Me And My Bestie Are Rewatching Mvs From Midnights And Speak Now TV To Find The Days To Clown About For

“Let’s face it - English is a crazy language. There is no egg in eggplant nor ham in hamburger; neither apple nor pine in pineapple. English muffins weren’t invented in England or French fries in France. Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren’t sweet, are meat. We take English for granted. But if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig. And why is it that writers write but fingers don’t fing, grocers don’t groce and hammers don’t ham? If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn’t the plural of booth beeth? One goose, 2 geese. So one moose, 2 meese? One index, 2 indices? Doesn’t it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend? If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it? If teachers taught, why didn’t preachers praught? If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat? In what language do people recite at a play and play at a recital? Ship by truck and send cargo by ship? Have noses that run and feet that smell? How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites? You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house can burn up as it burns down, in which you fill in a form by filling it out and in which an alarm goes off by going on. English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects the creativity of the human race (which, of course, isn’t a race at all). That is why, when the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible.”

— (via be-killed)

For Novice Writers: the quick test for Are You Being Scammed Or Not...

I read a sad case today of a young writer who had had her story rewritten into illiteracy by a so-called publisher, who then abused her in email when she wrote to complain. She wsn’t getting paid for her story – instead she was actually buying copies of the anthology to show people that she had sold a story. And I thought, it is time to remind the world, and to enlighten young writers, about…

Yog’s Law: 

Money flows towards the writer.

That’s all. All writers should remember it.  When a commercial publisher contracts a book, it will pay an advance against royalties to the writer. Money flows towards the writer. Literary agents make their living by charging a commission of between 10 and 20% on the sales that they make on behalf of their clients, the writers. When advances and royalties are paid by a publisher the agent’s percentage is filtered off in the direction of the writer’s agent but the bulk of the money still flows towards the writer. If a publisher ever asks for any sort of financial contribution from a writer, they’re trying to divert money away from the writer, in direct contravention of Yog’s Law. If an agent ever asks for up-front fees, regardless of what they call them (reading fees, administration costs, processing fees, or retainers), then they are trying to divert money away from the writer, in direct contravention of Yog’s Law. It’s a brilliantly simple rule. We should thank James D Macdonald for it in the best way there is. Buy his books

Money flows toward the writer.

No, that doesn’t mean that the author should get paper and ink for free, or that he won’t pay for postage. It does mean that when someone comes along and says, “Sure, kid, you can be a Published Author! It’ll only cost you $300!” the writer will know that something’s wrong. A fee is a fee is a fee, whether they call it a reading fee, a marketing fee, a promotion fee, or a cheese-and-crackers fee.

Is this perfect? No. Scammers have come up with some elaborate ways to avoid activating it. But it’s still a good and useful tool, and will save a lot of grief. Any time an agent or publisher asks for money, the answer should be “No!”

I need everyone’s best character advice. STAT.

You know. Some people could really stand to get more comfortable with the idea of “you shouldn’t say that because it’s mean”. Especially with really common body shaming and straight up bullying lines.

“You shouldn’t make ugly bald jokes because what if a transman on T sees it!”

“You shouldn’t make virgin jokes because what if someone who’s asexual sees it!”

How about you just don’t make them because they’re mean. How about people can be balding or a virgin for a number of reasons and also don’t deserve to be routinely made fun of. How about saying that the reason you shouldn’t make x joke because it spares x specific identity’s feelings also let’s them know that you actually have no problem saying or thinking bald people are ugly or virgins are stupid or etc but you’re just not saying it in front of them. How about you understand this kind of body shaming and bullying especially in a very public setting online are always going to have way more unintended damage to people who did nothing wrong than damage to the person you’re upset with.

Sometimes the best reason to not make a bad joke like that is because it’s fucking mean.

just found out that stoats hunt twice the size of them like rabbits by aggressively and eccentrically dancing around it with their little slinky rigatoni bodies so it can confuse the absolute fuck out of its prey until it can get close enough to jump on its back like some shadow of the colossus shit and take it down

I have this skill where I hear one note of a Taylor Swift song somewhere in public and my spine straightens and my head tilts up like I am the goddamn winter soldier being activated but instead of going on a murder spree I just say to my friends "Taylor Swift is playing" and they think I'm insane

Of course she ends the US leg with a song that she wrote for us, I'm not crying you are

Finding joy again in things you used to love is one of the miracles of life

The most attractive thing to me is effort. Someone who really wants to talk to me, wants to see me, wants to make me a part of their day.

bonus points if you add in the tags who you’d want to feature on it!

I CANT ADD I’D LIE YOU WOULD ALL VOTE FOR IT THATS NOT FAIR

also i don’t count i heart ? as unreleased, it’s on the beautiful eyes EP