hello my name is redshoes - and Iโm going to be really intense about thisย โFucking Save AO3 from Idiotsโ thing for the next little while.
I will be reblogging a lotย of posts about the attempts to defund/tarnish/etc. AO3/the OTWย that have fucking amazing important content FOR THE FORESEEABLE FUTURE. (tagย http://redshoesnblueskies.tumblr.com/search/censorshipย if you want to find a pile of them)
โฆfrankly if yโall arenโt doing the same, Iโm boggled as to WHY NOT - but hey, maybe not everyone gives a shit that fandom would lose our homebase and be instantly opened up to actually quite really large quantities of legal action against us from all sides if AO3 goes down. [the red-pique-translator reads,ย โAll of fandom has a horse in this race; why would anyone be silent on this issue?โ]
Reblog this shit people - we canโt do very much other than vote when it comes to current politics BUT WE CAN SURE AS FUCK DO SOMETHING ABOUT THIS.
STEP UP.ย Name the truth about whyย the attacks on AO3/OTWโsย โfinancesโ are happening - itโs fundamentally the same attack made against every fandom space ever: โI find your story-content preference to be amoral and I will take the whole archive down to Defend Purity.โ
Name the real reason.ย Keep naming it.
If we donโt defend AO3 with every means we have, we donโt deserve to have it.
fandom history links - read them. this is why we need AO3. this is why we madeย AO3.
what fanfic, fanworks and fandom were like beforeย AO3, before we had that home, before we had the safety of owning our own spaces (โWe have to own the serversโ!), and before we had the freakinโ legal helpย that AO3 gives (can you defend yourself against a โfanfic isnโt fair-useโ lawsuit from a motion picture company? cause I know I sure canโtโฆ.).
What the OTW is actually like & what it does
How AO3 came to be - wow, great stuff in this one
(an addition to this post 10.23.18, 10.25.18)
Iโm ending up with a collection of posts that are *cough* rather a lot, so Iโm reblogging several every day.ย Some are dense fact-based posts on how AO3 is run, how it works, where it came from. Others areย โwhy censorship is fucked upโ posts.ย Others areย โwhy we write what we writeโ posts.ย Others are fandom history (LJ, DW, AO3, strikethrough etc.) posts.ย A couple are informative but also lighthearted (gasp).ย ย
If folks want the whole list Iโm drawing on thus far itโs here:
Fozโs great โStraight dudes of the worldโ twitter thread
โfanfic & capitalismโ - great explanation of how fanfic teaches youth about sexuality
Foz - On depression and hurt/comfort
Big Fair-Use post - legal stuff, well explained
the masterlist for Fozโs why censorship canโt work posts
the one that has a great breakdown of stats on how HUGE AO3 actually is
an explanation of how authoritarianism is the problem in this purity gatekeeping
AO3 is in the top 300 biggest websites in the WORLD serving out more that the library of congress & then 'how a huge site like this worksโ
the AO3 origin story - wow
MASSIVE history post from strikethrough until now, ending with a Neil Gaiman quote in favor of โicky textโ
the same MASSIVE history post with a different final addition worth reading
How AO3 is run and how to participate
AO3 fund drive post that that then dives into why they donโt censor
โArchive of our Ownโ - โA Room of Our Ownโ
AO3โs transparent financial reporting & a good rant
someone found their old Strikethrough graphic plus a sweet story of a young fan watching it unfold
A timeline of the LJ strikethrough & boldthrough mass blog deletions, the founding of DW, OTW/AO3 and tumblr (with subsequent tumblr blog deletions in a very similar vein).ย (note: DW is not an OTW project - more below)
AO3 is a non-profit and exists for all of us to benefit from - readers, writers, fandom. ย Itโs not exploiting anyone for fuckโs sake.
Child, ADULTS BUILT FANDOM. cons fanzines webrings VCR tape swaps podcasts fic repositories - WE BUILT THIS THING.
wait until they find out aboutโฆ.libraries.
โshipโ means something you want to see happen - NO. ACTUALLY NO.
This blogger remembers when we didnโt have AO3โฆ
Hello, my name is redshoes post - with specific AO3 history links (drawn from the above) now including this list.
DW wikipedia page says: Dreamwidth is an online journal service [โฆ] set up by ex-LiveJournal staff Denise Paolucci and Mark Smith, born out of a desire for a new community based on open access, transparency, freedom and respect. Dreamwidth was announced on 11 June 2008 and went into open beta on 30 April 2009.)