70% MARVEL BLOG

pure marvel (™

[louvelylouis]

[louvelylouis]

[olderthannetfic]

We have come full circle

--

Hah.

I mean, if people want to go back to oldschool zines instead of glossy artbooks that are dickwaving contests, I'm cool with that.

[elfwreck]

1) AO3 does not need $130,000 every three months to operate. It needs a lot of money (I haven't checked the numbers) to operate quickly. Remove the money, and they lose bandwidth capacity and the site slows to a crawl. They own the servers; they won't lose data. Just speed. If AO3 doesn't get money, it'll run slower than the wayback machine.

(AO3 currently gets plenty of money; if you are short on funds, don't bother donating. If you're only a little tight for cash and want to be involved, donate the $10/year to get a membership. AO3 needs money, but AO3 does not specifically need your money. Do not feel guilty if you can't comfortably donate.)

2) AO3 does not have a "legal defense fund." The OTW, of which AO3 is only one project (...okay, it's the BIG project) has a legal team, which operates entirely pro bono - for free. However, their financial reports include info on how much that legal work would cost, if they paid for it, because of lawyer-taxes reasons. No money actually changed hands. AO3's lawyers support AO3 because they believe in its goals, not because they're getting paid.

3) Ads mean ad-company corporate interference, which is exactly what AO3 was created to get away from. Part of what happened on LJ, is when people couldn't get fanfic removed for being "disgusting, offensive, and perverse" (which wasn't against the TOS), they screencapped fanfic pages with ads on them, and sent notes to the ad companies saying, "Here is YOUR PRODUCT showing up next to EXPLICIT INCEST!!!!" And those companies complained to LJ, and suddenly there was a policy change.

4) AO3 does have paid memberships, or rather, the OTW does. They just don't get you any extra features on the Archive - just the right to vote in the elections. (Would those minimal-cost memberships cover the operating costs of the archive? Hell no. Are you, OP, ready to fork over an annual fee based on how many fics you post or read on the Archive? If not, shut up. There are already people covering your usage costs, and they do it by donating.)

5) They will indeed "stop receiving donations" when they have enough money. Enough money to cover their bandwidth costs forever. Enough money to hire a staff of full-time coders instead of relying entirely on volunteers. Enough money to hire an administration staff, again, instead of the all-volunteer system. Many nonprofits--most, actually--have some paid staff members, and the OTW would love to do that.

There's even ways to do so for ongoing costs like server fees--by having enough starting money to invest it, and get dividends/returns that cover the ongoing expenses, and still gains enough to cover occasional one-time expenses like server upgrades.

How much money is that?

Tens of millions to start. On top of "a couple of years operating costs." They don't have it. They don't expect to have it anytime soon. If you know an easy, no-strings-attached source of tens of millions of dollars (that doesn't involve, oh, a pyramid scam like NFTs or environmental destruction like cryptocurrency), feel free to suggest it.

Convince some nice billionaire to donate $50,000,000 to AO3 and they can stop the twice-a-year donation drive, and just have a small "donate/buy a membership" button somewhere on the main page, for the people who want to donate enough to get merch.

[zz9pzza]

I think we are going to spend about $300k on servers this year as its a database refresh year and those are always expensive ones ( And yes with paid staff we could think harder about that and delay longer or maybe be more efficiant but one persons cost for two years makes that 300k look cheap ).

[prismatic-bell]

Also, I'm just saying, do you know what you need in order to "print out fanfiction and mail it to each other in binders"?

MONEY.

You need to pay for paper. You need to pay for ink. You need to pay someone to bind it, OR you need to pay for staples and a stapler and do it yourself*. And then you have to pay for postage! And, incidentally, you have to hope the zine you receive has stories you like in it.

So let's see. Let's say you and four of your fandom friends print a zine, and five other people want it. It doesn't qualify for media mail (I checked), so you have to pay for a manila envelope size. I'm going to assume you already own a printer (you will not be able to print this much material at the library), and that each of you wrote a story averaging 1500 words. I happen to have a WIP open in another tab, so I looked at my word count and page count and did the math, and you're looking at about 500 words per page if you single-space (which is hard to read, but hey! this costs money!). So that's fifteen pages, for a total of 150 pages if you and your friends also want to keep copies of the zine. So let's look at the cost of your print run, shall we? ONE REAM OF PRINTER PAPER: $10.79 PACK OF STAPLES: $2.18 PACK OF ENVELOPES: $5.28 LARGE ENVELOPE SHIPPING WITHIN THE US: $2.16 each

(that's a total of $10.80 for shipping by the way) And you're paying for all this. Keep that in mind. This is you paying a fee so other people can read your work. For this single zine, you've spent $29.05...or the cost of being a member of the OTW for three years. Now, I'll grant you some of these costs would be spread out. That pack of staples will still be mostly full by the time you say "fuck it." The cheapest pack of envelopes I could find came 25 to a pack. You can print two and a half zines out of that ream of paper. But even so, the shipping alone costs more than an OTW subscription and you're only getting five stories out of it.

I'll leave you with this. It's from an actual zine called The Displaced, that I own, that was published in 1978. Today we'd call it a longfic; back then they called it a novel. It was published by a woman named Lois Welling, and here's part of what she wrote in the dedication: "To Ruth Newman, who is neither a Science Fiction nor a Trek fan; but ended up with over two years of listening to, reading, correcting, proofing and finally typing some of "The Displaced."

To Melissa Bayard; without her excited interest and 'volunteering' to print it, "The Displaced" would not be a reality. Thanks Melissa. To my parents, Mr. and Mrs. John Tomse; who were supportive enough to advance some real cash money to the project. And my brothers, Jack and Jim; who would have--and did give lots of encouragement."

[Image ID: the above-mentioned dedication page from The Displaced. In addition to the relevant quoted dedications, there are additional dedications to several of the author's friends, her husband, and her children. The entire page is typewritten except for the signature at the bottom, which is hand-written. End ID.]

So as a reminder: this woman was not young. I've actually traced her online to see if I could send her a postcard and be like "hey! I found your zine! Thank you for writing it!" (I can, if I read it fast enough, she's old) and she would have been in her late thirties to early 40s when she published The Displaced. She was married. She had kids. She had to borrow money from her parents to make this zine. You kids sure you want to go back to that? Just asking.

*we're assuming standard old-school zine format, not getting fancy with needle and thread.

[seananmcguire]

I started writing fanfic when there were still a few paper fanzines.

I belonged to one for years.  Our “editor” used the fact that she paid for printing to play tiny dictator.  She cut our stories mercilessly, because every page cost money.  She charged us for subscriptions (which was fair, and reasonable), and then refused to tell us where the money went.  I had some art get lost in the mail and she never forgave me.

AO3 is better.  It costs me less to be a member of infinite fanzines and stories than it did to belong to one paper publication, and no one tells me what to do.

[oh-great-authoress]

I understand.

You found paradise in AO3, you had a good trade, you made a good living.

The website protected you and there were courts of law.

And you didn't need a physical zine.

But uh, now you come out and you say - 'Why is AO3 asking for money?'

But you don't ask with respect.

You don't offer friendship.

You don't even think to thank them for all they do.

Instead, you come into my house on this day of the Lord, and you ask AO3 not to ask for money.

[olderthannetfic]

This is right up there with “I was there, gandalf” and “Ceci n'est pas une pipe“ in discourse memes, and I laugh every time.

[mistakenz]

[curseworm]

bro oh my god … vanilla extract

[curseworm]

vanilla extract smells wonderful but tastes horrific on its own. but mixed with sugar and flour and cream it tastes just like it smells. we need the support of others to reach our full potential

[curseworm]

no man is an island everyone is vanilla extract

[mental-ch-illness]

me, as my laptop fan suddenly becomes louder: what is it?? what program?? who is doing this to you????

[sarahsoph]

*opening task manager* Who do I need to kill?

[weltenwellen]

Margarita Karapanou, tr. by Karen Emmerich, Rien ne va plus

[parvuls]

s1 ↠ s2 ↠ s3

[sinmonger]

Are you ok?

[cinematicnomad]

GIF request meme: favorite sterek scene from teen wolf for @crazyassmurdererwall ↳ 3.10 the overlooked

[idiotsincorporated]

listen I don’t discriminate... friends to lovers, enemies to lovers, enemies to friends to lovers, friends to enemies to lovers, as long as it ends in lovers i’m down with it all babey

[royal-mortician]

opposite of depression nap. depression awakeness. refreshing the same three websites over and over. there’s nothing new on any of them. eight seconds have passed and it feels like a century

[punsbulletsandpointythings]

I don't want a gender I just want to look like a vaguely disreputable wizard.

[strongermonster]

the girl on the bus in front of me was taking a bunch of selfies n i was accidentally in a few n she could see i looked uncomfortable w that so she turned around n apologized and let me watch her delete all the ones my face was in 😭😭😭 she’s the only person i earth i respect 

[strongermonster]

i told her “it’s ok you don’t have to do that i just didn’t want my ugly to ruin your vibe” and she called me sweetheart and told me she wished her hair looked like mine and then was like “anyways it’s just vanity. i’m probably gonna take 800 more later anyways haha, sorry to creep on you like that”

[strongermonster]

i hope bus girl is having a safe pandemic…. 

[disordersofresonanceandairflow]

yes I do the sulking yes I do the seething

[onward-to-victuuri]

are you an “arrr” pirate or a “yo ho ho” pirate

[burnfoofighters]

I’m an “I’m not paying $600 for Photoshop” pirate

[magnetas]

I have a theory that some writers are scared to write characters of color (specially brown/dark skinned ones) because their go-to “tomato” comparisons for awkwardness or embarrassment don’t apply.

People of all skin colors blush, including darker skinned individuals. The color might not be as stark as on a lighter person, but it still happens. I promise. But some people take these differences and jump to racist conclusions like:

[insert non-white actor] is terrible at showing emotions. Their expressions are so bland.

I don’t personally characterize [insert non-white character canonically described as awkward by the creator] as socially awkward. They just seem annoying and mean.

If you find yourself putting down a character/actor of color for displaying awkward traits differently than a white character/actor, you should definitely reevaluate some of your biases against darker skin and people of color (re: colorism & racism). For darker people, physical gestures like altered speech and fumbling might be better indicators of discomfort and awkwardness than skin flushing.

Cultural differences are also important to consider. Just because a white character cries in a given situation doesn’t mean a character of color will too. Different cultures can express similar emotions in a variety of ways. SO DO YOUR RESEARCH!

If you’re writing from the perspective of a character of color, it might make more sense to focus on their internal sensations. Instead of talking about how “red in the face” they are, describe the build up of heat in their face. The ringing in their ears. The pit in their stomach.

Found these insanely helpful tips from @writingwithcolor. Everyone should see it as their responsibility to increase representation in fiction. Whether that’s by supporting/reposting creators of color or doing the research to increase rep in your own fics, the choice is up to you. (Personally, I think there’s room to choose both.)

[stydixa]

I like corny. I’m looking for corny in my life. The Holiday (2006) Dir. Nancy Meyers