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Euripides’ Bacchae, 405 BC (colorized)

Expanse Text Posts 11/?

Too many writers are using generative 'AI' to make their book covers, so I've written a guide on how to make your own cover for free or cheap without turning to a machine.

If you can't afford to pay an artist, you CAN make your own!

I hope this is a helpful overview that covers the basics and points to some free resources.

I annoyed my cat by writing this and not playing with her; you might find it useful?

This is a fantastic guide not only to the technical aspect of cover design but the aesthetic aspect as well!

This is GREAT STUFF. Highly recommend! Exactly the techniques I have used on covers in the past, and they look great!

Life-changing OCD hack is learning that you can literally call poison control to check if you fucked up and took medications wrong in a way that could kill you instead of having a panic attack while reading reddit and quora threads for an hour. They won't even be mad at you. Like obviously don't do it every day or something but genuinely you can do this if you need to

as people turn more and more towards the internet as a first choice for information, poison control (which has rebranded as poison help? i think?) is seeing fewer and fewer callers

part of this is because the USAmerican birth rates have slowed, and the number 1 culprit for why you'd call poison control is kids under 5 put shit in their mouths all the time

but part of it is BECAUSE people are turning to the internet first

and you don't have to! poison control is FREE and available in EVERY US STATE AND TERRITORY

they are staffed 24/7 365 days a year! they do everything they can to minimize wait times and they have an ENORMOUS database of medications, household cleaners, chemicals, pesticides, and MORE! and not only information on JUST those things, but how they interact with other things! they can even give you advice on if your pet ingests something they shouldn't!

but poison control isn't federally funded! they're a frankenstein mishmash of state funded, federally funded, and a couple of other weird ones (like organizations helping with funding) just for flavor. poison control NEEDS you to be politically aware. keep a finger on local and state politics; if your state is voting to shut down their poison control center, make sure your reps hear about how pissed you are!

poison control saves lives, but even more than that, it keeps people out of emergency rooms and walk-ins when they don't have to be. when Louisiana closed its PCC in 1988, people who called the PCC hotline were instructed to call their local hospital instead. the number of medically-treated poisonings rose by 42%...meaning ERs and walk-ins were flooded with people who'd taken, say, one extra pill of ibuprofen by accident, or got a bit of rubbing alcohol in their mouth, or got their dog's flea medicine on their skin. stuff that was SCARY, sure...but wouldn't have needed medical care at all if there had just been someone to tell those people you can just wash your mouth out, or wash your skin, or refrain from taking any more ibuprofen for at least 24 hours!

anyway help ur local PCC, put the pressure on your political reps, and if you ever have questions like "hypothetically what would happen if you inhaled iodine," you can call 1 800 222 1222 and speak with a real live reassuring person any time day or night!

Image example of what I'm talking about:

his suckers

If anyones interested in learning about the first black vampire short story, published in 1819, heres a link to the wiki, its called The Black Vampyre, and its about a former slave turned vampire who seeks revenge on his slave master. Its actually a first in many categories!

you can read the story itself here

Not only is it the first Black vampire story, it's the first comedic vampire story, the first story to include a mixed race vampire, the first vampire story by an American author, and probably the first anti-slavery short story. Some scholars believe that the text was written in response to John William Polidori's The Vampyre.

Here is the actual pdf from the site since you have to click around from the above link to actually get to it

That's it. That's the dream. I'm almost mad that that's the dream.

That's half the dream. The other half is being fairie fucking godmother to everyone on the planet.

See, I had 100k for a hot minute. Doesn't matter why. But for nearly a calendar year, I picked up the tab every chance I got, i lavished people with gifts, I took a friend to Greece, I paid for healthcare for myself and a few other people, for lawyers to help someone get out of an abusive marriage, Christmas presents for a single mom of 3.

It felt incredible. Just to take away the worry and say, "I've got you." Instacart groceries to a grieving friend of a friend across town. Pay the unexpected car repairs. Gift a young artist a yearlong subscription to Procreate.

That's why I'll never understand billionaires. If you could fix it, if money could actually make even one life better, why would you not do it? Even just for the kick? Hell, i don't care if it feeds your ego. Be Tony Stark, be Superman, idgaf. When you'll never be able to spend all that you have, even if you some up every damn day like it was your job, if you could end world hunger six times over for the price of a social media company, why wouldn't you just DO IT?

I don't have a coherent conclusion to this, except that if I ever meet Jeff Bezos, I'll beat him to death with my bare fists.

We are thrilled to announce a special partnership to celebrate the release of Ocean Vuong's forthcoming novel, The Emperor of Gladness!⁠ ⁠ For every book preordered, Penguin Press will make a donation to Queer Liberation Library, an organization dedicated to connecting LGBTQ+ people with literature, information, and resources that celebrate the unique and empowering diversity of the community.⁠ ⁠ How to participate: ⁠ A donation will be made regardless of format, where you purchased your book, or when (as long as it's before publication on May 13) when you fill out the preorder form online: visit www.prh.com/emperorofgladness ⁠ Please note this campaign is US only.

once more for the evening crowd, because can you mc-freaking-believe-it?!?!? QLL + Ocean Vuong collab

[redacted] just jumped off a bridge and there's still 150 pages left in this book! girl what! i was not ready for the forces you represent to be removed from the narrative!

#op are you trying not to spoil 1862 novel les miserables

yes. did it work

no matter how hard i try i will always be that little girl wondering why everyone is better friends with eachother than her and begging to be loved

in another life we're all on the playground sitting by the fence in the grass together and we all have eachother. maybe not here but somewhere it wasn't like this.

unnecessary quotation mark appreciation board

There are few things as profoundly funny as unnecessary/ominous quotations.

yeah this is a self-evident biological hierarchy. that's why we have to enforce it with violence

I’m reading the Carrette & King book Selling Spirituality and I feel like its analysis explains a lot about one of the central weirdnesses of American religion, which is that “progressivism” appears almost exclusively as a commitment to sexual liberation/diversity. A “progressive” church or synagogue is one that welcomes LGBT families and, like, celebrates Pride month. This is certainly important, but it’s perplexing why this element of progressivism should have become so radically separated from others (providing meaningful support for refugees, migrants, the homeless, people in prison, etc, for instance). Carrette and King’s argument about how spirituality became a practice of the atomized individual in ways that allows it to be mobilized by neoliberalism makes a lot of sense.