Fuck you, it's Magic

55 and still alive.

[faggots-wilde]

Any site not run by people devoted to anti-censorship is going to be hostile to fans, sex workers, and queers.

Any social media site run by profit-minded people is going to collapse in roughly 10 years.

Any site that is free is harvesting your data and likely operating at a loss and will also collapse into ads or subscription eventually.

Any site with an app in the App/Play Store is going to be censoring queer people.

If the site you move to is like any of the above, you are just setting yourself up to deal with the same problems. I told you to move to dreamwidth in 2007-2010 and nobody fucking listened.

I'm going back to Dreamwidth. It's quiet but guess what, it's still going to be there in another ten years, just like AO3, because it's run by people who understand what the fuck the source of the problem is.

[faggots-wilde]

@kievfangirlchronicles replied to you in a post “Replied to you in a post”:

@faggots-wilde HECK YEAH! Happy(extremely late) birthday to your dad!

​Thank you so much. He's 71 this year. He always loved to celebrate with a professional fireworks show (he was a pyrotechnician), so in his honour: please, don't play with fireworks without a pyro licence, and support professional fireworks shows and IATSE.

[mundanesalad]

it came to me in a vision

[faithful-grigori]

“#if guy fieri underwent carcinosation”

[faggots-wilde]

How To Be Polite In Fic Comments And Write A Good Review, In Particular For Smut

- Don’t like, don’t read. AO3 asks for your consent to read explicit fics. Do not complain after you consent, you have given your consent by clicking ‘proceed’ and reading the fic.

- The tags are there for a reason. Read ALL the tags and pay attention to them before reading the fic, the tags are there for a reason and it is to inform you so that you can make better decisions for yourself.

- A review is far ‘louder’ than pressing the kudos button. Many authors who began writing before a ‘like’ button was extant don’t really find a number beside a heart to provide any sense that people are reading and enjoying their work. Using words is always superior to pressing buttons to simply make a number go up. This isn’t a product, this is a community and usually people post fanfiction as a bid for connection with other fans. Otherwise, there would be no reason to share it at all.

- Fanfiction is a gift that is shared, not a product that is sold. You are paying nothing for this, it is free; the author has no obligation to post it either, it is a privilege that it was shared with you. I am explaining this because what this means is that reviews are not reviews for a product; you do not say negative things when someone gives you a gift, that is unkind and rude. Don’t be mean.

- Saying you liked it is good; saying WHY you liked it is better. Why did you like the story/chapter? What part was your favourite? Did you like the way the author wrote a character? Did you like a particular sentence or line of dialogue? Tell the author these things. What are you telling your friends when you recommend the fic? Why not also tell the author those things, we would love to hear them.

- Remember that author is a human being; would you say it to a stranger’s face if they were in front of you and you were being witnessed and filmed? Consider your words and their impact on someone you do not know personally.

- If someone shares smut, and it arouses you, that’s great—it is not good to tell the author that outright. If you say you enjoyed a fic and the fic was a smutfic, it is understood that you mean it aroused you or otherwise contributed toward orgasm for you, you don’t need to say that it did outright. This is a piece of etiquette that helps balance the boundary of ‘don’t talk about your sexual feelings with a stranger’ and ‘posting fic is a bid for community connection’. I personally find ‘hot’ to be an acceptably ‘casual polite’ descriptor that implies that a reader liked my fic, without overstepping personal boundaries.

- Emojis are fine! Emojis are useful! In fact, you can be much more explicit with your emoji reaction than your verbal one, with smut, because emojis are open to interpretation by the one reading them. It is still helpful to not only leave emojis, but to use them as punctuation or enhancements to your words. Authors are creatures of words, so words mean the most to us.

- It is unconscionably rude to ask the author to write you things, and this includes asking them to alter the story to your request. What is posted up is not the whole story, there is probably a great deal the author has already written but is not ready to post for whatever reason. And remember, the author gains nothing by posting the fic. You are the one in debt, not the author, if you must view the world in terms of debt and who owes whom what. Do not ask for things to be changed to suit your individual desires.

- We can’t tell what tone you’re using because this is text. Yes even with “tone indicators”. While a friend may know what you mean when you say ‘Oh this is so filthy’ or ‘what’s wrong with me I love this lol’, a stranger doesn’t. A stranger will not know what tone you mean that, and remember the Fiona Principle: anything negative or ashamed you say about yourself is also something you are saying about people who share that trait or desire. Remember how harmful self-deprecation and shame can be to everyone around you, even when you think you are using a playful tone. Tone is not conveyed with text, and words have multiple meanings; make sure you understand what you actually want to say.

- When in doubt, be formal rather than informal. The author is not someone in your friends group.

- You are allowed to reply to other people’s comments! The comments are a community space, feel free to discuss the story with other readers; know, however, that the author can see that conversation, because the author is part of the community.

- We can see what you write in your AO3 bookmark notes, even if the bookmark is private.

- ASSUME makes an ASS out of U to ME. Do not assume what or who someone is based on their kinks, characters, or tropes. For example I have had many, many people assume they know what gender I am after reading my stories, and make comments both to my face in comments and where they think I can’t see in their AO3 bookmark notes. This is incredibly rude and dehumanising, don’t fucking do this. I have had people state with astonishing confidence that I am every gender under the sun but my own, and this is especially rude when the author has stated what they’re writing is autobiographical. Yes, this has happened to me. Multiple times. Just because you and the author share a gender and the author had a different experience with their gender than you does not mean they are wrong or ‘faking’. Writing particular kinks does not mean they are ‘an egg’, and a cute emoji does not erase that you decided something about another human being you don’t even know.

- Posting smut is not an invitation for people to proposition the author, nor is it advertisement for the author wanting a sexual relationship with anyone. This would not be appropriate with any performer or sex worker and it is not appropriate with an author either.

- Time does not matter, this is an archive. It does not matter when a fic was posted, it is always nice to get a new review on it. You are not ‘necro-ing’ or ‘creeping’ if you review a fic that is weeks, months, years, or even decades old.

- Repetition doesn’t matter either. Did you read a fic you already reviewed? Review it again! There’s no rule that says you can’t and in fact seeing repeat readers is a joy many authors don’t realise we have until that reader says something.

And above all, remember: if you want more fic, it is critical you encourage authors. The whole point of posting fic publicly is connection. The connection with other fans is the reward/payment for the labour of writing and the vulnerability of sharing it. If there is no connection then how are we to keep feeling there's a point to sharing our fic with anyone but ourselves?

[grison-in-space]

Ok! So here goes: Is 'asexual' strictly speaking an accurate term if your ability to be sexually attracted or 'turned on' is entirely dependant on something other than any kind of person or gender.

Some examples:

Like for example, say Person A doesn't feel aroused or attracted unless their partner wears high heels. It does not matter to A what gender their partner is, the heels have to be on or A isn't attracted or aroused at all and doesn't want to have sex. Is A on the asexual spectrum, according to common understandings by asexuals themselves, or are they something else?

Or, say Person B is only aroused by being tied up; it doesn't matter what gender or appearance B's partner is, it's about being tied up. B is not interested unless they're tied up. Is B asexual? Again, according to common understanding of the term.

I've never seen asexual defined or explained in a way that acknowledges or addresses that fetishes exist; it's always focussed on vanilla sex, which means I had no idea if it applied to me: 'Oh well if you aren't attracted to a naked body and don't like having sex...' Well, I'm not attracted to a naked person of any gender, and I don't like the idea of vanilla sex; but I very much like to have sex, It's just very specific sex....

Thank you again for letting me ask, and I hope this wasn't too graphic, I tried to keep it to the way fetishes were explained to me when I was learning as a young person.

Ah—you haven't spoken to many kinky aces before, then! With full disclaimer that labels are for descriptive communication, no one is ever gonna know better than you how to label yourself, etc., it's worth noting that within ace spaces we are pretty much only talking about sexual attraction, right? Which roughly speaking you can define as an intrinsic desire to interact sexually with a specific person as a function of who they are: their gender, their appearance, their identity as someone you know, whatever. When I say intrinsic, I mean "you feel personal desire for the sake of your own enjoyment," not counting any of the many hundreds of other reasons that a person might have for engaging in sexual activity (to feel close to a partner, to make someone else feel good, to feel worldly and experienced, etc).

That's the crux of the community definition of what asexuality means: if to be homosexual is to be sexually attracted to one's own gender, and heterosexual is to be attracted to another gender, and bisexual is to be attracted to multiple genders... well, there must logically be people who are attracted to no genders, and that's where asexual community springs up.

It is also worth noting that when I was a teenager growing up in largely-online ace spaces during the aughts, the community I was part of (AVEN) was extremely explicit about labels being a tool, not a hard boundary. There were a lot of conversations about that: about not ever, ever assigning a label to someone else, about not telling people what they are even if they ask because they have to make that decision themselves, about it being okay to change labels or try them on while you were figuring things out or discovering stuff about yourself. Labels are tools for communication, not prescriptive boxes to get trapped in. AVEN being AVEN, there were always new people coming in and asking "am I asexual?", so that concept was a huge part of the habitual patter that new people got greeted with and therefore a really important part of community norms. I have always been fond of this value, so I have tried to pass it to every community I've been in, too.

Right, you had an actual question.

Fetishes complicate things because almost by definition, fetishes in the sense that you're using the term here act as an inherent inflection on sexual attraction that exists outside the usual axes we consider sexual orientation. I can't remember seeing folks with strict fetishes in that sense speaking in ace communities since the mid aughts, but at that time the general consensus I saw fell down heavily on the side of "does it work for you? Then the label is yours" with a side of "Well, if you're not experiencing sexual attraction without the fetish... sure, I can see why that could be useful for you. 🤷"

Person B is a lot less complicated: unambiguously, most asexual communities know aces like that, and it's actually probably the most common flavor of asexual who enjoys sex that I know of.

Whether "asexual" or "grey-A" (which has always meant, essentially, "asexual mostly fits but I have caveats") works better for any given person in categories A or B is a function of what they want to communicate to other people and what they feel comfortable claiming. I've known a lot of people like Person B who felt weird about claiming "asexual" full stop and preferred "grey-A," and I've also known lots of people who quite fairly concluded that look, they don't experience sexual attraction, so that label is for them, dammit. Generally the consensus I have seen is that Person B is very welcome to claim the term and should do so if they feel moved to.

I am quite disconnected from the current ace blogosphere, but I bet you that there will be folks in the notes with more resources and links for you if you want them, or maybe I can come back later with some stuff I remember finding from Elizabeth's work at Shades of Grey or, hm, Verbs Not Nouns back in the day. I'm kind of sleep deprived right now so I'm going to take a nap first, though.

[faggots-wilde]

See, this is one of the reasons trying to figure out what label fits at all or what all these words mean is so frustrating for me. I'm a very 'define your terms' sort of person. I understand the dictionary is descriptive not prescriptive, but at the same time, language is for communicating clearly, so words need to have a commonly-agreed-upon definition in order to function at all as words, otherwise why are they words at all? So this 'well if you want to use the label then do it' type of answer is very frustrating, because to me it's like saying 'words mean what you want them to mean'. That's a recipe for miscommunication then, because what if I say 'oh I'm x' and it means y to me, but z to another person using the same word? Then there's no clarity and the term may as well not exist at all for all the use that it is in clarifying anything or finding common ground with someone.

Someone in the notes is talking about 'desire, attraction and arousal are all different' and I'm like... okay, are they though? Define your terms. What do you mean when you say they're different? What do all three of those words mean when you're talking. Define your terms. That's the first rule of communication or analysis or stuff like that. Define your terms so your meaning is clear.

I'm not mad at anybody I'm just frustrated generally about the fact that this clarified nothing at all and was just the same answer I've been hearing whenever I ask someone to explain one of these new sexuality or gender terms to me. Nobody is defining any terms, there's no agreed-upon definition of anything, and that means I can't clearly explain to a potential partner what I am and clarify whether we're compatible in one word the way regular lesbians or gay men or straight people or bisexuals can. I don't know what group of people have similar experiences to mine because nobody is defining any terms.

Genuinely what is the point of a word that has no clear definition? If I say 'bith' and I mean 'a duck' but someone else uses 'bith' to mean 'a cat', then when we speak to each other the word 'bith' is going to cause a lot of miscommunication because we don't know the other person means something entirely different when they say it!

I'm always very careful about words I use, because I want to be clear. I also want to figure out what the ever-loving hell is going on with myself, and find words that maybe signal someone else feels this way. But even trying to be clear as crystal, all I feel right now looking at this big answer of yours is more confused. The examples were two examples of a 'fetish'--two because I wanted to make it clear that it was something entirely divorced from a gender or even a person at all; and you're acting like they are different. They're not though. They're both fetishes.

Fetish is 'I need this in order to orgasm at all'.

Kink is 'This is NICE but not necessary every time for orgasming'.

That's it. Very clear. That's how they were explained to me. Maybe I should have included that in my ask, that's on me. I'm sorry.

Again to be clear I'm aware and respect that you're trying not to tell somebody else who they are. I'm frustrated and confused and frustrated that I cannot seem to get any kind of answer out of anyone about what all these 'ace spectrum' words mean. Words need to mean things. Where is the glossary for the new words everybody is using......? Why does everyone else seem to just understand what they mean....? What am I missing...? It can't be that I'm too autistic and this is One Of Those Allistic Social Things I Can't Do, because a LOT of autistic people seem to get it.... but I don't.... I can't possibly be The Only Person Like Me, there have got to be others, or the word 'fetish' wouldn't exist.....

[jasontoddiefor]

I need minors to learn how to lie online again. Your name is Derek, you’re 25 and work in accounting now. Please for your own safety learn how to fucking lie. And if you don’t want to lie, then don’t put your age anywhere. Don’t even say whether you’re a minor or not. It is perfectly easy to avoid adult spaces without signposting that you are doing so because you’re a child.

Stating your age doesn’t protect you this only makes you a target.

[xenasaur-archive-deactivated202]

btw. being kink positive means ALL kinks even the ones you think are "immoral" or whatever the fuck. "but what about-" especially that one. no sex act between consenting adults is immoral actually. kill the cop in your brain.

of course that doesn't mean you have to be comfortable with every kink. it's fine to have limits for your own personal stuff. but if you judge people based on what they do with their consenting partners, I cannot stress this enough, you are being a bad person.

[kittenadventurous]

Steps to judge if a sex/kink thing is okay:

1. are all involved parties adults? (including planned observers)

2. did all involved parties give informed consent while able to give consent meaningfully (including uncoerced)?

3. did the actions stay within the bounds of said consent, not adding on new things while someone was unable to meaningfully consent?

if yes to all three: IT'S FINE

if it passes all three conditions and you still think it's morally wrong: you're judging based on your own sense of disgust, not any reasonable moral framework!

if you are trying to say "okay but what if...": did you read what i just fucking said??

you don't have to like it. you don't have to interact with it. you don't have to look at it. but you do have to tolerate it and not condemn its practice based on your personal feelings!

[xenasaur-archive-deactivated202]

bringing this post back with my lovely gf's addition in case any of y'all haven't seen it yet

[idealisticshoujohearts]

Judging people based on their sex lives and kinks is blatant invasion of privacy. You wouldn't want someone going into your room and saying your tastes were bad and taking it upon themselves to "fix them", so don't do it to other people.

[jerseyclown]

theyre so fucking funny

[speranza-manor]

Your old house isn't haunted by dead human beings it just has a soul.

[fairycosmos]

what are you even supposed to do when youre angry.  cant scream at anyone cos im not a dick. cant break anything cos i paid money for that. cant rip my hair out cos i need it on my head. literally what now

[total-faggot-crisis]

some options, because it’s way healthier to express your emotions than to shove them down and bottle them up - including anger:

go somewhere private to scream (cars are a good option)

punch a pillow

go somewhere outdoors and not busy and just throw whatever you find - rocks, branches, etc

go for a walk, run, workout, whatever suits you. exercise uses up a lot of the stress hormones involved in anger

talk it out with someone who’s happy to listen

if no-one’s available to listen, write down what’s on your mind

deep breaths, music, stims, whatever helps to calm you until you’re in a time and place where you can express yourself more freely

and last but definitely not least: say you’re angry! to whoever you’re angry at, even! consider what outcome you’d like from this conversation and if it’s attainable. you might need to process your anger in other ways first, so that you’re calm enough to work towards whatever goal you have

[adamsmasher]

Advice from therapy - scratch out “go somewhere to scream” and “punch a pillow”. These are things that would be considered aggressive if you did them to a person, right? So doing these things to inanimate objects when angry may feel like a good release in the moment, but over time they train your brain to equate feeling angry = acting aggressive, which I assume is the opposite of what you want. And don’t take my word for it, there are numerous studies out there proving it. What you want to do are all those other excellent coping skills like working out, squeezing stress balls, slow and mindful breathing, journaling, talking it out, etc. Obviously bottling it up is no bueno but there’s all kinds of non-aggressive ways to work through it that help train your brain to process anger more effectively, and it becomes easier over time.

[faggots-wilde]

Seconding @adamsmasher; teaching yourself that aggression is what you should do when angry doesn't help.

For context, I have anger issues that I have overcome and one really important thing that I haven't seen mentioned yet is that you have to learn how to stop the anger before it starts.

A huge part of dealing with anger is to prevent your emotional state even GETTING to the point of anger. There's several steps BEFORE full blown anger, and it's important work to figure out what triggers you, what builds up into anger, what that emotional staircase looks like, so you can remove yourself or use other coping skills before it gets to the point of anger.

I learned this using the emotion wheel, as well as learning that anger is an iceberg--anger always always covers up other emotions, usually fear/anxiety is a majority of it, but anger can also be covering up overstimulation, rejection, pain, loss/grief, sadness, hunger, tiredness, etc. Anger is a last resort!! You had a lot of emotional warning flags before it got to Anger! You gotta learn what they are, and what situations trigger them so you can get OUT of those situations before you hit critical mass!

Figuring out what the steps leading to anger are, and figuring out what things you can do to stop that escalation before 'anger' becomes what you feel, is really about 90% of what people ACTUALLY mean by 'anger management'. It's not that other people are dealing with anger better than you, it's that they're able to notice before it gets to that point.

A really important coping method is to set boundaries, to walk away when you notice you're getting frustrated with something--a conversation, a situation, a relationship, etc--you need to teach yourself to both walk away and enforce with other people that you are going to walk away and 'take a minute'. Our society and culture is not set up to allow this, so it's very hard! But it's very important to teach yourself and practise removing yourself from a stressor, whether temporarily or permanently. Actively fight the Sunk Cost Fallacy, that's the biggest barrier to letting yourself leave.

This all seems very hard I know, and it is! It is hard! It's the hardest thing to be self-aware, but it's deeply, deeply important to learn. If you have access to healthcare, ask a counsellor about learning Dialectical Behavioural Therapy skills. There are free worksheets online, and your library can borrow books from other libraries if they don't have the books themselves. Dialectical was invented by a lady who struggled with this specific issue so it's designed for helping with particularly loud emotions without judgement and with understanding that you can't talk yourself out of an emotional reaction.

[hoothalcyon]

fuck it, I'm romanticizing underrated ao3 works now. 8,000 word fics with only 13 kudos, even after 5 months. multi-chaptered works with only 11 comments from the same 3 people and the author themself. incredibly specific works featuring OC's mingling with canon characters that only get 5 kudos. rare-pair fics. gift works that are literally ONLY for the receiver.

[signatun-e]

Visit Original Link

[sloppystyle]

[gemstone-gynoid]

Oh this felt familiar

[faggots-wilde]