#again; just sayin'

[blindtaleteller]

eh, the treason bit is Thor''s car in both movies; several times over. That's how he got out of 3500 years of imprisonment instead of execution without trial, to have that stroll in the first place? 🤣

(also tags)

Okay but does anyone else laugh at this particular moment

Loki just all like AH YES WHAT A LOVELY DAY TO GO FOR A STROLL AND COMMIT TREASON 

[ineffablemossy]

Good Omens Fandom assemble! It's that time again...

Another Amazon Prime poll that we need to turn around. You know what to do:

https://www.youtube.com/@PrimeVideo/community

Currently at 25% in 3rd place, but I know we can change that quickly. NOTE: if you're on mobile open the link in your browser and choose 'desktop mode' to view the community tab (shoutout to everyone who put this tip in the comments of my last poll post!)

[pmpwbrrs]

[xxplastic-cubexx]

How would you redesign Headmaster Magneto? Just out pf curiousity because while he served it didn’t feel like… Erik.

i have to keep it 100 i have no idea without just. rerunning his original design but with a palette swap LOL but we try around here

[bluebeesknees]

a piece of him

[cinamun]

They had me at mating dance.

[blindtaleteller]

Not a great surprise they haven't come out of it either though; especially considering the site is on top of all that volunteer run with what equates to a less-than-skeleton crew for a site hosting more content than (using the example above though there are others too) place like wikipedia; never mind having an average user base as huge as AO3's is.

I used to beta test, and I've moderated on text based/forum sites in the past. Even with a decent sized moderation and dev team for the size of that user population who might be paid under that rule, and que programs to help that moderation along: dealing with every report given in a day alone is literally impossible for a user community of that size. And AO3 really does not have that.

$500,000 would not even cover a portion of the required number moderation employees' yearly salary, even if they weren't volunteer, and only hired a slew of them in at minimum wage.

Example math: rounded down 35,000-43,000 (depending on location) per year, per full time employee at minimum wage alone: BEFORE taxes, or any benefits like insurance etc taken out times only 10 employees equals 350,000-430,000: for a site that is yes open 24/7 and would need multiple shifts in several time zones to keep up with it in any other model.

$350,000 to $430,000 for just ten employees.

This does not include the costs of servers and bandwidth so users can continue to visit to read or post, any account for Dev salaries were they paid, any account for legal assistance including court filing and fees, or a user base larger than the optimum 50-100 users per moderator, which AO3 absolutely does have at it's size of more than 6 million+ works -- and 6 million+ comment sections with them, alone.

Beta testers are generally uncompensated even in the gaming communities (since that's brushed here,) but if you want to go through that comparison: alpha testers often are not when it comes to legitimately and morally run companies. (especially as some alphas in gaming in particular have and can render equipment if not operating systems they run completely unusable with one or two really bad bugs: this used to be true of beta testing too, though the severity has decreased since due to quite a few things including improvement of technology and baseline policies since; that would take an entire essay to explain but that's a whole other matter.)

Ultimately .. understand that, the point is on the flip side: that AO3 volunteers ARE opting on missing out on that pay for their time: in part so the money CAN go to portions of the site and community needed to keep it running. Complaining that the free-to-you-site that has no ads other than what bots invade to put in our comment sections, whose under-staffed moderators go unpaid in the total of more than $35,000 a year per moderator alone, asks for the users help to cover just the equivalent of the electricity used to allow them to stay open? And doing that further as an anti who probably doesn't use the site for it to affect them either, other than to be a douchebag in the direction of all those volunteers AND the user base who does actually use it and donate? Yeah that's pretty shitty.

I went scrolling through anti ao3 tags and blogs because I was bored and not doing the shit I need to do and you know for a group of people who every year twice a year throw such hissy fits you’d think they’d at least have a point, but all their arguments make no sense(except their one main one that they almost never use?--why??) Like ok, there is one argument for why people shouldn’t give money to ao3, and that is the argument that ao3 is bad website because it has bad policies and refuses to moderate. I disagree, but ultimately if someone thinks that ao3 should update the TOS and moderate what fan fiction they allow, it makes sense that that person would be against the site making money because… well they are against the sites founding principles, I’m not shocked they don’t want it to succeed.

But the rest of the arguments!? Man they make no sense at all

“They are scamming you there is no way they need that much money”, ”its immoral to give money to ao3 because they already have so much!”, “Even if ao3 was perfect, its ridicuslous to give 100K to a fan fiction site!” — like… maybe I’m the asshole here, but ao3 made about 250,000 this spring, so they make about 500,000 a year… that’s just not that much money! That could what, pay for 10-30 employees at best! And that’s not counting the actual cost of all the shit they currently spend their money on! I get that ao3 is run by unpaid volunteers so antis think that 500K is a lot, but that’s not true! That’s not a lot of money at all! It might be a lot of money for an individual but for a company that’s practically pennies. Wikipedia, which granted is a lot bigger than ao3, with 57,218,269 pages to ao3s 6 million works, makes 155 million to ao3 500,000. According to antis ao3 has over a million in reserve and well according to wikipedia they have net assets of US$240 million. One is clearly more than the other!

I saw someone say that servers should be 1K, which is so stupid and out of touch with eveything I almost died laughing. I had a project using firebase this semester, I created 2 projects within firebase one for my school project and one to dick around and figure out. I accidentally set my test database to a “pay as you go” version instead of a free version. And almost had to pay a thousand dollars for the month! I wasn’t even using that database it was just sitting there but I check my google billing to make sure I wasn’t paying anything and it turns out I was! 150 dollars actually so that sucks! (My fault though)

Also also I keep seeing that its ridiculous and evil to pay the much for a site that “doesn’t improve” but the “doesn’t improve” is referring to A) no changes in TOS, which I don’t want to happen any way so good. B) the fact that it’s still in beta, which I don’t give a fuck about and I don’t understand why I should care. I think antis are dont like that the layout hasn’t changed but I don’t want to the layout to change. Also things come out of beta because they are a commercial product to be sold(this is very simplified), which is why some things come out of beta to waaaay to early and are glitchy as all hell! Ao3 isn’t being sold to me its slowly being built and archiving things that would probably be lost, and it will probably technically be in beta forever, but it doesn't effect me and I don't care. Would it be better if it came out of beta only to continously updated like a lot other shit does. I don't really play video games but I know ppl that do so I know at least once a game came out that didn't really work and people needed to later update shit for it to function and I'd argue thats worse than a functional website just being in beta forever. C) The claim that it hasn’t changed at all, which is just not true! They added the exclude section and eventually added the blocking shit. The blocking took too long to come out, so I guess in this sea of dumb criticism theres at least 1 piece of critism that makes sense. And finally again I don’t want it to change! Every other week we are all bitching that Tumblr or YouTube or Instagram or any other app are needlessly changing the layout or adding shit we don’t want in order to keep up with latest trends, make it more marketable or try and attracted new users. Ao3 is great because its never going to change. Ao3 and Craigslist will always kinda look like ass and I’m ok with that. If it aint broke ¯_(ツ)_/¯

I could keep going but there is no point. I just think they are all so stupid.

--

The thing about beta is the funniest because AO3, like oldschool shit from the 90s, has actual criteria for coming out of beta.

It's not "we've been going for 10 years" or "we want to sell the product": it's "we've checked off all the things on this checklist".

And they still haven't done them all, so it's still in beta.

[ilovemesomevincentprice]

Vincent Price interview circa 1984 --

Love his dead pan humor!

Classy, as always.

Still, I do understand he chose the $20,000 instead of record sales, but according to Vincent, it was like hell getting paid.

[doomedclockworkdotmp3]

i didnt write my essay for this 👍👍

im so festive with my red and green color combos n whatnot

[shadow0-1]

Just a stranger without the mask

[blindtaleteller]

I agree with pretty much every word of this; though as someone who is an actual Loki fan.. and maybe to help give you an idea why this is repeatedly becoming a thing on more than your fic..

It's pretty likely that individual is a series fan, rather than an actual Loki fan. And there is, a very vast and documented difference; scientifically and otherwise.

The fandom in that Thor/Loki corner split as far back as Gagnarok being spat out as a clearly declared retcon of all films prior (including Avengers 2012, TDW, and yes Thor 2011 too) for both main characters, Bruce Banner, and a very poorly mishandling of Valkyrie's introduction as an unapologetic slave trader that; was never fixed or resolved in any way, shape or form: and instead lauded and made much worse between gen fans and the creators that followed in Taika's footsteps to do so.

As a result? The current "Loki" character in the MCU, has been turned into a literal meme of his former self: just as a start.. and the Loki fandom is split between actual fans who know and recognize that, and the anti-fans that the show was aimed to keep after taking our money, along with theirs.

So.. sorry you have to deal with that kind of snide comment; especially in a fic very clearly tagged as being in the Barnes/CA fandom (I adore the complexity and consistency of his character even pre-IW myself and agree the cap&rogers story got left on the floor with EG's crappy end production calls in particular.. ugh) but yeah.. with how some of the pro-series goons are especially, I do feel have to point out that their user name and claim being a Loki fan especially under this context is a pretty big red flag that they're -that- sort of "fan" who not only agree with the very similar narrative presented in the mislabeled 'Loki' titled series?

But obviously has no issues not thinking about what they did see in that series or the blatant on screen glorification of abuse, torture, and lack of accountability for any of that in that dumpster fire they slapped the character's name on to draw in viewers. Never mind apply facts over bullshit anywhere else.

Actual MCU Loki fans do still exist, especially around here on tumblr; but I can tell you that ao3 user very likely is NOT one of them.

"Loki" Series fans (or Bob: the Accountant as I often call it and some refer to it as the Larry Show if those examples tell you anything about how little current canon: including the insane take on what 'narcissism' and 'self-centered' is probably coming from) are for the most part a particularly toxic breed of pretenders in my experience.

Again, sorry you had to go through that; and the likelihood of that toxicity being spread and bleeding over into your fandom as a result of the BS Loki fans have been dealing with for 5+ years.

Believe me, actual fans of Loki as an MCU character (and Thor too for that matter) are just as annoyed, frustrated, exasperated, and irritated at things like this as you might be and probably are.

This rather unpleasant comment turned up on my recent meta and I don’t want to start a fight (with a guest account, no less) on AO3, so uh, sorry Tumblr mutuals, here's my 1000 word rant.

Like okay, maybe my writing sucked and gave you that impression. The whole point of that meta was to tease out why he said the "I'm invisible, I'm turning into you" line despite it seeming out of character. And the reason it felt jarring was because we don't expect Bucky to be someone who says that. As opposed to, say, Tony-Manchurian-Candidate-Stark.

Disregarding why you thought it appropriate to leave a comment bashing Bucky when the story has "Bucky Barnes" tagged all over it, and why you'd conclude he's self-centered when he spent my entire meta worrying more about Steve's safety than he did his own, how do you watch the movies and not see that Bucky is one of the least self-focused people in MCU canon?

During much of his very limited screen time he's either being forced into certain actions or has absolutely no autonomy, but the few times he's had the ability to choose, he's never centered himself in that choice.

Here's 15 instances Bucky put himself last. Because I'm that annoyed.

1) He waded in to fish Steve out of the back alley and fought off the bully, and it's suggested that this happens frequently -- like, are we just going to dismiss this because Bucky is bigger than Steve? There are plenty of people who would have stood back or would have waited until help arrived, by which stage Steve would be in hospital.

2) He spends his last night before shipping out setting Steve up with a date, then half of that double date chasing after Steve and arguing with him because he was worried that Steve would either get arrested or successfully enlist and get killed. He didn't ask Steve to make this night about him, while a more entitled person would have because it was his farewell and not Steve's.

3) His first words to Steve when Steve untied him from the gurney was to ask Steve "Did it (getting the serum) hurt?" Even when he was the one barely able to walk.

4) "No, not without you!" even when the factory was exploding around them.

5) Despite being captured, tortured and experimented on, he didn't even hesitate when Steve asked him if he was going to be part of the team. I even covered this in my meta, he's tired and he's disillusioned and he just wants to get away from the war, but he doesn't because Steve asked.

6) He picks up the shield when Steve was down and moves/shoots to draw the Hydra agent's attention away from Steve and towards himself, which results in him being blasted out of the train.

7) He offered to move in with Steve despite the stigma around tuberculosis (and being poor and Irish and sickly) at the time.

8) The line that made Bucky break out of 70 years of brainwashing. It wasn't when Steve called him Bucky, it wasn't when Steve said "Your name is James Bucky Barnes", it wasn't when Steve said "You're my friend". It was only when Steve said, "I'm with you til the end of the line" because that was the oath of companionship and service that Bucky had made to Steve. The line wasn't about Bucky, but about what Bucky had promised to do for Steve. Like. This alone should prove my point.

9) He pulled Steve out of the water holding onto Steve with his one good hand while his other arm was broken (how did he even swim), even though he knew every moment wasted would put him in danger of being killed or captured, even though for him everyone was now an enemy. Despite all this, he pulled Steve out of the water and waited to see that he was breathing before he left.

10) Faced with an entire kill squad in Bucharest, Bucky still stuck to his rule of trying not to kill anyone.

11) His first words when he came out of Zemo's control was a horrified, "What did I do?" Instead of, you know, self-centeredly focusing on how horrified and upset he deserved to be that he had his autonomy ripped away again just when he thought he had been safe for two years.

12) He willingly went back to Siberia with Steve to stop the other super soldiers, despite it being the place where he was held, tortured and mind-wiped, and despite it being the place where he was made into a training puppet for the other soldiers.

13) Even injured and with his arm severed, Bucky grabbed onto Tony's foot to stop Tony from blasting Steve in the chest.

14) Bucky choosing to go back into cryo because he's afraid someone else with the Code Words will use him to hurt people.

15) Despite being in retirement, he took one look at the vibranium arm and all he said was "Where's the battle?"

I'm stopping here because I refuse to recognise EG!Steve and I also have trouble accepting TFATWS!Bucky's arc as canon.

Like, I know MCU writers are pathetic at sympathy, but I never expected the same from someone purporting to be Loki's fan, of all people. To call Bucky's singular snide remark "pity party"? Bucky did not, for the entire CATFA, complain about his 2-3 years of war experience (and if you haven't been at the frontline then please don't even attempt to belittle how horrific it had been), nor did he complain about the forced labour they had been put through in Azzano or the experiments Zola did to him on that gurney. Bucky also did not, at any point after CATWS, talk about the horrific experiences he went through under Hydra, nor did he ever ask anyone to give their attention to his pain or his trauma. His "I'm turning into you" remark is literally the closest he came to making it a "what about me" moment, and my meta was about why he emotionally came to that breaking point. Not once since that moment did movie!Bucky ever try to take a moment and turn it into something about himself.

And just to finish off, acting in self-interest is normal human behaviour on the spectrum of self-preservation, but that isn't even the pattern for Bucky. Bucky has always focused his choices on making life easier or better or more right for Steve. Bucky is not self-centered, but he is most definitely Steve-centered, and on that point I will accept no objections.

[hyperrealisticblood]

the true horror of garten of banban is that, when you look at their (and by their i mean mostly just faris) old games, its clear they wanna make weird kinda creepy artsy psychological horror games, but none of them managed to take off or do well, so they decided to hop onto mascot horror, a genre known for low effort slop games that get absurdly popular no matter how shit they are, and THATS when they finally got their big break. but deep down they still wanna make weird psychological shit and thats how banban ended up being half skibidi toilet hello neighbor poppy playtime, half silent hill 2. incredible

[its-your-mind]

So please keep that, cuz I am so tired of saving you from yourself. I can't anymore. So do not forget that there is some reward at the end of this. - c3e65

[canon-gabriel-quotes]

I can’t believe you guys got me fired just before my 1 year anniversary </3 (joke)

[blindtaleteller]

..uh yeah, no and lmao. As someone who lives in the most northern part of the Midwest you can end up in at over 40 (Michigan)? ..no, "y'all has" been around up here a hell of a lot longer than me OR my grandparents. My great grandfather used it often prior to his death; as a WWII survivor and veteran, who would be over 100 years old today if he was still around.

Gotta point out though; the 'torch' bit is.. overdone usually from very specific communities; we don't call flashlights that here often: and no we do not generally have the fire sort just hanging around. Generally that comes from communities heavily influenced by UK or Canadian citizenry etc. Otherwise no, and especially in this state where Edison lived and worked lol, we do know the physical difference between a torch and an electric/battery powered flashlight: and do differentiate. Just sayin'.

every time I'm reading a fanfic and a character in the USA picks up a torch, I know what they mean but also I have a minor moment of crisis because all I can imagine is

[stealingpotatoes]

Hi, love your posts. Is the last 4 jedi a fic on A03? If so, could you send me the link or your username? I totally want to read it!

ok 1. nope just comics and 2. this isn't directed at you bc you've asked very nicely and politely, but I still wanna address this: I get a lot of comments on comics like "i need a fic of this op" or "someone write this!!" -- and i understand it totally on small hc comics, but on bigger comics it just feels rlly dismissive lol. like why do ppl want me to write a fic abt smthn, there is a comic telling the story right there!!!!

ig i'm just tryna say it'd be nice if everyone accepted comics as a valid form of storytelling and didn't see them as inherently subpar to fics?