#libby speaks

[anexthetxc]

Update: condo still has no power. Lockdown was lifted from the hospital so I’m at my parents house bc somehow they didn’t lose power, however the storm knocked out their WiFi.

Parking lot at my condo is completely underwater but my house is safe thankfully! I return back to work this weekend.

Unsure when/if replies can be done due to still not having WiFi (or power) and I have to work Saturday and Sunday despite having work 56 hours this week already. Healthcare is fun 🙃

Thank you everyone for your patience!

[adlibbed-adventures]

I FUCKING HATE THIS GODDAMN PACT. SOME ASTROLOGICAL SHIT HAPPENS AND ZURITHRA DECIDES IT’S TIME FOR HER WHORE ASS TO POSSESS ME AND TURN MY HEAD 180 DEGREES BECAUSE IT’S, LIKE, SILLY FUNNY HAHA OR SOMETHING????

Fuck. Okay. New journal, I guess. Gotta be formal and shit about it, introduce myself, that whole thing. Y’know, I don’t think anyone will ever read this (because if I’m not dead and I catch you doing that shit, you’re going to be heading that way pretty fucking fast) but I have a headache, Kaen is asleep, and I want to bitch about something, so there.

[downrightbooks]

Here’s your reminder that even Rohan thought that Tobias Hawthorne was awful.

(I love Rohan so much 🤭)

[no1bookgirl]

what if eve and her gang fuckingn blow up hawthorne island in glorious rivals

[girderednerve]

Low quality books that appear to be AI generated are making their way into public libraries via their digital catalogs, forcing librarians who are already understaffed to either sort through a functionally infinite number of books to determine what is written by humans and what is generated by AI, or to spend taxpayer dollars to provide patrons with information they don’t realize is AI-generated.

With Hoopla, librarians have to opt into Hoopla’s entire catalog, then pay for whatever their customers choose to borrow from that catalog. The only way librarians can limit what Hoopla books their customers can borrow is by setting a limit on the price of books. For example, a library can use Hoopla but make it so their customers can only borrow books that cost the library $5 per use.

“Investigating these authors, their book covers, their social media, etc takes A LOT OF TIME, especially with the volume of questionable material increasing month to month (and that's not including the sheer amount of legitimate books published each month in adult fiction that I'm looking at),” one librarian who asked to remain anonymous so she could talk openly about her job, told me. “Is it the best use of my time doing this work on top of my other duties when customers may or may not care? And with the rising multitudes of AI generated content, will there come a point where it just ‘is what it is?’”

This type of low quality, AI generated content, is what we at 404 Media and others have come to call AI slop. Librarians, whose job it is in part to curate what books their community can access, have been dealing with similar problems in the publishing industry for years, and have a different name for it: vendor slurry. While the term now encompasses what seems like AI-generated content as well, it predates the rise of generative AI, and also refers to the glut of low quality, often self-published ebooks or book “summaries” that are common on Hoopla. As some librarians told me, the sheer quantity of books in Hoopla’s service makes it seem more valuable because it offers such a large number of books, but in reality that number is misleadingly inflated by this slurry.

Several of the librarians I talked to said that they are worried about discussing [the problems raised by Hoopla's weak, unclear selection policies, including the 2022 inclusion of explicitly white nationalist texts,] because of the growing hostility towards libraries and groups like Moms for Liberty demanding that books about LGBTQ rights, race, and ethnicity be removed from libraries. One the one hand, librarians want to curate their collections and make sure their patrons are getting access to quality information. On the other hand, they don’t want people to think that they are trying to censor what materials patrons can access in way that’s comparable to what organizations like Moms for Liberty want. None of the librarians I talked to suggested the AI-generated content needed to be banned from Hoopla and libraries only because it is AI-generated. It might have its place, but it needs to be clearly labeled, and more importantly, provide borrowers with quality information.

[queer-book-character-tournament]

You know what's ironic is all the people putting hate in the tags won't be able to vote on any future polls once they're blocked. They're ruining their chances of future victory.

Correct! But I just think that’s fair: if you’re going to ruin the fun for everyone else by being mean spirited why should you get to participate in the future fun? You don’t have to like every book submitted. There’s a lot of them; that’s very improbable. I certainly don’t like every book submitted. But it’s legitimately easier and less time consuming to say nothing than to be hateful, and also it is just literally not that deep.

These polls are silly and for fun and if you’re getting legitimately mad about them to the point that you’re hating on the competition it’s maybe time to log off. This is also a competition second and a convoluted way to recommend/find new books first. So before logging off maybe look into some of the other books submitted! Maybe one of them will calm you down! I mean this genuinely, there are so many books in round one every time this tournament happens. Read something you’ve never heard of that someone else loved enough to submit that got knocked out early because no one’s heard of it, and feel some connection to your fellow queer book fans and be reminded that this is a hobby. Reading/fandom/this tournament. It’s a hobby we’re all sharing so we should be nice to each other and appreciate that.

[definitelyimportantpost]

Every single one of my EO caster-types (Fynn, Eunith, Mori, Libby) has Some Bad Shit going on EXCEPT for Alice who's having a bang-up time blowing things up and listening to gossip at the pub

[xoxochb]

finally relating to breakup songs because this boy just brought all my hopes down 😁

[juliens-bakery]

happy hanif book release day to those who celebrate!!

[anexthetxc]

we're still under construction here, however enough is built up I feel confident to throw out a starter call for anyone who is interested. Always open for muse preferences if you'd like to let me know!

[adlibbed-adventures]

I started my last journal with how the group and I met, ‘cause all my stuff got taken by this asshole called Abbas, and we met right after. And I guess it’s a good place to start, right? If I go back to telling you stories from when I was a kid, I’m going to have to buy another one of these pretty fast. So I guess I’ll leave the kid stories for another time and start with Abbas. Again.

About five months back, I had the shitty luck of running into some of Abbas’ friends near this dig site I was helping with. I got knocked out and hauled to his slaver camp just south of Durbin. That’s where I met the group. Turns out we’d all been snatched up by Abbas. Gnoll bastard was just taking what he could get, I think. Elves like Kaen are valuable, apparently, but I dunno why he thought Ibrahim or I were worth his time. I guess it worked out, though, ‘cause instead of being sold off to who-knows-where I had my cuffs picked by Tuum and we all snuck out when a sandstorm hit.

I think we were all going to split up, at first. No reason for five random strangers - well, technically, six, but I'll save that for another time - to stick together, especially since Ibrahim's little bitch boy behaviour was already starting to show. Thing is, we all met the same lady a week before any of this happened, and she gave everyone a prophecy that basically said we had to stick together or, like, die, I guess. Here's mine:

I see in your future a time of uncertainty and terror. I see a sun outlined in black, its light withering all that falls under its gaze. I see you tied to a table with twelve shadowy figures surrounding you, each with claws ready to rend your soul. I see a grinning night sky and a void devoid of stars lurking over your shoulder. I see a net of obsidian seeking to entrap you, yet it is held back by five blazing, luminous stars. I see a lion, a thorn in its paw as it gazes with menace at a mouse wearing your face. My vision ends here - you must find these stars and avoid the embrace of the dark, my child.

I've never been super into the whole prophecy future-reading wand-waving magic trick shit, but some of that has actually happened. So. Yeah. I guess sticking together might have been the right call. Anyway, once we snuck out, we went to Durbin, and then from there we got moving. Oh, and we started a caravan - but that's gonna have to be a story for later, 'cause my hand is cramping and I'm really, really hungry all of a sudden. I'm blaming it on the demon possession.

[tornrose24]

I started writing this chapter after I finished rewatching the entire series. I had rewatched the finale an hour or so before I began to type. I needed to be able to heal from something I had no control over–something that could have been different, had the story been mine to tell.

[inhayara]

I just started reading Neverwhere and was it intentional to make Richard Mayhew so adhd-coded or did the universe just decide to call me out through this character for no reason-

[libraryleopard]

If You Still Recognise Me by Cynthia So

I wonder how adults learn to live with this feeling that the past is always growing bigger, that you’re always losing more of yourself to it.

I take no credit for any photos

[katranga]

😖😖😖😖

[hyephyep]

i keep going through the same conversation with myself.

"i'm really enjoying this audiobook but i wish it had captions"

"wait that's just a book"

"well maybe audiobooks should come with the book. as standard practice"

"wouldn't that make audiobooks more expensive though?"

"shit. probably"