ivyblossom

[ivyblossom]

How did you get the previously mentioned crow army? Any tips on how to get one myself?

Please

It’s easy to befriend crows, they’re very smart. The hardest part is regularly being in close proximity to crows to get started. But if you see a place where you can get to know them, go there and give them crow-friendly snacks when they’re near enough to you. My go-tos are unsalted shelled peanuts (they still have to work to get the peanuts out) and sometimes chopped up boiled eggs. Peanuts are easier to throw. Do this regularly for a week or so and you’ll have some crow friends. They don’t really care about timing as long as it’s during the day. Crows usually sleep in a big group in some central location and probably won’t be around at night.

Crows are very wary. They will jump or fly away when you throw things towards them, but they will get the idea very fast.

My crow friends are very polite. They know what building I live in, and they probably know which unit, but they never bother me at home. They wait for me to come out the front door and out into the open to see them. They may have assigned someone to keep watch for me, because they definitely announce a sighting.

They do not shout at me, though once some of their cousins tried that and I did not reward the behaviour. No one’s done it again.

The lesson they learned about interacting with me is that getting into my eye line is the way, so they often get right in front of me, wings spread open for maximum visibility. When I’m on my scooter going 35 kph that sometimes means flying beside me, inches over my helmet or right in front of me.

I always talk to them. I’m hoping the gift I get from them is a response, so I try to say the same things to them. But often I just talk to them like people (because, hey, they are people! Non-human people, but still people.). They will fly and perch along fences in front of me over and over again when I’m walking somewhere, and will keep that up as long as there’s fence.

It doesn’t matter what you’re wearing. They know what clothes are. They know what a helmet is and they know my scooter is a vehicle. They recognize faces.

Good luck! Tell your new crow friends I say hi!

[ivyblossom]

My murder is ridiculous at this point. There are about 50 of them, and they fly along behind me en masse when I get on my scooter and jet off down the road. There might be 10-12 crows around me at any given time if I go outside. They perch around me just to say hi (in case there are any snacks in the offing). It's pretty witchy, I may have let it go too far. I definitely have big main character energy when I have a couple dozen crows flying behind me everywhere I go.

I love them.

i’m obsessed with this

and then, two months later....

🥺

[ivyblossom]

So I had this dream last night (that's always a great opening, isn't it?) where we lived on this distant planet where there was a terrible climactic event and our industrialized settlement was almost entirely wiped out by sudden and extreme cold (like The Day After Tomorrow), but the cold never lifted, that was just the new climate now, and the survivors were left to navigate through tunnels to get from one industrial complex to another, not knowing whether there were more survivors in there or whether they're just floating frozen bodies.

Now that I think of it, those bodies were definitely floating, so obviously there was a gravity issue. Yeah, we were all floating. Okay, so I guess what happened is that the planet lost its sun and its orbit, maybe it became a rogue planet or something unexpectedly, I dunno, but it was dark and cold and there was no gravity, and we were scratching out whatever existence we could, it was very grim.

But the grimmest part was that the hot hobby among the teens was spelunking through these elevator shafts and industrial towers looking for human bodies and collecting specific body parts. Gotta catch'em all, I guess.

I ran into one kid whose thing was collecting femurs. He was floating there in mid-elevator shaft, sawing through a frozen human body in order to collect his signature piece of it.

The body wasn't wearing a suit like the rest of us were, to protect us from the cold and the lack of atmosphere, it was in a jumper like Marsha on The Brady Bunch, she had no coat on, even. They had clearly been caught completely by surprise, no warning whatsoever. Her eyes were open and there was this look of shock frozen on her face. She was solid like an object, and I guess the victims of that calamity became objects to everyone else, and the terror and horror of what they went through and represent became just, I dunno, no big deal, just how it is. This kid a whole stack of femurs in his collection, still frozen with skin and muscle on them, and his mom was like, okay, Henry, just keep it organized, don't make a mess. It was so normal and not anything to worry about, I guess. And he grinned like his teeth were sharp.

No more chip and dip before bedtime for me.

[ivyblossom]

No more twitter. I won't be a part of that. I love you guys.

[ivyblossom]

PSA for fanfic writers

[ivyblossom]

Upon meeting a queer couple, straight people often ask uncomfortable, bizarre questions. They want to know which of them is the "man", and which is the "woman". Who's the top? Who's the bottom? Who's the giver, and who's the receiver, etc. They ask these nonsensical, ignorant questions and bypass the only relevant line of inquiry there is, the only one with an answer that's meaningful in any way.

Don't ask queer couples who the "man" in a relationship is. Ask who's the Bert. Who's the Ernie?

[ivyblossom]

I just want to stay home and sleep today, but I am still labouring under the false belief that that would be unprofessional, so here I am.

[ivyblossom]

me.

[ivyblossom]

Mad this. It literally says he got jailed for ignoring a court order telling him to stay away from the school - yet the headline says it's for not calling a kid they. He broke the court order cos he was being a self righteous stalkery Christian weirdo. I know the sort, they did the same to us at school cos we were scruffy poor unfortunates / desperate people that apparently needed god to save us. Loads of Christians are like this, proper weirdos.

[ivyblossom]

I love everything about this.

Animated scrap metal figures by Guillermo Galetti

[ivyblossom]

BOOping like my life depends on it

[ivyblossom]

But authors begging fans not to send them fanfic are not doing that because they can get into "real legal trouble". You can't copyright ideas. An author who is genuinely concerned about accidentally stealing an idea would need to never read books or check the news, never watch tv, never go to the movies, never go to a dinner party or read an email. They could absolutely accidentally "take something that's not theirs" doing any of that.

The reason writers ask fanwriters specifically not to point them towards fanfiction is because Marion Zimmer Bradley used to encourage fanwriters to write fics in her universe, and she would publish them in magazines and anthologies. And at one point she liked one fanfic so much she told the writer she intended to publish it as a novel of her own, and she offered the fanwriter an acknowledgement. The fanwriter, rightly, asked if she would be compensated for this, since, you know, she wrote it, and Marion Zimmer Bradley lost her absolute shit.

She told everyone that fans are shitbags who will accuse you of stealing their ideas and might even sue you for copyright infringement, oh no, never trust a fan! Here she was, being the world's best and kindest famous writer, mentoring, supporting, publishing, platforming, sexually molesting children including her own, you know, being a top drawer famous writer, and these ungrateful minions don't even have the courtesy to not accuse her of theft!

As if she, a famous writer with a convicted pedophile husband, with her prodigious imagination and exceptional skill, needed them or their silly stories! And many other writers clutched their pearls and said, "You're so right, Marion. We must never trust a fan. Fans will stab us in the back at the slightest provocation! They will take us to court, they will accuse us of stealing their stupid fanfics, you were too good to them, girl. This is why we can't have nice things. I shall NEVER so much as LOOK at a fanfic!" And the demonization of that fan who only suggested that an acknowledgement might not be appropriate, and that maybe being fairly compensated for her work being published under Marion Zimmer Bradley's name might be a thing to consider. That fanwriter never even sued Marion Zimmer Bradley.

It's fascinating that this misconception still exists. it's not unlike to Stockholm syndrome lie.

You don’t own fanfics. They’re inherently public domain because they aren’t your IP. Agree or disagree with AI, there are no grounds for “protection” from AI because it isn’t your IP to begin with. That’s what you chose when you chose this medium

Oh dear.

Okay, you get an answer, because at least you took the effort to write your ask out properly, even if you are hiding behind the grey, sunglassed circle.

Do I, or any fanfic author for that matter, have any legal claims to our work? No, not really, no. (Although if someone took a fic, filed off the serial number--deleted the fandom specific elements--, and then had it published for financial gain, yeah, that would be a case.)

BUT

Fandoms are built on a social contract that says we respect each others work, the effort people put into their art. We don't steal or disrespect the work of our peers. By feeding people's fanworks to AI you both steal and disprect it, and we need to make people realize that before it's too late--before fandom falls apart, because there will be no more real, actual fanworks.

Disrepectfully,

Orlissa

(i can't believe I have to say this)

[ivyblossom]

You blow up one sun and everyone thinks you can walk on water.

this got eaten somewhere and needs to not have done that

[ivyblossom]

When people make things unbearably shitty for no apparent reason: just, why? Why are we living like this? Why are we suffering when we could be having a good time?

[ivyblossom]

I honestly cannot think of very many things I'd like to do less than ask AI to write my stories for me. That's like meeting someone amazing and then asking AI to spend lots of time with them for me, and then somehow claiming we're close now. Or seeing a cool new tv series and asking AI to watch it for me. These are the fun parts where it actually matters that it's you doing it. Why would you outsource the fun parts and remove yourself from something so personal?

Alexa, pour yourself a gin and tonic and go watch the sunset for me, I wanna make some memories.

[ivyblossom]

➡️ Content warnings on fiction are a courtesy. 

➡️ Not every medium of fiction and storytelling has or is expected to have content warnings or extensive tagging.

➡️ Print novels do not traditionally warn for content in any way.

➡️ Until AO3 came along, fanfiction did not traditionally warn for content in any significant way.

➡️ An author is only obligated to warn for content to the degree mandated by the format they publish their fiction on.

➡️ Content warnings beyond the minimum are a courtesy, not an obligation.

➡️ 'Creator chose not to warn' is a valid tag that authors are allowed to use on AO3. It means there could be anything in there and you have accepted the risk. 'May contain peanuts!'

➡️ Writers are allowed to use 'Creator chose not to warn' for any reason, including to maintain surprise and avoid spoilers.

➡️ 'Creator chose not to warn' is not the same thing as 'no archive warnings apply'.

➡️ It is your responsibility to protect yourself and close a book, or hit the back button if you find something in fiction that you're reading that upsets you.

➡️ You are responsible for protecting yourself from fiction that causes you discomfort.

[ivyblossom]

narnia has actually way too many completely devastating concepts in it that are not explored At All