freedom-of-fanfic

[freedom-of-fanfic]

I have much lower tolerance these days. after 7 years of this specific type of nonsense, the arguments are so overcooked that they’re just rocks, & the people that parrot them are mostly trying to score points, not actually trying to communicate with me.

I pick my times to be kind and tolerant more carefully because i think most people’s hearts are less open than ever, and I can’t afford to waste my energy.

That said: i think most LGBTQ+ fandomgoers are potential allies whose disgust & fear has been used to turn them against their self-interest. Respectability politics puts intense pressure on us to conform to social norms in a futile attempt to gain acceptance & safety, especially now (November 2024). SWERFs got their claws deep with the ‘kink-critical’ BS, and removing them will be a long, arduous process.

Please bear this in mind. I’ll try, too.

I loved your post about antishipping being the cool new trend for young/college age teens! Pretty much nailed my own opinion of it (and then I blew through your whole blog in like two hours lol I love how you discuss things! You're always so calm and polite which is something I appreciate a lot!). I'd value your input on how we might be able to put a stop to a lot of anti behavior if you have any c:

I’m very glad you’ve enjoyed my blog!

Unfortunately, there’s no way to stop anti behavior. The joke is: we’re allowed to ship and they’re allowed to hate ships; we’re allowed to write dark fanfiction and they’re allowed to loathe it. Until somebody is doing something illegal we can’t actually stop them.

However, we can limit anti influence on fandom spaces. And I don’t think it’s easy, or I wouldn’t have a blog like this.

The primary public goal of anti-shippers and anti-darkfic communities are to obliterate ‘bad’ ships and dark content in fandom spaces.  All public action taken with the intent of having their views communicated to shippers/creators of dark content are aimed to either drive them out of fandom or make them see the light of their evil ways. Their social power mainly comes from generating negative emotions in fandom, and I think there are 3 primary forces:

Fear: anti-shippers have proven that they are willing to go to great lengths to force fandom members to bend to their standards, including tag invasion, public shaming, dogpiling, callouts (true or false or a combination thereof), misgendering/erasing orientations, general and targeted online harassment including suicide baiting and wishing for physical harm, verbal harassment, verbal intimidation, reporting falsified TOS violations, and in extreme cases doxxing, false reports to authorities, destruction of property, threats of violence, and actual assault. Understandably this makes potential targets want to avoid notice so that they’re not ‘next’, reducing creative output.

Anger: nothing gets people talking about you like anger. People like to complain, and that spreads reports of anti-shipping attacks further (which spreads fear). Shippers increasingly dwell on their anger and frustration over antishippers, taking focus away from creating fanworks.

Exhaustion: being afraid and angry all the time will take a lot out of a person.  Self-doubt makes it even worse. Antis keep the pressure on with a constant stream of negativity and double down by questioning the motives, moral integrity, and social awareness of bad shippers and dark content creators.  Exhaustion cuts creative output just as effectively, if not more so, than fear and anger. People will create out of spite with the first two emotions, but exhaustion makes people want to leave and find something less tiring to enjoy.

So I think the best way to cut the power and influence that antis have is by shutting them and their rhetoric out of fandom spaces.  this looks like:

Block antis. Block all antis. block virulent negativity. Block even antis that hate the same ships you hate. Keep yourself away from the nastiness and also protect yourself from their notice (if you block them they can’t see or reblog your posts as easily).

Avoid black and white ‘discourse’. Don’t dwell on social debates about purity and the moral implications of your ships or fictional content. Be selective about the meta you indulge. Remember that nuance exists. Don’t publicly argue with people who refuse to see nuance, spreading their nonsense further.

Don’t fight fire with fire. Don’t borrow anti arguments to prove what hypocrites they are or use anti logic to explain why ships are bad (e.g. ‘antis say that x/y is bad b/c x is older than y and they call that pedophilia.  but antis ship y/z, even though they fight all the time; that’s abuse!’)

Ignore hate messages. If people send you hate for your ships or creations, ignore and delete them. it makes you a boring target if you don’t react and cuts the hate significantly. (This won’t work unless the main goal is getting a rise out of you. In the case of a targeted hate campaign, the goal is usually pleasing the instigator of the hate campaign, and reacting or not reacting won’t make a difference. :( )

Surround yourself with creative content and positivity. Curate your dash and social media circles to be mostly, if not entirely, fandom positivity focused and about creating new content instead of complaining about bad content or bad fandom behavior.

Spread positivity. If you have the energy, try to share the things that make you happy. Recommend fanfics, comment on fanart, talk about your favorite headcanons.

If you’re like me and you can’t entirely ignore shitty things that happen in fandom, create a separate space away from your main fandom space to indulge your salt. that way you can walk away and take breaks. (I tend to find salt begets more salt.)

last thing may not work for everyone: be kind and/or civil when interacting with antis. There’s of course no obligation to be nice to people who antagonize you, but I find that in general being kind in response to people being jerks gives them room to relax, stop being defensive, and talk openly. Most individual antis aren’t that different from shippers; they just have different ideas of what a safe, comfortable fandom space looks like. (And if they refuse to stop being a jerk, ignore/block them.)

that’s my two cents, which, as usual, looks more like 2 dollars. I hope it’s helpful.

[freedom-of-fanfic]

Oh this is going around on more than one tumblr, huh!!

Well, good, I’m glad it’s helping my fellow ADHD ppl better understand why help is so hard

This explains a lot about my lack of asking for help when I clearly need it

[freedom-of-fanfic]

Ungentle reminder that if I were a disinformation tumblr account, what I'd be doing now is getting people on the left to blame other people on the left for this election outcome. Divided we are weak and unable to organize to protect each other and resist.

The Fascists won because there were a lot of fucking Fascists. Stop cannibalizing your allies and assign blame where it belongs.

[freedom-of-fanfic]

[freedom-of-fanfic]

What Joe Biden and Kamala Harris did in 2024.

I started this project back in January and for most of a year, every week, I came up with the highlights of what the Biden-Harris Administration did. I did it because it felt to me our media and national conversion was broken, our government was doing huge things that it felt like almost no one knew about. It's amazing how often I struggled to find a single news source that wanted to cover a huge life changing project.

This is the last Friday before Election Day, and if you haven't already voted, take a minute to go back and look at the last 40 weeks, and decide, do you like these things or want literally the reverse on every issue.

Week 1 January 19th

Week 2 January 26th

Week 3 February 2nd

Week 4 February 9th

Week 5 February 16th

Week 6 February 23rd

Week 7 March 1st

Week 8 March 8th

Week 9 March 15th

Week 10 March 22nd

Week 11 March 29th

Week 12 April 5th

Week 13 April 12th

Week 14 April 19th

Week 15 April 26th

Week 16 May 3rd

Week 17 May 10th

Week 18 May 18th

Week 19 May 24th

Week 20 May 31st

Week 21 June 7th

Week 22 June 14th

Week 23 June 21st

Week 24 June 28th

Week 25 July 5th

Week 26 July 12th

Week 27 July 19th

Week 28 July 26th

Week 29 August 2nd

Week 30 August 9th

Week 31 August 16th

Week 32 August 30th

Week 33 September 6th

Week 34 September 13th

Week 35 September 20th

Week 36 September 27th

Week 37 October 4th

Week 38 October 11th

Week 39 October 18th

Week 40 October 25th

Feel free to reblog this or go back and reblog a favorite, one that impacts your life or the one from the week of your birthday, whatever.

and remember to read past the headlines and dig to find out what your government is up to, it might shock you how much is happening that no one talks about.

[freedom-of-fanfic]

Because I remember disinformation being spread around the last few elections and I’m sure assholes will bring it back:

YOU CAN’T VOTE ONLINE.

YOU CAN’T VOTE FROM YOUR PHONE.

IN MANY STATES THERE ARE LEGAL CONSEQUENCES FOR PHOTOGRAPHING YOUR BALLOT.

DO NOT WEAR CAMPAIGN GEAR TO THE POLLS.

DO NOT TRY TO PERSUADE PEOPLE TO VOTE FOR A CANDIDATE AT THE POLLS.

DO NOT ENGAGE IN ANY KIND OF POLITICAL DISCOURSE AT THE POLLS.

NO ELECTION IS EVER A SURE THING, EVEN IF YOU’RE IN THE BLUEST OR REDDEST OF STATES.  IF SOMEONE TRIES TO TELL YOU THAT YOU CAN SIT THIS ONE OUT, THEY ARE EITHER IGNORANT OR MALICIOUS.

VOTE.

[freedom-of-fanfic]

Art is about human connection. Commissioning art requires, at minimum, communication & collaboration.

You don’t even need that to commission the Stolen Art Remix Machine.

‘Generative AI can’t make real art!’ I agree

But for commercial purposes, most people/companies aren’t looking for ‘real art.’ They’re looking for ‘content’ they can purchase at the lowest possible price point.

If they can get the Stolen Art Remix Machine to create that content, well. You can see where this is going

[freedom-of-fanfic]

‘Generative AI can’t make real art!’ I agree

But for commercial purposes, most people/companies aren’t looking for ‘real art.’ They’re looking for ‘content’ they can purchase at the lowest possible price point.

If they can get the Stolen Art Remix Machine to create that content, well. You can see where this is going

[freedom-of-fanfic]

Thank you for preserving these!

Coming back to say: here’s some reasons to hold out against using generative AI as much as you can*.

On the ethics side:

The ‘free’ AI programs available to the general public are unethically trained on stolen data

(Said stolen data has been found to include CSAM/CSEM)

AI generation requires lots of electricity & is bad for the environment

AI is heavily supplemented by underpaid human labor that’s hidden on purpose

On the labor side:

AI has only one real value for companies who look to incorporate it: reducing its reliance on human labor. If it’s not doing that, then why spend money on it? It needs to be a cheaper replacement for something else, and that something is human labor. That’s its selling point.

And thus: generative AI is being sold to your boss/potential commissioner as your cheaper competitor.

Although the actual potential for generative AI’s output is doubtful, companies are eager to use AI to cut creative labor out of the production process and thus the profit structure. artists are noticing.

For example: Companies refusing to include anti-AI language in contracts, prompting strikes

AI is replacing people … but mostly making jobs for those who remain even harder than before

That last point is important to me bc if you won’t try to avoid using generative AI for the sake of the people whose work was stolen to train it, or for the environment, or for creatives getting financially squeezed by it … you should avoid it because it’s not going to be around forever.

On the economic side:

Generative AI as it stands … really can’t replace humans no matter how hard AI companies try to sell it as a replacement. If it turns out to be a useless expense, then why buy it?

If it turns out nobody will buy it … why keep selling it? & in fact that’s the problem: not nearly enough people are buying use of generative AI services/models to make it profitable.

If it’s not profitable (bc ppl actively don’t like it & it doesn’t work well), the companies selling generative AI will stop selling it, will close their doors, will stop offering generative AI for free …

And all we’ll have is a bunch of collapsed AI startups & lost creative jobs for no reason.

The AI bubble will crash, & when it does, all that will happen is a lot of wealth will have transferred to already-wealthy people who were willing to throw massive amounts of money down the drain just to make everyone else a little poorer

Outside of fandom, AI is getting rammed down our throats bc it’s all about profit. Generative AI is meant to steal what little profit artists still make commercially. Let’s not let it take up space in fandom, too!

I can’t force anyone to not use AI, of course, & I don’t expect ppl who already use it to respect any of my reasons to not use it. But i hope this post gives you some reasons to not use it.

(You know who’s actually profiting heavily from AI? Scammers.)

*a lot of things are labeled ‘AI’ but aren’t really generative AI, & sometimes you can’t avoid using AI bc of work or something. But do your best, even if only for yourself.

like i'm sorry but we as a fandom have to stay firm on our anti-AI values. we cannot suddenly start giving AI a pass when it's something we "want to see" like destiel kisses. it's not suddenly fine. we're not going to start using AI to make fanfic scenes come to life or audio AI to make characters "say" stuff we want to hear. you have GOT to be firm on your anti-AI stance. if you start making exceptions then suddenly anything will fly. fandom is for real art and creations made by real people. no AI fanfics. no AI art. no AI rendered "bonus" scenes. no AI audio. none of it has a place here.

[freedom-of-fanfic]

like i'm sorry but we as a fandom have to stay firm on our anti-AI values. we cannot suddenly start giving AI a pass when it's something we "want to see" like destiel kisses. it's not suddenly fine. we're not going to start using AI to make fanfic scenes come to life or audio AI to make characters "say" stuff we want to hear. you have GOT to be firm on your anti-AI stance. if you start making exceptions then suddenly anything will fly. fandom is for real art and creations made by real people. no AI fanfics. no AI art. no AI rendered "bonus" scenes. no AI audio. none of it has a place here.

[freedom-of-fanfic]

Trump’s unidentified secret police force was not prepared to meet this guy.

[freedom-of-fanfic]

A little good news: the dam that overflowed (Lake Lure) is now considered stable and emergency repairs can commence. The dam did not fail.

But everything else that could fail has failed, and will continue to get worse before it gets better. Relief efforts & donations are invaluable.

we go through this every hurricane season but the way people will find any excuse to point the finger at the victims of natural disasters and say cruel shit like "fuck around and find out" like it's not horrifying having to leave behind your home and all your belongings and potentially your pets with the full knowledge that there might not be anything to come back to after... ignoring that there are people that don't have a car or the money to evacuate, ignoring disabled people who have no way to get out, ignoring people that can't find places for their pets to shelter, ignoring people that have medical equipment that can't be moved or replaced, etc... and even if someone stays behind solely because they want to, they still don't deserve to suffer.

as someone who worked extensively in disaster response previously, it is not easy to "just" evacuate, and the relief that comes afterwards is intentionally difficult to obtain. and already the forces that be are trying to spin this narrative that the victims are at fault, to put the blame on them so that if (probably when) people are forced to resort to looting (because the aid never comes) everyone will nod and agree that they're all bad people and deserved it... rather than acknowledging the fact that there was no attempt to make the evacuation accessible and safe for everyone, no guarantee that aid will be waiting for them when they return to a home that has been swept away... no empathy for the fact that these people's entire lives are potentially destroyed with no safety net to catch them.

[freedom-of-fanfic]

Question for the artist, whats the parameters for drawing fusion fanart? Because a lot of people see it as a romanic thing, but it isnt always that. For example, are you okay with fans drawing steven fused the crystal gems? Are you okay with fans drawing any fusions including CG, or is that an ick?

Okay, SO. I apologize for answering this late - I was trying to find the correct way to reply to this ask without coming off as someone extremely senile and jaded.

First things first - I really appreciate you taking my feelings into consideration on this! I can tell it comes from a place of genuine kindness and caring, and I think that's awesome.

I'm not unfamiliar with the fact that some artists feel very protective of their characters, and sometimes try to lay down rules about how they are to be viewed, how they are to be drawn by others, etc. So I don't blame you at all for assuming this is something that needs to be done, given the current fandom environment in certain spaces.

That all being said.

This idea that drawing characters in Situations Which May Be Uncomfortable To Someone With A Specific Interpretation Of The Media (which is not at all supported by canon text) is transgressive is..... boy...... that's not a good one.

It is..... Extremely Evangelical in its conception.

Guys. GUYS. Thought crime isn't a crime. ART isn't a crime.

But to answer your question -

Yes, you can absolutely draw Steven - WD!AU Steven - fusing with the gems or CG.

Yes, you can absolutely draw CG fusing with Steven or the Crystal Gems, etc.

Because

Even if someone DID assume fusion was romantic primarily, that doesn't mean it should be the default, and in fact it ISN'T. Many, MANY fusions in the show are not representative of romantic relationships.

Canon Steven, in the Canon show, fused with TONS of people he didn't have romantic feelings for. Most of the people, outside of Connie, for a start.

Even if imagining CG in a romantic relationship with the Crystal Gems DOES give me the 'ick' (which, actually, yeah, it kinda does I guess, given that I can't really see that thing happening given that she's effectively (not LITERALLY) a child) that doesn't mean YOUR art has to be limited by my presumptions of what fusion means in this context, if we disagree on it

And not to put too fine a point on it but

Fusion ISN'T inherently about romance.

Fusion ISN'T inherently sexual!

No part of the show supports either of these ideas. Fusion is and always has been explicitly about various types of RELATIONSHIPS - including things like sibling bonds (Smokey Quartz), parent-child relationships, friendships (Steg, Steven and ANY of the CGs), Unhealthy Control-Seeking (Malachite) and just straight up collaborative murder (a la Aquamarine and Ruby).

Yes, some fusions ARE inherently romantic in nature, but that does not mean ALL fusions adhere to these rules. In fact, MOST fusions aren't even about that.

And even if they were.............we're all allowed to express our OWN interpretation of things using art. That's not an Ungood Thought that you should be shamed for.

thank you for coming to my ted talk

[freedom-of-fanfic]

I know plenty of my followers couldn’t bring themselves to vote for Biden, & I’m sure many of you are on the fence about Harris. I respect that.

But no matter what other steps you’re taking to fight the fascist wave that’s trying to backlash us to 1850, ALSO EXERCISE YOUR RIGHT TO VOTE IF YOU HAVE IT.

Vote down ballot. Vote for a write-in. Vote however you want. But VOTE.

ask yourself: why are ppl who are Trump-aligned in particular so hell-bent on taking away my chance to vote? Why do they want me to stay home so badly?

And then do the opposite of what they want. Because fuck that noise.

[freedom-of-fanfic]

Opinion Here’s how to get free Paxlovid as many times as you need it

When the public health emergency around covid-19 ended, vaccines and treatments became commercial products, meaning companies could charge for them as they do other pharmaceuticals. Paxlovid, the highly effective antiviral pill that can prevent covid from becoming severe, now has a list price of nearly $1,400 for a five-day treatment course.

Thanks to an innovative agreement between the Biden administration and the drug’s manufacturer, Pfizer, Americans can still access the medication free or at very low cost through a program called Paxcess. The problem is that too few people — including pharmacists — are aware of it.

I learned of Paxcess only after readers wrote that pharmacies were charging them hundreds of dollars — or even the full list price — to fill their Paxlovid prescription. This shouldn’t be happening. A representative from Pfizer, which runs the program, explained to me that patients on Medicare and Medicaid or who are uninsured should get free Paxlovid. They need to sign up by going to paxlovid.iassist.com or by calling 877-219-7225. “We wanted to make enrollment as easy and as quick as possible,” the representative said.

Indeed, the process is straightforward. I clicked through the web form myself, and there are only three sets of information required. Patients first enter their name, date of birth and address. They then input their prescriber’s name and address and select their insurance type.

All this should take less than five minutes and can be done at home or at the pharmacy. A physician or pharmacist can fill it out on behalf of the patient, too. Importantly, this form does not ask for medical history, proof of a positive coronavirus test, income verification, citizenship status or other potentially sensitive and time-consuming information.

But there is one key requirement people need to be aware of: Patients must have a prescription for Paxlovid to start the enrollment process. It is not possible to pre-enroll. (Though, in a sense, people on Medicare or Medicaid are already pre-enrolled.)

Once the questionnaire is complete, the website generates a voucher within seconds. People can print it or email it themselves, and then they can exchange it for a free course of Paxlovid at most pharmacies.

Pfizer’s representative tells me that more than 57,000 pharmacies are contracted to participate in this program, including major chain drugstores such as CVS and Walgreens and large retail chains such as Walmart, Kroger and Costco. For those unable to go in person, a mail-order option is available, too.

The program works a little differently for patients with commercial insurance. Some insurance plans already cover Paxlovid without a co-pay. Anyone who is told there will be a charge should sign up for Paxcess, which would further bring down their co-pay and might even cover the entire cost.

Several readers have attested that Paxcess’s process was fast and seamless. I was also glad to learn that there is basically no limit to the number of times someone could use it. A person who contracts the coronavirus three times in a year could access Paxlovid free or at low cost each time.

Unfortunately, readers informed me of one major glitch: Though the Paxcess voucher is honored when presented, some pharmacies are not offering the program proactively. As a result, many patients are still being charged high co-pays even if they could have gotten the medication at no cost.

This is incredibly frustrating. However, after interviewing multiple people involved in the process, including representatives of major pharmacy chains and Biden administration officials, I believe everyone is sincere in trying to make things right. As we saw in the early days of the coronavirus vaccine rollout, it’s hard to get a new program off the ground. Policies that look good on paper run into multiple barriers during implementation.

Those involved are actively identifying and addressing these problems. For instance, a Walgreens representative explained to me that in addition to educating pharmacists and pharmacy techs about the program, the company learned it also had to make system changes to account for a different workflow. Normally, when pharmacists process a prescription, they inform patients of the co-pay and dispense the medication. But with Paxlovid, the system needs to stop them if there is a co-pay, so they can prompt patients to sign up for Paxcess.

Here is where patients and consumers must take a proactive role. That might not feel fair; after all, if someone is ill, people expect that the system will work to help them. But that’s not our reality. While pharmacies work to fix their system glitches, patients need to be their own best advocates. That means signing up for Paxcess as soon as they receive a Paxlovid prescription and helping spread the word so that others can get the antiviral at little or no cost, too.

{source}

[freedom-of-fanfic]

very funny (irritating) to me that everyone whined and yelled about stupid rainbow capitalism and how performative wokeness/allyship is a net bad we should all refuse to support and now like.

tumblr is doing nothing for pride and target isn't selling much (if any) of their pride collection offline except at certain stores (in democratic areas, basically) and build a bear has a much tinier collection than normal and all the actual pride stuff is on their "adult" website (not sure if it's in stores, but pride = adult is a hell of a message)

there are genuinely good criticisms for performative allyship in all its applications. it shouldn't be the only thing we expect from people and companies. but if all the shit I see being called performative stopped tomorrow then in terms of the LGBTQ+ community especially we just. wouldn't talk about queerness or queer issues or celebrate pride or do anything.

open your fucking eyes. we are very close politically to having gay marriage rolled back. now companies are basically being let off the hook to even make a miniscule effort (which matters to the people who don't have access to any other kind of support in their communities! which normalizes the community in public spaces!) because the only reaction they have gotten over the last few years are negative ones from BOTH sides.

we are so entrenched in discourse at all times for the sake of our OWN performance of who is the wokest and who is REALLY an ally or a good community member that we have basically handed over all the work of activists of the last several decades to the other side because we'd rather scream at each other over fucking chicken restaurants and shit than the real life backsliding that's happening.

and this goes for other shit too. feminism, poc rights, all of it.

also. trans rights aren't discourse and aren't just culture war arguments. in case any terfs think they can spin this to be antitrans.