#SOME LIBRARIES HAVE INTERLIBRARY LOANS!!!

[nat-20s]

I wanna become an influencer but specifically to influence you to USE PUBLIC LIBRARIES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[orecchietta]

does this small local academic publisher know that they’re the second website i look at when my paycheck comes in?

[likehephaestionwhodied]

Hi! I saw your comment on leatherdaddies/leather/kink at pride and you mentioned how this type of masculinity isn't meant to be performed for a het audience, and removing that framework is essentially hollowing out this type of masculinity. (?) I've been looking into modern media portrayals of non hegemonic masculinity and I was wondering if you had some good intro sources for leather culture? Based on the info in that post I'm wondering if there's some bleed through with pop culture/TV and the modern pop cowboy/space western but I could just be jumping to conclusions. At any rate would sill love and appreciate any recs you would be able to give--if not, totally understand! Either way I love the info that you added to that post a lot!!

It's like you knew I didn't want to be working on my thesis and have come to save me.

Okay so, it really depends on what you want for like "sources for leather culture" because if it's leather culture as it exists today put on your tightest Levis, and your heaviest leather boots and go to the local gay bar on leather night and make friends (easier said than done I know I've always lived in rural America, also pls don't go gawk leathermen we can tell) But if you want historic sources that I can help you with better.

The two books I cite the most in my thesis when it comes to leather masculinity are 1. Urban Aboriginals: A Celebration of Leathersexuality by Geoff Mains and 2. The Leatherman's Handbook by Larry Townsend.

The first is much easier to get your hands on than the second. You can just by Urban Aboriginals on Amazon or Thriftbooks or bookshops, probably even your local gay bookstore if you have one, it's still in print. I have the third edition I love that book SO MUCH it was originally published in the early 80s, and I use it as a reflection of the "golden" age of Leather in the 1970s.

Unfortunately, The Leatherman's Handbook and The Leatherman's Handbook II are out of print. That is not to say you can't get your hands on them. I spent an obscene amount of money to buy the pair on ebay. But also, I once found a Lesbian SM reader in my school's library, so you might beable to get it though an interlibrary loan? or maybe a pdf exists?

Another useful text that I cite quite a bit is Leather Folk: Radical Sex, People, Politics, and Practice, edited by Mark Thompson. This is an anthology of essays written by, you guessed it, leatherfolk both gay men and others. (I am assuming because of the post that you are most interested in gay leathermen)

Regarding the rest of your post on pop-culture portrayals of non-hegemonic masculinity (I am assuming you are using that term in an academic "I've read R.W. Connell" way, if not RIP, sorry again I'm working my thesis the first chapter of which is very "I'm Read R.W. Connell") I have one thing to say:

I am 90% sure only three of these men are gay, that only three of these men are intimately aware of the costumes they are wearing. David Hodo, the construction worker, Randy Jones the Cowboy, and Glenn Hughes. I wish I could find the photo of the three of them in their costumes with one very important detail, a single button of their 501s is undone. If you are a gay man crusing in the 1970s you own a pair of levi 501s that are so tight you have to shimmy into them, and you leave one of the buttons undone to make your dick bigger. You can also just tell when they're dancing who understood the assaignment.

I give all this information because the village people have such a weird relationship with the gay community. I haven't done a lot of work with them specifically so I'm sure someone is gonna read this and know xyz. But these guys are named after the west village, where gay men lived in new york, and got their start preforming for gay men. the costumes they wear are of course different types of masculinity idealized in the gay community. Their songs (at least the first iteration of the village people) are usually about gay things. YMCA is of course about crusing, but "San Francisco" from their debut is even more overt along side "Go West," "In the Navy," and "macho man"

I've inserted this video as a visual so when I say, "the three gay ones understand the assignment," you know what I mean, their performance is campy where, where the other two are missing that.

But deconstructing the Village people, or at least the three queerest ones takes an understanding of queer history. In the same way that the Leatherman is a "biker," the construction worker is not really a construction worker (this is not to say that Leathermen are not often bikers, they are) The construction worker is a "Clone" the promiscuous gay men of the 70s who wore Levi jeans, work boots, tight t-shirts, and flannel and solicited sex from other clones in public. Similarly, the cowboy might be a cowboy, but he might also be one of the hundreds of men who hung out at western-themed bars (closely related to leather) and are the prototype of the bear. All three of these particular queer masculinities resist the feminine archetype of queer men HOWEVER, when produced for mass conception, they are camped up.

I think that this would be an instructive place for you to start, I don't know that I can help with more modern pop-culture though.

[ladyhoneydee]

this peppermint winter, this marshmallow world

Zelink | College AU | 5.8k

At the end of the second swallow, she finally opened her eyes—and caught Link in the midst of a sip of his own. Watching her. Why did the warmth in his eyes look so…different? Had he ever looked at her that way before, in all their years of friendship? Maybe it was just the glow of the streetlamp they stood beneath, transforming the snow into glittering fairy dust and the ambiance into spun gold. If they left this place, if they took their walk as planned, perhaps the clear blue moon would return them to the same light they’d always been cast in. Why did the thought of that make her chest so tight?

Written for @pastelsandpining as part of the Hateno Hideout Secret Santa! If you like the best-friends-to-lovers trope, nonverbal trans guy Link who is acting veeeery oddly all of a sudden, and confused, investigative Zelda, this one is for you.

Read it on AO3, FFN, or under the cut!

Zelda knew something was wrong with Link from a mile off. 

It didn’t matter that she was stuck behind the front desk, explaining to a frazzled-looking first year that no, they did not have any private study rooms available at this very minute, and they would have to wait twenty minutes or so until something opened up. From the moment her best friend strode into Castleton University’s Gaebora Library, his snow-dusted green beanie pulled down tight and chin tucked in low, she could tell that his mind was running a mile a minute on some topic or another. He always tended to crunch in physically when he was mentally distressed, after all. 

As the student surrendered with a grimace and set off towards the staircase—no doubt heading for one of the public sitting areas on the quiet upper floors—Link lifted his chin, and Zelda met his eyes. The whites widened, the pupils expanded. Then his gaze promptly dropped back to the laminate tiles underfoot.

Zelda’s suspicion rocketed through the ceiling, the five floors of the library over her head, and the snow-laden roof shingles high above. With the exception of particularly awkward or emotional conversations, Link had never struggled to hold eye contact with her before. Heck, they had practically lived off of staring contests back in high school. Even now, five semesters into university, new friends invariably asked if she and Link were dating based solely on how annoying about eye contact and making goofy faces at each other they were.

Still, there was no way he could actually avoid her, even if he wanted to. Not when she was on front desk duty, and the only student worker on shift who knew Hyrulean Standard Sign Language. After all, Link never came to the library to study, only to pick up books. Nonverbal as he was, it was easier to focus in a private place than somewhere people who couldn’t understand HSSL might try to talk to him. 

His fingers stuttered through her name-sign for a moment before smoothing through the rest of his words. “I have an interlibrary loan to pick up? A Walk in the Lost Woods by K.-I.-A. H-E-R-M-O-S?” His finger-spelling of the name was quick, but she’d been signing since elementary school and reading Link’s words and letters off his hands for nearly as long; it was nearly impossible to trip her up at this point. 

“Sure, I’ll just need to grab it!” Zelda’s voice brimmed with enthusiasm to cover up her suspicion. “For your Environmental Philosophy course, I’m guessing?”

“Yeah. Got an essay due next week.” 

Well, at least he was making conversation.

“Tonight is such a mess,” she complained. “I swear I’ve had five different students try to get me to find their books for them instead of just following my directions. It’s like everyone’s brain cells died over winter break.” 

A smile cracked through Link’s slight frown and downturned brows. “So now they’re killing yours in retribution, huh?”

“Mm-hm! Which is exactly why you should get us coffees from Piper’s and meet me on the quad for a walk when you’re finished studying and I’m done with my shift!” She beamed at him.

Just like that, alarm swept his face clean of the soft warmth it had held only a moment prior, and his gaze darted away from her once again. He rubbed his hands on his pants before replying, as if wiping off sweat—which was weird, given that he’d just come in from the cold, and hadn’t been wearing gloves. 

“Oh, I don’t know…”

“Come on, please?” she wheedled. “I’ll need something to resuscitate my poor, dying brain cells. And you’re my chosen hero of the hour.” She smiled in the winning, bossy way she’d learned from a childhood cultivated by a single dad who was not only a hardass entrepreneur, but also had moonlit as the president of the PTA at every public school she had attended. 

She’d learned other things from Daphnes, too. Like how to pursue a lead when something seems fishy—and how to throw someone off the scent of your true intentions until the opportune moment. 

The trick was to pick a reason that was still genuine, just not the whole truth. 

Link sighed, his gestures slowing and taking on weight to emphasize his put-upon tone. “If you insist. But— I’m bringing hot chocolate, not coffee.” Her pout was met with a stern, wolf-eyed stare. “I don’t care if you live off of caffeine. It’ll be after ten before we’re both done for the night, and I’m not dropping money on your addiction when I’ve got perfectly good cocoa mix in my dorm.”

Zelda let out a ponderous sigh of her own. “Fiiiine.” She placed her hands on her hips. “You’re no fun, you know that?”

“They say that the chosen heroes rarely were,” Link shot back, his gestures short and snippy, but punctuated with enough flair that she knew it was from sass rather than actual upset. “I’m just living up to your expectations.”

“Sure, hero.” She smirked. “Let me grab that book.”

As she swiveled her rolly chair around to scan the loan shelf for his book—Nayru’s love, did none of the other student workers this semester realize they were supposed to label the books with the requester’s name to make things easier?—Zelda mused over Link’s odd behavior. He’d brightened up, sure, but for him to hesitate over spending time together…

Well, the last time that had happened, it was right before he came out to her as trans the year they turned thirteen, and he was terrified she was going to hate him forever. 

When she spun back around, Link was fervently tapping his fingers against the wood of the front desk, expressions dancing over his features so quickly that she couldn’t make them out. He remained wordless and reticent while she checked out the green-bound hardback and passed it over, before throwing her a tight smile, waving awkwardly with his free hand, and walking out the door at an even brisker pace than usual. 

He hadn’t even paused to tuck the book away in his backpack.

…It was fine. It was. He’d been wrong back then—she could never hate him, but especially not for that —and no matter what secret feelings he was keeping close to his chest right now, he’d be wrong this time, too. She loved him too much for any other option to stick. Like snow falling on a manhole cover, any trouble between them would melt away before it had the chance to build up. 

She would make sure of it.

--

One of the downsides of working at Gaepora Library was that even at the end of the long, grueling evening shift, Zelda couldn’t leave until she’d scrubbed the floor. 

The reasoning was understandable enough, she supposed—given the building’s late hours, the CasU custodial staff were all done for the day by the time the library closed, and the slush and salt dragged into the lobby would damage the library’s century-old hardwood floor if it sat on them overnight—but that didn’t make her job any more enjoyable. The snow outside was pretty and all, and she couldn’t wait to go out in it with Link later, but did every student need to track slush in on their boots? They had a mat in front of the door for a reason!

Dimly, she noticed the clomping of winter boots approaching the front doors. Zelda glared down at the dirty rag in her hand and scrubbed even more vigorously. Surely the late visitor would notice the “CLOSED” sign she’d propped up in the front window, or the fact that nearly all the lobby lights were off, or her scrubbing the floor, and correctly assume that they should come back in the morning.

The door before her swung open. 

Zelda reared back from the sudden blast of cold. Wrath simmered in her veins, and she snapped her head up, ready to give this person a piece of her mind. 

“Excuse me, but the library is actually closed for the eve—”

Link. 

His nose was red from the chill, and his shoulders shook with mirth. Immediately, all of the frustration that had been coiling like smoke in Zelda’s lungs throughout her shift whooshed out of her with a deep sigh.

“Nice floor,” he signed. “Very clean.”

“If you step on it, I might have to kill you.” 

He laughed. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

He’d obviously stopped by his dorm since the last time she’d seen him. His rugged leather-and-canvas backpack was nowhere to be seen, and he’d swapped out his slate-blue quilted jacket for a snowquill-stuffed puffy coat. This time, he was actually wearing gloves, and his omnipresent green beanie was pulled as far over his ears as it could manage.

She smiled fondly. Some things never changed. They might be twenty and sleep-deprived from annotated bibliographies and slideshow presentations instead of ten and sleep-deprived from playing video games under the covers all night, but Link would always get cold faster than she did.

Link, unaware of the nostalgic origins of her affectionate stare, gave her a hesitant smile in return. “I left the hot chocolates outside. No food and drinks in the library, and all.” 

“Aw, you’re such a good boy,” she cooed. “You rule follower, you.”

To her surprise, he flushed redder than the ruby studs in his ears. Gloved fingers twitched wildly in the air for a moment in a clear nonvocal stutter before he pressed the tips together so hard that she almost thought she could see them quiver from the strain. 

The pause in the conversation was disjointed, alien. Like they were metronomes running on two different beats per minute, instead of the unison they’d always shared. 

“Are–are you ready to go?” he asked eventually, and Zelda’s brows shot up. Was he just not going to address his reaction? What was going on? 

At her lack of reply, his eyes darted around the lobby, and he filled the void himself. “They’re gonna get cold if you take much longer. Slowpoke.” Even the teasing insult was added on belatedly, as though he was reading off a script of their usual interactions and had nearly forgotten the last part of his line. 

Well, if he wasn’t going to be normal, she would just have to pick up his slack. 

“Oh, I’ve been ready! In all ways except the physical.” She waved the damp rag in her hand pointedly. “Give me just a minute.”

The nod Link gave her was heavy with relief, and she realized he was grateful she hadn’t called him out on his weird behavior. Well, he was going to be in for a rude awakening once they started their walk and the interrogation began. 

One rag rinsed and squeezed out, one desktop computer logged out and turned off, and one book-stuffed messenger back hauled onto her shoulder later, they were out the door. 

--

Zelda was grateful for the hot chocolate before she even took a sip. The lightweight knit gloves she kept in the pocket of her winter coat were not cutting it against the chilly wind and swirling snow. Central Hyrule wasn’t particularly known for being a cold region of Hyrule—not with places like the Mt. Nayru region of Lanayru and the entirety of Hebra as competition—but when winter settled in over the wide grasslands, it truly did settle. So when she plucked one of Link’s ceramic travel mugs off the bench, the heat that sunk into her fingers was entirely welcome. 

“They’re dark chocolate with peppermint and marshmallows,” Link signed. His gestures were harder to decipher when made one-handed, as the other was occupied with his own mug; still, after a lifetime of communicating with Link in all kinds of one- and two- and even no-handed situations, she could parse them rather well. “I made them both the same so that you wouldn’t have to make any decisions. Or complain if I made the decision.”

“Aw, you’re so kind. The great hero, saving me from my own agency.” She sent him a sly look.

“Hey, how many times have you texted me just to ask me to pick something for you out of decision fatigue at the end of a long day?”

“Too many to count.” She nudged him in the side gently. “I am grateful for that, truly.”

“Oh, I know.” His elbow bumped her in return. “Now drink your hot chocolate, you mooch.”

“ Yeah, your mooch,” she shot back, and took a sip. 

If she’d been looking at Link at that instant, she might have seen how his lips parted and trembled at her words. But Zelda’s eyelashes had fluttered closed from pleasure the moment the sweet, minty richness hit her tastebuds, and the moment passed, unseen.

“Mmmmm, that’s the stuff.” Unconsciously, she poked her tongue out to collect the scant remaining droplets of chocolate from her lips, before going back in for another greedy gulp. The warmth, the velvety texture of half-melted marshmallows slipping into her mouth, the cool echo of mint that lingered even after the sip was gone—it was like a green firework going off in her mouth, cascading sparks of comfort all the way down to her stomach.

At the end of the second swallow, she finally opened her eyes—and caught Link in the midst of a sip of his own. Watching her. 

Why did the warmth in his eyes look so…different? Had he ever looked at her that way before, in all their years of friendship? 

Maybe it was just the glow of the streetlamp they stood beneath, transforming the snow into glittering fairy dust and the ambiance into spun gold. If they left this place, if they took their walk as planned, perhaps the clear blue moon would return them to the same light they’d always been cast in.

Why did the thought of that make her chest so tight?

“How are the brain cells?” Link signed.

“Huh?” She blinked, owl-eyed. 

He laughed. “Okay, so they’re obviously not—” His hands fluttered in the air for a moment. “Oh, what was the word you used before…”

“Resuscitated.” She narrowed her eyes.

He ignored it. “That’s it! Resuscitated. Obviously your brain cells haven’t been resuscitated yet.”

“I think your presence might be killing them off, actually.”

“Well, I can always leave if that’s what you’d prefer…” His words were lighthearted, but something glittered in his eyes. Something that turned her stomach and reminded her what, exactly, they were there for.

“No!” She flinched back at her own outburst and thought fast. “I mean, no, obviously I don’t want you to leave. What I want is to go on a walk with you through the Green.”

“The Green?” If she hadn’t been watching him so closely, she might have missed him nervously biting his lower lip. “I thought you said the quad. And I don’t know if it’s a good idea to go all the way out there. I mean, it’s going to get pretty cold tonight.”

“The cold front isn’t supposed to blow in until midnight, actually. I checked the weather earlier. It’ll be totally fine—no more snow or cold than we’re already getting.”

Link looked up, but the sky was inscrutable. It was impossible to tell if the clouds above were thick and heavy with snow or light and mobile; if they were on their way out or if more lurked on the horizon. His brow furrowed.

“Besides, I can always keep you warm myself,” Zelda joked. It was a quip long-familiar for them—their friendship had always been one of touchy-feely affection—but instead of the habitual glomping hug or taking of her hand, Link only gave her that same frightened rabbit stare.

“Or not.” She laughed awkwardly. “Again, the weather shouldn’t be a problem anyhow. Even for you.”

“Ha, ha,” he signed sarcastically, and she could have collapsed with relief. “Make fun of me for having a normal response to abnormal temperatures.”

“It’s my solemn duty as your best friend to make fun of you,” she said through a cheeky grin.  “So? Are you in?”

Link sighed, and it was like she was seeing the action in double: the put-upon, overdramatic performance, and the actual release of trepidation it concealed. “...Yeah. Yeah, of course I’m in. Always.”

Always, even if the whole evening had been strange and discombobulated so far. Zelda took a deep breath and let it out. They would get through this, no matter what was churning inside his head and spilling out like steam over a hot spring. It was him and her. Zelda and Link. Always.

“Perfect.” She smiled at him, softer than the gently falling snowflakes. “Shall we?”

“Yeah,” he said, and the smallness and lightness of his motions let Zelda know her feelings were reciprocated. “Let’s take a walk.”

--

The Green was the closest thing CasU had to a nature reserve. It must have had some sort of official name, but Zelda hadn’t looked at a map of campus in years, and every student she’d ever heard talking about the place just called it the Green. Even the professors and administration did, as if they realized that no one would know what they were referring to unless they adopted the students’ language. 

But regardless of what one called the hundreds of acres of green space that hugged the entire western border of campus, a walk on one of the well-trodden footpaths along the river, through the woods, or across the meadows was always an enjoyable way to spend a few hours. Between Link’s Outdoor Education major, Zelda’s multitude of Biology internships, and the hours the pair had spent avidly mapping every trail themselves during their first semester, they both practically had the land memorized. 

Still, it was only practically, never wholly, because there was always something new to see. 

Even with three years at CasU under her belt, the Green’s beauty in winter never failed to strike her. Although it might have benefitted from a temporary renaming, given how everything besides the tall, old conifers sprinkled amongst the leafless oaks, maples, and aspens was blanketed in pure white snow. The branches criss-crossing over their heads were completely coated, as if the goddesses had dipped them in marshmallow fluff for a wintry treat. 

“It looks completely different,” Link signed. He took a sip of his hot chocolate. 

Zelda had to agree. The last time they’d hiked through the Green—nearly a month ago now, between finals, winter break, and the hectic first week back—a chaotic mess of decaying leaves had carpeted the forest floor, and they’d had to watch their step or risk tripping over a well-camouflaged root. The soil had been wet and slick beneath their feet from rain, and sprinkled through the tussocks of browning grass crumbled huge, frost-blackened mushrooms. Now, the whole world glittered beneath the silver rays of the half-moon, illuminating dozens of squirrel, rabbit, bird, and deer tracks that ran beneath the tree trunks—tracks that could only have been laid since the snow began falling, less than an hour ago. 

How strange, that the season of death felt more lively than the long, damp months that preceded it. 

“It’s beautiful,” she whispered. She wasn’t sure why. The hush just felt right. 

When Link looked over at her, eyes soft and wide with wonder, and nodded, she knew he felt it too. 

They reached a split in the path, a familiar crossroad. Left would take them further into the woods; right would take them to the meadows on the northeastern edge of the Green, before curving back in the direction of campus proper. 

She turned to Link once again. “What do you think? Right?”

“Wrong,” Link joked. “Nah, totally, let’s go to the meadows. It’ll be easier to get back to our dorms from there anyway.”

“It’ll be nice to see how they look, too, with the snow. By morning all the skiers will be out, and it won’t be nearly as pretty.” Zelda grinned good-naturedly. ‘All the skiers’ often included Link and Zelda in their numbers, after all. 

They swung off to the right, pointing out how the makeup of the forest changed as they got closer and closer to the meadows. When they both finished their final swigs of cocoa, marshmallows glazing pillowy sweetness down their throats, Zelda offered to stow their travel mugs away in her backpack. After all, Link had made them himself in his ceramics studio last year; it wouldn’t do for them to break! 

Still, even when the heat from the mug in her hands was gone, Zelda felt warm down to her core.

Books always said that winter was quiet, but Zelda couldn’t help but feel that was exactly wrong. It always felt, to her, like more. Brighter, with the snow reflecting the moonlight back up to dazzle their retinas and aid their journey. Freer, with the song of the wind more obvious as the fresh powder muffled any of the typical forest sounds. Sweeter, with the clean crispness of snowfall settling on the tongue. The beautiful more ness of it all filled her up, until she felt just shy of bursting with contentment.  

And then they crossed into the open air with its swirling snow and stars, and something in her chest, something brilliant and winged and joyful, rose and broke free of its tether.

Her head tipped back and her mouth opened wide and she drank in the moonlight, the starlight, the north wind. Arms flung wide to embrace the night. She twirled, twirled, twirled, basking in the coldbright good until it blurred into streaks and her dancing feet stumbled their way into a deep, clinging snowbank and she tripped—

Arms around her. Warm but not warm; body heat covered up by a wind-chilled shield. Soft but not soft; sturdy compactness muffled by puffy down. Her body was motionless, but her vision spun like the orbit of some wild planet. Its sun: the green beanie. 

“Nice catch,” she said breathlessly. “Have you considered sports?”

One hand lingered on her still-swaying waist, holding her steady. The other lifted to her cheek, its touch tender. His woolen glove itched as it traced letter-signs against her cold skin.

“D-U-M-M-Y.”

“Rude.”

With a deliberately hard blink, her vision finally stopped spinning. Link’s face was before her: nose and cheeks ruddy from the cold, bemused smirk on his lips. It was strange to be staring up at him for once. She hadn’t done that since they were eleven, when she shot up like a beanpole and didn’t stop growing until halfway through high school. 

Noticing the change in her gaze, Link retracted his hand from her cheek, instead hovering it between them where she could make out his signs. “You know, spinning around like you did when we were little is a lot more dangerous now than it was then. Kids have way stronger bones.”

“I drink my milk, thanks. Lon Lon Ranch is coming in clutch for my bones.”

He gave her a deadpan look. “Sure you do. Because I’ve definitely seen you get milk at the cafeteria even once in the last two and a half years.”

“Well…there was milk in the hot chocolate, right?” She raised a brow at him.

“Nope. Box mix and water.” His stare was positively gloating.

“You’re awful.”

“ Yeah, your awful,” he said, and then, as if the terrible, adorable pun had flipped a switch in his brain, his jaw went slack and his eyes bugged. Zelda had about one second to get her feet beneath her before he dropped his arms and stepped back so abruptly that she would’ve fallen again, had she not felt the tension seize his every muscle. 

As it was, she still stumbled. Her jaw clenched, but she forcibly relaxed it before meeting Link’s gaze again. 

In the time it took her to recover, he’d taken two steps back, a distance that yawned between them like an abyss between their feet. His arms were wrapped tightly around his stomach, as if he was about to be sick—or protecting his soft, squishy bits from a nearby threat.

“I think it’s time to tell me what’s going on,” Zelda said, voice soft but clear.

Link was already shaking his head. She waited for his hands to rise into place, for him to uncurl his hedgehog self and speak, even if it was a no, but they didn’t.

“Link, it’s obvious that something is wrong. You’ve been acting wei—” She cut herself off; reconsidered. “... different all night. I’m not judging you, I’m worried. You’re my best friend. I want to help you, if it’s something I can help with.”

The head-shaking slowed, then gradually ceased. He peeled his arms free from his torso. When his gaze met hers, her heart twinged at how ashamed he looked, with his shiny eyes and the redness of his face that she knew surpassed what the cold alone could do to his skin. 

“Do you promise you won’t judge me? Or get mad?”

“I promise,” she vowed. “And Link,” she smiled at him gently, “if you think I would judge you for anything, you’re ignoring thirteen years of experience.”

He let out a juddering sigh. “Yeah, you’re right. Okay. Okay. So the thing is…” His gestures trailed off. He tried again. “The thing is…it’s…I…”

“You can plan what you want to say first,” Zelda murmured. “No hurry, as long as I do get to know it eventually.”

He nodded jerkily, gaze settling on the churned-up snow between them. When his hands began twitching in loose, tiny gestures, Zelda turned her own gaze to the sky to give him privacy. 

The snow had begun falling faster since they’d begun their walk through the Green. She could hardly see the constellations between the shadows of the clouds above. The Ocarina, the Hero of Winds, the Chosen Lovers—all her favorites were out of sight. She could barely make out the three stars that formed the belt of the Princess of Light. 

A tap on her shoulder. She looked over at Link, whose face looked a little more settled, a little less panicked. 

“I’m ready now,” he signed. The motions were steadier, and she felt the tension in her unknot the tiniest bit. They were Link and Zelda. They’d be okay. 

She nodded encouragingly. 

“You’re right that there’s something wrong,” he started. “Wrong with—with me. At least I think it’s with me, because there’s nothing you’ve done wrong that would have done this, at least I don’t think so, I can’t think of anything, but—” 

He cut himself off, dropping his hands fully back to his sides before raising them again. 

“There is something wrong with me. When I’m with you. It started…” His gaze left hers and focused on the stars above, remembering. “I think it started during finals week. That night we pulled the all-nighter. I thought it was just because of how tired I was…but then it happened over winter break, at the solstice bonfire. And it’s only gotten worse since then.”

Zelda’s heart dropped to the pit of her stomach. Nothing wrong with her, yet it only happened when he was in her company? A gust of wind rocked them both, and for a split second, she wished it would carry her away.

“I just feel so…so weird,” he burst out, hands flying into bigger shapes than they had all night. “Whenever we’re together. My heart beats so hard, and I feel it everywhere. And my knees get all shaky, and my hands get all shaky—which really sucks when you need your hands to communicate, by the way—and my brain gets all fuzzy, and my stomach churns.”

Oh. Oh, he was…

“And it makes me feel awful, because you don’t deserve me acting so weird with you, but sometimes you get close, or you say things that just make–make it stronger, and I just can’t help it!” He shook his head wildly. “I think I must be sick or something!”

Her heart thrummed in her chest at the same time as she had to bite back a laugh. She’d been worried all this time, and all along, he’d—

“Link,” Zelda said carefully. “I don’t think you’re sick.”

“Yeah?” He looked hopeful. “What do you think it is?”

“Well…” How to phrase this delicately? “Do you remember Malon? From high school?”

“Of course! I mean, she was my first girlfriend, how could I forget her?”

“And do you remember how you felt when you two first got together?”

“Yeah, being with her always made my heart…flutter…” He broke off, and Zelda could see the gears start turning in his head, spinning faster than even the snowflakes falling thickly around them.

No turning back now.

“Link…have you ever considered that you might…love me romantically?”

The denial was immediate, words flying from his fingers. “I can’t like you! We said we’d never date back in, like, middle school!”

Her chest swelled with fond amusement at the silliness of the rebuke.

“Link, that was almost a decade ago. We’re completely different people now. Way smarter, emotionally competent, physically attractive people. ” She grinned teasingly. “You had that terrible haircut that made you look like a coconut back then, of course I wouldn’t date you.”

“A coconut,” he repeated, gestures spiky with his derision. “Like yours was much better! You had that little pageboy cut for years.”

“Yeah, and as my best friend, it’s really your fault that I looked so bad for so long. You really should’ve warned me.” 

“My fault! You—” He broke off. After a couple of moments, he continued, gestures smaller. “You mentioned my hair, but…isn’t it also, you know, because of your sexuality?”

Zelda laughed. “I wasn’t even fourteen yet when we made that pact. I don’t think I even knew what a sexuality was.”

“No, I mean…” He scuffed his foot into the snow. “Now. You wouldn’t be into me now, because, you know.”

Zelda’s brows furrowed. “No, I really don’t. Can you be a little more clear?”

“Because…you’re straight?”

She blinked. That was not what she had expected him to say. “Link, that means I like men. You are a man. Of course I could be into you.” 

Link blinked at her as if she had just delivered an entire lecture on the precise chemical makeup of the secretions of tireless frogs and their utilization in the pharmaceutical industry. “I…yeah. Yeah, you’re right.” A smile spread over his face, slow and steady, until he was positively beaming. “You’re right! You could be into me!” He froze. “Wait, but are you into me? You already know how I feel, so…”

“‘Know?’ I practically figured it out for you,” she teased, then took a deep breath. “To be honest, I haven’t thought about it before, because I’ve been so happy to be your best friend. I’d have been happy to be that for you forever, as long as I was by your side. But you…seriously, Link, if you’d want to give us a shot romantically, I’d be so down for that.”

“Really?” he asked, starry-eyed.

“Yes,” she answered simply. “It’s another way to get to know you, to be close to you. To be happy with you.” She shuffled her feet. “I love you, Link, and I’d love to love you even more. Why wouldn’t I want to take that chance?”

The smile he gave her warmed her right down to her frosty toes. The two paces that had separated them for the entirety of their conversation disappeared in a flash, as he clumsily crossed the snow between them. 

“I could be your best friend forever, too,” he told her, “but I’d also like to be able to make out with you.” 

One hand reached up to cup her face, and Zelda tilted her chin down until their cold-reddened noses brushed. 

Nayru’s love, if Link’s heart had been hammering like this every time they’d touched for the last month, he was even more of an oblivious dummy than she thought.

But he was her oblivious dummy. Platonically, romantically. Eternally.

“We should get a start on that, then,” she murmured, watching his eyelashes flutter at the feeling of her breath on his face. “Time’s a-ticking. Snow’s a-blowing.”

Link let out a wordless groan, shifting the hand that cupped her cheek to instead twine demandingly through the hair at her nape, and signed rapidly with his free hand. “Gods, I love that smart mouth of yours.”

She wasn’t sure which one of them moved first, if it was Link’s hungry mouth or her own that bridged the gap. Whoever it was, it led to an intoxicating, insistent push-and-pull; the sharp press of Link’s teeth against her bottom lip; the sensation of the smooth muscle of his mouth as she traced her tongue along his own. 

He tasted of chocolate, peppermint, and marshmallow. Sweet and warm and familiar, just like him. 

Her best friend.

Link.

When they pulled apart, gasping for breaths that stung their lungs with the chill, she could feel that same fluttery something from earlier whirling in her chest, ablaze with joy. 

“That was…” she breathed. 

“Yeah,” Link agreed. His eyes were half-lidded, heavy with desire, as they traced over her face. “It was.”

“We should do it again, as soon as possible.” Zelda pressed a kiss to the lobe of his ear, tugging the ruby stud there softly with her teeth and luxuriating in his ragged gasp. How glad she was that Link had never chosen to let the holes close over; that he could look in the mirror and see how they suited the him he was now, rather than who he’d been when they were first done. 

“I think I’d rather—” he signed, and the shapes were fuzzy with the shaking of his hands, “—do it again somewhere warm.”

It was so unexpected, Zelda couldn’t help but release his ear in a full-body laugh. There was her Link, her precious, lovely, cold-hating Link. 

He’d continued despite her fit of giggles, although a smile had curved the corners of his mouth as well. “Seriously, you said the cold front wasn’t coming in yet, so what’s this?” He gestured at the snow whirling around them, which admittedly was coming down rather hard. And maybe the wind blowing in from the north was a little strong. 

“I never claimed to be a meteorologist,” Zelda sniffed. “And…didn’t I say I’d keep you warm?”

“Not warm enough!” Link dodged as she attempted to brush her icy nose into his warm neck. “Hey! Keep that thing to yourself!” 

As she chased him down the path that would take them back to campus, laughing wildly and stumbling where the drifts were too deep, Zelda couldn’t help but grin. The magic spell hadn’t broken when they left the streetlamp after all: they had kindled it all by themselves. It didn’t matter where they were. At his side, every flurry could be fairy dust.

It was him and her. Zelda and Link. 

Always.

[laconicmoon]

🇵🇸low spoons, low income ways to support a free palestine🇵🇸

For many low-income and/or disabled activists, we can't always do the obvious things to support Palestine like donating money or going to protests. I'm compiling this list to remind myself what I *can* do, and I'm hoping it might help some other people too.

Disclaimer: you might not find all of these to be low spoons for you--maybe drawing is physically difficult, or phone calls are distressing. These are just ideas! Please ignore and adapt them to suit your needs and abilities <3

🍉Get creative with stickers, posters, zines, whatever!

Adhesive shipping labels from USPS ship to your house for free (if you live in the US). You can order up to 750 at a time! Draw a Palestinian flag or "Free Gaza" on there and stick them everywhere (it's actually quite easy to vandalize without getting caught).

If you want to go bigger, try a wheatpaste, and if you have access to a printer or copier, leave some zines around (tutorial, canva template). If you are housebound, you can give them to a friend to spread around for you.

You can also make signs and have someone else take them to a protest. If you're a sewist, make a puppet or wearable patches!

🍉Display a Palestinian flag or pro-Palestine sign in your window

If you live in an area where this isn't safe, or if you don't have your own space, assess the risk before you do this. You could also put up a more subtle symbol, such as a watermelon, if you are nervous about backlash.

🍉Contact your reps!

I know people say this all the time, but for my US-based friends, some pointers to make it take as few spoons as possible--

Democracy.io makes it super easy to email both your senators and your representative at the same time.

Faxzero.com allows you to send a fax straight to your reps' printers. Not all of their offices have this enabled, but I've heard faxes are more direct than emails.

If you don't know what to say, you can adapt this template (it's a bit outdated). Or just write "Free Palestine" or "Ceasefire Now." Something is better than nothing!

🍉Participate in phone zaps

Often times, organizations like USPCN or Jewish Voice for Peace will ask for people to call a person or organization to put pressure on them, such as demanding that a university drop charges against student protestors. Monitor those accounts and, if you're up for it, call or leave a message. Or, you could even text the group chat and conduct your own phone zap!

🍉Check out library books about Palestine

You also may be able to request that your library purchase certain titles, or request titles they don't have through interlibrary loan!

🍉Write a letter to the editor

You can write either to a local paper or a school paper, if you're a student or alum. This is a great way to break out of the echo chamber--local papers often have an intergenerational audience.

🍉Send in a public comment to a city council meeting

Many cities have the option to send in a public comment electronically! So if you can't make it to an in-person meeting, this is a good option, especially if your city is trying to pass a ceasefire resolution.

🍉Attend online Jewish Voice for Peace "Power Half-Hour for Gaza"

JVP's Power Half-Hours are a wonderful space to grieve, process, and build stamina for the fight to come. Monday through Friday, 3pm ET/ 12pm PT, 30 minutes of solidarity-building and reflection facilitated by Jewish leaders but open to all. You can pre-register to join on Zoom or stream on YouTube.

🍉Support friends who go to protests/actions

That can be as simple as texting them before and after and making sure they are safe, lending them a bandana or rain gear, or providing a place to decompress afterward! If you have an animal that does well in crowds, consider allowing a trusted friend to take them to a protest or encampment for a short time. Seeing dogs in keffiyehs always makes my day <3

---

🍉Other Considerations and Reminders 🍉

Focus on the long haul. It's more important to create a pace of activism that's sustainable for you than it is to do everything all the time.

"Ought" implies "can." If you are unable to do something, or if it would be very difficult for you to do so, you are in no way obligated to do that thing!

Block words on social media if you need to. In a similar vein, you do not need to force yourself to constantly watch graphic videos or read upsetting posts. Yes, Gaza has asked us to bear witness to the atrocities there--"All Eyes on Gaza Now" is a common chant for a reason. But that doesn't mean you, specifically, must doomscroll forever.

Please reblog with your own favorite ways to advocate for Palestine when you're broke and spoonless 🇵🇸 🇵🇸

[jeannereames]

Whenever Alexander founded a new city, was he founding a new Greek polis?

This is a complicated question because it seems that he founded cities for different functions. So yes, some of them were "cut" on the basis of a Greek polis colony, as with Alexandria. (Btw, when drawing the ground pattern of a colony [apoikia, or daughter city], it's described as "cut" because the founder [oikistes] literally "cut" the lines with his spear.)

But other towns were clearly meant to be hill fortifications, as in Central Asia, such as Alexandria Eschate. These would have been designed for maximum security, not necessarily on a Greek model. Some of these foundations are known/have been found, but others are disputed. We know of about 13 for sure, and c. 20.

If you're curious to learn more, Frasier wrote the classic book on it, The Cities of Alexander the Great, Clarendon (for Oxford), 1996. There have been additional articles since, but I'd start there. You will need to get it from a college library or via ILL, as it's stupid-expensive!

(Just a reminder to all that ILL or Interlibrary Loan is your friend. No matter how small your local public library, if you're willing to pay a bit in fees for postage, you can often borrow these academic books from other libraries. There may be restrictions, but it's a way to get a hold of them. You can also get journal articles and book chapters that way. Reference books are usually off the table, however.)

[olderthannetfic]

On the note of "minors being allowed to read smut" and how it's supposedly grooming and horrible and haunted and all things cursed for their psyche: I didn't have access to the internet until I turned about 13, but I did have access to the public library, and one summer I deeply and madly fell in love with an urban YA series.

In that series, the MC had a boyfriend, broke up with said boyfriend after he tried to kill her, and got with the ex boyfriend's half brother, and, boy, did I have a crush on that character! Everytime I was able to put my paws on a new book of the series (they're 15 in total, and I had to get them through interlibrary loan) I'd literally skim through the plot to see if the MC finally had sex with him, and then I'd read the kissing scenes enough times to remember them word by word.

I didn't care for spoilers, I didn't care for the other characters, for the villains, for the MC's troubles. No. I just wanted to read that scene (despite already knowing that it was just going to be hinted at, rather than being actually explicit).

At some point I got so frustrated that I began writing fics of how I thought said scene should've gone, being as explicit as my 12yo brain allowed me to be, adding bites that drew blood and orgasms that were all explosions. I had never masturbated, never read an actually explicit scene, never seen a website outside of barbie.com, my only references were movies that were shown in TV, and I didn't even know that what I was doing was just writing a smutty fic! And yet there I was, writing a smut fic.

You can't stop people from growing up, and discovering one's sexuality and being curious about it and wanting to read and write about it is normal. It happens even without Ao3 and all the other platforms that antis deem as bad and dangerous. Calling everything you don't like "grooming" is extremely disingenuous and also dangerous, as the meaning of the word gets watered down.

--

[sigridstumb]

Hindsight is... interesting.

At one point in my childhood I announced to a librarian that I had read all 14 L. Frank Baum Oz books over 25 times each. I read them in order, over and over again, from The Wizard of Oz to Glinda of Oz.

At age nine I memorized the AD&D first edition Dungeon Master's Guide and Players Handbook.

I was younger than seven years old when the husband of one of my mother's friends asked me why I talked like a damn encyclopedia.

I do not recall making a friend until I was 31 years old and started making friends online. Prior to that I have absolutely NO idea why other people decided to be friends with me or how they went about doing it. I definitely HAD friends, and had romantic and sexual relationships as an adult. But I don't know how or why it happened. Likeadeuce, you are the first person I deliberately tried to make friends with.

I was Gifted. From kindergarten all through elementary school, teachers kept asking my parents to move me up one or two grades. My parents said no because they thought it would be difficult for me socially. In seventh and eighth grade I took the bus to the high school in the mornings, took math and science class there, then the school district paid for a taxi to pick me up at the high school and bring me back to the junior high, where I finished the rest of my day. I ended up skipping ninth grade and attended a gifted and talented boarding school which invited kids from the entire state to attend. I never learned how to study, never learned to do homework, never learned how to memorize things. I had to derive them, very quickly, by watching my peers study in their dorm rooms in tenth grade.

In middle school I read all of the available books on Norse mythology during classes while the teacher was talking. He kept calling on me in class and I could always answer correctly. My parents were called in because I was being so disruptive. I was in tears. I had no idea what was wrong. The purpose of school was to learn, and I already knew everything the teacher was saying, so I was trying to learn other things in the time. I was trying to comply with the rules as I understood them. After the meeting my dad explained that adults do not like it when kids make them feel stupid by knowing everything. I learned that I had to pretend to not know things.

At some point I read all the books I could find about what life in medieval castles would be like, read them, used them to create a medieval castle with all the costs and materials and labor, then used what I had done to double-check the newly released 2nd ed. AD&D Castles Handbook to see if the game designers had been accurate. (They had, it was lovely.)

From age ten random strangers would yell insults at me when I was walking to and from school or bus stops. Mostly they called me a dyke.

Over one J-Term in college I read all the Arthuriana books in the college library and available via interlibrary loan. I read two translations of The Mabinogian. I read Parzival in translation. I read the archaeology summaries. This was not for a class, I just did it instead of class.

Hindsight is interesting.

[frostfire-17]

could you recommend any texts about the hittite language? (preferably including non-paywalled ones)

I can recommend a couple! For a broader look, you might check out A Companion to Ancient Near Eastern Languages, which I will admit I haven't sat down and read, but all the chapters are by people who know what they're talking about and I believe it's designed for a layperson to read. (Yakubovich is probably going to give you a heck of a lot of sociolinguistics stuff in his chapter on Hittite, though, because that's how he rolls.) Don't know if this is available online; you might need to just try and interlibrary loan it if your library doesn't have it.

If you're looking for straight-up textbooks/grammars, I I think both of these are available in pdf on academia.edu (you need a free account), and possssibly elsewhere on the internet, or you can again try interlibrary loan. The first is van den Hout's The Elements of Hittite (which I learned Hittite from, in its pre-publication Kinko's-bound version, lo these many years ago!). It's a nice little textbook that walks you through the grammar and to a lesser extent the writing system, and has you read some of Mursili II's annals as you go. The second is Hoffner and Melchert's A Grammar of the Hittite Language, which I only ever used as a reference grammar, so I can't tell you how it is as a textbook? It's more comprehensive than van den Hout in terms of grammar, certainly, and more interested in a linguistics perspective, but it doesn't deal with the cuneiform system at all and is overall less user-friendly.

(I have to add, though, that I'm not sure how either of these will treat a lone user without an instructor. You will fare better if you know some Greek, Latin, or Sanskrit, to give you a sense of how ancient IE languages set themselves up - in general a familiarity with noun cases will at least help you out some.) Good luck!

[anaryllis]

extremely niche art history book rec post

so lately ive been just obsessed with art history books by hiroshi unno. he seems to mostly focus on western fin-de-sieclé era art, but from a japanese perspective

1st thing to note: these books are gorgeous

the graphic design of every page is so intentionally built around the subject, its done so lovingly. more art books need to get on this level

2nd thing: they're published bilingually!!

every copy ive gotten my hands on have been published in both japanese & english. japanese text is definitely the primary language, so if you're really curious sometimes you may have to break out your google translate for some pages. but the bulk of the text is written in both languages, so it's readable for english speakers! (me)

3rd thing: refreshing perspective

i ADORE european 1800's / 1900's art, but often struggle to actually "study" it more-or-less b/c its often presumed to be part of an understood "canon" that westerners should all intrinsically know. genuinely reading these books by someone who seems to hold the same love for the art, but enough distance to actually EXPLAIN some of these things has been mind-blowing. "the art of decadence" was particularly incredible - put words to the odd misogyny of art nouveau that i could never quite place while writing all my college papers on the damn subject. where were these books for me then.

"but where the hell do i find these?? they're so expensive??"

they are! & i will prob buy some favez someday for my bookshelf, but so far i have been getting them through my public library, & expanding to interlibrary loans when they dont have them.

anyway!! if you have the same niche art interests as me, go forth!!!!!!!

[dedalvs]

Hey! I'm new to conlanging and I'm wondering if there's anywhere you'd recommend looking, on Tumblr or elsewhere, for beginner conlangers to learn and get advice. I love the idea of conlang but it's hard to wrap my head around sometimes.

apologies if i am bothering you. I am just not sure where else to ask.

Warmest regards :)

I have a book out called The Art of Language Invention you can buy or borrow from the library. If your library doesn't have it, they'll probably get it, if you ask them to do so (or some other might have it via interlibrary loan). I'd love for my book to be in more libraries.

The book has two covers, by the way. This is the original:

And this is the extra crispy new edition:

The new edition has a whole new chapter, and also some corrected typos (well, the latest latest one does), and it also has some of @quothalinguist's work. If you can find the new one, that's the better one.

Incidentally, when I was initially deciding on the cover, I had to decide between blue on black and black on blue. I ultimately decided for blue on black, but I really liked the other one. It made me so, so, so happy to know that both covers now get to exist. It's freaking awesome.

There's also plenty of good intro conlang stuff on YouTube. I've got a channel. Biblaridion's is good. And you can poke around.

Plus, anyone who happens to see this can feel free to reblog/reply with comments with other resources.

Hope that helps!

[likehephaestionwhodied]

Can you pretty please make a history of leather lesbians post? Your reblog about lesther daddies made me cry because it was so full of love and respect.

I'm gonna start with the bad news, which is no I can't. That post and the specifics of that post come from 1. being a leatherman and 2. months of intense research prepping to write my master's thesis. And so that is full of academic history. And I'm not knocking non-academic history; I rely on non-academic community history for my thesis; almost entirely, there is very little academic history on the community. But that's the thing, it's community history and I've never been a member of that community.

This is not good or bad news, but because of the nature of some leather spaces, particularly the ones I write about in my thesis, there is very little if any, cross-over of gay men and lesbian leather. THIS DOES NOT MEAN IT DOES NOT HAPPEN but this is why I know very little.

During the 70s there was an anti-sex push that affected gay leathermen and leather lesbians differently. Leather lesbians were in the trenches fighting for their right to also be feminists because there was a huge feminist movement that all sex is bad, particularly sex that looks like or is heterosexual sex and leather/SM is abuse etc. etc. Which is a dynamic that is different from what leathermen are looking at which is more "we should try to be like heterosexuals and stop having so much weird sex"

The good news is I do have some things you could read if you want to get a rudimentary grasp of lesbian leather history.

Leatherfolk: Radical Sex, People, Politics, and Practice edited by Mark Thompson. This is a collection of essays by leatherfolk, by virtue of the editor being a gay leatherman there's an over-representation of gay men in this collection but there are essays by lesbians. Gayle Rubin [who we're gonna talk more about later] writes about a fisting club for gay men but she talks about when Lesbians and women in general were included. But there are other essays by lesbians about lesbians.

Coming to Power: Writings and Graphics on Lesbian S/M Edited by members of SAMOIS a lesbian/feminst S/M Organization. This is going to be probably the most helpful to anyone looking for a historical grounding in Lesbian leather. It's not a text on the history of leather rather, it's a primary source, these are leather lesbians talking about their experence. The unfortunate thing is, and you'll run into this a lot with niche community groups, it's hard to get your hands on. You're looking at 150-200 dollars if you want to buy the third edition. But I found it on accident in my university's library, so you might be able to find it in your local academic library (I am in the middle of Nebraska so there's a little bit of hope for you, too where ever you are.) OR you might be able to get it through interlibrary loan, there might also be like PDF copies floating around.

There are two people I'll point you towards as being the two people I know that have written on this subject.

Patrick Califia: Patrick is a trans man who, in the late 70s and early 80s prior to identifying as a trans man, was a big name in the San Francisco lesbian leather community. He is featured three times in Coming to Power and has an essay in Leatherfolk he is referenced in a lot of the gay male press as being the lesbian point of contact, also an erotica writer. So his early stuff might be helpful.

Gayle Rubin: If you are want to read heavy academia about queers in general, Rubin is who you should start with. She essentially invents Queer Theory with her article "Thinking Sex." the most pertinent article for my answer to you is "The Leather Menace" The title itself is a derivative of "lavender menace," and it plays with this theme that you see over and over and over again across the queer leather community of being a marginalized community inside an already marginalized community.

Rubin also wrote one of the best academic pieces on the gay male leather community The Valley of the Kings, it was never published and exists in only two places, Ann Arbor at the University of Michigan and Chicago at the Leather Archives and Museum. I have not gotten to read it in full. Someday I'll grow the balls to email her and ask her if there's an easier way to read it.

If you read these anthologies, goggle these women, google the organizations they mention. I know absolutely nothing about Dykes on Bikes but surely someone's written some kind of history about them.

If you have the chance go to The Leather Archives and Museum, there's a heavy emphasis on gay leathermen, but it is a community archive for all the leather community.

The thing about digging for the history of this community is there is no published "here is the history of the leather community" you have to read this person's memoir and the clippings you could find of this or that publication and someone's history of this that or some other organization.

I'm sure if some 50-year-old Leather Dyke comes across this, it'll be met with, "Okay, kid you have no idea what you're talking about." and to her and everyone else, I'd say, "yeah, no, I don't have a clue." this is just where I would start if I wanted to dig into this topic.

[kittyit]

Is there any way to freely access anthology of harm? Or any original works on that subject? I’m not well from my last relationship that ended over a year ago now and it’s incredibly hard if impossible to talk about what I went through. I guess I could use some support/tools to work through some of those feelings without having to bare my soul to anyone

if you're in the US, you should be able to Interlibrary loan request it at your local library which is usually free or a quarter/fifty cents. I also have a few relevant tags but they're much more varied content unlike the anthology which is consistently women telling their stories/processing. I'll add the tags to this post for your perusal. I also highly suggest reading newthoughtcrime, an essay which can help if you're experiencing queer community based cognitive dissonance or fear around recognizing what was done to you and by who

[okayto]

Understanding Interlibrary Loan

Or, What We Really Need People to Understand in Order for this Whole Thing to Work Smoothly and Ideally Without Any Angry Messages or Snarky Social Media Comments or People Giving Up and Paying the Publisher $45 for a Single Stupid Article, None of Which is the Library’s Fault

What is interlibrary loan (ILL)? When you want an item that your library doesn’t have, but they can request it (or a scan of it) from another library. Most commonly this is books or book chapters, articles, or journals. Some libraries may allow things like DVDs, microfiche, and audiobooks, but many do not (loan or borrow). Usually [in the US] this is free to you, a card-holder of the library you make the request through, but there may be exceptions for budgetary reasons or if the sending library charges a fee. They’ll tell you.

How long does it take go receive? / I submitted my request [X] days ago, why isn’t it available? On the other side of the form you submitted with your request is a human. It takes time for humans to do each of the following steps: 1) confirm we really don’t have the item being requested AND that it’s not available through, like, Google Scholar or other immediately-available-via-internet means, 2) find library with item, 3) people at other library must locate, possibly scan, and/or mail the item, 4) if physical item, mail service time, 5) person at receiving library might have to do things, like receive and process a physical item, or alert the requester about how to access a digital item.

ILL is a human process facilitated by computers. How much is easily automated depends on the specific request and the specific libraries involved, but none of it is as simple as “push button and have computer spit out The Thing.”

AND all that’s done during work time. If you submit a request on Friday evening, most people work regular business hours meaning they’re not going to even see said request until Monday morning. Even libraries that are open 7 days a week don’t have people who work every position (especially “behind the scenes”) every day of the week.

[adamsvanrhijn]

i use the internet archive almost entirely to read digital copies of out of print physical books that are not in the public domain but are almost certainly never going to get ebooks and that are held in libraries hundreds of miles away from me. and even those have a limit of like one hour of reading at a time because there is only one copy on the archive, which to my memory was still true during the emergency library period. but someone bought that book at one point and the author and the publisher presumably got money for it at that time. they are not getting paid every time someone checks out the physical copy of the book i am reading. they are not getting paid when i happen across a book on my list buried in a pile at a used bookstore. they are not getting paid when i lend the book to my friend or give it away or sell it online.

i have zero way of compensating an author here and i do think that my ability to read this book matters more than author compensation in this instance because the alternative is nobody reads this book because nobody else but me seems to want to. the book probably wasn't taken out of print and/or circulation because it shouldn't be read, it was taken out of print and/or circulation because nobody was reading it.

and i do not want to lose this ability because i am a selfish little knowledge gremlin i guess. but i don't want to pay some rando on ebay potentially hundreds of dollars for a used copy of a book that is scarce because most people don't want to read it, which is usually the only other alternative if there is any opportunity to pay for the book.

interlibrary loan is not nearly as robust as people imply when proposing that as an option either!

i think copyright law is poorly designed and badly implemented, and i think my personal use of the internet archive is ethically fine, and i don't have an opinion on any other use of it but i hope they are not shut down because i imagine they serve this purpose - hosting written works that have almost completely disappeared from irl online - for many people and i think the world is a better place if we have access to that information.

[memequeme]

With ao3 down for the foreseeable future, I’m going to stand on my soap box for a minute as a library assistant and encourage those of you who want to read to go to your local library and get a library card!

Most libraries offer access to Hoopla and Libby which are really awesome digital libraries that have ebooks, audiobooks, graphic novels, comics, music and even some tv shows and movies. Libby can also sync with your Kindle. You can access these apps through a phone, tablet, or with their websites on a computer.

If your library doesn’t have the book you’re looking for, you can request they order a physical or digital copy and your library will do their best to get it for you or do an interlibrary loan from another library.

Your library is a great resource and I know they would be happy to have new patrons!

I, like many of you, am a big reader of fanfic and I hope ao3 is back up running soon but don’t sleep on your local library!

If you’d like add tags or reply with what you’re currently reading. Happy Reading😊