promises are pie crust

easy to make, easy to break

[nuclearfaggot]

im asking you to stay here. i cannot tell you why, i dont have any other reason except i want to see you here. i want to see you as happy as you can be. please, do what you can to stay. to find happiness wherever you can. i know that it is selfish of my to ask this. but i’m asking you anyway. take care of yourself. if not for yourself, then for me

[funk-enterprize]

About half of moments where death faces you last about 10-20 mins. In fact, one study (Deisenhammer, 2009) said about half of attempts occur 10 minutes after the ideation. If you can stall even that long, the moment typically passes.

[depsidase]

[dandelionsresilience]

Just gonna drop these here as a starting point :)

How to identify, and then deal with, your emotions

Emotional regulation skills

Conflict resolution skills

Creating and enforcing boundaries

Dialectical Behavioural Therapy skills

Emotional intelligence ideals to aim for

Axes of self-care/wellbeing

Self-care self-evaluation (find out where you’re starting)

How to make a self-care checklist

How to start a self-care habit

Reparenting resources

Crash Course Psychology

KhanAcademy: Understanding the Self and Society (some units more relevant than others)

Emotional education activities for children and teens

Social-Emotional Learning activities for kids (information can be adapted for adults)

[mipiacimipiaci]

[enki2]

[alarajrogers]

Rephrase.

"I don't like any of these extremists on the right or the left! I just think we need the basic common sense middle ground stuff. Like, the government ought to be providing everyone healthcare, that's just basic. Every other developed country in the world can do it, why not us? We're Americans, we're supposed to be world leaders. And why are we letting rich people accumulate so much money they can buy our entire government? We need sensible tax rates like we had in the 1950's. We don't need the government interfering in family medical decisions or what gender people want to be, talk about your activist governments! What's next, they wanna micromanage us like they did in the 1800's? Send women to jail for wearing pants? Come on, let trans people go to the goddamn bathroom, what's wrong with people? And I don't understand why we need a freaking secret police force to terrorize people whose visas expired. Why don't we just let anyone immigrate and get a green card if they can pass a background check, that way they get paid minimum wages like Americans do and corporations can't pay them super cheaply to get out of fair wages? It'd be better for all Americans that way. You wanna enforce customs at the border, sure, we don't want smuggling, but the way ICE currently is, half the people who work there get a hardon when they think about terrorizing immigrants. In my opinion the whole department's gotta go and we go back to the way things used to be. "

Like... you use the short version of those opinions, people have been taught "these are extreme opinions!" But you express the exact same information a different way and people go, yeah, that makes perfect sense. Kind of like "defund the police" is scary but if you say, "let's take some of the funds we're currently allocating to the police, and give them to specialists who're good at dealing with mentally ill and desperate people, so those people get the right kind of help and don't get shot. You know, if all you have is a hammer everything looks like a nail... and the police have guns, so every problem looks like a thing to shoot. Let's keep them targeted on what they're good at and give the work you don't need a gun for to people who don't need a gun to do it," people think that's perfectly reasonable. "Fund non-violent alternatives to police for non-violent issues like welfare checks" is another way you can phrase it, which is shorter.

[depsidase]

[countessravengrey]

These kinds of things give me hope

[puppygirllaika]

watching this actually made me cry a little. i've long held that i think the support for anti-trans policies is a mile wide and an inch deep, and the majority of people who would oppose our existence in a survey or a ballot box do so out of ignorence in the truest sense of the word. Do so because they have little to no experience of us, do so because they don't see us in their communities, do so because we are not a part of their daily lives, and that if they were to see us there in front of them day in and day out, they would not so easily cast aside our rights and our humanity in favor of what they hear about us from conservative media outlets. This is exactly what I'm talking about when I say that, and seeing such a perfect example of it, especially in so dark a time, brings me to tears.

[sprouttheambassador]

running errands like kurt vonnegut

[sprouttheambassador]

⬆️ like so

[sunderwight]

My default assumption whenever I see people pitching fits about how characters or ships or the color of the wallpaper or whatever else they don't like must be evil, is that they are a teenager.

They are a teenager who has never used anything other than an algorithmic feed on a social media app to find fannish content, they don't even know where the settings page is, and they're having a real bad time. They have to get up early in the morning, school is awful, all their clique-y peers have been mean to them about their weight, their teachers are impatient, they just got seven hours of homework and their last class was gym. And they are eternally frightened that they're secretly a bad person and their only current recourse against this is to be like, at least I know that pineapple on pizza is a sin.

Approaching things from this angle has never steered me wrong. Even when the person in question is not literally a teenager, they're still pretty much letting their inner kid drive the bus right now.

"A four year age gap is abusive!" okay champ. Screen time's up. Let's get you a protein shake and a nap.

[bebx]

[ladyananas]

so im hearing @astolat is god??? what's your 10 commendments my liege

[astolat]

You shall seek out and enjoy art (which fanfic is) that gives you pleasure

You shall not feel guilty for spending time on art

You shall comment when you can with joy

You shall share the art you find that makes you happy

You shall not envy the size of your neighbor's fandom or pairing

You shall support your fellow fans in making art that makes them happy even if it is not to your own taste

You shall make art of your own to your own taste

You shall love your art however imperfect because it is yours

You shall share your art in whatever way you can with joy

You shall not covet your neighbor's hits or comments or kudos

My best stab! lol

[orionsangel86]

From facebook; mic drop.

[finnskeeper]

So that last line punched me in the face so hard I hit the reblog button. Oh well.

[donuts-multifandom-hellhole]

Something that I get chills about is the fact that the oldest story told made by the oldest civilization opens with "In those days, in those distant days, in those ancient nights."

This confirms that there is a civilization older than the Sumerians that we have yet to find

Some people get existential dread from this

Me? I think it's fucking awesome it shows just how much of this world we have yet to discover and that is just fascinating

[sleepymccoy]

@makaeru peer review cos this made me check when the Sumerians happened and I forget how recent history is for every other continent. 7000 - 8000 years ago just isn't that long when you're in Australia, and the amount of detailed history we have access to here is wonderful and should be recognised more internationally

Source (non Aboriginal)

And a quote I picked out from a longer interview with an Aboriginal local elder about the area where he touched on the history

Source (the rest of the interview is really interesting and all transcribed, have a look if you're curious)

[chaotic-archaeologist]

This is part of my Ancient Civilizations class that I teach, which does a whole week about Australia and the Torres Strait Islands because I was sick of never seeing them represented in USAmerican history contexts. With the help of @micewithknives and @acearchaeologist I've learned so many incredible things about Australia's past and it's been incredibly rewarding to share them with students.

[aggressivelybicaptainamerica]

My favorite fact about Aboriginal oral history is the fact that we pretty recently discovered that the Aboriginal myth of the 7 Sisters, an origin story for the Pleiades star cluster, accurately reflects a point TEN THOUSAND YEARS AGO when two stars in the constellation got close enough together to no longer be distinguishable by the naked eye.

The story? 6 sisters running from something that took their 7th sister.

[jinkohhh]

as a gilgar gunditj woman, i was not expecting to see my culture on my dash.

thank you for spreading our words and treating our culture with respect.

[fipindustries]

I cannot stand the parodies of modern major general, they're overdone and simply not as good as the original. They've done them about everything, whatever topic, big or small.

And when i notice one of them my eyes will always start to roll.

The diction's always slurry when they rush the complicated words, and adding many fricatives will turn it so cacophonous. The slanted rhymes are silly and they keep just making more and more, please someone stop the parodies of modern major general.

The scanning of the lyrics in the meter is unbearable, they emphazise the syllables in ways that are untenable, in short in matters musical, prosodic and ephemeral, i cannot stand the parodies of modern major general!

[breelandwalker]

[hot-elf]

20 Questions for Fanfiction Writers

Thank you so much to @vorchagirl for tagging me :)

I'll tag and anyone else who sees this and wants to answer the questions. I always love seeing other people's answers.

1). How many works do you have on AO3?

125 (last one was over a year ago, though)

2). What’s your total AO3 word count?

1,441,177

3). What are your top five fics by kudos?

- The Invitation - 2147 kudos (Harry Potter)

- By Your Side - 381 kudos (Assassin's Creed)

- Tough as Leather, Smooth as Velvet - 252 kudos (Dragon Age: Inquisition)

- Her Biggest Adventure - 199 kudos (Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries)

- Blackout - 195 kudos (Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries)

4). What fandoms do you write for?

Dragon Age (Origins, Awakenings, II, Inquisition), Mass Effect, MFMM, mostly, with occasional excursions into the MCU fandom (Agent Carter, Captain America, Avengers), Shadowhunters, LOTR, The Old Guard, ... My one and only HP fic is also my most popular, which I mostly put down to the sheer size of the fandom.

5). Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

Yes, I do, whenever I can make it. At the very minimum I'll say Thank you, but I'm also happy to chat in the comments. I met some of my best online friends that way!

6). What’s the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending?

That would be Cats on the Prowl - one of my first fics, and it's so sad it made me cry. At the time I didn't feel I could deviate from canon very much, so I stuck with my game ending *sobs*.

7). What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending?

Most of them have happy endings, or at least bittersweet ones. I wrote one fic for The Originals, specifically to give Josh and Aiden a happy ending, though. It's called Pancakes, and it has the two of them living happily ever after in a lovely flat in Berlin ;).

8). Do you get hate on fics?

Rarely. and never on AO3. I got some nasty comments on my LOTR fic on ffnet, for implying a past sexual relationship between Aragorn and Legolas. Some people also weren't happy with bisexual Brasidas in my Assassin's Creed fic, but they were very civil about it. Years ago I got some nasty messages on ffnet, some of them accusing me of condoning adultery (it was consensual infidelity) and one accusing me of racism for my story Choices - then called Black, White and Everything in Between. The reviewer was convinced that the title referred to skin tones (which it never did), but I changed it in order to avoid more misunderstandings of that sort.

Mostly, my experiences with fandom have been positive, though, and the MFMM fandom, in particular, has been amazingly nice and supportive.

9). Do you write smut?

I do, almost exclusively. When I started, I bascially had at least one sex scene per chapter - I've slowed down a bit since then. But yeah, I do enjoy writing it, and I think I do it well, and I feel that a well-written sex scene can tell you so much about the characters and their relationship.

10). Do you write crossovers?

Yes, I do, and I'm having a lot of fun with them. I've written a MFMM-HP crossover, A Hogwarts Murder Mystery, that I'm really proud of (screw JKR for spoiling it all for us), as well as a Hobbit/Dragon Age crossover, Keeping You Warm, and many more. Lots of Modern AUs, too. It's fun!

11). Have you ever had a fic stolen?

I've never checked and I probably wouldn't know. I hope not.

12). Have you ever had a fic translated?

Not that I know of, but I wouldn't object.

13). Have you ever cowritten a fic before?

The lovely @theolive2 wrote several passages in my fic A Tropical Treat, which I then incorporated (with her full consent, of course). Otherwise, no.

14). What’s your all-time favorite ship?

Do I have to choose? Phryne and Jack from MFMM, for canon ships, probably, and Megan/Nate/Carver from my DA fics otherwise. I also adore Shepard/Vega from ME, Nicky/Joe from The Old Guard, and so many more.

15). What’s the WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will?

I had a sequel planned for A Hogwarts Murder Mystery and I would still love to write it, but since JKR has gone off the deep end, I don't feel there's much interest in HP anymore.

16). What are your writing strengths?

I do write some pretty hot smut, I feel *lol*. I also think I have a good handle on dialogues these days, and my character development is fine.

17). What are your writing weaknesses?

I'm not really super good at coming up with an actual plot, tbh. So I end up with many one-shots, or just following along with the canon storyline. To me, it's all about the characters and their relationships. I also really suck at slow burn, because I'm impatient to get to the smut. I guess I'm impatient, full stop.

18). Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in a fic?

I do it occasionally, mainly because I can :). I'm reasonably fluent in French , and of course, in German, and I have a smattering of Spanish, Swedish and Italian that comes in handy sometimes. I do italicize single words and would annotate longer passages, if necessary.

19). First fandom you wrote for?

Dragon Age II. My first fic was called A Free Man, and it was really just an attempt to give my Hawke a proper happy ending.

20). Favorite fic you’ve ever written?

I don't have a clear favorite, but I do like Blackout (MFMM) - I feel it has some of my best writing.

Thanks for giving me a chance to do this - it was quite the trip down memory lane :). No-pressure tagging @absedarian, @ltleflrt, @floating-in-the-blue, @mistressandry, @glamorouspixels, @whopooh, @gaslightgallows, @genginger and anyone else who would like to participate.

[rohirric-hunter]

Ever since I got a job as a security guard I can’t take heist movies seriously anymore.

[edgar-allan-possum]

Why is that?

[rohirric-hunter]

Accurate heist movie: The Team is sneaking into a high security facility. An alarm is triggered, they freeze, prepared to knock out whoever responds to the alarm. It takes 40 minutes for someone to respond. When they finally do show up, they shuffle along, annoyed, arms full of 16 bags of pretzels for some reason, and reset the alarm without bothering to check their surroundings. They report that the alarm went off in error. Security control starts a fight about the correct designation of the door. The guard announces that they’re leaving the alarm key in the alarm because it’s always going off for no reason. No one challenges them on this. They shuffle away, leaving an alarm key and several bags of pretzels behind.

The Team knocks out a security guard and steals their radio. The team mimic can perfectly replicate the knocked out guard’s voice. They get caught because they pronounced the name of the company correctly.

The Team disables an alarm. The only way to do this is to rip it out of the wall and disassemble it until it physically can’t make noise anymore. This very loud process is clearly heard by the posted security guard nearby, who rolls their eyes and text their supervisor that the logistics contractors are fooling with the alarms again.

The Team breaks into the facility at night. There they meet a single security guard who is chanting potential names for NPCs in their DnD campaign out loud while they do their patrols. They encounter a fire extinguisher. They pause in their chanting to check that it is properly charged and to apply a sticker that reads, “Anal use only”. This guy is disgustingly good at their job. There’s no way around it, they’re going to catch you. And you’re going to have to deal with the fact that you’ve been had by someone who has a supply of stickers that say “Anal use only” and who unironically wanted to name their NPC shopkeep Mammogrammus.

The Team attempts to bribe a security guard. This is its own post but know there’s no way in hell that would work.

The Team breaks into the high security room and disables all the alarms. Security control sends several guards to investigate why there are no alarms going off.

The Team attempts to break into the high security room but can’t because it’s randomly decided not to let anyone at all in today.

The Team steals a keycard with “””””unlimited””””” access to the facility and gets caught because the computer system that manages keycards randomly revokes access for no reason.

The Team walks past a security guard in broad daylight wearing T-shirts that say, “We are here to rob you”. The security guard does nothing, having seen several people in logistics wearing that exact shirt two days prior.

[edgar-allan-possum]

This sounds like a great movie, honestly

[ignescent]

I will always remember that when I worked for a pharmaceutical company in IT, there were massive security procedures, systems with air gaps, locations with biometric scanners and metal detectors and locking revolving doors, but the highest level of security was a human being in a bulletproof proof room with line of sight to the door and a button. To /get/ to the door, you had to go through tons of other layers and badge access and identity verification, but the final lock was a dual physical key (which required two people to open) and a human being with a book of photographs and a button to push.

[tricktster]

At the onset of the 2008-onward recession it became more or less impossible to get the sort of summer gig that college students traditionally get. I couldn’t get a callback from any of the area fast food restaurants, the babysitting gigs were gone, I drew blanks on waitressing, dishwashing, landscaping, car washes, summer camps, you name it. The big local summer attraction near me is a horse racetrack, and I put in apps for every position from betting clerk to horse manure removal tech. I got one (1) job offer that summer, and it was to be a security guard. I was a 19 year old girl with a perky ponytail, big ol’ doe eyes, and no experience or interest whatsoever in policing, so I genuinely thought I’d gotten the offer because they’d confused my application with someone else’s… until the first day of training.

Training consisted of a number of retired high ranking New York State Troopers very earnestly trying to convince a room of “dudes who desperately wanted to be a cop but couldn’t jump even that low hurdle” and also “one increasingly incredulous 19 year old girl who could only hear a loud high pitched note in one ear because she stood too close to her amps at the punk show last night” not to bring swords, shurukens, or butterfly knives into work.

We went over the “do not bring in your own weapons” lecture for the majority of day 1 of training. Day 2 was also “do not bring in your own weapons” for a lot of the day, then we moved onto “identifying the different types of fire extinguisher,” and wrapped up the day with “wasp stings.” Well, actually during “wasp stings” we had a sidebar when this one guard who looked like Ben Franklin raised his hand and shared that he, personally, took care of wasps by blowing their nests up with improvised gasoline-based explosives, so technically we wrapped up the day with “do not bring in your own weapons even if those weapons are to harm a wasp.”

Day 3 was a half day, where we reviewed everything we’d learned about no weapons, fire extinguishers, and wasps, and then we took a written test, which I finished with a perfect score in three minutes so Sargeant Minetti made me grade everyone else’s. After that, I was a full ass security guard; I picked up my fake cop uniform, badge(!!!), tiny notebook, strapped a walkie to my belt, and was given my assignment. My beat was very very literally the most public facing one that existed; while most of my colleagues were posted at gates that might never get opened for the entire summer, I had “the wholeass quarter mile of pavement abutting the chain link fence that separated the public from the ponies.” My responsibilities were simple:

1. tell people to move their rolling coolers out of the fire lane

2. take people with wasp stings to the nurse

and oh yeah

3. every time a clerk at a betting window in my section accumulated more than $10,000 dollars in cash, I had to escort them for ½ of a mile through the incredibly dense crowd of drunk people, any of whom might be interested in stealing more than $10,000 dollars, and get the money safely into the giant vault.

I remember the very first run i made. The betting clerk looked at me, the 19 year old responsible for protecting both them and $10,000. I looked back at him through the mirrored aviators that I’d bought at a gas station for 5 bucks because I thought it was very very funny and good fake cop cosplay. My walkie hissed ominously.

“…Uh, so if someone tries to take the money, what are you going to do?” He asked.

“Well, I get paid 12 bucks an hour, so… nothing.” I responded. “How about you?”

We quickly arrived at an understanding.

Two of the guards from my training group got fired that summer for bringing in their own weapons, and at least one of them had both a butterfly knife and at least one shuruken. Many more dropped out as they discovered that they would not actually be doing Die Hard shit. As for me, I did literally nothing to prevent crime all summer, but I also halfheartedly cleared a path through the crowd at the front of a very sad “St. Patrick’s Day In July” parade, which made me enough of a success story that they actually called me unprompted to ask if I’d come back the next year… with one caveat.

See, the next year I returned as a weathered veteran with a spotless disciplinary record, so they gave me three hours of additional training to get a certification to become a peace officer. As a result, from ages 20-23 (when my license expired) I had the same legal powers of arrest as a police officer.

Me. They just gave me that.

In conclusion, if you’re a highly qualified team of heistmen looking to rob an entity that accumulates wealth by convincing drunk desperate people to give them their money and you pick a fucking casino when the racetrack is right there, you’re either thinking way too inside the box… or you have a healthy fear of shurukens I guess.

[rohirric-hunter]

Only valid response to this post, everyone else can go home.

[teaboot]

I hate that thing some people do where it's like. "I left my wallet on the table to see if you'd say anything" or "I wanted to see if you'd wash the car if I stopped doing it"

Cause like

I dont know about anyone else

But I am perpetually hovering three inches above the strong subconscious belief that everyone knows what they're doing at all times except me, so if you change your normal patterns and I notice, then I will assume it is an intentional choice with a thought-out plan behind it and I will avoid interfering

And if I don't notice, because I won't, because why would I, because not much bothers me and if you don't say anything to indicate you are bothered then how would I KNOW

[teaboot]

Alternatives to experimenting on me like a lab rat when you suspect me of being inconsiderate:

"I feel like I'm the only one who does this chore. Can we start taking turns?"

"I'd like you to ask me how I'm doing more often."

"It bothers me when this area stays messy so long. Can you do X when Y happens?"

"I feel like the onus is on me to initiate X, and it's wearing me down. Could you try making the first move more? Like 3-4 times a week?"

"I'm feeling upset right now and I'd like to spend some time with you."

"When X happens, I feel like you're taking my work for granted."

"I'm feeling neglected. Could you do X?"

"I'm burnt out and need help."

"I feel like I'm the only one putting effort into X."

"Do you notice this?"

"Are you bothered by this?"

"I am bothered when this happens."

"X habit of yours bothers me."

"When X is like this, I feel bad. Can you [action] when you notice X?"

[hug-your-face]

[escuerzoresucitado]

[misanthropemom]

Masterclass in darning

[alexaloraetheris]

This is quantum physics in theory (incomprehensible unless you're a hardore math simp) but in practice it is Black Magic (you have to sell your soul and sabity in order to perform it).

[otto-von-stirlitz]

btw @ everyone who can't wrap their heads around this, here's a longer video going into more detail about prepping the damaged area and mending/darning technique with actual explanations!

[sarahthecoat]

rb with this more detailed method which will make a more lasting mend.

[ruinedchildhood]

[stream]

[niuniente]

Also

sflix.to (movies, TV series, also rare international movies)

hianime.to (anime only)

kissanimes.et (anime)

kimcartoon.com.co (cartoon series and movies)

www.iq.com (Asian dramas)

[ineffablecho]

Netflix has gotten way too greedy.

[ruinedchildhood]

[myfandomrealitea]

"Why can't the freaks on AO3 just go and make a site for all the gross stuff and leave AO3 alone."

Because AO3 is that site. Because AO3 was that site long before you decided AO3 was better than the sites you bullied us off of before, and I can promise you if someone somehow comes up with a fanfic site you like better specifically for the 'gross stuff' you'll try to bully us off that too so you can benefit from it.

AO3's specific core purpose is to preserve fanfiction, yes, but it was also instigated as a host site for the fanfiction that kept getting yeeted off other platforms like Wattpad. Its designed to preserve all fanfiction, not just the fanfiction you, personally, think is 'allowed' to be written.

AO3 is the site for all the gross stuff the freaks make. We've been there just as long as you. We've been funding it just as long as you have. AO3 has specifically said you have a place here. The timeline was literally:

Wattpad/FF.net/LiveJournal purge fanfics > AO3 is born > The people who's fics got purged moved over to AO3 > AO3 gains popularity as the best functioning site > The people who pushed for the fics to be purged off Wattpad move to AO3 > The same people try to push for AO3 to purge fics.

AO3's source coding is open-access. You go make a polished, strict, rigid site where nothing 'icky' is allowed. You go make a site where you can control what is hosted. We already have our space.

[octopuscato]

[elfwreck]

AO3 was specifically made for the stuff likely to be purged from other sites.

It was built around "we need to own the servers" so we wouldn't have to deal with anyone else's judgment calls about what was acceptable in fanfic: Not corporate sponsors, not evangelical religious groups, not "save the children" activists... and not other fans who think that The Gross Stuff should be banned from public view, only shared via private email after you've sent in a request heavily laden with special keywords.

Some of the founders remembered when slash fanfic was kept under the table at the dealer's room, distributed with brown paper wrappers only to people who knew to ask for it specifically.

And they said: Fuck that. Our art is not a crime and we're not going to be ashamed of it. If you are ashamed to have your art next to it - there's a whole wide internet that's ready to host your G-rated genfic.

AO3 was built for the stuff that was unwelcome elsewhere.

[darkshrimpemotions]

Don't make me tap the sign but this is the sign: