#and will be published

[obiyuki-beebs]

you called me x: event submission

First third(ish) of a fic! because it’s 3 AM and I’m sleepy and this is the only part that I’m (mostly) satisfied with so here ya go. Companion playlist posted here. Ok goodnight.

@snowwhite-andtheknight

Shirayuki prided herself on having a knack for answering questions. 

This skill could be attributed to multiple traits; her quiet brilliance, a devout love of research, and an uncanny capacity to solve almost any problem presented to her. 

She enjoyed observing her world and figuring out the how and the why. She hoarded questions and carried them around like candy in her pocket, on her mind until she could find or deduce an answer, and always ready to chew on it for a while if it could give her the satisfaction of knowing. 

What frequency do bumblebees need to vibrate at in order to release pollen from certain types of flowers, like blueberries in their blooming stage? Middle C, which is how they are able to use buzz pollination, something honeybees are incapable of, making bumblebees indispensable in the ecosystem and farmers alike. 

Why are we told not to rub our eyes? It can cause corneal abrasion and worsen allergen exposure in the short term, and cause keratoconus in the long term, which is a thinning and deformation of the cornea over time. This had been a notably hard habit to break. 

Does bi-weekly refer to every two weeks or twice a week? Infuriatingly enough, both, depending on the context. 

Is a hot dog a sandwich? Yes, by definition. Is cereal soup? No, also by definition, though somehow she was more perturbed by this question than she had originally thought she could be. 

Shirayuki's ability to answer questions was not limited to health and the natural world. Her friends and colleagues often came to her for advice on various matters, whether it was about relationships or career choices. 

It also gave her a spectacular penchant for dominating trivia nights with her friends. 

Shirayuki liked answers. 

That was why, when she stumbled across a question she couldn’t answer, well… that could pose a problem. 

An extremely distracting problem with a long torso and a laugh that made her lift her head from her book whenever she heard it. 

A problem that had the potential to make her forget to step off the train on her way to the lab. 

A problem that might keep her up at night, undoubtedly chewing her lip and in a dissociative stare-down with the glow stars that she and Yuzuri had painstakingly pressed onto Shirayuki’s ceiling when they became roommates. 

Currently, she had such a problem. She couldn’t stop asking herself why, out of all of their friends, she was the only one who Obi still referred to by a nickname. 

She had always wondered, of course. 

For years, it seemed like he was on the tips of his toes, poised to bolt at the drop of an ill-chosen comment. In the early stages of all of them knowing each other, there had always been distance he placed between them. Rarely, if ever, did she see him drop his stoic smile; the smile he wore when he wanted people around him to be at ease. A smile that, though similar to his real one, wasn’t the same.

Sometimes, she thought of him in those early days and remembered the feral cat she’d befriended as a child outside her grandparent's pub. It had taken what felt like years for it to warm up to her, persuaded by one greasy palmful of stolen chicken at a time. 

Slowly but surely, Obi, just like that cat, had seemed to relax. Seemed to drop an anchor into their veritable sea of knowing each other. Or, at the very least, the bag she knew he kept packed under his bed started to gather dust. 

And then, one random night in May while they were enjoying their sometimes-weekly hang-out, Obi called Mitsuhide by name. Casual, as if he was asking them to please not make a big deal about it. 

Kiki had only smiled. Mitsuhide, who couldn’t hide anything if he tried, gaped like a fish with a hook still in its lip. Zen made a toast with his IPA, describing the continuous work it takes to be vulnerable and open with one's friends.

Progress had been slow after that. Obi waited another two months before dropping the joking “Princess” he usually used in conjunction with Kiki’s name. Ryuu was easier, as he was now taller than Obi and nearly at a level with Mitsuhide. Suzu, Yuzuri, and even his greatest chess adversary, Izana, were now all called by name instead of the nicknames Obi had been using as a last wall of defense against intimacy. 

The shock and sentimentality of the situation had kept Shirayuki from wondering, at least for a little while, why he hadn’t said her name yet. 

–

First, she had verified that he did indeed only call her by a nickname. She kept notes (in a marble composition tucked between her planner and her field notebook). But only one spreadsheet. One spreadsheet file, if she was being specific. She refused to count the sheet tabs in said file. (Four).  

When considering the question – that is, why only she remained among his nameless friends – she had come to the conclusion that he would get to her eventually. She just needed to be patient.

–

As it happened, Shirayuki also prided herself on her patience. 

She could wait. She had waited for so many things. 

As a child, she had waited for the cookies her grandfather had just baked to cool before stealing away with three of them and up the creaking stairs to her bedroom on the third floor. 

She was perfectly capable of putting in the slow, steady work needed to help her plant seeds germinate in the spring and even more patient with them as they spread roots and grew wildly over her trellis in the summer. 

She had waited for Zen to be able to publicly commit to her; had waited for him when they had been in a long-distance relationship for nearly four years; had waited for her feelings for him to be fulfilling again; had waited what felt like ages for him to accept that she meant it when she said she no longer saw him that way. 

She had demonstrated great restraint in not petting the feral cat all those years ago, instead letting it come to her. 

Yes, Shirayuki could be patient. 

So she waited, thinking that, eventually, it would be her turn, and he would call her by her name, implicitly reassuring her that they were as close as she considered them to be. 

–

And now here they were, nearly two whole years after the pivotal shift in nomenclature amongst friends, and Shirayuki found her patience to be entirely sapped.

Much to her consternation, Obi still only referred to her as “Miss,” and her question remained. Why had Obi thus far never used her given name? She had no idea. It entirely escaped her. This unanswered query had become the bane of her existence, plaguing her whenever she thought about him, which she also discovered was often and regularly. 

(No, she had not kept a data set of how often she thought about him. The thought had crossed her mind, and though the project was started, it was swiftly discontinued with vehemence due to extenuating circumstances relating to her inability to control the color of her cheeks.)

—

Shirayuki believed that every problem had a solution, and she was determined to figure out this one. She had a question whose answer entirely evaded her. She was losing sleep. It had become a matter of health. 

She started out with what she considered to be simple measures by sending him links to participate in Name-a-Plow-Truck events around the country, along with ridiculous – and hopefully fake – forum posts asking if the original poster was rude for laughing at their friend's baby name choice. She even went so far as to recommend watching Beetlejuice for movie night, which only ensured that they sang the Banana Boat Song back and forth to each other for what felt like weeks, followed by a rambunctious reprisal at karaoke in the fall. 

None of it worked. She had yet to hear him say her name. Clearly, her methods had not been effective. 

So she reconsidered. 

–

“Excuse me,” Yuzuri leaned out of the bathroom to get a better look at Shirayuki sitting with crossed legs on the rug outside the door, “you want to do what?”

“Obi doesn’t say my name. I’m the only one out of our friends that he doesn’t. So-”

“So you want to see if you can subconsciously influence him into saying your name? With a playlist?”

“Not all at once. Over a few weeks. Or months. I don’t want to tip him off too soon.”

“Uh-huh,” Yuzuri replied, voice reverberating in the sink as she leaned down to wash her face. 

“I thought you would be into it,” Shirayuki pouted, biting at the cuticle on her left hand.

“Stop picking.”

“You can’t even see me.”

“I can hear it.”

“How-”

“For the record, I am mostly into it. I am immensely amused by your plan, Yuki. You are exceptionally good at planning things out. Even if they are absolutely ridiculous and unnecessarily complicated. I am equally exasperated. You could just ask him to say your name. Honestly, please just do that.”

“What if-”

“Yuki. I promise your anxiety is lying to you. What are you afraid of?”

“I just want to try it this way and see if he gets it. It’s embarrassing to think about asking him that. We’re close, I know that, but it bothers me that he can do it for so many other people except me.”

Yuzuri, face now patted dry and shiny with lotion, leaned around the doorway again. She raised her eyebrows in a pointed look that Shirayuki chose not to deduce the meaning of. 

“You’re right, you are close. And both of you are idiots. Why a playlist?”

“We’re always listening to music, in the car, at karaoke, at get-togethers,” Shirayuki’s wilting confidence gained a new vigor as she spoke, choosing again to ignore the former half of Yuzuri’s sentence, “I already made one.”

“Please, for the love of all that is holy, let me see what you put on it. So, in short,  you’re planning to use subliminal messaging to convince Obi to say your name?”

“Exactly! I knew you would get it. Well, I guess not exactly. Subliminal messaging isn’t how I would put it.”

“Uh-huh.”

-- 

#obiyukimadness23 #event submission #you called me x #please forgive me #for I know this technically does not have the specified trope IN the submission post #it's leading up to it #and will be published #someday :D

[foxglovedforest]

AND THEY’RE FUCKING CORRECT

#booktok #books #publishing

[thewhumpyprintingpress]

This is a friendly reminder to never, ever publish your book with a publishing company that charges you to publish with them. That is a vanity press, which makes money by preying on authors. They charge you for editing, formatting, cover art, and more. With most of these companies, you will never seen a cent of any royalties made from sale of your book. A legitimate publishing company only makes money when you make money, they will never charge you to publish with them. If a company approaches you and says "Hey, we'll publish your book, just pay us X amount of money," tell them to go fuck themself and block them.

#writeblr #writers of tumblr #psa #whumpblr #writing #publishing

[bebewrites]

woop there it is

#writeblr #publishing

[faffreux]

it's weird to be attracted to an ugly frog like wtf is even your taste in men

i won't argue with you about whether or not fawful is ugly but it is weird yes, i agree

i have long accepted that i am weird

#i'm sorry i had to publish this one bc it's worded so funny #thanks for giving me another ask to add to my funny anon asks folder on my desktop #asks

[shigure]

it's so beethover / we're so bach

#POST #play my friends' rpgmaker game it's cool and fun and they've gotten published in two magazines for it #pp

[intermundia]

this is the single worst way i've ever read to describe an erection, frank herbert

#the next line does call it 'the girder-shape of ecstacy' which is also bad but in a more abstract way than the pure horror of beef #i cannot #children of dune #speaking of how hard it is to write smut #cannot believe these sentences get published lol

[suiheisen]

liberté, egalité, fraternité et yaoi

#love shuttle……. it’s the millennium of omegaverse #a win for fujoshi everywhere #had to look her up and that’s noemie the founder of nao studio publishing #also calling it bl is putting it so delicately #this is full on squelchy invisidick yaoi #anyway if you’re looking for shamelessly id-fulfilling manhwa this is it #it’s love shuttle by aeju #man who has never gone into heat his entire life and insists he is FINE with it #suddenly spontaneously keeps slipping into heat every time a certain alpha is around #and then they fuck nasty in almost every chapter #love shuttle #omegaverse #manga #manhwa #twitter #yaoi #art

[southfarthing]

I'm imagining if tolkien lived now and publishers were asking him if he had enough followers on twitter and if he could film videos to market his found family elfcore magic cottagevibes worldbuilding fantasy book on tiktok. i think he would run them over with his car actually

#literally what is the point of a publisher then if they aren't going to sell the book......... #mp #tolkien #jrrt

[aquitainequeen]

Alarm bells being rung by Maureen Johnson on AI and the Big Publishers

#I've already got academics wanting it put into their contracts that their work CAN'T be used to train AI #This is a scary time #ai MUST be regulated #on publishing #wga strike #sag aftra strike #sag-aftra strike #AUTHORS UNIONIZE

[thegirlhoodtheory]

I WILL BE GOOD AS LONG AS YOU WANT ME, 1/28/24

image from wikimedia commons

#collage #collage art #words #i promise i am also writing poems #also grappling w the fact that i cant get published if i post everything #but! poems soon. i prommy #theories.txt

[avaantares]

Fanfiction Authors: HEADS UP

(Non-authors, please RB to signal boost to your author friends!)

An astute reader informed me this morning that one of my fics (Children of the Future Age) had been pirated and was being sold as a novel on Amazon:

(And they weren't even creative with their cover design. If you're going to pirate something that I spent a full year of my life writing, at least give me a pretty screenshot to brag about later. Seriously.)

I promptly filed a DMCA complaint to have it removed, but I checked out the company that put it up -- Plush Books -- and it looks like A LOT of their books are pirated fic. They are by no means the only ones doing this, either -- the fact that """publishers""" can download stories from AO3 in ebook format and then reupload them to Amazon in just a few clicks makes fic piracy a common problem. There are a whole host of reasons why letting this continue is bad -- including actual legal risk to fanfiction archives -- but basically:

IF YOU ARE A FANFIC AUTHOR WITH LONG AND/OR POPULAR WORKS, PLEASE CHECK AMAZON TO SEE IF YOUR STORIES HAVE BEEN PIRATED.

You can search for your fics by title, or by text from the description (which is often just copied wholesale from AO3 as well). If you find that someone has stolen your work and is selling it as their own, you can lodge a DMCA complaint (Amazon.com/USA site; other countries have different systems). If you haven't done this before, it's easy! Here's a tutorial:

HOW TO FILE A COPYRIGHT COMPLAINT FOR STOLEN WORK ON AMAZON.COM:

First, go to this form. You'll need to be signed into your Amazon account.

Select the radio buttons/dropdown options (shown below) to indicate that you are the legal Rights Owner, you have a copyright concern, and it is about a pirated product.

Enter the name of your story in the Name of Brand field.

In the Link to the Copyrighted Work box, enter a link to the story on AO3 or whatever site your work is posted on.

In the Additional Information box, explain that you are the author of the work and it is being sold without your permission. That's all you really need. If you want, you can include additional information that might be helpful in establishing the validity of your claim, but you don't have to go into great detail. You can simply write something like this:

I am the author of this work, which is being sold by [publisher] without my permission. I originally published this story in [date/year] on [name of site], and have provided a link to the original above. On request, I can provide documentation proving that I am the owner of the account that originally posted this story.

In the ASIN/ISBN-10 field, copy and paste the ID number from the pirated copy's URL. You'll find this ten-digit number in the Amazon URL after the word "product," as in the screenshot below. (If the URL extends beyond this number, you can ignore everything from the question mark on.) Once this number has been added, Amazon will pull the product information automatically and add it to the complaint form, so you can check the listing title and make sure it's correct.

Finally, add your contact information to the relevant fields, check the "I have read and accept the statements" box, and then click Submit. You should receive an email confirmation that Amazon has received the form.

Please share this information with your writer friends, keep an eye out for/report pirated works, and help us keep fanfiction free and legally protected!

NOTE: All of the above also applies to Amazon products featuring stolen artwork, etc., so fan artists should check too!

#fanfiction #ao3 #piracy #dmca #pirated fanfic #please signal boost #i'm mad but also laughing that my dmc fanfic is now a 'number one best selling novel' lol #i'm also a traditionally-published author #so this is both hilarious and deeply insulting to me

[that-butch-archivist]

source: The Wild Good: Lesbian Photographs & Writings on Love, edited by Beatrix Gates

photo titled: "Dyke March 1994" by Morgan Gwenwald

#lesbian #lesbian literature #dyke #dyke literature #archived #thatbutcharchivist #dyke march #dyke march 1994 #lesbian history #lesbian photography #author: beatrix gates #photographer: morgan gwenwald #the wild good #year: 1996 #publisher: anchor books #publisher: doubleday dell publishing group inc. #butch #butch dyke #butch lesbian #why does it look alright while i'm editing and then hitting the finished button is like unleashing an entirely different monster #ai yai yai #i'll figure it out #asian lesbian

[malcolmschmitz]

So, there's a dirty little secret in indie publishing a lot of people won't tell you, and if you aren't aware of it, self-publishing feels even scarier than it actually is.

There's a subset of self-published indie authors who write a ludicrous number of books a year, we're talking double digit releases of full novels, and these folks make a lot of money telling you how you can do the same thing. A lot of them feature in breathless puff pieces about how "competitive" self-publishing is as an industry now.

A lot of these authors aren't being completely honest with you, though. They'll give you secrets for time management and plotting and outlining and marketing and what have you. But the way they're able to write, edit, and publish 10+ books a year, by and large, is that they're hiring ghostwriters.

They're using upwork or fiverr to find people to outline, draft, edit, and market their books. Most of them, presumably, do write some of their own stuff! But many "prolific" indie writers are absolutely using ghostwriters to speed up their process, get higher Amazon best-seller ratings, and, bluntly, make more money faster.

When you see some godawful puff piece floating around about how some indie writer is thinking about having to start using AI to "stay competitive in self-publishing", the part the journalist isn't telling you is that the 'indie writer' in question is planning to use AI instead of paying some guy on Upwork to do the drafting.

If you are writing your books the old fashioned way and are trying to build a readerbase who cares about your work, you don't need to use AI to 'stay competitive', because you're not competing with these people. You're playing an entirely different game.

#on writing #self-publishing #ai discourse #publishing #my freaking industry #indie publishing

[colleendoran]

LINK

#comics #publishing

[darcyolsson]

look i dislike the corporate artstyle book cover trend as much as the next person but we cant pretend every book looking the same is something new. if you stepped into a bookstore in 2013 there would be approximately 57 books whose cover art consisted of a girl in a ballgown with her back half-turned to the camera photoshopped into a vaguely fantasy-like landscape. i was 11 years old fighting for my life to find the right maximalistic girl and her single-adjective book title we cannot forget the horrors i went through please be respectful of my experiences

#and after that every book had a logo on it and a title like an x of y and z #and now its minimalism and titles like the hating kiss game #publishing trends are forever.... #personal