#that archive feature... people aren't using it lol

[kimyoonmiauthor]

Worldbuilding: !@#$ the terfs, be more creative with gender and bio sex than a binary system.

9.5 times out of ten the majority of gender systems I read in US books are really, really uncreative, and I do mean that because manga, has more creative gender systems than a lot of US books. I love you Melanie Rawn, but still, the inversion as good as it was in the uncompleted Ruins of Ambrai, still was largely a European system because it was largely a commentary on the European system. (Yes, I did understand that.)

And the US tends to, very much accuse other countries of having uncreative gender systems that are absolutely rigid, say the US to Japan. (Though the usually [white] understanding of Japanese gender is usually abysmal... but that's a whole paper and a half there.)

When building a gender system, be more creative! You have this other fake culture. You can do whatever the heck you feel like. Say, the Barbie Movie, which hilariously the alt-right USian detested, though it still was a commentary on mostly US gender norms.

Can't we loosen this up a little? You have literal aliens and you can't imagine a more creative sex and gender system than the binary? Oh really? Humans aren't even binary on either. I'm going to give cultural examples.

Introduction

Bugis have 5 genders.

BTW, someone got so mad when I pointed out the page they cited said that Bugis recognized 5 genders, they went on a youtube rant about it. lol Deal. BTW, people put a lot of emphasis on Bissu like how people hyperfocus on trans women in the US because masculinity is that fragile. Albanian is complicated.

Some countries/ethnicities have 3.

India has a 3 gender system in Northern India. Women, men, Hijra

I mean this list:

Some countries don’t even define the two gender system the same way (Europeans are sooo uptight. Loosen up.)

For example, a Korean man wearing pink--no problem. No one flips the hell out when a man in Korea wears a hanbok with a chima and a jeogori. They are like cool. He can do as he likes. Even baksu wear chima in religious ceremonies. They believe it gives them extra powers.

The whole pants. are. for. men. and. women. only. wear. skirts.

Oh c'mon...

Pants were invented for horseback riding--like the heel.

So let's get this mind-numbingly straight (pun somewhat intended here) Men, are men because of horses. (haha, yes, Barbie reference), thus have to wear pants. But are absolutely effing forbidden from wearing heels, which are also associated with what? Horseback riding. Hmmm...

And men still wear dresses and skirts, but they call it by other names.

Judicial robes for sale, and look, a man is wearing them.

But--But that's soo different from a dress...

https://www.net-a-porter.com/en-jp/shop/product/la-doublej/clothing/maxi-dresses/muumuu-printed-silk-twill-maxi-dress/38063312420399795

This is a dress because as Webster's Dictionary says:

: an outer garment (as for a woman or girl) usually consisting of a one-piece bodice and skirt

Yes, it's worn by a woman. I couldn't find another definition.

But men also wear sarongs. And bath towels, and kilts all of which look suspiciously like skirts. And togas. Which shows how fragile the definition is that you need to narrow the definition that much.

And freaking for those religious, God on the Sistine Chapel, by suspected maybe gay Michelangelo, has a vaccuum sealed butt on the Sistine chapel wearing a pink dress.

C'mon, we can be more creative than this, surely. I mean, if you look at this super rigid gender system, does it make any sense at all? OK, I'm NB and all, but seriously, I look at it and go, WTF happened to you?

You get so uptight about men wearing lace, stocking, high heels, dresses, pink but forget so quickly that less than 200 years ago, no one gave a damn, and if a man didn't wear those things, he couldn't make it in high society.

I mean...

Lafayette, wearing pink, heels, stockings, lace (his collar), and a wig. Give me a break here.

And gender definitions change over time...

Just about 100 years back, in order to be out and gay, it was thought your entire gender was different. There was nothing like a butch gay man. You were considered part female, in fact. And no one in the 19th century would have taken exception to that. It didn't change until much later in Europe.

But also Europe imperialized the world with gender expectations, leading to a rise of violence against third gender communities.

What was one of the first three rules of culture I posted? Culture changes. Koreans like to say, even in ten years the Mountains and rivers change. So gender can and will also change in definitions becoming more rigid, more fluid, recategorized, etc over time.

So given all of these things... let's rethink gender.

Gender doesn't have to be Defined by Sex Assigned at Birth

A lot of Human cultures assign gender this way. Born one way, raise them that way, hope it works out.

But you have a whole FANTASY WORLD and you can see, humans don't make a lot of logical sense when it comes to gender. I mean heels are for women, and men should never wear them, except when they are attached to boots, but the boots better not be too high , or you're *gasp* gay is the European "logic" system. And only what? 50 or so years ago, women were finally allowed to wear pants.

So you don't have to do it by genitals. You could do it by hair color. Gender affirming care would be changing your hair color, or horns, or whatever tickles your fancy. You could, say have a cephlapod species with smaller males that can present female part of the time, and based on their texture of their skin, that's their gender.

You could do it by color--the species has actually blue, dark blue, green, yellow, etc skin colors and they can change them at any moment and the one they tend towards, well, that's their gender.

You could also make it so you automatically need a polycule for the species to work out and reproduce. And thus there might be, say a 6 gender system. 2 possible genders for the three adults there.

C'mon. Nature is creative and sometimes has an all female species. Look at Mourning geckos. There are so few males, and they are sometimes called a lesbian species of gecko.

Even then, you have intersex, and not all intersex people are infertile.

Terfs only think it's wrong to "go against nature" when it has to do with gender presentation. Nothing else. But they have no, no problem with assigning a sex to an intersex child without their consent. That's culture taking over for nature. And how that is shaped, or not shaped, absolutely belongs in world building.

If your men aren't horseback riding, and your women aren't either, then dresses for all are fine. Deal with it.

I think it would be entertaining to see an alien species determine the gender of the child by holding up paint swatches to the child's say eyes and then saying, "Yep, a girl."

Or even well, the birther stayed in # temp rooms, for # amount of days, Oh, this is the expected sex of the child. But the gender, well, we will determine that by these [arbitrary] factors.

But seriously, you can define gender and sex however, you want. Is medical/magic intervention necessary or not? Who gets to determine it?

Next step is to find the rules for how gender is expressed in an idealized world.

Do you constantly call all of your girls and tell them they can grow up to be a princess? But tell all your boys they are going to grow up to be doctors and lawyers?

This is what Social Scientists would call socialization.

For this, I would suggest you make a spreadsheet and then put down arbitrary lists of things the "ideal" gender would wear. So for the US, Pink is for girls. Blue is for boys. How they should act. And finally, how they are taught.

It's so ubiquitous that even feminists often trip up and see a baby in a pink dress with lace and automatically pick up a doll. (I'm just saying, maybe think that one over a bit.)

Make a list for each column. And then for the individual characters figure out how they DON'T fit those norms and then terrorize them with it...

What do you threaten the privileged group with if they come out of line?

For men in the US, for example, you go with homophobia. "That's gay."

Because the threat of being gay is sooo outlandish. *eyeroll* It's an threat to everything masculine.

I'll go over this in more detail later in the series, but you need things to discipline the privileged group and the disadvantage group(s). What's the threat if you become this other group? Death? Social ridicule? Financial loss? Being outcast?

Or, do you get rewarded and become a shaman, a healer, or a celebrated hero for being able to not fit in? (This also is possible).

Cultural justifications

Cultural justifications for this are different from the actual historical reasons or the facts.

The historical reason that pink and blue switched was because dyes became more readily available for both and they felt like it.

Blue used to be more rare, and thus considered "virginal" because blue is rare in nature, but under industrialization as people became more and more disconnected from nature, and blue dyes became available, the idea of this became more diluted, and the switch was from blue to pink.

That's not what the cultural justifications were for this thought originally. The thought was that blue was a more "delicate" color, clearly more suited to women.

Because, if you have forgotten (yes a joke coming), humans constantly get amnesia on where things come from. Constantly. We've lost information in your own lifetime. You were born 2 seconds ago? Well, I hate to tell you, we've lost information in that 2 seconds.

So, when they can't remember the reason, Humans make up a reason to go with it, that's often frivolous and silly. Something that feels, what? Natural to them. Though remember the rule, Nature gives no fucks. So find and make up a logical reason for the cultural item and then find a stupid reason that people are willing to double down on it and there you go, that's culture. So say your species of aliens, the ones that are temperature linked to sex, link Iunno, gender to horn size. Bigger horns mean a certain class of gender. The original reason might be that bigger horned females are better at digging nests back when they were a pastoral society, thus better able to have larger clutches of children. But they've now reached the stars, so they completely forgot why and now just say that bigger horns are simply sexier because reasons. Or it could have flipped that smaller horns are in more demand, because big horns get in the way of industrial tasks, but no one says that. And now the bigger horned females, are considered a lower gender than the smaller horned females, who then raise all of the eggs.

See, the justification doesn't even have to follow any sort of logic. It's what they tell everyone to make them feel better.

And truthfully, a lot of culture is built this way. The reason you tell everyone isn't really the actual truth. I mean I did a whole series on Story Structure, and the justifications versus the reasons why it was made that way don't even close to match. People blindly parrot what other people tell them if it will help them succeed. (BTW, not saying I'm not guilty of this, I absolutely am.)

So I think this gives you a good basis to free yourself up for a larger system and be more creative with your gender definitions. Because absolutely both gender and sex are defined by culture, but in different ways.

You have effing demons, and you can come up with a more creative gender categories? You have unicorns and you don't have more creative gender categories. And you have kracken climbing buildings, but you can't imagine a third sex category for them when it absolutely exists in nature. C'mon. Hit me with your most creative and free yourself of your own culture's definitions of gender.

What if you nuked the entire Male/female/NB system. What would that look like? How would you justify it on two fronts? Blow that system out of the water and rework it. What would the Sexual orientation work like with a 3 sexes, 2 gender for each each system?

What stupid prohibitions would you put in for such a system?

[hyeahgaku]

MASTERLIST

> Greetings. I'm Soy (they/them), & thanks for comin by or following me here. This blog is dedicated to Yūto Suzuki’s incredible masterpiece called “SAKAMOTO DAYS”.

> In an effort to make this blog resourceful for all Sakadays fans, i do my best to post whatever i can get my hands on related to Sakadays here; interviews, poll results, draft sketches, mangaka's comments, magazines extras, etc.

> Since this masterlist could not hold as many links as i thought, i have created new separate page sections/tabs here for everyone to access. Scroll & just follow thru the links!

> Here's my X/twitter account. I'm active there sometimes.

> Most importantly: This blog is NOT spoiler-free.

> Second most importantly: If you use any of my translated works, please credit me. You can attach the hyperlink to my original post, or just credit my username "hyeahgaku". Reason being, if there are any errors to my translations, at least people know who wrote it originally, and it'll also be updated when I make amends.

> I read both EN & JP versions of Sakadays and I do JP->EN translations sometimes but it's all self-learn. I am not a certified professional translator. English is also not my best language so I'm not 100% fluent in both languages (MEGA LOL). So my translations aren't 100% accurate and are subjected to changes with the official versions. Forgive me for any grammar, spelling & translation mistakes that you may encounter.

–

SAKAMOTO DAYS News & Press Release

News & commemoration things

Chapter update schedule announcements

Characters birthdays

Merchandise & goodies, etc.

SAKAMOTO DAYS Anime Stuff

Official anime website

Character designs, key visual & trailer, theme songs, etc.

Voice actors & actresses + Comments

-

My Translated Works.

Please visit this page for my unofficial, mediocre translations for SAKAMOTO DAYS materials; such as character profile sheets, interviews, Q&As, etc.

–

SAKAMOTO DAYS Materials

Please visit this archives page to access all the links (light novels illustrations, manga volume extras for every volume in Japanese & also in English, etc) that I've compiled since they can't be fit into this Masterlist anymore.

–

SAKAMOTO HOLIDAYS Materials

Please visit this archives page to access things related to the spin-off series by Tetsu Okawa, "SAKAMOTO HOLIDAYS".

–

WSJ Magazine featuring SAKAMOTO DAYS:

Suzuki-sensei's Weekly Comments

Compilation of all Sakadays Volume Covers & Info

Compilation of Sakadays Featured on WSJ Magazine Covers

Compilation of all Sakadays Coloured Pages in magazine issues

Other stuff from officials, or done by me:

Suzuki-sensei's Oneshots

Sakadays Official Lockscreen Wallpapers

Sakadays Behind-the-Scenes (BTS) for Volume Covers (done by me)

Sakadays Movie References compilation (done by me)

Sakadays Trivia (done by me)

[kassandras-one-braincell]

hi!! i was wondering if you have any general advice for someone who wants to start posting their work on ao3? or i guess if you would advice me to do that at all lol! i saw your recent post about it in relation to the ai stuff and found it so useful since i don't usually see people talk about that, thank you for sharing <33

Hi love! Please don't let the current AI situation on AO3 dissuade you from joining the platform. In all honesty, I think the scrape was a cheap attempt at obtaining credentials for identity theft using the illegitimate DMCA forms, rather than something done for software training purposes. I'm pretty sure Cloudflare, its hosting platform, has taken action against it.

My humble advice is contained below the cut, because it's quite long, but there's a bit of a learning curve with the posting page and a couple of unspoken customs:

The bulk of everything you need to know about posting on AO3 is contained in the ToS, which hopefully will help you navigate the "post" menu. If you're unsure whether a warning applies, select "Creator Chose Not to Use Archive Warnings" just in case.

There's no algorithm, so all that readers have to go by is the (excellent) tagging system and the summary you provide.

If you struggle with summaries - most of us do - then a snippet of the work is perfectly sufficient. Ultimately, the summary is a preview of your writing, and if you opt for the excerpt approach, your style, which is your only chance to attract readers.

Tagging is a little bit intimidating the first few times as a writer, but you'll get the hang of it soon enough! Asides from central characters and pairings, this is the place to disclose the genre of the work, any key/polarising themes and/or triggers. You're not obligated by ToS to disclose these, but it's a gesture of goodwill if you know it might upset someone. If there is a disturbing theme present, include the tag "Dead Dove Do Not Eat" - this is the colloquial indicator for the reader to very carefully reread the tags, because they're to be taken literally.

When you begin to type a tag, you'll be given suggestions of the most widely used tags that match what you've typed. If the shoe fits, use these. It makes the site easier to navigate for readers. If you're spawning a tag into existence though, it will begin to appear in that little drop down after there are three works on the archive containing the tag. I know this because I was the first (and second, third and fourth lmao send help) person to upload "Soma (Assassin's Creed)/Reader" to AO3 :)

You have the option of uploading your work in the designated editor as Rich Text or HTML. The only significant difference between them is how page and paragraph breaks are formatted. If you're copy-pasting from a word processor, slap it in Rich Text, and then if you want to do anything fancy after that outside of the scope of the Rich Text editor, you'll be able to make adjustments in HTML.

While you can save a draft, the text editor is not designed to be a substitute for word processing software. There is no editing history or backup feature, so it's ill-advised to develop your work directly on the platform.

Finally, with all the technical stuff put to one side, try not to fret over metrics like hits and kudos. It's lovely to receive kudos and comments, but smaller numbers aren't indicative of your work in any way, shape or form. There are so many factors at play there, and sometimes just the time of publication can have a huge impact on reader engagement, precisely because there's no algorithm to bolster or suppress.

Take pride in your work, and keep the dopamine as isolated as possible from the thought of big numbers. I promise you, it will keep the passion alive for longer :)

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[raijinhasverybigpecs]

the kids are posting memes again and i feel like it’s my duty to reblog my Excellent(tm) collection of old meme posts but i also don’t want to spam people’s dashboards with things they saw years ago

[olderthannetfic]

Jesus Fucking Christ. I *wish* folks stopped ""criticizing"" AO3 if they *do not* understand it is an archive and not a fucking social media like Wattpad. I just encountered a post (not on Tumblr) where someone stated their frustration about how recent fandoms are just a bunch of conformists and take Wattpad for granted, thinking that Wattpad (as the corporation that is) *care* about fanfic authors. I did agree with OP, because OP didn't just mentioned AO3 as a safe and better place for fanfic authors, but other indie/specific archives. The thing is, when you have *better* places for your thing why the fuck do you stay on a awful designed site as Wattpad?

Well, a lot of folks took that *really* personal and started "criticizing" AO3 with stupid shit as:

"I don't know if people follow me!" Isn't that fucking better, actually? You *care* too much about followers and you think that "followers = quality". Depending on followers to value your work is *unhealthy* as fuck.

"I can't comment per paragraph/I don't like how people on AO3 don't comment at all". See point 1 but also like, if you want that constant feedback, that's okay. Stay on Wattpad (don't cry if your account or you fanfics get massive flagged and Wattpad doesn't say you shit about why they deleted your works tho [that still happens, *a lot]), but on AO3 is *not* necessary. Also I bet you don't even comment on fanfics. The most annoying people that cry "readers that don't comment are bad!!!" tend to be huge hypocrites.

"I don't know if people still read my fanfic because they can't 'vote' every chapter!" See point 1 again. Seriously folks, stop undervaluing your works. Quantity doesn't mean quality. And if y'all care that much about statics to the point of getting anxious and depressed and demotivated, you can hide the statics on AO3. I *hate* how social media has raised the young.

"AO3 isn't intuitive! I don't understand shit!" Why y'all *love* showing your learned incompetence? Search tutorials! They're *everywhere*. On TikTok, on Tumblr, on Twitter, on Facebook, on YouTube. Y'all just fucking lazy and proud of it. Sad, actually. Also, it shows that y'all never saw a digital library. Also sad.

"AO3 will turn toxic if people start massive joining". Darling, sweetheart, dear: 1. That 'massive joining' happened already, on 2020 and is still happening; 2. This is not Wattpad. Wattpad feels toxic because is like a social media, is like Twitter; it has all the features that annoying people love to use to harass other people. AO3 doesn't and thank God for that.

Then, besides of all that crap someone commented this and I still can't stop laughing: "AO3 is starting to be the site of the 'Not Like Other Girls', I'm so tired". Bitch, what the fuck do you mean by that, LOL? Then that commenter proceeded to moan about how people don't read their fic (oh okay you're just salty, LMAO.)

Anyway, listen. If you needs are covered by Wattpad's awful design, that's okay. Every fandom have different needs. That's why independent archives exists! But for the love of God stop "criticizing" AO3 "because it lacks important aspects" when that aspects *aren't* necessary for an *archive*. AO3 wasn't born nor is it nor will be a social media site, and I'm fucking glad. Also, go to a library. Seriously, touch real books. Smell them if y'all can too.

--

[coyoteprince]

I know you mentioned a while back you've drawn several mermaids, sphinx, and nymphs with more ethnic features and if those aren't a secret for some reason, can we see them??

A lot of my older art is lost to time, I used to have a japanese sphinx, drew a navajo centaur, etc and it seems these are the only three i still have saved. drawn w computer mouse prior to 2015: (none o' these fellas are linked to Widderwood, fyi, but including as example)

I've focused heavily on just drawing the boys the past few years so art of... literally anything else has been sparse until more lately as I try to slowly build up an archive showing the wider world of Widderwood lol. i feel like the way I've settled into designing my fairies tends to make any features I intend to read as ethnic feel more ambiguous- I'm not sure if that's fine or not. i guess that's the issue you have to deal with when the majority of your creature populace lean more stylized non-human. i just hope people know that they're more than welcome to read any of my fairies as poc, and there's many background fairies i personally intend to be a certain race or culture... even if its a little too hard to tell because of all the animalistic and magical caricaturism I put into their anatomy. Looking through the pieces below and through my sketchbook (too messy to show) I def need to draw some fae sporting locs! and kick my ass to finally draw some of the Darlington town, since the town has a sizeable black & nipmunc population

[princessnijireiki]

re: this post—

the books they circulate are stolen materials. not only are they not paying authors OR publishers the licensing for digital copies of these books (which actual libraries do), for paper books which are scanned & then digitized, you're talking about a whole market authors and their estates are being robbed of. I don't hate piracy, rock out however you want to. but stop spray painting shit and telling folks it's gold. there is no noble cause here, there is no charitable urge. it's run of the mill piracy that a wealthy ceo is collecting donations off of & isn't even being run out of the country for it like KAT or TPB.

if you are broke, use a library. if you are tech savvy enough to use the internet archive's openlibrary, download calibre & fucking de-drm some overdrive .epubs yourself. stolen goods, but at least the authors are paid. hell, request your library buys a copy, physical or digital. it's still free to you, so there's no excuse.

most of the scanned books that are on there illegally aren't "lost forever," they're just fucking out of print. check addall & ebay. look up inter-library loans. hop on reddit or facebook market or whatever & see if anyone can hook you up. look up book swaps. "request re-seeds" irl.

get a jstor account. contact the authors directly if necessary, especially when it comes to academic texts most of them will hook you up. openlibrary's textbook selection isn't even great either, and digital textbook rentals are pretty cheap too, so don't pull the broke college student card... steal or don't, but you're not a noble thief, and neither was I when I pirated my school books. I just wasn't a coward about owning that to myself.

the genuinely out of copyright content is not what's in dispute. if public domain + open source content is lost because the internet archive gets deleted, it's purely because their leadership refuses to compensate authors for lost revenue or take down their illegal content to be in compliance with copyright law. they'll be the ones cutting off y'all's noses to spite your face.

the wayback machine has a great set of features & UI, but they're not the only web archival service in the game, either. and they're not even the branch of the internet archive that these lawsuits are about.

vitally: not to be an asshole, but the move from physical to digital media with streaming access/infinitely revokable "personal use license" purchases rather than actual copies of unlocked files themselves was always headed towards this path. that's why oldheads act shocked younger people can't torrent, but pay for apple music, spotify, and a half dozen video streamers. this market mechanism and "free" sites that use that same model has never been about users actually having access to materials. back up your shit. back up your backups. idk what else to say.

that's also the biggest difference with the library of alexandria... it sucked because, as a hub, as an ACTUAL archive, they either hosted copies of original documents or MADE copies of them to send elsewhere. losing THAT library is rough for historians because that library could've hypothetically been the source of a massive FONT of knowledge, but only hypothetically, because media decays, and if it wasn't that fire, it might've been something else that damaged that library or its contents. it is a historians' "what-if" fantasy that they wax poetically & romantically about losing suddenly & catastrophically, despite evidence to the contrary. so if there's anything out there that the internet archive has the ONLY copies of, more shame on them, because that's not the point of a fucking library, and never was, even going back literal millennia.

your teachers were also right about wikipedia. not that it's bad; I literally just linked it lol. but that an encyclopedia is only as good as its cited sources. web snapshots for news stories either can be, are, or ought to be archived elsewhere. and wiki editors will ABSOLUTELY set about changing those links out overnight, if they haven't started doing so already. they also don't link to fucking openlibrary bootleg books. run authors their money & donate to wikipedia + actual libraries instead of openlibrary and you won't have this problem next time.

stop defending the internet archive, jesus christ