#if you share your email and it is not gmail or something like that you kind of self profile yourself as a kind of person

[turbotrout]

i had a dream i divorced from gmail.... my dreamself has so much ambition

[badlywritingmagazine]

Wanna help a by-and-for transfem journal?

Wanna get involved?

Thank you everyone for your interest so far! If you have a sec, I’ve written a quick post about a few ways you can help. 

Lili Elbe, painted by Szív királynő, serving “journal reader” realness Do you have trans female mates?

Let your girl friends know. Share it amongst your networks. 

Can you read? 

Wonderful. Subscribe to this substack to be notified when an issue is released. 

Can you think?

If you’re a trans woman and you have feelings about something, send it to us. If you’re developing an idea, come chat with us over email (or arrange a phone call) and let’s figure it out together. 

Do you sell books and zines? 

Wonderful. Email me. Stock it. Perfect. I can also send you a poster version of our invitation to submit to print out. 

Have you written?

If you’re a trans woman who writes about things relevant to our lives, send it to me. If it is online and you worry that it won’t stay up forever, it’s affecting your job and life prospects, or that it is a reflection of its time and not 100% wise anymore, send it to me and get it archived. Archiving is part of the goal here. We’re not uncurated, but that doesn’t mean you should shrug and let the internet, time, transmisogyny and linkrot eat your hard work. 

If you’re a trans woman with jobs and obligations and you don’t like having your essay ‘Why dickgirls should commit more assassinations’ or ‘transgender materialism: towards a de/coterminous understanding of post tipping point transmisogyny’ or whatever attached to your name then send it to me and get it re/published under a pseudonym.

If we get a large number of submissions like this we will publish it as a separate supplement, but else it will come as a section within WBM.

Do you know grants?

Rates for unfunded zines and pamphlets suck. We want to pay the women well. Let us know if you know of funds or grants you think we fall under. We’ll be sending off applications. 

Can you help us host a launch party in a major city?

We envision low-cost evening events with discussion, trans women, and piles and piles of essays to talk about. (Can we crash on your couch?) We’re based in the UK, but are happy to come anywhere Ryanair goes where there’s a willing audience. 

Got an idea I don’t have? 

Ultimately, I want to keep this dirt simple. Essays come in, paper goes out. No columns, shite graphics. Couple core editors. Schedules loose enough to spend half the year depressed and still get it out. Stolen printer paper. Something that won’t collapse after two years. Posterity. 

That said, if you have an idea (and maybe if you want to do it), email us. Think you know enough people to get this translated and shipped somewhere else? Can you translate and know of a non-English language transfeminist text that’s not got much attention in the anglosphere? Maybe we can submit an application for a grant and distribute your translation? Understand distribution better than me? Do you have the wherewithal to manage a personals board? Something else? Anything except an agony aunt section. I’ve called dibs on that one. 

Do you have agonies? Issues? Want bad advice?

Write to the agony aunt. writingbadlymag snail symbol gmail dot com.

Do you have something to say which won't make a whole essay but is still worth saying?

Write a letter to the editor. Same email.

Addendum: Can you help us set up a website?

Websites we think are beautiful are dirt simple. Low-tech Magazine has a beautiful low-energy website. Filmmaker Margot McEwan has a lovely fitting website. Any thoughts or suggestions should be sent to the same email.

(update: we're all set now! Check out badly.press!)

See a good stack cutter?

If you see a cheap paper stack cutter for cheap, let me know. :)

Thanks all!

Forthcoming posts: information for writers, extracts from the issue.

[nova-dracomon]

My Gender is [NOT] Human Zine is Now Accepting Submissions!

Xenogender: A gender that cannot be contained by human understandings of gender; more concerned with crafting other methods of gender categorization and hierarchy such as those relating to animals, plants, or other creatures/things.

This zine will be a collection of artwork, writing and more created by alterhumans and nonhumans to express both their species identity, gender, and how they intersect. While this zine will have an xenogender slant, everyone who has something to share about how their species and gender overlap are encouraged to submit pieces! Similarly, if you are currently questioning, you are still welcome to participate. Anonymous submissions are accepted.

What Can I Submit?

Both fiction and nonfiction pieces are accepted. As long as what you have in mind fits the theme, it’ll probably be a-ok. 

Off the top of our head, we’re thinking of:

Essays of your personal experiences

Short stories 

Poetry 

Advice columns

Artwork

Fictional advertisements

Comics 

Mock interviews

This is far from an exhaustive list, we welcome you to think outside the box!

How to Participate

Please email your completed submission to ruffledgryphon(@)gmail(.)com and title the email “My Gender is Not Human Zine Submission.” Also make sure to include the following information in your email:

A name you would like the piece attributed to 

Title of your submission

Any content warnings that you feel are necessary for the piece

Any social media handle or personal website you’d like listed in the contributor section

A logo or icon for the contributor section

**If you would like to stay anonymous please let us know

Members of systems are welcome to submit individually or collectively. Please let us know your preference when it comes to attribution.

Once the deadline has passed, the submissions will be crafted together into a single zine and it will be posted on our itch.io as a free PDF. 

Submissions are due by May 1, 2024.

Our itch.io: https://ruffledgryphon.itch.io/

Submission Guidelines

Each individual may submit up to 3 works to be featured in My Gender is [NOT] Human. Comics and multi-image works count as one piece. Individuals within a system may each submit up to 3 works. All work must be your own! Anyone caught plagiarizing or submitting AI-generated work will be barred from entering My Gender is [NOT] Human and any future zines from us.

Written submissions should not exceed 30 pages and multi-part art entries should not exceed 10 pages. Please keep in mind the zine’s pages will be 8.5x11 and entries will be scaled accordingly to fit that size. We request all art submissions to be sent in either .jpg or .png file formats. 

For stories that use multiple different fonts, we will do our best to preserve the general “feel” of your piece but cannot guarantee we will be able to use the exact fonts or sizes due to restrictions in what fonts we have access to, readability and overarching zine style.

Submissions must fit the thematic criteria of

About the intersection of gender and species identities

If you’re not sure if you count, feel free to reach out to us. However, we will be leaning on the side of “Yes! We’d love to hear from you!”

FAQ

Q: Where will the zine be hosted? What will it cost? A: The zine will be hosted digitally on our itch.io and will be free to download. Our itch.io can be found here: https://ruffledgryphon.itch.io/

Q: Is there a cap on submissions? A: There is none, as long as the file doesn’t start getting too big for our computer we’ll do our best! If there are an unprecedented amount of submissions, we may have to delay the release. In the event that happens, we would communicate that through updates on our tumblr.

Q: Can I update my application after it’s been submitted? A: Yes you may, as long as that is communicated to us before the submission deadline.

Q: Can I rescind my submission? A: Yes you may, as long as that is communicated to us before the submission deadline. This is because once we begin work on the zine, having to remove content mid-way through would throw off the formatting of everything else after. Please take this into account before submitting. 

Q: Will this zine allow NSFW entries? A: No, nothing 18+ will be accepted.

Q: What is your timeline for the project? A: Our submission deadline is May 1, 2024. We are then planning to spend the next month compiling all of the entries. Our goal is to have the zine live by June 1, 2024. If something unforeseen happens and we are unable to make that deadline, we will post an update about it on our tumblr.

Q: I have another question! A: Feel free to reach out to us at our email ruffledgryphon(@)gmail(.)com or here on tumblr  with any other questions you have about the zine.

[doodle-zine]

Doodle Zine!

Hi! I'm Stars ( @ilovedthestars ) and I like making zines.

I would like to invite anyone who is interested to participate in a fun and low-stakes collaborative zine project! We can't quite get the scissors-glue-and-photocopier vibe of a classic zine on Tumblr, but I'm hoping to make something that's as close as we can get over the internet.

There's something so fun and personal about doodles. They mostly exist on paper, and are rarely shown off to other people, but they can be so unique and individual. I always loved swapping doodles in friends' notebooks and having a little something from them in the corner of my homework. That's a vibe I'd like to bring to my little corner of the internet.

So! If you're interested, I would love for you to draw some doodles, take a photo, and send them to me via this form! I will compile the submissions into both a digital zine and a printable version (5.5x4.25" pamphlet format), and share them here on Tumblr when they're finished.

(The form requires a gmail sign-in, but I will not be able to see the email you use. If you don't have a gmail account to use, you can DM me on tumblr or discord to submit)

There is no selection process--I will be including every submission that I feasibly can. I would like to emphasize that this is not an art zine, it's a doodle zine! Here are some examples of what I'm talking about when I say "doodles." The point is to have fun together, and I will not be holding you to any sort of artistic standard, so please don't hold yourself to one.

This form will be accepting submissions for at least two weeks (until July 16th).

I will leave the form open longer if submissions come in slowly. If I get too many submissions for one zine, I will simply make more zines and turn it into a series. If I am absolutely overwhelmed with submissions, we'll see how far I get through them, but I will work approximately in order of submission until I run out of energy. I have no solid timeline beyond that--this is a fun summer project for me, and I'm trying not to turn it into homework. But I'm very excited about making this happen!

The (loose) guidelines for submissions are listed in the form, as well as below the cut, for your convenience. Feel free to follow this tumblr for updates, or send in questions via the askbox. Happy doodling!

Guidelines:

Doodle anything, as messy, scribbly, abstract, or silly as you want! This zine is about little moments of connection, not about artistic quality. Treat your page like the margins of your notebook during a long lecture (or doodle in the margins of your notebook during a long lecture and submit it!)

Your page of doodles will be 4.25 inches wide by 5.5 inches tall, or 1/4 of a sheet of letter-sized paper. Either work at this size or be okay with me cropping to fit the dimensions!

Use whatever drawing tools you like, but know that light pencil might not show up well.

Lined paper is fine. So is paper with stuff printed or written on it that you have doodled over/around (as long as there are no identifying/sensitive details, like the name of a school or workplace).

Sign your page somewhere with whatever name or username you're comfortable with! Or indicate below that you chose to submit anonymously.

Take a photo! It doesn't have to be a great photo, but a decent photo will make it easier for me to edit. Try to have brightish light, no direct shadows on the paper, and a mostly straight-on angle. Leave the edges of the paper within the photo, no need to crop. I'll take care of the rest!

If there are any issues with your submission (like a photo I can't use) I will contact you and give you the chance to resubmit, so no worries.

Most importantly, have fun :)

[fanhackers]

I interviewed the organizers of the Media Fandom Oral History Project, and they shared about the project and what makes it important! The project collects oral histories (interviews) from fans about their fannish experiences. Oral histories help fans define for ourselves what it means to a fan, and they help preserve our histories for future generations. 

The project needs volunteers! Email oralhistoryfandom (at) gmail (dot) com if you want to get involved. 

The full interview can be found under the cut. 

-Lianne, Fanhackers volunteer

Q: Can you briefly introduce yourself, the project, and its purpose?

Morgan Dawn: I am Morgan Dawn and have been a slash fanfiction fan since the 1990s. I entered fandom during the last years of paper fanfiction and the beginning era of online fandom. 

The Media Fandom Oral History Project’s goal is to capture our history in our own words and with our own voices. The idea came when I was sitting at our kitchen table with my friend Sandy Herrold. We realized that fans talking to other fans in informal settings was the perfect way to showcase our community and our connections. What could be more fannish than talking about and sharing the things we love? We started interviewing fans at conventions, then moved to phone interviews and have finally switched the project into a Do-It-Yourself Mode with fans taking the lead interviewing their friends and choosing what they want to preserve.

The recordings are submitted to the University of Iowa's oral history collection and are available online. We are hoping to provide transcripts for all of the interviews. The University of Iowa has one of the world's largest fanfiction fanzine collections. You can see the list of interviews at Fanlore, one of the OTW’s projects. 

Franzeska Dickson: I am Franzeska Dickson and have also been a slash fan since the 90s. In my case, I started as a 13-year-old screaming about Scully on alt.tv.x-files during the first season. (I was a NoRomo, as I recall, mostly because I thought Mulder wasn't nearly good enough for her.) I remember being floored when I was told about fanfic. I have no memory of being told that slash existed. I guess it didn't seem like a big deal. I spent the late 90s and early 00s in anime fandom before swinging back to oldschool Media Fandom and later to other Asian fandoms.

I ran into Morgan at a con and informed her that her recording plans were all wrong and she needed the type of voice recorder that linguists use in the field… I ended up with the recorder and the bulk of the early interviewing work.

Q: Speaking as if to someone unfamiliar with oral history and your project, why is the Media Fandom Oral History Project important?

MD: The recordings allow us to speak directly to future generations of fans and control the discussion of what it means to be a ‘fan.’ By having fans talk to other fans we bypass the dominant narrative of how fans interact with the TV, movies, books and comics. It is also an opportunity for marginalized members of our community to talk about their experiences. There has been much scholarship surrounding live action and anime fandoms. Some of it has been done by academics who are fans themselves and it has been wonderful to see the growth of Fandom Studies. But oral history offers every fan the ability to use their own words to talk about the things they remember and what matters to them.

FD: The early zine generation is rapidly dropping dead, and even when they aren't, I'm always running into younger fans trying to do research who have zero clue who's still alive or where to find them. If we wait for people to do their secondary academic research, it will be too late. Primary sources now or we won't have them!

The scope of fans who are interested in fandom history is much wider than the people who can make the right connections to talk to someone older. It's particularly true for early zines, but it's even true for something like Livejournal: I could rustle up thirty people in five minutes who'd be able to speak cogently on that fandom history. A lot of would-be history researchers currently in undergrad would not. For the future academics, the meta writers, or merely our curious fellow fans, it behooves us to record our history in our own words.

Q: What has the Media Fandom Oral History Project accomplished so far?

MD: We have completed 57 interviews. The first few years we went to in-person conventions and used a digital recorder to interview anyone who was interested. In 2017, a graduate student named Megan Genovese obtained funding and did 24 interviews over the phone in a single summer. During the pandemic, we moved into a DIY (do it yourself) phase - instead of a single person doing the interviewing, we now invite fans to contact their friends and spend an hour chatting about their fandom history. They can use their smartphones, Zoom/video conference recording or reserve a time slot on our international audio conference system. 

We have recorded the history of some of the earliest slash writers, publishers and artists. We have preserved the memories of the first fan who created the first fanvid using a slide project and cassette audio tape. We have heard from fans who organized conventions and started letter writing campaigns to save shows. The interviews include filk singers, fans whose passion is meta, and fans who created and ran some of the first fiction archives. These fans are creators, organizers, supporters, and devotees and have so many stories to tell.

Q: In what ways do you hope the project will grow in the coming years? Or, what are your hopes for the project's future?

MD: We’re a small project and it is difficult to scale with our current resources. By shifting to the DIY phase we’re hoping to encourage fans to take the reins of their fandom history and never stop telling their personal fannish stories. The DIY project also allows fandom communities to leverage off our existing “infrastructure” - we can offer permission forms, an international recording platform (if needed), and a place to archive the interviews.

FD: All fandom history resources suffer from a strong predilection for the researcher's friends or their part of fandom to be the main focus. I hope people from very different parts of fandom will interview their friends about areas other people haven't found important or accessible enough to record.

Q: What help is needed, and how can people get involved?

MD: We need 2 intake coordinators to answer questions, e-mail and collect permission forms (Participants must sign a permission form allowing their recordings to be archived at the University of Iowa). We also need help with outreach to communities that may not be aware of the project - anime, BL fans, cosplayers, filkers, fans in other countries. This is not just a historical project looking backwards. We want to capture our community as it is today and hear from fans whose experiences differ. The central focus has not changed - fans participating in transformative fandom - reading, writing, creating fanfiction, fanvids, podfic, art, managing discord communities. But it all starts with intake coordinators who can keep track of participants and follow up to get the recordings. Each oral history also has a written transcription, as we want this project to be as accessible to as many people as possible. We’ve tried some automated transcription services, and the results are very uneven. This means there’s another opportunity for volunteers, people to listen to the recordings and to help transcribe the contents. 

Q: Is there anything else you'd like people to know about the Media Fandom Oral History Project?

MD: It's a way for fans to be heard. They can describe their experiences on their own terms, in their own words, and take back some of the power of storytelling, rather than having others tell their stories for them.

It's a way to help preserve and honor fan experiences and fan history.

Envision you and your friends, talking about the things you love, your community, and what they mean to you, and describing and preserving these things for history. 

Plus, it's really fun!

FD: If you don't want 'fandom history' to mean just one kind of fandom history, speak up while you can, whether that's here or in essays or in your own projects!

[queenendless]

🔞✨️💕OPEN COMMISSIONS FOR NSFW SHORT SMUT ✨️ 💕 🔞

Okay everyone.

I NEED COMMISSIONS.

7 MONTHS WITHOUT THEM … it hurts.

Especially NOW because my bank accounts total around $35 left cause of monthly fees left so they're close to shutting down.

And just looking for full time employment for college dropouts with physical disability and no work experience is giving me anxiety and headaches all over again.

Honestly at this point I should start a Patreon for my writing. Maybe you could leave me suggestions, advice, and sites that don't charge you if I plan on setting up something for freelancing art and writing wise. Like merch. Prints. Ergo how to supply myself cause I'm very poor as fuck tbh irl.

ANYWAY!

I'm offering to write SHORT SMUT pieces!

100 words for $5.00 USD

200 words for $10.00 USD

*$5.00 USD added for every 100 words — I WILL WILLINGLY WRITE UP TO 1K WORDS AT MOST*

You can privately message me here on tumblr to brainstorm and work out said commissions.

*I ONLY ACCEPT PAYMENT THROUGH CASHAPP cause PayPal didn't work out and Cashapp don't take fees from payments.

*I ALSO ONLY ACCEPT PAYMENT UP FRONT BEFORE WORKING ON SAID COMMISSIONS.

I WILL use Google Docs to write said commissions.

I will email you your finalized commissions through Gmail/email and I will ONLY post your commissions on my tumblr blogs and my other sites like Wattpad and Quotev if you give me permission to.

SHOWS I WILL WRITE FOR:

Code Geass

Death Note

Yugioh DM

My Hero Academia

Jujutsu Kaisen

Persona 3, 4, and 5

Tokyo Revengers

Demon Slayer

Twisted Wonderland

Ben 10

I WILL WRITE ABOUT:

Character(s) x Reader, Character x Character, Character x OC

Romance/fluff

Angst

Hurt/comfort

AUs/what ifs/Canon divergence/etc.

BDSM (just nothing too extreme; depends on your request).

Polyamory/harem/GROUP BANG ⤵️

Crack/what if crossovers between two or more of the shows I've chosen to write for for this deal.

I WILL NOT WRITE ABOUT:

Rape/Non Con/SA

Incest

Beastiality

Murder/DEATH

ANY EXTREME TOPICS ALONG THOSE LINES!

.

.

.

Honestly I hope I get commissioned much more than ever before.

Cause if not then I don't know where to go from there.

So if you're interested or know people that do, then please spread the word. Reblog, like, comment, share.

I'll let those on my wattpad, quotev, and twitter know.

I 🙏 that things work out.

[shepherds-of-haven]

Unsolicited Writing Advice

Completely random reminder to back up your work, especially if you're a writer, IF or game developer, coder, or creator of any kind. People sometimes ask me what my advice for other writers is, and I always forget to include this one, but it's one of the most important things, especially if your career, livelihood, or long-form projects hinge on writing in any way! Take it from someone who just had two backup methods fail unexpectedly and only the third backup prevented me from losing a solid month of work, you need to back up your work in as many ways as you possibly can. It may seem like a pain in the ass at the time, but I've seen a lot of games or stories stall or fail completely due to a catastrophic loss of data that utterly kills any drive to keep going with the project because of the need to start over. I'M BEGGING YOU, BACK UP YOUR DATA.

I recommend having at least 2, ideally 3 methods of backup:

Automatic cloud storage. I personally prefer working with Dropbox, where every change I save is automatically synced and backed up to a cloud server as well as natively saved on my own device. It also has robust version history, so if you figure out you've done something horrific and unknowingly saved over something important or rewritten a section you weren't supposed to, you can rewind everything in a folder down to a specific minute (over the last 30 days): a feature that has saved my hide just a few too many times for comfort. A free Dropbox account gives you 2 GB of storage to work with. Working within Google Drive works just as well, and the free version gives you 15 GB of storage (though that's shared between your email account and other Google apps, as well)! However, I don't believe it provides automatic syncing and backup the same way Dropbox does: you either have to work directly within a Google doc for your work to be automatically saved to the server, or you have to manually upload the files to your Google Drive to back them up each time.

Physical storage. Every few weeks or months, I also take the time to back up my important files to an external hard drive or thumb drive. Again, it's kind of a hassle, but if the day ever comes that you lose your passwords or find that they've been changed, a company's servers go down or they go bankrupt, they decide to start charging you to access your data, or whatever crazy circumstance you can think of, it's always good to have a physical backup somewhere. A basic 1 TB thumb drive is somewhere around 20$ USD (though it can be slower at that price point if you're transferring a large amount of data each time), and it's even less if you don't need that much storage. A 1 TB external hard drive (which has a much quicker transfer rate) is around 40-50$.

If all else fails, email. If you can't get access to physical storage devices and cloud storage services don't work for you, consider setting up a free Gmail or what-have-you account specifically for backup purposes, then email a copy of your most important files to it every time you make a significant change to them. This may seem sort of primitive and simplistic, but it works, and you can even use it as a little journal or diary of your progress!

Again, you may think this is overkill, but I am convinced that writers are especially prone to proving Murphy's Law and have seen way too many projects, friends, and colleagues fall prey to this oft-overlooked issue. I can count at least half a dozen times where -> my primary device like my laptop broke, failed, became corrupted, had water spilled on it, etc. -> I then turned to my secondary device (hard drive or thumb drive) only to find something was wrong with THAT (broken, outdated, incompatible with currently-owned tech, corrupted, not up-to-date backups) OR I turned to my cloud storage and found something wrong with THAT (unknowingly saved over data and didn't realize it until 3 months later, meaning not even version history could save me) -> and it was only the THIRD method of backing up that saved my ass.

Anyway, this is just your friendly neighborhood writer reminding you to back your work up! It's a necessary part of the job! Thanks for coming to my TEDtalk!

[tealin]

McMurdo Internet

Internet service is supplied to Antarctica via a geostationary satellite. This far south, the satellite is only a few degrees above the horizon, and unfortunately for McMurdo, it's behind Mt Erebus. So the signal is beamed to a receiver on Black Island, about 20 miles away to the southwest, and bounced over to the sheltered alcove at the end of the Hut Point Peninsula where McMurdo sits.

The Chalet, administrative hub, with Black Island in the distance

The Black Island telecommunications infrastructure was installed in the 1980s, long before the internet we know and love today. It was upgraded in 2010 to allow more data transfer, mainly realtime weather data to feed into global forecast models. For this reason, it's probably the only place I've ever been where upload speed is remarkably faster than download speed – 60Mbps for outbound traffic, but only 20Mbps for inbound. Most regular internet use is receiving, not sending, so that's an entire base running on a connection that's only marginally faster than the average American smartphone. As you can imagine, this is somewhat limiting.

The limits to one's internet access actually begin before one even reaches the Ice. At the orientation in Christchurch, one is directed to a URL from which one must download and install a security programme from the U.S. government. It may feel like a hippie commune full of nerds, but McMurdo is an installation of the American state, and as such its computer network is a target of whatever disgruntled conspiracy theorist decides to hack The Man on any given day. Computers that are allowed onto this network (such as the one on which I am typing right now) have to have an approved firewall and antivirus service installed, then this extra programme on top of them. I am not sure what it does. For all I know the CIA is spying on me even now. (Hi, guys!) But you need to install it to get on the McMurdo Internet, such as it is, so I did.

To be honest, I was rather looking forward to a month cut off entirely from the hyperconnected world, so I was a tiny bit disappointed that quite a lot of day-to-day communication is done by email, and I would need to be on my computer a fair bit to get it. Had I known just how important email would be, I'd have installed an email client that actually downloads one's messages instead of just fetching them; as it was, the cycle of loading an email and sending the reply, even in Gmail's "HTML for slow connections" mode, took about five minutes, not counting the time it took to write. Tending one's email was a serious time commitment; sometimes I felt like I was spending more time on the computer in Antarctica than I did at home.

Crary scientists waiting, and waiting, and waiting

In a way, though, I was lucky, because I was technically a scientist and therefore had access to the one building on base with WiFi, the Crary Lab. And don't think you can just waltz into Crary with your laptop and poach the WiFi – in order to access it at all, you have to get set up by Crary IT with your own personal WiFi login. If you do not have Crary access, your portal to the Internet is one of a handful of ethernet cables in each of the dorm common rooms, or some public terminals in the main building. You can hop on, download your emails, maybe check the news or Google something you needed to look up, and then leave it for someone else. When most online time sinks are either blocked or too heavy to load, it’s amazing how little internet time you actually turn out to need.

Things that we have come to take for granted in The World are not a part of McMurdo life. Social media is pretty much out – the main platforms are bandwidth hogs even before you try to load a video or an animated GIF. There is no sharing of YouTube links, and no Netflix and chill. Someone was once sent home mid-season for trying to download a movie. Video calls with family and friends? Forget it. People do occasionally do video calls from Antarctica, often to media outlets or schools, but these have to be booked in advance so as to have the requisite bandwidth reserved. Jumping on FaceTime does not happen – not least because handheld devices have to be in airplane mode at all times for security reasons. Your phone might be secure enough for your internet banking, but not for US government internet!

It is, unavoidably, still a digital environment, it just gets by largely without internet access. Nearly everyone has an external hard drive, mostly for media that they've brought down to fill their off hours. If you want to share files you just swap hard drives, or hand over a memory stick. When the Antarctic Heritage Trust wanted some book material from me, I dropped it onto an SD card and ran it over to Scott Base on foot – a droll juxtaposition of high- and low-tech, not to mention a good excuse for a hike over The Gap on a beautiful day. It took half an hour, but was still faster than emailing it.

There is also a McMurdo Intranet, which includes a server for file sharing. Emailing someone your photos will take ages, but popping them into a folder on the I: drive and sending them a note to say you've done so (or, better yet, phoning them, or poking your head into their office) is much more efficient. To conserve space, this informal server partition is wiped every week, so you have to be quick about it, but it's an effective workaround, and also a good way to get relatively heavy resources to a large number of people in one go.

The telecommunications centre on Black Island is mostly automated, but like anything – perhaps more than some things, given the conditions – it needs to be maintained. There is a small hut out there for an equally small team of electricians and IT engineers; Black Island duty attracts the sort of person who might have been a lighthouse keeper back in the day.

Towards the end of my time on the Ice there was a spell where they needed to shut off the connection overnight, to do some necessary work. Given that most people's workdays extended at least to the shutoff time at 5:30 p.m., this meant essentially no internet for a large portion of the population, and some amusing flyers were posted up to notify everyone of the impending hardship.

Someday, faster, more accessible internet will come to Antarctica.  It's more or less unavoidable, as communications technology improves, and everyone's work – especially the scientists' – depends more and more on having a broadband connection at all times.  It will make a lot of things more convenient, and will make the long separation from friends and family much easier.  But I'm pretty sure that many more people will mourn the upgrade than celebrate it.  One can, theoretically, curtail one's internet use whenever one likes, but even before the pandemic it was almost impossible to live this way with the demands of modern life: I know from personal experience that opting out of Facebook alone can have a real detrimental effect on relationships, even with people one sees in the flesh fairly regularly, simply because everyone assumes that is how everyone else communicates.  Being in a community where no one has access to assumed channels, and is more or less cut off from the rest of the world in a pocket universe of its own, levels the playing field and brings a certain unity.  The planned (and, unarguably, necessary) updating of the physical infrastructure of McMurdo will wipe out a lot of the improvised, make-do-and-mend character of the place; how much would free and easy access to the online world change it in a less tangible way?

I'm sure the genuine Antarctic old-timers would shake their heads at the phone and email connections we have now, and say that no, this has already ruined Antarctica.  It's not Antarctica unless your only link to the outside world is a dodgy radio.  It's not Antarctica unless you only get mail once a year when the relief ship arrives.  Doubtless the shiny new McMurdo will be seen as 'the good old days' by someone, someday, too.  Change may happen slower there than elsewhere, but just like the rust on the tins at Cape Evans, it comes eventually, regardless. 

For my own part, I'm glad I got to see 'old' McMurdo, such as it was, all plywood and cheap '90s prefab.  The update will be much more efficient, and tidy, but yet another generation removed from the raw experience of the old explorers.  My generation is probably the last to remember clearly what life was like before ubiquitous broadband; to some extent, Antarctica is a sort of time capsule of that world, just as the huts are a time capsule of Edwardian frontier life.  I hope they'll find a way to hang on to the positive aspects of that. 

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to waste an hour mindlessly refreshing Twitter ...

If you'd like to learn more about the Black Island facility, there's a lot of good information (and some photos!) here: https://www.southpolestation.com/trivia/90s/blackisland.html

And this Antarctic Sunarticle goes into greater depth on the 2010 upgrade: https://antarcticsun.usap.gov/features/2114/

[bravelysanta]

IT'S THE MOST WONDERFUL TIME OF THE YEAR - BRAVELY SECRET SANTA

Link to the form

The boring stuff/Deadlines: 1)  You have until (Sunday) October 20 at 1 AM EST to sign up. I’ll also be posting regular updates so follow bravelysanta at Twitter/Tumblr/Bluesky.

This is a hard deadline. If you miss it, you miss it! Try again next year!

REMEMBER THAT YOU MUST JOIN THE GROUP ON SNEAKY SANTA - the link will show up after you fill out the form.  Email me at fairyglowcharm @ gmail if you forgot to join it.

2) On the afternoon of October 20th, you will receive an email with the name of the person that you’ll be gifting via Sneaky Santa.

I will check-in a couple of times between mid-Nov and early-Dec. Please use these check-ins as opportunities to tell me if you need help!

3) Gifts are due anytime between December 22nd - 29th. If you will not be able to post it during that time, submit/msg me beforehand and I’ll post it for you.

4) If you think you may not meet the deadline, please contact me immediately and no later than December 21st. But please don’t sign up if you know your availability will be iffy in the first place.

5) If signing up as a pinch-hitter, those will be due by Jan 1st.

Guidelines:

1) If you must cancel your application, please notify me immediately either via email (fairyglowcharm @ gmail) or the bravelysanta accounts, preferably before assignments are chosen on Oct 22. If you find you cannot meet the gifting deadline and need an extension, please also notify me before Dec 21st. 

2) When filling out your name on the Sneaky Santa website, please include your social media handle (either Tumblr or Twitter/Bluesky), so your Santa knows how to @ you. Example - Koma (komatsujo). 

3) Remember that you are gifting a present to someone, and be prepared to spend at least some time on it. No one likes a last-minute gift!

4) Both fanart and fanfic are accepted as submissions. Santees, do not specifically request one or the other.

5) No AI generated art or fanfiction is allowed. The point of this is to create something for someone. Everyone of all talent levels is invited to join, to share the love of Bravely.

6) If you know there is a game, character, or ship that you don't wish to create content about, please indicate that in the last question of the form. I will do my best to exclude pairing you up with someone who is requesting a gift regarding those items, but please understand that I can't make promises if wishlists are not filled out.

7) Please try to complete your wishlists before Oct 20th for these reasons.

8) When creating your wishlists, please do not specifically request fanart or fanfic (example: do not request specifically fanart of the Crystal Crew as kids, instead of requesting something like “I would love to see the Crystal Crew as kids, doing something cute”). However, you should have more than 1 item on your wishlist. Please try to have 3-5 different items so your Santa has some freedom! 

9) Specifically requesting shippy gifts is allowed, but no NSFW material, either in wishlists or presents. This is mostly about smut, but also be mindful with gore and violence.  

10) Your wishlist and present MUST include Bravely themes or characters, such as Bravely Default 1 or 2, Bravely Second, Fairy’s Effect, Brilliant Lights, Praying Brage, etc. With the presence of Bravely characters in Octopath: COTC, Octopath characters + Bravely characters is allowed, though please be mindful of spoilers for the Octopath games. Same applies to other Team Asano games. 

11) Please try to keep your assignments private! Talk about them with friends in DM all you want, but if someone can find out that you’re their Santa on social media, that ruins the surprise!

12) Please tag submissions as #bravelysanta2024 !

13) If there is anything else you would like to specifically avoid during Secret Santa, up to and including a specific person, please indicate as such in the last question. These answers will be private and will never be shared with anyone outside of myself. This includes if you don't want to be matched with me, I'm a people manager, I can take it.

Link to the form is here!

[disgruntledkittenface]

Hello fellow fic writer mutual— I hope you’re hanging in there. 🤍 I’m reaching out bc I’m compiling non-1D reading recs for folks like myself who might be struggling to engage with 1D fics right now. If you’d like to join in, I’d love your recommendations for: Fics from other fandoms and/or original works—especially your own works that fit either of these categories!

You can submit them by: 

Filling out the google form linked HERE—anonymously if you’d like.

Answering this ask with any fics you’d like to share. 

Emailing me at louisandtheaquarian {at} gmail {dot} com.

Please feel free to tag or pass along this ask to fellow writer/reader friends! (And if anyone else has turned to working on original fiction lately—lmk if you would be interested in a future fest of original works. Community and deadlines can be so helpful, haha.)

Sending you so much love. 🫂

hiii I love this idea <3 And thank you for making it easy to submit fics! Once I started opening tabs, I realized I had way more recs than I thought

If you like Schitt's Creek, do yourself a favor and check out these Alexis/Twyla fics by our very own @uhoh-but-yeah-alright

Crystal Clear and Ladies Night Inn series

My friend @queenofquiet17 writes incredible and mostly angsty Grace/Karen fics in the Will & Grace fandom; this is her most recent completed work

Forbidden Thoughts of Youth and Strawberry Gloss

While I was gearing up to write Harry/Louis/Tom Hardy, I found a few Arthur/Eames fics in the Inception fandom and this is my favorite

I've Got Nothing To Do Today But Smile (The Only Living Boy In New York)

I turned to AO3 after the latest season of Selling Sunset and the results did not disappoint; I found a Harry Potter AU!

Faking It

An old friend asked me to look over this Happy Endings AU before I really knew what betaing even was; luckily it didn't even need editing

Secrets and Waffles

I know nothing about hockey, but this AU by @badger-bear left me feral

Tongue Tied

I remember this West Wing AU by @muldxr as being Very Intense!

headlights on dark roads

I once lost an entire workday to this AU of The Office

I Don't Know Where I Belong, I Don't Know Where I Went Wrong

I haven't read a lot of drarry, but this is definitely my favorite

Little Compton Street (One Rainy Night in Soho)

And I would be remiss if I didn't include this classic Folgercest AU (sorry and you're welcome)

A Home for All Seasons

sending you (and everyone out there) love! I think an original work fest is a great idea; we could all use more community these days, especially when trying something new <3

[rustbeltjessie]

Hey friends—I, once again, could really really use some $$, and I decided to add a poll for traction cuz that seems to work on other people's posts. Anyway. I'm not in dire dire straits, in that my rent and utility bills are paid for the month, and we currently have food, but I'm basically entirely out of money otherwise. I need to make sure I can put gas in the car (it's almost on empty, and my kids both have doctor and dentist appointments coming up in the next couple weeks), as well as have money for other bills, household goods other than food, and anything else that might come up. My goal right now is $150-$300, but of course more than that would be even more helpful, as it would leave me in a better place heading into March.

Ways you can support me:

I have a Ko-fi, where you can purchase things I made, commission me for a custom collage, or hire me to proofread or line-edit your writing. If you're looking for zines to read, I have many. My main project right now is a year-long zine subscription, where I send you 1-3 mini zines every month. It's never too late to sign up—you can do it month-by-month, a six-month subscription will get you any combination of past and future zines that total up to six months' worth, and if you sign up for the full year at any point you will receive all past and future issues. February's zines, which will be sent out sometime in the next ten days, are going to be one containing a couple excerpts from the novel I'm writing, and another that's a remembrance of an old friend and a favorite band. I also got a pin (badge) maker for my birthday, and I've now put some of my designs up for sale on my Ko-fi.

Speaking of pins: I'm unofficially offering custom pin commissions. I'm not offering the type of service where you can send me your own design and I'll make hundreds of pins from it. What I mean is, for a base fee, you can commission me to design a custom pin for you. The base fee will include one pin made from the custom design. For an extra fee, you can pay for up to 10 more. If you are interested in something like that, please DM me, or email me at coeur(dot)de(dot)fantome(at)gmail(dot)com.

And, as always, if you appreciate the art and writing I share for free on my blog, in my Substack, and elsewhere, you can just tip me—either directly through Tumblr, or via Ko-fi, P*yP*l, or V*nmo.

P.S. If you live outside the US and need help calculating shipping costs, or you want to order something/hire or commission me but you prefer to do it outside Ko-fi, please DM or email me.

Ko-fi: ko-fi(dot)com/rustbeltjessie P*yP*l: coeur(dot)de(dot)fantome(at)gmail(dot)com V*nmo: (at) JessieLynnMcMains

And, as always, reblogging/boosting this post helps, too. 🖤💗

[alwaysalreadyangry]

saw a post the other day full of people complaining about helping older people use computers, about how clueless they can be, how frustrating it is to have to tell them basics like where to click, exactly what to type, how some people just never seem to get it. then an addition was someone who works in a library sharing a story of a ninety-something woman who picked it up instantly. it’s not difficult, this elderly woman said! wow heartwarming.

i’m here to say that plenty of older and disabled and otherwise marginalised people do not know how to use computers and in some cases will find it very difficult if not impossible to learn to use them. for many people it is difficult. it can be insurmountable. we should be fighting for a world where vulnerable people who are not computer literate can use computers with assistance when they want to, but where they do not need to use computers, ever. this is a serious access issue as so much government paperwork is moving to being online only. your frustration at working a job that likely overworks and underpays you to help people use these computers - please think before turning it on the disenfranchised and vulnerable people who rely on you for assistance and resources.

it’s an annoyance for you? then think about why is it that governments habitually move the resources that vulnerable people need to live to online-only when they know as well as you and i do that the digital divide is real. think about how intentionally difficult governments and agencies make it to access forms and paperwork and everything else that is needed to claim such a small amount of money as people currently get when they are out of work and trying to claim benefits, or on allowances for refugees, etc. how much are governments dedicated to taking away people’s dignity and autonomy by swapping to a system that millions of people do not have access to without going into a public library and asking for help, if there’s even anyone there who is able to or allowed to help? i can get people set up with email and find websites for them but im not even allowed to help with sensitive forms - i can only do what i can, you know. i wish it was more.

before i started this job i thought of myself as impatient. i’m not going to tell you any stories in detail because my library patrons didn’t consent to being A Teaching Moment. but i have requests from “difficult” patrons every day. i take a deep breath and if i don’t have a queue, i try to help. i smile and say “don’t worry” when someone is apologising over and over because they were never taught this and they are stressed out and it doesn’t make sense to them. not everyone grew up with neopets and Hotmail. it makes you no better than them if you did.

i’m not perfect but i’m trying. just… think about it, next time you roll your eyes because another old lady doesn’t know how to use gmail, even though you’ve already shown her what to click. ask if your library has thought about seeing up dedicated sessions for helping people use computers if they need assistance (maybe it’ll take some of the work away from you and give you more breathing space). make leaflets telling people where they can go nearby for help with computers - maybe some local charities or non-profits have drop-in sessions. join campaigns for easier access, for letting people who can’t use computers do what they need to without needing to find some way to get online. all of these are more useful in holding solidarity than in just being frustrated that another person in their seventies, eighties, nineties, struggles to use a computer.

a couple more notes of things that i think about a lot when it comes to computer access at the library that might not occur to people who don’t routinely help people out with basic computer stuff:

2-factor authentication is the devil. i understand the intention behind it and cyber security is important and difficult! but 2-factor authentication in practice locks out and disenfranchises vulnerable people every day, makes them unable to access their emails and everything else on the web that depends on their email, makes them unable to access their data and government portals, and makes them even more vulnerable than governments already conspire to make them. plenty of people just do not understand how 2FA works. it doesn’t matter how many times the google website says : look at your phone and click on this number. or whatever. if somebody else is not there to tell them what to do — if they haven’t recently had to change their phone number, as many vulnerable people might have had to do — they will not be able to do it.

google have recently been selling chromeboxes to public libraries (and schools) cheap. chromeboxes in public libraries are also the devil. on a windows PC loaded with word, lots of people are happy and able to do what they need to do. the problem comes when they have to log in to a google account just to access a fucking word processor. it’s a scandal how many people are locked out of access to something as simple as a word processor unless they have a google or Microsoft account. we are talking people who don’t want email accounts, who just want to type up a letter to send in the post. Every time I ask online for a good alternative I get something extremely tech-y or like fucking online textpad. we just need a good accessible word clone that runs in a web browser like Word XP. It would make a lot much easier. And yet!

[fluffettis]

hey sorry for using anon mode to discuss about this but ,, i am one of the people that are interested in the major group blog thingy .. !! and i am apologizing for this.

but I am just scared about one thing, when we log into the same account Tumblr will basically show our ip address and personal information.. I just had trauma for being doxxed and my ip address being leaked all over discord before ,, (i am safe now..)

well, I'm asking if the group blog thingy starts, when people log in is it okay if you delete all the gmails that tumblr sents? this might involde some personal problems since I'm scared for other peoples privacy. (especially victims who got doxxed.)

just for safety signs, I am so so so sorry for this ask once again..

- 🧩🎨

Of course, it's not as if i knew what an ip can do honestly nor do I care about it because it is not something I am interested in, but I am fine with deleting the emails, if yiu want ti discuss about the group tho please do send me a dm instead! As I wouldn't really like to discuss this in public as I don't think much people do need to know how the group will work if they are not interested 🫡 + I don't want to share personal stuff of youre while having to reply,,

[badlywritingmagazine]

What We're Looking For

Thank you for your submissions so far! They have made a few people very happy. We’re excited to share them with you, and until then, want to put names-to-faces, so to speak, following our invitation to submit. The hope is that this post helps you imagine more things to submit.

1. Letters of any type

Before Spare Rib and the rest, the early women’s liberation movement had open-access newsletters. Any woman could write in, regardless of her tone, form or education, and publicise an opinion, event, or respond to other letters.

WBM accepts letters of any form or tone. They may be previously published online or elsewhere. We won’t publish every letter, but it will likely be printed if it says something interesting, powerful, or for the first time. 

Letters are not eligible for payment, but the most interesting letter of the issue will receive a prize. 

Letters may contain opinions, thoughts, concerns, anecdotes, anecdata, folk healthcare knowledge, congratulations and praise for actions and activism, announcements, including announcements of events or groups, correspondence to the agony aunt (yes really), or short reviews of books and other media of transfeminist interest. 

There is no word limit per se, but we anticipate letters between 100 and 1000 words. 

Letters may be sent by email (writingbadlymag snail gmail punkt com).

2. Essays

Two essays we have accepted for publication thus far, to give you some idea of what we’re looking for, have included: 

Transfeminist domesticities

In this essay, the author reapproaches feminist questions regarding the household with the trans woman in mind. She asks, among other things, How can we resist the spinster/bachelorisation of trans women? How can we live in greater community and solidarity with other trans women in the world as it stands? What is the role of the household in a transfeminist movement, and What would it mean to live as a household of one?

Towards a Transfeminist sex negativity

In this annotated dialogue, the authors recontextualise narratives of sexuality in the lives of transgender women. Drawing on recent writing by transgender women and personal experiences, they ask how we can better serve transgender women at risk.

Other essays to look forward to include topics such as notes towards a transfeminist dictionary, new networks of power and the British state, and decolonial transfeminisms. 

3. Methods

If you are doing transfeminist community work or similar, we would love to hear how. For example, the forthcoming issue will include a method on transfeminist consciousness-raising practices from activists in Scotland. 

We will include in the first issue any methods we have used towards the aim of low-cost, community publishing. 

4. Creative writing

We have described WBM as a new journal of letters on the subject of transmisogyny and transfeminism. However, do not read this in a strictly traditional, non-fiction sense. Creative writing is welcomed. The invitation to submit was very essay-forward, so this is underlined here. 

We will publish work by transgender women (&similar) and of transfeminist interest in which we can see critical, novel or well-refined approaches, literary merit, the development of the writer’s practice, and craftfulness. 

Additionally, we want to publish creative writing which is unlikely to be well-received by invitations to submit targeted at trans or queer writers due to its critical nature of trans and queer (and indeed trans female) writing or people. A published example of a text like this would be Amy Marvin’s enjambment bonanza poem Hey Guys, which draws a heavy line between myopic trans space organisers and the empire which enables their soft-and-tender politics. 

5. Relevant scholarly work of any sort

A woman is a good thing to be. We can say this without qualification. A woman is a good thing to become, as a statement too, requires no qualification. You would be hard-pressed, however, to find scholarly work which supposes it can speak for the lives of transgender women in which these are core premises.

WBM exists because trans female lives and subjectivities in their own right are worthwhile sites of thought and worthwhile origins for study. Women’s studies birthed feminist work in every field of study. When we are asking questions like Is there a transfeminine way of looking? or Do we have obligations against transing history? you are being asked to consider trans female life, transfeminism, and trans female subjectivities as fruitful and worthy of attention and defence.

Send us things that wouldn’t make it elsewhere, that would be butchered by most editors, yes. But also ask what an unflinchingly transfeminist response to some of the questions (or lack thereof) in your field of study is.

We have used the names magazine and journal interchangeably to indicate that we welcome academic work, but that we have no obligations to the academy, and intend to publish very readable work. WBM exists because we believe in an anti-institutional, decolonial transfeminism and its potential for a similar ’trans female studies.’ We must be always agents of our obligations against the university as the site of the production of whiteness.

6. Translations

If you are an able translator and want to share an extract of a transfeminist text not written in English, then let’s talk. We would be more than willing to do the leg work of writing to authors and publishers and obtaining the permissions. Similarly, book report-style essays on non-English language books are also welcomed. (What’s Pauline Clochec up to these days?)

7. Other forms

An annotated dialogue really isn’t an essay. If you have writing of any form not listed above, do consider submitting it. Form is no barrier, and we left the first part of the invitation to submit silent on a number of formal questions specifically to invite form-bending. 

There are no strict word limits to any form above and will approach each text individually. 

The deadline to receive first drafts remains the 31st of December, 2024, and all submissions received after this will be deferred until the next issue. Submitters are encouraged to (and will be loved and thanked greatly by editors if they) get submissions in early; the hard deadline for final drafts is not long after the final submission deadline of the 31st of December.

Remember that the use of pseudonyms is possible if desired. Submissions may be sent by email (editor snailsymbol badly dot press).

With love as always, 

Editor

Subscribe to our mailing list.

[chodzacaparodia]

How many are allowed for the ao3 truth and dare? I wanna ask for:

🛼🥤💌🌻🐇🍄🧸🔪❄️🌿🏜️🦴🐝🎨🧩

(Sorry if it's a lot)

You can ask all you want hahah 😁 Thank you for your asks <3 I'm really glad you wanted ask so much ♡

🛼⇢ describe your latest wip with five emojis

🗣👨‍❤️‍👨🕺🥂❤️‍🩹

🥤 ⇢ recommend an author or fanfic you love

AHHH THIS IS SO HARD 😭😭

I'm looking through my bookmarks and I don't know what to recommend... Maybe this one:

The Secrets We Keep (Aren't Really That Extreme) by CheekyBrunette (Tododeku)

This is my favorite chat fic ever. I remember reading the chapters several times before the new updates came.

💌 ⇢ how many unread emails do you have right now? 

Ehhhh on the "official" e-mail I have read all of them, but on my one Gmail, which is mainly used for e-mails from ao3, I have over about 116?? 💀 Almost all of which are updates of fanfic chapters, which I will totally come back someday 🙈

🌻 ⇢ tag someone you appreciate but don't talk to on a regular basis

Preferably I'd like just @ everyone who likes/reblogs my posts, but that's where our interactions end 😭😭I appreciate your silent presence 💖💖💖

🐇 ⇢ do you prefer writing original characters, reader inserts, or a mix of both? 

Original characters!!! I mostly avoid reader insert because it often makes me cringe 💀

🍄 ⇢ share a head canon for one of your favourite ships or pairings

Maybe Ryufuyu (Ryusei Satou and Chifuyu Matsuno) from Tokyo Revengers this time?

Ryseui often makes fun of Chifuyu and his love of shoujo manga and romance. But he finds it super cute. And since he also has a huge weakness for Chifuyu, he arranges for him various "scenes" typical of shojo mangas or dramas (like "rescuing" Chifuyu from a cyclist who is riding a good few meters away from them), which are more like pranks and cause Chifuyu's irritation and frustration. at the beginning, but then Ryusei makes up for everything and Chifuyu admits that he is a very charming bastard.

🧸 ⇢ what's the fastest way to become your mutual?

The fastest way is to follow me and create some interactions through e.g. reblogs? Comments? When I see that someone is excited about what I like, I start to feel a connection hahah.

🔪 ⇢ what's the weirdest topic you researched for a writing project?

Idk, I can't remember. All I can remember in my head is how I looked for information about what diseases etc. kissing can bring 💀

❄️ ⇢ what's your dream theme/plot for a fic, and who would write it best?

I would love to write a Hanahaki Disease fic! I already have it in my head, but this idea will have to wait. Hmmm, who could write it well? Maybe Julie Kagawa could create something good? Her "The Iron Fey" and "Shadow of Fox" series convince me she could handle it. Or Colleen Hoover hahah. She would definitely dramatize this theme even more. Her Hanahaki Disease book would definitely be a bestseller

🌿 ⇢ give some advice on writer's block and low creativity

Honestly, it helps me to read fics or books where the characters are also fans and create something themselves, mainly fanfiction. I can identify with them and feel solidarity. Their passion is contagious, their doubts are my doubts. Stories like this make me feel motivated.

Sooo reading 💖📚

🏜️ ⇢ what's your favourite type of comment to receive on your work?

I love long comments where readers quote fragments of my Fic and write what they liked about them 🥺💖 They make me so happy that my cheeks hurt from smiling! I really appreciate that someone liked my story so much that they devoted so much time and energy to such an extensive comment 😭

🦴 ⇢ is there a piece of media that inspires your writing? 

Hmmm I don't think so? Mostly ideas come to me randomly. But "Fruits Basket" was my inspiration to write one fic

🐝 ⇢ tag your biggest supporter(s) and say one nice thing about them

She doesn't even use tumblr anymore, but I have to tag @twojastarasiostra! She's my friend who I met at university and she was my beta for a long time (now I don't want to burden her with work because of her normal work, soo No beta we die like our free time 💀) Thank you so much that you took the time to read my works under pressure and that you sent me fragments that you liked. I'm so grateful for what you did ♡♡♡ Now you don't have to read anymore, but you still have to deal with me talking about struggling to write hahah

Speaking of struggling, I would also like to thank @lostsowly for our conversations during TR Rare Pair Week ♡♡ Mutual motivation gave me a lot ♡♡ In my heart there will always be the fact that you wrote that I am one of your favorite writers 😭

I have to also tag @matcha-meow who always informs me about writing events that I don't know about because I don't have Twitter 💀 If it weren't for you, I wouldn't have created many of my works. Thank you very much for your extensive comments, which always make me happy ♡♡♡

🎨 ⇢ link your favourite piece of fanart and explain why you like

This is my favorite Kuroken fanart ever (I hope it opens because it's on pinterest)

I love everything about this fanart. Versions of Kuroo and Kenma at different ages, their adult versions looking at each other so tenderly, this background, these colors 😭😭😭

🧩 ⇢ what will make you click away from a fanfiction immediately?

When I see some incest tags 💀 If in the fic the romantic relationship is between siblings, I have *ABORT ABORT*. Just like there is a threesome with siblings in the main role. If there are love triangles between a character and two siblings - that's cool, but God forbid such a threesome 💀

If I see that the text is written in a sequence and there are no paragraphs, then I often give up reading

Have a nice day! 💖

Writers Truth & Dare Ask Game

[spntoxicfemslashevent]

official submission guidelines

hi all! a lot of this is in the pinned but i thought i would reiterate it in its own post with a few additions.

this is a femslash february event! that means we have a prompt list for every day of february. if you write, draw, or otherwise create for one of these prompts, or for the other, extra prompts we will be posting throughout january and february, tag your work #spntoxicfemslash on tumblr, mention us @spntoxicfemslashevent, and/or add your work to the ao3 collection.

if you don't have a tumblr but still want to participate, send us an email at spntoxicfemslashevent at gmail dot com with a link to your work and any info about it you want to share, and we will make a post on this tumblr with the link and info.

[prompt list] [intro post]

submission rules:

you must be 18+ – this event deals with mature topics and themes, please only participate if you’re over 18 by the time you post

no underage

obviously given this is a toxic femslash event, elements of misogyny or homophobia or etc that exist in our society will come up and perhaps even permeate the characters and the work itself. however, don’t be a bigot. we reserve the right not to boost your work if it’s racist or something

warnings are your friend – please make sure to tag your works + add disclaimers, so those who want to avoid it can, and those who want to find it also can ;)

what counts as femslash? ships between any characters who are canonically women or have used female vessels for at least part of their screentime.

this event also allows gender change aus, meaning that male characters reimagined as women are also allowed. there's a chance we might end up with a few submissions where canonically woman characters are reimagined as men/non-women which is... also fine, i suppose?

what counts as toxic? it should be sicko. it should be nauseating. it should be bad-to-read. don't be a pussy we are hoping for some real evil stuff. let's get cancellable with it

what counts as a fanwork? that is actually really broad! some possible formats include: posting headcanons, making a playlist, knitting something with a pattern that reminds you of the characters, putting a bunch of our prompts into this bingo card generator and writing five one-sentence fics based on the output, and making a rec list of other fanworks that you think fit into our purview. don't stress if you're not a traditional writer or artist

if you post stuff early we will wait to boost it until the day it's made for. obviously if you post stuff late we'll take it. realistically you have until, like, april if you want to get stuff in really late. though if you end up having to post after february is over it would be cool if you could give us a heads up

this list is subject to change if it turns out we forgot something

go stupid crazy