Useful Archive

✨ an archive for useful thing and things worth remembering ✨

[bk-poetry]

Announcing Fanfiction.lol !

hey all! i've built a new ao3 fork called fanfiction.lol 🤙🏽 key differences:

🚫 no invite queue: sign up and start posting immediately. no waiting, no velvet rope.

🏳️‍🌈 expanded content warnings: added ableism, homophobia/transphobia, racism, rpf and more. plus relationship tags for aro/ace spectrum, qpr, non-binary/genderqueer focus, poly/ensemble, and more.

🏷️ all tags are canonical: everything you tag goes into the searchable record. no volunteer wrangling bottleneck.

💜 fandom-agnostic moderation: i care about the writing, not fandom politics or discourse. write whatever you want, tag it honestly.

it's a small personal project but fan communities deserve independent infrastructure.

if you enjoy fandom, i'd love for you to sign up and poke around. tell me what breaks. the source code is at source.tube/brennan/fanfiction.lol.

find me at brennan.day/accounts or email [email protected].

write whatever the hell you want! 💜

[bk-poetry]

More Information

Hi, I wanted to add some more info about fanfic.lol based on some replies. I was trying to keep the original post short and have done write-ups elsewhere but I'll reiterate here.

The admin/webmaster: I'm Brennan! I'm a Queer Red River Métis writer and webdev and huge advocate for the IndieWeb. You can get to know to me on my site, brennan.day

I made this for fun, and it's running using a homelab server in my basement. I don't make money or anything else. I'm just doing it for the love of ball.

fanfic.lol is meant to be a small, independent alternative for fanfic and fandom that prioritizes joy and fun. No aims at trying to replace AO3!

I am anti-genAI and so is the site. You can read more about my stance on AI here.

Archive warnings, like everything else, are under construction! I do have to adhere to the laws of my country (Canada). Please be patient.

I am pushing straight to production, which is to say the entire site could explode at anytime, so please do not use it as the only place you put things! :)

I forsee only a handful of people using this site, it def isn't for everyone. If you don't like it that's okay! Whether you want to give me input or just ignore it entirely.

I did a longer write-up here. Thank you everyone for the kind, warm reception of my silly little project. <3

[olderthannetfic]

I love the longer write-up. It gives me a much better sense of where you're coming from and why people should trust you—or which users would be a good fit.

I was there for the start of AO3, and we really did think we were going to usher in the next age of archives a la eFiction. It took too long for AO3's code to be in that kind of shape and the internet changed radically around us. We did not mean to create a behemoth. We just wanted venture capital bros to stop disrespecting us.

As a side note, all the comments you're getting like "There already is a fanfiction website. Wtf" are exactly what people said about AO3/OTW in 2007. There was a ton of bitching about us stealing FFN's idea. (Never mind that there were older archives.) There were frequent complaints about how there was already "an archive" and we didn't need another. Most of that discussion got deleted when FFN decided to nuke all of its inactive social spaces one Thanksgiving weekend while nobody was around to object or save their data. But I was there and I remember it and it sounded exactly like these comments now.

The oldschool core of AO3 was into the age of archives. We liked there being lots of different little spaces run by different fans. It's nice to see that energy floating around in 2026. Go indieweb!

I wish you a hundred invested users who want to form a community and nobody else.

[bk-poetry]

Announcing Fanfiction.lol !

hey all! i've built a new ao3 fork called fanfiction.lol 🤙🏽 key differences:

🚫 no invite queue: sign up and start posting immediately. no waiting, no velvet rope.

🏳️‍🌈 expanded content warnings: added ableism, homophobia/transphobia, racism, rpf and more. plus relationship tags for aro/ace spectrum, qpr, non-binary/genderqueer focus, poly/ensemble, and more.

🏷️ all tags are canonical: everything you tag goes into the searchable record. no volunteer wrangling bottleneck.

💜 fandom-agnostic moderation: i care about the writing, not fandom politics or discourse. write whatever you want, tag it honestly.

it's a small personal project but fan communities deserve independent infrastructure.

if you enjoy fandom, i'd love for you to sign up and poke around. tell me what breaks. the source code is at source.tube/brennan/fanfiction.lol.

find me at brennan.day/accounts or email [email protected].

write whatever the hell you want! 💜

[bk-poetry]

More Information

Hi, I wanted to add some more info about fanfic.lol based on some replies. I was trying to keep the original post short and have done write-ups elsewhere but I'll reiterate here.

The admin/webmaster: I'm Brennan! I'm a Queer Red River Métis writer and webdev and huge advocate for the IndieWeb. You can get to know to me on my site, brennan.day

I made this for fun, and it's running using a homelab server in my basement. I don't make money or anything else. I'm just doing it for the love of ball.

fanfic.lol is meant to be a small, independent alternative for fanfic and fandom that prioritizes joy and fun. No aims at trying to replace AO3!

I am anti-genAI and so is the site. You can read more about my stance on AI here.

Archive warnings, like everything else, are under construction! I do have to adhere to the laws of my country (Canada). Please be patient.

I am pushing straight to production, which is to say the entire site could explode at anytime, so please do not use it as the only place you put things! :)

I forsee only a handful of people using this site, it def isn't for everyone. If you don't like it that's okay! Whether you want to give me input or just ignore it entirely.

I did a longer write-up here. Thank you everyone for the kind, warm reception of my silly little project. <3

[olderthannetfic]

I love the longer write-up. It gives me a much better sense of where you're coming from and why people should trust you—or which users would be a good fit.

I was there for the start of AO3, and we really did think we were going to usher in the next age of archives a la eFiction. It took too long for AO3's code to be in that kind of shape and the internet changed radically around us. We did not mean to create a behemoth. We just wanted venture capital bros to stop disrespecting us.

As a side note, all the comments you're getting like "There already is a fanfiction website. Wtf" are exactly what people said about AO3/OTW in 2007. There was a ton of bitching about us stealing FFN's idea. (Never mind that there were older archives.) There were frequent complaints about how there was already "an archive" and we didn't need another. Most of that discussion got deleted when FFN decided to nuke all of its inactive social spaces one Thanksgiving weekend while nobody was around to object or save their data. But I was there and I remember it and it sounded exactly like these comments now.

The oldschool core of AO3 was into the age of archives. We liked there being lots of different little spaces run by different fans. It's nice to see that energy floating around in 2026. Go indieweb!

I wish you a hundred invested users who want to form a community and nobody else.

[thevulturesquadron]

text: [ “Some of you have forgotten that only three years ago you were perfectly capable of writing an essay, writing a eulogy, telling a bedtime story to a child, and it should worry you that powerful companies have convinced us we can’t do things we’ve been doing for 5000 years.” ]

[tieflingkisser]

[twiststreet]

She got the idea for the study while walking with her advisor at Stanford to discuss her thesis topic, and the paper she eventually published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology in 2014 is sharp enough that it should have ended the seated meeting on the day it came out.

She ran 4 experiments on 176 people. Same person tested twice. Once sitting, once walking. The creativity tasks were the standard ones psychologists have used for decades to measure how good a brain is at generating novel useful ideas.

81% of participants in the first experiment produced more creative ideas while walking than while sitting. In the second experiment, 88%. In the third, 100%. Every single person walked into a more creative version of themselves. On average, people generated 60% more novel useful ideas the moment their legs started moving.

The skeptical question is the obvious one. Maybe it was the fresh air. Maybe it was the scenery passing by. Maybe it was the change of environment doing the work, not the walking itself.

Oppezzo killed every one of those explanations with one experimental decision. She put people on a treadmill facing a blank wall. No scenery. No fresh air. No environmental change. Just legs moving in place while staring at white drywall. The 60% boost held.

Then she ran the experiment that closed the case completely. She took participants outside in two conditions. Half of them walked through a Stanford courtyard. The other half were pushed through the exact same courtyard in a wheelchair. Same outdoor stimulation. Same scenery passing at the same speed. The only difference was whether the legs were moving.

The walkers produced dramatically more novel high-quality ideas than the wheelchair group. The outdoors did almost nothing on its own. The walking did everything.

She also tested the opposite kind of thinking. Convergent thinking. The kind where there is one right answer and you have to narrow down to it. Word puzzles where 3 words share a hidden fourth word that connects them. The seated participants did slightly better on these. Walkers got slightly worse.

Walking is not a general intelligence enhancer. It does one specific thing. It opens up the divergent search inside your brain. The part that generates options. The part that produces unexpected connections. The part that takes a problem and finds five ways into it instead of one.

When you need to converge on the single right answer, sit down. When you need to find the answer in the first place, get up.

The mechanism is now well understood. Walking selectively activates what neuroscientists call the default mode network, the system inside your brain that runs when you are not consciously focused on anything. The DMN is where mind-wandering happens. Where memories cross-reference each other. Where ideas that have been sitting in separate folders inside your head finally bump into each other.

When you sit at a desk and force yourself to concentrate, you suppress the DMN. When you walk at a natural pace, the executive part of your brain gets just busy enough handling the walking that the DMN comes online and starts doing the work that focus was blocking.

The most useful finding in the entire paper is the one almost nobody quotes. The boost did not turn off the moment people stopped walking. Participants who walked first and then sat back down stayed elevated. Their next round of seated creativity work was still significantly better than people who had been sitting the whole time. The rest lingered for at least several minutes after the legs stopped moving.

You do not need to do creative work while walking. You need to walk before the creative work. The brain holds the state.

Edited down a long tweet. (x)

[kiiraes]

gonna post my entire stickman reaction pic collection

[kiiraes]

[kiiraes]

[kiiraes]

[kiiraes]

[kiiraes]

[kiiraes]

[kiiraes]

[kiiraes]

[musubiarte]

The other day I was surfing the internet and I found this specialized painting colour wheel, it shows how real paint colours relate to each other. 

Outside: the purest/brightest colours.

Inside: naturally muted or earthy colors, like browns and ochres.

The Center: dark neutral tones used for mixing shadows.

The Lines: the lines connect colors that are opposites, if you mix them you neutralize the tone creating clean grays or browns instead of muddy puddles.

I want to share this with you because I think it is really illustrative!

Reference: “Quiller Wheel” by Stephen Quiller

[maykitz]

can anyone tell me the watch order for every movie ever so i can understand all references and homages

[caucasianbuttslut]

@dionrevel PLEASE share the link.

[dionrevel]

Lol sure!!

For movies, here is the beginner's list:

Modern Civilization Essentials

Beginner's guide for getting in the loop.

And the more advanced list:

Full In the Loop

Advanced guide to getting in the loop. Supplementary to "Civilization Essentials." If a movie is on this list, then it has one of these: -Po

Not all these movies are necessarily good, but the ones that gave me small pop culture epiphanies. It made me realize that 30%-40% of the jokes from modern sitcoms are references/parodies- and these movies are their source material.

^^ This is also true for socializing. So many people I thought were naturally funny were just doing movie bits.

[I actually do have a job, I am just a big fan of lists and graphs and flow charts etc.]

[rederiswrites]

There really really ought to be a book about how the staple crops of different civilizations shape and influence those civilizations, and I really want to read it.

[alexseanchai]

Salt: A World History by Mark Kurlansky and A History of the World in 6 Glasses by Tom Standage (three are alcohol, three have caffeine) are not quite that, but may still be of interest?

[rederiswrites]

I read Salt back in the day and it's so so good, second the rec. I have heard of 6 Glasses and not read it but I am sure I would probably love it. Gotta see if the library has it. Thank you!

[pandorasquillandquotes]

Gonna throw Empire of Cotton by Sven Beckert in the ring here! You'll never see the modern world the same way again.

[vaspider]

A Short History Of The World According To Sheep by Sally Coulthard blew my mind. So many things are tied to wool and sheep and weaving and so many words and phrases are tied to wool, people have no idea.

Example words which come from textiles/weaving, if not specifically wool (go look them up!): subtle, shoddy, tabby, Brazil, rocket, twit, warped, going batty, on tenterhooks, text...

[foxofninetales]

I'll throw in a rec for Pickled, Potted, and Canned by Sue Shephard - a very interesting look at food preservation and how the availability of different types of food preservation shaped cultures and cuisines.

[electronsprotonscroutons]

Sweetness and Power is this but for the topic of sugar

[magneticdeclination]

The Lost Supper: Searching for the Future of Food in the Flavors of the Past might also be up your alley. It's about "forgotten" foods and staples. They talk about different types of wheat, sauces, veggies, etc and a little about the cultures from whence they come

[doctornerdington]

Also: Much Depends on Dinner by Margaret Visser. One of my favourite books.

[bitchwhoyoukiddin]

DO I HAVE A SERIES FOR YOU. University of California Press has a gift for you and it is a 80+ book series on food studies. There are even some that are open access (legally free), but the rest are in libraries.

I also highly recommend Frostbite by Nicola Twilley. It’s about the impact refrigeration has had/is having on food preservation and culture, globally. It was one of my favorite books of this last year.

[calystarose]

Also, The Rice Theory of Culture https://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1172&amp;context=orpc By Thomas Talhelm

[pcos-and-endo-awareness]

If you haven’t heard, today PolyCystic Ovarian Syndrome has been renamed to Polyendocrine Metabolic Ovarian Syndrome. This change reflects that this is not a reproductive “problem” but a whole body disease.

[leahstuff]

For reference, from the WHO website:

(Text: PCOS affects an estimated 10-13% of reproductive-aged women. It is estimated that up to 70% of women with PCOS worldwide do not know they have this condition.)

[laziestgirlintown]

The Lancet link about shift to PMOS. Spread this to everyone who works in health care now. People with uteruses and ovaries are in agony - yes, the whole body suffers a crisis every fkn month - and health care should help

[probablysomethingtm]

Lmao we have to fucking destroy this company are you fucking kidding me with this shit

Google Search as you know it is over | TechCrunch

Google is transforming Search from a list of links into an AI-powered experience filled with conversational answers, autonomous agents, and

[afusionoffandoms]

Reminding everyone that this exists, and you can make it your default search engine (as explained here)

[hellenhighwater]

We can't find an appropriately sized PT boot for Mayhem (she's teeny) so I have resorted to vet-approved crafting to encourage her to put her foot down the right way. Boots with the fur

She's adjusting.

[animentality]

[stahsm]

Overlock Stitch by @clothes_reetzy

[sometiktoksarevalid]

[okayyoureacab]

Hexagon Quilt

[zooarchaeologyatdinner]

Saw a parent pull the most beautiful bait-and-switch ever today.

So kiddo is, at most, a year old. Walking and exploring the world, but no verbal language yet. Kiddo's first trip to a museum and they've blatantly been having a *blast*. There's been exploring, there's been encountering new things, there's been lots of Get The Attention Of The Interpreter And Point At A Thing And Watch The Interp Say Words About It Then Find A New Thing And Do Again. Anyways, kiddo's having a good time, interps are having a good time, parent is splitting their attention between kiddo and older kid.

And now it's time to go home. But! Kiddo has just discovered An Object. It has Textures. And some of it is See Through. And it moves but sometimes it doesn't. Kiddo is enraptured.

So I watch parent look at the situation and realize kiddo will have an absolute meltdown if removed from The Object. Parent looks around and oh, hey, pile of notecards for people to decorate and add to the community board. Score! Snags one, holds it out to kiddo, says "👀 oooh!! What's this?!!" Kiddo whips around, sees the obviously fascinating thing, and grabs. Parent says "Uppies time!" And kiddo is up, in the stroller, and out the door before they've even progressed to putting the notecard in their mouth.

10/10 excellent parenting. Please come back again.