You don’t pass or fail at being a person, dear.
Neil Gaiman, The Ocean at the End of the Lane (via thequotejournals)
Tag: important
concept: casual lgbt+ representation
a man taking off his shirt to reveal a binder underneath. he settles down, has a beer, watches tv. no tragic backstory about his transition, no negativity. just a trans dude being a trans dude.
a businesswoman talking on her cellphone while she stops by the pharmacy to pick up her estrogen.
people asking for pronouns without a second thought, using they/them even when the person isn’t in the room.
a woman getting hit on at a club, getting respectful responses when she says she’s ace.
two men holding hands, three women in a healthy polyamorous relationship. a pan man living with his nonbinary datefriend.
romcoms, sitcoms, slice-of-life stories.
not everyone is cishet; media should represent that.
It seems that brutality leveled against black women in private and in public rarely inspires the same outrage and organized resistance that the deaths of black men do. One theory is that violence against black men is viewed as a public facing issue, while state and interpersonal violence against black women is often inaccurately seen as a private or localized community issue. The lackluster response social movements have to intimate partner violence, which is often state sanctioned and the number one killer of black women ages 15-34, makes clear that battles we thought were already fought—“the personal is political”—have not been won. It is difficult to classify the disparity as anything other than misogyny.
dont be rude to people who choose to finish school before they get a job
dont be rude to people who choose to quit school in order to get a job
not everyone is capable to handle both at the same time
dont give me your shitty life story of “well i work 100000 hours and i STILL manage to find time for my homework. if i can do it u can do it too” like literally shut the fuck up no one cares and no not everyone can.
*whispers* bottom and sub are not interchangeable. They do not mean the same thing.
*weeps quietly* You can be a top sub or a bottom Dom. You can be a Dom or sub switch. You can be a Dom or sub that does not partake in penetrative sex.
*rubs temples soothingly* Whether you enjoy stuff up your butt has no bearing on your demeanor or other preferences in sexual situations.
Regulus Black did not die so that you could automatically sort every villain into Slytherin
**this is extremely important**
things to normalise
Positive parts of 2016
elphabaforpresidentofgallifrey:
– the rise of old friends senior dog sanctuary
– Hamilton
– pokemon go
– female ghostbusters
– i don’t give a fuck im outta here Obama
– captain america civil war
– girl, black guy and latino guy leads in new star wars
– deadpool
– lemonade
– literally???! Nothing??? Else????WELL ACTUALLY SINCE YOU ASKED:
– 500 elephants were relocated to a better, safer and bigger home.
– We made massive strides in Alzheimers’ prevention.
– This therapy could cure radiation sickness.
– The Anglican church resolved to solemnize same-sex unions the same as opposite-sex unions, which required a super-majority of all three orders of the church (lay, clergy, bishop) and got MORE than that from both lay and bishop.
– The Liberal gov’t changed the Canada Child Benefit so that it’s actually helping people who NEED THE FUCKING HELP. (I am sorry if you are a six figure income you do not actually fucking need this make some fucking lifestyle adjustments for fuck’s sake.)
– Highway of Tears is finally getting some regular fucking bus service.
– Eastwood donated a bunch more land to the Carmel River restoration project.
– We have developed gene-therapy for autoimmune disorders.
– Precision treatments for cancer are hitting clinical trials and WORKING.
– Dentists are once again providing free care to veterans who need it.
– Canada is actively attempting to increase and improve refugee resettlement.
– This guy got to see his kids again.
– Net Neutrality has been upheld by the appeals court. (No that fight isn’t over BUT THIS IS STILL A FUCK OF A GOOD THING.)
– We may have cured MS. (LET ME REPEAT: WE MAY HAVE CURED MS.)
– New short-treatment-period cure for HepC is huge success.
– Rise Women’s Legal Centre opened.
… . and this is just what I came up with in a pretty lazy google search in an hour, including distractions where I went down the research rabbit-hole for a bit because holy crap some of that stuff’s NEAT, guys!
And I know I’m missing stuff, because I wanted a citation for every single thing I put on there.
Yes, there have been some really bad things that have happened in 2016. There have also been a number of huge fucking miracles, and SIMILAR bad things have always happened, just about every damn year – maybe not to you, or maybe they didn’t make the news, and maybe you just don’t remember any of the good because of that whole massive Negative Bias problem that human brains have, but?
A lot of good shit happened. A lot.
And like I do actually get the sudden overwhelmed feeling of EVERYTHING SUCKS? but that mindset is, at this point, literally our worst enemy. “Everything is terrible somebody do something” helplessness is what will in fact consign us to everything BEING terrible.
Everything is not terrible. In fact there are new ways, every single month, wherein new opportunities and miracles are happening and no that does not balance out the bad shit but it gives every reason to FIGHT the bad shit, and to get past the bad shit, and to make sure the bad shit ISN’T the overwhelming stain.
So.
AO3 is for all kinds of fanfic
And other fanworks, for that matter, but let’s talk about fic: When AO3 was proposed, it was in response to Strikethrough and other similar events. Livejournal deleted a lot of accounts without bothering to distinguish between actual pedophiles, survivor support groups, and 100% consensual fantasy fandom activities being done by adults with other adults (most of which involved RP accounts for 16-year-old Harry Potter characters anyway).
I helped write the first AO3 Terms of Service and set up the Abuse committee. AO3 was always intended to be welcoming to all kinds of fic, no matter how dirty, sick, socially unacceptable, bizarre, or out of fashion. During those initial TOS talks, we specifically discussed grotesque RPF snuff porn as the test case for something all of us on the committee found distasteful but would nonetheless defend because, by defending it, we created a space where all of our own favorite things were protected too.
Policing fic content is a slippery slope. Even if you only police the “worst” stuff, you create an environment where the more sensitive authors and no few of the ones “shipping to cope” are no longer comfortable posting at all. Attacking people for posting fic about rape/abuse/etc. is demanding that all survivors disclose. No amount of whining and backtracking will change this fact. It is a disgusting behavior that drives people from your fandoms and creates needless misery while adding nothing of value to the community.
If you want to kick certain kinds of content off of AO3, you do not belong on AO3 in the first place.
o/
Emphatically seconded. And I’d add, also quit tag policing and telling people that they “should” be tagging for things. Choose Not To Warn is a completely valid choice, that’s why it is THERE, and if someone chooses No Archive Warnings Apply that means only that none of the FOUR main archive warnings apply and does not guarantee you a story free from all possible warnings anyone might ever have imagined.
AO3 creators are not obligated or even encouraged to use exhaustive tags. The tagging system is just one of the tools the archive has to help creators provide information they are comfortable providing, and to help fans find works they might want to check out based on whatever info the respective creators provide, and all AO3 users are welcome to use it in whatever way works best for them. There is not one right way to do it.
Absolutely.
Xiuhtezcatl Martinez on The Nightly Show, July 7, 2016
shealwaysreads 