Product Placement
Kiana Khansmith
i don't do bad sauce passes
Show & Tell
Jules of Nature
"I'm Dorothy Gale from Kansas"
Sade Olutola
JBB: An Artblog!
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❣ Chile in a Photography ❣
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Discoholic 🪩
Lint Roller? I Barely Know Her
let's talk about Bridgerton tea, my ask is open
Three Goblin Art
No title available
Aqua Utopia｜海の底で記憶を紡ぐ
ojovivo
wallacepolsom
seen from United States
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@laure00001
LOOK WHAT JUST ARRIVED!!!! 💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜💜
Shout out to everyone who organised and worked on this, y'all are the best 💜
@warmlightzine @areiton @latelierderiot @lordclover @dirigibleplumbing @earliebirb @festiveferret @fidisart @iam93percentstardust @icrowler @ishipallthings @jacobbyart @jetblackfeeling @laidraws @massivespacewren @meidui @mhyrlovestony @petite-madame @polizwrites @s-horne @snoozingcat @tifftac @veethesnake @zappedbysnow
Art by Angela Hao
Lovely.
I’m sorry friends, but “just google it” is no longer viable advice. What are we even telling people to do anymore, go try to google useful info and the first three pages are just ads for products that might be the exact opposite of what the person is trying to find but The Algorithm thinks the words are related enough? And if it’s not ads it’s just sponsored websites filled with listicles, just pages and pages of “TOP FIFTEEN [thing you googled] IMAGINED AS DISNEY PRINCESSES” like… what are we even doing anymore, google? I can no longer use you as shorthand for people doing real and actual helpful research on their own.
Time to drop some links again.
– https://searchmysite.net/ Search engine for the indie web, personal websites, digital gardens. You can also find them in websites like Neocities, Indieweb, Blogarama, and write.as. There is also a big list of personal websites.
– https://search.marginalia.nu/ Search engine that focuses on non-commercial content, and promotes websites that aren’t usually at the top of the list.
– https://www.worldcat.org/ Search engine for items in libraries (books, but also maps, articles, sound recordings, theses, etc.)
– https://scholar.google.com/ Search engine for scientific papers, reviews, etc. It’s still google, but a lot better than the normal search engine counterpart.
– https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_search_engines A list of search engines sorted by subject, area, and more. If you’re searching on a specific area, it might be worth checking if there is one focused on that area.
– https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_academic_databases_and_search_engines A list of academic databases and search engines.
– https://tineye.com/ Reverse image search alternative to Google’s. Also, P.S.: Please stop using Google, and start using more privacy focused search engines, like DuckDuckGo or SearchX (opensource; personally haven’t used it yet, but it looks promising for privacy-focused users)
Today I read a take that kinda left me with a lot of thoughts:
"There's no market for Northanger Abbey fanfic"
... Okay? So?
It's fanfic! It doesn't /need/ a market. Call me naive, but I never considered the existence (or lack) of a market, of potential FINANCIAL success, as a motivating factor for FANFIC.
Like, that shit's supposed to be niche. A lot of the things often found in fanfic are rarely found in published works because the latter NEED to be marketable and all fanfic needs to be is enjoyable. It doesn't have to appeal to the masses and that's, at least to me, a massive factor why I /love/ fanfic. It can be as weird as the authors wants it to be and that's absolutely okay.
So reading the above statement, in a context as if that fact /matters/, as if it's a reason for people not to write Northanger Abbey fic, a reason why discussions on potential fics are meaningless... What?! I'm in my 30s and have been lurking around various fandoms since I've been 13 and this idea is utterly alien to me. Like sorry, I can't comprehend it.
Why should fanfic writers worry about a fic being PROFITABLE?! It's FANFIC ffs!
>>> Risk ineffable husbands, 7 pages
here's a little comic, it's not completely show!gomens compliant but its headcanons i enjoy
comic notes under cut :)
Yes, such a claim makes him look like a small-minded piece of shit. To us. But we still shouldn't help Musk create revisionist history.
Musk bought Twitter because he fucked around and found out. He wanted to fuck with Twitter's stock price by feigning interest in buying it. Since that's illegal, he was then cornered into actually buying it for an insanely inflated price.
He's a transphobe. He's a bad father. But he's also a fucking idiot.
This. Please remember that he committed blatant market manipulation by not disclosing that he owned shares of Twitter when he was fucking with the stock market. The SEC was watching him very closely already, and so when the cost became more than what the entire company was worth, he had no choice. Remember when he had his gaggle of lawyers try to get him out of it by saying Twitter didn't disclose all of the information? That wasn't Twitter, it was him trying desperately to get out of a purchase he didn't want in the first place.
"Twitter made my daughter trans" would make a good...tweet, paradoxically. :)
fucking mood
Let's have a chat about AO3
Hiya friends and loyal followers! My last post about AO3 blew up yesterday so I figured now would be a good time to continue the conversation about AO3.
As I mentioned in my previous post (and probably in multiple other previous posts):
AO3 is NOT a social media site. AO3 is an ARCHIVE.
So let's delve into that a bit more since people don't seem to be getting that. Fanfiction predates the internet, and was transmitted via the internet way before sites like AO3 and FF dot net. Relatively speaking, I am a fanfiction newcomer, as I first started reading fanfiction in ... 2011? or thereabouts. I say this to say that I obviously don't have as personal of a memory of a time before fanfiction archive sites (my bitty fan experiences were on teaspoon and lcfanfic), but I certainly know plenty of people via fandom online that absolutely do.
For the newest children to fanfiction please check out the following pieces of reading to get started on your fandom history education:
“Fanfiction.” Fanlore Wiki. Accessed June 15, 2023. https://fanlore.org/wiki/Fanfiction. Archived [https://archive.is/yJpOq].
“So I’m on AO3 and I See a Lot of People Who Put ‘I Do Not Own [Insert Fandom Here]’ before Their Story.” sonicenvy.tumblr.com, July 2, 2016. https://sonicenvy.tumblr.com/post/146818589611/mikkeneko-thepioden. Archived [https://archive.is/FRNCy]
ofhouseadama, Emily. “A Brief History of Fandom, for Those on Here Who Somehow Think Tumblr Invented Fandom.” sonicenvy.tumblr.com, May 21, 2014. https://sonicenvy.tumblr.com/post/131935827010/ofhouseadama-a-brief-history-of-fandom-for. Archived [http://archive.today/j2Rfq]
mizstorge, fantastic-nonsense, and fanculturesfancreativity. “The Places Fandom Dwells: A Cautionary Tale.” fantastic-nonsense.tumblr.com, June 29, 2017. https://fantastic-nonsense.tumblr.com/post/162395547190/the-places-fandom-dwells-a-cautionary-tale. Archived [https://archive.ph/QK2wI]
As you read through this stuff, three things should become apparent to you:
Fanworks have always existed in tenuous space -- that is, they have always been under threat of removal, or threat of loss, whether this loss was through events like the livejournal strikethrough, the loss of a fandom specific website, destruction of physical copies of the work, or C&D/legal action from original creators of the work.
Fandom has a long and colored history with many of the most defining events of early fandom history being related to threats to the community.
A need was ripe for a place to save and ARCHIVE fanworks and protect them from deletion, legal action, corporate sanitization efforts, site deaths due to the deaths of admins, etc etc.
Out of all of this, comes The Organization For Transformative Works (2007), and their brand new site Archive of Our Own (2008). The stated intention of Archive of Our Own (AO3) (bolding mine):
The Organization for Transformative Works (OTW) is a nonprofit organization, established by fans in 2007, to serve the interests of fans by providing access to and preserving the history of fanworks and fan culture in its myriad forms. We believe that fanworks are transformative and that transformative works are legitimate. We are proactive and innovative in protecting and defending our work from commercial exploitation and legal challenge. We preserve our fannish economy, values, and creative expression by protecting and nurturing our fellow fans, our work, our commentary, our history, and our identity while providing the broadest possible access to fannish activity for all fans. The Archive of Our Own offers a noncommercial and nonprofit central hosting place for fanworks using open-source archiving software.
Source: Works, Organization for Transformative. “Archive of Our Own Beta.” Archive of Our Own. Accessed June 15, 2023. https://archiveofourown.org/about. Archived [http://archive.today/QYtbM]
You may also want to check out the original LiveJournal Brainstorming sessions for AO3 by astolat as archived here [https://web.archive.org/web/20220627134339/https://astolat.livejournal.com/150556.html] if you need further clarity on this point.
Some neat stuff from astolat's original posts that I find are relevant:
making it easy for people to download stories or even the entire archive for offline reading (thus widely preserving the work in case some disaster does take it down)
code-wise able to support a huge archive of possibly millions of stories.
allowing ANYTHING -- het, slash, RPF, chan, kink, highly adult ...
As we can see both from the mission statement of OTW/AO3 and from astolat herself in the brainstorming sessions, AO3 is an ARCHIVE. It is a project that is meant to preserve and provide access to fanworks. Run for fans, by fans and meant to host any and all kind of content with none of the commercialization or censorship that fans found elsewhere. Before AO3 there were certainly numerous, disconnected, fandom specific archives for fanfiction or other fanworks. Many of these old sites have been archived (see we're getting that word again) via the opendoors project. Some, like teaspoon or lcfanfic still exists and are semi-active.
A common thread is that writers and readers weren't just using the archive site to connect. They were doing more connection through other sites like dreamwidth, livejournal, facebook, their emails and later tumblr or twitter. Archive sites were meant as a supplement to other fan spaces like message boards, blogs and journals.
So, dear friends, you might ask, what is an archive?
An archive is a place where documents, artifacts and records are kept and preserved for future reference, use and access. Archives help us maintain a better understanding of the past and protect objects, writings, documents, records and more in longevity. In the context of fanwork archiving, this means preserving fanworks in longevity/perpetuity so that fans can continue to access them for enjoyment and for historical purposes. Archiving fanwork is vital to preserving and, indeed creating fan culture and identity.
To read more about archives in general, check out this article from the American History Museum of the Smithsonian (https://americanhistory.si.edu/archives/about/what-are-archives) or this one from the US National Archives (https://www.archives.gov/about/info/whats-an-archives.html).
So AO3 is an archive. Why does this matter?
Oh, boy, I am about to get LIS nerdy on y'all. At this point in the post we can all agree that AO3 is and always has been an archive (it's in the name...). When we view and understand the site starting from this premise, a lot of, frankly stupid as fuck arguments that people have about AO3 look even dumber. Understanding AO3 primarily as an archive helps us understand:
The tagging system. Given AO3 is an archive, the tags for content on the site function exactly the same as headings in a library archive. They are designed to store information about the fic (that is, they are intended as metadata) which is then used to find the record of the fic in the archive. This is why it is important to tag what is in your fic, and to use tags properly, using the agreed meanings of particular tags.
The kinds of content that are permitted and excluded under TOS IV. The archive permits fanworks, which include: fanfiction, fanart, podfic, and fan videos. The archive thus excludes things that are not fanwork (records with no content (aka "placeholder fics"), posts asking for writing prompts or submissions, posts looking for fic, commerical promotions of ANY kind, original fiction with no relation to fan content, spam etc). Every library and archive has their own collections policies, and AO3 is not an exception. Collections Policies are generally guided by the mission statement(s) of the archiving party/library. As we saw above in both the official about page and the original brainstorming posts from astolat, AO3 is a library for fanworks, meant to preserve fanworks and is in opposition to advertising and commercialization. Therefore, if the thing you want to add to the library of AO3 is not a fanwork or contains commercialization, it does not qualify to be an object of the archive. Re: the "placeholder fic" post that I didn't know was going to blow up so much: imagine you go to the library to get a book and open it to find that it is empty or you get a DVD and play it only to find that it is the movie theater trailer for the movie. Doesn't that make no sense?
Why there is NO censoring of "adult" or other quote on quote "objectionable content". The archive does not chose to preserve works based on subjective quality or "moral purity" type standards. This is true in libraries and museums as well. We keep and save materials that people find objectionable as archiving and librarianship are and have always been diametrically opposed to censorship. As an archive AO3 follows this. Moreover, you can see in astolat's original post "allowing ANYTHING -- het, slash, RPF, chan, kink, highly adult" as a founding idea.
Why there is no advertising, and why this includes you adding your Ko-fi or paypal or whatever the fuck. Outside of the fact that doing this violates TOS and invalidates OTW lawyer arguments for the legal existence of fanworks under US Fair Use, AO3 as an archive is meant to be a keeper of fan records, not a space for promotions. Archives do keep records (and indeed some archives keep records of advertising) but they, themselves are not using their platform to advertise for anything else.
Why there is no "AO3 algorithm". The kinds of algorithmic feed generators that sites like the t*kt*ok or whatever use are antithetical to the mission of archiving stuff and providing access to it. In an archive you search for content based on terms and headings and self-select. I'm not on the t*kt*k or whatever and I actively block and disable all "suggestion" type things so I don't entirely understand what y'all are looking with this.
Ok, that's great, why are you telling us all of this?
There is a concerning trend of newcomers both young and older to fandom and fanfiction that have not taken off the social media brain filter before coming on board. Some excellent tags I've seen on The Post™ that spawned this one include:
#guys quit bringing the worst elements of capitalism to AO3 (via @watchtowersystem)
#algorithms have rotted people's brains i swear (via @pearly--rose)
#omg stop trying to social mediaify ao3 (via @greyduckgreygoose)
There were also some bangers on my reddit post on this topic as well, but the reddit I posted it on is (rightfully) on blackout at the moment.
I think the sociamediafying of fanfiction that a lot of these people are bringing has a few major negatives:
social mediafied fandom views fanwork soley as consumable content, creating more passive, entitled participants in fandom. For fanwork=content social media brain folks, the fact that fanwork is meant to be an active and engaging thing is lost. Fanwork is a gift from one fan to other fans, it is a point for discussion, a result of people's passion and creativity. It is transformative, out of the box and part of building a niche community. When you start to see it as "content" like a random object on a feed you stop valuing it, analyzing it, and interacting with it in the same way, and are more likely to passively consume what you see as content. Social media has made "content" out of everything, and everything becomes something to scroll past in a few seconds, always looking for more stuff, the newest stuff, etc etc. It's obviously very tied to the experience of social media being used to sell you shit, but that's another conversation I think.
fanwork=content social media brain also allows some of these people to post incredibly demanding comments for "more content" on fancreators works or makes them think it's ok (and indeed creates the same result as what the writer is creating) to feed someone's incomplete fic into an ai to get a "completion".
fanwork=content social media brain also means that when these folks start creating content they feel entitled to views, hits, kudos, etc etc, and feel like it is ok to do things that they see as "gaming" the system to get their fics to be at the top of the pack. They begin to care too much about posting to get their "content" the most views because that's how things work on social media.
fanwork=content social media brain also makes some of these people think that "fic" that is "written" by an ai is acceptable fanwork, because they do not view fanwork as artwork/writing with merit, as much as an entertainment property to be consumed. How the meat gets made becomes irrelevant, because the end result is the only thing that is important.
social mediafying of fandom is something that has helped a lot of advertising and commercialization sneak its way into our spaces, which actively hurts our chances of building good communities.
social mediafying of fandom turns fanwork creation and fandom into popularity contests, which is bad for all fan spaces. The point is that we're being weird together. I've seen new, young authors post on reddit about how they feel so bad about their fic because it doesn't have 1000s of hits or because they feel incapable of writing things (even things they might want to explore) because "no one will read it, and it will not become popular". This makes me very sad.
social mediafying of fanwork also turns right around into .... wait ... you guessed it .... censorship! people are now practising self-censorship that is utterly unnecessary and completely sad to me because they are afraid of getting deleted from anywhere for "objectionable content". This carries over into new users on AO3 doing things like using leet speech for curse words, sexual content and more in the TAGS or the body of their AO3 fics. Stop Don't. You can say fuck, dead, kill, murder, cunt, cock, and whatever the fucking hell you want on AO3. That was the whole goddamn point.
These people are trying to bring fanwork=content social media brain to places like AO3. I'm not entirely sure why.
tldr; AO3 isn't a social media site for talking with your following or posting about ideas that you've had. It isn't a popularity contest. It isn't a place where there will be no inappropriate content. It isn't a place for advertising or commerical promotion. It is an ARCHIVE OF FANWORKS meant to be "allowing ANYTHING -- het, slash, RPF, chan, kink, highly adult."
Anyone of you fans older, wiser, more well versed in fan history, and more articulate than me, please feel free to add to this. Ditto on any of you other funky LIS friends out here on tumblr dot hell.
Movie line so in character it might as well be canon.
Laurence Olivier totally overplays it here but it’s still hilarious.
AITA for leaving when my fiancé didn't love me anymore?
u/throw_awayAITA45432
I fell in love with Eddie when we were both only nineteen. I would have married him right away, but he wanted us to wait until he had enough money to support us. I wasn't even sure at first if I should accept him because I knew his mother wouldn't like me, but he loved me so much and begged me until I was finally convinced to say yes.
Four years later, we still weren't married. I loved him, completely, entirely, with my whole heart, but he had fallen out of love. I could tell; he kept talking about another girl, he stopped visiting as often, his letters were less expressive, he even tried to convince me to break the engagement and claimed it was for my sake! It was so clear that his love had never been constant even though I had never even looked at any other man except him.
His family learned about our engagement and he was disinherited, I still would have married him, I would have lived on fifty pounds a year for his sake! But he came to me later and tried again to break the engagement. I was so disgusted I could not even speak with him.
Then I didn't see him or hear from him for days and days. His brother, Robbie, came to visit me and we talked a lot while I was lonely and abandoned. When I started to fall for Rob, I honestly thought Eddie was never coming back for me. I thought he had given me up, so when Rob proposed, I was taken by surprise, but I considered myself a free woman. What else could I have done?
AITA?
Top Comment:
u/AnneSteele
Lucy! this is you!!!!! i know there is a word limit on this forum but you left out a lot of info like how edward was in love with elinor and you arranged for us to stay at barton so you could keep an eye on her. also, I don't remember you telling edward you dind't want be engaged, i was there remember? you wree pretty excited at the time. also we did know that edward was going to be made into a clergy. he told you tht on the last visit soo he didn't abandon you. then when robert came I remember you saying he was a great beau. also, didn't you try to catch a few men while edward was away, before he fell for elinor. you told me that it was better to hve several baskets of eggs, or eggs in your basekt?
i think you can do an update and put in more stuff that happend.
u/CaptainPoppyPants And the truth comes out, YTA. Also, Anne my dear, you want a username that isn't your real name. That's dangerous, sweetie.
*Post Deleted*
AITA Jane Austen Masterpost
Very Brief Guide to [tumblr], for Reddit refugees
Shit You Must Do Right Fucking Now:
Change your profile picture, blog header, and title to something other than the defaults. Do it right now. You will be mistaken for a bot otherwise, and blocked.
Go into Settings -> Dashboard, scroll down to Preferences, and turn off the options in the picture. This will get rid of most of the algorithmic stuff.
Turn off Tumblr Live. You have to snooze it once every 7 days for some stupid reason. It's hosted through another company and will steal your data if you use it.
Go to your blog settings (under the little person menu) and turn off these two settings:
Turn off infinite scroll (lags the site) and turn on timestamps on posts, in the same menu as Preferences.
Basic Features of the Site:
Reblogs drive the entire site. If you'd upvote something on Reddit, you'd reblog it on Tumblr. You can add text, images, or tags to a reblog, but you're not required to.
The dashboard is the equivalent to your Reddit feed, and contains the posts of all the people you follow, with the newest at the top
You can send an ask to someone, and it'll appear in their askbox for them to answer. You can receive them too, or turn off the settings if you don't want.
Tags aren't actually used for finding stuff (search function is dogshit), but are more for categorizing. People also talk in tags. Because Tumblr is weird, you can't use quotation marks (") or commas in them without fucking it up
You can filter both tags and phrases under Account Settings; doing this will put a filter over a post that contains them, which you'll have to click through to see the post itself. Useful for avoiding hate speech or blocking out annoying stuff
You can make polls in posts. Here's one now.
holy shit it's a poll
cool!
ooh clicky clicky button!! i wanna press it!! lemme press it!
you can add up to 10 options btw
Likes are useless. They literally do fuck-all except send a notification to the OP.
Stuff Tumblr Does That Other Sites Don't:
Very old posts (I'm talking from like 2012) often circulate on this site. There's no such thing as a post being "too old" to reblog
Blocking is highly encouraged; you can block someone for any reason. Even for just being annoying.
If you and someone else are following each other, you are mutuals. Mutuals are fucking awesome and are treasured like friends. Mutuals are a thing on other sites but Tumblr treats em differently.
You can screenshot someone's tags if you like them and add them to a reblog. This is called "peer review"
Sometimes someone will find a blog and go through it and like/reblog a bunch of posts. This is totally fine and not "creepy" like it is seen as on other sites.
Tumblr jokes often rely on Continuing The Bit and a "yes, and?" attitude. Goncharov is probably the best example of this.
We are fucking infested with bots. They will either have totally blank profiles or be filled with porn. Block and report on sight.
Censorship is pretty lax here. I can say "I want to brutally stab Elon Musk to death and watch him bleed out in front of a crowd" and nobody gives a shit.
General Etiquette:
Don't try to do epic clapbacks here, you'll probably just get laughed at or blocked. If someone is bugging you or spouting bigoted bullshit, block them.
Reblog art!!! Artists often struggle to gain traction on here; reblogging will give them a boost.
Not every reblog needs a comment or tag in it
You can go all out with tagging your stuff to organize it, or you can just leave it all blank. Someone might ask "hey, can you tag these posts as [x]?" and you can decide if you want to do that or not. It's generally polite to oblige, but "no" is still reasonable.
Avoid discourse like the plague. Filter it, block people who start it, scroll past it when you see it. Just don't get involved in it. Ever.
Don't put fandom tags or jokes on someone's posts about serious matters or personal shit
You're responsible for curating your own dashboard; if you complain about constantly seeing stuff you don't like, that's probably on you. Don't be afraid to unfollow.
Follower count doesn't matter much here and you don't have to make yours known if you don't want to.
Reblog, don't repost. Reblogging keeps the credit and doesn't "steal" engagement like Twitter retweets.
If someone likes something a LOT, they might reblog it like 30 times in a row. This is normal
Having a post blow up is actually kinda a bad thing, since it floods your notifications. There's a sort of in-joke about how having a big post is awful and people jokingly try to stop their own posts from blowing up, often in vain.
Tips:
Get XKit Rewritten if you're on desktop, it's a really helpful extension
In the little drop-down menu next to the 'Post now' button you can either save a draft, schedule a post, or add it to your queue. The queue lets you post things in order at a certain interval, which you can change. It's good for spreading stuff out over time.
You can use Shift+R to quickly reblog stuff and Shift+Q to queue!
Filter your notifications under Activity - you can also see some neat graphs
Find each other! If you want your old Reddit communities to stick together, seek out other refugees and follow them.
Have fun on [tumblr], everyone!
Also get the add-on Tumblr Savior if your browser has it! It has advanced filtering and customization options for your dash and other things that works amazing.
So I’ve been enjoying the Disney vs. DeSantis memes as much as anyone, but like. I do feel like a lot of people who had normal childhoods are missing some context to all this.
I was raised in the Bible Belt in a fairly fundie environment. My parents were reasonably cool about some things, compared to the rest of my family, but they certainly had their issues. But they did let me watch Disney movies, which turned out to be a point of major contention between them and my other relatives.
See, I think some people think this weird fight between Disney and fundies is new. It is very not new. I know that Disney’s attempts at inclusion in their media have been the source of a lot of mockery, but what a lot of people don’t understand is that as far as actual company policy goes, Disney has actually been an industry leader for queer rights. They’ve had policies assuring equal healthcare and partner benefits for queer employees since the early 90s.
I’m not sure how many people reading this right now remember the early 90s, but that was very much not industry standard. It was a big deal when Disney announced that non-married queer partners would be getting the same benefits as the married heterosexual ones.
Like — it went further than just saying that any unmarried partners would be eligible for spousal benefits. It straight-up said that non-same-sex partners would still need to be married to receive spousal benefits, but because same-sex partners couldn’t do that, proof that they lived together as an established couple would be enough.
In other words, it put long-term same-sex partners on a higher level than opposite-sex partners who just weren’t married yet. It put them on the exact same level as heterosexual married partners.
They weren’t the first company ever to do this, but they were super early. And they were certainly the first mainstream “family-friendly” company to do it.
Conservatives lost their damn minds.
Protests, boycotts, sermons, the whole nine yards. I can’t tell you how many books about the evils of Disney my grandmother tried to get my parents to read when I was a kid.
When we later moved to Florida, I realized just how many queer people work at Disney — because historically speaking, it’s been a company that has guaranteed them safety, non-discrimination, and equal rights. That’s when I became aware of their unofficial “Gay Days” and how Christians would show up from all over the country to protest them every year. Apparently my grandmother had been upset about these days for years, but my parents had just kind of ignored her.
Out of curiosity, I ended up reading one of the books my grandmother kept leaving at our house. And friends — it’s amazing how similar that (terrible, poorly written) rhetoric was to what people are saying these days. Disney hires gay pedophiles who want to abuse your children. Disney is trying to normalize Satanism in our beautiful, Christian America.
Just tons of conspiracy theories in there that ranged from “a few bad things happened that weren’t actually Disney’s fault, but they did happen” to “Pocahontas is an evil movie, not because it distorts history and misrepresents indigenous life, but because it might teach children respect for nature. Which, as we all know, would cause them all to become Wiccans who believe in climate change.”
Like — please, take it from someone who knows. This weird fight between fundies and Disney is not new. This is not Disney’s first (gay) rodeo. These people have always believed that Disney is full of evil gays who are trying to groom and sexually abuse children.
The main difference now is that these beliefs are becoming mainstream. It’s not just conservative pastors who are talking about this. It’s not just church groups showing up to boycott Gay Day. Disney is starting to (reluctantly) say the quiet part out loud, and so are the Republicans. Disney is publicly supporting queer rights and announcing company-supported queer events and the Republican Party is publicly calling them pedophiles and enacting politically driven revenge.
This is important, because while this fight has always been important in the history of queer rights, it is now being magnified. The precedent that a fight like this could set is staggering. For better or for worse, we live in a corporation-driven country. I don’t like it any more than you do, and I’m not about to defend most of Disney’s business practices. But we do live in a nation where rights are largely tied to corporate approval, and the fact that we might be entering an age where even the most powerful corporations in the country are being banned from speaking out in favor of rights for marginalized people… that’s genuinely scary.
Like… I’ll just ask you this. Where do you think we’d be now, in 2023, if Disney had been prevented from promising its employees equal benefits in 1994? That was almost thirty years ago, and look how far things have come. When I looked up news articles for this post from that era, even then journalists, activists, and fundie church leaders were all talking about how a company of Disney’s prominence throwing their weight behind this movement could lead to the normalization of equal protections in this country.
The idea of it scared and thrilled people in equal parts even then. It still scares and thrills them now.
I keep seeing people say “I need them both to lose!” and I get it, I do. Disney has for sure done a lot of shit over the years. But I am begging you as a queer exvangelical to understand that no. You need Disney to win. You need Disney to wipe the fucking floor with these people.
Right now, this isn’t just a fight between a giant corporation and Ron DeSantis. This is a fight about the right of corporations to support marginalized groups. It’s a fight that ensures that companies like Disney still can offer benefits that a discriminatory government does not provide. It ensures that businesses much smaller than Disney can support activism.
Hell, it ensures that you can support activism.
The fight between weird Christian conspiracy theorists and Disney is not new, because the fight to prevent any tiny victory for marginalized groups is not new. The fight against the normalization of othered groups is not new.
That’s what they’re most afraid of. That each incremental victory will start to make marginalized groups feel safer, that each incremental victory will start to turn the tide of public opinion, that each incremental victory will eventually lead to sweeping law reform.
They’re afraid that they won’t be able to legally discriminate against us anymore.
So guys! Please. This fight, while hilarious, is also so fucking important. I am begging you to understand how old this fight is. These people always play the long game. They did it with Roe and they’re doing it with Disney.
We have! To keep! Pushing back!
Most Romantic Gesture
Proposing despite their father's disapproval
Saving your little sister from social ruin
Bringing your mother to see you when you're sick
Advocating for you to get a horse (and then lending it to someone else)
Running to your side when they think your heart's been broken
Writing you a love letter
New cover!
A modern Pride and Prejudice Variation... Fitzwilliam Darcy falls madly in love with the vivacious and clever Elizabeth Bennet. After a few shots of tequila, he declares his affections for her. It is a disaster. Elizabeth resoundingly rejects him. But…it’s late, they're alone and slightly intoxicated. They sleep together. Now Darcy has everything…and nothing. He is having sex with Elizabeth and while he falls more desperately in love each day, she still hates him. It is the beginning of a secret, sensual, complicated liaison, wherein each plays a cruel game; Darcy because he is hiding his passion and growing despair, Elizabeth because she is feeling lost. As Darcy gets more hopeless, and Elizabeth tries to deny her budding feelings, another man begins to vie for her affections… Note from the author: As you may gather from the premise, this is neither a sweet nor clean tale. Nevertheless, Games of Love and Cruelty is also not erotica. The story is deeply romantic, and the depictions of sex are not too graphic or explicit.
https://www.amazon.com/Games-Love-Cruelty-Prejudice-Variation-ebook/dp/B08RC875X6
these are some of my favorites from last year:
Oblivion: A contemporary Pride and Prejudice variation (English Edition) by Elin Eriksen
Assumptions and Arrangements: A Pride and Prejudice Variation: What if... by Elizabeth Squire
Haunting Mr Darcy: A Spirited Courtship (English Edition) by KaraLynne Mackrory
Against Every Expectation: A Variation of Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice by Paige Badgett
That Perfect Someone (English Edition) by L.L. Diamond
In League with Mr. Darcy: A lighthearted Darcy and Elizabeth romance by Laura Hile
Who is Elizabeth Bennet's Soulmate?: A Pride and Prejudice Variation by Laura Moretti
Do you love me?: A Pride and Prejudice Variation (English Edition) by Laura Moretti
Games of Love and Cruelty: A Pride and Prejudice Variation (English Edition) by Laura Moretti
The Beastly Mr Darcy: A Pride & Prejudice variation (English Edition) by Elin Eriksen
The Peculiar Talent of Miss Elizabeth Bennet by Elizabeth Adams
All These Years I Dreamed Of You: A Pride and Prejudice Variation by Laura Moretti
Mr. Darcy's Phoenix: A Pride and Prejudice Variation (English Edition) by Lari Ann O'Dell
The Governess: A Pride and Prejudice Variation (English Edition) by Laura Moretti
Dangerous Magic: A Pride & Prejudice Fantasy Variation by Monica Fairview
A Man of Good Fortune: A Sequel to Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice by Ali Scott
Meet Your Mark: A Pride and Prejudice Reimagining by Elizabeth Adams
Pride Before a Fall: A Humor-Filled Romantic Pride and Prejudice Variation by Mary Smythe
Friendship and Forgiveness: An Elizabeth and Darcy Story (English Edition) by Timothy Underwood
Undercover: A Modern Pride and Prejudice Novella (English Edition) by Different Thoughts
Casual by Different Thoughts
A Season of Magic: A Pride and Prejudice Variation (English Edition) by Sarah Courtney
A Gentleman's Honor: A Pride and Prejudice Variation (English Edition) by Melanie Rachel
An Unexpected Inheritance: A Pride and Prejudice Vagary (English Edition) by Melanie Rachel
Epiphany: A Pride & Prejudice Variation (English Edition) by Jessie Lewis
Wow, thank you so much! Five of my books are in this list!
Doesn’t everyone?
