#people do this shit all the time at the library

[inkskinned]

hello. you left a neon pink post-it with pgs 194-359 due 9/12 in the book, by the way. it is now May 23rd and the library's printer is running out of ink. it jammed and tore my passport application. one of the librarians dutifully blacked out all my information (front and back!) before proceeding to use every unmarred inch as scrap paper.

i think maybe our (plural, inclusive) lives are connected. all of them. i have been thinking a lot about borrowing. about how people move through the world in waves, filling in the same spaces. i have probably stood on the same subway platform as you. we held the same book. all of us stand in the same line at the grocery, at the gas station. how many feet have stood washing dishes in my kitchen?

i hope you are doing well. the pen you used was a nice red, maybe a glitter pen? you have loopy, curling handwriting. i sometimes wonder if it is true that you can tell a personality by the shape of our letters. i'm borrowing my brother's car. he's got scrangly engineer handwriting (you know the one). it's a yellow-orange ford mustang boss. when i got out of the building, some kids were posing with it for a selfie. i felt a little bird grow in me and had to pause and pretend to be busy with my phone to give them more time for their laughing.

i have a habit of asking people what's the last good book you read? the librarian's handwriting on the back of my smeared-and-chewed passport application says the glass house in small undercase. i usually go for fantasy/sci fi, but she was glowing when she suggested it. i found your post-it on page 26, so i really hope you didn't have to read up to 359 in that particular book. i hope you're like me and just have a weird "random piece of trash" "bookmark" that somehow makes it through like, 58 books.

i wish the concept of soul mates was bigger. i wish it was about how my soul and your soul are reading the same work. how i actually put down that book at the same time you did - page 26 was like, all exposition. i wish we were soul mates with every person on the same train. how magical to exist and borrow the same space together. i like the idea that somewhere, someone is using the shirts i donated. i like the idea that every time i see a nice view and say oh gosh look at the view, you (plural, inclusive) said that too.

the kids hollered when i beeped the car. oh dude you set off the alarm, oh shit is she - dude that's her car!! one was extremely polite. "i like your car, Miss. i'm sorry we touched it." i said i wasn't busy, finish up the pictures. i folded your post-it into a paper crane while i waited. i thought about how my brother's a kind person but his handwriting looks angry. i thought about how for an entire year i drove someone to work every day - and i didn't even think to ask for gas money. my handwriting is straight capital letters.

i thought about how i can make a paper crane because i was taught by someone who was taught by someone else.

the kids asked me to rev the engine and you know i did. the way they reacted? you would have thought i brought the sun from the sky and poured it into a waterglass. i went home smiling about it. i later gave your post it-turned-bird to a tiny child on the bus. she put it in her mouth immediately.

how easy, standing in your shadow, casting my own. how our hands pass over each other in the same minor folds. i wonder how many of the same books you and i have read. i wonder how many people have the same favorite six songs or have been in the same restaurant or have attended the same movie premier. the other day i mentioned the Book Mill from a small town in western massachusetts - a lot of people knew of it. i wonder if i've ever passed you - and didn't even notice it.

i hope whatever i leave behind makes you happy. i hope my hands only leave gentle prints. i hope you and i get the same feeling when the sun comes out. soulmates across all of it.

[shirkers2018dirsanditan]

dumb discourse in my etiquette post as usual and i’m just blocking but its so funny to say its racist and classist to say that playing shit out loud at a high volume on your phone or at all in a quiet space is rude. like are you suggesting people of color are naturally loud and disruptive. lol

[bigkickguy]

I JUST WANTED TO DRAW DA PURPLE GUY TEAM UP!!!!

[dorkicon]

bitching abt my job again

tags contain frank mentions of transphobia and homophobia

[22degreehalo]

I'll say it as many times as it needs to be said. There is absolutely miniscule actual harm that comes from engaging with Harry Potter in 2024. JK Rowling does not need money. Anything sent her way is less than a rounding error. And the book series was literally EVERYWHERE in the 90s and 2000s. Like it or not, it DID impact a whole generation of people - pretending that never happened is completely absurd, if not outright irresponsible. It happened. It's just a fact. Harry Potter is mainstream. There is nothing that can be done to 'promote' it. It's already there.

What all this obsession with HP on tumblr is about? An easy way to smugly define Good People from Bad People. Because if you *really* cared about trans people enough, you'd hate everything associated with Harry Potter. Regardless of how much you adored it when you were 8 and went to Harry Potter parties with your family all dressed up quoting book lines at one another in your most precious childhood memories because for once your special interest actually aligned with the people closest to you. No, all those positive associations should have been deleted instantly. If you *cared enough*, it would just *happen*.

Which is why a whole slew of people who previously had earnestly reblogged posts about Moral OCD and how bad tumblr can be about it were suddenly cackling about how buying Hogwarts Legacy was comparable to *refusing to throw The One Ring into Mordor, starting a war that would kill millions.* And how donating to a pro-trans charity (an act that would have VASTLY more impact than aforementioned rounding error) is comparable to 'donating to a pro-elf charity' in the wake of that.

Because tumblr doesn't actually give a shit about autistics or OCD sufferers. When we complain about stuff that they also dislike, they proudly reblog that and rage in the notes about how selfish and cruel and Individualist those other people on tumblr are!!! But the *second* they get to paint themselves as the ones with '''''good thoughts and feelings'''''' they take it, and make up posts about how HP likers 'believe they're the main character and everything should revolve around them.'

Is it actually about whether something causes harm? Or is it about dividing the world into Inherently Good People and Inherently Bad People? Is it actually about doing real good for the community and making the world a better place? Or is it about shaming people with the Wrong Emotions until they fucking hate themselves and spend hours upon hours ruminating on end trying to change themselves because their inability to let go of positive Harry Potter feelings is OBVIOUSLY evidence of a truly inescapably evil and cruel and wretched identity that the world would be better off without?

Which is it, actually? When it actually feels a little bit good to feel like you're on the Right Side of all of this, for once?

[remythologise]

zero and yuki is a deep cut, people suffered

not to be anti-feminist on main but looking back Yuki was annoying as hell and Zero deserved better. having said that #grateful to know I had good enough taste to ship Zero/Yuki even if I had bad enough taste to engage with that series at all

[solarisposting]

guess who's back in their compassion fatigue for library patrons era!!!

[cool-as-steel]

my father brought us all nice lunch but unfortunately I got to The Part in a book that I forgot had really rather sickening necromancy in it and now I am feeling much less joyed by my chicken katsu

[lannisterdaddyissues]

ok i’m never going to ask people who are inconveniencing me if they can inconvenience me a little less ever again

[punkindness]

i am on adhd medication for the first time and i feel like a god

[mearcatsreturns]

Fancy™ independent research library in my city: one of our big drives is to push for more diversity in our hiring and try to make our space more inclusive. we want more bipoc visitors and members, too!

FIRL interviewing people who aren’t straight, cis, and white: oh my god, you’re so boring, I’m going to interrupt you before you can answer the question I just asked

FIRL tour guide to my Latina friend : you can’t go up the stairs! you’re not a member! *let’s a group of white people go up without questions*

[ghostinacardboardbox-oldblog]

Just saw a post accusing anyone who says that they aren’t able to read comics rn is a “lazy ass fake fan” like what the literal fuck does that even mean. I don’t pirate books for moral reasons and comic books fall under that, bitch, googling “free comics” isn’t gonna do shit for me. I know libraries have them, that doesn’t mean I can go there right now. Some of us have actual things we have to do that keep us from doing whatever we want.

I 100 percent get and agree with the frustration of people who haven’t read comics acting like authorities, but acting like anyone who hasn’t yet read a comic for any reason is a “lazy ass fake fan” who is “bitching on tumblr” is so fucking rude and I’ll be stealing your shoes.

[ploncc]

Hey, if you're a bookworm:

Trigger warning lists are there for your safety, not as a confession of the sins of the author/characters. Nor is it remotely possible for a list to cover every single potential trigger. It is the responsibility of the reader to manage their own media consumption and research whether a book might potentially be triggering (or even just upsetting) to them. Tedious, yes, but loves, please keep yourselves safe and put in the work necessary for your situations.

Along with that, "dark" is not an aesthetic descriptor. It is a blanket warning along the lines of "anything goes" or "author did not choose to use archive warnings"

You don't have to read a certain number of books a year. Hell, you don't have to be reading something right now. It's okay to take a break. It's okay to go at your own pace.

You don't have to finish that book either. If its making you feel drab or blue or frustrated, you can put it down, permanently or temporarily.

You don't have to read recently published things.

You don't have to read things published 100+ years ago.

You don't have to read things in this language or from this or that country.

You don't have to read things from any particular genre

However, because of the heavy commercialization of the genre and how hard it can be to branch out after you get used to it, I do want to say in particular: if you're feeling burnt out on YA, move on. Even just for today! Try 5 books from 10 different genres, or just find something that looks funny, or pick up something you don't think you'll like but want to try anyways, or find something on the 50 cent cart at the thrift store, or grab a book just because you thought the cover was neat. Reach for new things if you want to, sink your roots in. Take a break. YA is a very cohesive genre which can make it feel "sticky" and hard to try new things, but it might be time to give yourself a rest and/or try something new!

If you feel like you're "too dumb" for a book, find something related that's simplified and work your way up. I promise you, your brain works better than you think it does (I get it, ADHD + fatigue + trauma + life can be killer), but its just working on less information than it needs. You are not dumb. Pick up kids books. If those are boring off the bat, then find something a bit more advanced. Crawl your way up at whatever pace you want, and the second things get boring, move on! Acknowledge your past experience and stop comparing yourself to other readers. You might not understand the text today, but keep exploring, and one day you will.

Its okay to read fiction!

It's okay to read non-fiction!

The way we treat the concept of "problematic" in media is very close to how churches talk about sin. Understand why the text is hurtful, understand why people want/don't want you to read something, understand why the thing would be bad if it existed in real life, but put thought into it. If you feel like you don't know enough about the situation, it is okay to say "I don't know enough to form an opinion."

Reviews can be fun to read/watch/listen to. So can essays. Neither of those are a replacement for engagement with the text itself. This isn't a lit class. You aren't going to get a grade, you won't fail, there is no consequence here if you don't finish it "in time" or at all, or if you disagree with someone's interpretations, or if you couldn't write an essay on it even after you read it over twice. You are reading because you want to. Use reviews (yes, even as entertainment!), use essays, but don't let them think for you. You are not dumb. You can form your own opinions, you can do logic, you can think for yourself. Again, it might take work, but I promise you, you can.

It's okay to read!

It's okay to not be reading!! Life happens! Your brain needs a break! So does your heart and body!

Drink some water, be kind to yourself, rest your eyes/ears/fingers, and take a deep breath.

Read what you want to, when you want to, because you want.

[absentlyabbie]

seriously, though. i work in higher education, and part of my job is students sending me transcripts. you'd think the ones who have the least idea how to actually do that would be the older ones, and while sure, they definitely struggle with it, i see it most with the younger students. the teens to early 20s crowd.

very, astonishingly often, they don't know how to work with .pdf documents. i get garbage phone screenshots, sometimes inserted into an excel or word file for who knows what reason, but most often it's just a raw .jpg or other image file.

they definitely either don't know how to use a scanner, don't have access to one, or don't even know where they might go for that (staples and other office supply stores sometimes still have these services, but public libraries always have your back, kids.) so when they have a paper transcript and need to send me a copy electronically, it's just terrible photos at bad angles full of thumbs and text-obscuring shadows.

mind bogglingly frequently, i get cell phone photos of computer screens. they don't know how to take a screenshot on a computer. they don't know the function of the Print Screen button on the keyboard. they don't know how to right click a web page, hit "print", and choose "save as PDF" to produce a full and unbroken capture of the entirety of a webpage.

sometimes they'll just copy the text of a transcript and paste it right into the message of an email. that's if they figure out the difference between the body text portion of the email and the subject line, because quite frankly they often don't.

these are people who in most cases have done at least some college work already, but they have absolutely no clue how to utilize the attachment function in an email, and for some reason they don't consider they could google very quickly for instructions or even videos.

i am not taking a shit on gen z/gen alpha here, i'm really not.

what i am is aghast that they've been so massively failed on so many levels. the education system assumed they were "native" to technology and needed to be taught nothing. their parents assumed the same, or assumed the schools would teach them, or don't know how themselves and are too intimidated to figure it out and teach their kids these skills at home.

they spend hours a day on instagram and tiktok and youtube and etc, so they surely know (this is ridiculous to assume!!!) how to draft a formal email and format the text and what part goes where and what all those damn little symbols means, right? SURELY they're already familiar with every file type under the sun and know how to make use of whatever's salient in a pinch, right???

THEY MUST CERTAINLY know, innately, as one knows how to inhale, how to type in business formatting and formal communication style, how to present themselves in a way that gets them taken seriously by formal institutions, how to appear and be competent in basic/standard digital skills. SURELY. Of course. RIGHT!!!!

it's MADDENING, it's insane, and it's frustrating from the receiving end, but even more frustrating knowing they're stumbling blind out there in the digital spaces of grown-up matters, being dismissed, being considered less intelligent, being talked down to, because every adult and system responsible for them just

ASSUMED they should "just know" or "just figure out" these important things no one ever bothered to teach them, or half the time even introduce the concepts of before asking them to do it, on the spot, with high educational or professional stakes.

kids shouldn't have to supplement their own education like this and get sneered and scoffed at if they don't.

[fridaynight--saturdaymorning]

Playing my bass for the first time in months. Is this what being a human person feels like

[abandonedandforgottentimes]

Many of the younger ccs speaking up about Wilbur's manipulation is INCREDIBLY concerning, and I don't think they'll be the last. I think it's also a big indication that it happened to Tommy too, and that he'll take a while to respond. People demanding an immediate response need to remember that he was likely a victim of it too, he just may not have been aware of it.

I mean, Wilbur's ADMITTED he relied on Tommy for his mental health when he was still a minor. That is NOT something adults should ever do and it has always been odd to me. It also makes it very hard for the minor involved to leave the friendship, since they see themselves as responsible for the older person. I don't think I need to really go into how unhealthy that sort of thing is, it isn't an uncommon occurrence and lot of people will have a better explanation than me. But it is something to keep in mind, that Tommy may feel responsible or have been groomed to excuse the behavior.

The library stream is another example of the manipulation, and I'm surprised no one is talking about it. Tommy literally talked about how uncomfortable he was at Wilbur's house. It was cold, he had no blanket, he didn't want to keep staying there, he would rather be out in public at night in a strange place. Then Wilbur just shows up out of nowhere and tells Tommy he's misremembering/being dramatic and pretty much shuts him up, gets him to stop talking shit about him. Everyone's exasperation with Tommy in the situation (being a minor alone and uncomfortable and uncertain of what to do, far from home with nowhere to go), helped Wilbur pull Tommy back in and convince him to go back to his house, especially since it was passed off as Wilbur being caring.

It was obvious to me during the stream that Tommy was telling the truth and Wilbur was the one lying, but I figured he was just being defensive because he didn't want all that online. Now we know that he had a LOT more to hide about his living situation that he didn't want being spilled, and manipulators/abusers don't tend to like it when someone goes and starts talking about the truth. They want to downplay it as much as possible, and Wilbur showing up in person to shut Tommy up and make fun of him for not wanting to stay with him, make it more lighthearted, is incredibly telling and I'm surprised I haven't seen anyone point that out.

There are so many other things I found odd throughout the years that finally have a proper explanation to them, but that's just a few examples. I'm not going to get too much further into it. Wilbur isn't who we should be focusing on, I just needed to get that out to move on from it.

I do think pointing out that Tommy has openly been manipulated is important because it may cause him to take a while to respond openly to all this while he processes. If Wilbur treated so many of his ex-friends badly it's safe to assume he did it to all of them, and we need to give everyone involved time to stop and think about the situation. A lot of people want Tommy to respond immediately, but he will need time to do that and it's only fair we give him the space to do that properly.

I also think it is so, so incredible that Shelby has given so many people the space and bravery to come forward. I believe there will be more people speaking up soon, they just need time. Support her and other victims!