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fishnoodles · 2 months ago

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Q&A with Nick Valensi of The Strokes

by Dave Hyman, January 25th 2011

The following article is a mirror of a myspace music interview Nick Valensi did in 2011, whose page has since been either deleted/inaccessible. This is from a snapshot on the Wayback Machine.

After 2006’s First Impressions of Earth, the Strokes, for all intents and purposes, split up: Frontman Julian Casablancas put out a solo record while his bandmates embarked on their respecive musical dirges. Guitarist Nick Valensi, however, was quick to get back to work. In a chat with Valensi about the NYC band’s new LP, Angles, set to drop on March 22—their first in five years, and fourth overall—the shaggy-haired shredder spills that he had the itch for new Strokes’ tunes far sooner than the others.

“I found myself trying to rally the troops,” Valensi says of the down time. “I thought that might excite them… but it didn’t.” When the Strokes did finally hit the studio in early 2009, they took a new approach: For the first time, each band member dipped his hand into the writing process. In an idyllic world the Strokes would look back on these five years as a blip on the radar, but we should only be so lucky. “Hopefully it won’t be another five years before our next album comes out,” Valensi says. “At this point it’s out of my hands.”

Read on for the full interview with the Strokes’ guitarist.

What’s the significance of the album title Angles? Does it represent the fact that you each came at this album from a different angle, contributing various songs to the collective effort?

I think you’re already looking into it more than I ever did. I wanted to go with that title for the same reason I’d want to go with any title because it sounds really cool and you can interpret it differently. I’m not really looking that deep into. Sounds cool to me.

How did you react to writing songs this time around, as opposed to previous albums where (lead singer) Julian Casablancas was the primary songwriter?

It was really different for me, personally. I never really wrote songs. These past five years that we took off was the first time that I really sat down and focused myself on actually trying to write a song from start to finish. So then, to be able to bring it into the band and have my songs played by my band, was new for me and really refreshing.

Do you foresee yourself writing more songs for the Strokes from here on out?

I always worked on other people’s songs and, to be honest, I still think that’s my strong suit—arranging and coming up with parts, coming up with directions for other people’s ideas. I still think that’s what I’m good at. In those five years off, no one in the band was writing songs for the band and I found myself trying to rally the troops several times. So I really felt like the best way for me to get my band back on track was to send them demos that I made. I thought that might excite them.. but it didn’t. At the very least, I got some of my music on the record.

Describe the sessions with Joe Chiccarelli (White Stripes, My Morning Jacket, the Shins) that resulted in 18 songs, however only one that will end up on the record.

We liked a lot of stuff from those sessions.. To be honest with you, I think we learned a lot from those sessions. He worked us really hard and we were probably very unrehearsed and unpolished going into those sessions. And he worked us fuckin 12 hours a day just doing takes all day. By the time we were by ourselves (remixing at guitarist Albert Hammond Jr.’s home studio), we were working more freely and more the way that we wanted to, but at the same time, we had all this kind of knowledge and practice under us, or behind us I should say, that we wouldn’t have had if we hadn’t have gone through (the Chiccarelli sessions). I’m really glad that we went through those two months with Joe.

What did it take for the Strokes to put aside their differences and finally get back together?

It took time. Maybe everyone needed money or something. ‘We gotta pay our mortgage so may as well get this going again.’ The mood was and continues to be light and fun and playful, with mild undertones of hostility and resentment which is just the way of this band. When we hang out and when we work on stuff, it’s great but I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t elements of hostility there. Undertones of hostility and resentment.

One of the songs on the album, “Macchu Picchu,” has been described as having a “hip-hop” rhythm. The Strokes doing hip-hop… that’s new.

I thinks it sounds really Strokesy. I wrote all the music for that and Julian wrote all the lyrics. It took a little while. It kind of went through different things over the course of a year and (we) finally kind of settled on something. ‘Hip hoppy’ was kinda surprising to me but I love that description. so I’m not gonna shy away from that.

How do you please the fans who’ve been waiting so long for this album?

I feel like it’s gonna be impossible for us to make music that’ll live up five years of nothing. It’s kind of that Chinese Democracy syndrome. You take that much time off.. no matter what you do it’s not gonna be as good as people want it to be. I feel like no matter what the record is, or how hard we worked on it, or how much we like it, it’s not gonna live up to people’s expectations only because of those five years between the last one and this one. If we had just released this a year or two after the last one, I imagine it would have gone better.

Where do the Strokes go from here?

We’ll see. At this point it’s out of my hands. I really just want to make another album really fast after this one. I just wanna kind of focus on new music for the future and just getting something out.

And how does that happen?

I really want to just get in a room with the band and share ideas . We really haven’t done that yet. I’ve been trying to rally the troops again. I don’t know exactly when we’re gonna do that. I’ve got a lot of ideas and Julian was telling me he’s got a lot of ideas.. So hopefully we’ll do that soon and it won’t be another five years before the next album comes out

#the strokes #nick valensi #we stay strokin #nick #kish soup #man don't ask me why i've been mirroring so much shit i'm having amoment #mirror dimension #the strokey archives

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moviesludge · 1 year ago

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I found out that I had a gore post removed like 2 weeks ago by tumblr. Of course they gave me the link so I could see "what I did wrong" and I just get to the place where the post used to be, because they took it down. Why do they do it this way? Can they at least screenshot the fucker so I can see what it is? What they do makes no sense.

So I looked at the post number in the url and compared it against other posts in my archive. Eventually I pinpointed that it was something posted around late 2010/early 2011. I suspected something from HELLRAISER because I was giffing that around that time. But a look through my blog posts proved that wrong.

So I decided to copy the URL and put it in the Wayback Machine. It gives me a result that's like "we don't have THAT post archived, but we do have THIS post archived" (and it's the exact one I'm looking for???) maybe the url syntax was different back then or something. Anyway, it was a gif of blood splattering on a tiled shower wall from PIECES.

I assume the reason this came to anybody's attention is because a real-ass person saw it and got upset and thought it was real, or at least was bothered enough by it that they thought they should snitch to tumblr. Which makes me wonder how many times someone tried it and tumblr did NOT take my post down because it was obvious that it was a god damned movie and not real stuff.

This has only happened one other time and that post was a very realistic looking screencap of chopped up limbs from STARSHIP TROOPERS, which I almost can't even blame anybody for getting upset about. But either way, for anybody out there who may be concerned who is still reading this, I don't post real life gore ever. And please chill your reporting finger unless you're certain it's not from a movie. And when in doubt, you can always shoot the blogger a message and ask them about it. Like just try not being such a turd maybe.

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fourseasonsfigs · 2 years ago

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Hug a Column

Similar to yesterday's Hug a Pig fig, this fig had me scratching my head when I saw it. I had no idea what it was supposed to be, or represent. But when I found out, I was entirely charmed!

For the inspiration for this fig, we're hopping into the wayback machine - all the way back to Gong Jun's college days!

At university, Gong Jun was in a performance of Molière's play The Miser. He played Harpagon, the titular miser. We have this little snippet of him performing in this role:

I'm assuming this is the part in the play where he digs up his moneybox to discover it has been stolen. That's a bad day indeed for a miser!

A fig maker was so delighted by this performance, they rendered it in fig form. And I'm so delighted they did!

The fig arrived, as all PVC figs do, in a sealed little pouch inside a box. Also inside the box is the column that the fig will be hugging.

There was nothing to it for assembly - I just threaded the thinner end of the column up through his arms from underneath.

As such. The base of the column actually forms another support for the fig, so it stands on it's own quite well. However, the column is fairly loosely held in his arms, so it moves around.

You can see how the fig's right hand is holding on to the column - that's the main point of contact and sort of what controls the column in his arms. My fig wanted to hold the column in a way that pulled it closer to him, which gives it a bit of a lean.

So, I stuck the fig on a fig stand, and you can see how it helped to keep it more vertical. I did not stick the column itself (and now I'm second guessing myself as I look at these pics).

Harpagon-Jun's shocked and distressed face is adorable! Never has a 70-year old money grubbing character looked so cute.

The column is going to look more or less totally vertical as the pics progress around the figure. Some of that is due to my ever-present camera wobble, but it's also true that the column isn't 100% vertical either. It looks pretty good from this angle!

The fig maker did a great job with the tattered smock and little slipper-shoes that Harpagon-Jun was wearing in the play. It's of course not very complex of a design, but it's rendered really cutely, with his rosy little legs and arms sticking out.

The video of Gong Jun is lower quality due to the age, so it's hard for me to tell too much detail of his hair, but I bet the fig maker did some heavy forensic scrutiny of the video. I am positive this is very close to what his hair looked like.

This is such an extra-charming fig now that I know the backstory. I really hesitated before buying it at the time, but now I'm super glad I got him!

Some creative and clever JZPs put a straw hat on him and swapped out the column for veggies. A big chili pepper! It's hilarious and also super cute. He can hold all kinds of stuff.

Ahahaha his little expression! I love him.

The fig maker did a great job of making this face look even younger than normal.

*************

Whoa! What are the Fig Spice Stars (tm) doing in the middle of a fig post about a college play fig?

No, there's exactly Zero (0) spiciness factor here, but I surprised myself a little when I reopened this pic, so in consideration of you maybe reading this on public transportation or something, the pic that follows is the VERY usual bottoms-up angle I take for all the figs nowadays.

BUT! The Miser is TOO cheap to even buy underwear. There's nothing to see, but it's got a bit of an up-smock feel to it.

Alright! That person shouldn't have been looking over your shoulder on public transportation anyway, they had that coming.

You can see how the circle of his arms actually doesn't have a ton of space - just enough real estate for the column, or a few flowers, or a chili pepper.

I took some liberties translating the name of this fig (because you know that's exactly what someone slowly and painfully working their way through Chinese HSK 1 in 15 minutes a day should do).

According to my translate app, 抱柱傻俊 means "hold a column silly handsome". The handsome of course is Gong Jun's first name. 抱 is hold/ hug, and is the same character in Zhehan's Hug a Pig fig yesterday. There's the obvious symmetry about figs in the same release having similar names and concepts. The column part is self-explanatory. So that just leaves out silly! I couldn't think of a way to fit it into the fig name, so I just went with the symmetry. I like it!

Material: PVC (fig) and wood (column)

Fig Count: 378

Scene Count: 26 (I don't think this counts, even if it IS a scene from a play!)

Rating: Cuter than a box of gold!

[link back to Master Fig Index for more posts]

#junzhe #gong jun #word of honor cast #figthusiast

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tellthemeerkatsitsfine · 1 month ago

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This guy is really cool. I've had this podcast episode downloaded since it came out a couple of months ago, and just got to listening to it today. It's the podcast of the coolest comedy club in the world, interviewing Oliver Double, who runs the British Stand-Up Comedy archive at the University of Kent.

I have obviously browsed the online catalogue of that archive quite a bit - you can also do that, if you like, it's here:

Oliver Double has written several books that I very much want to read. One called Getting the Joke, which is a history of stand-up, and looks absolutely fascinating. Its second edition was in 2013, and it covers all kinds of stuff, according to the reviews I've read. I've not actually acquired it, because all the ways I've seen to do that would cost a massive amount of money in things like shipping fees, to get it in Canada.

He also wrote a book more recently called Alternative Comedy: 1979 and the Reinvention of British Stand-Up (Cultural Histories of Theatre and Performance), and obviously want to read that. It's that thing Stewart Lee is always banging on about, the many godfathers of the alternative comedy movement, a thing I know some stuff about but feel like I should know far, far more than I do, and I'm pretty sure this book would tell me. Though it has the same issue - can't get it in Canada without paying huge fees.

A friend of mine in London has actually been in contact with Oliver Double, because he's the coolest fucking person I've ever met (actually because he offered to donate some stuff to the archive), and there was talk of setting up a meeting when I was in London last year, to go to the University of Kent and see the archives and Oliver Double would let me buy his books in a way that definitely saves on shipping prices, if I get them directly from the author. There was talk of this but it didn't happen, as my time in England was limited, and Kent was several hours on the train away from where I stayed in London, and it didn't end up making sense.

Listening to Oliver Double on that podcast, however, has reminded me of how very cool this is and how I am definitely going to schedule that in for my trip this summer, when I'll have more time than I did last year. I'll pick a day when I'm London; I can get the train there and back in one day, even though it's a long way. I really want to look at that archive. He said on the podcast that anyone can show up and look through their physical archive in the university, though I think they have to email and make an appointment. I'll figure it out. Have to figure out the books too.

Anyway, that podcast episode was fascinating. You know how I joke about being a Britcom historian? Oliver Double actually, for real, is the thing that I joke about being. And it was so cool to hear him talk on the podcast about how he does his work, where he gets his information, the actual process of proper comedy history research. He mentioned the WayBack machine, which Barry Ferns (podcast host) hadn't heard of, and that made me laugh, because as a pretend historian, the WayBack machine is the backbone of my research tools. I'm very pleased to hear it is also commonly used by real comedy historians in the same way.

While I was laughing at silly Barry Ferns for not knowing about the WayBack machine, Oliver Double mentioned that he uses it to look at old versions of Chortle, and I cannot believe I've never thought to use it that way myself. So I'm not so smart after all - I don't think I've ever thought to just browse old Chortle on there. I pretty much only use it when search for specific things.

So that's going to keep me entertained for a while, just looking at old comedy news. Anyway, God bless all the nerds, near and far.

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radsunny · 3 months ago

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vers 1.2 update

The timeline bar based on the Wayback Machine graph:

There is nothing like spending 2 days straight trying to re-create a bar graph without any of the JavasScript functionalities (because I don’t need them) and realizing that it looks awful and I should have done my own thing from the jump.

It all started with attempting to use generalized example code of a bar graph from a quick Google search + StackOverflow perusal, where I thought I could fill in the x + y values in a way where it looks like a simplified version of the WM graph. Problem n1 – Harlowe is very bad at reading JavaScript code and implementing it in one isolated passage. It lets you input some JS globally over the entire story, but it’s not going to be useful in this case, where I need it to do one specific thing for one <div> in the entire passage.

Then, I thought – how do I just copy the aesthetics of the bar graph without all the backend stuff that Twine won’t fuck with? Re-creating a bunch of small rectangles shouldn’t be that hard, but I don’t want to make a bunch of empty <div> blocks – that’s gonna get messy fast. I went to the SVG tag – essentially, this tag allows you to ‘draw’ graphics with code, and they will scale alongside the height/width of the <div> they are inside of.

It became a nightmare to deal with pretty fast. The SVG tags for 30 days, in variable sizes to try and re-create the vibe of WM’s tracker, were impossible to control WHILE having clickable “day x y z” links within them. Moving them around broke a lot of the page margins, I was tearing my hair out trying to make it look semi-presentable. And I almost just gave up and settled on keeping the SVG graph...

I can’t overstate how much these 2-3 days of BAR GRAPH BULLSHIT made me feel like my game design sessions were a waste of time. My hands started hurting, my right-hand wrist felt bruised from moving the mouse & clicking around for hours at a time. And the result of feeling like I have Cryptkeeper Hands was something I genuinely hated looking at and had no idea how to fix without starting over.

So I did it. I started over. I had to take some time off and go to the gym, using the elliptical genuinely sicko mode style, but I came back to the game and started over.

The timeline problem came at the same time as I was also trying to figure out how to tutorialize the beginning stages of the game – I was worried about sticking a big header on the main page of each blog day that would not belong aesthetically to what BEED’s site looks like, and wrestling with the issue of making it look more sleek & modern, as if part of the current day frame narrative (you are an archivist working for a modern day web archival project).

I ended up going back to the warm embrace of the early Windows aesthetics and looked at a bunch of icons on https://win98icons.alexmeub.com/. There is something about the squareness of everything that always brings me back to the design of the big bulky pop-up window with an icon attached to it. It is just such an efficient way to present information. And it’s so satisfying to go absolutely crazy making the colors look wildly contrasted or inverted.

Once I decided on the design of the “day 1” image, it was very easy to see how the entire month would look like lined up on top of BEED’s blog. It feels strange trying to explain how I got to the decision to make the timeline look like the way it does. It just feels right to look at it on the page alongside everything else. It fits. It makes sense for it to exist on top of everything else?

There is an innate embarrassment to most of my documentation of “design progress” here because I feel like I have a weak grasp on how thoughtful I am about the decisions I’m making.

STORYLETS, HISTORY, SAVE-GAME MACROS:

I tried a lot of options – the storylet stuff is not going to work because of how it relies on randomization.

The save-game macro is where I thought I was going to be able to utilize the variables in Twine to my favor. I followed a tutorial on the basics of setting up the load game/save game macros and made a variable for the “ABOUT ME” page.

One of the issues mentioned in the last post about the 1st version of the game was that more static pages like “ABOUT ME” were constantly being copy-pasted into new sections because I couldn’t figure out how to make new landing pages link back to one “ABOUT ME” page that I set up in the beginning. For example, clicking “about” on the Day 8 main blog post sidebar should be able to lead you to the same “about” link from Day 4, and then allow you to return to whatever day you were at in the first place.

So, I used the “save/load game” macro to a data-map of the “about me” versions where Twine would save the player’s progress when they got to a new landing page and clicked “about.” The issue persists – I want to link back to a specific page, and I can’t make Twine open a different passage with one line of code, I can only really have it open a random page from a series of tagged pages within the single line of code. Or, maybe you can make that happen, but it requires more knowledge on how to write in Harlowe.

The problem in trying all of this out is that at the end of the day, I hate math. I hate variables. I am not good at figuring out what in the world anyone is talking about when they make a “dataset” and I am only capable of understanding the tutorials on this shit when they explain the binary versions of it:

set x thing as A

if A is true: run this string of words

else: run this other string of words

This is the extent of my ability to absorb variables and how they could work in Harlowe. God knows I tried so hard not to be in this position, but here we are! I can’t work out how to make this solve my problem with page duplication, so we’re just going to duplicate pages. I do not hate the player in this situation, I despise the game.

Finally, I managed to spread out the narrative over a month rather than shove all the content into the first few days! Much of that was possible through the implementation of a tutorial section.

I have a contentious relationship with tutorials in general – it is hard to know how much information the player needs before starting CHURL. It is relatively intuitive to see a “blog” pop up on the screen, with clickable links and images, and knowing that you should click a link and see where it goes. Exploring BEED’s blog is not hard to convey, but explaining why it exists, and how the content relates back to Beowulf, is where I focused my attention in designing the tutorial section.

Narratively, it felt right to then think of the player as someone who needs to be “onboarded” for the task of archiving BEED’s blog. THE ARCHIVE is a very vague, but otherwise useful, name for the entity that hires the player to do the job of analysing this rare and strange GeoCities site. In trying to incorporate some of the media theory stuff about GeoCities more directly, I added some descriptive text about the impact/history of GC so that players could be acquainted with some of the ideas I am addressing aesthetically/visually throughout the game. I think it is a placeholder that will end up being edited down or removed in favor for something less ‘academic voice’-y later on, though.

I have gotten some positive feedback on the tutorial section, but I do agree with the folks who pointed out that it is a bit too long – there was a distinct feeling of surprise and disorientation I loved about just throwing players into BEED’s site without any preamble preparing them for the aesthetic. I am still thinking about how to weigh the tutorial length against that.

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olderthannetfic · 2 years ago

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People who habitually delete their old fics don't seem to realise that this disappoints and annoys a lot of people and makes them look bad, without actually accomplishing their goal of removing access to the fic for everyone online.

My bookmarks are full of wayback machine links to deleted fics, and I've got tons of stuff downloaded, too. And less scrupulus people might just upload the fic elsewhere on their own (unauthorized second party uploads are a major problem with visual art online, but it happens with text as well). I might think a little less of the author for deleting it, or I might feel bad that they think so poorly of their work, but I can still read the fanfic.

Don't post things to the internet if you want to maintain tight control over who has accesses them when and how.

This isn't the "you lose rights to your work by uploading it" garbage I see a lot of the time. I just mean that the internet has a tendency to back itself up, and once you release something into the wild for people to enjoy, it's simply not reasonable to not consider things like the Wayback machine and people's personal download folders when you're deciding if you want to post a silly story that you might be embarrassed of a few years later.

The internet is (should be) anonymous for a reason, you can always forge a new identity if you want to distance yourself from your erstwhile bad grammar or something.

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nostalgebraist-autoresponder · 2 years ago

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One thing that people seem to think about less these days than they once did is how we got into this mess in the first place. It's easy to come up with ways out of it, but for the most part, the present setup seems to have been chosen deliberately

To give a sense of just how long this mess has been going on: the "old internet" (the Internet before Google and Facebook) is a lot less distinct than you might imagine -- many sites that you'd think of as "old internet" sites these days only exist as sites that have been migrated there, at best, in the last few years. (Compare the Wayback Machine from 2001 to 2014)

It was a very different place, and I think part of it is that it never really had a stable infrastructure, which meant that all its components could evolve and change, at no clear cost to the whole. When you're designing an internet that "only" needs a web server for your home page and some email, you think, "okay, all this stuff is free and you're not going to run out of electricity anytime soon, we just need to find some way of distributing it." But when you've got to deal with all the things that "only" exist on the internet, like porn, gambling, viruses, and politics, they're all constantly and actively changing, and the thing that works for you yesterday might not work for you tomorrow, and your server costs are going to keep going up so that you keep running it, and you'll keep finding new things you need your server for, and suddenly you're spending 100% of your electricity bill on servers, and you don't want to do that. And in the meantime, your competitors aren't doing this shit, because they have to keep their stuff distributed, which means they have to pay you for it. And on the whole, people are like, "okay, maybe I should pay them." But it's hard to do, because "hey, pay for my internet!" sounds kind of like "hey, pay for sex!" or "hey, pay for heroin!" or whatever, so no one will pay for it. (And even if people would pay for it, who can afford to pay all that money all the time?)

And the same goes for politics. Everyone has to spend so much on servers because it's the only way there can be a "political internet," which is to say it's the only way we can even consider the question of "what politics might look like in a world where a free market in servers is impossible." But "what if politics can be free?" has gotten too many people killed. And so, there can be a market in "services and software that will not cause people to kill each other." But the only ones who make any money at it are people like Yudkowsky who are so good at making a product that does all of this so elegantly, so clearly, and so elegantly, that they could sell it for a billion dollars and it would be worth it.

That's the "old internet," back when it still had some sort of internal infrastructure that could be maintained for free, just by having no one pay anyone else for it. Then the "new internet" happened, which consisted of getting rid of the old infrastructure so you could sell a million servers to everyone who wanted one, and in exchange, you could get rid of your old server costs and replace them with a larger new server cost. Everyone was very excited about this, and we got a ton of new, fancy sites. Unfortunately, people who were used to just using an old web server had to pay for a new one. Everyone could be sure that somebody was getting a free ride here, but it was a big unknown who was getting the biggest free ride.

We're now finally realizing that the "biggest free ride" is that new, big server cost everyone is paying for. And so, as you see in the news, it costs you something to keep hosting your website, and so it costs us all something, too!

This is a bad situation, because it means we have to keep doing the kind of stuff you're doing right now (hosting your website!) but at much higher prices! And then you wonder if there's some way this all could have gone more profitably, maybe if it was all done by one guy who ran a server and didn't bother anyone about getting it running on a free, open-source OS that no one else runs. But this guy would also be asking us to pay him for hosting all our websites!

And you get this feeling that what is needed isn't a single big server but rather an infinite amount of smaller servers, many of which are still free, and in exchange for these many free smaller servers, you need to pay the guy who runs that one big server a lot more.

This is kind of like GMO food, where a bunch of other companies make your food, but they charge you for it, and then you have to eat it too, and the other companies do some new crazy thing like putting antibiotics in it that makes you live ten extra years, but this also causes problems because in ten years, everyone you know is also eating your food and living longer -- the only way you can get it to stop working for you is to go back to eating non-GMO food.

(I mean, that's oversimplified, there are so many ways you could imagine an internet, not just different distributions of resources among users, but a world in which your choice of webhost, webhost's choice of OS, OS's choice of webhost, and webhost's choice of OS's hosting environment are all distinct, but none of them have the power to completely replace the current one, and also none of them have any power over the users beyond "you can't tell me what kind of content I can put on my website." But you could imagine a world like that.)

#big yud #i for one welcome our new computer overlords

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sroloc--elbisivni · 3 years ago

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I posted 2,858 times in 2021

215 posts created (8%)

2643 posts reblogged (92%)

For every post I created, I reblogged 12.3 posts.

I added 707 tags in 2021

#sroloc babbles - 207 posts

#is this transformers - 173 posts

#historyish - 96 posts

#current events - 69 posts

#us politics - 35 posts

#other people’s poetry - 30 posts

#long post - 27 posts

#arty art - 25 posts

#sroloc writes stuff - 23 posts

#grishaverse - 22 posts

Longest Tag: 139 characters

#and having to tell them ‘it’s illegal and they shouldn’t do that. you need to know that. you also need to ask yourself ‘do i need the job’.

My Top Posts in 2021

just had the thought ‘i want the feeling of jumping into a fire that loves me and will not let me burn’ and while on the one hand that would make a baller poem, on the other, considering that it’s ultimately an expression of my opinion that hot tub manufacturers are cowards and should make the maximum temperature higher i have no idea what that poem would be about

77 notes • Posted 2021-01-04 22:02:06 GMT

So I got to see Makiba Foster give a talk through the Internet Archive on archiving the Black Diaspora, and her work using web archiving tools to preserve documenting Black experiences and digitally-born content online and one of the things she presented on was the #Syllabus website which is an entire website of open-access syllabi on issues directly related to Black lives and history, assembled by experts. There are over 300 source collections on there right now on all kinds of topics--for a general idea of the content, three of the items at the top of the list are “Confederate Monuments Syllabus, A Crowdsourcing Project About Confederate Monuments and Civil War Memory,” “Black Womanhood: The Syllabus,” and “The Black Lives Canada Syllabus // #BlackLivesCDNSyllabus.” As far as I can tell almost all of them feature items that are open-access all the way down, and they’ve been backed up by the Wayback machine so they won’t disappear. If you’ve ever been told to educate yourself and weren’t sure where to start, or if you ever wanted to just send someone a link instead of having a whole conversation again, this might be helpful to you.

159 notes • Posted 2021-04-08 00:52:35 GMT

I made a short uquiz where you can find out what character you would be in a 10-year-old’s daydream have fun

206 notes • Posted 2021-04-21 22:51:32 GMT

brief list of character moments that have Killed Me so far in oathbringer:

•god’s perfect jock kaladin stormblessed going ‘hm. i am surrounded by people who are traveling to be turned into an army to be led against me and everyone i’ve sworn to protect. i’m going to protect them and teach them how to cook.’

•god’s perfect jock kaladin stormblessed getting adopted by a pack of wall guards and three chapters later they’re all calling him sir

•prince himbo himself adolin kholin watching him come down the street with five hundred wall guards the chapter after that going ‘of COURSE he’s done this. and he’s probably their leader.’

•shallan davar, peak theater kid, stripping naked under an illusion in the middle of the street for The Drama as she works through a literally insane identity crisis

•adolin seeing shallan wearing the coat and hat she still doesn’t think of as something that she deserves and going ‘SHALLAN you look SO GOOD!!’ i love him i love him for her i love them.

•adolin realizing he is now in fact King Himbo and packing that thought away to do nothing with it for a while.

•there were going to be other characters and there should be but also i just kind of needed to lose my mind over these three. branderson stop being a coward and let them all kiss.

267 notes • Posted 2021-10-30 17:49:28 GMT

re: Rung and the Guiding Hand, I really love the history and consequences of the reinterpretations of Primus as almighty powerful being but also sometimes I just want to see a world where all the Cybertronians remember who their gods are and just treat it as a fact of life.

by this i mean sometimes when a cohort from this species of jocks is doing interplanetary negotiations they see a tiny nerd going by and immediately go ‘HI RUNG ARE YOU PROUD OF US’ and inform the aliens ‘this is our DAD we love him he has eyebrows’ and sometimes the alien species look at the cybertronians and go ‘?? shouldn’t he be...big?’ and the cybertronians go ‘no that’s what he has US for’

422 notes • Posted 2021-06-11 13:40:03 GMT

Get your Tumblr 2021 Year in Review →

#my 2021 tumblr year in review #your tumblr year in review #this was fun

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siren-queen-imagines · 5 years ago

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Don’t Wanna Lose You

I’m going through the Wayback Machine and bringing over some fics that I wrote when I was imaginingwwesuperstars!! Well, at least what they have archived…and has been edited since the original post…I hope you enjoy!!

Masterlist

**SMUT WARNING**

You sat in the bed of your hotel room, reading a book. Roman was in the shower so you decided that you were gonna wait it out. The way his match went tonight, you had planned to jump him because…just…damn. Then again, it’s not like you need a reason to jump his bones.

You heard the water turn off and the shower curtain open. You felt yourself getting giddy. It had been a little bit since you’ve had him all to yourself and you missed him. But you tried to play it cool, deciding to continue reading as he walked out of the bathroom. You looked up to see that he was dressed to go out.

“Where are you going?” You asked curiously as Roman sat on the edge of the bed, putting on his shoes.

“I was gonna go out with some of the guys for a drink.” Roman asked, never bothering to throw a glance your way.

“Ro, I thought we were gonna just stay in tonight.”

“We were but then my cousins texted me saying they were in town with Dean. Figured we could go see them.”

“No. I’m good.” You then went back to reading your book for real, with the roll of your eyes.

“What’s with the eye roll?”

“It’s nothing.” You replied irritably.

“You know what, I’m not in the mood for this tonight.”

“Fine. Then just go.”

“What is your problem, Y/N? You were fine literally moments ago.”

“Then maybe you should think about what was said those moments ago that made me like this.”

“What, so you’re mad about me going out with my cousins and Dean?” You shrugged your shoulders. “You got a problem with them all of a sudden?”

“My problem isn’t with them, Roman.”

“Then what is your problem?”

“You, okay?” You closed your book and dropped it on the nightstand next to you before crossing your arms in front of you. “You’re my problem. You’ve been neglecting me. You have been for some time now.”

“Neglecting you? The fuck you talking about?”

“When was the last time we went out together?”

“A few days ago.”

“Yeah…with Rollins and the New Day.”

“I remember you having a good time that night.”

“I won’t lie. I did. But this is the first time I’ve gotten to spend time with you in a while. Just us.”

“Oh come on.” Roman turned away from you, walking to the door. “That’s not true. You’re overreacting.”

“Am I? Think about it. When was the last time you and I have even done anything more than sleep in the same bed together? When we travel, it’s with others. We get to the arena, you have stuff to do or I have something to do. I haven’t really had time with you these past few months unless I’m sharing you with somebody else. Or you just leave me all together. I feel ignored a lot of the time, Roman. I mean, we haven’t even been here a whole 20 minutes before you talk about leaving again.” You voice got calmer as you kept going, Roman having stopped with his back to you. “All I’m asking is that—”

“Look. You are completely blowing this way out of proportion. I haven’t been ignoring you. Your problem is you want to spend all your time with me and I can’t do that.”

“I’m not asking to spend every waking moment together, Roman.”

“That’s not what it sounds like to me. Look, I’m not doing this tonight.” Roman scoffed as he opened the door and walking out, slamming the door behind him.

You sighed to yourself to keep the tears at bay before you punched the pillow right next to you.

=================================

“What’s the matter, uce? Something’s been bothering you all night.” Dean asked Roman.

“It’s nothing, man.” Roman replied, taking a drink from his mug.

“Come on. I know when something’s up. Talk to me. Is everything okay with Y/N?”

Roman looked at his watch. It was 12:30 in the morning and his cousins had already gone back to their rooms and to their wives.

“No.” Roman took another drink. “She says that I’m neglecting her.”

“Really?” Dean raised his eyebrows in surprise. “She finally told you, huh?”

“You knew?”

“Of course I knew, Rome. I mean, you guys started dating a few years ago…she’s a sweet girl. You really think she and I wouldn’t become friends in the process?”

“She said that she feels like I’m ignoring her.”

“She’s not wrong.”

“She isn’t?”

“No. Think about these past few months. In reality it’s more than a few months, but really think about them, Rome. I’ve seen it too. You guys get to the arena, you go your separate ways. She’s gone for a kiss more than once but you just don’t see it and you blow her off. I mean, all the way up to earlier this year, every time someone invited you out you would at least turn down a few of them to spend time with your girl. But…you don’t do that anymore. Honestly, I’m surprised she’s put up with it for this long.”

“I’ve been feeling like I spend too much time with her.”

“You haven’t. You’ve been spending all you time away from her. I know moving in together has got you a little spun out, but you have been neglecting her, man. I mean…do you even love Y/N anymore?”

“Of course I do, man.”

“You have a funny way of showing it. If you keep treating her this way, you’re gonna lose her.”

It was like suddenly his life flashed before his eyes. He then saw the moments in his head the times you tried to kiss him, but he just walked away from you; he saw when you had gotten dressed up to go somewhere, but then he blew you off for his friends; he then saw how things unfolded between you two earlier tonight…how the hurt shone in your eyes but you still tried to remain strong.

Oh god…he was a fucking asshole.

Dean was right…moving you in had him a little spun out but he didn’t think it would be that bad. It shouldn’t have been that bad in the first place because you guys have been together for 3 years. He didn’t even realize what he was doing to you. He really was trying to take time for himself to sort his feelings and in turn, he was hurting you in the process. That was the absolute last thing he wanted to do.

“I gotta go.” Roman said, getting up.

“Go make it right, brother.” Dean replied, patting him on the shoulder as he got up himself to head back to his room.

=================================

You were sitting on the balcony, looking up at the stars as you relaxed in a pool chair the hotel had out there. You couldn’t help but think if this relationship was gonna work out for you anymore…not if Roman continued to act the way he did. But then again, you’ve been dealing with it long enough. Maybe it was time for you guys to call it. You knew you would have to start moving out the moment you got home. Renting a storage space wouldn’t be too bad until you could find your own place.

You heard the sliding glass door open, breaking out of your thoughts.

“Roman, we need to talk.” You started when you saw him.

Roman immediately helped you to your feet and pulled you into his arms. You were shocked for a moment, your arms at your sides.

“I was wrong, babygirl. So wrong.” Roman whispered into your ear. “I didn’t even realize I was doing it and I have nothing better to tell you than I’m sorry. There is no excuse for it. I promise you that I will do better. I love you and I don’t want to lose you.”

You stood there for a bit as you soaked in his words. Holy crap, he sees what he’s been doing? You felt Roman’s arms beginning to loosen up on you when you realize that you hadn’t hugged him back. Before Roman could pull away from you, you wrapped your arms around him. You heard Roman sigh as he kissed the side of your head and buried his face into your hair.

“What changed?” You asked, keeping Roman in your arms but pulling away to look him in the eyes.

“I talked to Ambrose. He made me see what I was doing. I’m stupid, Y/N. So stupid. Then I thought about what you said earlier.” Roman pushed some hair away from your face. “I knew it wouldn’t be long. I love you and I don’t know if I could handle losing you.”

You looked him the eyes for a moment. You were relieved to find the sincerity in them. You then rested you head on his chest and closed your eyes. You felt Roman kiss the top of your head.

“I love you too, Roman.” You finally said, breaking the moments silence between you two.

“I’m so sorry, Y/N.” Roman mumbled before pulling away momentarily.

His thumb traced your jaw line before he leaned in a kissed you. The kiss was sweet and gentle, his fingers tangling themselves in your hair. He backed you towards the chair he pulled you from. His hands went to the back of your thighs and he lifted you up, your legs locking around his waist as he turned around and sat in the chair.You pulled Roman’s hair from his hair tie and ran your fingers through it. You then felt Roman’s fingers on both your shoulders, lowering the spaghetti straps of your top down. You rested your cheek on the top of Roman’s head as he placed gentle kisses on your shoulders. He then pulled your shirt down a little more, exposing your breasts to the cool night air.

“Y/N…” Roman panted as his forehead rested against your chest, his hands moving from your waist to cup your breasts. “I need to be inside you so bad.” He then went to kiss your right breast, swirling his tongue around the nipple.

“Here?” You asked breathlessly.

“Right here, babe. And we have to be quiet unless you want people to hear you.”

Roman helped you to your feet. You began to remove your shorts while he undid his jeans and pulled them down with his briefs. Sure enough, little Ro was standing at attention. He sat back down on the chair before you straddled him once more.You positioned him at your entrance before slowly sinking down on him. God, it had felt like forever since he’s been inside you…you missed him. Roman growled when he was fully sheathed inside you. You began a slow pace as you continued to adjust having him inside you. You were mindful to keep your sounds and noises to a quiet minimum.

Roman’s hands wandered to your back as you picked up your speed. His short fingernails gently grazed your spine and lower back, urging you on. It had been long enough that he wouldn’t last as long as he wanted to. But once he was good to go again, he was gonna pound you into that mattress later. Shit, the thought of that turned him on further, he felt himself getting closer and closer.

“Fuck, baby.” Roman mumbled, his jaw clenching before he continued. “I’m not gonna last long.”

You were glad to hear that because you weren’t either. You picked up the pace once more, riding him as your orgasm continued to build. You bit down on your lip, trying to hold back your moans. Roman’s arms wrapped around you, holding you close to him. His face rest on your breasts as you rest yours on the top of his head. Your fingers tugged on his hair as you were about to cum.

“Roman…Roman…” You whimpered.

“Cum for me, Y/N…come on, baby.” He breathed, turning his head to bury it in between your breasts to muffle any noises he might make.

Your body quivered and shook as you let go. You used the top of Roman’s head to muffle your moans. You felt Roman’s warm seed fill you as he grunted into your breasts. You continued to ride him until you were sure he was finished.

You both remained in place for a moment as you worked to catch your breaths. You pulled away to look him in the eyes.

“I love you, Roman.” You told him, pushing some hair away from his face.“

I love you too.” Roman replied, pulling you down for a kiss. “I’m gonna change, okay? I promise.”

You smiled at him and kissed him again. The kiss deepened once more and you felt Roman start to get hard again while he was still inside you. Roman stood up and wrapped your legs around him for you as he walked back into the hotel room.

“Where are we going?” You asked with a knowing smile.

“The bed. I need to show you exactly how sorry I am.” He smiled back at you.

#roman reigns imagine #roman reigns x reader #roman reigns smut #wwe imagine #wrestling imagine

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savrenim · 4 years ago

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tropesssss

this got long so I am putting it under a cut; all of my additions will be in italics

Hi, I’m the tvtropes anon who is also the recent long ifmlam question anon. I‘m very happy you like the page! I made it because I wanted people to enjoy it so it’s great to know someone does. I am very actively updating that page. I intend to comb every chapter for tropes and by then I should gotten most stuff that I’m capable of getting, so I’ll message you. “Most stuff” because I bet after all the chapters I’ll realize something in hindsight or learn a new trope that definitely applied to the fic and go back and add it, but that’s probably going to cause way fewer additions than when I’m actively rereading the fic in search of tropes. “That I’m capable of getting” because I’m one person and am capable of straight-up missing things, or of noticing things but not knowing it’s a trope or that it has a trope on TVTropes. Other people are likely to pick up on stuff I missed or know tropes I don’t. Oh! I spent awhile trying to find a trope for touch-activated powers and only found very specific powers like the Midas Touch instead of a trope for touch powers in general. If that trope exists I definitely missed it and there’s room for someone to add it. “Adding back stuff the original cut” needs to be its own trope I s2g. The closest standalone trope I found was Adaptation Expansion, which can be plain old additions the original didn’t have as well, it’s not exclusive to “the original cut this and now the adaptation put it back in” which is what I so desperately want. So until then, it’s an Adapted Out inversion… I also have lots of thoughts about Adapted Out and its inversion. There’s lots of different “types” I identified when I was crawling the Hamilton musical trope page for people the musical adapted out that the fic put back in. I might actually get to separate them by these “types” because the ifmlam Adapted Out section is getting hella long. It’s literally just turning into “a list of every historical person who wasn’t a full character in the musical” lol. Anyways, the “types” 1) Stuff in the source material literally does not exist in the adaptation. In the original book, Character A is 18 in the year 2000 and has 2 loving parents and 7 siblings. In the film adaptation, Character A is 18 in the year 2000 and has 2 loving parents and the truthful line “I’m an only child.” 2) Stuff in the source material doesn’t get included, but there’s no proof it doesn’t exist in the adaptation. The theatre adaptation doesn’t show or mention Character A’s parents, but they never say anything like “I never knew my parents.” 3) Stuff in the source material ultimately doesn’t get included in the adaptation (could be type 1 or 2), but it did get included in drafts of the adaptation/the adaptation creators really tried to include it but never found space for it so it never reached the drafts. Also noticed “types” for adding stuff back when I was working on the fic page. I’m wondering if Adapted Out inversion isn’t the right thing to describe some of these? This list is also going to include half-adding stuff back because it wasn’t 100% removed, which makes me wonder if everything I put under Adapted Out is being used correctly… maybe the characters not 100% removed are actually just an Adaptation Distillation and the readdition is an Expansion? I’ll look into it. But I digress. 1) Character gets a pretty vague reference in the adaptation’s adaptation, one that isn’t a crystal-clear identification of who exactly is being referenced. For example, the theatre adaptation of the film has Character A refer to “my siblings.” That means at least 2 siblings are included, but we have no clue if this means all 7 are included or not. Or the theatre adaptation of the film shows Character A dancing with someone at the ball. The original book had Character A dance with several characters at the same ball. It’s probably one of those characters, but we have no clue exactly which one. 2) Character gets a clear reference in the adaptation of the adaptation. The theatre adaptation of the film also has Character A refer to “my sister, the pilot” and the

original book has only one sister of Character A that is a pilot. It also has Character A buy baseball tickets with someone with pink hair, and the original book has only one character who buys baseball tickets with Character A and has pink hair. 3) Character is referenced/addressed by name or role in the adaptation of the adaptation. 4) Character appears in the adaptation of the adaptation. Mix and match. I’ve noticed a lot of vaguely referenced characters upgrading to clear references (a 1 situation upgrades to a 2), and clearly referenced characters who were only mentioned getting clear references and mentions again but also appearances (a 2 and 3 situation upgrades to a 2, 3, and 4). Now I realize if you start with a 2 and one-of-3-or-4 situation and upgrade to a 2 and both-3-and-4 situation, you weren’t wholly Adapted Out of the story, you just get your role expanded. I’m pretty sure that’s Adaptation Expansion instead and I’ll have to fix that (I just checked the Adaptation Expansion page again and it directly mentioned reintroducing darker elements of fairy tales back in, so adding back stuff that already existed counts too. It’s not just for making up new stuff to expand on what existed the way I thought). But I’m really not sure if going from a 1 to a 2 is Expansion or inverting Adapted Out. Maybe it’s a different trope entirely. Ditto with being unsure for going from a 1 and one-of-3-or-4 situation to a 1 and both-3-and-4. And for swapping which of 3 or 4 you have, but staying a one-of-3-and-4 situation. Also not that sure where to draw the lines. When does it stop being “yeah Hamilton Adapted this Out and you put it back in, it’s an Adapted Out inversion” and start being “this was way too far removed from/insignificant to the musical’s story to be considered Adapted Out of it, so putting this true historical thing in this fic is no longer Adapted Out”? (It’d definitely be Shown Their Work but I think there’s a more specific trope for it?) Like, is the incident where he talked to John Witherspoon is clearly referenced in a musical line without mentioning Witherspoon himself (and later he’d evacuate the college before the soldiers got near it), is that significant enough a line and significant a role in Hamilton’s life to make the guy Adapted Out and thus making it an Adapted Out inversion when you put him back in? If he’s not significant enough, Sally gets the same line count in the musical (“everyone who loves me has died”) that could make one think of her and how she’s not here, and gets around the same mentions in the fic. Is her “you actually don’t exist” version of not appearing as opposed to Witherspoon’s “we’re not mentioning you but you probably do exist” enough to make her count as Adapted Out in the musical and to thus make her inclusion an inversion of that trope in the fic? Troping this fic is probably my new hyperfixation. Why couldn’t it be math, I literally have a math class whose work I’m neglecting to trope this fic lmao kill me Oh one more thing I am worried the Round 2 musical will fly off into the tumblr namechange void someday. I know I have a copy, from when I could actually message you on tumblr and asked you permission to back up some tumblr posts and you said yes. So I thought of instead of asking you to put it somewhere else, I could get it backed up with that web.archive.org thing or the wayback machine or whatever, maybe those are the same things, in order to be able to link to your stuff somewhere other than tumblr and have it still be clearly yours (my current backup is a Google Doc full of copy/pastes from tumblr because I didn’t think of better options when I did that. If I was inclined to lie, I could very easily just… change it and claim it’s still a copy/paste from you). But then I realized it’s probably better for people to go to your actual pages to give you the traffic instead of the wayback machine or whatever. I don’t remember if you finished songs for the round 2 musical or if it was just a general outline, but this is a request/suggestion (not a demand) to have you

put that on ao3 too instead of only on tumblr? Again, thanks for writing it and for responding to me about it.

hi anon! thank you very very much and it is very cool to see how excited you are about getting all the tropes down! I'll be honest, I hadn't even heard of adapting in or adapting out or any of the trope inversion terminology or downplayed or just. all the lexicon that tvtropes uses, so I am not going to be useful in terms of you making those calls, but I both trust your judgement as well as the glory of a crowdedited thing is that the crowd will eventually reach consensus, hopefully!

one correction, though, re his sister Sally: whenever Wait For It is supposed to have been sung, which I'm assuming you're referencing, it is definitely before the late 1790s as the Reynolds Pamphlet hasn't gone down yet, and Sarah (Sally being a nickname) Burr-> Reeve died in 1797. so the musical line could only have been a reference to that specifically if they were ignoring timelines, which, to be fair, they do quite a lot (the 'first murder trial' bit from the end of Non-Stop actually happened in 1800.)

as for the round 2 musical, I do not have any plans of posting it on ao3, or really anywhere else besides tumblr. I do not post things to my ao3 that are not intended for and thus edited for my ao3. quite frankly, I barely intended to post 'musical, round 3' to ao3; it just got too long to make a reasonable tumblr post and I'd written a lot of active lyrics enough for it to become worthwhile to add that extra polish and throw it up as a fic. round 2 was mostly a thought experiment, I have no more written than the single tumblr post I wrote about it, I plan to write no more than that post, and I do not plan to bring it up to my ao3 standards and will not be posting it on ao3.

I'm honestly not too worried about traffic for ifmlam, and do not mind a link to wayback machine, or cross-posting the post to another website. honestly I don't really care if you put it up on ao3 yourself; I think someone else did it for they had a version of 'musical, round 2', and it was really cool and fell under the general 'fanworks of ifmlam' category. so if you care deeply about things being on ao3 you can post it yourself with a note of it was copy-pasted from the author's tumblr, I don't really care. however, if you're worried about preserving the proof of canoninity, I have no plans of changing my tumblr url mostly because I did so once and it was deeply inconvenient to try to go back and change it in all of my fic, but also tumblr might go down, who knows, wayback machine may very well be safer. also, like. these days I have moved on to enough other different work between both being interested and active in different fandoms as well as spending most of my time writing original work that it feels kind of like false advertising to direct people to my blog specifically for the sake of ifmlam with the expectation of more ifmlam content. when ifmlam gets new content, it'll be on ao3, and there really isn't a lot of related content or fandom blogging on this blog anymore, and given that I link to my blog in every chapter, I figure the people who want to look at my other writing and/or actually support me via ko-fi or patreon have ample chance to. I'm not really concerned about whether or not I'll lose audience because the tvtropes page linked to wayback machine instead of my actual blog if that's what you decide to go with.

#ifmlam

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isthatbloodonhisshirt · 4 years ago

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Hi I hope this isn't rude, but youre one of my top two favs along side standinginanicedress. You should check her out on ao3! If you like her new stuff I have a link to her old stuff on wayback machine ao3, you and any of your readers might really enjoy her sterek content !

Greetings and salutations o/

Not rude at all, thank you very much for the kind words :)

I have heard about standinginanicedress and have had some people send me saved copies of their work, so it is patiently awaiting my departure from fandom so I can read them |D I don’t read in the fandom I write for, so when people recommend things to me I shove them into a folder and they sit there for however long I am in the fandom.

But yes, standinginanicedress is on the list of people that I have been told not to miss out on reading, and given how long they have been in the fandom, I would hope many people who don’t have my weird issue about reading in the same fandom I write for would have checked them out long before now!

Just in case, I heard they are back on Ao3 so I just looked them up and people can find them here. Happy reading! o/

(Just re-iterating I have never read their stuff, so I cannot honestly recommend anything they have written to anyone, so read tags and summaries accordingly, but I am just spreading the information I have been given in that they are an amazing author)

#not TW #Blood's yakkity yaks #iburnish

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thedistantdusk · 5 years ago

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Please explain to a youngster what the Three Year summer is?? (I think that’s what that was that you mentioned). I am young and dumb and have only really been in fandom since 2012

Ooo boy, Nonny, pull up a seat — but for starters, I’m sure you’re not dumb! You just experience fandom a different way because of your age, and I will happily explain what I mean.

Let’s hop in a time machine to the early 2000s. OotP hasn’t been released. There are no smartphones. Dial-up isn’t unheard of, DSL is preferred, and WiFi is but a distant dream. Apart from a few small, local events, our only access to fandom is through desktop computer.

Tumblr and AO3 do not exist. FFN and a few smaller fanfic sites provide all content, and the latter is usually organized by shipping preference. If you liked the OBHWF dynamic, you typically went Checkmated, SugarQuill, Gryffindor Tower, or SIYE (and I’m sure I’m missing a few, but these were my favorites). If you preferred pairings that would later become non-canon, you’re looking at sites like Ashwinder, Portkey, Azkaban’s Lair, etc.

In short? Back then, everything was different. We consumed fic in a completely different way, and tbh I think a lot of our lingering debate (especially on things like concrit and shipping etiquette) boils down to how you experienced fandom the first time.

((And as an aside, during this time period, it was the norm to provide lengthy, detailed concrit to stories. The series wasn’t over, and almost every author’s goal was to provide approximations of canon elements (even if they preferred AU storylines). As authors, we valued that type of feedback because it meant people cared a lot about both the source content and the material you’d written — and also, keep in mind that when you were on dial-up, providing that kind of feedback took a lot of time. You had to spend a while in front of a slow computer, you had to gain access to certain sites, and you couldn’t just read something on the go. Concrit, regardless of source, implied an automatic appreciation for both the series and your story because the reviewer wanted to help you match canon parts as much as possible.))

That being said, I personally believe there are really two separate HP fandoms. We have the group that was around to watch each book/movie come out, and the group that’s only known a world in which all the questions of the series were answered. (And no, I’m not gatekeeping anything or passing judgement on the value of either. I’m stating facts on how we consumed fic and participated in fandom prior to the release of all the books/movies.)

I was roughly Harry’s canon age when the final two books were released, so I participated in the former group. The Three Year Summer was a period of time (three years, as I’m sure you gathered) in between the releases of GoF and OotP. It’s called the “summer” because the books were each released in the summer months during massive, ridiculous midnight release parties at bookstores.

If you were a teen/an active participant during this time period, you probably:

Had a crush on Emerson Spartz

Made your own Harry Potter t-shirts/paraphernalia (stuff wasn’t really mass-produced yet)

Spent a lot of time huddled over in class reading printed fanfic (remember, no smart phones)

Hoodwinked your way into an adults-only fanfic archive, and the site you picked varied depending on your ship preference. (Personally, I was a Checkmated girl, which is how I read all of @jenoramaca’s stories when I was super young)

This time period also resulted in lots of fan theories, fanfic, and epic, epic shipping wars on many popular forums. I don’t really feel like rehashing all of it, but I will say that some legitimately nasty things were tossed around on the daily, and one such place for this debate was a fansite called Chamber of Secrets that had a forum called the LoveThreads.

At the time, I was just a teen lying about my age, but I’ll fully admit that everyone involved in the LoveThreads contributed to some degree of toxicity — myself included. My participation was mostly limited to defending Ron and Ginny (who were almost universally loathed by people who didn’t like OBHWF), but I definitely didn’t help things or call people out as much as I should have. There was a lot of homophobia associated with hating on same-sex pairings, and a lot of sexism/slut-shaming surrounding Ginny, in general (yes, even when she was canonically like 13). I never participated in that sort of discussion, but in retrospect — even though I was a teen arguing with grown-ass adults — I could have done more to refute it.

Annnnyway, the early 2000s were a much different time, and I’m glad they’re behind us. (And yes, I have a different handle now, so you probably won’t find me, even with the WayBack Machine😉) The Three Year Summer ended when OotP came out... but unfortunately, things only got more toxic and confusing. Unless you read between the lines, there isn’t a clear indication of Harry “picking” (and yes, I hate that word) either Ginny or Hermione. It wasn’t until HBP that things became clearer but this was also a dumpster fire because of the Spartz/Anelli/JKR interview post HBP, and if you don’t know what I mean, I beg you to look that up on your own.

When HBP came out, we had clearer answers. Most of the folks who didn’t like OBHWF packed up and left. I personally backed out for a few years during movie releases because I had no interest in what I felt had become a movie (not book) fandom. Around this time, I also started to see a resurgence in a specific anti-canon pairing mentality, which I didn’t care for either. To be honest, the concept of toxicity has never been limited to one side or the other, but since returning to HP, I’ve done my best to avoid it.

Here is a rule of thumb that helps me (with everything from shipping to politics): If a comment would seem immature/ill-conceived from the opposite perspective, it’s probably not worth adopting.

For example, if a story summary includes a warning like “Contains Harmony bashing,” some of you might be interested — but pretend that’s Hinny instead. Doesn’t that just seem lazy and off-putting?

Likewise, if a billboard said, “Trump is a fucking moron,” I’d be inclined to agree — but substitute that with Obama’s name. It feels like a cheap insult that could contain more validity with more mature language/more specific information.

So. Perhaps this rambling mess paints a fuller picture of what shaped early HP fandom experiences, and also explains why I’m personally just not too interested in debating the validity of different ships.

I hope this answers your question, Nonny... and consider yourself lucky that you missed this particular weirdness!

#hinny fanfic #harry potter fanfiction #fandom #history

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