Dreaming Of Penguins

"She had heard it said that humans are supposed only to use about a tenth of their brains, and that no one was really clear what the other nine tenths were for, but she had certainly never heard it suggested that they were used for storing penguins.” The Long Dark Teatime of the Soul by Douglas Adams

[kateschechterxthorwasmyfirstotp]

Just FYI - this blog is run by an adult. If this blog makes you feel uncomfortable for ANY reason at all, please feel free to unfollow or block. Other than some adult language/themes, this blog does not post NSFW content. This blog does complain about taxes, home maintenance, work, chore wars, politics, and other issues. This blog loves books and libraries, and animals. It is not well curated and there is no aesthetic. Enjoy the chaos.

[fuckyeahladybug]

Open Thread: Wattpad Refugees

With the recent rumblings about censorship and work deletions on Wattpad, many users are considering posting to AO3 for the first time. If that describes you, you may have questions.

This post is a collection of resources you can use to start finding the answers to these questions. If you don’t find what you’re looking for at the links below or you have something more specific to ask, please feel welcome to post questions in the reblogs and comments here.

If you’re an AO3 pro answering questions in these notes, be kind. We were all new once, and other fans helped us then. It’s time to pay it forward.

Resources (under the cut)

AO3 guide in Portuguese by @prfanfic2001

How does AO3 work? What is and isn’t allowed?

My first recommendation for new users is always to skim the Terms of Service FAQ. It explains what AO3 allows and why in plain, straightforward terms. AO3 does not allow placeholder works, commercial content such as commissions links, or “work search” posts.

How can I change the look of the site?

The appearance of AO3 is very customizable! If you just want a basic dark mode, scroll down to the bottom of any page and click “Reversi” under the Customize menu. For more advanced customizations, I can’t recommend @ao3commentoftheday enough. They have so many gorgeous tutorials for everything from site skins to making the site’s content filters do whatever you want.

Wattpad users may especially appreciate the Floating Comment Box extension, which makes commenting on AO3 work slightly more like Wattpad. Someone in the notes recommends this tutorial to get it working on mobile.

How does AO3 search work?

This handy guide by @backofthebookshelf covers the basics. Here is a cheatsheet with more advanced searching tricks.

I’m ready to post my own works. How do I add [specific thing]?

With a little bit of HTML, you can do some incredibly neat things in an AO3 work. Here’s the website running Doom. Here is a very comprehensive guide to Limited HTML on AO3. It may look intimidating at first, but you can get a lot done by copying and pasting and paying attention to the results. As a fun bonus, check out the rest of the series, which includes step by step instructions for making your fic look like text messages on a phone screen, newspaper articles, sticky notes, and more.

How do I tag on AO3?

Start with this guide to the very basics by @centrumlumina. Then, if you want, check out the very thorough The Fanfic Author’s Guide to Metatext by Eiiri.

There are works on Wattpad I want to save. What’s the best way to do that?

On desktop, check out this guide to Calibre + FanFicFare by @kitkatt0430. On mobile, someone in the notes recommends WP Downloader.

Why is Wattpad doing this now? Have similar things happened before?

Fandom creatives have been outrunning purges and legal threats for a long time. Here is a comprehensive timeline of fandom purges and legal actions taken against fanworks, from 1977 to the present day. Here is another timeline written by @olderthannetfic, with associated commentary from other fans.

Purges on LiveJournal and other sites circa 2007 influenced the founding of AO3. You can read in detail about the circumstances of its founding and the construction of the policies it abides by today here.

If you read this far, I’m proud of you. Migrating to a new site is always hard, and there’s so much grief when archives purge content without warning. Welcome to AO3. We’re glad to have you. 🤝

[andallshallbewell]

[andallshallbewell]

[lakemichiganbaby-deactivated202]

“i do not dream of labor” yes u do. labor is fulfilling. u dream of a world where ur labor isnt exploited and its that or starvation. i guarantee u dream of labor. labor is a necessity and in and of itself is a good thing.

[lakemichiganbaby-deactivated202]

if u dream of having a garden, of painting murals, cooking or baking for people, researching in a lab, or writing stories, u dream of labor. which is good! we all jus hate having our labor exploited and being underpaid for the value of our work. nobody wants to just sit at home and do NOTHING as quarantine proved! in and of itself labor is fulfilling and contributes to the betterment and advancement of society, too many people are just barred by arbitrary divides (class, education) and unable to perform labor they’d be best suited for, or that type of labor (arts, service industry) is undervalued and underpaid.

[purr-in-ink]

Just a little reminder 🐾🤍

[sunanthrope]

"But what if people will pretend to need this accessibility option so they can be lazy! People who don't need it will use it!!" I don't actually care

I dont care if 9/10 of the people who use the wheelchair ramp arent actually in wheelchairs. As long as the 1 person who needs it has access to it.

I dont care if 9/10 people who use the automatic push button on the library door can actually push the door open themselves. As long as the 1 person who the door is too heavy for gets to use it.

I dont care if 9/10 people who buy the can tab opener, or the little guitar clamp that holds the chords for you, or the hand grip that helps you hold chop sticks, don't need any of it and just get it to "be lazy". As long as the one disabled person who needs it gets access to it.

I do not care. Oh my GOD I do not care. As long as there's a disabled person on this planet who the accessibility device will benefit, the accessibility device is necessary.

Also, if you're so worried about people being "lazy" by using accessibility devices, MORE worried than you are about disabled (visibly or not) people not having access to them, you have unchecked ableism you need to work through.

Edit: Please stop fucking talking about the capos. I am talking about the thing you clamp on the neck of the guitar that holds/changes chords with a button, not capos. Stay on topic.

[fox-bright]

Everyone on AO3 better brace for an absolute deluge of people who have no clue how to fucking behave

[animentality]

[purr-in-ink]

Sending you a purr 🐈‍⬛🤍

[titsay]

[purr-in-ink]

🐾⚔️🤍

[aint-love-heavy]

I know we talk a lot about the literacy crisis and the horrible anti-intellectualism happening rn but I think we need to talk more about how much of an entitlement complex the stupidest among us have developed

[bagelbarr0n]

Really funny one two punch on my dash this morning

[hotvampireadjacent]

[underratedgrapeju1ce]

i'm so fucking over it

[underratedgrapeju1ce]

they didnt listen, by the way. because of course they didnt. theyre hiding domo ai from the member list and forcing them into private and public servers. use

/ban user:1153984868804468756

to get rid of it.

if you're interested in the Colorful support post i made regarding this, its under the cut. i'm livid.

[katana-kitsune]

adding this to the list… 🫩 5. 5 bots you have to fucking ban from discord that they added without your permission. What the absolute fuck.

Discord bots you need to ban

1104973139257081909

1288638725869535283

1090660574196674713

1104973139257081909

1153984868804468756

[meret118]

I've never used discord, and don't intend too, but I would assume they're going to just keep doing this. For those who do use it, are there non-ai alternatives people can use? Because I wouldn't trust discord at this point.

[camillejamal]

so those are user-attached bots which can be blocked with the external-apps permission, but youre right to not trust a big corpo, https://forum.spacehey.com/topic?id=116265 that spacehey forum has a few, tho it is quite a bit of reading and scrolling

[lamine-19]