fuckin’ killing me.”

“Steve,” you squeaked softly as your entire face warmed up, “you just like it when I'm pregnant.”

“I like you always,” he insisted sweetly, “but there is something about you being pregnant that drives me crazy. And that way everyone knows you're mine.”

“I'm all yours,” you agreed, biting the inside of your cheek, “I love you, Stevie.”

“I love you, baby,” he grinned, “so much-”

“Daddy! Mama!” Cami sounded so adorably annoyed as the two of you looked over at her. She was motioning towards the pool, clearly ready to get into the water, “stop being so gross!”

“Yeah Daddy,” you nudged him towards your daughter, “stop being so gross and hitting on Mama.”

“Stop,” he groaned softly, pressing one last kiss to your lips, “you're doing to be the death of me, I hope you know.”

“So dramatic,” you snorted in amusement, “go have fun and keep our kid from drowning!”

“And you put on plenty of sunscreen,” he insisted pointing at the bag you had packed, “join us when you're ready.”

“I will,” you smiled softly, already feeling some tears welling up. It seemed like everything made you cry these days. It was just one of the many perks of being pregnant, “go have fun. I'll keep an eye on this kid.”

You could hear Steve laughing as he went over to Camila. Her entire little face lit up as her father picked up her and threw her over his shoulder to climb into the pool. It was still crazy sometimes to think that these two people were your favorite people in the entire world.

“And you're pretty special too,” you sat down, slowly of course, on your beach chair and rubbed a hand over your belly, “I can't wait to meet you. You've got a while lot of love waiting for you, just so you know.”

─── ･｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* :☆ﾟ. ───

You groaned as you walked through the front door and closed it slowly behind you. It had been a long day, and one of the few that you had to work later into the evening. By the time you got home, the Harrington household was already quiet for the evening.

“Hi honey,” Steve was at the door and already reaching for your bag before you could even wonder where he was. You relaxed as you melted into him, gladly taking the kiss he offered you, “let me help.”

You weren’t even going to bother arguing with your husband. He set your bag down in its usual spot before taking your coat and helping you slip off your shoes. When he was done, you instantly felt better. He reached for your hand and slowly led you to the kitchen, “thanks Stevie.”

“You’ve had a long day, it’s the least I can do,” you sat down at the kitchen table and let out a large sigh, running a tired hand over your belly, “how are you feeling?”

“I’m feeling like I’m very pregnant,” you huffed with a small laugh as you watched him put together a plate of food from dinner. He caught your eye and gave you a soft smile, “I can’t believe there’s still like months of this left.”

“If it’s any consolation, I think you’re doing a fantastic job,” he set the plate down in front of you and pressed a kiss to your head before grabbing a drink from the refrigerator. He set it down next to your plate before sitting down next to you, “I don’t think I could ever do it. I mean…growing a whole human is crazy.”

“I agree,” you took a big bite of the warm, delicious food, savoring the flavor before swallowing, “and I’m the one doing it. But I know it’ll be worth it. Blob number two will be worth it, just like Cami was.”

“You’re never going to let that go, are you?” he asked with a hearty laugh, as you offered him a big smile.

“Never,” you promised, “not even if we have another kid in the future. I’m telling you, they look like blobs on the ultrasound and you can’t even say I’m wrong. I mean, you’re a nurse! You gotta admit they just look like blobs more than anything else.”

“I’m going to agree with you because you’re my wife and pregnant,” he folded his arms over his chest and leaned back in his chair, playfully narrowing his eyes at you. You stuck your tongue out at him, “I know better than to argue with my pregnant wife. Whom I love very much.”

The sweet tone in his voice caused you to soften as you set down your fork, “I love you too, Steve. So much.”

“I know,” he gently nudged his foot with yours, “is there anything else I can do for you? Whatever you need. Bubble bath?”

“Oh, that sounds lovely,” you agreed, “I feel like even my bones are tired. They could use a good soak.”

“And then you can tell me all about your day,” he insisted as you nodded at him.

“But only if you tell me all about yours,” you replied, “and Camila’s. I’m sure the two of you got up to no good.”

“I have no clue what you’re talking about,” and that told you enough to know that the two of them definitely got into something, “we’re practically angels.”

“Shut up,” you laughed at him, shaking your head in amusement, “that’ll be the day. But luckily, I love and want to keep you both around.”

“I want you around too,” he stood up and slowly stretched before reaching for your hands, “do you want seconds first or bath now?”

“Bath now,” you let him take your hands and help to hoist you to your feet, “dessert later?”

“Dessert - “ he paused for a moment as you raised an eyebrow at him, waiting for him to put together what you were actually insinuating, “oh. Oh. Y-yeah, we can do that. Definitely.”

“Come on then,” you tilted your head towards the upstairs, “how often do we get this much peace, quiet and alone time?”

“Almost never,” he agreed, “you’re right. Let’s go.”

Needless to say, things were as hectic and chaotic as ever in the Harrington household.

#steve harrington #steve harrington x reader #steve harrington x fem!reader #steve harrington x you #steve harrington imagine #steve harrington one shot #nurse!steve #st #joe keery

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wayward-dreamer · 6 months

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Hi, I was wondering if you could write a story where soilder boy is dating Y/n, and they start talking, and he asks her if she thinks he would be a good dad. Which leads to them talking about starting a family together. And then one of them says something along the lines of "Why don't we try now?" Then it turns into smut. If not it's okay, thanks!

Father Material

Pairing: Soldier Boy x F!Reader

Word count: 1,468

Summary: Curiosity from the public and media has Ben expressing his dream to be a father. Y/N wants to make his dream a reality.

Warnings: Swearing, some angst, mentions of SB's nefarious actions, smut: dirty talk, rough sex, breeding kink.

A/N: This request has been in my inbox forever, so I apologise for long it took! I hope you like it Layla! Happy reading! :) Thanks to my besties/betas @hintsofhoney and @makeadealwithdean for looking over this. Sorry not sorry for killing you hehe

also there's plenty more Soldier Boy content on the way because apparently I've become an SB smut dealer lmaooo

“Do you think I’d make a good father?”

That was the question that sparked the sex marathon they had been in for hours now. Given that he was a supe, Soldier Boy had the stamina for withstanding just about anything, and if he had it his way he could probably last well into the night. She on the other hand was flagging quickly, the downside of being 100% human, but she really couldn’t bring herself to tell him to stop. Not when he always knew just how to make her toes curl and her body quake with euphoric bliss. He may have known what buttons to push to get her going, but that didn’t mean their encounters were predictable. They were far from it, and that day was no exception.

The day started out like any other. He had meetings with hero management, followed by filming a commercial for Cracker Jack, which then led to interviews with different channels. She finally stepped out of their penthouse that night to join him on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, draped in an emerald green dress to match his suit, complete with gold accessories. Usually interviews weren’t really her favorite thing to do, but being America’s golden couple meant that they needed to be seen in public in order to keep that status. So they did what they always did. They laughed and joked with quick-witted Carson, charmed the audience and made the nation fall deeper for them with each caress of a hand or sweet kiss. Some may have thought it was just for the cameras, those cynical spectators that didn’t have any business commenting on what goes on behind closed doors, but they both knew the truth about their relationship.

They were in love. They had been since the moment he propositioned her in the elevator of the Vought American building, leading to one of the wildest nights she had ever had. Most would call it lust, but when you understood someone on a deeper level like they both did, it was most definitely love. A warped, messed up kind of love, but nonetheless, that’s what it was. She wasn’t stupid; she knew the kind of man he was, what he had to do during the war, and in Vought’s name since he joined their roster. She knew there were some off the books black ops missions he had gone on, even if she didn’t know the details. She heard the rumors about Dealey Plaza, too. She knew that he was fucked up despite his God fearing, all-American persona for the public, but she didn’t care.

In order to love someone like that, she had to be a little fucked up too. Well, more than a little.

Despite distracting everyone with their incredible charisma, questions of settling down and starting a family came up, and she knew she had to think of an answer fast when she saw Ben’s face go blank. With her biggest grin, she turned to Carson and said “Well, if anything happens Johnny, you’ll be the first to know!” They covered it up with hearty laughs as the audience joined in, along with the host, before he thanked them for their time to raucous applause.

The drive back to the Vought building was quiet, her concern growing for him until his words: “Do you think I’d make a good father?” broke the silence.

“Why do you ask?” she questioned in return, softly as to not scare him from broaching the subject.

“That fucking Carson,” he muttered, staring out the window at the bright lights. “I just… I guess he got me thinkin’, that’s all. Forget it.”

She wasn’t going to. She knew there was something he wanted to tell her, something he wanted of her, and she needed to know what it was.

“Thinking about what?”

“Thinkin’ about… about how I’d do it better than my father ever did,” he confessed. “We’d make some perfect fucking kids, that’s for damn sure.”

She smiled softly, her hand curling over his as she slid across the backseat and pressed herself against his side. She nuzzled her nose along his jaw, leaving small kisses along his stubble as she reached his ear, her breath fanning against the shell as she whispered her own desire to do the same.

“Then let’s start right now.”

And that was how they found themselves in their bedroom twenty minutes later, with her holding herself up on her quivering hands and knees as he pounded into her from behind, his fingers digging into her skin with a bruising hold as his pelvis smacked against the curve of her ass. He had contorted her into every position possible since then for the last couple of hours, with barely a few minutes to breathe between each romp in the sheets. She had lost track of how many positions, and she was about to lose count of how many times he had spilled inside her, both of them getting closer to that release once more.

“Oh god, oh god!” she moaned wantonly, her forehead pressed against the mattress as her hands fisted the sheets. She was completely unbothered about how loud she was and the fact that people had probably heard them by now.

“No need to bring him into this, doll,” he chuckled, the sound broken up by his groans of pleasure. “Just me and you here…”

“You’re so fucking cheesy,” she mumbled, a guttural whimper escaping her at a particularly angled thrust against her g-spot.

“You fucking love it,” he countered, smirking as he suddenly pulled out of her.

Ignoring her whine of protest, Soldier Boy flipped her over onto her back and grabbed her legs, bending her in half as her calves rested on his shoulders, sliding back into her tight heat with a quick, hard thrust. The sounds that left them were nothing short of pornographic, as he began to pick up the pace with each push of his hips against her. He squeezed his eyes shut as her walls clenched around his throbbing cock, both of them balancing on the edge of their blissful climax, ready to go over at any minute.

“So fucking good, so fucking perfect, Y/N,” he growled, their faces close as he leaned over her. “You love the way I fuck you, don’t ya?”

“Yes!” she cried out, nodding frantically as she stared up into his green orbs. “Love the way you fuck me… you fuck me so good, Ben. So deep, and hard, wanna feel it for days.”

“Oh you will, sugar,” he groaned, between rough kisses against her lips. “Gonna fill you up, make you feel so full, make you full and round with my babies. You want that?”

“Yeah,” she breathed.

“Fuck, yeah you do,” he husked. “Tell me, tell me you want it.”

“I want it, I want it so bad, Ben,” she whimpered, the sound practically a sob with how desperate she was to finally let go. “I want you to fill me up, give it to me.”

“Cum for me, doll, soak my cock,” he said, looking deep into her eyes.

Y/N finally felt the dam breaking as a loud, shrieking moan escaped her, her walls contracting around his shaft as her arousal spread over him. He grunted loudly, his hips snapping harder against her, as he tried to hold himself back. His eyes fluttered, about to close, but her hands on his face stopped him, making him pay attention to her as their gazes locked. As she had with each time he had reached his peak that night, she stroked her thumbs along his jaw, slowly nodding her encouragement and desire to feel his seed deep inside her.

“S-Say it,” he stuttered, his neck straining as he held on just a little longer. “Fuckkk, s-say it-”

She bit her lip, knowing how it drove him crazy, before she parted them and uttered the words that sent him over the edge at the end of round that night.

“You’re gonna be a great dad… better than your own.”

Soldier Boy threw his head back, the veins in his neck pressing against his skin as he let out a guttural moan, his cock pulsing deep inside her tight canal. She moaned softly as she felt the warm spurts of his cum coat her walls, filling her up as he had done several times that night already. They both breathed heavily, trying to calm their racing hearts, neither of them wanting to move away from the other. He buried his face in her neck, planting soft pecks along her pulse point, bringing a smile to her face as they basked in the afterglow.

Both of them hoped that it wouldn’t be too much longer before their dream became a reality.

#reader request #Soldier Boy x Female!Reader #Soldier Boy x Female!Reader Smut #Soldier Boy x Female!Reader One Shot #Soldier Boy x Female!Reader Fanfiction #Soldier Boy Smut #Soldier Boy One Shot #Soldier Boy Fanfiction #The Boys Smut #The Boys One Shot #The Boys Fanfiction #Soldier Boy #the boys tv

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