Okokok Chinese-born person here. Growing up, 1989 was just *not* something you talked about in the country. It’s just not. (my parents were okay talking about it when we were no longer in China) I have a feeling that people who talked about it will get monitored as fuck and maybe disappear.
Now, imagine, decades later, and the same young people are evoking that sense of rebellion against a tyrannical and current government, the same spirit of their predecessors of the sit in. But they can’t talk about it or celebrate it. Then, all of a sudden, T-Swift comes with her “1989” emblazoned merch. People by the fuck out of it because she’s a pretty, successful, American, pop/country singer.
All of a sudden, 1989 can’t be solely associated woth rebellion anymore. And instead of going like “fuck I want to talk about 1989 but not get arrested”, youth get T-Swift merch (maybe even the knock-off) ones. And when people come asking, they go “what rebellion? we just really like T-Swift. don’t you?”
Let’s turn T-Swift into a secret symbol of subversion.
WOW AMAZING, NOW DELETING THE ARTIST’S/ORIGINAL POSTERS CAPTION IS LIKE 10000000000% EASIER! WAY 2 GO TUMBLR, YOU HEAP OF SHIT. YOU’RE REALLY LOOKIN’ OUT FOR US, HUH.
If you’re asking yourself if it’s weird to comment on a fic that has been up for years, that hasn’t been touched in ages, that was posted long before you were even in a fandom or even if you think the writer isn’t around or doesn’t care–
The writer cares. Leave the comment. You are the best person alive in that moment just because you have something to say. Even if they don’t hit you back for a while, even if they don’t EVER respond, it is NOT weird to comment on that fic. Fire away.
I love comments and usually write way to much in response out of sheer fucking gratitude. Like a person who hasn’t spoken to another adult in years, hobbling around, offering them stale cookies and talking way too much.
Someone recently said to me ‘you know you don’t have to reply to every comment’ and I was like ‘NO BUT YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND.’ I feel all of this so hard.
There is no expiration date on reading or liking a thing, much less letting the author know it.
Deliberate omission of grammar to show e.g. defeatedness, bewilderment, fury. As seen in Tumblr’s ‘what is this I don’t even’.
‘Because [noun]’. As in ‘we couldn’t have our picnic in the meadow because wasps.’
Use of kerning to indicate strong bewilderment, i.e. double-spaced letters usually denoting ‘what is happening?’ This one is really interesting because it doesn’t really translate well to speech. It’s something people have come up with that uses the medium of text over the internet as a new way of communicating instead of just a transcript of speech or a quicker way to send postal letters.
Just the general playing around with sentence structure and still being able to be understood. One of my favourites of these is the ‘subject: *verbs* / object: *is verb*’ couplet, as in:
Beekeeper: *keeps bees* Bees: *is keep*
or
Me: *holds puppy* Puppy: *is hold*
I just love how this all develops organically with no deciding body, and how we all understand and adapt to it.
Is your latte too hot? Mine was this morning. I was at the bustling Oasis shopping center in Kampala, Uganda, and I took one sip and then spilt it all over me. You know who else has these problems? The local Ugandans that frequent this shop, and make up the majority of it’s clientele.
As Africa stabilizes across the continent, Westerners forget that average daily problems in Europe or North America are not that far off from that of the African middle class. Our smart phones sometimes freeze up. That’s annoying. The DJ is playing shit, so we leave the club.
Which is not to say that there aren’t problems. It’s not to pretend that all of Kampala or Nairobi or Kigali is a paradise of African wealth where the biggest problem is a warm beer. There is real, stark, damaging poverty here. But there is similar poverty in Clichy Sous Bois in Paris. There is similar poverty in Brooklyn. In Chicago. The outskirts of Amsterdam.
The idea that an African can’t have similar issues to those living in London is a mistake. It is a mistake rooted in the idea that Europe is somehow superior or has vast amounts of wealth. In reality, the East African GDP has been steadily on the rise for years, whereas the economic outlook in both North America and Europe have been steadily declining. Angola just gave a loan to their former colonialists, Portugal. Our cities now have thumping clubs, eclectic cuisine and most of these places are owned and invested in by locals.
Stop feeling bad for Africa. It doesn’t need your pity.
If you want to do something to help those who survive on very little, try investing in it. Instead of buying Tom’s shoes which give away free shoes (and therefore remove jobs from hardworking Africans making shoes) invest in Sole Rebels. A woman-owned Ethiopian based shoe company that pays their workers a livable wage.
Tonight I am going with Ugandan friends and some expats to watch the Poland vs. England match, live on DSTV at my local pub. I will eat grilled tilapia and drink some beer. This is not an extraordinary life here. This is the new Kampala average. This continent is far from perfect. Uganda is far from perfect. But it is getting there, and if you think for one minute Africans do not experience massages, cupcake shops, foam on our coffee, car trouble, banking woes and hangovers after too much fun, you are dead wrong.
It’s not all flies on babies. Welcome to the real Africa.
Please please please be safe, there is an amoeba in the drinking and tap water, which is highly dangerous.
It’s around St. Bernard Parish, Jefferson (where my boyfriend lives) and all of the Parishes around.
If you want to drink or bathe in the water it’s recommended that you RUN THE TAP FOR 5 MINUTES to clear the pipes, then BOIL FOR 1-2 minutes which will make the water safe. Please DO NOT fill pools with hose water! DO NOT touch the water before its boiled! DO NOT allow any water to go up into your nose! If it goes up your nose within two days and you start feeling symptoms get to the hospital right away! The amoeba infects you through the nose so please be careful!
SYMPTOMS:
“Initial symptoms, which start within the first week of infection, include headache, fever, nausea, vomiting, and stiff neck. Later symptoms include confusion, loss of balance, seizures, and hallucinations. Death typically occurs within 12 days.”
Again, everyone in Louisiana be safe, watch the News to find out when your area is safe and clear!
****SIGNAL BOOST****
Got a couple friends I know are in that state, but for them and all of you, be safe, k?
This is happening up north here in Minnesota too so BOOST
ALSO, if you weren’t already aware, NEVER EVER do Neti pot with tap water. That’s how someone in Louisiana got a scary-ass brain-eating bacteria a few years ago.
I feel like the Leverage fandom is a secret, underground organization. You don’t know it, but we are actually everywhere. Just waiting for a turn of phrase or a little wink wink, nod nod in the right direction. We drop little lines that you wouldn’t even know we’re quotes. But they are. And we all know it. We are a small community and if you post something about our team, we will all eventually see it. When you discover Leverage for the first time and start posting about it, other fans come out of the woodwork and you realize all these people you’ve known for so long are actually fans of it, too.
It’s a perfect little show that lasted 5 years on the small screen but will last forever in our hearts. They hooked us with the long con. We fell in love with Nate’s hats and Sophie’s acting. Eliot’s flying tackles. Parker’s quirks and Hardison’s sass. We found the people we belong with. We found a family. We all changed together and made a very distinctive fandom. And whenever we meet someone who doesn’t understand our references but we know will enjoy the show, well then:
I feel like if/when Hardison and Parker have kids, they’ll all wind up being Super-Skrulls. They’ll be grifters, thieves, hackers, hitters, and masterminds all rolled up, because they’ll learn from their parents. I mean, we’ve already seen Eliot, Parker, and Hardison teach kids how to do what they do. And considering how famous Eliot, Parker, and Hardison are in the criminal world, those kids’ll be legends before they even start committing crimes.
But they’ll also have morals. They won’t be like season 1 EPH, they’ll be season 5. They will care so much about everyone and be willing to fight as dirty as they need to protect them. Whoever gets in their way will be destroyed so severely they won’t even think about getting back up. Maybe they’ll even give people chances. They’ll see a look in someone and think of Uncle Eliot, who they know has done terrible things but they only know him as their favorite uncle (sorry Nate). The guy who cooks Thanksgiving dinner, who tells funny jokes, and always snuck them extra sweets.
Or maybe they’ll see someone tense up the way their mom does if someone she doesn’t know well touches her. She’s never told them about it, but they know something bad happened to her as a kid. They know that’s why she still hesitates a bit when she tells them that she loves them, and why, despite that, she makes sure they know it’s true.
They’ll see those things and think maybe we can help. And they do.
Don’t tell your daughter that when a boy is mean or rude to her it’s because he has a crush on her. Don’t teach her that abuse is a sign of love.
My mom always taught me yell or fight back. Boys would be mean and I would yell back. I would get my ass pinched and I would smack them as hard as I could.
Who alway got in trouble? Me.
They would call my mother and she always came in and lectures my teachers and threatened to sue for making her miss work and treating me poorly.
She always taught my brothers to respect women. The only fights my brothers ever got in was defending women from someone else.
The school tried to call my father once instead of my mother on us. He came in in his full preacher outfit (being a preacher and all) and gave them an entire sermon on what would Jesus day of he was called in. They decided dealing with my mom was better.
I think my favorite story of this is when some kid snapped my bra and I turned around, didn’t even think about it, and punched that little motherfucker right in the nose.
So naturally, I end up in the principal’s office, refusing to apologize.
“He shouldn’t have put his hands on me and I wouldn’t have hit him!” That’s the only thing I was saying.
These people had the unfortunate luck of catching my dad at home, instead of my mom. So he comes fucking sauntering in there, like he’s Clint fucking Eastwood in some western movie and looks at me.
“Melissa, did you punch him?”
“Yes.” I said.
“Why?”
“Because he snapped my bra strap.”
And he turns his squinty eyed glare to the principal and says, “You’re telling me my daughter is in trouble because that squirrely looking kid put his hands on her and she chose to defend herself? That’s what you are saying to me.”
“Well, sir-” The man kind of stuttered because my dad is kind of intimidating in the quiet sort of way that kind of whispers in the back of your mind that this person could be dangerous. “Melissa did make it physical.”
“No. That kid put his hands on my daughter. Are you saying my daughter cannot defend herself when some boy decides to put hands on her? Is that what you are teaching my girl?”
SO INSTEAD OF TELLING YOU WHO TO VOTE FOR, I’M GOING TO TELL YOU HOW TO VOTE BECAUSE NOBODY EVER SEEMS TO DO THAT.
Remember that the 2016 presidential election does not just take place in 2016. The primaries are just as important because they decide who gets to run for president in the national election in November.
i love that charles dickens got paid by the word. like i cant even be mad when he’s boring and long-winded bc i would do xactly the same??? i wouldnt use contractions or colours at all. want to say the word red? too bad. we r now only using “the colour of freshly-spilled blood on snow; the hue of the horizon when the sun sets over the deserts of sub-saharan Africa” BOOM guess who can afford 2 eat now: me and my boi dickens
What I love about Alexandre Dumas, in contrast, is he got paid by the line. So it’s not really wordy, it more like 80% dialogue which makes it sound pretty modern but also ends up like-
Do you mean doctors who spent years learning about abled white cis men’s bodies
do you know anything about the world besides what you read on tumblr
Okay but this is true?? Shut up with your bullshit, the medical industry for a very very long time has used the able bodied white cis male as their standard and that has very real healthcare consequences for a lot of people.
Do you know why most women don’t know when they’re having heart attacks? Why heart attacks kill more women than men? Because symptoms of a heart attack are different for women and the ones that doctors usually recognize and publicize are the symptoms experienced by men. Do you know why it’s so difficult for Black and Brown people to get diagnosed if they have skin cancer? Because doctors have been taught to recognize it on white people. People of size are constantly told that their problems are entirely because of their weight and doctors don’t even bother to look beyond that to be sure that’s the case. So those people have medical conditions go undiagnosed properly for years, and die in the process. Fuck, even just the fact that people think it’s okay to charge women more for healthcare because “they have extra parts” (?????) is indicative of the way the male body has been considered the standard for fucking ever. And the healthcare needs of disabled people or trans people? Forget about it.
OP is 1000% right. The medical industry has used the able cis white male body as their standard of care for CENTURIES and that has real consequences for the rest of us today. It’s getting better but it’s not where it should be. So fuck off with your snarky commentary, you’re wrong. The healthcare industry is not equipped to handle the needs of people with disabilities, women, PoC, trans people, people of size, etc. and that’s in large part due to the fact that the established body of medical knowledge was created by studying able, cis, white male bodies almost exclusively.
Hey there folks, speaking as a trained EMT and a pre-med student, I can confirm that the above person is approximately 7000% accurate. In my EMT training, I would repeatedly ask ‘’but what if my patent is a woman” or “what is my patient is a person of color” and at first all I got was shock. Then I got confused bumbling. I got some answers–basic symptoms of a heart attack in women, how to recognize cyanosis in someone of color, the basics of how to work with an autistic patient or someone who for whatever reason can’t communicate well with you. In fact, EMTs and other EMS workers are getting a lot better at learning the differences between the health care for a person of color or someone disabled. We were even told that we would need to ask our patients for their biological sex (I know, I’m really sorry, I know that there are people who find this intensely uncomfortable or even harmful, but there are real medical reasons for this and most decent EMTs will use whatever pronouns you ask them to). But most if not all of the answers we were given about women were directly related to gynecological issues. The guys teaching me? They were good guys. Nice. Funny. Smart. Devoted to caring for patients. Impassioned about protecting people, especially women and teenaged girls, from assault. Largely not sexist toward me or their coworkers. Hell, they were even smart enough to say “listen, boys, the women in this class have a higher pain tolerance than you, they just do, and as a rule if a women says their pain is a 5 on a scale of 1-10, assume it’s somewhere around an 8” when a kid laughed during the gyno unit. But they just didn’t know what to say when I asked “so if you’re supposed to palpate the patient’s chest, what do you do if your patient’s a triple-D” or when I asked “so if your patient gets menstrual migraines, how do you know if this headache is a stroke or not.” They had never been taught. This is a real problem, one that many medical professionals work hard to remedy once they start practicing. But this is not bullshit. At all. The standard patient is a cis white guy with no disabilities or chronic illnesses. It’s a huge fucking problem and I’m going to need you to step down with your bullshit, there, friend.
Bernie Sanders is still trailing Hillary by 40 points. Do not get complacent. Do not take the above information as “well he’s polling well so everything’s okay!” he is still not projected to take the Democratic nom. so PLEASE keep spreading the word and keep supporting his campaign and get him into office
My mother had three pregnancies, and two children. She had a miscarriage, between my brother and I, in that four year span between our births, there was another pregnancy, another child desperately wanted, who didn’t live to term.
My mother had her pre-natal care, and her post-miscarriage care, at Planned Parenthood.
Because it was the best place for her. Because at the time, she had a two year old child and a bike and they were living just around that nice little sweet spot between ‘desperately poor’ and ‘almost have enough to consider a savings account.’ And when you are poor, and female, and need health services, Planned Parenthood is there.
And my mother walked past the protesters, walked past the people who screamed at her about not killing her baby, about how she was a whore, and she was going to hell. My mother, in mourning for a child that she had lost, blaming herself, hating herself for failing at this most feminine of things, walked through that, to care for herself, to get the medical care she needed. So that someday, two years later, she could have me.
I cannot speak to the courage that must have taken. But that path is walked by thousands of women. Every single day.
She donated to Planned Parenthood until her death. And she said to me, that the people who screamed at her saw her only as a vessel for a baby. They didn’t care about her, they didn’t care about her baby, either. They were pro-birth, not pro-life, because none of them would be there after her baby was born, to offer help and support and care.
The protesters didn’t care about her. And the medical professionals inside did. It is the right of every woman to have access to safe, affordable, quality health care, no matter where she comes from, what her income is, or what choices she makes with her life. And that is what these kind of bills are attempting to take away.
Ok Snape, Voldemort and Harry are the three brothers but do you realise that Dumbledore is Death ? He greeted Harry at King’s Cross and was the one behind Snape and Voldemort’s death.
*epic jaw drop*
old friend
Fuck man
He’s the one who gave Harry the invisibility cloak too
For fuck sake
And he had the stone and the wand too
HOW IS THIS BOOK SERIES STILL FUCKING ME UP. ITS BEEN YEARS. WHEN WILL I HAVE MY FREEDOM BACK JOANNE? WHEN????
Force kids in school to read crappy, overrated books that are “the best books ever written” solely because they’re “classics” and then call those kids idiots because those aren’t the kind of books they like to read and sit back and wonder why we have a nation full of multiple generations worth of people who willfully and proudly refuse to read.
hello
I read every day in elementary school. I ate books up like they were the best thing in the world. Then middle school happened and they forced me into reading the books they thought were more important. Some of which are jn my opinion some of the worst books I’ve ever had the misfortune of laying eyes upon. They completely ruimed my interest in reading and only after high school have I managed to start reading books again.
Oh, and don’t forget trying to cram as much meaning into those “classics” as possible. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
what are the worst classics?? in your opinion?
Honestly fuck the great gatsby
Lord of the flies. I get it you’re clever and white people are awful now learn to fucking write dialogue and create characters I give two shits about.
Most classics are the epitome of “makes u think” honestly
Fucking catcher in the rye
The Grapes of Wrath. I swear to Christ, I wanted to light that book on fire.
The whole idea of “just copy the notes from someone else” always kinda frightened me because personally I take notes in a shorthand language that makes sense to exactly no one except me. Like I’d feel awful for anyone who tried to copy my notes when they’re just
Story time, When i was in highschool i got in trouble a lot from people copying off me (Yeah love those school rules, someone else cheats without my consent and I get in trouble) so i started taking my notes in a mixture of french, english shorthand, and irish, all of which was written not with the latin alphabet, but the derrillian alphebet that i created in middle school for the language i was making. In short they were a fucking mess and only comprehensible to me. I’ll look later today after i get some sleep and see if i can find my old notebook
wicked
I wrote down my locker combination in binary all throughout high school. Kept it displayed on my assignment pad for whenever I forgot it. Not that anyone was actively trying to break into my locker, but it was something.
Y’all work too hard.
Took all my notes in high school and college in cursive and textbook shorthand. Made a kid cry when I offered to lend her my notes.
this is your psa to NOT USE AO3 TAGS the same way you would use tags on tumblr! AO3 goes through a lot of effort to create and track tags, whereas tumblr is freeflow and blog-respective. please only use AO3 tags that have story relevancy, NOT AS PERSONAL TAGS.
I’ve read multiple posts from ao3 mods saying this is not true.
FROM AO3′S OWN TUMBLR:
“The kind of one-off commentary tags that are frequently referred to as Tumblr-style tags do not put any kind of extra strain on the database, or require more work from the wranglers than any other Additional Tag, such as Romance or Angst or Pretzels. Even the fact that there are a lot of them isn’t really an issue.”
“It doesn’t create more work for the wranglers than the simple act of wrangling already does. And trust us: the wranglers really, really like organizing your tags in the background.”
AO3 mods have confirmed themselves that there is nothing wrong with people rambling in tags. It doesn’t strain the database, it isn’t any harder on the wranglers than any other tag. In fact, rambling tags are probably easier for them to chuck into the freeform or additonal category than someone who accidentally tries to create a new tag for a ship or kink or something.
Don’t tell people they can’t express themselves in the tags. It’s not just “ummmm lol so yeah” kind of stuff, some of it expresses things that are hard to tag for but the readers might want to know about the fic ahead of time. For example one of mine: “this is really just fluff + flirting and implied stuff at the end” or “X embarrassing Y and annoying the hell out of Z”. Should that stuff be in author’s notes? Probably. Am I going to put it there? For various reasons, no, the main reason being that you can’t see author’s notes from the outside of the fic.
In general, just stop spreading misinformation please, it took me two seconds to look up AO3′s actual opinion on rambly tags instead of assuming.
Welp, looks like I’ll have to do a mea culpa here. Did not bother to do recent fact checking since I knew in the past it was not an encouraged thing to do. However, I now stand corrected. It’s not my personal favorite thing to see, but as I abuse tumblr tags, I can’t hold it against people for using it.
Carry on, fic writers/artists/podficcers.
It just looks really obnoxious though so I wonder why people do it anyway, even if it doesn’t really cause any strain on the servers. I understand making new tags for new ships or odd little fandom names for certain concepts, or even the occasional tag that’s some inside fandom joke, or using them to post trigger warnings with other important shorthand info about what the fic is about, like that other tumblr user above pointed out they use them for.
But sometimes it’s just straight up rambling and if someone has a whole paragraph of tags that has cutesy commentary, that’s pretty much a guarantee I’m skipping the fic. The tags are there so people can get the quick and dirty on the important parts of a fic, like ships, kinks, etc. And there are a LOT of not-so-great fics to wade through to find the good ones. I’m not gonna wade through a paragraph of tag essays trying to pick out what’s important.
So people can do it if they want but the messier it gets, the more likely you’re going to lose some readers because you’re just rambling along. It’s messy and gives off the same “My writing isn’t good enough to stand alone with tags only about what the fic is about and a normal summary” vibes that the old “R+R, no flamez plz” stuff in summaries give vibes of on FF.net. Whether or not it actually causes problems for the Ao3 tag wranglers doesn’t change that the format is different, that it’s not your personal blog, and the READERS sometimes like that to just be a quick view of the most important things in the fic. That can sometimes mean non-standard tags like “this is just fluff” like the user above said but the ramblier you get, the more likely someone’s eyes will glaze and glance over. (Also, I mean, there is a “fluff” tag, so that doesn’t need to be a whole sentence fragment, honestly).
When I’m looking through a database to find things, I’m looking for things to be concise, well organized, and clearly labeled. That’s the difference between Ao3 and tumblr. Tumblr is social media where I’m specifically looking for people’s silliness and their thoughts. Ao3 is a database where I’m looking for specific things, and visually scanning for specific labels. It’s one of those self-indulgent things that sometimes benefits the writer’s ego more than the readers trying to find fic, if you use it a certain way. On the internet, it’s good to always consider the experience of the person trying to find something easily and quickly when you’re trying to get people to read, look at, or buy your stuff.
See, I see why you have your preferences, and understand that, but I will fully admit that I love certain types of rambling Tumblr-style tags on AO3 for the sake of finding things to read.
If I’m browsing a fandom or tag, which is often the case, freeform tags serve as a combination epigraph, blurb, and occasionally even flavor text (I could explain that last one, but it would take hand gestures and possibly a whiteboard) for their story. I’ve found some of my more enjoyable blind reads because their freeform tags grabbed my attention. They didn’t tell me a hell of a lot about the stories, but they did tell me enough about the authors’ tastes and senses of humor for me to give them a shot.
But I when I’m browsing AO3, I’m also treating it less like using a database for finding things (unlike when I want to find specific things, where I use the canonicals and search to dramatically narrow my scope) and more like wandering through a bookstore hoping something catches my eye, so we’ve got a different use case. Something tagged with strictly canonicals is going to look like every other book in the shop to me, where something tagged with ridiculous freeform conceits is going be unnecessary noise to you.
So they’ll gain some, lose some, and it probably, if previous discussions* I’ve had about it are anything to go by, evens out.
*(This is a discussion that I’ve had regarding freeform tags a few times, and it’s an interesting (to me) split, where about half of us in any given discussion found them helpful for finding things, and the other half found them irritating and only of use for winnowing. I’d be curious to see a survey on it.)
OMG, thank you, Min, I’ve been trying and failing to come up with a way to express all the things the random, rambly freeform tags do for me, and you just hit it out of the park.
I’ll add one: They can be a fantastic way to give me an idea of whether the author is ‘my kind’ in terms of how they read the characters/what tropes they think fit the characters best/what tropes I can expect that aren’t easily quantifiable.
Like, a story with a tag that says ‘Bruce Wayne is completely incapable of taking care of himself’ or whatever is probably gonna be my jam, but a story with a tag that says ‘somebody save Timmy’ or the like, even if all the other canonical tags look just right, will, I know, send me screaming into the night. Could those concepts be expressed with canonical tags? Eh, depends on the story.
But a) you’ll need more than one, b) you’ll probably be spoiling things you don’t want to spoil, and c) you won’t have caught my eye (and my gratitude) quite so quickly.
So, you know, I grok when people hate the freeform tags, I do, but there are a whole mess of stories which don’t use ‘em.
I wish I could remember the specific one that, yonks ago, solidified my views on freeform tags. All I remember was that it was an incredibly obscure reference that, after I laughed for several minutes straight, made me click on the story.
Thinking more about it this morning, when I would be lying if I said I were any more awake than I was last night (ah, sleep, I miss you, please come home), freeform tags can, and ideally do, tell us a lot about how the author views a specific piece of canon/worldbuilding/fandom trope (this would be what I mean by flavor text, really). I’m a huge fan of stories that take common tropes, esp. problematic ones, and turn them on their head. It’s very hard for me to get from the canonicals if an author’s attempting to do that with their story, but relatively easy to get it from the freeform tags.
I am, as I think I indicated in my tags in my original reblog, actually historically a pretty crap tagger for various reasons. I’m attempting to change that by keeping running tags lists while I’m writing–tagging in post is a pain in the ass for me, especially when importing older content–so this is something that I’m spending a lot of time thinking about from an author’s POV in addition to the reader’s POV above, given how valuable I find the damn things for finding reading material myself. With a freeform, if I use a freeform, what do I want to convey? What sort of thing do I want the reader to go into the story aware of that’s not exactly a spoiler for the story, but cannot be adequately captured in canonicals and doesn’t fit in the summary? (Note: I’m even worst at summaries than I am at tagging.)
Thus my decision to add “Parental Neglect Level: John Winchester” to the running tags list for the damn Push fic. While obviously not everyone in fandom is going to have watched Supernatural, it’s a juggernaut fandom, so a lot of people will understand straight off what that means either through having watched it or through fannish osmosis. There are canonicals I could use, but they don’t have the same nuance, and using the freeform allows me to say both what the canonical would (that there is child neglect involved) and what it wouldn’t (that it’s complicated and external forces are at work, which explains but does not excuse, and is going to fuck a body up), and allows me to do it all in five words and a colon.
I was all ready to agree with one side and then I discovered that I agree with the other side as well until I realized that neither side has fully discussed how much of a ramble is a rambly tag.
Frankly I love the little asides or fandom in-jokes and authors senses of humor, but frankly when there’s over maybe 10 solid lines in ao3 (about two inches on my screen) that are pure author’s notes I just can’t read that much underline I’m sorry.
Imagine if Dudley did have a magical child though.
He and Harry haven’t spoken since ‘I don’t think you’re a waste of space’ and he’s matured enough to realise his parents were not good to Harry, especially since the birth of his own little girls because God forbid anything happened to him and they were treated like Harry was.
On Daisy Dursley’s eleventh birthday theres a knock on the door and his wife, Anita, just stares and he feels his stomach drop because the stern lady on the doorstep is wearing a cloak and pointed hat.
They listen to the woman - Professor McGonagall - explain and Anita is surprised but receptive, Daisy is excited and Dudley is terrified of what this means.
It’s a surprise to his wife and little girl when at the end of her explanation, while Daisy’s flicking through a book with moving pictures and Anita peers over her shoulder, Dudley blurts out ‘it’s safe now then? Your world?’
Professor Mcgonagall gives a wry smile and assures him that the magical world is indeed safe. It dawns on him that she was expecting this, that she’d perhaps researched him and was aware of his relation to Harry.
He then admits to Anita and Daisy that his cousin is a wizard, before turning to the Professor and asking if she by chance knows a Harry Potter. Looking amused, professor Mcgonagall acknowledges that she does.
’D'you know where he lives?’
That does surprise her a bit, and she tells him that yes, she knows and that though Daisy’s acceptance into the school has been confidential up until this point, Harry would likely not mind a visitor if he wanted a word.
Daisy begs to come along and he relents eventually, bringing Anita and their youngest, Poppy, along.
All four of them stand on the doorstep of a modest house that Dudley would call nice if there weren’t squat little creatures snickering and running around the front garden.
The door is opened by a slouching boy with turquoise hair who arches a purple eyebrow at them. He yells over his shoulder for someone named Ginny and steps back to let them in, and, when he notices Daisy staring at his hair, he smirks and a second later it’s bubblegum pink.
Daisy squeals in delight and Dudley is still trying to get his head around that when young girl and boy around Daisy’s age with bright red hair and thick brown curls respectively, hurtle down the corridor.
‘Teddy you promised you’d practice the sloth grip roll with us!’ The girl yells in an accusatory tone.
A woman with hair the same shade of flaming red as the little girl appears with what Dudley recognises as a wand in her hand as the boy with blue hair flashes a grin at them before chasing the two younger children outside to a shout of ‘No higher than the treetops Teddy!’
Harry is much like Dudley remembers him, lanky with a pointed face, straight nose and mess of untameable black hair. It’s awkward, but, apparently forewarned, Harry greets him pleasantly and introduces his wife before Ginny goes outside to reign in a gaggle of children he assumes aren’t all Harry’s.
A woman with thick, bushy hair pulled into a messy bun with a wand stuck in it smiles and makes an effort to talk to Anita. She’s not too strange, he thinks, and reassures them that her parents were just as baffled when they found out she was a witch.
‘Why don’t you take Daisy outside to see the broomsticks, Al?’ Harry suggests to Daisy’s obvious delight and Dudley swears Harry’s trying not to laugh.
By the end of the visit Dudley is more informed about the wizarding world than he ever thought he would or wanted to be. Daisy, with a bruise on her forehead and scraped knees, because despite both his and Harry’s warning she hadn’t been able to resist trying to fly, is bouncing off the walls because ‘daddy how could you not tell us?!’
They visit Harry’s a lot over summer and Daisy befriends Lily Luna Potter and Hugo Weasley. Dudley doesn’t feel up to the trip to Diagon Alley but regrets his decision to not go when Daisy comes back with two owls, ‘uncle Harry bought the second one for me! So you can write without having to wait for me to send my owl!’
Petunia Dursley faints when she finds out, and Vernon spends a good half hour cursing and brandishing things aimlessly before retreating to his shed.
Dudley being introduced to what he calls ‘all those bloody gingers’ some of whom are only just on the right side of civil to him (one cheerfully introduces himself as someone who once visited his childhood home in a flying car and asks if he’s going to need to do the same for Daisy or will she be allowed to attend without punishment).
Daisy is shocked to find out Harry’s famous, and finds out as much as she can about him during her first term, which she relays to an increasingly guilty feeling Dudley, who’s gradually coming around to the idea.
It’s not as bad as his parents made out it was. He’s learned to understand Daisy’s ramblings about her subjects and spells and is proud of her achievements at school. He’s met a handful of witches and wizards through Harry and the world that he’s always been told is terrible doesn’t seem too bad anymore, after all, how could it with his little girl in it? He is prepared come excitable little Poppy’s eleventh birthday, for her to join her sister at Hogwarts instead of standing jealously on the platform as she leaves.
Poppy Dursley never gets a letter.
I TRUSTED YOU
No, but imagine. Three generations later, this family FINALLY gets the one wizard kid/one Muggle kid thing right. Poppy is never made to feel less, even though she’s disappointed. Daisy is never made to feel like a freak. Poppy is accepted by Harry’s kids, they play with her and she doesn’t need magic to play wizard chess or toss gnomes and Teddy takes her flying sometimes (she becomes a hell of a Quidditch referee and strategist with Ginny’s help, though she never plays).
Anita and Dudley talk to Poppy about what she’d like to do for school and she goes to a prestigious Muggle school, and as it turns out she becomes really, really good at tech and coding. She takes lots of time off to visit Daisy at Hogwarts where she becomes a favorite of McGonagall (so many clever questions). Eventually she meets Luna and spends most of a summer with her, following Crumple-Horned Snorkacks with the help of some trackers Poppy built to work around magic. Everyone is terribly impressed, and although Poppy tries to be blasé about it, she’s actually really proud.
And soon enough Daisy is graduating and working at the Ministry in the Misuse of Muggle Artifacts Office with Arthur Weasley, who has been working on loosening some of the legislation, and when Poppy graduates she has a marvelous idea. She and Daisy open a shop in Diagon Ally for all these Muggle technologies that Poppy has fixed to work around and with magic. Dursley’s Muggle Magic, they call it.
And suddenly wizards are running around with iPhones and Kindles (Hermione made a digital copy of Hogwarts, a History RIGHT AWAY) and everyone is catching up on decades of video games and a century of movies. Scorpius Malfoy has an Apple Watch. And it’s all thanks the Poppy Dursley, the Muggle.
So I’m doing a Fanfiction 101 panel at a local mini convention and I’m trying to get a bunch of advice that all novice fanfic writers could use. Care to share some important tips?
Honestly, my #1 tip: LEARN HOW TO WRITE LIKE A GROWN UP. Learn punctuation, and use it in the right spots. Capitalize, use commas and quotation marks in the right spot, use paragraph breaks. I don’t care how amazing and original and incredible your story is, I won’t read it if it’s full of distracting ugly errors. I just can’t handle it. Typos happen, of course, but it takes two seconds to google ‘how to punctuate a sentence’, like seriously. Or just, you know, pick up a book and look at it and see where the punctuation is…. Getting a beta reader is super helpful for this, also, especially if they’re a better writer than you are. You’ll learn a lot.
Grammar and punctuation are crucial and a great start. I think I might also suggest:
- Write something you want to see. If you’re just writing to be “popular” you’ll quickly burn out. Write something you’re passionate about, and people will find it. I’m not saying notes and reviews aren’t important, because they are, but don’t write something you’re not interested in just to gain them. Be enthusiastic about what you’re doing and engender enthusiasm in others.
- Which goes hand in hand with being as good a reader as you are a writer. Engage with other people’s stories. Learn from them, beta them, and review them. DEFINITELY review them. Fanfiction is a great community, and it is always so encouraging to receive a review (as you’ll see!) and leaving them in return is absolutely essential for being a positive part of that community.
- Keep track of what you write and where you publish it. You can write on as many platforms as possible, but it’s a great idea to keep track of it all, perhaps especially chronologically. That way you can look back on previous works and see how much you’ve progressed.
- Tag smartly. Tag accurately. You want people who would be actually interested in your story to find your story, so use the tags that will guide them there. The more accurate your tags, the more likely the readers you want will discover you.
I would add: learn homophones and apply spell check. It sounds like a tiny nit-picky thing, but I can’t express how helpful it is in both feeling confident in your own writing and reading someone else’s. It’s humiliating to have someone point to that one misspelling in your writing (and there will always be that one asshole), and it’s hard to get through a fic full of spelling errors/syntax errors. For example: there, they’re, their; ore, oar, or; and (for those of you writing smut) wanton and wonton is a vital difference, because I’m assuming you are not writing about East Asian dumplings.
That time when Snape was hiding out of sight in the bushes to spy on Lily and Petunia instead of happening to be nearby
That time when Snape dropped a tree branch on Lily’s sister
That time when Snape defended the use of Dark Magic as a laugh and redirected the conversation to someone else’s actions
That time Snape responded to humiliating and awful but non-violent hexes by giving his opponent a bloody gash to the face
That time when Snape called Lily a Mudblood
That time when Snape threatened to sleep outside Lily’s place of dwelling in the castle in spite of knowing she did not want to speak with him
That time when Lily pointed out that Snape called people Mudblood all the time
That time when Snape was the one who conveyed the prophecy to Voldemort that put Lily in danger in the first place
That time when Snape’s only moral objection to endangering a baby came from his attachment to the mother
That time when Snape didn’t say ‘hide them all’ initially but told Voldemort to kill the father and infant son but spare the mother -and only asked to hide them all after Dumbledore told him he was disgusting
That time when it was Sirius who discovered the Potters and rescued Harry from the ruin of Godric’s Hollow
That time when Snape singled Harry out in a room full of people on the first day of class for not having extensive knowledge not required of them at that point - even deducting points for Harry not monitoring someone else’s potion
Those times when Snape lashed out at Harry for a grudge against his father who had died ten (to sixteen, in HBP) years prior - who Harry couldn’t even remember
All those times when Snape responded to seeing Neville Longbottom struggle in his class by calling him names like ‘idiot boy’, demeaning him, and deducting points when Hermione helped him
That time Snape screamed at a 13-year-old Hermione and called her ‘STUPID GIRL’
That time when Snape was unconscious for Lupin’s transformation and it was Sirius actively forcing the children away from Lupin
That time when Snape lied to the Minister about Sirius confunding the trio - or else lied about being able to recognize it
That time when Snape burst into hysterics after Sirius (rightfully) escaped death
That time when Snape outed Remus as a werewolf (having been attempting to do so for quite some time) and caused him to resign from the only employment that would accept him
That time when Snape made a teenage girl feel even more insecure about her appearance in the face of her being attacked
That time when Snape frequently goaded Sirius for being unable to be useful to the Order in spite of actively contributing to besmirching Sirius’s name so he could not be cleared
That time when Snape didn’t just tell Harry to get out when he was embarrassed, he also told him to never visit his office again in spite of Harry needing Occlumency lessons for his own safety
That time when Snape gave Harry detention every Saturday for the rest of term because he wouldn’t show him his potions book
That time when Snape broke into Harry’s dead godfather’s house to rip apart a picture from Harry’s first and only birthday with his parents
Albus Hagrid’s Flobberworms Potter: Still a better name than the one he had.
That time when 13 year old Neville feared Snape, a fucking teacher, who should have fucking nurtured him like good teachers do, when 13 year old Neville feared Snape more than the fucking woman who literally tortured his parents into insanity.
And he grew up in the magical community, remember, so he’d fucking know what Lestrange looked like, what her name was, before he could wipe his own arse.
Also, remember the time when Snape to time in class to read out a slut-shaming article in a gossip magazine to embarrass two of his students? Yeeaaah…
It just kills me when writers create franchises where like 95% of the speaking roles are male, then get morally offended that all of the popular ships are gay. It’s like, what did they expect?
I feel this is something that does often get overlooked in slash shipping, especially in articles that try to ‘explain’ the phenomena. No matter the show, movie or book, people are going to ship. When everyone is a dude and the well written relationships are all dudes, of course we’re gonna go for romance among the dudes because we have no other options.
Totally.
A lot of analyses propose that the overwhelming predominance of male/male ships over female/female and female/male ships in fandom reflects an unhealthy fetishisation of male homosexuality and a deep-seated self-hatred on the part of women in fandom. While it’s true that many fandoms certainly have issues gender-wise, that sort of analysis willfully overlooks a rather more obvious culprit.
Suppose, for the sake of argument, that we have a hypothetical media franchise with twelve recurring speaking roles, nine of which are male and three of which are female.
(Note that this is actually a bit better than average representaton-wise - female representation in popular media franchises is typicaly well below the 25% contemplated here.)
Assuming that any character can be shipped with any other without regard for age, gender, social position or prior relationship - and for simplicity excluding cloning, time travel and other “selfcest”-enabling scenarios - this yields the following (non-polyamorous) possibilities:
Possible F/F ships: 3 Possible F/M ships: 27 Possible M/M ships: 36
TOTAL POSSIBLE SHIPS: 66
Thus, assuming - again, for the sake of simplicity - that every possible ship is about equally likely to appeal to any given fan, we’d reasonably expect about (36/66) = 55% of all shipping-related media to feature M/M pairings. No particular prejudice in favour of male characters and/or against female characters is necessary for us to get there.
The point is this: before we can conclude that representation in shipping is being skewed by fan prejudice, we have to ask how skewed it would be even in the absence of any particular prejudice on the part of the fans. Or, to put it another way, we have to ask ourselves: are we criticising women in fandom - and let’s be honest here, this type of criticism is almost exclusively directed at women - for creating a representation problem, or are we merely criticising them for failing to correct an existing one?
THANK YOU. Could that person with the statistics degree put those calculations on the internet maybe please and thanks?
SCREAMING BECAUSE I JUST FOUND OUT THAT PETUNIA PLANNED LILY AND JAMES’S FUNERAL. OH MY GOD.
-IMAGINE REMUS FINDING HER ADDRESS AND POPPING OVER ONE DAY BC HE REFUSES TO HAVE HER MESS UP THE ARRANGEMENTS AND DISHONOUR HIS FRIENDS.
-PETUNIA OPENING THE DOOR, FLUSTERED BC SHE HAS TWO SCREAMING BABIES AND HAS NEVER BEEN MORE STESSED EVER AND HAS DUDLEY IN ONE ARM AND HARRY ON HER LEG AND THERES A STRANGE YOUNG MAN WITH GRAYING HAIR AND A LOT OF UGLY SCARS ON HER PORCH
-HARRY RECOGNIZING REMUS AT ONCE AND LETTING GO OF PETUNIA YELLING “UNC-OO MOO'Y! UNC-OO MOO'Y!” AND REMUS AUTOMATICALLY REACHING DOWN TO LET THE TODDLER LATCH ONTO HIS NECK LIKE HE ALWAYS DOES. HARRY QUIETS DOWN QUICKLY AND JUST CURLS UP BC IT’S SOMEONE HE KNOWS AND UNCLE MOONY!
-PETUNIA BEING FLABERGASTED AND FINALLY ASKING, “HOW DID YOU DO THAT? I HAVEN’T BEEN ABLE TO GET HIM TO STOP FUSSING SINCE HE GOT HERE.”
-REMUS EXPLAINING THAT HARRY HAS DONE THAT SINCE DAY ONE AND ASKS POLITELY TO COME IN BC HE HAS SOMETHING TO DISCUSS WITH HER
-PETUNIA ALLOWING REMUS IN AND STATING SHE’S GOING TO PUT DUDLEY DOWN FOR A NAP AND TO PLEASE MAKE HIMSELF COMFORTABLE IN THE SITTING ROOM
-REMUS SITTING AWKWARDLY ON AN ARMCHAIR AND HARRY LOOKS UP AND ASKS “UNC-OO MOO'Y, WHERE MUMA? WHERE DADA? WHERE PA'FU?”
-REMUS NOT KNOWING HOW TO SAY THEYRE DEAD BC SIRIUS SO HE SAYS “HARRY, I NEED YOU TO BE A BIG BOY. MUMA AND DADA… THEY LOVED YOU LOTS AND LOTS BUT THEY HAD TO GO BYEBYE.”
-“WHEN MUMA AND DADA BACK?”
-“HARRY, I’M SORRY BUT THEY HAD TO GO TO HEAVEN.” AND REMUS IS CRYING BECAUSE IT’S SUDDENLY REAL AND HIS FRIENDS ARE ACTUALLY FUCKING DEAD AND IT HURTS AND IT HURTS SO MUCH HE WISH HE COULD RIP HIS HEART OUT AND NEVER FEEL AGAIN
-AND HARRY IS CONFUSED SO HE GRABS REMUS’S NOSE IN ATTEMPT TO COMFORT REMUS AND STARTS BABBLING ABOUT MUMA PLAYING PEEKABO AND DADA HIDING UNDER A BIG FLAPPY CLOAK AND A GREEN LIGHT AND UNCLE MOONY ITS JUST GAMES
-PETUNIA COMING BACK DOWNSTAIRS TO SEE REMUS SOBBING AND PETTING HARRY’S HEAD AND TRYING TO EXPLAIN THAT MUMA AND DADA CAN’T COME BACK BUT REMUS IS CRYING SO MUCH HE CAN BARELY SPEAK SO SHE OFFERS A HANKERCHEIF AND ASKS WHAT HE CAME FOR
-AFTER HE CALMS DOWN ENOUGH HE FLAT OUT TELLS PETUNIA THAT HE IS GOING TO HELP WITH THE FUNERAL
-SHE’S ACTUALLY RELIEVED AND SAYS SHE HADN’T THE FAINTEST TO INVITE SEEING AS SHE WASN’T CLOSE WITH LILY (AT THIS REMUS SNORTS) AND COULDN’T JUST ATTEND HERSELF
-SKIP TO THE FUNERAL. IT’S AN OPEN CASKET AND DUE TO MAGIC BOTH LILY AND JAMES ARE IN THE SAME CASKET AND THEIR HANDS ARE INTERRWINED AND IT LOOKS AS THEYRE SLEEPING IN THEIR FINEST CLOTHES (LILY IN HER WEDDING DRESS, AS IT WAS HER FAVORITE ARTICLE OF CLOTHING AND NOT LONG OR OVERLY FANCY AND JAMES IN A SUIT BUT INSTEAD OF A SUIT TOP HES WEARING THAT RIDICULOUS SHIRT HIM AND SIRIUS MADE THAT HAD “I HAVE THE WORLD’S HOTTEST WIFE” PRINTED ON IT)
-REMUS IS SITTING TO THE RIGHT OF PETUNIA WITH HARRY IN HIS LAP AND ALICE AND FRANK ARE TO THE RIGHT OF HIM
-THE SERVICE IS GORGEOUS WITH DUMBLEDORE CONDUCTING IT IN THE RIDICULOUS PURPLE ROBES WITH YELLOW STARS THAT JAMES ABSOLUTELY LOVED
-WHEN IT’S TIME TO GO UP AND VIEW THE BODIES, PETUNIA LINGERS A SECOND LONGEUR THAN HER HUSBAND BUT QUICKLY MOVES
-REMUS GOES UP WITH HARRY
-HARRY MANAGED TO ESCAPE REMUS’S ARMS AND LANDS IN THE COFFIN YELLING, “MUMA! DADA! WAKEY!” OVER AND OVER AND HE’S SO CONFUSED AS TO WHY THEY AREN’T ANSWERING. FINALLY HE TURNS TO REMUS, CONFUSED, AND ASKS, “UNC-OO MOO'Y, PEEA'BOO?”
-EVERYONE IS FROZEN, WATCHING THE TINY BABY POKE AND PROD HIS PARENTS. MCGONAGALL IS CRYING AND REMUS IS SOBBING AGAIN AND HE’S TRYING TO EXPLAIN TO HARRY THAT THEY CAN’T
-DUMBLEDORE SWEEPS IN ALL MAGESTICALLY AND HARRY SHRIEKS “DUBLDOR!” AND DUMBLEDORE IS ABLE TO EXPLAIN THAT MUMA AND DADA ARE GONE IN THE NICEST WAY POSSIBLE BUT SO HARRY UNDERSTANDS AND HARRY STARTS CRYING AND SAYING HE WANTS MUMA AND DADA
-REMUS GRABS HARRY AND BEGINS TO SHUSH HIM AND LETS OTHER PEOPLE SAY GOODBYE TO LILY AND JAMES AND SUDDENLY PETUNIA AND VERNON ARE OVER AND HARRY IS BEING RIPPED OUT OF REMUS’S ARMS AND BEING TOLD THAT REMUS IS NEVER ALLOWED TO COME OVER AGAIN AND IF HE DOES THE POLICE WILL BE CALLED AND REMUS IS NOT ALLOWED TO EVER CONTACT HARRY OR THE DURSLEY’S AGAIN
-REMUS JUST STARES NUMBLY AS THE DURSLEYS STOMP FROM THE HALL WITH HARRY CRYING AND SHREIKING, “UNC-OO MOO'Y! UNC-OO MOO'Y! I WAN’ UNC-OO MOO'Y!” AND SUDDENLY REMUS IS CRYING FOR WHAT SEEMS LIKE THE MILLIONTH TIME AND IT FEELS LIKE LILY AND JAMES DIED ALL OVER AGAIN AS HARRY’S CRIES FADE AND HE FALLS TO HIS KNEES AND HE’S SCREAMING IN PAIN BECAUSE IT’S TOO MUCH AND HE DIDN’T ASK FOR THIS AND HE’S DEMANDING TO KNOW WHY THIS HAD TO HAPPEN
-REMUS LUPIN IS 21 AND HIS ENTIRE FAMILY HAS BEEN TAKEN AWAY FROM HIM WITHOUT MERCY
