#please do support your local library by borrowing from them if possible

[quicktimeeventfull]

also look you didn’t hear this for me but barely any libraries require you to present any sort of proof of residency for electronic library cards anymore so if yours sucks you can just spoof the address of one that doesn’t

[absolutely-existing]

please tell a story

Hi! Sorry I took so long to respond, here it is!

She is hidden, at last, safe from the watchful eyes of the people in her town — oh god, their eyes, sharp and piercing, always keeping an eye on her, and now they will never see her again.

Deep in the forest, she is wide awake as the moon passes over the tree she is perched in, and her amber eyes glint, reflecting the moonlight before the dark, heavy clouds cover it, predicting a storm to come, and she frowns, unsure where she will shelter in the rain.

It took a while, but now she has a place to stay, safe. It’s waterproofed by large leaves and supported by trees, and she remembers that she learned this from her parents, endless days when they taught her how to survive before they died, leaving her with them.

She’d stayed with them for two years, two years of preparation, of stocking up supplies and learning all she could from the books in the town library, one of the only places she wasn’t constantly watching her back, a place of stolen hours, somewhere she could hide.

At last, the moment she’d been preparing for arrived, and she ran.

She ran, and now she is here, waiting in the trees for her acquaintance in one of the neighbouring towns to contact her.

He’d promised, but perhaps she’d been naïve to trust him —or what passed for trust in her life: a decision to hear what the other person said, and not to sell them out to the authorities.

Shaking off the thought, she grabbed the spear she’d fashioned out of a tree branch she’d whittled with the knife she’d stolen, sharpening the tip until it drew blood, and hardening it on a small fire she’d lit, and extinguished as soon as possible, wary of the thin trail of smoke betraying her location.

Her steps almost silent on the forest floor, carefully avoiding the fallen leaves, the twigs that snapped and the bugs everywhere.

After a short stroll, she found exactly what she was looking for.

The snake hissed as she drew her spear.

And shot.

She’d hit it, deadly accuracy from years of practice, and as she retrieved the body, careful, picking up her spear (she’d wash it in the nearby river later) and starting the trek back to what she’d come to refer to as her home.

And froze.

There was someone in her home!

He was sitting on a log close to the entrance, flicking through a book. Sensing hee gaze, he looked up and… it was only her acquaintance.

“What are you doing here?” she hissed, glaring at him, “were you followed? what were you thinking!”

He half-smiled at her, “nice to see you too, Am—”

“Do not call me that.”

Nodding, he looked around, “nice place you’ve made.” It was empty flattery, but as complements go, not the worst she’d received.

“Thanks. Care to explain why you’re here?”

At this, he sobered, face grave, “they’ve found me. I needed somewhere to stay, and I knew you wouldn’t sell me out.” At this, she raised her eyebrow, but her anger faded; she knew what it was like to be scared of the local townspeople, with their unnerving stares and harsh looks, always directed at her.

Briskly, she nodded at him, “I’ll let you stay, but you can make your own shelter, and you can borrow my extra spear.”

And over time, they were joined by another corespondent, and her younger siblings, a brother and sister.

And slowly, more people arrived, against all odds leaving their villages for the community she’d formed.

It took a while to get used too, but she welcomed it, making friends out of strangers, sitting by the embers of a fire as they laughed, and talked, and hugged.

She should’ve known it was too good to last.

Someone wasn’t careful, or the fire was too big and the smoke was too obvious, or there had been a traitor. It didn’t matter.

They were here.

There wasn’t anything she could do, other than grab her spear, and go down fighting.

The last thing she saw was the man who’d took her in leaning over her body —she was lying on the ground, bleeding. The pain would be over soon anyway, she mused, grimly, to herself. He was holding a sword.

The last thing she heard was him saying was the name she’d left behind years ago when she ran away, eventually taking a new one.

“Goodbye, Amberlyn.” And stabbed her.

Sooo that was fun! Thanks for the ask, @writingandwritten.

[jammatown919]

Best Laid Plans

Several months ago, an anon asked me to write a piece in which the group tries to play matchmaker for Ruby and Penny. This is what that turned into. 

Ruby liked Vacuo better than she'd thought she would. Sure, it was unbearably hot most days and a fair amount of the locals seemed rather disgruntled about having more refugees around, especially Atlesian ones,  but she'd take this over Atlas any day.

She was especially relived that she and her group had been allowed to enroll as students at Shade Academy rather than having their Huntsmen licenses renewed. They hadn't been at all ready for the position when General Ironwood had offered it to them, and while there was still a lot to worry about, everyone was glad to have some of the pressure taken off of them. Unfortunately, however, the lowered stress and extra free time had given them an opportunity to concern themselves with things that absolutely did not require their attention, such as Ruby's love life.

Two weeks ago, Ruby had made the horrible mistake of confiding in Yang about her crush on Penny, which had resulted in most of the rest of their friends knowing about it too. Most of them were alright about it, but Yang and Nora were absolutely hellbent on playing matchmaker, and they weren't taking no for an answer.

Every single time one of them caught Ruby alone, they'd plead with her for permission to set up a date so everyone wouldn't have to watch her 'pining' anymore, and no matter how many times she said she didn't want to burden Penny with her feelings, they persisted. Eventually she'd started trying to avoid them altogether, which was a lot easier with Nora than it was with Yang, considering they shared a room.

On their second Friday living at Shade Academy, also the second Friday since Ruby had confided in her sister, Yang found Ruby alone in the dorm and made what felt like her millionth plea of the week.

"For the last time," Ruby snapped, flopping down on her bed. "I don't want you to set up a date! It'll just make everything awkward."

She was trying to keep her cool, but honestly, this was starting to piss her off. This was none of Yang's business, or Nora's for that matter. She didn't need their input.

"Oh, come on, Ruby!" Yang groaned, her voice laced with exasperation. "You have to know she's into you!"

"Give me one good reason to believe she actually likes me back." Ruby retorted, rolling her eyes as Yang let out a dry laugh.

"I'll give you ten reasons," she said confidently. "You two are basically attached at the hip, she gets that little pouty face every time she gets told she can't pair with you for combat training, you literally share a bed-"

"Only because there weren't enough beds when we moved in!" Ruby quickly sat up, warmth rushing to her face.

"Yeah, but when Blake and I starting sharing, I asked Penny if she wanted my old bed and she just about cried." Yang replied. "Unless you want to sit here and argue that all of that is platonic, you know she likes you back. So why won't you just talk to her about it?"

"Look," Ruby sighed. "Even if you're right, I just don't want to give her anything else to worry about. She just lost her home, she's still getting used to being the Winter Maiden, and now she has all this human stuff to deal with. She needs my support right now, and I don't want to accidentally push her away."

Yang's expression softened at that, and she slowly crossed the room to sit down beside Ruby.

"I get that," she said quietly, suddenly much more sympathetic than frustrated. "And I know I'm being kind of pushy, but I don't want you to miss out. This could be your only chance for a while to actually go on dates and have fun with her."

Ruby let out another, heavier sigh and leaned back onto her hands, tilting her face toward the ceiling.

Yang was right. They might have a respite now, but Salem could show up any day. This chance to be students again wasn't going to last forever. They were getting to be kids one last time, and that would be over the moment Salem made herself known again. Then there would be no dates or time to worry about feelings, probably just regrets if she didn't do this now.

"What do I even say to her?" she asked quietly. "I've never liked someone like this before. What if I screw something up?"

"Just be honest with her." Yang put an arm around Ruby's shoulders and gave her a gentle squeeze. "Tell her how you feel, ask her if she wants to go out, and let Nora and I take care of the rest. We'll find a nice place for you to go, and I'll tell you everything I know about impressing girls."

She winked good-naturedly and released Ruby, who then took a deep breath and stood. She didn't feel even remotely prepared for this, but there was a decent chance it could be now or never.

"I'm gonna go see if I can find her." Ruby decided, steeling herself. She made her way toward the door, giving her sister a nervous grin over her shoulder as she left. "Wish me luck."

---------------------

Ruby found Penny an hour later in Shade's library, sitting at one of the tables with a pile of books. From the looks of it, she'd been here a while, possibly making her way through a series.

"Hey," Ruby said quietly as she reached Penny's table. "What are you reading?"

Penny glanced up, looking mildly startled.

"Oh, it's just a fantasy story," she replied sheepishly, lowering the book in her hands. "It's a bit silly, but I've never had time to just sit and read before. I'm finding it quite enjoyable!"

"That's good." Ruby smiled and took a seat across from Penny, clasping her hands anxiously in her lap. "Sorry if I'm interrupting you or anything, I just wanted to ask you something."

"Of course." Penny put her book down and leaned forward attentively.

"I was just wondering if, um..." Ruby squeezed her fingers, trying to steady her voice long enough to get the question out. "If you wanted to... go out with me sometime? Like, on a date? I-If not, it's totally cool, I just... y'know..."

Penny blinked at her slowly, and Ruby shrank back as much as the chair would allow her to.

"A date?" Penny inquired.

"Yeah," Ruby replied, her face burning. Dear God please let her know what a date is, she thought frantically. "I really like you, like more than just a friend. I've been wanting to tell you for a while, but I was scared of making you uncomfortable, but then I realized that with everything going on I might not get another chance for a while, and- Penny?"

Caught up in her rant, it had taken Ruby far to long to realize that Penny wasn't listening to her. Instead, she was just staring blankly, her expression completely unreadable.

"Are you okay?" Ruby leaned across the table and waved her hand in front of Penny's face. "Are you bluescreening?"

Back when she'd had a mechanical body, Penny had occasionally 'bluescreened' when struggling to process some new piece of information. She usually snapped out of it within a few minutes, so Ruby wasn't particularly concerned, but she had to admit she was surprised that Penny was still doing it even in a human body.

"Yes." Penny said suddenly, shaking herself a bit.

"I- what?"

"Yes, I will go on a date with you." Penny clarified, her face turning slightly pink. "I like you too, quite a lot."

"Really?" Ruby's shoulders sagged with relief, and she couldn't help the grin spreading across her face.

"Of course." Penny said with a little smile. "I would have said something much sooner if I had thought you might feel the same way."

"How could I not?" Ruby asked softly. "You're so sweet and beautiful and kind. It was kind of impossible not to fall in love with you."

Penny's blush intensified, and she looked away bashfully.

"You are all of those things too." she replied, her voice quiet and shy.

Ruby chuckled softly, then straightened herself and cleared her throat before either them could get any more flustered.

"So," she went on. "I was thinking maybe we could do dinner tomorrow around six? Or, well, Yang was thinking that, but I have no idea how to plan dates so I'm just listening to what she says."

"That sounds perfect." Penny said enthusiastically.

"Great," Ruby smiled and rose from her seat. "I'll let you get back to your reading. See you tomorrow."

Ruby turned to leave, barely hearing Penny's quiet "Goodnight," as she rushed out of the library. The moment the doors slammed shut behind her, she let out a loud, shaky laugh. She'd done it. She'd actually done it. She'd managed to land herself a date, and now all she had to do was survive it.

--------------------

Penny had to admit, she'd been surprised to hear that her best friend had a crush on her. Delighted, of course, but so very surprised. She'd been planning to keep her own feelings a secret forever, lest Ruby find them unusual or inappropriate, but that was no longer necessary. Ruby shared the same feelings, and apparently they were quite normal.

It was a relief to know that, but Penny couldn't say that all of her anxieties had been quelled. According to Ruby, the next step after confessing their feelings was going on a date together, a concept with which Penny was not particularly familiar. She had a basic idea of how it was supposed to work, but she wasn't sure of the correct way to behave or what she was supposed to say while they were out.

Penny had gone to Nora with these concerns, hoping for some friendly advice, and had been promptly and quite literally dragged into Team JNPR's dorm room for a pre-date pep talk.

"You really don't have all that much to worry about." Nora said as she worked on lacing up the back of Penny's dress. It was quite similar to one she'd worn to Beacon's dance; light green, knee-length, and very soft. She'd borrowed it from an upperclassman named Velvet, who she knew by association due to her team's friendship with Team RWBY.

"But what if I say something wrong?" Penny asked anxiously, running her fingers through her hair. She'd already brushed through it twice, but perhaps one more time couldn't hurt.

"What would you say wrong?" Nora inquired as she finished with the dress. "You two are already friends, so you don't have to deal with any of that 'getting to know each other' business. Just go and have fun. And make sure you laugh at all her jokes."

"All of them?" Penny echoed unenthusiastically. Her sense of humor was quite different from the majority of her friends, and she sometimes had trouble discerning whether something was a joke. How would she know what to laugh at?

"Unless they're offensive or something, but it's Ruby so I doubt that." Nora shrugged and grabbed a bit of Penny's hair, gently fluffing it out. "Think you're ready?"

"Maybe?" Penny replied. "Do I look presentable?"

"You're gorgeous, Pebbles." Nora turned Penny around so they were face to face, placing two firm, comforting hands on her friend's shoulders. "Everything's gonna be fine, okay? You've gone places with Ruby hundreds of times; just act how you normally would."

"Okay." Penny nodded. She could do that.

----------------

The restaurant Penny had been invited to was a small café hardly a stone's throw from Shade's campus. From what Penny could tell, it seemed to be primarily frequented by the school's students, as the majority of the people sitting in the outdoor area were wearing school uniforms.

Of the three that were not, one was Ruby, clad in a black top and bright red skirt that just barely reached her knees. She spotted Penny from her table near the café's front window and waved her over with a shy smile.

"Hey," she greeted softly as Penny approached. "You look really nice."

"As do you." Penny replied politely, sincerely hoping that the grin on her face didn't look too silly. She stood there awkwardly for a moment before taking a seat, leaning forward so their table's umbrella could better protect her fair skin from the sun.

For a good two minutes, they sat there in silence, Ruby seemingly avoiding eye contact and Penny quietly fidgeting while she tried to think of something to say.

"This place is pretty cool, right?" Ruby offered at last, glancing in Penny's direction.

"I think it's quite hot, actually." Penny replied. Ruby let out a soft chuckle, and she quickly realized her mistake. "Oh! You meant- yes, it's very cool."

Penny briefly averted her gaze as her face grew warm, but she was saved from any further embarrassment by the arrival of a tired-looking waitress.

"Have you two decided on anything?" she asked, placing two glasses of water down on the table. As she did so, she fixed Penny with the same vaguely suspicious look every Atlesian refugee had been receiving from the locals.

It wasn't entirely uncalled for, considering everything her nation had done to theirs, but it made her uncomfortable nonetheless.

"Um..." Penny glanced down at the menu, eager to get the waitress's eyes off of her. Impulsively, she ordered the first thing she saw. "The fried scorpion, please."

"I'll have the same." Ruby said immediately.

"Interesting choice." The waitress remarked as she took their menus. 'For a couple of outsiders' was implied.

Penny watched her walk away, mildly dreading the sight of what she would return with.

"What the hell did we just order?" Ruby mumbled, so softly that Penny couldn't be entirely certain the words were for her.

"It will likely be fine," she answered anyway. "Scorpion is a common dish here."

"Yeah, I guess." Ruby replied, once again avoiding eye contact. Penny's brow furrowed and she leaned a bit closer to her date over the table.

Ruby seemed remarkably uncomfortable, wringing her hands and glancing about as if searching for a way out of the situation. Did she not want to be here? Had Penny done something wrong?

If so, she hadn't the slightest clue what her mistake could have been, but relationships were so complicated that she wouldn't be surprised if she'd broken some unspoken rule. Perhaps she'd missed a joke she was supposed to laugh at, or-

"Penny?"

Penny was jolted out of her thoughts, only just realizing that Ruby was waving a hand in front of her face. She blinked hard, mildly startled.

"Are you okay?" Ruby asked gently.

"Yes," Penny said with a quick nod. "Yes, I'm fine."

"You've got to stop bluescreening on me." Ruby gave her a small, kind smile. "What were you trying to figure out?"

Penny hesitated briefly. She almost didn't want to say it for fear that she might be right. Yet again, if she had somehow messed up the date, she wanted to know what she'd done wrong.

"It's just..." she began eventually. "You seem as if you don't want to be here. I was wondering if maybe I did something wrong? Or if you regret asking me out?"

"Of course not!" Ruby's eyes widened in mild alarm. "What made you think that?"

"You just seem so uncomfortable." For emphasis, Penny mimicked the hand-wringing motion Ruby had been doing. "I was worried you thought this was a mistake."

"God, no," Ruby reached across the table and gently took Penny's hands in her own. "You didn't do anything wrong, Penny. Asking you out was not a mistake."

She brushed her thumbs along the backs of Penny's hands; an intimate gesture, if Penny remembered correctly.

"I think letting someone else plan this for us might have been a mistake, though." Ruby admitted. "I don't think I'm really a dinner date person."

"What do you mean?" Penny inquired.

"I mean this all feels a little... stuffy, I guess." Ruby shrugged. "I don't like sitting here in formalwear trying to make awkward conversation with a bunch of other people around. This doesn't feel like us, y'know?"

"I think I understand." Penny nodded slowly. She had to admit, this wouldn't have been her first choice of venue either. "What do you think would feel like us?"

"Do you remember that night with the fireflies?" Ruby asked. Penny nodded again, a small smile spreading across her face. "That felt like us. It was just you and me having fun, enjoying nature and stuff."

"That was a very special night," Penny agreed fondly. "But I do not believe we would be able to recreate it here. As far as I know, no species of a firefly is native to Vacuo."

"It doesn't have to be exactly the same." Ruby seemed thoughtful for a moment, quietly drumming her fingers on the table. "What if we went up on the roof of Shade's dorms? We could be alone and just enjoy each other's company."

"I like the sound of that." Penny almost stood up, but suddenly remembered that they'd already ordered. Would it be considered rude to leave?

"It's alright," Ruby seemed to read Penny's mind as she rose from her seat. "I don't think it counts as dining and dashing if we haven't gotten our food yet."

Penny supposed that made sense. She hesitated a moment longer before standing up, glad that she wouldn't have to see that waitress again. Ruby extended her arm, and Penny linked it with her own as they began walking away from the restaurant. As soon as they'd cleared the tables, Ruby visibly relaxed.

"This already feels better," she remarked.

"It does." Penny agreed. They walked together in silence for a few minutes, Penny's face growing warm as an unfamiliar sensation spread throughout her body.

Suddenly overtaken with boldness, Penny leaned over and pressed her lips to Ruby's cheek, holding them there for a moment before slowly pulling away. Ruby's eyes widened in surprise, but she didn't seem at all bothered.

"Was that... okay?"

"It was more than okay," Ruby replied, glancing over at Penny with a smile. "That was perfect."

"It seems our night has been salvaged." Penny smiled back at her, faltering briefly as Ruby rested her head on her shoulder.

"Yeah," she said, her warm breath tickling the skin of Penny's neck. "It has."

--

If you enjoyed this piece, please consider reblogging to share it with others and help the post gain a bit of traction! It would absolutely make my day and make the three months I spent trying to finish this feel worth it! 

[americangirlstar]

Did you know pirating books negatively impacts libraries, independent bookstores, and authors? Even if you can't afford to buy the books, you can borrow them from a library and still legally support authors. If your local library doesn't have the books they might be able to borrow them from another library for you and you might just have to pay a small fee. Please consider doing this if possible instead of pirating books since authors, independent bookstores, and libraries are struggling.

1. I understand your concern but we are talking about multimillion dollar company American Girl, not independent authors trying to make a living

2. Fun fact! I made this Drive for a friend who lives in a country that doesn't get AG books and thus has to rely on ebooks that AG only barely releases, and made it public to help people in similar situations. Nook is the first time I've seen half the listed ebooks for sale, let alone existing, and I've been actively looking for them for months now. Joss isn't even on ebook, I had to rip a pdf from a quarantine release. AG doesn’t sell any of the mysteries anymore. Some of this shit is hard to find and you know what if I can help someone out I will!

[earthstellar]

I've dreamed of getting to read that book, what's the name of your library? I wanna see if I can try their online loan, that would be absolutely amazing!

Unfortunately my local library only has their full digital collection available to registered residents of my London borough, as the online collection is supported by the local borough Council through a particular book loan scheme, and it's a whole thing. :(

HOWEVER, I briefly worked for this library myself, so let me give you some pro tip advice here (hopefully this can be helpful for a lot of people in general):

How to Request the TFP Art Book from your Local Library:

1) Locate a public library in your area.

You may also be able to request this book via your school or university library if you have access to any institutional libraries!

2) Determine if they have an online rental or digital book service.

This should be shown somewhere on their website, but you may need to dig a little as not all libraries will display this on their main page for various reasons!

3) Using their general contact email, or if they have one, contact them via any specific loans/rentals email address they might have, and request the book using the below template message, adjust it as needed:

"Hello [name of library OR name of librarian if shown on the library website],

I was wondering if it would be possible to request the following book to be made available via your digital borrowing/book loan service, or if you may already have it available in your current collection:

Title: "Transformers: Art of Prime"

Author: Jim Sorenson, Various (Illustrations)

Publisher ‏ : ‎ IDW Publishing; First Edition (2013)

Language ‏ : ‎ English

Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 200 pages

ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1613777906

ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1613777909

If registering with the library may be necessary to access this service, please provide me with any information that may be relevant so that I may do so as needed.

Thank you for your assistance, and I look forward to hearing from you.

Kind regards,

[your name] "

4) Wait and see what your local library can offer you! :)

I hope that's helpful, and I really hope you can get a hold of a copy!

[1968bullittmustang]

I love libraries! And almost universally love librarians as well! Even when I was little in my shithole racist hometown as soon as I was old enough I could request books through the library that we couldn't get at school. Sometimes they just borrowed them from a nearby library, but other times if there was enough interest they would purchase them.

Now as an adult with enough money to have a little extra on occasion, I'll purchase books and have them shipped directly to my librarian. Often these are POC or LGBTQIA books that I know won't get a lot of requests, but are still needed.

Please take advantage of all your library services as often as possible. The more traffic a library gets the more funding they are allotted. Which means more books and more services in the future.

Our library has a really amazing 3D printer. You would not believe how thrilling it is for a small child to watch their chosen creation come to life and then get to take it home.

Please support your local library. They are doing amazing things and can do even more in the future by just having you walk through their doors more often.

...I had a guy come in today asking about how to get his kids library cards. I told him. He asked me how hard it would be for them to get them, and I said that all it took was their presence and his government ID.

He told me about how nice the system was here, where it was so easy to get a card; he said that there was a beautiful public library in Beijing that was top of the line and everything, but that the only way to access it was if you were a high ranking government official or a top professor or something. Instead, our library "serves the reader." His kids will be able to take chapter books home at no cost. He'll even be able to get books in Chinese here so that his native language skills don't atrophy.

I didn't even really know what to say, so I told him how to ask us to buy books for him that we don't already have so that he can still read them at no extra cost. I don't know how to shore up what it must feel like to know that there are books out there you can't read; I've always grown up with a good library nearby. It reminded me of working in my old library, though, where families who spoke Spanish were startled to find out we took any government ID with a formal address in town— even foreign IDs— so that their kids could get access to all of our titles in all the languages we offered.

Ah. Anyway, I hope you check out a library book with this thought in mind. I checked out the first volume of YJ98 today with that thought in mind. I didn't have to pay anything. I put it on hold, and there it was.

[thepoisonroom]

if your library doesn’t have an item you need, you can submit a request for them to purchase it! note that this is mostly true for public and academic/university/college libraries; school libraries don’t regularly offer this option, though you can speak with your librarian to learn more about what you can do.

submitting a request doesn’t guarantee they’ll purchase it 100% of the time, but it’s a good way to express your needs, and libraries often use this information to identify areas where their collection and services are lacking and create acquisitions plans! this is an especially useful option if you want:

a new or upcoming book! identifying highly-anticipated releases helps libraries make decisions about ordering books, developing collections, and planning outreach/programming

a translation or format (e.g. large print, braille, screen-readable e-book, audiobook on CD or tape, audiobook on playaway) that you need to access the work.

purchase requests are a great way to encourage your library to buy upcoming books that you’re excited about! this is a really good option for supporting authors, especially when you can’t buy the book yourself. read on for more info. keep in mind also that most libraries have privacy policies that protect any identifying data about patrons, including what individuals check out and what they request. if you’re not sure what your library’s policy is, check their website or contact their reference desk (see below).

if your library doesn’t have a book you want, there are a few options you can and should explore before jumping to a purchase request:

see if it’s available in alternate formats through other library tools! many libraries subscribe to publisher databases or ebook/audiobook borrowing platforms like overdrive. the items available here will not always be listed/discoverable in your library’s catalog system.

request it through interlibrary loan (ILL) or outerlibrary loan (OLL)! these are both commonly used terms for requesting items from other libraries. different libraries use these differently but most should offer one or both.

contact your library’s reference desk to see if they can help you find another way to access the thing you want! you can often get in touch with a librarian directly online; it’ll usually be listed as “ask a librarian chat” or something similar. most libraries will also answer questions over the phone or email, in person or will have a “contact us” web form you can submit.

so if you’ve checked out your options and you’re sure you want to purchase request, the process is pretty straightforward! my local public library’s website has this handy little link right at the bottom, but it’ll usually be listed as “request a purchase” or “recommend a purchase”

[image description: this image shows a list of links in black text on a grey background. The list of links is titled “Popular services”. The services listed are: reserve a computer, check your email, recommend a purchase, outerlibrary loan, ask a librarian, computing and wireless, reserve meeting rooms, email newsletters, and curbside pickup. The link that says “recommend a purchase” is circled in red.]

most libraries will have a webform that you fill out with item information that’ll look something like this:

[image description: this image shows half of an unfilled web form written in black text on a white background. The first field says Title above it. It is a textbox. The next field is a textbox titled Author/creator. The third field is a textbox titled Publisher. The fourth field is a textbox titled Date of publication. Below the textbox it says “Use the format YYYY-MM-DD (e.g., 2018-12-25)”. The fifth field is a textbox titled ISBN. Below the textbox it says “Please do not include any spaces or hyphens in the ISBN. The final field is titled Type of material. It has single-selection buttons for two options: Adult and Children’s/Teen.]

[image description: this image shows half of an unfilled web form written in black text on a white background. The first field has the title Format above it. It is a dropdown menu with the option “CD - Music” selected. The next field is a textbox titled Subject. The next field is a textbox. Above the textbox are the words “Where did you hear about this title?. Below the textbox it says “Give specific sources if possible. It might help us find more great materials”. The final field is an expandable textbox. It is titled “Additional comments”.]

the key things to remember when filling out the form are:

be specific if you need a specific format, translation, or edition! 

not sure if the format/translation you want exists? use worldcat.org to find out! their search engine has this handy “view all formats and languages”/”view all editions” option that lets you see what might be available. it’s not guaranteed to be exhaustive, but it’s a good starting point. note that worldcat categorizes books (incl. ebooks) as distinct from audiobooks. clicking this button on a print book listing will show me only other print and ebook formats, and clicking it on an audiobook listing will only show me other audiobook formats.

[image description: This image shows a worldcat.org search result listing for the book We Had a Little Real Estate Problem by Kliph Nesteroff. The listing tells us that it is for an English-language print biography published 2021 by Simon & Schuster. The listing includes two links. One says “View all formats and languages”. This link is circled in red. The other link says “View all editions”.]

speaking of worldcat, it can be a great place to find the publication information you might need to populate the form. that said, try not to stress too much about the ISBN. it’ll be different for hardcover versus paperback versus ebook and vary between editions. just focus on being very specific about it if you need a specific format or language to access it.

if your library’s form includes a comments field, this can be a good place to put feedback for context, such as “our library doesn’t have many books on X topic and I’d like more” or “I think this book is an important text for my program/major” or “I recommend this text to a lot of my students and think it would be good if it were more easily accessible”. this kind of information is very helpful for librarians trying to decide how to develop their collections.

i hope that helps! it’s not a very complicated process, but i wanted to make sure to provide some context about how library purchases can help authors, improve your accessibility options, and show your library that there’s a demand for books on specific topics! i also hope to provide some clarification about library privacy policies and making your voice heard at your library.

[trafficlightchild]

So you want to buy a copy of Unlocked

This post is made as a educational guide to the current situation with Keeper of the Lost Cities newest book, Unlocked.

Over the past few days, many people have suggested boycotting the hardcover editions of Unlocked due to one VERY IMPORTANT read: this is that the main artist featured, L*ura H*ll*ngsw*rth, is homophobic and we do not want to support her. As a queer person, it really hurts to see a series that I’ve loved for almost 7 years now. However, many of us still want to read the book and support other people behind this project. For me personally, I especially want to support my local book store and the US postal service during this time. So, what are alternatives?

1. EMAIL SHANNON’S PUBLISHER

Shannon just finished unlock TODAY - this means that the book had yet to be printed and that there is still time to get L*ura’s art out of the book. The book still also has to be edited so we have time. Even if the art isn’t taken out due to payments already being made, this could end the arrangement between the series and her AND we could possibly get a new official artist. Even if we sadly don’t get that either, showing S&S we don’t want to buy books with her art in them will hopefully make them not want to work with her in the future.

2. BUY THE AUDIOBOOK

The main reason that this is my suggestion is that it’s the only version where you can guarantee L*ura will not make any profits because there are no physical or digital pages. Through the research I’ve been doing, I can’t find anything that indicates that official KOTLC narrator, Caitlin Kelly, is homophobic. Audiobooks can be expensive, especially since all KOTLC are Audible exclusives, but Audible does offer a free trial that comes with 1 free audiobook and you can keep the book after you cancel your subscription. Also, if any of you do know if Caitlin is homophobic please reblog with that information and I’ll edit this.

3. BUY THE NOOK VERSION

This is probably seem like what a lot of people are going to do. As of right now, the Nook app does not support/load art that goes along with books such as KOTLC. This would also be cheaper than getting the audiobook version. However, there are two things that concern me about this; first being that  while we know most artists are paid in advance, we can’t say that Laura will make no profit from sales with her art in it. There are many unknowns in this field and many of us are trying to do more research about this. I’ve been looking at two accounts in particular on Instagram (I don’t know if they have tumblrs so I’m tagging there instagram handles) and I suggest you check both @/ahsokatano13 and @/dexs.mother out. the second reason is that the Nook app has been having a lot of updates recently and by the time Unlocked comes out, they could have found a way to load/support the art in the book.

4. WAIT OR BORROW THE BOOK

Use your library or your local KOTLC friends - it may take longer for you to read it but this way you won’t be supporting L*ura. You can also wait even longer and purchase the paperback version.

and lastly

5. DONATE THE SAME AMOUNT TO LGBTQIPAA+ INDIVUALS/GROUPS

Many people preorder months in advance and it’s fine if you did, since this art portion information was only revealed recently. So, treat buying this book like shopping at a place like Ch*ck F*l A. Is every single individual behind this purposes homophobic? No. There are no many people that are behind that KOTLC books other than Shannon - the people who print, who box, who ship, who sell, etc. So rather than purchasing this book and then feeling guilty about it, find out the exact price you spent on the book itself and donate, if you can, that exact amount to a queer foundation or individual. If you can donate double, that's great! If you can only spare a few dollars right now, that’s great too. As long as you give some money back to the people that are being affect by the decision to use a homophobic artist in this book, that sort-of evens out things in my eyes.

At the end of the day, every KOTLC fan is an individual. Some fans aren’t even aware of this situation, some fans don’t know how to handle it, etc. I made this post to be educational and provide options for other KOTLC fans.

[thewindsofsong]

Ok ok ok!!! So last night I had a dream that I rec’ed a dmbj/svsss crossover fanfic, but never actually read the fic. Then I woke up because my cat was yowling in the middle of the night.

After talking with @1ebilcat and @merinnan for a while, I managed to flesh out a basic outline of what that fic might look like. Please know that because this is a crossover with svsss, there is papapa mentioned. several times.... (nothing actually explict is described because that would make this not a not-fic)

So one day SQQ and SQH are messing around trying to figure out what this new “unique one of a kind treasure” does when SQH accideny drops some melon seeds on it or something and it suddenly activates.

Meanwhile in dmbj world, the Iron Triangle are pretty much retired from the whole tomb raiding business, but still run Wushanju (better now that wu xie actually concentrates on running it instead of running off every week). Someone comes in with a strange artifact that they found while clearing out a deceased relatives store room they want to sell. Wu xie buys it because he’s never seen anything like it before and wants to research it.

Xiaoge gets super weird vibes from the object, but it doesn’t seem overtly menacing, so he leaves wu xie be (if wu xie is preoccupied he gets in marginally less trouble). However, when xiaoge touches the object with wu xie and Pangzi nearby, it grows a point and gives xiaoge a paper cut. The blood touches the object and it activates.

One blinding flask of light and disorienting tumble latter, they find themselves at the foot of a picturesque mountain with a gate that labels them at the foot of cang qiong mountain. They’re quickly found by the cang qiong crew and everyone is super weird out by each other. Things happen and eventually LBH crashes in and says his shizun is missing mobei-jun is there too because SQH is also missing. More communication happens and everyone realizes this is the artifact’s fault. No one knows where the artifact is.

Meanwhile SQQ and SQH wake up someone completely unfamiliar to either of them. After using magic to light things up, they see that they are in a tomb absolutely covered in different depictions of penises: there’s pictures on the walls, statues of men with WAY TOO BIG penises, sooooo many dildos. Queue SQQ immediately launching himself at SQH with a shriek of outrage because “THERE’S NO WAY THIS ISN’T YOUR FAULT YOU SHITTY HACK AUTHOR!!”

Back with the iron triangle, there’s a research montage going on as they and other CQ sect member scour the libraries for any information about the mcguffin that caused all this randomness. At some point in all of this, iron triangle go to MQF to see if he can take a look at Xiaoge regarding his memory problems. After some more research, MQF learns about an herb that could stabilize his qi and stabilize the fluctuations that cause his amnesia.

Turns out that while proper cultivation doesn’t exist in dmbj world, the Zhang family line has managed to cultivate the family line to extended life but because they’re the only ones that can (maybe due to bronze gate?) it has a lot of dangers. 

The herb needed is of course incredibly rare and only found in some horribly dangerous location. Xiaoge wants to go alone because he doesn’t want wu xie and pangzi to be in danger, but knows that they won’t be left behind. There’s some agnst had about how Xiaoge feels he’s brought pain and suffering to wu xie and pangzi, but of course neither of them are having any of it. The three of them talk about how they’ve never regretted meeting each other and how the adventures they’ve shared have brought meaning and joy into their lives. 

The three of them cobble together some hotpot and spend the night before setting off soaking their feet side by side, content and secure in their bonds with each other. Its very sweet. 

The next day, the three of them set off with LQG and LBH. Right before arriving at the location, bullshit happens and Iron Triangle get trapped in the location where the herb is located and trigger a wife plot in which papapa is the only way out. Iron triangle proceeds to have incredibly kinky marathon sex. LBH and LQG can only listen awkwardly from the boundary, not able to get through, but also not wanting to leave completely just in case something else happens. The sexual tension between LBG and LQG grows to new heights. Neither will do anything about it until SQQ is back home safe. 

After the marathon is over and iron triangle has time to actually sleep, the three of them get cleaned up with the herb in tow and head back to Cang Qiong. They get the herb to MQF who tells them it will take at least a day to prepare the pill for xiaoge to take. That night, Iron triangle has sweet, tender, affirming sex because while they all agree that while xiaoge not losing his memories every few decades is for the better, it also means that he’ll have to carry the memories of wu xie and pangzi long after they’er gone, with no hope of them ever being together again.  Xiaoge assures wu xie and pangzi that this is what he wants, to know that at least at some point, he loved and was loved, that he had a connection to this world and that his life has meaning beyond his obligations to the Zhang clan. Wu xie and pangzi make xiaoge promise to live on after they pass and to find him in their next lives.

Xiaoge takes the pill and the search for a way back home continues again in earnest. Eventually, LBH travels back to the demon realm and figures out how to track the artifact through space and time because his protag halo is too strong to keep him away from his love interest for too long. 

Wu xie and pangzi learn some basic meditation techniques that disciples would learn when first arrive at the mountain. Its too late for them to cultivate to longevity and there’s no guarantee that its even possible in their home world to cultivate if you aren’t a Zhang. Regardless, wu xie and pangzi don’t want immortality, they just want to spend as much time as they can with xiaoge. Wu xie is gifted a flute made with special bamboo and pangzi is gifted a wine jug from Zui Xian Peak. Both have spiritual properties that may or may not be able to function when back home, but they’er good gifts given in good faith. 

LBH, losing patience, forces iron triangle to get moving so he can save SQQ. He bursts through time and space and iron triangle plus LBH, MBJ, and LQG end up in dmbj world, in Wushanju. After scaring the crap out of Wang Meng, the group realizes that while several days have passed in svsss world, its only been a few hours since iron triangle was pulled away. Which is good because Ershu was likely to call in an army if wu xie went missing for no apparent reason. The whole thing would have been way too messy. Probably more than one person would have died. 

What follows is a night of LBH, LQG, and MBJ attempting different divination spells to try and pin point the exact location of SQQ and SQH to varying degrees of success. None of them are good at divination. Regardless, the three of them manage to get a general location of where the two missing peak lords might be and the iron triangle gets to work searching the internet for any rumors or information of any tombs that might be in the area. (Its just wu xie and pangzi looking, but xiaoge standing around still in his beautiful borrowed robes from CQ is good moral support.) 

They hear about some local legends about an ecentric noble from a bygone era that was buried in a very peculiar tomb. Potential tomb located, the whole group prepares to head out. the SVSS gang is convinced to not fly over immediately because that would be waaaaay to flashy and draw unwanted attention to them that would delay things even more. The six of them cram in together into the van and head off. Svss gang are forced into modern clothing and are def a little too big to comfortably sit in the van. LBH hits his head on a doorway at least once on this adventure. At lease two women and maybe a guy slip their numbers to him too. The man is supernaturally gorgeous.

After some more road trip shenanigans,  they arrive at the rumored entrance to the tomb and head in. The tomb has a few traps here and there, but is practically child’s play for the iron triangle to get through. Svsss are appropriately impressed by their competence and LBH and LQG think specifically about how the iron triangle is a true threesome that supports each other and fights together. MBJ just wants his hamster boy back. 

When they near the central chamber of the tomb, they hear the faint sounds of fighting which spurs SVSSS to speed ahead while iron triangle tries to get them to at least be a little cautious about setting off traps. 

The sight that LBH sees when he breaks into the main chamber like the kool aid man is a disheveled SQQ beating SQH over the head with a baton? Kind of. Its a baton carved into the shape of a penis. SQQ immediately stops and tries to put on his “peerless immortal cultivator” mask on with a flick of his fan, but its hard for that to be effective when your hair is all over the place and your in a room covered in penises. SQH dives for his king’s thighs and cries in relief that he’s no longer trapped in a room full of dildos and penises with SQQ. 

Then the iron triangle catches up and the realization that SVSSS gang is in modern clothing sinks in. The transmigrators freeze for just a second before jumping in front of iron triangle with a thousand questions. They ask in their shitty English which leaves answering the questions mostly to wu xie because pangzi’s english is pretty spotty and xiaoge doesn’t like talking in general, let alone a foreign language.

The whole group eventually leaves the tomb and all its phallic glory behind and get above ground where there’s phone service again. After a bit of searching, the transmigrators realize that while this world is very similar to their original world, there’s no signs of “Proud Immortal Demon Way” ever being written here, no other signs pointing to the two of them existing in this world. SVSS gang are very concerned as they watch SQQ and SQH talk in a strange language to these relative strangers, but don’t feel like its the time to figure out whats going on until everyone gets back home. The now expanded group makes their way back to Wushanju in an even more cramped road trip back. SQQ absolutly ends up in LBH’s lap at least once and SQH ends up with MBJ’s head in his lap at some point. its all very cute as the feeling of everyone being accounted for and safe settles in. 

Maybe there’s some stuff about SQQ and SQH being transmigrators and them being tempted for all of half a second to stay in this world that is so very much like their original world but choosing to go back with their lovers and the lives they’ve made for themselves. 

As the complete SVSSS gang now gets ready to head back home, the Iron triangle makes a huuuuge goody bag of all the snacks and treats that SQQ and SQH have been missing ever since they’ve transmigrated and put together a basic netbook plus solar charger for them to take back. There won’t be internet service back in SVSS world, but they loaded it up with a whooole bunch of web novels and pop songs, along with a few spare parts. 

SVSSS gang finally makes their way home after having a large farewell dinner at Wushanju at Pangzi’s insistence and LBH bullies his way into helping out. Its a very sweet scene of laughing and drinking. After dinner is done, SVSSS decide to go back immediately because the time dilation thing would mean they would be away for longer than they would like. 

Once back home, LBH, SQQ, and LQG have a confrontation/conversation about their relationships with each other and figure out if they want to try being all together, all three of them. MBJ confines SQH to his northern palace. Specifically their bedroom. He was also the one that remembered to grab the artifact that caused all these problems to begin with while everyone else was distracted by dildo tomb.

Iron triangle goes back to their retirement, at peace with the decisions they’ve made and the lives they’ve chosen to live.

THE END!!!

[twisted-little-fairy-story]

I don’t, and I know this isn’t what you asked for. However, I feel honour-bound to jump in here with my librarian hat on, because...

---> have you considered your local library? <---

If you have the option, and it’s a possibility for you, you might be able to get them as ebooks for free this way. For example, here is the overdrive page for Diana Wynne Jones. And Overdrive/Libby is the biggest player in library ebooks and e-audio in Canada, the UK, and I believe the US*, but there are other options too. Find out what your local library has, and start searching there.

You can even request them if they aren’t available... personally I love it when people ask us to buy books! It  means I’m buying books I know people want! That’s a great feeling!

But, as well as making your librarian really happy, this does x  other important things

1. gets you free book access. Obviously this is the important one right? you get the books you want and you don’t have to pay from them OR worry about downloading viruses in the process

2. doesn’t screw the author over. This is a bigger deal if the author is alive and even bigger if they’re not huge names, because the number of books authors sell is a huge factor in whether they get a book deal for their next great story. Shared pdfs really fuck with sales. I mean hugely. @maggiestiefvaterposts​ had a really great post on this some years back, but the short version is that she and her brother did a test and proved this. So if you like an author, and you want them to keep writing books, circulating a pdf is not the best way to do it.

In fact, in the UK, authors even get paid Public Lending  Rights for copies of their books that are borrowed from public libraries. So they get a sale when the library buys the book, but also an (admittedly very small) amount when the book circulates

Obviously this is less of an issue for DWJ, or other authors I’m still very sad to be without, but it’s worth thinking about...

3. It’s great for libraries! Public libraries are literally here because we decided, as a society, that people should have access to books for free, regardless of whether they could afford to buy them. In Tory Britain, if we don’t use them, they will get taken away. The world is crappy and there are cuts being made all over the place to public services, and if we can’t prove that our services are being used then we are considered a waste of money. Libraries want to help - it’s why we’re here - but we need your help.

So - please! Use your library. Get free books. Support authors whose works you enjoy. And make the world a tiny bit better in the process...

Finally, I think it’s also worth mentioning that Howl probably would create magical pdfs. Sophie, however, would destroy them and make him go to the library!

--

*I haven’t worked in the US, so I can’t state that with complete conviction, but that’s the sense I get from American friends

hiiiiiii :) do u know where i can read pdfs of the castle in the air and house of many ways?? thank youuuuuuuu

I don't actually know but someone has to... help us please?🥺

[jeannereames]

Don’t participate in book piracy

I think sometimes people simply have no clue how LITTLE authors actually make. They believe stealing the book is “sticking it to the man” and big publishing.

No, you’re sticking it to THE AUTHOR.

Piracy kills the very content creators whose work you enjoy.

So here’s some numbers for you. Across the last 4 months I earned $160.72 in royalties. Yup, that’s it. And that’s the GROSS. I then paid $46.35 in taxes. So all I earned was $114.37. The monthly royalties were about average, neither exceptionally high nor low. My royalty percentage is pretty decent, overall, in part because I never got an advance.* All I make is from sales. Also, if you’re curious, I actually make MORE on the sale of ebooks over paper books (has to do with costs of production).

Measure that out against how many YEARS it took me to write the damn books. Yeah, authors are just *rolling* in cash.

So please, don’t steal books. If you can’t afford to buy them, borrow them from a library (which did buy it). If your local library doesn’t have the book, ask them to purchase one! If you know somebody who pirates books, tell them not to. Share why. Peer pressure matters. If you find the book on a website, contact the author but especially the publisher.

-------------------

*An “advance” in publishing is a lump sum of money that some publishers pay the author upon signing. Well, it’s usually half on signing, half on delivery of a publishable manuscript. Many smaller publishers just can’t afford to do that, and so they offer better royalities in lieu of an advance. They can’t afford the gamble, as many books never sell out their advance, or it takes years to do so, and their contract may end first. That is, the royalties the author would make don’t equal what the author was originally paid. Especially for first-time authors, advances tend to be small, and if they break 5 digits, that’s good. That may sound like a lot, but if that is the author’s full-time job, that’s ALL they’re getting. And it often takes about 12-18 months to complete a book ready for submission, although that can vary by genre and the nature of the novel. Romances generally don’t take long. Historicals or SFF (that require research), can take more than that. So if the author’s advance is $8000-12,000...that’s for a YEAR’s worth of work, and possibly up to two years. Which is well below the poverty line, and why authors need another job, or someone to support them. (Also, that sum assumes the author doesn’t have an agent, who gets a 15% cut of everything.)

Again, this is the sort of stuff readers almost never know...unless they know an author.

[babyfloors]

Wondering Wednesdays, Baby Acres, Chapter 2: Infrastructure, with words!

July 21, 12021

books

,

Coop

4Freedoms

,

health

,

mywritings

,

PublicDomainInfrastructure

,

writing

This post starts the rough draft of  Chapter 2 of my non-fiction WiP, Baby Acres.  

This chapter will have about 2500 words, (hopefully educational words!!)  500 of which have already been written as the Introduction, but will quite likely have to be thrown out and refitted with the new evolution of the book.  We shall see.

And  again, by way of disclaimer, the overall goal is now to explain why we need both equ. + justice, & why in 4 phases.  This chapter will transition to a chapter (2-5) for each phase, showing what Phases I-IV could look like as part of a possible roadmap for a fully inclusive society for all of us.  This vision is laid out in the hope that All HumanKind  will eventually have each person’s basic needs  met, without taking anything from anyone, and without violence, intimidation, nor coercion of any kind.  

Chapter Two:

( Chapter 2’s outline was last week…)

Chapter 2 Introduction:

The first stage of this project involves building empathy, and bringing each one of us to see each one of our fellow human beings as … a human being. Each one meriting humane treatment, and human dignity.

That empathy building phase was Phase 0 (yes, I’m a computer scientist by first training, so I start with 0…).  Phase I is meant to go for fifteen years, potentially from the years 2022 to 2037, building a movement to strengthen some of our most crucial and obviously key pieces of our social infrastructure, which are in the public domain. During this period, one of the ways that we can both build conceptual support and also literally build our physical infrastructure that needs support, is by borrowing an idea from President Franklin D. Roosevelt, which worked during the Great Depression to create jobs while educating young (white) men at the same time. What we want to do now, is to educate, facilitate service, and build a community-service frame of reference, while also upgrading our public infrastructure, just as FDR did in the 1930’s via his program.

Bringing back an updated version of FDR’s Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), or Roosevelt’s Tree Army, as it was popularly known, could provide a stepping stone between the empathy- building work that must always be on-going, and the support-building work of bringing our society to a consensus on the needed support for the most basic of our public social infrastructure institutions, like Public Libraries, Public Transportation, Public Education (especially in the financial and legal areas, where so many consumers fall prey to financial predators, and end up in debt due to lack of knowledge),  and Public Health. These four systems under gird our entire societal structure, and need support perhaps the most urgently, in return for which we potentially get the most payback for all members of society. While we do the difficult work of building the necessary consensus to get there from here, a simpler step might be to bring back some form of the CCC, updated to be far more inclusive, and used as both a means of providing employment to young people, and also to educate them, much like the Gap Year in Europe.

But instead of having our new high school graduates backpack around the country, they could be sent to work in urban public library branches, light-rail and subway/Metro stations, local urban public schools, or inner city health clinics. As they rotate from one part of the country to another, say, monthly, they learn first-hand of the conditions in places they are not from and have not lived, while serving communities they have never met, working alongside peers from different walks of life, and seeing a side of their native land that they did not grow up with. In short, learning the realities, and different perspectives, of this large and diverse nation of ours.

— (Next Wednesday: Chapter 2, section I …)

I’m considering this Rough Draft as the block of clay from which my book will eventually emerge, obviously, and some ideas for phases III and IV are still becoming more  fixed in my mind as I write, so the final version will likely look pretty different from this Rough Draft, and will need updating once I get to the very end.

And once again, yeayyy( !!)with regard to audience, I may have at least a couple of comps:  Walden Two meets The War on Poverty: A Civilian Perspective (by Dr.s Jean and Edgar Cahn, 1964).  I know that lots of people consider Skinner’s writing to be stilted, but I like the tilt of most reviewers, in that the idea is that a community should keep trying policies that members agree upon until they find what works for all of them.

As for genre, I’m still wondering:  Non-fiction,   System Change, Causes, maybe even Inspirational, but I doubt it.

Last week’s installment of this series…

Action Items:

1.) Consider some ideas you may have on how our society can solve the problem infrastructure upgrades in the next 15 years,

2.) Share them with us in the comments, here, please, and

3.) Write a story, post or tweet that uses those sources and your thoughts.

Dear Readers, ideas on learning, especially multiple #LanguageLearning, on-going education and empathy-building, to #EndPoverty, #EndHomelessness,  #EndMoneyBail & achieve freedom for All HumanKind?

Support our key #PublicDomainInfrastructure  & #StopSmoking at LEAST for CCOVID-19: 1. #PublicLibraries, 2. #ProBono legal aid and Education, 3. #UniversalHealthCare, and 4. good #publictransport Read, Write -one can add Stayed on Freedom’s Call via this GoodReads button: ,

Vote, Teach and Learn (PDF Lesson Plan Book)!

and my

Babylon 5 review posts

, if you like Science Fiction, and a proposed

Vision

on Wondering Wednesdays: for a kinder world…  

Shira Destinie A. Jones, MPhil

our year 2020 CE =  12020 HE

(Day 1 … Day 5)

Stayed on Freedom’s Call (free copies at: https://archive.org/details/StayedOnF…) includes two ‘imagination-rich’ walking tours, with songs, of Washington, DC. New interviews and research are woven into stories of old struggles shared by both the Jewish and African-American communities in the capital city.

Shared histories are explored from a new perspective of cultural parallels and parallel institution-building which brought the two communities together culturally and historically.

Please leave a review, if you can, on the GoodReads page.

Shira Destinie Jones by ShiraDest is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

[tvmoviechristmas]

Holly & Ivy (Hallmark Movies & Mysteries, 2020)

We could be broke together. Living our dreams.

Starring: Janel Parrish, Marisol Nichols, Jeremy Jordan, Sadie Coleman

Plot Synopsis: A contractor helps a woman renovate a house so she can adopt a sick neighbor's two children. (x)

In My Humble Opinion: Early on in the movie, the female lead goes around to a bunch of libraries hoping to interview for a children’s librarian position. She’s not able to get it because a bunch of the libraries are gong under hiring freezes. One librarian notes that with her Masters in Library Sciences she should be able to get a data management job. And I was like, “Oh! I know about that! My friend, Rachel, who is a real children’s librarian told me about how she learned about that kind of stuff when she offered to help me fix my archive!” 

So like any intrepid made-for-TV Christmas movie blogger, I decided to ask my friend, Rachel, a real librarian about Holly & Ivy to see if it handled this fake librarian content well. Thankfully, my real librarian friend had also watched the movie too which made this “interview” possible (I say this very loosely, it was mainly a freewheeling text conversation that I edited for clarity). Questions are italicized. Answers are not.

How many books are in your car?

I don’t have a car.

If you had a car, how many books would be in it?

Going by how many books I have in my apartment that currently do not fit on my bookshelf: 13. No wait, 14.

Hiring freezes are a problem for children’s librarians?

All librarians, since the majority of a library’s budget is through government funding.

Have you made 3-D snowflakes as a librarian?

I make 3-D snowflakes with the kids at the library every year. Seeing that made me feel like a big huge Hallmark stereotype. Also making 3D snowflakes is fun and easy and I recommend it if anyone has scrap paper or construction paper for crafts.

Are the Trixie Belden books really discontinued? I remember reading them as a kid.

According to Wikipedia, they were out of print for a number of years, which does happen to many books even ones which were once considered popular, but the publisher did release some new editions in the early 2000s, but not all of them. So I guess so. [The library I work at] has e-book copies.

Can you quote children’s authors off the top of your head?

I can’t quote children’s authors on command and do not ask me to.

As a librarian, would you date Jeremy Jordan’s character?

Yeah he’s cute, and I got a good dude vibe. He seemed very self-aware.

How do you feel about home improvement projects?

I once lived in a house where the previous owner had done a lot of home DIY themselves which led to a light switch like six feet up because that was where he ran out of wire. I recommend you do it only if you know what you are doing and have the right supplies. I admire those who can.

Overall, did you like the movie?

It was fine but too sad and that ending was very sudden. I knew it couldn’t wrap up before we knew if she was deemed capable of taking care of the kids but to time jump and kind of gloss over the mom’s death was like a choice. The romance was solid but boring.

Any other commentary on the library content?

Libraries are important! Please highlight how they need funding so that qualified passionate people who genuinely care about library services aren’t unemployed because of budget reasons. Defund the police and fund schools and libraries and community programs! That’s what you should take away from this Hallmark Christmas movie. 

Thank you for your expertise.

So there you have it. A real librarian’s thoughts on this Hallmark Movies & Mysteries original movie. Because I know that’s what everyone’s top concern is when watching a Hallmark Movies & Mysteries original movie.... the authenticity of the librarian content. You’re welcome. Support your local library!

Watch If: You have elves in your home, if your tree trimming requires choreography or if you have been interested in gingerbread houses since you were six.

Skip If: You don’t have an overwhelming passion for building furniture, if you have no problem borrowing things from strangers or if have burned water.

Final Rating: ★ ★ (★) ☆ ☆

If you like this blog, please consider donating to my Kofi page! You can also donate money to kbange@gmail.com through either Venmo or CashApp. Thank you!

[perspective-series]

A Third Perspective (18)

By: @arc852 and @hiddendreamer67

Warnings: fear, cages, and slight guilt

(Check the reblog for the links to the previous chapters!)

 Logan groaned, locking his front door and briefly hitting his head against it. Why did Virgil have to come back now? If it had been any other time, Logan would have been able to explain himself. Patton would probably have helped. But no, Virgil just had to arrive moments before Logan left for class.

 Logan tried to convince himself he was doing the right thing. After all, both borrowers wouldn’t fit in his pocket, and Patton had suggested the two should have some time alone.

 It felt...wrong to lock the borrowers up like that after seeing their reaction, but what choice did he have? If Logan simply let them have the run of his apartment they’d surely escape. There had even been an attempt before his very eyes.

 And Logan couldn’t let them leave. After all, the world was a dangerous place full of humans who would want to do them harm. Logan was only serving as a barrier to such threats.

 “Oof!” Logan accidentally ran into one such human. He glared, now having a name to put to a face for his obnoxious upstairs neighbor. “Oh, you again.”

 “What’re you doing here?” Roman said incredulously, barely recognizing the student he had bumped into this morning.

 “I live here, you dolt.” Logan scoffed, walking past him and out the door.

 “Well, you don’t have to be rude about it.” Roman rolled his eyes, heading inside and up the stairs. “Honestly, it was just a simple question…” The mention of questions made Roman remember what awaited him back in his apartment. Though he was a bit uneasy answering all of Virgil’s questions, Roman was prepared to do it. After all, this was the most guaranteed way of gaining Virgil’s trust. Then it would be only a few short steps to finding Patton. Hopefully.

 “I’m back!” Roman announced himself to the empty apartment. He walked into the kitchen, not spotting Virgil where he left him. Roman glanced around a bit, wondering where Virgil could have gone. After all, he wasn’t very big.

 “Virgil?” Roman called out, walking from room to room. He began to look under the furniture, wondering if perhaps the borrower was hiding.

 “Virgil, this isn’t funny.” Roman started searching in more ridiculous spots such as the microwave or his pillowcase, trying to find any trace of his new friend. No luck.

 Roman tried not to panic as he called Virgil’s name over and over with no response. He combed the entire apartment twice with no success. Where could the borrower have gone? First Patton, and now-

 …

 “Hang on a moment,” Roman said, putting the pieces together. Though he was the last one to arrive to the correct conclusion, Roman’s run in downstairs made him finally realize what had happened. That other guy, the one who had run into him twice now, was there right before both Patton and now Virgil went missing. He was the missing link!

 Roman dashed down to the fourth floor, knowing this must be where the guy lived. This neighbor was the only one who Roman hadn’t met, after all. The guy was too much of a hermit.

 “Open up!” Roman called, banging on the door. There was no response, only for Roman to smack himself on the forehead. Of course, there wasn’t, Roman had just seen the tenant leaving the building.

 Instead, Roman pulled a spare bobby pin out of his hair and began jamming it into the lock. “C’mon, this always works in movies!” Roman huffed, twisting it back and forth. A moment later the pin nearly snapped in half, and Roman realized perhaps it would be best to stop before he permanently broke the lock entirely.

 “Alright, think.” Roman began to pace in front of the door, trying to think of other ways he could possibly get inside. Preferably something that played up to his talents. Eyes widening, Roman got a brilliant idea. He dashed upstairs to grab a spare set of glasses from a leftover costume. Looking in the mirror, Roman made a strangely convincing lookalike to the nerdy stranger.

 Now properly equipped, Roman took the stairs all the way down to the first-floor lobby. Man, all these stairs were getting ridiculous. Why didn’t this building have an elevator?

 “Ah, good afternoon miss.” Roman greeted the woman behind the counter, pleased to see it was not someone he recognized. Or more importantly, someone who would recognize him. “I seem to have locked myself out, do you think you could help me? I live on the fourth floor.”

 The woman looked up some information on her monitor, turning to him. “You’re Logan Sanders?”

 So that’s his name. “Yes,” Roman said with a smile.

 “Alright, I can lend you a temporary key for the day.” The woman explained. “I’ll need to see some ID.”

 “Wonderful!” Roman handed over his ID before he even fully realized what he was doing. The woman looked between it and him.

 “This says your name is Roman Sanders?” She raised an eyebrow. Roman paled.

 “Logan’s….my preferred name.” Roman quickly fibbed, grateful that fate had blessed the two of them with the same last name.

 “Gotcha.” The woman seemed pleased with this request, typing out some more info. “Alright, I’ll just keep this here, and you get this.” She put Roman’s ID in a cubby, handing over a metal key. Roman sighed in relief, clutching it tightly.

 “Thank you, kind soul,” Roman said, quickly dashing back up the stairs.

 “Uh, you’re welcome?” Her response was barely heard as Roman hurried along. After all, he had already spent a large amount of time searching for Virgil, and he had no idea when Logan would be back.

 Roman turned the key in the lock, peering his head around the door like some sort of secret spy wannabe. Man, Logan was a nerd. There looked to be more books here than at the local library.

 “Virgil?” Roman hissed quietly, looking around for any sign of the smaller beings. “Patton?” Roman combed through the living room and kitchen with no success. He paused at the bedroom door, feeling like this was an invasion of privacy. Of course, he had already come this far. And there could be lives at stake!

 Roman entered, eyes immediately coming to land on the cage sitting atop the desk.

 Virgil had just finished his story when the door suddenly opened. Both borrowers expected Logan and were shocked to see that it was...Roman? With glasses on?

 Virgil shook his head, this was not the time to be focusing on that right now. “Roman?” He called out. He was almost happy to see him. At the very least he was better than Logan. Patton, however, had a different opinion about Roman and squeaked in fear as he saw him.

 “Virgil! Patton!” Roman cried happily, rushing over. He put an arm on either side of the cage and crouched down to look at eye level with them sympathetically. “You poor things, what happened?”

 “Logan’s what happened. Stupid jerk trapped us in here.” Virgil explained, happy to see he had regained his bite in Roman’s presence. Patton glanced at Roman before burying his face into Virgil’s side. Admittedly, he wasn’t very happy to see Roman.

 “Don’t worry, I’ll get you out of there.” Roman quickly unlatched the bars, reaching a hand in.

 As Patton’s grip grew tighter, Virgil glared at Roman. “Roman! No grabbing!” He said, scooting back a little to put more space between them. Patton tensed. Now he knew how Virgil had felt when he had been buddy with Logan. What was Virgil doing?

 “I wasn’t!” Roman’s face flushed, not admitting that he had indeed forgotten about that in his excitement. He put his hand down instead. “See?” Roman insisted.

 Virgil rolled his eyes and moved to stand up, but found he couldn’t as Patton was still clutching onto him, holding him down. Virgil’s eyes turned sympathetic. “Pat, it’s okay.” He murmured to his best friend. “He may not be the best, but he’s better than Logan. He actually listens for one thing.” Patton was silent for a moment.

 “He never listened to me…” At his words, Virgil felt a fire ignite in him. He knew it. He glanced back to glare at Roman, before turning back to Patton.

 “I know, but please Pat, we’ve got to go before Logan comes back.” Patton didn’t move, but when Virgil tried to move him along, he came. Virgil pulled them both onto the hand.

 “I’m... sorry.” Roman went to rub a finger along Patton’s side, but halfway there he thought better of it. Instead, he pulled both borrowers out of the cage and against his chest, trying to keep them both equally supported.

 “Okay, so- I may not have come here with a complete plan,” Roman admitted, glancing towards the front door. “Any thoughts on how to avoid the whole ‘hide the borrowers while in public’ rule?”

 Virgil groaned. “I hate to ask, but do you have any pockets?” While he didn’t like being in a pocket, it was preferred over being out in the open,

 “Uuuuh…” Roman looked down at his outfit, which only contained two very tight pockets in his jeans. “No.”

 Virgil bit his lip, looking over Roman, but everywhere else he could think of either wouldn’t work, or was too dangerous. “...Fine. Keep us close to your chest and I swear if anyone sees us…” He trailed off, glaring at Roman.

 “I can’t be blamed for that!” Roman said indignantly, but he held up his other hand to cover the borrowers and hurried out into the hall.

 As they were along for the ride back to Roman’s apartment, Patton couldn’t help but think. Despite Virgil’s story and Logan’s actions and behavior towards the end...there was something in his eyes as he left. Something that made Patton want to hear whatever explanation Logan had. Sure, he was scared, terrified even, of Logan now...But Virgil also had told him that Logan had changed his mind about showing them off to the world. That had to count for something, right?

 But Roman...Patton had no good memories with Roman. Virgil seemed fine with him and he did seem to be listening...but what if he was just doing it to get his way? Lying about having changed, to get them to stay forever?

 Patton leaned more into Virgil, shaking.

[loadingbold312]

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[sinematically]

When I didn’t have the money for books, I’d often pirate if I couldn’t borrow. I’d make a list of all the books I did pirate and rate it on a “buy/no buy” scale.

At the end of a month when my parents eventually caved, I went ahead and brought my favourite book + a new one (most of the time, a sequel to the book I loved). This was because I loved the way a book felt, and assumed pirating books = pirating MCU films. I know better now, and one days I’ll have a better understanding on mathematics to explain it to people.

But until then here’s a few things you can try and do if you usually pirate books -

If you pirate books because you don’t have the money for it, make a note and buy the book when you have the chance. That’s obvious enough. But here’s what you can do to help if you don’t have the chance to buy it.

Make sure to recommend it to as many people as possible. Especially to people have the buying power for it.

My friends who have a job that pays, we buy books. Our few friends who are students? We either send them money for the book, send them the book itself as a present or we lend them out. But it’s our duty as the ones with money to build the library.

If you’re pirating the book because you’re not sure if you’d like it, I 100% get it. I’ve gotten so many shit books, and an endless number of novels I hide rather than admit to owning them (cough 50 Shades trilogy cough)

You can read the sample that comes with googles books or other services to get the feel of the writing and then buy, or borrow it from a library/friend so you can make sure you really like it. Yes pirating is easier but a little effort goes a long way. Hell you can pirate, decide you like it halfway through and go pick it up from a bookstore

Buy it and if you end up not liking it, give it back to a second hand bookstore. The second hand bookstores in my city will take a book for nearly full price if you return it in the same condition you brought it. If there’s some damage of writing, you get less money but overall it gives you a small amount. You either trade for a book (of the same value) or add it to my store credit and get a more expensive book (which is what I do)

Sell it to someone who did like it and wants a physical copy of it! You make your money back and make someone happy

If it’s in really, really good condition - gift it. If the person you’re giving it it will like it, why the hell not? If the pages are a little bendy just place it under a bunch of books so the book cover flattens out again. Sometimes people don’t care if it’s been read, I know I don’t.

If you pirate cause you don’t have space for more books, get a kindle. They’re expensive in some parts of the world (like mine) but it’s worth it. No it doesn’t feel like a real book, but once you’re used to it, it changes your life (in small, but very impactful ways). It saves space significantly, and the books on there are a LOT cheaper. Plus a lot of books are free from kindle’s end (with a few subscriptions there’s even more books), so you can read most classics and a lot of popular books for free. I travel with my kindle everywhere and it keeps me from pulling my hair out due to boredom.

There’s a lot of other things you can do to directly help an author if not monetarily. Reviewing them helps (Google, Amazon, all of those horrible cooperations? Highly rated authors are more likely to be recommended to total strangers). Asking for libraries near you to stock their work helps too.

I’ve been going to my local bookstore since I was 6, and they have this thing where is a certain number of people vote for a novel, it gets put up front as “Peoples Choice” in a month. I started reading Percy Jackson because of it.

I’m sorry this reads like a recipe on the internet with how much garbage I’m telling you about myself but support ur authors pls. Please. Local, global, even if they’re really really rich. Just, buy the book.

(Except for its if JK Rowling. I’m sorry, I loved HP too but nope, not her. She’s got millions, you can go ahead and pirate that shit)

alright for the millionth time I'm seeing yet another author I admire talk about how they literally can barely afford to live & yet there are people openly admitting to pirating their books so, like

i guess it needs to be said again

pirating books is not the same as pirating your favourite Disney movie or whatever. book piracy kills author's incomes and can genuinely ruin someone's career