crumbcrash2000

another fanblog for the MCU. i write fic.

[lierdumoa]

On A03 and Fandom Racism: What Will Actually Work?

I feel I need to clarify, since I recently made a post about AO3 needing better anti-racism measures, that THERE ARE OTHER, FRANKLY MORE EFFECTIVE MEASURES BESIDES PRESSURING AUTHORS TO TAG BETTER. 

What we actually need to be discussing are BETTER BLACKLISTING TOOLS. Being able to permanently block racist authors and/or specific racist stories from appearing in search results would MEANINGFULLY IMPROVE my AO3 browsing experience. Racist authors tend to be repeat offenders. And in most cases, there are few enough of them that just blacklisting 5-10 names would, in many cases, clear a fandom tag of 99.5% of the offensive stories. 

Right now if I run into a racist author, I have to memorize their name and type it into an exclusion filter with markdown code every single time I do a new search.

Moreover the one third party plugin that’s available doesn’t meet my needs. AO3-savior doesn’t truly hide blocked fic. Even after they’re blocked, the plugin still lets you know that they’re there, and the reason they were blocked. I DON’T WANT TO SEE THAT SHIT. I want those fic to be gone, gone. 

You really wanna talk about tagging?

Bookmarker tagging is a thing. But it doesn’t work as well as it could.

Shift the focus away from author tagging. People are already use the “bookmarks” feature to identify untagged racist/otherwise triggering stories using “bookmarker tags” and “bookmarker comments” to review and warn for other readers. Bookmarker tagging is a fantastic feature, but it comes with huge, nonsensical limitations. 

For example, there’s no way to effectively exclude fic from a works search based on bookmarker’s tags. In a works search, you can only exclude based on author tags. You can, to a certain degree, exclude bookmarker tags in a bookmark search. But it lacks many of the filtering features offered in a works search. A bookmark search, for example, only has 2 sorting options compared to the work search’s 9. 

People are acting like we only have two options – make authors responsible for tagging their racism, or do nothing. I gotta ask, what is y’all’s goal here? Do you want to punish racist authors? Or do you actually want to PROTECT POC FANS FROM FANDOM RACISM? 

We need to start looking at this as an infrastructure problem. We’re concentrating too much energy on exposing and confronting racists, when what I actually want, as a POC, is just to not be constantly blindsided by microaggressions every time I do a fic search. 

This should not be an issue of author tagging. 

By making fandom racism an issue of author tagging, you’re trusting bigots to implement your anti-bigotry measures. 

People who are respectful of racial issues are already tagging their fic with racism warnings. Racists rarely view themselves as racist, and therefore cannot be trusted to implement a new racism tagging rule in a reliable enough manner to actually meaningfully protect POC from their content. We need victim-implemented anti-bigotry measures. 

Any online community will have it’s share of shitty people with shitty opinions. It’s not a question of how to change these people’s hearts, nor is it a question of how to excommunicate these people from the platform.  

The question is – does the average user have a hard time avoiding exposure to triggering content using the available technology? 

Yes? Then we need better technology. 

The technological infrastructure determines the online environment. 

[becketted]

A character of color sacrificing themselves to save white characters is AS DAMAGING a fictional trope as Bury Your Gays and i’m tired of fellow queer people pretending otherwise

[melina-mellow]

EXCUSE ME!?

What just happened!?

[mankillercalledbunny]

IATSE and their new contracts happened, and this is a VERY GOOD THING. The Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers has, under threat of an industry-wide strike by film and TV crew supported by the Screen Actors Guild, the Directors Guild, and the Screen Writers Guild, finally agreed to negotiate better working conditions, longer turn around times to allow crew to rest between shifts, and better pay for material being put on streaming services.

What this tells us is that Marvel was using backbreaking conditions to get their shit made, and these delays are because they've been forced to actually ensure safe and fair working conditions and adequate compensation for the people working on their projects.

[diversehighfantasy]

Fandom and the Intersection of Feminism and Race

Intersectionality – specifically, the intersection of feminism and race as it pertains to Black women – has become a bit of a Tumblr buzzphrase that is generally applied to major social issues. But it has a real and important place in fandom as well, and while that is generally accepted on the surface, it has come to mean (to folks to don’t actually get it) simply acknowledging the existence of Black women.

Here’s the thing, though. Intersectionality isn’t white women reblogging photos of black women with the caption “omg so beautiful!” It isn’t fancasting Lupita in everything or having “poc” headcanons of white characters. It doesn’t even necessarily mean supporting existing Black women characters (though that’s a start). Those things are inclusive, but they’re not necessarily intersectional.

To understand the intersectionality of feminism and race in media (and, by extension, fandom), one must understand the fundamental differences between what is considered empowering for white women vs. what is empowering for Black women. (Hint: due to many years of dehumanization of Black women while white women have been portrayed as The Ideal, these two perceptions are almost diametrically opposite.)

Take the Strong Woman who isn’t there to be loved. White women love this trope, because white women in media are so often primarily seen as love interests. I can understand how that can be frustrating, and how it can be refreshing to see, say, Furiosa in Mad Max. But – and this is important – the Strong Woman trope, applied to a Black woman, reads entirely differently, and to ignore that ignores intersectionality altogether.

Black women have almost never been the ones who need protecting in media. Black women aren’t sick and tired of always being love interests. The Strong Independent Woman (thanks in part to fandom repeatedly using the term to try and keep women of color in their romance-free place) has become virtually a slur when it comes to Black women in media in the same way the Damsel in Distress makes white women’s skin crawl. If you care about intersectionality at all, it’s important to understand that. The experience of Black women in media is the Bizarro World version of white women’s experience.

Most “inclusive” feminists can see the disparity between Scarlett O'Hara and Mammy, and (I hope) understand that Mammy was dehumanized and otherized. The Scarlett and Mammy trope lives on today, with only the most un-PC parts of the Mammy character removed. Otherizing Black women is not yet widely considered un-PC. It still continues in the media we consume every day. And just because they’re often glorified for being so strong, so tough, and so independent it doesn’t make it OK.

Abbie Mills is a tough, independent badass – but Katrina embodied “womanhood,” precious and pure. Michonne is a tough, independent badass – but Jessie embodies “womanhood.” And on and on.

It has been said so many times, but it hardly ever seems to sink in: It is progressive and feminist for Black women to be the precious ones, the love interests, the damsels who need saving. 

So if you instinctively ask why a Black woman can’t just be strong or get upset if she is “reduced to a love interest,” allowed the kind of romantic storyline you take for granted and spit on, the answer is: Your brand of feminism doesn’t apply here.

And, you know, that doesn’t negate that brand of feminism. Intersectionality (of all kinds) asks you to look at feminism as something that is complex, not a set of one-size-fits-all rules. 

[perenial]

i think the problem i'm coming up against a lot here with other white people is that we tend to think of racism as a fixed point - u either are or are not racist. but it's so much more complex than that! firstly, we exist in racist societies with varying degrees of white supremacy depending on where u live and what culture u were raised in. then there's personal identity; for the most part, white people don't want to identify as racist. and while this is all going on, we participate - willfully or not - racist systems of governance and culture that produce ideas, tropes, caricatures, and narratives that crop up in media. so when someone says 'hey, that thing u just wrote is racist', white people interpret that as 'hey, u are racist', which. really isn't the point. what matters here is recognising where u exist on this spectrum of racist behaviour and whether or not ur working towards undoing the lessons u've been taught

[soundnotnoise]

Anthony was roommates with Lee pace at Julliard and knew he was gay and never outed him. He has played queer men before. They know the assumption that black men are homophobic and they are using that against him.

A black man does not have to be comfortable with (mostly white) fans sexualization of his character. And it's gross that white fans are only going after him and not Disney or Sebastian Stan.

Also fans have also use Mackie's own friendship with Sebastian to "prove" this ship. Which is gross. Black men and Especially black southern men are much more affectionate and physically friendly. A black man has the right to be uncomfortable with the sexualization of a keep part of his culture

It's important for white people to not project thier culture idea of queerness and gender performance on black men.

[lesbians-love-samwilson]

My last say on this matter. Mackie was talking about the way white fans fetish Sam Wilson and his relationship with Bucky. The way you all go amd write fan five on how Sam is some magical negro only there to comfort Bucky and to fuck him into the mattress is fetish and explosive. The way you all ever write Sam as this manly man top who has a high sex drive is exploitive. Mackie is talking about how straight and lgbtq black people can never deviate from a certain stereotype without being fetishes. Mackie is talking about how black men were called gay as a slur because they showed feelings. Mackie is talking about how he wants to break the norms that not just gay men can be sensitive and caring to male companions.

White lgbtq/striaght who are mad will never understand what it is like to be a black person who can only ever show one emotion and get judged if the deviate from it. Mackie so clearly wants gay men to have representation but knows that his relationship with bucky and Sebastian is not the representation he is giving.

White fans who are angry need to step back and ask why your so quick to demonize a black man who is trying to break down toxic masculinity in black culture

[mharti-mcfly]

[cleo4u2]

THIS. I saw a post the other day that literally said if you do it to a fictional character, you’ll do it in real life.

No. Just NO.

I’m so glad someone put it into words.

[decepticonsensual]

Lin-Manuel Miranda is a legend, and he’s absolutely right.

And I really feel like there are parts of fandom that don’t get or don’t believe this, and I think that’s troubling.  I’ve seen arguments that people shouldn’t have dark fantasies, or that bad impulses in themselves make a bad person.  I’ve seen so much shaming over thoughts.

And if you get to a point where it’s bad to have dark thoughts and it’s bad to wonder what something would be like and it’s bad to put yourself in the shoes of anyone who isn’t “pure”, if fiction is no longer a realm where you can confront and explore, but an ongoing test of moral purity… well, maybe not everyone’s brain works like mine, but I feel like that takes away something incredibly important to being human.

[athenagray]

Purity culture is gonna kill art if y’all let it.

[rainbowloliofjustice]

Fiction is a safe place to explore whatever fucked up or dark desire that you have. You can write the most vile and fucked up shit in fiction and it be absolutely nothing you desire in real life. You can write about a serial killer who gets away with it. You can write about someone who goes on moral crusades to purge the world of all evils and still be the protagonist. You can write anything in fiction because that’s what it is meant for. 

It isn’t meant to be a social commentary unless you create it to be. 

It isn’t meant to be educational unless you create it to be. 

Sometimes a story can be just that, a story. Entertainment. Nothing more, nothing less. 

Not everything has to be deep, or have meaning, etc. unless the creator wants it to be and a lot of the purity types end up forcing something to have deep meaning or social commentary where it isn’t meant to.  Is this inherently bad? No, but these people don’t just say “But this is my interpretation of it.” they go as far as trying to force that interpretation onto everyone else, including the creator, as a means of saying “See? It means that they promote/condone xyz so they’re bad and shitty people who should spend the rest of their life in jail with/are the same as people who’ve actually committed acts of violence against other people.” 

[one-lonely-whumperfly]

THANK. YOU.

[fangirlofall]

@ all the people in the notes saying “yes except u can’t write about (list of immoral things they don’t want to see in fiction)” congrats on missing the point so spectacularly I’m not sure I could create better performance art if I tried

[moon-crater]

So, I have OCD. Responsibility/harm OCD, in particular. And guys, let me tell you, the hardline stance that having bad thoughts makes you bad is actively harmful to people like me. “Having a thought means you will act on it” goes against everything mental health professionals say and what mental health advocates stand for.

And you know, there are people who have it even worse than me? Religious OCD often focuses on achieving complete moral purity. P-OCD features fears of secretly being a pedophile. Postpartum depression features intrusive, frightening thoughts that sometimes drive new parents to suicide because of the stigma of having those thoughts. There are stories of people actually being investigated by child protective services because they shared their fears with an ignorant health professional who believed thought=action. Many abuse survivors with PTSD live in terror of becoming abusers themselves, and any errant negative thought that floats across their brain can frighten them into thinking they’re becoming monsters.

Perpetuating the idea that thoughts=actions makes it hard for people struggling with intrusive thoughts to reach out for help dealing with them. That makes mentally ill people live in unnecessary misery. It isolates them. Sometimes it even kills them.

Accepting and exploring bad thoughts is actually the basis of exposure and response prevention therapy for OCD. It’s literally part of the treatment for the illness. Discouraging that act, portraying it as evil, can be detrimental to recovery.

“Oh,” you might say if you’re guilty of this, “I don’t mean people like you with bad thoughts, I mean people who write bad thoughts!” Cool. Doesn’t fucking matter. People like me hear and internalize it. People who have these illnesses and don’t yet recognize that hear and internalize it; they may never get help because of it. You can’t lob a bomb at your enemy and un-kill all the bystanders caught in the blast. Not how that works.

Fandom needs to stop being so far up its own ass about fictional content that it’s becoming ableist. There are real world consequences for the ignorant ideas being pushed. Even if you don’t care about fiction as a tool for catharsis, even if you don’t care about the importance of art as free expression, even if you don’t care about censorship, you should still criticize this trend in fandom because it’s ableist as fuck. Thanks for coming to my TED talk.

[heroofthreefaces]

Transcription of the Miranda quote in the images:

“I find that, for me, the work is a safe place to put all the stuff you don’t want to put in your real life. I don’t want to be a crazy, manic asshole. I don’t want to have an affair. I don’t want to have a fucking gunfight. But! There’s a part of your brain that wants to experience everything, and so work’s a safe place to explore it all. Both in the writing and in the performing. I get to write about having an affair. I get to have the guilt and the feeling of that without having to fuck my life up. [laughs] Art is the place to safely explore all those other sides of you, because the side you want to bring home is the side that wants to be a good father and be a good husband and be a good son. In art we can be fucking nuts.”

[duamuteffe]

[mywingsareonwheels]

[description of image above: an extract from “Witches Abroad” by Terry Pratchett:-

“You’d have done the same,” said Lily.

“No,” said Granny. I’d have thought the same, but I wouldn’t have done it.”

“What difference does that make, deep down?”

“You mean you don’t know?” said Nanny Ogg.]

[roach-works]

what matters is how you treat other people. not what you think or what you write or draw or what you read or watch or play or dream. just how you, a person, treat the other people in your life. antis might have the purest thoughts any person has ever managed, but they treat other people like shit, which means they’re assholes.

it’s that simple.

[queeranarchism]

I think I’m going to stop reblogging those ‘half the world’s wealth is owned by like 7 people’ posts. Not because they’re not vaguely accurate, but because they’re too often mis-interpreted as describing a problem (7 evil dudes) instead of describing a symptom of the actual problem (capitalism).

Truth is, 7 people are not our problem and we can’t solve our problems by killing 7 people. Gloriously entertaining as that might be.

If we could kill the 7 richest people of the world, capitalism would survive. If we could kill them and appropriate all their wealth and somehow distribute that equally across the workers of the world, we’d have a very chaotic period of hyperinflation and shifting balances of power but capitalism would probably survive that too.

And if the richest 7 people of the world would be visited by the ghost of Christmas and suddenly became the 7 most charitable people on earth, capitalism would survive that too. Because most of the wealth of these rich bastards is not in their bank accounts as disposable income, it’s in the imagined value of their companies. And the moment they’d stop prioritizing profit, that imagined wealth would vanish as investors flocked to the stocks of different bastards and the imagined wealth of those different companies would rise. In the face of the systems of capitalism, these people are not actually as powerful as they imagine themselves to me. If they’d stop serving profit, they’d lose most of their power.

So yeah, we need system change.

And like… one of the reasons I think it is important to talk about this is because ‘A few evil people secretly hold all the power and if we just killed them all the world’s problems would be solved’ is at the core of most conspiracy theories, from The Protocols of the Elders of Zion all the way to QAnon. It’s the same story over and over and whenever these kinds of theories spread, minorities pay the price.

And when ‘A few evil people secretly hold all the power and if we just killed them all the world’s problems would be solved’ sounds vaguely intuitively true to people who have heard something similar on a leftist blog… those people are a little more receptive to those conspiracy theories. So maybe it’s not something we should be implying?

[witches-and-wonders]

Billionaires are evil, otherwise they wouldn’t be billionaires. But if we eat them, unless we’re also creating systemic change, new billionaires will grow in their place. Now that might sound like a good sustainable food source, but the damage caused by growing billionaires far offsets their nutritional value.

[loudest-subtext-in-television-d]

I love that “homage,” “pastiche,” “reboot,” “retelling,” and “fanfic” all mean the same damn thing, except that the last one is written primarily by women for free, and often includes sex, especially queer sex, so it’s delegitimized in the eyes of society.

And by “I love” I mean “I don’t love” because apparently we can just pick and choose what words mean

[cupidsbower]

I totally agree with the point being made by the OP, but want to point out the irony in the politics of remix being described here.

You see, “homage,” “pastiche,” “reboot,” “retelling,” all tend to be less <i>original</i> than fanfiction. And I use the word “original” knowing how loaded, and potentially meaningless it is — it’s the criteria used by copyright law for a text worthy of being covered by copyright, and also as part of the definition of plagiarism. Works in the genres of “homage,” “pastiche,” “reboot,” “retelling,” are nearly always assumed to be original enough to be copyrightable in their own right, despite being derivative works.

These remix categories are all expected to explicitly rework a story while adding in a few new frills, and yet somehow, magically, that re-working makes them “original”. Yet that magic does not apply to fanfiction, which is seen as much more derivative and less worthy of respect.

Here’s the irony I mentioned. Fanfiction often jumps off from the source and tells a new story, or fills in a gap in the story it’s responding to (commonly with queer romance or sex). In many cases, fanfiction, while still a derivative work, is fundamentally much more “original” than the mainstream and more legitimate forms of remix, as it is telling a new story altogether.

Interesting, isn’t it, that the form of remix which is often most “original”, in that it offers more than just a retelling with new frills, is derided as the most derivative.

As the OP says, it’s not a coincidence that fanfiction is the version of remix currently considered least clever or worthy of respect, and is primarily a women’s genre and often also a queer genre.

[flamingoslim]

Way back in 1985,  Joanna Russ (one of the first feminist literary critics to take slash writing seriously) wrote that slash fanfic was  “…is the only sexual fantasy by women for women that’s produced without the control or interposition of censorship by commercial booksellers or the interposition of political intent by writers or editors.” In the same essay, she wrote what slash writers wanted was “…the freedom to choose, a love that is entirely free of the culture’s whole discourse of gender and sex roles….” (From “Magic Mommas, Trembling Sisters, Puritans and Perverts: Feminist Essays”.)

Still relevant…

[lucidasidera]

Can we talk about guilt? I’ve seen a lot of discourse that suggests that Bucky feeling guilty and atoning is a good thing, it’s him finding autonomy even if he isn’t ultimately responsible. It’s his decision and his feelings and it should be respected, even encouraged.

And that’s true, to a point. The guilt, primarily, signals that Bucky is a good person. Empathetic, trustworthy people experience guilt. But more than that, guilt is a protective emotion when it comes to trauma. It is much more terrifying, for the self, to acknowledge and internalize the lack of control and agency (and therefore the lack of responsibility) that accompanied the traumatic event.

The guilt allows the self to say “I was responsible because I was not powerless” since the greater terror comes from understanding that the trauma happened because of a lack of control, with the obvious implication that that control can again be removed at any time. It is safer to be guilty than to be vulnerable. It is safer to be culpable than to be at the mercy of an unjust universe. This is a very, very common feeling in survivors of rape or child abuse. It is the basis of survivor’s guilt.

Thing is, trauma-related guilt is an adaptive behavior in the short term (because it allows the victim to regain a sense of control) but a maladaptive behavior in the long term, because the level of self-deception involved starts affecting how one views both the world and the very concept of agency. It is, at its heart, an avoidant behavior. Trauma-related guilt eventually worsens PTSD symptoms. If it goes on too long, one starts to believe - sincerely and not as a defense mechanism - in one’s own culpability and therefore doubt one’s own moral worth.

And again, Bucky feeling guilt is legitimate. The audience being made to feel that Bucky ought to feel responsible is the problem. In TFATWS they neatly define Bucky’s trauma as guilt and then have him resolve the guilt with “acts of service,” as Sam says, which means avoiding recovery altogether. Bucky has internalized his shame and moved on, never acknowledging the actual trauma: powerlessness.

I will also come out and say that my BEST-CASE SCENARIO would have been for TFATWS to just ignore Bucky’s trauma recovery entirely and assume that he regained his sense of self-worth, agency, and trust in Wakanda. It could have happened off screen, much like most of his recovery of self between CA:TWS and CA:CW. I also have no problem with Bucky choosing to dedicate his life to being of service to others, that’s healthy and admirable, but not if it’s borne of a misplaced need for atonement because that undermines the foundations of Bucky’s own sense of self.  

(NB. I am not a therapist, just a survivor. The guilt is real.)

[yandere-angela]

social media is just oscillating between “cringe culture is dead! enjoy your interests without shame!” and “we should bring back bullying and social ostricization” every couple of months

[magnetictapedatastorage]

[cavehags]

Thus is the defining characteristic of gay millennials: we straddle the pre-Glee and post-Glee worlds. We went to high school when faggot wasn't even considered an F-word, when being a lesbian meant boys just didn't want you, when being nonbinary wasn't even a remote option. We grew up without queer characters in our cartoons or Nickelodeon or Disney or TGIF sitcoms. We were raised in homophobia, came of age as the world changed around us, and are raising children in an age where it's never been easier to be same-sex parents. We're both lucky and jealous. As the state of gay evolved culturally and politically, we were old enough to see it and process it and not take it for granted--old enough to know what the world was like without it. Despite the success of Drag Race, the existence of lesbian Christmas rom-coms, and openly transgender Oscar nominees, we haven't moved on from the trauma of growing up in a culture that hates us. We don't move on from trauma, really. We can't really leave it in the past. It becomes a part of us, and we move forward with it.

For LGBTQ+ milennials, our pride is couched in painful memories of a culture repulsed and frightened by queerness. That makes us skittish. It makes us loud. It makes us fear that all this progress, all this tolerance [...] can vanish as quickly as it all appeared.

The 2000s Made Me Gay, Grace Perry

[jhscdood]

[runawaymarbles]

Coming from a reference group where everyone’s first queer movie was either Rocky Horror or Brokeback Mountain, it’s fascinating to talk (in person!) to gay teenagers who grew up with Korra and Stephen Universe and She-Ra. 

[qweerhet]

absolutely, all of this.

my partner and i were talking about this last night (while rewatching Glee), actually. i was a teenager in the early to mid-2010s; i started middle school in 2012-13, and i went to a statewide school all through middle and high school where every other student was from a rural area. most of their towns had megachurches.

it gives me whiplash how much things changed. when i said i was bisexual, i actually got other kids telling me i was going to hell and threatening me, every day. people threw rocks at me. teachers told me, to my face that the bullying i faced was my fault, and told me it was inappropriate to talk about at school to begin with. i fought for five years to start a GSA at my high school.

this isn’t even to start talking about the shit i got when i came out as transgender. i was the only out trans kid at my school. i was one of two out gay kids. this school had thousands of students, again, from all over the state. there were two openly queer people, and while we were both trans, the other person was closeted and only told others they were a gay person with a masculine nickname.

same-sex marriage was not legal in the United States until 2015. i was 17 at the time. i cried all day when i found out. i had spent almost my entire adolescence with the firm knowledge that i would never be able to get married.

even just a few years later, i know some kids going to high school in the city, and their experiences are so incredibly different. more and more people are identifying as bisexual at a young age. there are six or seven out trans kids at some of these schools; at others, the numbers are in the dozens. there are queer people in the media; even more, at the media aimed at children and teenagers. when i was growing up, there was ellen degeneres, a couple of gay dudes, and maybe jazz jennings if you were in the right circles.

when korra and asami held hands, i cried. for several hours.

when garnet sang a song about being the personification of a queer relationship, i cried. for several hours.

the tag OP was right; it’s culture shock, y’all. and very honestly, it’s disorienting and depressing to see queer gen Z’ers not acknowledging that cultural whiplash. please understand your history. i’m a very young millennial; i’m actually considered gen Z by a lot of metrics, but i still lived through this shit. it affects us, and it affects how we interact with things like Pride, like corporate acceptance (and profiteering), like mainstream visibility. these things may be normal to younger people, but they’re so new--understand where we’re coming from. understand how much has changed in barely a decade.

[weaver-z]

Radiation is insane. There are rocks out there that will pull the seams of your organs apart if you stand too close to them.

[fluffmugger]

#some rocks really do have auras#unfortunately the aura is 'eat shit and die' energy

[coolthingoftheday]

Trees, like animals, can also experience albinism, though it is extremely rare.

[jumpingjacktrash]

the reason it’s rare is because without chlorophyll, the plant can’t get energy, and dies shortly after sprouting unless it has some other source of food. so if you see a plant as big as the one in the picture that doesn’t have any green in its leaves, it’s getting its nutrition from the roots of a neighboring plant of the same species, feeding on the sugars created by the other plant’s photosynthesis.

albino plants are basically vampires.

[heywetotheotherworld]

For a long time, scientists thought they were parasites, and couldn’t figure out why the bigger plants didn’t release chemicals to kill them.

Turns out, the lil’ ghost redwoods benefit their hosts by filtering toxins and acting as a sort of backup immune system.

They’re vampires, and they’re commensal, symbiotic mutualists!

[crumbcrash2000]

....so what you're saying is, vampires are a backup spleen

[altcomics]

Jaakko Pallasvuo

[effingunicorns]

MCU time travel for people who still don’t get it two years later

Bruce explains time travel like this:

Think about it: if you travel to the past, that past becomes your future, and your former present becomes the past, which can’t now be changed by your new future!

Now, the basic concept underlying this explanation is simply that events which have been observed to occur cannot be changed in a timeline where they’ve already occurred–you can’t change your past, so you can’t change the past. You can, however, create a second version of the past where events occurred differently, and if you’re very careful you can interfere in the past without changing anything meaningful.

These ideas are still a little hard to visualize, though, so I’ll break them down further beneath the cut.

Keep reading

[crumbcrash2000]

Me, sideeying my latest fic: ...phew.

https://archiveofourown.org/works/31253900