the road to fascism, for a lot of liberals and leftists, is the need to be the Cleverest Boy. if you always have to be the Smartest Lad In Class you are eventually going to either become a fascist or like. A useful idiot

Love the retro-but-not look of Tony’s Chocolonely

Some of it is simply that most romance is written & published on a very short timeline. No one wants to pay for a realistic clinch painting, let alone a rush fee 🫠 I always see people saying we should go back to the classic approach, but publishers are NOT interested in putting up the money

From my experience as a romance cover designer: this shift was to get around censorship on social media and app stores (for digital reading apps)!

(Not that it’s GOOD. It was a stopgap measure to get around pearl clutching. And now it’s thrown off The Vibe.)

I worked as a cover designer for romance novels for years! The company I worked for was constantly dealing with ads being nuked & the app being removed from appstores because the photo covers were deemed too sexual in nature. The pivot to illustrations started as a way for us to get around that!

Oh my god after my fretting this super-sensitive friend was totally chill about it. Truly never know what will trigger them. Boss is hot and cold. Friends are hot and cold. I deserve a medal for having to deal with all these wild cards all the time

I’ve spent over an hour fretting about this and crafting a message that won’t make them catastrophize that I’m mad at them instead of writing