Axiom 1: People are different from each other. @cathexys - Tumblr Blog

Someone podficced my fic! This has never happened to me before. I'm so honoured. This is so surreal.

Like a Peach is now available in audio format thanks to @cathexys

Summary: Shane develops a bruise kink. They get sadomasochistic with it.

Something’s different, just in general. Like wearing sunglasses, a filter of sorts over everything, but if Shane was in any way honest with himself, he’d know it was more like going without for the first time.

He’s painfully aware of his body these days; how it looks, how it moves, how it responds to… stimuli. And it is responding, lately. His bruises, too: always just there, so used to them they’d barely registered anymore, but recently there’s been a sort of constant hum of them at the edge of his awareness. It’s a layer of input he really doesn’t need right now, busy as he is.

But he’s been woken up. Restless. Needy.

Late in bed, when all his chores are done, fingers travel up to his collarbone, where the newest acquisition is waiting for him.

flowerparrish

SOAPBOX: On Podfics as Transformative Works

So I decided I wanted to write my SOAPBOX on one thing, after going off on a mini Soapbox the day before challenges dropped for Voiceteam and it gave me an excuse to do it. But then I spent a week thinking about where I wanted this to go, and came up with an adjacent-but-different direction to head it in, whoops?

That said, welcome to my Soapbox on Podfic as a Transformative Work. This will include some of my original ideas such as the inherent podficcer desire to embrace chaos that is evidenced by the way we on the whole flock toward things like texting / social media fics and non-traditional narrative formats, and our desire to embrace the challenge of finding a way to bring those stories to life in audio in a way that fully represents the way they appear on the screen, BUT. More than that, at the core, I really want to talk about WHY podfic is a transformative work, because a lot of people—particularly those who aren't familiar with podfic, and haven't listened to much if any of it—don't seem to understand that it is more than just reading aloud the words of a text.

I get it, I do. At its most basic level, that IS what podfic is, right? That's often how we start to explain podfic; my go-to definition is "you know audiobooks? you know fanfic? cool, imagine audiobooks of fanfic." I stand by that; at its most basic level, that IS what podfic is. And yet one of my favorite things to rant about is that podfic is so much MORE than just an audiobook of a fanfic, or at least DIFFERENT/DISTINCT, in the same way that fanfic as a genre is distinct from traditionally published works. Why? Because podficcers have the same freedom and flexibility, due to the nature of fanworks and the fact that they are created for love and joy, not for profit, to get really weird and experimental with what we're making. You don't have to, obviously; you can make a podfic that is more or less an audiobook of a fanfic and it's perfect valid as a podfic AND as a transformative work—I'll get to that more later. But I think the easiest way to see how transformative something like podfic can be is to listen to something absolutely WILD that a podficcer put their whole soul into, be it through ridiculous voicing or over the top effects, and understand that this is an art not bound by the chains of capitalism in its need to be something that will appeal to the largest possible audience. In fact, podficcers don't get very much interaction on our works, a couple of comments on a single pod is a raging hit as far as we're concerned. People have already done great meta on this point this week, so I won't go too far into it beyond saying—we're not in this for popularity, or even feedback (as nice as it can be to get it); we're doing it for fun and joy and community and, yeah, a little bit of chaos.

Sure, you say, that makes sense. And maybe I can see how a really weird podfic is transformative. But ALL podfic?

Yes. All podfic. Let me put it to you this way: have you ever been in a classroom with a teacher who is just the most boring human you have ever had the misfortune of being forced to learn from? I feel like chances are high most of us have, and if you haven't, you've probably at least witnessed it second-hand from some kind of media. Compare that experience with the joy of learning from someone who is really good at teaching—not just at knowing their subject matter, but at engaging their students in a way that makes learning actually enjoyable, whether or not you're equally invested in the subject.

Podfic is like that. You can have Text-to-Speech read something to you, sure, but comparing it to a real person is like… even if you don't like the real person's style, or the way their audio turned out, it's got LIFE in it. THAT'S what makes podfic transformative. A real person is VOICE-ACTING as they bring a text to life in audio, putting in expression and empathy, and THAT is what makes podfic a transformative form of art.

Do you have to like it? No! Many people don't enjoy listening to audio-based stories, or only enjoy them in certain contexts or formats, and that's fine. But it's not the same thing to say "this isn't for me" and "this isn't actually a work that transforms the original in any way because it's just reading the words aloud". To those people: I challenge you to make a podfic. Any podfic. Learn how to record, and how to narrate, and how to edit, and when you're done, see if you've learned anything from the process about what makes this an art. Because it is enjoyable for those of us who do it, but it is a skill that you learn and practice the same way writing and painting and photo editing and a thousand other skills and art forms are. It is human artistic expression, combined with practical creative skills, and it can be so, so magical. From the most simple narration of a fic to the most complicated multi-voice with sound effects and music, every podfic is a work of art, and in my opinion, if a single person bothers to read this and grapple with that idea, fandom will be better for it.

zz9pzza

As you carefully consider what to nominate for awards this year, there are so many wonderful works to choose from. I’d be honored if you thought of me. Here are my award-eligible contributions for 2024.

Best Related Work:

@conference {302185, author = {James Beal}, title = {How to Host a (Very) Popular Website for 30 Altairian Dollars a Day}, year = {2024}, address = {Dublin}, publisher = {USENIX Association}, month = oct }

zz9pzza

How to host a popular↟ website for 30 Altairian dollars a day (2025) (2160 words) by james_ Chapters: 1/3 Fandom: Fandom - Fandom Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Additional Tags: Meta Series: Part 2 of How to Host a (Very) Popular Website for 30 Altairian Dollars a Day Summary: This is an extended version of the talk presented at SREcon24 Europe/Middle East/Africa

rivkat

Today I learned that Google actually thought specifically about AO3 and implemented "prefetching" for us--the document they shared says “Because of its popularity, improving page load speed for them can move global average user experience.”

Best Related Work:

Rogue Archives, by Abigail De Kosnik

In my last two posts, I revisited some aspects of De Kosnik’s dissertation, Illegitimate Media: Race, Gender, and Censorship in Digital Remix Culture; this week, I’d like to give an excerpt of her book Rogue Archives (MIT 2016). One of the things that I like about the book is the way in which it not only documents the voices of fandom but captures the feels of fandom; consider this section of the book subtitled “The Moment of Discovery””

One of the strongest themes that emerged in my research team’s interviews with fans was their strong and positive affective response when they first found online fan fiction archives. I will call this initial encounter, described by so many interviewees, the moment of discovery. Alexis Lothian, remembering her moment of discovery, which took place in 2003 when she stumbled upon Harry Potter fan fiction, says, “I loved it. I was incredibly—it was exciting. … Definitely it was a very visceral excitement” (Lothian 2012b). nightflier states that her moment of discovery, which was the first time she came across the Gossamer archive in the late 1990s, “was like a revelation. I’ll never forget that day” (nightflier 2012). eruthros, using similar terminology as Lothian, recalls that she “sort of stumbled into some sort of online fandom, I think it might have been Due South first, and the Due South mailing list … and archive,” and says that “thirty seconds after I found the archive I found slash fandom and decided that was pretty awesome, and I wanted to be there” (eruthros and thingswithwings 2012). oxoniensis also employs the metaphor of “stumbling” to characterize her moment of discovery, with Lord of the Rings fan fiction, in 2002: “My first contact with fan fiction was an accident. I’d never heard of fan fiction, either by word of mouth or online, so it was all rather a surprise when I first stumbled across it. … Some stories were moving, some funny, some incredibly hot, some utterly gripping. And to be able to find this all just by searching the Internet was wonderful” (oxoniensis 2012). oxoniensis says she feels “very nostalgic” about “those heady first days of discovery.” Like Lothian, eruthros, and oxoniensis, Robin Nelson remembers her moment of discovery as happening by chance. “It was pure accident,” says Nelson (2012) of finding a Usenet group dedicated to Anne Rice fan fiction in 1996 or 1997. “I didn’t know that fanfic even existed at that point. … I was actually thrilled. I was elated.”

De Kosnik connects this feeling to the idea of the archive - not just the Archive of Our Own, but any archive, any large grouping of stories. As she explains, the very number of stories online is thrilling and validating:

The size of online fan fiction archives (which I explore in the conclusion)—the number of stories housed on these sites, and the number of authors who contributed them—gave Lothian, Nelson, Victoria P., and others a “sense of belonging,” a feeling of recognition (“I GET IT”), and the security of knowing that they were not alone. In other words, if these sites had not been archives, had not immediately given the impression of being well-stocked repositories, trafficked by many writers and readers, then they may not have not have communicated to fans the same aura of safety—safety in numbers, safety in being among “like-minded individuals, safety in standing with others.” (151)

I GET IT!

--Francesca Coppa, Fanhackers volunteer

stevelieber

From @stopproject2025comic, here's one about what Project 2025 means for libraries. Full alt text at the site.

velvetcloak

Pocket Jewelry by Jose Balli

cathexys

I wish I knew someone who wears suits regularly and yet is cool enough to pull off that kraken!

asneakyfox

a lot of really annoying media discourse on tumblr comes down to people having a hard time accepting that both of the following are true at the same time:

for any work of fiction interesting enough to be worth talking about, there will be multiple equally plausible and valid interpretations that are possible - and by interpretations here i don't just mean headcanons about minor details, i mean how you read the core themes and character arcs. and very often some of those equally valid interpretations will directly contradict each other and that's ok

not EVERY interpretation is valid, some are genuinely just dumb as hell and unsupported by the text

cathexys

Replying to @shleepshlorp and the aliens in Catcher in the Rye. My core memory is teaching The Red Wheelbarrow, and I had one student argue that the red/white/blue color imagery could invoke US national sentiments. Weird but OK. And then another came with the aliens. That's a hard no. Like, seriously, there's a fine line between out there but has potential and wholly unsupported!

fanhackers

Fandom/Activism

I interrupt my dive into Abigail DeKosnik’s work to note that as the United States moves deeper into its (apparently endless) election season, we’re seeing a lot of fandom-as-activism starting to emerge, as well as activism-as-fandom. De Kosnik herself was one of the early writers on fandom/activism, writing “Participatory democracy and Hillary Clinton's marginalized fandom” for the very first issue of Transformative Works and Cultures in 2008; more recently, Aja Romano wrote about how Donald Trump’s followers can be seen to be acting like a fandom for Vox: “If you want to understand modern politics, you have to understand modern fandom.”

TWC hosted an entire guest issue on Transformative Works and Fan Activism, edited by Henry Jenkins and Sangita Shresthova; Jenkins and Shresthova also collaborated on By Any Media Necessary: The New Youth Activism (NYU, 2016) which collects essays on fan activism. Other essays on fandom/activism have been published by TWC with Alex Xanthoudakis’s Mobilizing minions: Fan activism efficacy of Misha Collins fans in "Supernatural" fandom (2020) and Hannah Carilyn Gunderman’s Fan geographies and engagement between geopolitics of Brexit, Donald Trump, and Doctor Who on social media (2020) being recent examples. Meanwhile, Tanya Cook and Kayle Joseph are the authors of Fandom Acts of Kindness: A Heroic Guide to Activism, Advocacy, and Doing Chaotic Good (Penguin Randomhouse 2023), a guide on how to use fandom and fannish strategies to make a difference.

Some examples of fandom/activism emerging this U.S. election season include Heroes 4 Harris: Kamala-Con which is scheduled to happen online today, Sunday September 8, 2024, 1pm PT / 4pm ET: this is billed as “a Comic-Con for Kamala” and “the largest fandom led gathering in support of a presidential candidate in American history.” It will feature: “actors, writers, directors, and super fans of Hollywood's most inspiring heroic fandoms” and promises not just inspiration from some of our favorite stars (Mark Ruffalo, Sean Astin, Rosario Dawson and others - not to mention Henry Jenkins himself) but also breakout groups and training in “fan mobilization.”

Meanwhile, Lynda Carter (always a Wonder Woman!) is also trying to get out the fan vote for Harris with her group Geeks & Nerds for Harris Walz (@GeekOutTheVote); this is also billed as “a fan activist campaign” and they are planning special online events, the first of which will be an online call on September 24, 2024. As they describe on their website: “Fandom has never just been about media consumption. Fans are artists, creators, and digital ambassadors. When we share what we love, it radiates around the world. And to paraphrase the Vice President, it’s how we show them who we are. By connecting battle-tested campaign canvassing strategies to the heritage and practices of fan communities, we can encourage fans to get out the vote in key battleground states.”

Donald Trump, aside from being his own fandom with himself as fan in chief, also seems to have had some self-identified fandoms collectively organizing for him over the years - these include Fans of Kanye West, Fans of Race Car Driving, and, strange but true, Fans of the 1980s, who apparently believe that Donald Trump would also be a fan of 80s horror movies, Scritti Politti, and the soundtrack to Pretty in Pink. (I’m not making that up; it’s on their Twitter.) That said, Mel Stanfill’s newest book Fandom is Ugly (2024) argues that, despite its popular reputation, media fandom is not essentially progressive; that in fact, “reactionary politics and media fandoms go hand in hand.” Stanfill’s book looks at the ways in which fans have organized in conservative, reactionary, or even hateful ways, from Gamergate to the collective abuse and harassment of actors in the latest Star Wars franchise.

The discipline of fandom studies is now being used to study all different kinds of affiliations and advocacy movements, not just those based around film, tv, sports, or music. Fan studies is now applied to political and social movements. Jenkins is still a powerful voice on the relationship between fan studies and participatory democracy (whether progressive or reactionary): read this 2024 interview with him published in Communication and the Public: “The path from participatory culture to participatory politics: A critical investigation—An interview with Henry Jenkins.” As Jenkins notes:

Part of the ethos of fandom is to ask questions—from nitpicking to imagining other outcomes, different trajectories for character arcs, and other worlds where the story might occur, all of which is expressed through fan works. I would say that fans are often more critical than the general audience in asking these questions, which makes them somewhat different from many partisans and activists I might know who rarely question their beliefs and ideological commitments. And fans are more tolerant—as an aggregate—of different interpretations than partisans are of different ideological stances. So, you could do worse in grounding a democracy than engaging with fans.

mourningmountainsbindery

August 21st is FFWAD: Fan Fic Writer’s Appreciation Day! This year, I’m delighted to share the books I made to celebrate @cesperanza and the years of brilliant fanfic she’s given us.

Some Strange Prophecy is a Due South fic—a show that premiered 30 years ago and remains one of my all time favorites. I knew that at some point this year I would want to bind something that would celebrate the show’s premiere, and it made perfect sense to bind one of Speranza’s—and it didn’t hurt that the fic itself is 20 years old this year, and just an absolute masterpiece.

The cover for this book is an abstract representation of Bennie’s uniform, bound in red moire with HTV decorations.

I pulled out a piece of Peggy Skycraft marbled paper for the endpapers (Skycraft is a renowned marbler whose work is in the Met, and I had gotten a batch of her amazing work in a recent auction).

The fic is just over 50k words, so it fit perfectly in a legal quarto size. The endbands are a traditional silk two color bead-on-front style.

But wait! That isn’t all! I also bound two tiny books (legal sextodecimos) to celebrate Speranza and some of the other amazing fic she’s given us. I had asked for permission to bind SSP, but these two little Stargate Atlantis fic were a surprise for her—War Bride and Ordinary Life (the latter co-written with @astolat , whose books I’ve bound before).

War Bride was bound in Neenah Paper fake leather, and Ordinary Life in Colibri book cloth, both as 3 piece Bradels with hot foil decorations.

Thank you again, @cesperanza , for all the wonderful fic you’ve written and shared with us over the years. It’s been a joy sharing fandoms with you!

cesperanza

Running in late but this is the most amazing and beautiful thing I've ever seen, and while the main book is unbelievably sharp and snazzy, the baby SGA books made me scream like a little girl, ngl!! WAR BRIDE! (Which is btw my most storyfindered story, because people never remember the name but they always ask for it as "the one where Rodney thinks John's head's been cut off!" lol. And Ordinary Life! written with my beloved @astolat, which people do remember ("the one where John's Rodney's 'mathematician'"). I can't do it rn but I will totally post interior shots of all of these in addition to these gorgeous covers--the TIE! the MATH!! I feel very thoroughly appreciated indeed! <3 <3 <3 <3

twentytwo-onebee

recoiling in horror bc the "sherlock holmes and related fandoms" tag is gone and it got replaced with the bbclock tag and now it looks like I'm a bbc enjoyer on ao3

elljayvee

I just had to go and check this. Who made this fucking decision? This is awful. THESE ARE NOT THE SAME.

Example: this story of mine from the Victorian Holmes Kinkmeme - click on the fandom and see where you get sent.

elljayvee

By the way, I just sent a note in on the Support form because WHAT THE HELL.

An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works

My note, please feel free to steal verbiage:

I found out today that someone wrangled "Sherlock Holmes and Related Fandoms" into a synonym with "Sherlock (TV)".

These two are not and NEVER have been synonyms. They are widely used by people specifically looking to AVOID Sherlock (TV), in fact. In my own works alone there are two works that are Victorian-era Holmes that are now included in Sherlock (TV) where they absolutely under no circumstances whatsoever belong:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/18051809

https://archiveofourown.org/works/17890967

They are NOT, however, specific to a specific version of Victorian-era Holmes, which is why they were tagged as they were.

I do not know why this decision was made but it's incredibly upsetting and will make it actively difficult for people who want non-Sherlock (TV) Holmes stories to find them, especially reading back in the archive to previously-tagged works. I genuinely do not know why anyone would do this.

elljayvee

There's so many things wrong with this, including but not limited to: 1) the way umbrella fandoms get used in fandoms where there's a million things under the umbrella and 2) the ability of people to find stories in the archive across time

umbrella utility: There are places where umbrella fandoms don't make sense. You don't need one when you have something like a TV show + movie, or a novel and its film adaptation. But you also have things like Sherlock Holmes and Star Wars. In both of those enormous, sprawling, 1 billion separate properties apiece fandoms, you need a way to say "yeah, give me all of that" and filter down from there if there's something specific you want to exclude.

For example, previously, if I wanted ANYTHING Holmes EXCEPT Sherlock, the way to do it was to use the Related Fandoms tag and then exclude Sherlock. If I want all of Star Wars except the Zahn novels, I can get that from Star Wars (All Media Types) and a filter. You can parse through the versions you do and don't want much more easily with an umbrella fandom than you can with any other method, when you have fandoms with the kind of bananapants number of elements and pieces and whatnot that fandoms like Sherlock Holmes -- a fandom that is over 100 years old -- has.

which brings us to the ability to find stories across time. I can go retag my stories -- although the tags won't be accurate, since they're not ACD Holmes, nor Grenada, nor any other adaptation, but were specifically written to be situated at plausible intersections of most Victorian-era Holmes canons. But what if I was dead? Or had left fandom? Or just didn't know about this change? There are stories tagged with the Related tag in the archive that are now synned to Sherlock (TV) that are like mine: nonspecifically Victorian-era, completely unrelated to Sherlock (TV) at all. Or are set in other times altogether, because this is an old, old fandom, and it has history, and a lot of the history is embedded in the tags.

So tell me: with this change, how is someone supposed to find a Holmes AU set in 2250 on another planet? How is someone supposed to find a 10 year old nonspecific Victorian-era story about the Wilde trial, under all the fucking Sherlock (TV)? And how are the Sherlock readers -- of which I am also one! -- supposed to weed out the random non-Sherlock stuff that's suddenly in their tag because its tag was synned in -- there's no reliable way to do that, either, because what the Related tag meant was not any one specific thing, but was a giant rainbow parachute over it all.

This was an incredibly bad decision.

wisdomlikethis

all questions about generally dismantling 'related fandoms' and similar umbrella tags aside, which is always going to be a complicated discussion with nuance to it in a broader sense, this specific decision as to how to go about it is so bad. there are less-bad ways to go about doing this! that specifically BBC Sherlock was assumed to be the best replacement is probably the worst of all options they had, to be honest.

what annoys me is that so much of ao3's mission statement over the years has been centered around stability for archival purposes. the entire concept is that it is a safe parking spot for your fic, no matter how old, no matter what it's for or about, where you don't have to worry about radical changes to the platform it's being hosted on putting it at risk in terms of accessibility as time marches on. noone is going to acquire ao3 and implement advertising and start purging porn, or whatever, the way we saw with platforms like ff.net or LJ. that's a big part of the pitch to users and always has been.

and then they go and take a large fandom with a wide variety of fics stretching back decades, and just arbitrarily go, and i can only assume this was the logic: 'well, you know, of all the specific Holmes fandoms on the site, statistically the biggest slice of the pie is Sherlock, so that one will probably cover the most fics contained under this umbrella tag we want gone, right?' and now thousands of fics are incorrectly tagged as a show they aren't fanfic for.

yeah, it sucks for findability for fics as a reader, that one's obvious and shitty. but tbh it also massively undermines ao3's aim to be an effective archive if you go around messing with historical metadata to this degree. if that happens to large fandoms over and over in similarly haphazard ways as a result of the tagging system changes, that's a major ostensible benefit to using ao3 specifically that is at best no longer reliably expected by users. there has got to be a better way of balancing any actual need to do this and, like, not permanently fucking up metadata for thousands of fics on long-abandoned accounts, surely.

#AO3 #Sherlock Holmes #When Tag Trees Improve Functionality

janmisali

do you pronounce "gerrymander" like "Gary mander"?

yes

unsure

[show results]

Voting ended onJan 18, 2024

janmisali

voting block 1 (options 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 11, 12): 60.9%, highest option "yes"

voting block 2 (options 2, 10): 39.1%, highest option "no"

looks like "yes" wins!

$eternal-fractal blog's avatar$

eternal-fractal

I think this better explained gerrymandering better to me than any explanation I've heard

bryn-irl

wake up babe new educational meme dropped

popthirdworld

“When I was 26, I went to Indonesia and the Philippines to do research for my first book, No Logo. I had a simple goal: to meet the workers making the clothes and electronics that my friends and I purchased. And I did. I spent evenings on concrete floors in squalid dorm rooms where teenage girls—sweet and giggly—spent their scarce nonworking hours. Eight or even 10 to a room. They told me stories about not being able to leave their machines to pee. About bosses who hit. About not having enough money to buy dried fish to go with their rice.

They knew they were being badly exploited—that the garments they were making were being sold for more than they would make in a month. One 17-year-old said to me: “We make computers, but we don’t know how to use them.”

So one thing I found slightly jarring was that some of these same workers wore clothing festooned with knockoff trademarks of the very multinationals that were responsible for these conditions: Disney characters or Nike check marks. At one point, I asked a local labor organizer about this. Wasn’t it strange—a contradiction?

It took a very long time for him to understand the question. When he finally did, he looked at me like I was nuts. You see, for him and his colleagues, individual consumption wasn’t considered to be in the realm of politics at all. Power rested not in what you did as one person, but what you did as many people, as one part of a large, organized, and focused movement. For him, this meant organizing workers to go on strike for better conditions, and eventually it meant winning the right to unionize. What you ate for lunch or happened to be wearing was of absolutely no concern whatsoever.

This was striking to me, because it was the mirror opposite of my culture back home in Canada. Where I came from, you expressed your political beliefs—firstly and very often lastly—through personal lifestyle choices. By loudly proclaiming your vegetarianism. By shopping fair trade and local and boycotting big, evil brands.

These very different understandings of social change came up again and again a couple of years later, once my book came out. I would give talks about the need for international protections for the right to unionize. About the need to change our global trading system so it didn’t encourage a race to the bottom. And yet at the end of those talks, the first question from the audience was: “What kind of sneakers are OK to buy?” “What brands are ethical?” “Where do you buy your clothes?” “What can I do, as an individual, to change the world?”

Fifteen years after I published No Logo, I still find myself facing very similar questions. These days, I give talks about how the same economic model that superpowered multinationals to seek out cheap labor in Indonesia and China also supercharged global greenhouse-gas emissions. And, invariably, the hand goes up: “Tell me what I can do as an individual.” Or maybe “as a business owner.”

The hard truth is that the answer to the question “What can I, as an individual, do to stop climate change?” is: nothing. You can’t do anything. In fact, the very idea that we—as atomized individuals, even lots of atomized individuals—could play a significant part in stabilizing the planet’s climate system, or changing the global economy, is objectively nuts. We can only meet this tremendous challenge together. As part of a massive and organized global movement.

The irony is that people with relatively little power tend to understand this far better than those with a great deal more power. The workers I met in Indonesia and the Philippines knew all too well that governments and corporations did not value their voice or even their lives as individuals. And because of this, they were driven to act not only together, but to act on a rather large political canvas. To try to change the policies in factories that employ thousands of workers, or in export zones that employ tens of thousands. Or the labor laws in an entire country of millions. Their sense of individual powerlessness pushed them to be politically ambitious, to demand structural changes.

In contrast, here in wealthy countries, we are told how powerful we are as individuals all the time. As consumers. Even individual activists. And the result is that, despite our power and privilege, we often end up acting on canvases that are unnecessarily small—the canvas of our own lifestyle, or maybe our neighborhood or town. Meanwhile, we abandon the structural changes—the policy and legal work— to others.”

- Naomi Klein

amindamazed

“Climate Change Is a Crisis We Can Only Solve Together” The Nation 17 June 2015

(updated link as of March 2024)

kuwdora

Saturday Morning Vid Recs - Space and Robots

@tafkarfanfic asked me for vid recs that are similar to the following vids:

Data’s Dream by GayleF (Gayle) and TasheryS which premiered at Escapade in 1994 - made on a VCR!! - and was remastered by morgandawn in 2004. Definitely check out the Fanlore page about Data’s Dream. Star Trek + multi-source.

Starships by bironic. Multi-source. The history of Starships on Fanlore.

These two vids are iconic. Please check them out and learn about their history from the Fanlore page, it's a great look at some vidding history and culture. Amazing vids, do love. As for some recs. I love this kind of prompt. More vids like [this vid] is so much fun. I dug deep into my vid rec archives and brain and bookmarks. I’ve also crowdsourced some recs from the vidding discord. Thank you to @rukbat3, @sandalwoodbox, @fairestcat, @monkeyswithjetpacks, @grammarwoman for the reccing help! And everyone else I might have forgotten.

From Land to Sky - and kicking ass while you're there!

Landsailor by @singlecrow/raven. Multi-source. Swades (We, The People); Master and Commander; 3 Idiots; The Dish; The West Wing; Parks and Recreation; Flight of the Phoenix; NASA archive footage; Apollo 13. ❤️ We're gonna need a bigger boat. Come O’ Eclipse by melodytree. Tenchi: The Samurai Astronomer. Calendar-making! Math puzzles! Astronomy! Politics! Eclipses! Oh my! Galaxyrise by starlady. Multi-source. Apollo 13 (1995), Interstellar (2014), Gravity (2013), Europa Report (2013), Contact (1997), The Martian (2015). This vid is full of so much wonder! The sky calls to us/If we do not destroy ourselves/We will one day venture to the stars. Going through space with the world by bironic. Space Exploration RPF. ❤️❤️❤️ From "day in the life of an astronaut" videos to international stardom; or, Chris Hadfield and his adorable mustache. Monsters of the Cosmos by CherryIce. Thor/MCU. Jane Foster/Science.Cherry’s editing is goddamn incredible. In the last century, black holes have gone from being mathematical curiosities to real objects in the cosmos. This is a vid about Jane Foster and her one true love, Science. Also, Thor is there. Toxic by JinkyO. The Planets (TV - 2019). Humanity/The Solar System. This vid is so fucking brilliant and makes me cackle in love and awe so much. It's dangerous, I'm loving it. Sci-Fi Friday in a Blender by Luminosity. Multi-source. Farscape, Battlestar Galactica and Doctor Who. So much happening in this vid. This is among one of the earliest vids I remember watching and became obsessed with back in the day. Supernova Girl by @usuallyhats. Multifandom. Doctor Who, Star Wars, Babylon 5, Steven Universe, Andromeda, Farscape, Battlestar Galactica, Firefly, Mass Effect, Stargate. So many wonderful brilliant amazing EXCELLENT supernova women and girls. Zoom, zoom, zoom. Space Girl by @aurumcalendula. Multi-source scifi. Inspired by Charmax’s Space Girl vid and Bironic’s The Greatest. This vid has a great selection of newer tv shows and films and it’s fun to play spot that character. But also this vid will grab you by the heart, too. Utterly brilliant, perfection. A must watch!! 'I've been as far in hyperspace as anybody can.' One Girl Revolution by bessyboo. Star Wars, original and prequel. Padme and Leia!! Seeing these two focused on in one Star Wars vid is an adventurous kickass ride. I'll be everything that I want to be. Space Girl by charmax. Multi-source scifi. One of the most beautiful epic space vids out there! I know I’ve recced this before and I’ll rec it again and again and again. My momma told me I should never watch Sci-fi but I did, I did, I did.

Robots! More than wires.

If a Machine by caramarie, Multi-source. Robot narrative focusing on machine origin, intelligence, and interaction with humanity. And Human fallibility. An incredibly rewarding watch and rewatch. This is the story of cables and copper wirings. Electric Avenue by @monkeyswithjetpacks. Multi-source robots! Nate’s multi-vids are always so fun, especially when it’s showcasing classic cinema and all these excellent serials. Electric Avenue has source from 1919 to 2015. His editing is always on fucking point. Don’t miss this vid. We’re gonna rock down to electric avenue. Everybody by @kuwdora. Star Trek, the Borg. This vid was actually inspired by the Backstreet Boys original music video. I still have the vivid memory of watching or rewatching the original music video in @ars-amatoria ’s kitchen. And then at some point realizing it is perfect for the Borg. Am I original, am I the only one? Fembots by Grammarwoman. Multi-source. Sexy sharp editing and fun use of all the sources. The intersection of women and technology: a spectrum of clones, AIs, gynoids, cyborgs, and other artificial creations. On by @rhoboat77. Star Trek: Picard. A Soji fanvid. Rho has the sharpest editing skills this side of the Internet and this Soji vid is so fucking badass and worth 100 rewatches. Can’t hold me down cuz you know I’m a fighter. Que Sera Sera by @ohvienna. Star Trek Voyager and Picard. Seven of Nine.Nobody vids their Seven of Nine love like @ohvienna. You gotta watch this if you love Seven. Whatever will be, will be…"

Journey through Space.

To Touch the Face of God by destina. Multi-source. The Right Stuff (1983, )The Dream Is Alive, From the Earth to the Moon (TV).This is one of the most beautiful moving vids you will EVER, and I mean EVER see. From Chuck Yeager, to the Mercury 7, and on to Apollo and the Space Shuttle Program (STS) - a very human history of the triumphs, joys, and tragedies of the USA's journey into space. Doctor Who on Holiday by sisabet. Farscape, Battlestar Galactica and Doctor Who. A mashup vid of Luminosity’s Sci-Fi Friday in a Blender. This vid inspired me so much. And I have 10 very intense ideas about how I would do my own remix of this vid if I were to make it right now. Fly Me To the Moon by thirdblindmouse. Multi-source. This vid has everything! Alien sex! Xenophilia! Zero-gravity sex! Mpreg!!! Because everyone knows this song is about space sex. Game Night in Space by garrideb. Multi-source. This vid!!!!! IS! SO! MUCH! FUN!! Game on! How are you going to spend those long nights on your starship? Play games, of course! Space poker, space chess, space Monopoly… this is a fanvid celebrating game night in space, set to Don't Stop Me Now by Queen. Starships (Monochromatic Remix) by @monkeyswithjetpacks. Multi-source. See the Fanlore page on the history of Starships (Monochromatic Remix). ALSO check out jetpack-monkey’s extensive notes and side-by-side comparison vid of the original vid and his vid!! He matched Starships shot-for-shot! Most brilliant work ever. The vid notes aren’t on the ao3 page so I HIGHLY recommend checking out the notes on his dreamwidth page! This vid is 10 million kinds of brilliant and technical prowess and perfection.

Vidshow Rec

Alien Invasion! - 30 vids curated and organized into a show by @tafadhali for VidUKon 2024. Featuring films and tv shows: Nope, Attack the Block, Pacific Rim, Venom, Doctor Who, Stargate Atlantis, Star Trek, Prey, Smallville, Rowswell, Supergirl, Arrival, Starship Troopers and more.

Follow these tags to keep up with vid recs this summer:

#saturday morning vid recs

#kuwdora recs

A helpful guide I wrote:

How to Leave Feedback on Fanvids

rivkat

BRB watching videos. One rec from me: Unnatural Selection, by Charmax. BSG/Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles

dr-lemurr

never enough time

Inspired by Michael and Alex’s last trip to see each other during the lost decade in @jocarthage’s epistolary story Dear M—.

Also on Ao3

mephistopheles

sorry

contact-guy

Digging into the Holmes timeline for Reasons and the fact that “a combination of events, into which I need not enter” caused Holmes and Watson to leave London literally DURING Oscar Wilde’s trial for “gross indecency” (aka having a boyfriend)….. Doyle was friends with Wilde…………..I’m connecting the dots

siphonyx

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Axiom 1: People are different from each other.