Slitherynchiken

Like this young person didn't even know about goddamn Gutenberg which is a SHAME. I linked to it and they went "aw yiss time to do a theft" and I was like "I mean yo ho ho and all that, sure, but. you know gutenberg is entirely legal, right?"

Project Gutenberg is a gigantic collection of books that are in the public domain.  You can read the books through the site or you can download them in various formats so you can get the format you prefer for your eReader of choice.

It is free. 

It is legal.

I was reviewing the list of the top 100 books downloaded yesterday and I saw a fair few that I had to read for college classes - so if you’re a college student and your professor assigns you to read Plato or any number of older works, check here before you buy a copy.

If you look at the first reblog from me I also recommended a few other resources, most of which were from www.archive.org, home of the Wayback Machine! They run openlibrary.org, where you can check out ebooks of some public domain titles! They even have the Bone series by Jeff Smith!

And archive.org itself has all kinds of public domain media including music and movies! For Dracula fans, here's a radio show adaptation of the book, starring Orson Welles! And here's a 1920 movie adaptation of "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde," starring John Barrymore, the grandfather of Drew Barrymore!

lots of writers and publishers are prepared to waive future profits for entirely petty reasons

because of this the entire works of Philip K Dick [petty writer who found himself with lots of hangers on during his life] and HP Lovecraft [his publisher - who was his wife and hated him] became public domain on their death

Sherlock Holmes entered public domain this year, it's always worth checking because you can save a fortune

book is old because it’s in

the public domain

LibriVox has free public domain audiobooks.

Public domain works in the US are:

Anything published (in the US) from 1927 or earlier (this number goes up every year for quite a while), and

Anything published between 1928 and 1963 that wasn't renewed, and

Anything published before 1989 without a proper copyright notice.

(Don't go looking for things in that third category unless you've studied a LOT about copyright law. Mostly that covers things like "weird little newsletters" and "self-published booklets" and sometimes fanzines. But most publications have a copyright notice in them.)

There's also some oddball exemptions here and there; copyright law is a tentacled mess. But those are the basic guidelines. (Except for audio. Audio has its own set of rules. It's weird.) (I mentioned tentacles, did I not? Double the amount of them you were thinking of.)

There are a lot of works from the 50s and early 60s that were not renewed, especially short stories published in magazines.

In addition to 15-year-old Nour’s ongoing health issues, Nour’s sister Noha recently developed a severe stomach ulcer due to an infection induced by drinking unsanitary water. This ulcer is causing Noha extreme pain and digestive issues, and if it is not treated very soon, will lead to internal bleeding. This ulcer has gone untreated in order to allot more funds for Nour’s ongoing nebulizer treatments, but it has progressed to the point of literally debilitating pain and serious complications. Let’s raise the cost of treatment ASAP so Nour can continue nebulizer treatments and Noha can live her life again!!

Current: $4,732 out of $4,939 usd (30 May)

Need: $207 usd

But then Hollander seems,,, weirdly pleased?? And,,, actually complies?? Before practically skipping off, like he got what he wanted?? What??

And then they're texting back and forth and Ilya still partly thinks this is some kind of long con, but then it's been weeks and then it's been longer and suddenly they're at the draft and Shane is looking around the room and when he spots Ilya his entire face lights up and he's making a beeline for Ilya and he's still smiling as he says "Ilya!" like he's happy to see him,,, because he IS happy to see him. Because they've been messaging basically constantly for months now and oh fuck oh shit Ilya is so so deeply screwed.

“But it’s confusing!” If you take the time to educate yourself it’ll no longer be confusing. Otherwise you’re just gonna have to learn to be ok with being confused.

“But it’s weird!” You probably do weird things all the time. Everyone does weird things sometimes. Life goes on.

“But it scares me!” Is it hurting you? No? You’ll be fine. Being scared and being harmed are not always the same thing. Learn to tell the difference and then act accordingly.

"But it makes me uncomfortable!" The world is an uncomfortable place and complete strangers are not required to fix that for you. Learning to endure harmless discomfort is a life skill for existing in public.

"But I don't like it!" There's plenty of things in the world and not all of them are fun or enjoyable or For You. This applies to everyone and we all have to deal with that in a mature fashion.

Anyways! HERE'S YOUR HANDY GUIDE TO WHAT CAN COUNT AS EYESTRAIN! I'm pulling this straight from the Artfight rules page about what needs to be labeled and filtered as eyestrain because it's VERY helpful and VERY accurate! I also know not everybody has an AF account and might not always have access to this handy guide, and this is an important resource; That's why I'm sharing it here! (under the cut)

PLEASE TAKE THIS SERIOUSLY!!! THIS IS ABOUT THE HEALTH AND SAFETY OF OTHERS!!!

In addition to 15-year-old Nour’s ongoing health issues, Nour’s sister Noha recently developed a severe stomach ulcer due to an infection induced by drinking unsanitary water. This ulcer is causing Noha extreme pain and digestive issues, and if it is not treated very soon, will lead to internal bleeding. This ulcer has gone untreated in order to allot more funds for Nour’s ongoing nebulizer treatments, but it has progressed to the point of literally debilitating pain and serious complications. Let’s raise the cost of treatment ASAP so Nour can continue nebulizer treatments and Noha can live her life again!!

Current: $4,732 out of $4,939 usd (30 May)

Need: $207 usd

And not just that, I want it to tear Ilya apart that for months he’s been getting mad and snapping at Shane for fearing this. I want him to see Shane have everything cruelly ripped away while knowing the biggest fight they ever had was Ilya being mad about how afraid Shane was of this and how much he wanted to avoid it, especially with how supportive Ilya’s coach and team are in comparison

Of course Ilya didn’t think it would be so bad, his whole team is behind him as well as his coach

But Shane has his team immediately turn against him, his coach acts furious and disgusted with him, and the immediate punishment is that Shane Hollander, who lives and breathes hockey, who sees his entire identity and worth as a person being his skill in hockey, is told he is indefinitely barred from playing

This man has been told from day one that he has to be perfect, that he cannot ever fuck up, that he cannot be anything less than what is demanded of him every second of the day. And as soon as he’s not what he should be he takes a fucking sledgehammer to the chest made of every fear he ever had made real

This needs to be the thing that finally shatters him and makes him actually cry and stop holding everything in. I don’t want Shane sighing over the phone to show he’s upset, I need this to be viscerally heart breaking and soul crushing for Shane

It is very important to me that Shane was bone deep terrified of this and he was right.

And I want Ilya to sit there helplessly with every comment of “I think it would be fine, I think you’re the one with the problem” playing in his head. I want to see hockey homophobia manifest physically into human form and rip Shane’s heart from his chest while Ilya has to stand there and watch it happen

This is not anti Ilya, I love him, but I want this moment to be for him what it was for Shane to realize all Ilya had sacrificed to move to Ottawa. I want them to both have a moment where they’re horrified by what they’ve asked of the other while acting like it was nothing

We alternate between shane and Ilya. No music, no audible dialogue, no sound except a soft high pitched ringing and a slightly fast heartbeat.

Ilya checks his phone and sees supportive texts from Svetlana. Shane checks his phone and sees texts from Yuna saying to call her when he can so they can figure out damage control, she’s been getting calls all morning from sponsors.

The ringing gets louder. The heartbeat gets faster.

Coach Wiebe shows up at Ilya’s door, Shane goes into his coach’s office. We see Wiebe smiling at Ilya and speaking softly to him, Ilya smiling back and looking relieved. Shane sits in front of his yelling and ranting coach, head down.

The ringing gets louder. The heartbeat gets faster.

Wiebe leaves and Ilya checks his phone, it’s blowing up with excited and supportive messages from his teammates. Shane walks back into the locker room to his team glaring at him. He tries not to make eye contact as he walks to get his coat. We see someone yell something at him that makes him flinch but he keeps his head down. JJ refuses to look at him.

The ringing gets louder. The heartbeat gets faster.

Ilya sits at his table, stroking Anya’s head, looking out the window with the sun on his face, smiling softly, looking lighter and more relaxed than we’ve seen him all season. Shane sits alone in his car, eyes closed, breathing fast and panicked breaths

The ringing gets painfully loud. The heartbeat is so fast it’s almost a constant hum.

The Black Nerd. A common character type, the nerd will always be very interested in all things nerdy: science, video games, mathematics, etc. In an continued effort to combat stereotypes, the Black Nerd will be lack athleticism, probably being asthmatic (the nerdiest of conditions). The Black Nerd will dress smartly, suspenders and bow ties. They’ll always talk smart too, using proper English with complex words.

Now, I don’t have a problem with a black character being a nerd, indeed black people are a people; we aren’t all the same and we all have varying personalities. The problem I have is that too often we see a distinct disconnect between Blackness and the Black Nerd. The Black Nerd doesn’t listen to hip hop or rap, only classical music. The Black Nerd only has white friends, the only other black characters are into not nerdy stuff. The Black Nerd never ever uses AAVE at any time in any context.

Well @dumbey, seems we’re in similar boats

Rest in Peace, Tony.

I'll always remember your smile.

In addition to 15-year-old Nour’s ongoing health issues, Nour’s sister Noha recently developed a severe stomach ulcer due to an infection induced by drinking unsanitary water. This ulcer is causing Noha extreme pain and digestive issues, and if it is not treated very soon, will lead to internal bleeding. This ulcer has gone untreated in order to allot more funds for Nour’s ongoing nebulizer treatments, but it has progressed to the point of literally debilitating pain and serious complications. Let’s raise the cost of treatment ASAP so Nour can continue nebulizer treatments and Noha can live her life again!!

Current: $4,732 out of $4,939 usd (30 May)

Need: $207 usd