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[ao3tagoftheday]

Ok guys, I need some input

I love this blog. I love making it, I love interacting with you guys. But I'm also at a point in my life where I can't spend several hours every day working on this blog without having some kind of income stream from it. Which sucks, because capitalism is a mess, etc etc, you know the drill. I've never wanted to be in this position, I've certainly never wanted to put you guys in this position, but here we are.

So. What I would like to do is set up a patreon. I don't know how much money I'll be able to raise from it, but what I'd like to do is say that, for every hundred dollars per month that you guys collectively raise, I'll post one post per day. So, $100 per month gets y'all 1 post per day, $200 gets two posts per day, etc. Let me be clear: all posts on this blog always will be available to everyone. I'm not doing some post+ shit. Whether or not you donate, this blog will be available to you.

So here's where I want your input:

First of all, I'd like to know whether this structure seems fair to you. However much I joke about my benevolent omnipotence, this blog is not actually a dictatorship and I don't want to do this without a general consensus that it's reasonable.

Secondly, I'd like your suggestions about possible rewards for various donation tiers (which is how patreon works, I think?). I have some ideas of my own, but I'd like to know what you guys would want from me as rewards.

Ok. So that's what's going on. Please leave comments, questions, ideas, etc in the replies so I can look through them all. In all seriousness, I love this blog, and I want it to be something that I can keep doing, and this is the only way I know how to make that work. I really appreciate your help and support.

-Mod EJ

P.S. Not even the eternal demands of capitalism can make turtles fuck.

[ao3tagoftheday]

[Image Description: Tags reading "open to criticism, unlike the creators of the show"]

The AO3 Tag of the Day is: An object lesson in classy insults

[ao3tagoftheday]

[Image Description: Tag reading “Badass Raptors Fight a Columbian Drug Cartel and it’s Awesome”]

The AO3 Tag of the Day is: Can I cuddle them?

[ao3tagoftheday]

[Image Description: Reply from @foggyoff reading “This tag is funnier when you realize that the country is spelled Colombia with an O so these “Columbians” are located in like, Columbia, Indiana, or some other backwater town.]

Thank you for this important clarification. However, have you considered that a “Columbian drug cartel” might in fact be a drug cartel run by Christopher Columbus? Because I want him to get attacked by raptors.

[astrophysicist-not-princess]

DONE!!

[ao3tagoftheday]

Beautiful, gorgeous, a true masterpiece, 1000/10

[ao3tagoftheday]

[Image Description: Tag reading “graphic descriptions of trail-mix”]

The AO3 Tag of the Day is: This fic may contain nuts and raisins

[ao3tagoftheday]

[Image Description: Tag reading “Badass Raptors Fight a Columbian Drug Cartel and it’s Awesome”]

The AO3 Tag of the Day is: Can I cuddle them?

[ao3tagoftheday]

[Image Description: Reply from @foggyoff reading "This tag is funnier when you realize that the country is spelled Colombia with an O so these "Columbians" are located in like, Columbia, Indiana, or some other backwater town.]

Thank you for this important clarification. However, have you considered that a "Columbian drug cartel" might in fact be a drug cartel run by Christopher Columbus? Because I want him to get attacked by raptors.

[ao3tagoftheday]

[Image Description: Tag reading "Badass Raptors Fight a Columbian Drug Cartel and it’s Awesome"]

The AO3 Tag of the Day is: Can I cuddle them?

[ao3tagoftheday]

[Image Description: Tags reading “every demon is just trauma walking around in a trenchcoat, honestly? same”]

The AO3 Tag of the Day is: Reblog if you are a demon, support demons, or are just trauma walking around in a trenchcoat

[spaci1701]

Wait, I’m supposed to have a trench coat?

[ao3tagoftheday]

Yes, that is the dress code, but it is acceptable to just throw a blanket over your head in an emergency

[serotonin-up]

Unless you’re a boogeyman, in which case putting a blanket on your head will give you an existential crisis.

[ao3tagoftheday]

Pardon me for stating the obvious, but an existential crisis is an important part of any emergency response plan.

[ao3tagoftheday]

A bit nervous asking, but what is the general consensus on shipping a canonically gay character with someone of the opposite sex? For example, I find a male/female pairing really cute, but the female is canonically gay. It makes me feel somewhat guilty to ship them, so I was just wondering if this is looked upon negatively or not.

As always, people, I will not tolerate y'all shitting on anon in the notes. People who ask respectful, polite questions get the courtesy of a respectful, polite response. Ok? Ok.

I don't know that there's any such thing as a general consensus about anything when it comes to shipping. Shipping discussions are mostly an excuse for everyone to be an asshole to everyone else tbh. But if you want my personal opinion, here it is:

I think people should write whatever the hell they want. There are things I wouldn't be willing to write and things I wouldn't be willing to read. This would probably be one of them. But my personal boundaries are different from yours and you should write what you want to write. That said, I would urge you to follow a few guidelines.

Make sure all your work is clearly and thoroughly tagged. If you're writing this character as bi, put a "Bi [Character]" tag on the fic. Same if you're writing her as straight. If you're writing her as breaking up with a female partner to date the guy you ship her with, tag that. If there's any character bashing, tag that.

Write an author's note. Say that you understand and respect her canon sexuality, that your fic is not intended as a denunciation of her sexuality, and that anyone who has issues with a portrayal of the character as non-gay should look elsewhere. Say this politely, but do not beat around the bush.

If you're posting about this ship on tumblr, keep the post out of the main tags for the relevant characters. This may be the first time in my life that I've urged someone not to tag something in any context, so that's new. But queer people who are fans of the character are likely to look through the character tag and it isn't really fair to them to have hetero content for a canon queer character hanging out in there. I also recommend this for your own sake. If you're putting your posts in the main character tag, you're probably going to end up in the middle of a fandom shitstorm and that's no fun at all.

Be sure to tag any tumblr posts with the ship name and with something like "straight [character]" though. You want people to be able to filter out this content. And if anyone else ships these two, you want them to be able to find your content.

Finally, anon, you might want to do a little soul searching about this. I'm not saying you're doing anything wrong; you should engage with your fandom however makes you happy as long as you're not an asshole about it. But it's worth thinking through why exactly you find the idea of shipping this gay woman with a straight man appealing. Maybe it just boils down to "I think they're both hot and I want to write the smut" and that's fine, but you should consider whether or not this is a pattern for you. Do you have any queer ships? Do you have any f/f ships? Have you shipped other gay female characters with men before? If this isn't just a one-off, you should give some thought to whether the idea of f/f relationships or queer relationships in general makes you uncomfortable.

[ao3tagoftheday]

[Image Description: Tag reading "the mortifying ordeal of being known biblically"]

The AO3 Tag of the Day is: How dare you hear my sex noises

[ao3tagoftheday]

hamilton fanfic anon here, just told you cus i wanted to instill fear into you

You silly child! Don't you know I haven't felt fear in years?

[ao3tagoftheday]

[Image Description: Tags reading “every demon is just trauma walking around in a trenchcoat, honestly? same”]

The AO3 Tag of the Day is: Reblog if you are a demon, support demons, or are just trauma walking around in a trenchcoat

[spaci1701]

Wait, I’m supposed to have a trench coat?

[ao3tagoftheday]

Yes, that is the dress code, but it is acceptable to just throw a blanket over your head in an emergency

[ao3tagoftheday]

[Image Description: Tags reading “every demon is just trauma walking around in a trenchcoat, honestly? same”]

The AO3 Tag of the Day is: Reblog if you are a demon, support demons, or are just trauma walking around in a trenchcoat

[ao3tagoftheday]

[Image Description: Tag reading “why do i have to add “he lives” as a tag?? he never died???? whomst the fuck is canon”]

The AO3 Tag of the Day is: I've never met canon and my fave is immortal

[ao3tagoftheday]

[Image Description: Tags reading "shaming of sticky notes, is it a sin to stay organized???, apparently, i see you ao3 tag of the day, you're here to shame my sticky note shaming, okay now we get back to the serious"]

The AO3 Tag of the Day is: My ADHD uses your sticky notes to make rotationally symmetric paper snowflakes

[ao3tagoftheday]

yurgh. i hate to be that guy but the ‘fisting as metaphor for eight hundred years of violent colonial rule’ joke seems pretty over the line to me. as a fisting enthusiast and occasional resident of the republic of ireland i honestly kinda just wish i hadn’t seen it. maybe one to rethink. peace <3

You're not being "that guy". I always want people to let me know if they have a concern with something I've said.

I'm not really a fisting-enthusiast, more like an occasional-social-fister tbh, and I've spent a total of 6 days of my life in Ireland, so it's entirely possible that I'm missing something. That said, is there something different about this from just saying something like "Irish history is getting fucked over by England"? Which I think is a pretty uncontroversial statement.

Like, using sexual metaphors to express that one party was ill-used by another is pretty standard vernacular in most languages. Which is kind of fucked up, now that I think about it? Because sex shouldn't be a form of violence and penetration isn't inherently an act of dominance? I don't know, I've literally never thought about this before right now as I'm typing it. (Some feminist linguist somewhere has to have written about this, right? Someone send me links.)

Anyway, half-baked linguistic pondering aside, I don't really see why that post was problematic. Not saying it's not, I just feel like I'm missing something. Could you clarify it for me?

[ao3tagoftheday]

[Image Description: Ask reading "Different anon. "Fucked" has sort of evolved beyond literally meaning fucked in the context of being screwed over. But using fist-fucked is explicitly sexual which makes it a rape joke (which you acknowledged & tagged). And rape jokes aren't cool. I don't know the context of the AO3 tags, but making a rape joke about England's violent oppressive rule is tasteless and trivializing both things (& also triggering for some people)."]

Huh, ok that's fair. You're right, I should have realized when I tagged the post for sexual assault that it was implicitly a rape joke. And rape jokes are not acceptable.

Thank you to both anons who brought this up to me, and to everyone else who weighed in. A lot of you have expressed that you don't think there's anything wrong with the post, but ultimately I have to decide whether I'm comfortable being the kind of person who leaves this post up. After considering the point the second anon brought up, I've decided I'm not comfortable with that. Accordingly, I am deleting the post.

However, I believe in public accountability. I ask people to tell me when they have concerns about my content so that I can address those concerns in a public forum, where I can either make the argument that my behavior was appropriate or acknowledge my mistakes, pledge not to repeat them, and let my followers hold me to my word. Therefore, I am going to leave this thread up so that this discussion will remain public.

So. I'm sorry that I didn't think through the implications of my joke, and, when I make posts that require warning tags in the future, I will make a point of stopping to ask myself whether the post trivializes the subject being warned for in the way that rape jokes trivialize sexual assault.

Thank you again to both anons for raising the issue, and, as always I rely on all of you to keep an eye on me and let me know if I'm out of line.

[ao3tagoftheday]

yurgh. i hate to be that guy but the ‘fisting as metaphor for eight hundred years of violent colonial rule’ joke seems pretty over the line to me. as a fisting enthusiast and occasional resident of the republic of ireland i honestly kinda just wish i hadn’t seen it. maybe one to rethink. peace <3

You're not being "that guy". I always want people to let me know if they have a concern with something I've said.

I'm not really a fisting-enthusiast, more like an occasional-social-fister tbh, and I've spent a total of 6 days of my life in Ireland, so it's entirely possible that I'm missing something. That said, is there something different about this from just saying something like "Irish history is getting fucked over by England"? Which I think is a pretty uncontroversial statement.

Like, using sexual metaphors to express that one party was ill-used by another is pretty standard vernacular in most languages. Which is kind of fucked up, now that I think about it? Because sex shouldn't be a form of violence and penetration isn't inherently an act of dominance? I don't know, I've literally never thought about this before right now as I'm typing it. (Some feminist linguist somewhere has to have written about this, right? Someone send me links.)

Anyway, half-baked linguistic pondering aside, I don't really see why that post was problematic. Not saying it's not, I just feel like I'm missing something. Could you clarify it for me?

[ao3tagoftheday]

[Image Description: Tags reading “Swearing, Or rather one instance of the fuck word”]

The AO3 Tag of the Day is: What's the fuck word?