sometimes I’m reminded that there are still people who don’t know ao3 was literally created by incest shippers — and the site’s sole purpose is to 1. be completely against censorship and 2. host all kinds of dark, taboo fics that are banned on other platforms — and the first ever fic that was posted on ao3 was a fic about an incest ship from supernatural.
you are in the house that was created by freaks. for freaks (affectionate). every disgusting thing you can think of is rightfully allowed and welcomed on ao3, because they are exactly the reasons why ao3 was created in the first place.
ao3 was created because its creators got tired of censorship, they got tired of dark and taboo fics getting banned on pro-censorship platforms, and they wanted a place that was safe for ALL FICS THAT WERE DARK AND TABOO.
ao3’s main principle is being against censorship and being proship / profic.
there are some things in fiction that make me uncomfortable, but instead of shaming people who are just minding their own business and not harming anyone in real life, I choose to curate my own internet experience by blocking/muting what I don’t want to see. ao3 has excellent tagging system, so instead of being a bitch, use their tagging system properly and you won’t see the things you don’t want to see.
it’s your job to curate what you see. it’s not other people’s jobs or responsibilities to censor themselves for your personal comfort. the world does not revolve around you.
also you cannot censor “only the things you personally hate” without expecting everything else, that isn’t of conservative beliefs, to be censored too. because censorship is a slippery slope and a fascist tool. I promise you there are people who think “why do tags for queer love even exist on ao3? they’re grooming children”.
if you allow the things that you hate to be censored — because someone with enough power gets to control what other people can and cannot create/consume, it will not stop at the things that you hate.
Maybe I'm just a Tumblr Old, but I remember a time when one of the implicit rules of fandom ask games was that you (at a minimum) sent an ask to the person you reblogged the game from. As in – that's supposed to be part of the game. These days, folks will reblog a game without sending any asks (even though it's usually very easy to, like those emoji-question lists), and then I'll see the game bouncing around on my dash without anyone actually having anything to respond to. Is this another symptom of the de-community-fication of public fandom spaces?
I think that might be part of it? But I think another part might be the fact that anon hate on here got REALLY bad around 2016?ish? I don't remember the year. But a lot of people disallowed anonymous asks and a lot of people turned their ask boxes off entirely.
it's hard to play ask games when ask boxes aren't open
Whether that was really the cause or not, ask games got less common and so people didn't know how to play anymore. If no one else teaches you the unwritten rules and you don't see any examples, then it can be hard to pick it up on your own.
For example, I've had people reblog ask games for me more than once where their reblog is just the full list of their answers. That's not how ask games used to be played on tumblr, but I can see how they'd assume it was.
A little while ago, I reblogged an ask meme and explained how to play it while I answered the resulting asks.
If anyone out there wants to learn how to play ask games:
Why are people so intent on finding secret mysterious hidden psychosexual themes in Shirley Jackson's works? Idk man maybe sexuality just isn't all that present or fruitful as an analytical lens and maybe it's your allonormativity speaking?
Is there any chance you might participate in lams summer in August for any prompt? 👀
Oh, I really would love to.
I have unfortunately acquired a deadline for next Friday (journal submission) but I will see what time I can find around that – and I still owe @jhoca her gift-exchange fic!
The best way to encourage me, dear anon, is to send me fun, quirky, poignant thought-starters. Creative works rarely arise in a vacuum!
This was seated for so long in my inbox and I don't know why I didn't give it attention any sooner!! I hope the first (unedited) chapter can make up for my mistake 🧜♂️🌹
TW: Suicidal thoughts, suicide mention, death mention, shitty work appearance
At an ambiguous time –here down clocks and calendars have lost their use– and an unknown location –his superiors were strict about not revealing anything about his job– John Laurens is totally fucked up (and alone).
“A marine biologist?” His father had said when he informed him about his decision of pursuing a second degree. Henry Laurens considered it an interesting choice… “Of course, it will give you plenty of curious anecdotes,” but not a really wise one, fortunately John had trained him over the past years for him to expect the unwisest decisions from him.
“Why?” Was his most frequent question. After all, there wasn’t need for a second degree. The market was oversaturated but connections and contacts have kept John comfortably away from his father’s worst fear– failure, as his eldest son's failure translated into a lack of talent to take on with the family business… And unemployment –.
Privately, Henry Laurens was more worried about a lack of character that would eventually guide him away from everything he once taught him as correct and virtuous.
It didn’t matter how distressing it was for Henry Laurens to think about John like a marine biologist and everything it meant —Suits slowly disappearing from his closet to be replaced with shorts and those thin shirts they used to dive. His charming tan, a gentle gift from many summers in South Carolina, intensifying due to hours under the sun eating ceviches and fried fishes with those bananas Caribbeans ate. I have to show you how a real ceviche tastes like, he could imagine John saying in his mind. Except it wasn’t his Jack, it was a Jack-shaped man more tanned than before, using Hawaiian shirts, faded shorts, and sandals. So much skin in sight and all of it covered in those outlandish tattoos that were popular among his kind –sharks, turtles, jellyfishes, manta rays, or whatever he called his spiritual animal–. And his voice wasn’t the one of his Jacky either, the southern accent would have merged in a disharmonious melody with a Caribbean rhythm. Oh, Henry Laurens could imagine it. How his son would use his recently found voice to talk about save the turtles, the corals dying, or whatever new catastrophist event his kind would obsess with.
It didn’t matter, it really didn’t to Henry Laurens. He could handle the events of madness from his son, it wasn’t the first display of senselessness he displayed. Father, I will serve this country. Father, I will take a sabbatical year from law. It didn’t matter. John was always eager (maybe too much) to take guilt from the consequences of his actions. Any fever of eco-friendly, veganism or whatever madness he liked wouldn’t last long.
What did scare Henry Laurens was the very real possibility of Jacky using his found voice to talk about colonialism, U.S. interventionism and all those scandalous words his kind had created. Father, maybe we shouldn’t have military bases in foreign land. Father, do you know what we did to Puerto Rico? Or worse, if his Jacky were smart (and he was) he wouldn’t hesitate to use his experience in law to start shouting about anti-fracking laws, rivers and seas as subjects of right and actually damaging ideas to the wellbeing of their motherland. The motherland they both swore to protect. And Henry Laurens had done it well. But John had a… Radical vein Henry had allowed to grow too wild.
“Marine biology will make me a better soldier,” and soon long haired Jack, tattoo covered Jack, legallize-weed Jack disappeared from his mind.
Henry Laurens didn't approve of his son's choice of a career. A father would always prefer a job where their child is more likely to survive… And John had interrupted his studies.
He could reluctantly admit that maybe he underestimated the weight of his words when he taught little Jack the meaning of patriotism, duty, and glory. But well, little to do about that when said kid has grown. And little to say about John’s second choice of a degree when he finished the first one. If he had abandoned law then Henry Laurens would have some moral munition to prevent marine biology. However, his kid had graduated, and a photo of his son smiling while holding his diploma was proudly kept in his wallet. When Henry Laurens looked at that graduation picture he had the overwhelming feeling that the young man trapped in the paper was undoubtedly a successful man.
The time gave him the reason, he never hesitated into giving his son a helpful hand and John, with the natural charm he had been blessed with –and a really admirable work ethic– left a good impression wherever he went. And as his kid seemed to find his place in life Henry couldn’t help but feel an immense amount of love and pride. Six months after his graduation Henry Laurens had the firm belief that his year serving in the army was nothing but a bad chapter or a nightmare. Many parents suffer due to their children, Henry had heard about drug addiction, unexpected pregnancies, alcoholism, and worse vices. He talked too soon, because six months after his graduation John surprised him with the unwelcomed notice that he hadn’t and had no wish to abandon the military life.
“Why not engineering? Mathematics? Medicine would be of greater use!”
“There are already too many in each area serving this country,” he smiled.
Henry sighed, recognizing the signs that John had already taken the decision and he was only doing the formality to inform his father about it.
“And one will be more useful when dedicating to an area of interest,” he smiled, a weak sorry! that had no regrets at all.
Maybe during his childhood Henry had allowed an excess of biology classes? Too many excursions? Or was it simply a call his son had configured from the moment he was born –even before–?
There wasn’t much to do about it. John was a grown man and he didn’t ask for money or help when studying. He used to provide some details to Henry, some occasional photos to assure him he was still alive while Henry made peace with his choice of degree, just as he had done with other controversial decisions.
Under the law graduation photo, an older John Laurens wearing a suit –and no tattoos under it– holding his marine biology degree eventually sat.
And under that, an older –but not that much, because he had waited little after degree– John Laurens held his master’s degree in biochemistry diploma.
And, under the last one, an older –and more tired– John Laurens held his doctorate diploma, though Henry Laurens never understood what that one was about.
All that to end like this. At an ambiguous time and an unknown location, totally fucked up (and alone).
Because John Laurens is currently trapped multiple kilometers under water, at the most ambitious ocean research station. And John Laurens will remain like that for another three months just like the mission was planned.
John Laurens is trapped in a submarine. Totally alone. He had to discard the four corpses that once were the members of his crew.
And John would have joined them. Because no amount of therapy, anxiety and loneliness management techniques could have prepared him to open the hatch where the corpses go. And nothing could have prepared him to open it four times. Much less, nothing could have prepared him to be the last one remaining.
“Why me?” He asked the sea, which he had learned was the only thing that actually had authority. But of course, he obtained only silence in return.
Silence and darkness. The few windows in the station didn’t have outside illumination, eventually all light would die in the ocean –John had also learned that– and they didn’t want lights to alternate the natural behavior of close species. It was so dark it acted like a mirror. So when John stared at it wondering whymewhymewhyme only his face looked back.
Why right do I have to be the one who survives? To be the only one? But the man at the other side of the window, the man in the water, didn’t have an answer either.
John would have joined his crew –in death only, because no one could have opened the hatch for him– if it weren’t because he thought he was totally alone.
As much as he blamed himself over the deaths of his crew, obsessively reviewing the prior moments in order to find what-he-could-have-done-different he didn’t blame himself for not noticing Alexander sooner. After all, it’s hard to notice his face when he appears at the other side of the window, only the inner lights illuminate it.
Alexander is, in the most raw definition, a creation of his mind to avoid a decline of his mental health due to solitude. No man is built to be alone for so long. John knows it.
In a most heartfelt definition, he’s the closest thing to an angel John has ever known. The most merciful and compassionate too, because being conscious of his flaws John had given up about the possibility of a taste of heaven.
He noticed him for the first time when John was wandering around one of the laboratories searching for the fastest way to join his crew. It had been 1 week since the last member, John White, had died. One week since the hatch would open for the last time. For a very short time period, despite the grief, he was hopeful sooner than later he would be on land again. The mission couldn’t continue, they couldn’t leave him down there all on his own. That would be barbaric.
That hope lasted until the next morning. Only six hours after John had sent the report of White’s passing away.
He doesn’t remember exactly the words of the message, it was something like:
Dear John Laurens,
We are so sorry to hear about the death of John White. We agree he was an extraordinary member of our team. However, about your request to leave the mission we are afraid we have to deny it. You have to understand John, because you sure are conscious how important it is, that we cannot just give up. Yes, we know you are very scared about your own life but we also know you’re conscious how much it has been invested in this and that giving up would mean losing more money than what your rich daddy (John added that part) can imagine. We know you value your own life but we also trust you to know how important this mission is and how intensely it is needed to have some success from it.
That if we’re leaving you there to die alone? Well, if you die before the mission is complete of course you’ll die. What can we do after all? Do you know how expensive an improvised rescue would be? You knew the risks and you agreed, we have a contract.
By the way, we need you to send us more about your findings. Those minerals you mentioned in your last report –the one before White’s passing, you know which one– look very promising!
Best regards,
The ones who have ruined your life.
He stared at the screen for a long time, then he went to sleep.
To his horror, the message was still there when he woke up and so was the station, his research and the apparently endless water surrounding the station. He tried to rationalize, of course a rescue would be expensive, and it would take a lot of time, when astronauts get trapped in space they don’t exactly send the intergalactic firefighters in their rescue.
And it wouldn’t be permanent. Take samples, make analysis, keep his mind busy with theories and hypotheses and no one to talk to… Record videos with his thoughts, write a journal, make meditation. There wasn’t day or night down here, so if he dissociated just enough to ignore the human passing of time, maybe three days of his –days as his university days, when hours seemed to merge and days seemed to run too fast for him to reach them– would translate into three normal human months.
He was half-way. For the first three months at least one person of his crew had been alive but well… Nothing to do about that. What he could do something about was analyzing that mineral sample that was indeed, really promising.
And so he did, reading a book that seemed interesting from the small library from the station while the samples dried for the Scanning Electron Microscope. When it was time to zoom in he did it with good mood and perfectly entertained. He could see himself doing this for the next three months. Not that different from his doctorate, a little lonely, a little busy.
When he looked at the images from the microscopy everything was blurry and tarnished. The sample was undoubtedly wrongly done.
He couldn’t do this. He couldn’t do this today or the next three months.
He looked at the only window in the lab, John-in-the-water looked at him back, and without words, John-in-the-water made him know there was nothing but water surrounding him and there would be nothing more than water and silence for the next three months.
Whymewhymewhyme he asked John-in-the-water but for that none of them had an answer.
Was he meant to redeem his failures, his sins on (under) earth? Was it the natural consequence –the announced torture– for a weak leader like him? Or was it a greater force –the force of the ocean– simply restoring its domain?
John didn’t know, and he didn't want to. He didn’t want to face the guilt and the shame –the only loud things– filling the station. He didn’t want to taste this failure, he didn’t want to live wondering if that day nature would take his life just like it did with the rest of the crew. In his situation, deprived of company and freedom, nothing called his name stronger than a knife or a rope.
Or a deadly sip. And so, he explored cupboards, reading names that waved him back with the chemical hazard symbols. Nothing strong enough, nothing deadly enough. He wanted it to be fast, even when he didn’t believe he deserved the mercy.
He was searching in the cupboard that had been installed next to the window, half and a meter or so from the floor, when a pale dot appeared in his peripheral vision. If he had been in any other place he wouldn’t have noticed, but a fast movement made him look and John-in-the-water wasn’t there. Wonderfully, he had been replaced with Alexander Hamilton, Alexander-in-the-water stared at him, a little too still if it weren’t for his reddish hair floating around like live coral.
He was paler, but not least handsome or beautiful. John could notice the veins running under the skin of his eyelids because Alexander did not blink. John can recall he blinked only when his eyes started to dry, otherwise he was still like a statue, wondering if he had died and this was his welcome to the other side (of the window).
It was Alexander who moved first, his hand moved with the typical slowness that water creates. Was he going to say hi? (Welcome to the other side!) John stupidly waved his slow hand in slow and robotic movements before he realized Alexander was not waving. A pale hand pressed the window, and as soon as it didn’t matter John had a weak illumination, he could follow the shape of the purple veins under the white skin as if tracing the rivers on a map.
Mimicking the action, his hand –whiter in comparison to three months ago, the darkness of the ocean had devoured the soft tan the sun gifted him– looked to be full of life and color when compared to Alexander's. That pale hand could easily belong to a corpse and it should, because no human being could go this down without being stripped from its shape and life. And somehow, against the physics, Alexander-Hamilton-in-the-water was in one piece and looking at him through the window.
If he was in a fantasy then he wanted the barrier between them to disappear so they could easily grab each other’s hand –but things rarely went his way–. It didn’t upset him though, Alexander smiled and for a sudden moment John had the certainty that everything would be alright. Somehow it would be alright, there wasn’t a twelve inch barrier between them and Alexander was smiling. Under the endearment of his smile John could swear there was a bitter and wretched thing hiding in the curves of his face. It didn’t scare him away, behind his smile too many ugly things hid.
When looking at Alexander’s smile, it seemed to tear to pieces in the water with every passing moment –as if his happiness were only an effervescent effect dissolving into bubbles– John had the realization he looked like crying and John himself was too, except his fell through his face forming bitter rivers, he didn’t have the water as make-up. He couldn’t explain where it came from, if from the grief he had been carrying alone, if from the responsibility and the imminent feeling he’d fail or if from happiness for seeing Hamilton after so long.
Whatever it was, when looking at Alexander’s eyes, he realized his unnamed sorrows had found their twin sibling.
"The History of our Revolution will be one continued Lye from one end to the other. The essence of the whole will be that Dr. Franklins electrical Rod, smote the Earth and out sprung General Washington. That Franklin electrified him with his rod—and thence forward these two conducted all the Policy, Negotiations, Legislatures and War"
Okay I was like ‘surely that is fake’ so I looked the quote up and not only is it legit, the next bit of the letter is “if this Letter should be preserved, and read an hundred Years hence the Reader will Say “the Envy of this J. A. could not bear to think of the Truth”! [“]He ventured to Scribble to Rush, as envious as himself, Blasphemy that he dared not Speak, when he lived. But Barkers at the sun and Moon are always Silly Curs.” But this my Friend, to be serious, is the Fate of all Ages and Nations. And there is no Resource in human nature for a Cure.”
recent epidemic of adaptations that take lots of liberties with the source material and also, separately, are bad. but then if you say "this is bad" you get hit with "you're just being a source material purist and you don't understand the vision"...like. well actually I think it rules when people do new and different things with classic works. I just think these particular new and different things suck ass.
a lot of anti-historian stuff comes across like “i want history to be simple and i am suspicious of people who tell me it’s not” and this is a thing you see from people on any place on the political spectrum
inspired by a rant i was going on elsewhere bc someone tweeted something very stupid and uninformed about hamlet and it got my back up as someone who took two single-text-focus english literature courses in college and they were on wuthering heights and hamlet, i now put it to all of you on here:
what's "your" shakespeare play?
hamlet
macbeth
the tempest
merchant of venice
midsummer night's dream
twelfth night
richard iii
othello
julius caesar
king lear
another not listed (specify in tags) (i really just put my own top 10 here nbd)
i have no particular feelings about any shakespeare play/results tag
Is there anything you genuinely admire about your Blorbo?
Yes
No
Voting ended onAug 11
Every poll on this blog is about fictional characters only. This request was sent to us and we made a poll in response to it. Send any Blorbo-related question you want to our inbox and we’ll make a poll on which people can vote with their own Blorbos in minds
gamechangershow
gummygunk
2087
areudirty
yousharknotpass
stormborns
izzy806
