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Hello its me your anonymous fairy god-librarian (surprise, you have a fairy god-librarian) i saw your tags saying you didn't count the graphic novels/trade paperbacks as books and im here to (gently, lovingly) bap you on the head. Those totally count as books and anyone who says otherwise will receive a considerably less gentle and loving head bap

Oh, there's obviously nothing wrong with counting them as books! There's a reason I mentioned them at all, after all. I just personally have been trying to challenge myself to read more, longer, traditional books as a part of a larger goal of improving my focus and reading abilities. So I don't always include them in my personal count, just because of what my reading goals are.

Reading is reading, of course, and I'm not trying to be elitist about that. But last year I only met my personal "number of books" goal for the year because I read all 14 volumes of Dungeon Meshi, and my goal for this year is to not let myself do the same thing again even though I've developed another special interest that has a number of trade paperbacks that could qualify as books. I do log them on Storygraph though!

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The moral purity bit is a feint. It isn’t about moral purity at all. It’s about doing nothing. Moral purity is just a near-perfect excuse for doing nothing.

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I actually thought What Abigail Did That Summer was sooo good and so much fun and it might be one of my favorite books in the series. Abigail's POV is great and I really liked learning more about her and her family. The themes were absolutely spot on. There were magical secret agent foxes. Nightingale (almost) had a panic attack.

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i will defend that fictional teenage girl with my life. i literally don’t even care what she did. you would’ve done it too if you were her she’s probably handling things better than you would in her shoes

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Was in the throes of despair last night in part because I'd been doing some Latin exercises, trying to connect the correct form of an adjective to different nouns, and I was convinced I was doing it all wrong, but I worked up the courage to check the answer key just now and they were literally all fine. Hashtag don't psych yourself out.

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Van Helsing: Madam Mina I’ve seen that you wrote letters to Lucy can you tell me about the time before she got really sick

Mina: Oh of course here are all my notes!!! Ooops hehe I, a mischievous woman, have played a little prank by giving you the shorthand copy! Forgive me doctor I couldn’t resist a little joke! But I actually did transcribe them so you can look through them asap!

Van Helsing: *phone under the table frantically googling “can I adopt an adult woman”*

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Stained glass ao3 logo :P

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The post-graduation job hunt has gotten so incredibly demoralizing. Like, I just want something that pays okay, is full-time, and has at least some benefits, but at this point I've already applied most of the places that fit the bill -- and that's checking 4 or 5 different job boards and some individual employers' pages, too -- and most of them appear to have just ghosted me. I knew it was dire out there but it's still something else to have to deal with the current state of things.

I've made an appointment to talk with someone at my college career center since they also work with recent alumni, but I really can't think of much else to do that I'm not already doing. I hate this.

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me when i have to put proper citations: ugh this is so annoying who even cares what i do in the footnotes

me when i can't find a source because it hasn't been quoted correctly: i am going to track down the authors and they will answer to me. i will find out who caused this suffering. there will be blood.

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“I discovered that if Mountain Goats songs teach you anything, it’s not pessimism or bitterness or melodrama; it’s loyalty. Not to the people you’ve loved, exactly, but to the fact that you did love them. Maybe you don’t anymore, but that doesn’t invalidate the choices you made when you did. If you listen to enough Mountain Goats songs you learn that there is a kind of dignity in honoring feelings you no longer have. John Darnielle’s people fall out of love, yes, but they never forget that they were in it. Which is, I suppose, why people love the Mountain Goats so shamelessly. That’s a feeling, after all, and we honor it, along with the sadness that made it possible. If we are very lucky, we grow out of that sadness eventually. But the songs remain, along with our Pavlovian responses to them, as relics of former selves that—as John Darnielle is constantly reminding us—we need to respect.”

— Emma Stanford, Let Us Consider The Mountain Goats (via notsoterriblymisanthropic)

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Luz Noceda and Abigail Kamara would get along so well.

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bro why his undershirt looking like a makeshift binder <- op is deranged for making this comparison

the transmasc marty agenda prevails . he even pats his chest after biff leaves (even though biff had grabbed his shoulder)

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AU Roulette Challenge 2025

What is AU Roulette? A casual fic-writing challenge encouraging authors to play around with different types of alternate universe stories, which will be randomly assigned to each participant regardless of the fandom they sign up with. The goal of the challenge is to encourage creativity and get authors to write fics with premises they might not otherwise have considered, with varying difficulty levels of participation for writers of all experience levels.

How does it work? Writers will be able to sign up from now through the end of June with a fandom of their choice. At the start of July, each participant will be assigned three AUs from a masterlist using a random number generator. Each author will then have the choice of completing the challenge one, two, or all three of the AUs. Any fic exceeding a 500-word minimum will be considered a completion, so long as it employs the AU premise. The fic-writing period of the challenge will run for a month. Fics can be posted at any point during this time, and authors will have the option of having them added to an Ao3 collection for the challenge if they desire. They can also be posted to tumblr using the tag #AU Roulette 2025

What kind of AUs will be included in the challenge? The AU Roulette challenge will focus largely on popular, staple AU types with broad applicability to any fandom or relationship type. For example, a possible result might be something like a Time Travel AU (encompassing all the possible subsets, such as fix-it time travel, time loops, or other tropes under the same umbrella), but more restrictive AU types like a Soulmate AU that make assumptions about the author’s interpretation of character relationships in canon have been intentionally kept off the AU masterlist. The official list of AUs will be shared halfway through the month of June, with 36 different prompts on the list.

What if I get an AU type that doesn’t work for the canon I chose? Limited re-rolls will be allowed on a case-by-case basis. You are also encouraged to be as creative as you want with your interpretation of your assigned AUs, which may help with making them fit. The goal of this challenge is to encourage weird, creative fanfic, not to have every author who rolls the same result write cookie-cutter versions of the same types of stories. If you were to get a Coffee Shop AU, for example, there is no requirement that the coffee shop in question be a real-world 21st-century Earth Starbucks. In fact, deviating from the mold is highly encouraged. So long as you can make a case that you filled the loose premise of your AU type, you will get credit for having completed it.

Can I participate if I am not a writer? AU Roulette is a fanfic writing challenge, so official sign-ups are for those interested in writing (regardless of skill level or experience writing AUs). However, if you are interested in the challenge but not in writing fic for it, consider having a look at the #AU Roulette 2025 tag or the official AU Roulette 2025 collection on Ao3 once authors have begun posting their stories. If one of them really speaks to you, it might be a nice gesture to draw a piece of art, make a playlist, or create some other fanwork inspired by the fic and share it – in which case you would also be more than welcome to use the official tag!

(Authors are of course also welcome to do this for their or other participants’ stories, too.)

How do I sign up? Fill out this form with your email and fandom of choice.

Looking forward to seeing the AUs everyone creates this year!

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✨The Dad and the Lad✨

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Belka’s space suit that was used to train her for the future space flight. Photo by Yevgeny Kassin (1958)