Crossover Ships Are Funny

People who introduce you to new ways of thinking and new ways of seeing life are so important

Signs You Should Write The Story

1. You can't stop thinking about it

2. It would be exciting and fun to write

3. It's meaningful to you

WRITE THE STORY

newborn pudu fawn named petal via the san diego zoo

10 Female Written Short Stories Everyone Should Read

I have seen a post circulating for a while that lists 10 short stories everyone should read and, while these are great works, most of them are older and written by white men. I wanted to make a modern list that features fresh, fantastic and under represented voices. Enjoy!

1. A Temporary Matter by Jhumpa Lahiri — A couple in a failing marriage share secrets during a blackout. 

2. Stone Animals by Kelly Link — A family moves into a haunted house.

3. Reeling for the Empire by Karen Russell — Women are sold by their families to a silk factory, where they are slowly transformed into human silkworms. 

4. Call My Name by Aimee Bender — A woman wearing a ball gown secretly auditions men on the subway. 

5. The Man on the Stairs by Miranda July — A woman wakes up to a noise on the stairs. 

6. Brownies by ZZ Packer — Rival Girl Scout troops are separated by race. 

7. City of My Dreams by Zsuzi Gartner — A woman works at a shop selling food-inspired soap and tries not to think about her past. 

8. A Good Man is Hard to Find by Flannery O’Connor — A family drives from Georgia to Florida, even though a serial killer is on the loose. 

9. Hitting Budapest by NoViolet Bulawayo — A group of children, led by a girl named Darling, travel to a rich neighborhood to steal guavas. 

10. You’re Ugly, Too by Lorrie Moore — A history professor flies to Manhattan to spend Halloween weekend with her younger sister.

DEAR RESEARCHERS OF TUMBLR

You know what’s awesome?  Research.  You know what’s not awesome?  Not being able to get access to research because it’s stuck behind a paywall and you don’t belong to an institution/your institution doesn’t subscribe to that particular journal.

FEAR NOT.

Here is a list of free, open access materials on a variety of subjects.  Feel free to add if you like!

GO FORTH AND LEARN SHIT, MY FRIENDS.

Directory of Open Access Journals- A compendium of over 9000 journals from 133 countries, multilingual and multidisciplinary.

Directory of Open Access Books- Like the above, but for ebooks.  Also multidisciplinary.

Ubiquity Press- Journals covering archaeology, comics scholarship, museum studies, psychology, history, international development, and more.  Also publishes open access ebooks on a wide variety of subjects.

Europeana-  Digital library about the history and culture of Europe.

Digital Public Library of America- American history, culture, economics, SO MUCH AMERICA.

Internet Archive- In addition to books, they have music and videos, too.  Free!  And legal!  They also have the Wayback Machine, which lets you see webpages as they looked at a particular time.

College and Research Libraries- Library science and information studies.  Because that’s what I do.

Library of Congress Digital Collections- American history and culture, historic newspapers, sound recordings, photographs, and a ton of other neat stuff.

LSE Digital Library- London history, women’s history.

Wiley Open Access- Science things!  Neurology, medicine, chemistry, ecology, engineering, food science, biology, psychology, veterinary medicine.

SpringerOpen-  Mainly STEM journals, looooong list.

Elsevier Open Access-  Elsevier’s kind of the devil but you might as well take advantage of this.  Mainly STEM, also a linguistics journal and a medical journal in Spanish.

A list of things to practice your listening skills with, and to practice hearing the flow of Japanese, so as to better incorporate that in your own speaking (*•̀ᴗ•́*)و ̑̑

YouTube

LayerQ - gaming channel, speaks clearly.

Mitoku - gaming channel, speaks at a nice pace. I’m currently watching her Breath of the Wild LP!

Roa - gaming channel, speaks really fast, but she’s just so 元気 that it doesn’t matter that she’s hard to follow. I enjoy having her in the background.

Fonimu - plays a lot of JRPGs, but he is very relaxing to listen to, and polite.

日本語の森 - I’m sure you all know this one! Get Japanese explained to you in Japanese. They have dedicated channels for N3, N2, and N1.

Just Duncan - Japanese youtuber, with Japanese subtitles. It’s been a year since he uploaded anything, but I enjoy his sense of humor.

Shows

If you want to use shows for practicing listening, either a) listen with closed eyes, b) turn off subtitles, or c) put on Japanese subtitles.

野武士のグルメ - Samurai Gourmet. I swear, this is the cutest show in the world. Go find it and just feel the warmth of watching a sweet elderly man having lunch.

Japanese Style Originator - a show where the origins of Japanese concepts are explained, and some people have to make some guesses. The game part of it isn’t terrible interesting, and the music they use is obnoxiously loud, but I’ve learned some very interesting things!

Midnight Diner: Tokyo Stories - as far as I understand this is a live-action adaptation of a manga. I haven’t watched it yet.

Terrace House - Japanese reality show about 6 young people living in a house together.

Little Witch Academia - anime about a witch school. It’s kinda cute.

AJIN: Demi-human - significantly darker anime than the one listed above. This is the only one on the list without any kind of Japanese subs available.

Good Morning Call - drama about two classmates accidentally renting the same apartment. I haven’t seen this, but it looks like it caters to every romance trope in the best way possible.

Keep in mind that availability varies greatly depending on countries! The ones I’ve listed are available on Netflix Denmark, so I’m thinking they are also available in most of Europe and America as well.

Podcasts

ひいきびいき - a super relaxing podcast with hour long episodes feat. two Japanese people just talking about their days and anything and everything. I really like this one.

バイリングアルニュース - Bilingual News. A Japanese-speaking woman and an English-speaking man discuss recent events. This is easier to follow along with, because you have the context very clearly in English.

そのアニ - Discussions about anime entirely in Japanese.

自由なラジオ Light Up! - Politics, society, news, and stuff like that. Difficult Japanese, but there are transcripts, so you can practice reading with them as well!

天使のモーニングコール - A slower paced podcast meant to be relaxing, discussing lifestyle-related topics.

Jack’s constantly tear-brimmed eyes: a gifset

Hey writers, this is your casual reminder that there is no shame in being self-indulgent and writing what you want to write!

If you want to write a superhero vs giant robots story taking place in outer space, that’s totally okay! If you want to write unhappy endings it’s 100% valid.

If you want to write a certain part of your WIP that you’re not at yet right now you can do that too! If you want to go off and explore something that’s not immediately relevant to your project, that’s fine and valid.

Give yourself permission to write what you like, and to have a lot of fun with it!