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Ao3 does not need a 1-5 star rating system, you just want to bring down authors writing for FREE

Ao3 does not need automatic censorship, it is an archive, therefore anything can be posted

Writing or reading about something illegal does not mean the author nor the reader condones it, if that were true, you could never read a story involving anything negative

and this is a universal arab experience. i volunteer weekly at a refugee center that serves middle eastern refugees, and every day i see the longing in their eyes when they speak of where they hail from. it’s safe to say that we will be getting a wave of palestinian refugees very soon: just another generation of arabs who can’t inhabit their own country.

Hey Everyone! When I was younger, I used to read a ton. As a direct result of that, my writing and reading were on point. Recently, however, I haven’t been reading as much, and as a result, my writing isn’t as good as I want it to be (albeit, still pretty good). I’ve decided to read all the books on this list over the next 1 and a half years to get back into reading and to improve my writing. Enjoy! :)

1. To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee

2. The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

3. Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen

4. Animal Farm by George Orwell

5. Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë

6. The Catcher in the Rye by JD Salinger

7. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain

8. Macbeth by William Shakespeare

9. Lord of the Flies by William Golding

10. Hamlet by William Shakespeare

11. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

12. The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne

13. Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare

14. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens

15. The Ecological Rift by John Bellamy Foster, Brett Clark, Richard York

16. This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs The Climate by Naomi Klein

17. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

18. The Crucible by Arthur Miller

19. The Odyssey by Homer

20. The Red Badge of Courage by Stephen Crane

21. Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë

22. Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut

23. Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe

24. The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer 

25. The Stranger by Albert Camus

26. Frankenstein by Mary Shelly

27. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck

28. Beowulf by Unknown

29. The Systems View of Life: A Unifying Vision by Fritjof Capra, Luigi Luisi

30. All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque

31. A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare

32. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

33. Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson

34. The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams 

35. Faust: First Part by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

36. Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoyevsky

37. The Awakening by Kate Chopin

38. Candide by Voltaire

39. The Color Purple by Alice Walker

40. The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka

41. Oedipus Rex by Sophocles

42. Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe

43. Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse

44. One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

45. The Bell Jar by Slyvia Plath

46. The Call of the Wild by Jack London

47. Walden by Henry David Thoreau

48. Antigone by Sophocles

49. Things Fall Apart (The African Trilogy, #1) by Chinua Achebe

50. Gulliver’s Travels by Jonathan Swift

51. The Last of the Mohicans (The Leatherstocking Tales #2) by James Fenimore Cooper

52. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert

53. Beloved by Toni Morrison

54. Vanity Fair by William Makepeace Thackeray

55. Selected Tales by Edgar Allen Poe

56. Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury

57. 1984 by George Orwell

58. Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes 

59. The Sound and the Fury by William Faulkner

60. One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez

61. The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

62. A Good Man is Hard to Find and Other Stories by Flannery O’Connor

63. Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw

64. As I Lay Dying by William Faulkner

65. Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison

66. The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas

67. A Doll’s House by Henrik Ibsen

68. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass

69. Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy

70. A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway

71. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce

72. Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett

73. Moby-Dick; or, The Whale by Herman Melville

74. The Iliad by Homer

75. Inferno (The Divine Comedy #1) by Dante Alighieri

76. Babbitt by Sinclair Lewis

77. An American Tragedy by Theodore Dreiser 

78. The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling by Henry Fielding

79. Long Day’s Journey into Night by Eugene O’Neill

80. War and Peace by Leo Tolstoy

81. Cyrano de Bergac by Edmond Rostand

82. The Hunchback of Notre-Dame by Victor Hugo

83. The Mill on the Floss by George Elliot

84. The Cherry Orchard by Anton Chekhov

85. Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston

86. Bartleby the Scrivener by Herman Melville

87. Doctor Zhivago by Boris Pasternak

88. The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton

89. Selected Essays by Ralph Waldo Emerson

90. Leaves of Grass by Walt Whitman

91. The Good Soldier by Ford Madox Ford

92. Call it Sleep by Henry Roth

93. Fathers and Sons by Ivan Turgenev

94. The Portrait of a Lady by Henry James

95. The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow

96. A Death in the Family by James Agee

97. The Turn of the Screw by Henry James

98. The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann

99. Go Tell It on the Mountain by James Baldwin

100. Death Comes for the Archbishop by Willa Carther

i was terrified of doing this in undergrad, and now that i’m asked to write them fairly often, i am fondly exasperated when my students don’t know how to ask for them. obviously there’s no single way, but here’s the way i usually do it.

THE FIRST EMAIL

should be short & should mainly be asking whether they’re willing to write you the letter

should provide only the basics - what the professor absolutely needs to know.

the position you’re applying for

when the letter would be due

optional: if you’re afraid they won’t remember you, a quick line identifying yourself & your relation to them

i like to provide an “out,” in case they don’t want to or are unable to write the letter

SAMPLE Dear Professor X, I’m applying for a job as an English tutor at the University Student Resource Center, and was wondering if you’d be willing to write me a letter of recommendation for the position. [optional identification: I really enjoyed taking English 300 with you in Winter 2016, and I’m hoping to develop and pass on those skills to other students through this job.] The letter would be due by September 1st - I know you’re very busy, so I completely understand if you’re not able to write one.  All best, Your Name

THE SECOND EMAIL

they said yes!! amazing.

this one can provide a little more information – a link to the job posting, if there is one, or you can write a quick summary of the position, plus a sentence or two about why you’re excited/interested in the job.

also tell them where to send the letter!! 

directly to the recruiter for the job

to you, to add to your application packet

upload to an online LoR service or to an application website

99% of the time folks are fine with receiving electronic copies, but if they need to mail a hard copy, let them know up front.

SAMPLE: Dear Professor X, Thank you so much! I really appreciate it. Here’s the link to the job listing; the letter should be sent as a .pdf file to the email address at the bottom of the page, anytime before 9/1. Thanks again – I’m hoping that this job will provide me with some teaching experience and the opportunity to work on my own writing. Please let me know if you need any more information! Best,  Your Name

WHEN TO SEND A FOLLOW-UP

these stress me out real bad but here’s the deal: most professors have a very shaky relationship to deadlines (especially when they have half a dozen more important ones than your piddly LoR). 

the upshot: do not be afraid to nudge them. 

often they need the nudge and are appreciative of it.

when that nudge happens is up to you and how much room you’ve given them before the deadline, and it’ll look different depending on your relationship with that professor.

GRAD SCHOOL LETTERS

i offered to send my professors essays that i had written for their classes, especially if i had taken those classes more than a year before asking them to write the letter, just so they could refamiliarize themselves with my work. you can also offer to send them your writing sample, if you haven’t already asked them to look it over for you.

honestly i’d recommend asking for these in person bc it’ll give you a chance to talk to them about their grad school experience and your own hopes & aspirations, which will help them write a more personal, fleshed-out letter.

one important note: if this letter is intended for use in grad school applications, do not stress out if it’s a little late. most programs do not care, and pretty much all of them accept late letters without a problem. your professor’s ability to meet deadlines does not reflect on you, and professors are intimately familiar with running late on LoRs. they really honestly don’t care. as long as it gets there before too long, you’ll be fine.

Based on this post 

“Failure is the key to success" 

We’ve all heard motivational quotes similar to the above. While they serve as an important reminder on our rough days, sometimes we need something more than hugs and well wishes to get us through. 

 You’ve failed. What next? 

Let it out: Step back. Take a few days off. Shower, catch up on that sleep debt. Remind yourself of who you are outside your academic study. Catch up with a friend for coffee (or just get some coffee). Watch a movie, marathon a tv series, built a pillow fort, tumblr, youtube spiral - anything. Because your academic life is only one piece (of varying size) of a larger puzzle. Remind yourself of who you are outside of university/ school. 

Formal/ Informal Avenues of Review : Check your school/university’s academic policies. Are you eligible to resit the exam? Were there any extenuating circumstances that affected your performance (e.g. medical, emergency etc)? Are you eligible to seek an adjustment to your marks? If you’re eligible, what documentation will you need to provide? Which staff member can you contact to follow up your application? If you’re not eligible, are there any other members of staff or advisor (e.g. course advisors, councillors, student leaders) you can discuss your circumstances with? 

Reset, Recuperate, Retake:  It is likely that you will need to repeat or retake the class/ assessment/ unit. That’s ok. Seek feedback from your lecturer/ tutor or teacher. Consolidate your strong areas. Focus on the areas of the course you find challenging. Use the feedback given to target your study time! 

Same Shit, Different Day: While the content may be the same, using a different method to study may be more effective ( see below) 

Same content? Change it up!

flashcards by @illolita​, 

colour coding 

audio recordings by @riseandstudy​, 

mindmaps  by @reviseordie​

sticky notes  @etudiance​ 

Change your study habits by @whilwheaton​ 

Practice past papers.  (see below). 

Something to help you get back up on your feet 

Videos and speeches to help you push through 

On being wrong 

On regret 

On making difficult choices 

On what the fuck to do with your life 

On “falling behind”   

On rushing things 

On success  

On motivation - for recent graduates 

On perspective by @fishingboatproceeds​

 Just do it 

Find songs to cry and scream to 

 8tracks and this spotify playlist 

Classical music for any mood  by @violaboss​ 

Find something on the Nostalgia Machine  

Infinite Jukebox 

Make your own music

IDGAF by Watsky “Let me tell you about my GPA, four-O, straight A’s and my- idgaf!” 

 Something to help you fucking laugh or smile 

 Honest Trailers 

Dance Mashup 

Thomas Sanders @thatsthat24​ 

This kid and this kid 

Goat Remixes 

This vine 

Need more?

Cute flash games (+amazing background music) 

Motivation wall by @study-ings 

Mug Cake by @sortedfood 

Calming Manatee 

Ultimate motivation song 

SCREAM INTO THE VOID (personal favourite) 

 Things to remember 

 Oi, have you ever failed anything? 

 Yes. See here 

Graduation is a journey. 

Yes, studyblr makes studying look glamourous, neat, aesthetic, “oh, look how these _____ notes helped me get an A+.” But writing notes, having fancy pens, using apps (whilst useful) only form one part of a larger narrative. 

The reality is much less appealing. The road to graduation is not a fairytale. The road to graduation is fucking tough. It may involve tears, frustration, all nighters, crippling anxiety and unhealthy levels of caffeine consumption. One set back does not knock you off the path to graduation. Setbacks are arguably a part of the journey. 

 Sometimes, hard work and effort will not translate into results. 

 There’s a special brand of frustration that comes with dedicating the past month/week/ year to a particular project and not achieving your desired result/ grade. It stings like a bitch and is often accompanied by a sense of doubt. 

Check that you’ve followed your syllabus. Accept that there may have been factors outside of your control. Revisit the process - what did you enjoy? What did you learn from the mechanics of the process? 

The value of hard work does not necessarily lie in the result attained; nor is the result attained a reflection of the worth of your efforts. 

 Experience is an advantage 

Retaking the test/assessment/ unit can be an advantage. You know what questions to expect. More importantly, you know how you react under exam conditions. Prepare. Plan your exam time. Will you start the exam paper from the beginning or the end and work backwards? 

Use this experience in those pesky interview questions! (e.g. the good ol’ “tell me about a time you failed”) 

Perfection is not a prerequisite to success 

 Ah, my pesky perfectionist tendencies. At times, I must remind myself that I don’t need to be perfect in order to reach my goal. Not having the latest app, 10 different coloured pens, that fancy notebook, the newest edition of the textbook does not mean I’ve automatically failed. I just have to be more resourceful. 

Just start. Work with what you have, to the best of your ability. Yes it may be difficult; you might need to access extra resources online, or find material from other sources. Your notes may all be in the same colour, or spread over three different notebooks. But success will not be an option unless you start. 

 Other useful tips 

On bad semesters by @post–grad 

 This masterpost by @areistotle 

Reducing stress by @mindpalacestudy 

 How to fail by @psychstudyblr 

 A final note… 

You’ve probably been through hell to get to where you are. Celebrate your achievements - don’t diminish them. Build a support network (heck, at the very least make a youtube playlist of funny videos). You’ve passed an exam before. You’ve endured X number of years of formal academic education. Sure, each exam is slightly different and each comes with its customised brand of torture. No two exams are exactly the same. But have confidence in yourself - you’ve picked up some transferrable skills along the way - determination, resilience, the endurance to pull all nighters.

Whether you’ve been a straight A student up to this point, a masters student or top of the academic pyramid, failure is going to be one of those annoying things you’ll eventually face. 

What you do with it? 

Well, that’s where shit gets interesting. 

All the best, 

-fuckstudy 

Masterposts are posted every other Monday (asia pacific)/ Sunday (everywhere else). See previous masterposts here. Feel free to request topics here. 

So a free tool called GLAZE has been developed that allows artists to cloak their artwork so it can't be mimicked by AI art tools.

It is not hard to link to your Tumblr or Twitter with a vague message like, “If you’re looking for my other works or other ways of supporting me, go here: link.” I have had people buy me coffees after enjoying my fic and asking where to support me. I threw up a link to my Tumblr and people cared enough to follow it. They were fully understanding when I explained in the comments that they could not commission me and I could not link them directly to any donation platform, but they could go to xyz link to read more. And they did! Nobody has to put AO3 directly on the firing line.

Go ahead and commission independently. Just do it anywhere else except on AO3. And then don’t come crying to the community when you, personally, get a C&D from a massive corporation.

AO3 is our bullet shield. Tumblr will pull your shit down. Wattpad won’t fucking protect you. LJ and FF.net already sold our asses for one (1) corn chip. AO3 is trying to protect us, you goddamn lemmings.

If you cannot follow the rules that protect fanspaces, you do not belong in our fanspaces.