Dandelions

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[broke-boujeeandlovingmarvel]

staff: no more nsfw tags

Y'all: Oh no how will we tag our nsfw work!?

Intellectuals:

[keto-enol]

village hidden in the leaves

[writeouswriter]

My brain: New story idea!! Must write now!

Me: okay… what’s the plot..?

My brain: Hmm, plot? No, no, no, none of that here, my good friend, my good sir, my good ma’am, but may I offer you an overall general Vibe, an aesthetic if you will, a vague feeling to convey, a-

[ao3commentoftheday]

Do you think people generally enjoy reading their own fics? I have to admit, sometimes I write stuff just because I want to read something that apparently no one wrote yet (like my OTP in Little Mermaid AU with Z as Ariel x Y as Sea Witch instead of the Prince ) but recently someone told me it's arrogant to read & enjoy your own fics? Is it weird that I do? Do other people do that or am I really odd?

A lot of people do that, and I don’t really see what’s arrogant about it. You made something you liked. If you had painted something, would it be arrogant to put it on your wall? If you baked a cake, would it be arrogant to eat it?

That person sounds like a real killjoy. Read your own fic and be happy doing it. 

[guardiankarenterrier]

i reread my fics all the time, mostly to make sure my style is consistent and im not contradicting things already established in fic but also because i usually write exactly what *i* want to read. i think you’re fine and honestly i think i write better when i make sure to read my own fic.

[lady-bryght]

Totally!! The only reason I write is because there’s a story I want to ready that no one else has written yet.

[stevviefox]

Consistency, what something looked like, and because chapter six always makes me giggle like a manic

[lyledebeast]

I’ve just gotten to the end of the first substantial Molly scene in OotP and I am dead.  What a fool I was to think we’d only hear about Percy from his siblings.

“’— none of your brothers caused this sort of trouble! Mrs. Weasley raged at the twins, slamming a fresh jug of butterbeer on the table and spilling almost as much again.  “Bill didn’t feel the need to Apparate every few feet! Charlie didn’t Charm everything he met! Percy–’

“She stopped dead, catching her breath with a frightened look at her husband, whose expression was suddenly wooden.”

I’m tempted to say the worst thing Percy did when he left was abandoning his mother to the company of these emotionally constipated people. 

Mrs. Weasley is going through it.  Not only is she in charge of housekeeping at Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place, which is bursting at the seams with people, and facing Voldemort’s return, but she’s effectively lost her son, and she can’t talk about him because her husband can’t handle it. And no one appears to be helping her or showing her any compassion; troublesome teenagers Fred, George, and Sirius Black are giving her their absolute worst.  “Apparating every few feet.” Hmmm.

I seem to remember one of the twins complaining to Harry that “Percy’s apparating downstairs for breakfast every morning just to show he can” when he was the age they are now.   Now the twins are doing exactly what Percy did, but he’s in so much trouble his mother can’t even say his name.  How times have changed.

The saddest part is when she’s arguing that Harry is too young to hear all the details of the Order’s plans and casting about for support, which no one offers her.  Because you know, if Percy were there, he’d agree with her. No doubt he’d do so “pompously” or “importantly,” but he’d have his mother’s back.  He’s always been the one she could rely on to not only not be a pain in the ass  for her, but to watch over his younger siblings when she wasn’t around.

I don’t necessarily agree with her about keeping the truth from Harry, but she seems so alone and oppressed.  Not only has she lost a son–the loss of any of her children would devastate her, as we see later–but she’s lost the only ally among her own children that she had.  It does seem like Arthur is trying to help her, but you can’t tell me that his response to Percy leaving isn’t putting a strain on their relationship. 

And she can’t even shut herself up in her room and cry about her troubles, like a certain Junior Assistant to the Minister of Magic is no doubt doing in another part of London.

[likehandlingroses]

Molly’s whole reaction to everything from here through to the wedding in DH is devastating. Just devastating–and she’s the ONLY ONE who really understands what the stakes are. Her brothers died in the last war, and her children’s way of *helping* is telling her how much they Don’t Even Miss Their Brother and how Horrible He Is. 

It’s so tremendously sad, and sometimes I get morbid and think, how would Molly react if something had happened to Percy during this estrangement–especially after the Christmas debacle in HBP, where he’s Driven Out by his siblings for being too scared to speak to them? How does she repair her relationships with her other children or her husband after something like that?

It’s very scary how close they got to just everything being awful forever and ever amen. Molly seems to be the only one aware of that possibility–and they let her carry that burden on her own. 

[wellhalesbells]

Fanfiction isn’t written for you, it’s shared with you.

[captainarwenpond221b-deactivate]

BLESS THIS POST

[theguineapig3]

As a fanfiction writer, it’s taken me a long time to come to this realization, and ever since I have, I’ve been so much happier with my views of my work and my self-esteem. The person my fanfiction is written for is ME. When other people enjoy it, that’s wonderful and it makes me happy, but I shouldn’t beat myself up if people don’t. It’s not for them. It’s for me.

[jennytrout]

YES! Every once in a while, I’ll be like, “Ugh, this is such wish fulfillment garbage for MYSELF, what worthless trash.” And then I’m like, “Wait, no, that’s why I’m writing it.” If other people don’t like it? meh.

[octopuscato]

I think now I get it. This person thinks that people are entitled to being able to read every single fic that doesn’t contain their specific triggers, and that authors are absolutely obligated to provide every information about the fic so that the reader only has to say ‘Ok, not gonna be able to read this’ if the fic contains their specific trigger, say for example rape. If the author only says ‘There might be violence and/or rape and/or underage and/or major character death in here,’ they’re essentially ‘stealing’ the story from the reader. Or something. Because I can’t think of any other explanation why this person is so infuriated by authors saying: ‘If one of these four things that AO3 requires warnings for triggers you, better don’t read it, because it might be in here.’

There are so many fanfics out there. Just avoid those whose authors don’t warn like you want and use this tag for their fics, the end. 

[ardwynna]

This is exactly it. I’ve come across my share of these people and they all act like we work for them, like we’re failing at our jobs if we don’t provide them max entertainment, even at the expense of our own.

If they expect me to post fic to their specifications, they better start paying me for my product. I’m not writing fic without getting something for myself out of it.

[octopuscato]

they all act like we work for them

That’s it, isn’t it? As authors, they think we work for them, and we’re doing our jobs wrong if we produce something that isn’t or even might not be for them. It never comes to their minds that we write for ourselves, and maybe for our friends, or even more generally the people we know will like the kind of fic we write. They don’t get the idea that they’re not the target audience. That they’re not addressed. That they don’t really matter to the author. To them, everything revoles around them, and so obviously, every author’s thoughts and fics must also revolve around them.

And they couldn’t be more wrong.

[fierceawakening]

This is a really good summation of why “hey, Fierce, I wanna read your novels? But can you tell me if anything in them might bother me?” gets “oh, pretty much everything I write has explicit sex or violence or both in it, and there’s a lot of kink. If that would bother you I completely understand”…

…but “if you don’t warn you are a discourteous person who actively intends to prance around being upsetting” makes me never want to warn ever again.

[zexreborn]

—- Congressional Floor Notes, July 10, 1990, a week before passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act.

[octopuscato]

Er, what do you mean by that?

[zexreborn]

That these accusations of entitlement bear a striking resemblance to arguments against disability accommodation.

Disabled person: I would love to be able to watch something in your movie theatre / read your fic, but I’m in a wheelchair/have PTSD, and I won’t be able to access it safely unless you build a wheelchair ramp / tag potentially triggering stuff.”

Libertarian: But you’re not entitled to someone else’s work. The entirety of society can’t be built around accommodating ever narrowing portions of the population with expensive interventions. These people believe they are entitled to watch every movie / read every fic, even if making that happen is a lot of time and money to pull off. You’re not entitled to a society that’s accessible to people with your particular disability / mental illness, and you’re definitely not entitled to the work that I would have to do to make it accessible.

[octopuscato]

Excuse me while I laugh until I can’t breathe. Fanfic is something people write in their free time and share with you for free. You have absolutely zero rights to it, quite differently from things like education, being able to access public spaces etc. etc. You don’t even have a moral right to it. Imagine actually telling me I’m ableist because I don’t present my story that I wrote for weeks in my spare time between working and raising my kid and that I put online to read for free the way that you want me to. Imagine telling me I’m ableist because you somehow have this inhernt moral right to my fanfic.

With that said: this was a discussion about the AO3 tag ‘author chooses not to warn’. That in itself is a very good warning, no author who uses it has any obligation to instead list everything that could be warned for, and people who don’t feel up for surprises will just have to read the hundreds of thousands of other free stories available to them on the internet. Like I do often enough because I don’t feel like I want to read surprise triggering content. It’s that easy.

[fiction-is-not-reality2]

The more the discourse around tagging goes on, the more the absolute feeling of entitlement comes out.   

[elfwreck]

If AO3 were being run by the government, and the public had a recognized legal right to access fanfic, there might be a coherent argument for not using “choose not to warn.” As it stands, AO3 is a nonprofit group serving a community and using that community’s norms as its standards - which included decades of no warnings on fics (lemme tell you about the surprise!deathfic I ran across in converting Trek zines for web publication…). 

The option to warn was an addition, a fairly new and untested thing at the time AO3 was built. We were still having warnings arguments - are they a good thing to help people, or a pack of spoilers? A lot of people put their warnings under cut tags, or in invisible text that you had to highlight to read, so that they didn’t spoil people who didn’t want them.

Before AO3, “no warnings” was the norm, with “maybe we could add a warning if stuff is really intense or triggery” being the secondary option.  There were a growing number of fic communities that required it - but the requirement was often “intense stuff here; read with caution,” not details. Note that FF.net has no place for “warnings.” They don’t allow stories above a certain rating - but there’s no block on deathfic, rape, child abuse, torture, eating disorders, underage sex… as long as you can claim it fits within the T or M rating. 

The main difference between AO3 and LJ, for warnings options, was that on LJ you almost always had an easy way to send a PM to the poster (who may or may not be the author; anon fests were posted by someone else), to ask, “can you tell me if this story includes [any number of topics, including things like infidelity or public sex] that I don’t want to read?” It’s harder to ask that on AO3, so the warning system is built-in.

But the caveat is always: Don’t trust? DON’T READ. If you don’t know the author and it doesn’t have warnings, and you can’t ask someone, skip that story.

Libraries are required to be accessible to people in wheelchairs. They’re not required to indicate which books don’t contain gruesome descriptions of car accidents. Hardware stores are required to be accessible to blind people. They’re not required to label which of the tools they sell can be operated without sight. Restaurants are required to allow service animals. They’re not required to serve food that’s safe for those animals to eat. Accessibility is about access, not a guarantee that any person will get full use out of all the accessible items.

The whole “authors are obligated to tell me if there’s stuff I don’t want to see in the story so I can avoid it” thing looks like a precursor to “stories containing stuff I don’t like should be removed from the archive.” And no. That is not how AO3 works; that is not how AO3 is going to work.

AO3 was designed to allow authors to say, “I write extreme stuff that’s banned in other places, and I don’t want to warn people; my readers want the full shock value.” 

And it was designed to allow readers to say, “I’m not reading anything tagged rape, and not anything tagged do-not-warn because that might contain rape.” If you want more info than that, find a friend who can tell you whether a story has content you don’t want to read. 

Part of that isn’t even “because what the author wants is more important than the reader’s choices.” It’s because some of the maybe situations are unclear. Does explicit underage lust get tagged, even if there’s no sex? (If someone’s fantasizing and masturbating?) How much gore does a story take before it’s tagged for that? Is sex pollen non-con if the couple already had a relationship? Do you tag for non-con if there’s consent but not wanting - if someone agrees to enter an arranged marriage for business reasons? How about if they’re forced to do a striptease for their enemies, but no touching happens? 

And that’s before we get to the situations that aren’t actually possible for humans on earth. Where’s the underage line for a 500-year-old vampire in a 10-year-old body? How about shapeshifters - does it become underage if they’re using child-shaped bodies? How old are underage hobbits, anyway? If a genetically altered clone has been grown a tube for three years, but has the body of a 16-year-old and cultural knowledge to match, do they become adult in 2 years, or does Superboy have another 15 years before it’s not abuse for him to get laid? 

Sometimes, “choose not to warn” is “eh, it’s fucking complicated; read at your own risk.”

[sleepyowlet]

As an author: Tag. Your. Shit.

Just because there’s no law forcing you to doesn’t mean tagging isn’t the right thing to do. Help others curate their experiences, and help them be safe. Do this to the best of your ability, if you’re not sure, ask someone who has read your fic for their opinion if a specific tag is warranted or not.

Don’t put this on your readers. It’s your story, you’re publishing it, so content warnings are your responsibility too. You want people to read your story. Otherwise, you wouldn’t put it online. What do you think will generate more views? Specific tags that allow people to make an informed decision or just “dead dove do not eat”? It’s in your best interests to tag.

If you don’t tag your shit to the best of your ability (and listen to requests) you’re kind of a dick. Full stop. I know that there is no law against being a dick, you definitely have the right to be as dickish as you like, but people will probably not like you very much.

Because lemme tell you, stumbling on a surprise!traumatic childbirth scene with lots of gore and cruel doctors was not fun. Any author with a smidge of common sense would have tagged that “traumatic childbirth”. Said author didn’t and I was left with days of nausea. And you can bet your ass I warned everyone and their dog that this person doesn’t tag responsibly.

I have a story with forced pregnancy which is kind of an important plot twist. I tagged it anyway because my ego < the safety of my readers. And if that one thing being spoiled makes my story boring, then, well, my story’s a bit shit.

It’s not entitlement, it’s a question of common sense and common courtesy. The excuse of “but there are so many more properly tagged fics out there for you to read” only works because there are some responsible authors who do tag their shit. If everyone started vague-tagging like that the whole point of having tags would be defeated, and just because authors don’t get paid doesn’t mean they don’t have any obligations towards their readership. Online fandom is a public space. And the functioning of any public space kind of hinges on people being mindful of each other. Authors are not exempt from this. If you’re not willing or ready to be responsible, don’t publish.

Non-taggers are like the anti-vaxxers of fandom. No, you are not special. No, you are not exempt. A well-curated and safe fandom space depends on People. Tagging. Their. Shit.

[octopuscato]

And after you’ve calmed down, maybe you’d like to tell us where we lost you. Was it at ‘the AO3 tag chooses not to warn is in fact a legitimate warning tag’?

[sleepyowlet]

It’s not. And the why is all in my reply. IDK is there any specific point you’d like to make? Anything I said you’d like to refute? I’ll make it easy and write a little list of the main points I made, yes?

I wrote that from the perspective of an author and a reader

being as specific as possible with your tags helps both authors and readers

reader safety > author ego

vaguetagging is dickish and helps exactly no one (and “chooses not to use archive warnings” falls under that)

if everyone vaguetagged things would be bad because tagging would be meaningless

authors have responsibilities to the community because they are part of the community so all that “reader entitlement” narrative is pretty much bullshit

Did that help?

[peujeune]

You know what, as an author, all your bullshit entitlement anti-trigger shit makes me so fucking angry. It’s not that fucking hard to tag your fucking fics, somehow, I managed to do it every time I post one on AO3. Choosing not to warn others makes you an arsehole, and choosing to tag stories as ‘author chose not to use archive warnings’ makes you fat worse than the arseholes who don’t tag anything at all. Maybe stop being an entitled arse, and use the fucking tags AO3 has provided you with, or I swear to god I will physically manifest in your fucking home and beat you with a stick.

[octopuscato]

choosing to tag stories as ‘author chose not to use archive warnings’ makes you fat worse than the arseholes who don’t tag anything at all.

Why? Because authors who tag “chose not to use Archive warnings” give people a trigger warning? That is literally what that tag is, even if that’s not specific. Nowhere on AO3 does it say the warning has to be specific. Or because they don’t cater to you like you want it and “steal” their OWN fic from you? Just *lol* - I have no other words for that.

Maybe stop being an entitled arse, and use the fucking tags AO3 has provided you with

“Creator chose not to use Archive warnings” IS THE FUCKING DEFAULT TAG AO3 PROVIDED US WITH! READ THE DAMN TOS AND FAQ OF THE WEBSITE! IT’S NOT HARD! (LINK HERE)

What do they say, let’s take a look:

Gee, it’s almost as if AO3 is saying: “chose not to warn” is perfectly fine and enough. 

or I swear to god I will physically manifest in your fucking home and beat you with a stick.

Maybe stop being an entitled arse and thinking you’re allowed to threaten people with violence who’ve done nothing wrong other than refusing to obey you and contradicting your factually wrong argument. 

The consequence of threatening violence on a post I started is that you’ll be excluded from the discussion and unable to reblog or comment on this. 

[fierceawakening]

“Libraries are required to be accessible to people in wheelchairs. They’re not required to indicate which books don’t contain gruesome descriptions of car accidents.” Thank you. “You sound like you don’t believe in the ADA” had me so incensed I couldn’t type.

[dragonesseclectic]

A well-curated and safe fandom space depends on People. Tagging. Their. Shit.

Well-curated archive, maybe. “Safe”? If you read the wrong fanfic, will people break into your house at night and beat you senseless? Unless you live in China or Saudi Arabia or some place with equally charming regard for human rights and freedom of the press, probably not.

You do know that we survived for literally centuries without content tags on novels and short stories, right? And that book publishers still don’t put content tags on the backs of published novels?

Being a rude, demanding ass and threatening violence because writers don’t do exactly what you want doesn’t motivate anyone to comply with your whims. I usually tag my fics on AO3, but you’re making me think that the default “Chose not to use warnings” is good enough, and saves me the trouble of worrying about it.

Even for that violent gore-fest with the underage rape scene. I’ll probably still tag that one, because I really don’t want some kid stumbling into it–it’s in what’s usually considered a older child/young teen fandom.

[fierceawakening]

I miss the days when “my office is a safe space” meant “hey student, if you are wrestling with sexuality or gender issues or just want to tell someone you’re gay or trans and know they won’t react negatively, this sign on my door is an indication I’ll be supportive.”

“Safe space” has broadened so far in meaning now that I’m not sure what a space is offering when it calls itself that. Or what a space is failing to provide when people say in a horrified tone, “this was supposed to be a safe space!”

Which, ironically, means I don’t actually know if those spaces will feel safe to me, and can’t use that label as an indication.

[octopuscato]

People like the ones on this post screeching about AO3 needing to be a “safe space” mean: This is supposed to be a space where nothing would ever upset me, while I also have to do nothing at all to make that happen and all the responsibility for my personal well-being rests on the shoulders of others.

[antis-delete-your-blogs-pls-thx]

Like, I get it. I have triggers myself. I’ve been triggered. It’s a really awful, overwhelming, suffocating feeling that makes you want to crawl out of your skin. But there’s only so much people can do. Some people aren’t aware they’ve written something that needs a trigger warning. Some people don’t have fantastic memories and forget to tag for things that aren’t super obvious. Some people don’t have the spoons to tag so meticulously. These are all valid reasons. Attacking people for either an honest mistake or a deliberate dick move isn’t going to get you anywhere, and may even actively encourage people to stop tagging extensively beyond “this might have some things that could be triggering in it” for fear of missing some minor detail. Triggers vary greatly by individual. Not everyone can think of everything. If someone’s missed something, you can politely ask and most people will add the tag for you. But they don’t have to. The world is a chaotic place. We rarely have the options of warnings, and it’s important to learn to work through the difficulty that brings. Life can’t always tell you what it’s going to throw at you, and you have to be prepared for that. It sucks that things can’t just automatically be tagged, but yelling isn’t the solution. There are bookmark tags available for a reason on AO3. Don’t forget to check those, too. Or add some yourself. Community tagging is an effective solution that doesn’t require the author to know the ins and outs of every trigger in existence.

[rainbowloliofjustice]

Not to mention, if you aren’t sure a fanfiction contains a trigger that triggers you… 

1. Ask the author. Most of them will tell you if you ask or DM them.

2. Don’t read it. Your mental health matters more than entertainment from a fanfiction.

[fandomsense]

I can’t believe this is a debate people are still having. Listen, my stories are written the way I want them to be and what content they have and their rating/warning is up to me–I’m not holding them out of reach to spite people. They are there for anyone who wants to and can read them. Ever heard of the old saying “your audience will find you”…I’m not worried about trying to appeal to as big a group as possible here. I’m writing what I want to. Not everyone in the fandom is my audience. If you like the content in my stories and you don’t get upset easily, then congrats you’re probably the type of person that could be a part of my audience. If you are not those things then, well, tough titty but I’m not going to listen to you because my story isn’t for you anyway. I put up proper warnings/ratings. I use “choose not to warn” on WIP because things might happen but I don’t for sure know because I haven’t finished writing it.

Just, lmao at the idea I’d be concerned with limiting my audience by using valid warnings/ratings. I’m not concerned at all, I know I write for a niche audience within a niche audience and I’m more than okay with that.

[serenbach86]

Choose not to warn is a warning in itself. It’s literally in the description of the tag. If you click on a fic with that tag you are consenting to seeing content that archive warnings could apply to.

If you are not sure, then it’s best not to read that particular fic.

[bubbysbub]

Remember when fanfic was SO MUCH more chill than it is now? Remember that?

I yearn for those days.

[veryfunnymemes]

[mistybox051]

!!

[blackxmansxhaki]

Fr? Lemme check this out

[ms-demeanor]

Here’s the link to all of the free online classes offered by Harvard:

https://www.edx.org/school/harvardx

But TBH I prefer the MIT Open Coursewear approach. Feel like taking a class on the policy and economics of nuclear engineering? MIT’s got you covered:

https://ocw.mit.edu/courses/find-by-topic/#cat=engineering&subcat=nuclearengineering&spec=nuclearsystemspolicyandeconomics

In fact they’ve got  you covered with A LOT of their courses, everything from fine arts to immunology.

Have fun :)

[pluto-the-demigod]

WHERE HAS THIS BEEN THE LAST TWO YEARS

[coolfayebunny]

I’m staggered by the choices. I’m highly tempted.

[bubbysbub]

I’m.... now enrolling in a course about the health effects of climate change. I decided to start with that one because it’s only seven weeks long and relevant to my interests. There is so much choice here, I think that this could get addictive. And the ability to spend $150 (USD99, but AUD is shithouse) to get a verified certificate, which I’m hoping you can choose to purchase LATER down the track if you think that you could use the certificate, but still cool that they offer that. I’d still add it to resumes even WITHOUT the certificate, because voluntary education that you aren’t paying for can look damn good to an employer if you pitch it right. And there’s a few other courses I’ve found that I’m really interested in that aren’t necessarily free, but pretty low cost. 

And it’s STRUCTURED, and defined in terms of the time I will need to complete the course, not just a bunch of stuff that is free to read, which is enough accountability and guidance to be perfect for my Obliger Tendency, so I will actually do the damn course.

I love this so much I could cry.

[gif87a-com]

Putting a hardstyle track over this Bollywood movie worked amazing [x]

[thorinobsessed]

The Hobbit - The Musical.

[killedbyanacorn]

It looks like Thorin Oakenshield at Durmstrang …

[lindirs-gaze]

[x-kytanna-x]

I will reblog this forever, even after death.

[stevviefox]

Wheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!

[thestitchetywitch]

Raiiinbooooow! Commission for a friend, free pattern for y’all. 💕

If anyone wants to throw a buck or two towards supporting the artist, my venmo is theefrosty.

[99problemsbutastitchaintone]

👍🏼🌈

[bunny-fair]

Rules of a Happy, Healthy Fandom

Rule 1, Don’t like, Don’t read

Pretty simple and straight forward. It doesn’t matter if it’s tagged as a ship you dislike or you’re 10 chapters in, if you don’t like it or it disturbs you too much, stop. The back button is your friend.

Rule 2, Properly Tag

If your fic contains anything possibly triggering or squicky, tag it. If your fic is an AU, tag it. If your fic is about a ship, tag it. Vice versa, do not overtag or improperly tag. If your fic is based around Stucky, don’t tag Stony.

Rule 3, Filters are your friend

If the app or website has an option to filter tags, use it. If you need to download an extension, download it. If someone has missed an important tag, you can politely message them requesting to add it.

Rule 4, Don’t harass people for shipping your NoTp

We all have that one ship we absolutely positively hate with every fibre of our being. And chances are, someone hates your Otp with the same ferocity. Don’t harass people over shipping your NoTp.

Rule 5, Do your research

If you’re writing a fic and a plot point or character is introduced you’re not sure how to write, research it! Google is your friend! There are also blogs dedicated to assisting people with certain topics such as @writingwithcolor

Rule 6, Your kink is not my kink, and that’s okay

Chances are, someone gets off to something you hate. And, that’s okay! We all have different and varying tastes!

Rule 7, Feedback keeps content creators creating

Likes, comments, reblogs, and recomendations keep your fanfic writers writing. Where would writers be if no one read their works? Where would artists be if no one bought their art?

Rule 8, If you want it, write it

It’s bound to happen to everyone, you just can’t find a specific fic for a specific ship or it’s that one rare pair no one appreciates like you do. What do you do in this situation? You write it yourself! It may not be the best-written or most poetic or maybe it’s just a pure crackfic, but that’s okay!

Rule 9, Fanon is not Canon

Likewise, headcanons are not canon. And if someone has a different headcanon, that’s okay! Sure, we may ignore canon for fics but headcanons and fanfiction and fanart are not canon!

Rule 10, Fiction is not reality

And the most important of all, fiction is not reality. Writing abuse fics does not mean you support abuse in real life. Writing suicidal characters does not mean the writer is suicidal. Writing glorified murder fics does not mean the writer supports murder in real life.

If you have more positive rules, feel free to add! These are just 10 little rules I find to be very important for a happy healthy fandom. Remember, fandoms are supposed to be for fun! You write that shameless self-insert Mary Sue OC, you write that rarepair smut, you write that 250k slow burn Coffee Shop AU! You make fandom as fun as you want it to be!

[kiwianaroha]

“So what can we learn from this study? On the data side, we see that everything is proceeding as planned. Nobody’s paying $50 for a burger at McDonald’s, or $16 for a can of tuna at Safeway. Employers wish their profits were higher, and workers are glad they got a raise, but they wish they made more money. Three years after Seattle started down the road to $15, everything is as it should be. Those apocalyptic claims of destruction and business closures haven’t been proven true. One thing the study didn’t explain was why the sky didn’t fall as promised. Why weren’t workers laid off in droves, or replaced with robots? Why didn’t prices skyrocket? Why does Seattle have more restaurants now than at any point in its history? It’s because those workers who saw a raise now have more money to spend in the city around them. Those restaurant workers are eating in more restaurants. They’re buying more groceries. They’re buying more clothes and cars. That increased consumer demand is creating jobs, and more than paying for the increased minimum wage. The $15 minimum wage established a positive feedback loop that created growth in Seattle by including more people in the economy. In other words, it worked exactly as intended.”

— Seattle’s $15 Minimum Wage Experiment Is a Success (via allthecanadianpolitics)

[kamikaze-kumquat]

I’m gonna leave this right here.

[willowofthehearth]

When you give consumers money, they spend it. When you give old, rich, white men money, they hoard it.

[bubbysbub]

*waves wildly at above* AND THIS IS WHY I DON’T UNDERSTAND WHY PEOPLE HATE IMMIGRANTS SO MUCH.

I’ve literally been telling people for years, that immigrants DO NOT steal money out of Australian’s pockets. So what if they have to claim government benefits when they get here? They also have to pay rent, buy food, replace their shoes, buy toys for their kids. They spend their money HERE. IT CIRCULATES MORE MONEY LOCALLY. IMMIGRATION LITERALLY MAKES MONEY.

Immigrants don’t ‘steal jobs’- literally, you bring in a thousand people, you need restaurants, schools, doctors, builders, painters, mechanics, sales people, cleaners, taxi drivers, EVERYTHING, to account for all those extra people that have need of those services. IMMIGRATION LITERALLY MAKES JOBS. WHICH MAKES MONEY. BECAUSE THAT IS HOW BASIC ECONOMICS WORKS.

I seriously, DO NOT understand people’s bullshit. It’s simple math. It’s logical supply and demand. It’s a ‘spend money to make money’ situation. Why is the human race so goddamn stupid...

[lytefoot]

Harry and Hermione’s friendship

Okay, so there’s a big post going around about how we see a lot of Ron and Hermione having fun without Harry, but none of Harry and Hermione having fun without Ron. I’ve been thinking about this a lot, and while I agree with the thesis–that Ron and Hermione are a much better couple than Harry and Hermione–I feel like it’s an unfair comparison: Harry is typically not with Ron and Hermione because he’s just off doing something else, whereas Ron is away from Harry and Hermione because they’ve had a falling out, so Harry and Hermione are otherwise inclined to be morose. It certainly says something about the trio that the only time Harry and Hermione spend long stretches without Ron is when Ron and Harry are fighting, but the emphasis on Harry and Hermione being miserable about Ron really sells Harry and Hermione’s dynamic short.

At any rate, there are instances of Harry and Hermione… not exactly having fun together, but definitely having a good time together.

When Harry and Hermione are together without Ron, they’re happy when they’re on a mission. Harry learning accio is a really good Harry and Hermione dynamic scene, as is the “plan a heist” sequence before they went to Godric’s Hollow. The tone of Harry’s narrative shifts at these times, from I am suffering so much from the lack of Ron to Okay, but let me tell you about our cunning plan.

It isn’t that Harry and Hermione don’t enjoy each other, exactly, it’s just that they’re both so… uptight? Mission-focused? Neither one of them is particularly good at just, slacking off and having a good time. When they have something they want to accomplish together, they’re actually pretty happy.

Especially if it involves planning a heist. Especially if the heist can involve Polyjuice potion.

Now, take that understanding of their dynamic, and imagine them at a place in their lives where, instead of a strategy for taking on a f***ing dragon or avoiding capture by death eaters, they’re planning and implementing a surprise birthday party for Ron, or an enormous Potter-Granger-Weasley family vacation, or god help us a bake sale for the kids’ primary school. (I don’t know how Polyjuice potion would help with any of these, but they will find a way.)

Harry and Hermione don’t have fun together because neither one of them is much good at having fun, not because they don’t like each other. This makes them a terrible couple, mind. But they definitely have a friendship of their own, not just through Ron.

[bubbysbub]

PLEASE TELL ME ABOUT THE SINK FULL OF SOAPY WATER!

Hey bbcakes!

A few people have asked me about this, and I didn’t think anybody would seriously want to know, lols, so I hope you don’t mind me doing a public reply. (And that it took me a few days to get around to it? Sorry babe!) Here goes.

So, I hate dishes. I refuse to do them anymore. We flirted with a system of everybody taking turns with doing the dishes, but that... did not go well. Sink Full Of Soapy Water was born of my bitter assertion that everyone should just wash their own damn dishes.

And... that’s how it works. 

So. Wash ALL your dishes. Everything. Get your kitchen clean. Struggle through!

When your kitchen is clean, immediately run a sink full of HOT soapy water. Like, no cold tap allowed. Use your kettle if you have to. It’s gotta last your ‘rush’ periods.

Now, the first rule: you use it, you wash it. No dishes are allowed on the counter or sink, it’s a case of washing something AS SOON as you use it. You stand at the counter and make a sandwich? Then before you leave the kitchen, you turn to the sink full of soapy water and swish your butter knife and throw it on the drainer and your kitchen remains tidy. When that sandwich is eaten, take your plate back to the kitchen, use the brush to give it a good swish of hot water, and whack it on the drainer. Use little three second bursts to wash one thing, and you NEVER stand at the sink doing a load again.

My youngest has been capable of doing this since he was five, btw, so no excuses allowed for any age over that. I run the sink when I get out of bed, so by the time the littles get to washing their breakfast dishes, the sink has cooled significantly, and again at dinner time, the sink is run before I cook, and then maybe again before I serve if it’s filthy, but it’s always fine for them to use a brush with a handle and take care. 

When cooking, it seriously is super easy to use a spoon to throw a bit of curry paste in the pan, and then swish it immediately in the sink, and then it’s on the drying rack and forgotten about, all in the space of literally a second or two and I’m back to cooking with a clean kitchen. If I use something to cut or handle raw meat I will more than two seconds to make sure the thing is scrubbed properly, but otherwise, by the time the meal is ready, everything but the cooking pan and what I am serving with is clean. That bowl I used to hold the chicken while I cooked the second batch was cleaned three seconds after the first batch went back in the pan, and the board with all the cut vegies did the same. The microwave container that I did the rice in went into the sink as soon as the rice was served, and then I gave it a swish and scrub when I finished with the serving spoon. And then I go take the piping hot dinner to the table and eat dinner with my family with no dishes waiting to be done except everybody’s own plate or bowl and piece of cutlery. When I bring my own dishes back to be cleaned, I put the leftovers away and wash- or set to soak- the cooking pans. If they’re still there at bedtime, I give them a swish and rinse when I go to take my iron tablet and let the water out for the night, give my sink a quick wipe down. I NEVER WASH UP.

I got through christmas with this, and you would not believe the cooking our family gets into with christmas. It’s normally a complete nightmare, in our summer heat. But xmas18, a dish would be done and ready to store/prebake, and I could move onto the next thing without having to allocate more time to cleaning up after myself. I even made my brother (poor phD student) a month’s worth of meals as a christmas gift in less than two days around my other jobs, and still had no dishes. AMAZING. And in Brisbane heat, it’s wonderful to not have to stand with my hands in hot water for thirty+ minutes every day. 

I’m normally not someone who advocates multitasking, because multitasking is a myth that is the opposite of a time saver, and leads to stress, but this is seriously efficient and time saving, and definitely saves us a bunch of stress.

Rule two, though, keeps it running. You accumulate a lot of dishes on the drying rack without anyone appointed as the person to clear it again, and if the drying rack isn’t clear enough, people stop washing their dishes because there is nowhere to put them. So we developed the rule of three. You go to get a snack or a drink, you have to put away three dishes. Super fast, but keeps the pile down. It works remarkably well. Like, REALLY well. My fifteen year old will whack the kettle on, and then start to put away his three dishes while chatting to his dad, and just... clear the lot. My eleven year old daughter will go to make food, and then put away all the dishes because her orderly mind doesn’t like something half done. The youngest one is still slightly exempt, mostly because he can’t reach half the shelves even with the stool, but he has to take out rubbish/recycling/compost/bottle+soft plastic storage, so it works out, and the others don’t resent the distribution of work. If you’re firm enough about taking responsibility, and chuck a few paddies about selfishness when they refuse to get with the program, then it sinks in and becomes automatic. And it’s easier, because EVERYBODY is doing it, so even if you go to clear the lot, there’s never a heap anyway- a minute or two and you’re done, before the kettle even finishes boiling. And we’re all happier because it’s just a few seconds of our day and doesn’t cost us putting down something that makes us happy to deal with the mess because it’s driving us all crazy. 

(As I type this, eldest has gone to boil the kettle for his afternoon tea, and I can hear him putting cutlery away. I didn’t ask him to. I only just clocked onto the noise. It WORKS.)

I know this won’t work for everyone, because other homes don’t necessarily have the dish load that I have, or five people to do their own dishes. When the kids are at school/hub at work and it’s just me at home, I make sure no dishes have been forgotten before I leave, and then let the water out. I might run the sink when I get home if I have a heap of baking to do, otherwise, I might rinse some things quick (that spoon I used to stir my tea), or leave something until it’s time for the kids to come home, when I run the next sink, and then wash my plate and knife from lunch, you know? Sometimes i only run a third of a sink, because our load won’t be high. Sometimes the water cools too quick in winter, so I put our big cutting board over the sink ofuro style. Sometimes it’s cold, but antibac soap and seriously, all the spoon did was stir the tea, so who cares, right? I’m not running a restaurant here. 

 And YES, it seems like a lot of water, but I only end up running about three sinks a day (and full only at dinner time), and I was running at least two to get through a day’s worth anyway, and now we don’t have people rinsing their dishes- only washing them immediately. I use less water than my sister’s household- three people and a dishwasher, and she ALWAYS has grotty dishes everywhere, so we’ve rid ourselves of the notion a dishwasher would solve all our woes. And we put a few water wise practices in place to prevent our water bill going up too badly, like catching spare water in small buckets at the sink for use in the garden- in winter I don’t use the hose at all now. We make it work. But we all take responsibility for making it work.

That’s our current goal in the house. Joint responsibility, because we all live here. 

Hope that helps you come up with something that works in your house, bbcakes! (and the two anons. And that other person... who’s name I can’t remember.) No more dishes for the win!!

xx

[lesbianism-that-sucks]

I know Dumbledore was lying but man, I really do relate to his greatest wish in the universe being warm socks

[lbibliophile]

He’s old and lives in a stone castle is the Scottish highlands. Of course he dreams about warm socks.

[lytefoot]

The HP Epilogue, Amatonormativity, and Ron and Harry’s Friendship

Now, I’m not someone who has strong objections to the Harry Potter epilogue. I am 100% at home to One Big Happy Weasley Family. I’m even… let’s say fascinated… by the names that Harry and Ginny gave their children. I don’t necessarily agree with their choices, but I’m interested in what those choices tell us about their characters. (Actually Harry’s character, honestly. I don’t think Ginny has any responsibility for Albus Severus beyond not talking him out of it.) No, there are only a couple of things that really bother me about the epilogue. One of them is some of the business about Teddy—that’s for another essay. The other one is this exchange (DH p. 755):

Keep reading

[bubbysbub]

I’m so here for this essay. 

My current kinks: Fics where the main character has a Best Friend and it is shmoopy and doesn’t ever become weird and dramatically romantic. 

And Old Married Couples. Adorable, pass the jam, did you pay the bills, why do you always leave your slippers in the doorway, Old Married Couples.

[manchannel]

[sometimes-now]

The Paradox Axe

[twofingerswhiskey]

this makes me so angry

[khoshekh-yourself-deactivated20]

the fact that they didn’t call it a paradaxe makes me angrier than the actual axe