This is a perfect time to read the brilliant and unforgettable graphic novel(s) Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi, about growing up in Iran during and after the Iranian Revolution, and the rise of the oppressive theocracy that persists to this day.
Both graphic novels are available free online (Persepolis vol. 1, Persepolis vol. 2)
It also was adapted to a wonderful film (co-directed and co-written by the author) which is available to watch for free on Sundance Now (sign up for the free trial)
✨ Sign-up for the 2026 WH40K Summer Fest Exchange is now open! ✨
A quick recap of the sign-up rules:
You must be 18+ and have an AO3 account to participate in the exchange.
You need to request and offer at least 3 characters or platonic/romantic relationships to sign up; you are welcome to request/offer more.
You can choose to create and receive either fanfiction, fanart, or both, and works that are either Safe For Work (SFW), Not Safe For Work (NSFW), or both.
A Do Not Want (DNW) list is mandatory, containing things you don't want in a gift. DNWs should be phrased and understood to be value-neutral.
'No DNWs' is allowed but must be explicitly stated. Note that this opts you into all AO3 archive warnings, including Graphic Depictions of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Noncon, and Underage Sex.
Prompts, ideas, inspirations, vibes, and other details are optional (for both requesters and creators) but often helpful.
Helpful links:
Exchange AO3 profile with full rules/info.
Request Summary shows other participants' requests.
Overview of nominated characters and pairings by @psi-scribe.
The sign-up deadline is Sunday, June 14, at 3:59pm GMT | 5:59pm CEST | 11:59am EDT | 8:59am PDT (countdown).
Signing up: Important info and step-by-step guide 👇
If you do not have an AO3 account, you can request an invitation to join the Archive here.
Note: In case the mod team needs to reach out to you, AO3 shows us the e-mail address you use to log in.
If you end up unmatchable or if your creator sends us a question to forward to you, we will use this e-mail address. Be sure to be able to access it, check it regularly while the exchange is running – and, if your legal name is in it, change it if you don’t want the mod team to see it!
All e-mails from the mod team will be sent from [email protected] using the name Roboute Guilliman (he handles our paperwork) or through AO3.
How to sign up
Click on 'Sign Up'/'Sign-up Form' on the exchange's profile page (or click here) to fill out your requests and offers.
You must submit at least 3 requests for characters and/or relationships that you would like to receive fanfiction and/or fanart for.
Fill out Request 1, 2 and 3 with 1-20 characters or relationships from the exchange tag set. You can add extra request boxes, up to 10.
Choose whether you'd like to receive only fanfiction, only fanart, or both, and whether it should be Safe For Work (SFW), Not Safe For Work (NSFW), or both. You can choose different media and ratings for each request.
SFW works are rated for General Audiences (G) or Teen And Up Audiences (T).
NSFW works are rated Mature (M) or Explicit (E).
Linking to a 'dear creator' letter on an external website, i.e., a tumblr blog post, Google Doc, Dreamwidth page, etc. with further details about your preferences, is optional but welcome.
Note: The person assigned to you is not obligated to read your letter, but may find it helpful for inspiration. Please make sure your page is publicly available; some tumblr links can only be accessed by tumblr users and not all participants are on tumblr.
You MUST include a Do Not Want (DNW) list of anything you don't want in a gift, such as squicks and triggers.
The mods will check your gift to make sure it doesn't contain any of your DNWs, but we only check for those listed in this text box.
Your listed DNWs should, as a minimum, state whether you wish to avoid any of the four specific AO3 Archive Warnings: 1) Graphic depictions of violence, 2) Major Character Death, 3) Rape/Non-con, 4) Underage Sex.
You can have different DNWs for different requests.
In addition to your DNWs, you can use the text box for suggestions, optional prompts, and preferences.
Note: Non-DNW details are optional, so your creator is not required to stick to your suggestions.
But having a general idea of whether you like fluff/action/comedy/smut, the Great Crusade/Horus Heresy/M40/M42-era, your favourite tropes, art styles, etc. is very helpful to your creator.
If you are unsure about what to include in your DNWs or optional details, you can check out other participants' requests for ideas.
You must submit at least 3 offers for characters and/or relationships that you would like to create fanfiction and/or fanart about.
Your offered characters/relationships do not have to be the same as your requests.
Add 1-20 characters or relationships from the exchange tag set for each offer.
You have to fill out Offer 1, 2 and 3 with at least one character/relationship in each, but it doesn't matter how you group your offers otherwise. No one will see your offers except you and the mods.
You will only be matched with one other participant and required to create one gift regardless of how many offers you submit.
Choose whether you would like to create only fanfiction, only fanart, or both, and whether your work will be SFW or NSFW. You will only be required to make one gift for your assignment regardless of how many media and ratings you offer.
Please return to check before the sign-up deadline that your offers match at least one request by another participant in the exchange.
If your offers don't match anyone else's requests by the time of the deadline, the mods will e-mail you to ask if you would like to add additional offers. If you do not respond to this e-mail within 24 hours or decline to add additional offers, your sign-up will be deleted.
Once you have filled out at least 3 requests and offers, hit 'Submit' at the bottom of the page. You have now signed up to participate in the exchange and your requests will be visible to other participants in the Request Summary.
You can edit/add to your requests and offers by clicking 'My Sign-up' on the exchange profile page. Note: After the sign-up deadline, only the mods will be able to edit your sign-up details.
"What if there is someone participating that I don't want to be matched with?"
The best way to ensure a fun and enjoyable exchange experience is to keep an eye on the Request Summary and adjust your offers based on other participants' requests.
Maybe you'll see something that inspires you to offer characters or relationships you didn't consider before — or maybe someone requests something for one of your offers that you would rather not create, in which case it's perfectly fine to edit your offers so you won't match on that particular character/relationship.
If there is another participant that you very strongly do not want to be matched with, please e-mail us at [email protected] before the sign-up deadline and let us know:
Your AO3 username
The AO3 username of the participant you do not want to be matched with
Whether your Do Not Match request is for creating, receiving, or both
Thank you! We look forward to seeing you in the sign-ups! ❤
random PSA, I know a lot of people use duckduckgo as a Google alternative search engine, but it always kind of annoyed me when I was using it because it felt like No Name Brand Google
I have switched to using Startpage.com and vastly prefer it. for one thing, instead of displaying an "AI summary" at the top of the search results (unless you turn it off, yes I know), it displays the first paragraph of the Wikipedia article, with link, whenever it finds one that's relevant.
also a waaayyyyy better sense of design than duckduckgo
also private, European based, least annoying search I've used lately (RIP old "don't be evil" Google)
i have one of those, scraped from multiple different rec posts:
Search Engines
Infinity Search is an alternative search engine with a special focus on privacy
DuckDuckGo is a popular search engine for those who value their privacy and are put off by the thought of their every query being tracked and logged. Uses bangs, ![site] for in-page search (sells your data to microsoft and draws from fucking bing)
WolframAlpha is a privately owned search engine that allows you to “compute expert-level answers using Wolfram’s breakthrough algorithms, knowledgebase, and AI technology.” A data search engine.
Boardreader is a search engine for forums and message boards. It allows you to search forums and then filter down results by date and language.
Based in France, Qwant is a privacy-based search engine that won’t record your searches or use your personal details for advertising. Uses “&” as a bang search.
Another privacy-based search engine is Search Encrypt, which uses local encryption to ensure that users’ identifiable information cannot be tracked. Metasearch across multiple engines.
Offering unbiased results from several sources, SearX is a metasearch engine that aims to present a free, decentralized view of the internet. Can be self-hosted.
Gibiru’s tagline is “Unfiltered private search” and that’s exactly what it offers. Requires AnonymoX Firefox add-on for privacy.
Disconnect allows you to conduct anonymous searches through a search engine of your choice.
Swisscows provides fully encrypted searches to protect your privacy and security. Built-in violence/porn filter cannot be overridden.
MetaGer offers “Privacy Protected Search & Find” through its anonymised search. A plugin will allow it to be made a default.
Gigablast is a private search engine that indexes millions of websites and servers real-time information without tracking your data, keeping you hidden from marketers and spammers. Variety of filtration and refinement options for searching.
Oscobo is a search engine that protects your privacy while you search the web. By not using any third-party tools or scripts, your data is protected from hacking and misuse. Has a Chrome extension to allow use in toolbar.
https://search.marginalia.nu/ an independent DIY search engine that focuses on non-commercial content, and attempts to show you sites you perhaps weren't aware of in favor of the sort of sites you probably already knew existed. Use old-school searching rather than query-based for the best results.
https://www.mojeek.com/
https://wiby.me/ - It’s goal is to index as many personalized websites as possible, and NOT commercial sites.
https://4get.ca/ it works a lot like SearX, but honestly better. It doesn’t have its own index, but pulls from many others. I think it’s the best for research, since it allows you to search for answers from different indexes, is easy to configure, add free, and avoids censorship as much as it can.
https://www.searchenginemap.com/ for more on how search engines relate to each other.
https://yep.com/ is a crawler
https://www.etools.ch/ retrieves from Google, Mojeek, Bing, and Yandex, like Searx
https://www.dogpile.com/
https://searxng.org/ (next gen Searx)
https://luxxle.com/ - possibly conservative?
https://presearch.com/ - good for academic?
https://kagi.com/smallweb - free/randomised Kagi.
Other Searchers
www.refseek.com - Academic Resource Search. More than a billion sources: encyclopedia, monographies, magazines.
www.worldcat.org - a search for the contents of 20 thousand worldwide libraries. Find out where lies the nearest rare book you need.
https://link.springer.com - access to more than 10 million scientific documents: books, articles, research protocols.
www.bioline.org.br is a library of scientific bioscience journals published in developing countries.
http://repec.org - volunteers from 102 countries have collected almost 4 million publications on economics and related science.
www.science.gov is an American state search engine on 2200+ scientific sites. More than 200 million articles are indexed.
www.base-search.net is one of the most powerful researches on academic studies texts. More than 100 million scientific documents, 70% of them are free.https://cosine.club/ is an electronic music similarity search engine
There are no bones, at least not here, as he makes his slow way down what must have once been an avenue of some grandeur. He's not sure why he thought there would be. Five hundred years have elapsed since the cataclysm here. Maybe animals had carried them off. Maybe they were swallowed up by the drifting sands. Maybe Gluttony had eaten them. Maybe someone had buried them.
Maybe Hohenheim had buried them.
Al explores his father's ghost town.
ten THOUSAND words of al post-canon exploring the ruins of xerxes by myself and @oriigami ! if you like alphonse elric, haunted houses, other things also . you may enjoy this fic. i think it's pretty good !
I sometimes get pushback when I describe Warhammer 40K Space Marines as eroticised figures, usually on the grounds that canonically, Space Marines can't fuck – then you look at the source material and it's like:
The text frequently dwells on long, luridly detailed lists of the various ways in which Space Marines' bodies have been modified. A disproportionate number of these modifications involve bodily fluids and/or the mouth.
The text tells us that Space Marines' power armour actually makes them less scary to other humans, because the mere sight of a Space Marine's unclothed body causes unenhanced humans to experience primal terror – and sure, you could interpret this as a body horror thing, but it's really not framed that way.
The text tells us that the only way to make a new Space Marine is to cut out part of an existing Space Marine and put it inside you, and that each chapter has a specific guy whose duty is to pick over battlefields and harvest the "gene-seed" of dead Space Marines so that their lineages might carry on.
Frankly, at this point, the fact that they're biomechanically incapable of fucking only makes it more horny.
I think like four people total know that I've been writing a khârgel tal longfic since like, last April. this would have been the best time to drop it on y'all but instead u get one of my fav scenes ;3
My sanguinala gift for @fourgods-nobrakes . Cyrene comforting and counseling Lorgar, after the burning of Monarchia. He's rubbing the ashes of her city into his eyes. She can only listen to his crying.
