Throwback to when I took painkillers and woke up with Photoshop open on my computer to this image I had made
Hi this currently has 37 thousand notes and I just want to ask - why?
Big Things Are Coming
Wealth, weal, and plentiful spoons are coming to me 👏
Still obsessed with Arthur Conan Doyle’s letter to Bram Stoker gushing about how wonderful a book Dracula is, but particularly how it makes such a good template for leaving fic comments, so I’m gonna to a BREAKDOWN:
Next time you don’t know what to say on a fic you enjoyed, just use the ACD method~
forever reblog
ALWAYS REBLOG.
final image made it all worth it
I DIDN’T LEARN ABOUT THIS IN DRIVING SCHOOL
Stop says the red light, go says the green
Wait says the yellow light, twinkling in between.
KNEEL, SAYS THE DEMON LIGHT WITH ITS EYE OF COAL SAURON KNOWS YOUR LICENSE PLATE AND STARES INTO YOUR SOUL
THIS IS ALWAYS FUNNY
@irritatedlifeguard I agree with your tags.
Good morning! I’m salty.
I think we, as a general community, need to start taking this little moment more seriously.
This, right here? This is asking for consent. It’s a legal necessity, yes, but it is also you, the reader, actively consenting to see adult content; and in doing so, saying that you are of an age to see it, and that you’re emotionally capable of handling it.
You find the content you find behind this warning disgusting, horrifying, upsetting, triggering? You consented. You said you could handle it, and you were able to back out at any time. You take responsibility for yourself when you click through this, and so long as the creator used warnings and tags correctly, you bear full responsibility for its impact on you.
“Children are going to lie about their age” is probably true, but that’s the problem of them and the people who are responsible for them, not the people that they lie to.
If you’re not prepared to see adult content, created by and for adults, don’t fucking click through this. And if you do, for all that’s holy, don’t blame anyone else for it.
This needs to be reblogged today.
Consenting to see adult content doesn’t mean you should have to see a bunch of shit romanticizing incest and pedophilia you walnut
Except this is the last line of consent before the actual work. So if you’re at this button you have already done the following:
1) chosen to go onto AO3 in the first place
2) chosen the fandom you wish to read about
3) had the chance to filter for the things you do want to see like a specific pairing or a specific AU
4) had the chance to specifically filter out any tags you don’t want to see like, oh I don’t know, incest and non-con and dub-con and paedophilia
5) had the chance to set the rating level if you wish to remove any explicit content at all
6) have read the summary of the story, which aren’t always great but are the only indicator of what the story will be like writing wise so something about it was good enough for you to click on it.
7) have read the tags of the story which will tell you what is actually in the story. If you have used filters to remove stories with things you don’t want then there shouldn’t be anything in here that’s a shock to you but maybe there is. That’s why the tags are there for you to check for yourself.
8) Then you have to actually click on the story. You cannot see anything other than the summary or the tags without personally deciding that you are going to open and read this story.
9) Only here, at step number nine, do you get to the adult content warning pictured above. You have been through eight different steps, the last six of which have also been opportunities for you to see that this has adult content. And AO3 has *STILL* stopped you to ask one last time “are you sure you want to read this because it has things that only adults should see in it”.
If after this point you are reading incest and paedophilia then it’s probably because you specifically went looking for it.
You walnut.
This is the most beautiful thing that I have seen about ao3
it bugs me how many lesbians have issues with trans women. like, we're supposed to love women. what's next, you gonna start hating short people too? fuck off.
AND TRANS GUYS. "ooohhhhh they're betraying womanhood" no, they're men. jfc not everything is a personal attack some people are just guys.
reblog this version too actually
Madames and Monsieurs. Poirot has seen much evil in the world, but the evil of this man is in a category all it’s own. His crimes are those of which Poirot cannot speak of in polite company, and they stretch the limit of discretion and manners. And he flees his persecution but cannot resist to remind the world of his existence. To brag about the money his filth has brought him. To try and, how you say, “flex” on a girl who’s concern is for the future of this planet by touting his many fast cars. But she is not so easily cowed and came back strong against his crude message with one of her own. Poirot may not condone the language, but he cannot deny it may have been called for. And there, there he let his hubris lead him to make his mistake. In his video, there, there is his pandora’s box. It does not look like much, it is after all a pizza box and such food is popular among the masses today. But this box…this box proved where he was hiding away. What hole this rat crawled into!
Aight y'all. Here's a lesson I learned from my wife, and I wish I'd learned it years ago:
Before you buy anything, take 5 minutes to search (preferably with a non-Google search engine like DuckDuckGo) "best [whatever] for [specific purpose if necessary]."
Make sure you look at who the reviews are from; there are a lot of bad spam sites out there, but you can find good lists on reputable sites. However, you'll get some of the best lists on Reddit.
Most of what you'll find at the top of the lists on Amazon (and Walmart) are people who have paid for that spot. You'll still have to use discernment to make sure you're picking a good review site, but I'm not kidding when i say that the last time we had to buy a plunger, I ended up on a thread on a plumber's forum where they were discussing which plunger they keep in their own bathroom. (The overwhelming winner was something called a Toilet Saber, and... it's much easier to use than the usual style of plunger, actually.)
She searches "best potato peeler" and "best pastry blender" and "best standing desk" and it seems so obvious, right, but she does it for literally everything and the average quality of things I own has gone way, way up since I started taking 5 minutes to search "best yoga socks" and "best cuticle trimmers" and then going to buy whatever it is.
Her research skills go into overdrive when it comes to big purchases; she's the one who researched our sublimation printer and found the desk I currently use. If there's an extremely passionate subreddit out there about the thing she wants to buy, she'll find it and then read half a dozen reviews.
I cannot stress enough how much she does this. About. Everything. And how much everything we own is better as a result.
It's amazing, honestly.
Can confirm.
Household shopping strategy goes like this:
(a) I do a preliminary search sequence along the above lines.
(b) I then load the URLs into an email and send them to @petermorwood.
Himself Upstairs is a true terrier of searches. He will go down rabbit holes of genuinely epic depth to construct the best possible price comparisons.
It doesn’t hurt that both of us have been Actively Poor at one time or another (sometimes both at once, which is annoying…) and Himself has the true fondness of the mythical Cheap Ulsterman for a bargain.
(c) When Himself has enough data, he either emails me his results or invites me Upstairs to consult by looking over his shoulder at Too Many Tabs.
(d) Choices are made. Someone pays.
(e) Celebration ensues and someone is entrusted with minding the tracking data.
(f) As Joanne Harris says: “Tea.”
I wish that ao3 had an option to filter warnings (and tbh certain authors) out like I will never ever want to read it and just seeing it puts me off so much that often I end up closing my browser because that content upsets me so much lmao
There is a way to do this but I can’t recall how to do it. it’s something you type into the box for “other filters” or something, I don’t remember. who knows?? It’s not a great option, and I don’t know if you can sort out authors that way, but it’s better than nothing if someone can reblog this with how to do it!
Alrighty friends! It takes some specificity, but you can do this. Let me show you how!
So I started with going to the Sherlock (TV) section of Ao3. On the right we find this lovely section! ((I know I’m going over things you already probably know, but I figure this post may go to new Ao3 users, so bear with me.))
Underneath this, I chose sort by Kudos, because that’s a quick way to find most popular fics, for the sake of this demonstration.
With those filters on, we end up with this being our first two results:
As you can see, we have Nature and Nurture by earlgreytea68, and The Internet Is Not Just For Porn by cyerus. So what if I am utterly sick of seeing earlgreytea68 on my list? Let’s pretend I’ve read all their fics, or that I just don’t like her, or whatever. I want this author out. I go to this section on the right:
In “Search within results” I type earlgreytea68 into the bar, with a minus sign in front. This gives me the following page, upon hitting the sort and filter button:
There goes earlgreytea68! But now I’ve decided that Crack is just not my thing, I’m sick of that, too, for heaven’s sake, I want something reasonable in my gay slash fanfiction about detectives that solve crimes about glowing dogs and irish megalomaniacs. Heaven forbid this get ridiculous.
Well, then I add this to my search:
Which gets rid of everything with that tag. My results are now:
Performance in a Leading Role is now my first result!
You can do this as many times as you want; the biggest problem I have is trying to filter out multi-worded tags. For example, “Secret Relationship” is hard to filter. Better to go with authors you dislike or with words like “DubCon”.
I hope this helps! Also remember that googling site:archiveofourown.org and then adding search terms will mean google searches Ao3 for you, and sometimes that works far better.
Good luck!
An excellent in-depth guide! Thank you!!
omg changed my whole ao3 rarepair game
An excellent guide to filtering on AO3!
You can filter out phrases by enclosing them in quotes. For example, if ABO and Hydra Trash Party are not your things, try:
-“alpha/beta/omega dynamics” -”hydra trash party”
I have more advice!
Say, you’re in your random fandom- I went with the Marvel Cinematic Universe, since I’ve been reading Iron Man stuff recently. Tony Stark is awesome.
But anyway, you’re on the page, and you see that there are 174,774 works! That is way too many for a casual afternoon’s browsing.
And you see that the first one is Peter Parker/Tony Stark and that is not your jam. It doesn’t work for you, or it squicks you, whatever. Wouldn’t life be easier if you could browse without seeing that pairing (or whatever pairing you don’t like)? You can!
First, click on that pairing tag(You may want to open this in another tab, actually.):
and it’ll take you to the page for that pairing tag. Click this button:
and then look at the address bar! The actual page is unimportant. Copy the numbers located here:
and go back to the original search page! Down on the side, in the same place you can get rid of other tags, type -relationship_ids:”the number you just copied”
Then hit ‘sort and filter’ annnd… magic!
The fics with that pairing are gone! You can also do multiple pairings, get rid of any tags you don’t like, and sort it by date or length or kudos, or whatever.
Enjoy.
I’d just like to add that these sorts of search modifiers ALSO WORK IN GOOGLE AND MOST RESEARCH DATABASES. The more you know.
That means you can pretty much use all the Lucene Query Syntax in the “Seach within result” field.
I don’t think AO3 indexes the whole fic for searching but definitely it’s meta data. Combined with Lucenes awesome query syntax you can do pretty much every search you heart desires.
Addtional Lucene Query Syntax that has not been mentioned yet and you might find useful:
Wildcard Searches
You can use wildcard searches within single terms. For a single character wildcard search use the “?” symbol. For a multiple character wildcard search use the “*” symbol.
AND/OR
Lucene allows you to combin terms through logic operators. You’re looking for fics that are either “reunion” or “enemies to lovers”?
Just put in >“reunion” OR “enemies to lovers”< into the field
and you end up with all the stories that are either or but not both.
But wait, now you’re looking for fics that are both “reunion” and “enemies to lovers” at the same time? Now worries Lucene got you covered.
Just change it into >“"reunion” AND “enemies to lovers”“<
and you’ll get all the fics that mention both “reunion” and “enemies to lovers” somewhere in their meta data (note: it’s not just tags. It’s also title, summary …)
Boosting
You can also boost specific terms when doing a multi term search.
You can use the “^” Operator followed by a number to boost a specific term.
Say you’re interested in fics that are either “first kiss” or “bed sharing” but you’re much more interested in “bed sharing” fics and feel they are more relevant.
You can use the search >“first kiss” “bed sharing”^5<
to manipulate the order of your results in a matter that the score of every fic that contains beg sharing is multiplied by 5. Therefore all fics containing that term are given priority and shown at the top of the list.
You can also combine all of the above, target specifc fields (that’s what you did with the “relationsship_id:xxx”) and many more things.
For more info about the Lucene query syntax check out Apache’s Lucene Query doc.
^ sharing this because we all love fanfics and @itsmajel is a freaking nerd 👌
Some of these searches can also be achieved via the “exclude” function in the search bar - this offers you for each section (ratings, category, relationships, tags, etc.) the most commonly used metadata for these fics, to check or uncheck (and thus exclude or not) as you please!
For people wondering why the “exclude” function isn’t mentioned until later reblogs, going by the apparance of the filter box in thd beginning, I’d say this post predates the exclude function. It’s relatively new.
Hi! As a trans british guy it would quite literally mean the world for every UK citizen who sees this to sign this petition on the government website.
Even if you're not a UK citizen, reblog so it's shared further. Cheers
Please sign, British folks. Allowing an amendment could mean a separate category for "Sex" and "Gender" on official documentation, with the first one being fixed permanently at birth.
There seems to be some confusion in the replies, so it would be great if people could reblog this version! This is what the petition says:
[Image ID: text from the above petition that reads: It has been reported that the Government may amend the Equality Act to "make it clear that sex means biological sex rather than gender." The Government has previously committed to not remove legal protections for trans people, an already marginalised group, but this change would do so.
More details
Currently, the Act protects trans people from discrimination on the basis of both sex and “gender reassignment”, regardless of whether they have undergone medical transition or hold a Gender Recognition Certificate. It can allow trans people to access single-sex spaces such as DV shelters, bathrooms and hospital wards.
The proposed change would remove a legal protection for trans people and encourage discrimination. We ask the Government to refuse this change to the Equality Act 2010. /END ID]
tbfh i love when people will headcanon characters as being of their culture and then draw little comics of them participating in traditions that the artist is clearly intimately familiar with. like YESSS share your personal cultural experiences with me through the blorbos!!! i love to see it!!!!!!!
I love women who are unabashedly big.
Women with big laughs, big smiles, big voices, big bodies, and even bigger personalities to match. Women that don’t care if they take up space with long strides and sit with their legs miles apart.
They give big hugs and big kisses, and they have big hearts. Big, proud women are amazing.
This posts includes trans women and excludes terfs, btw.
Rb this version pls
“why bother writing bisexual characters if they just end up in a m/f relationship”
my dude
my guy
my pal
stop talking forever
Oh I have never reblogged faster in my life
Watching my bi friends’ identities get erased when they‘re in m/f relationships makes me think it’s even MORE important to write bi characters in m/f relationships and then be REALLY BLATANT about the fact that one or both of them is bi.
I had a bi friend who was dating a girl and when he said anything about being bi she would laugh and say “that doesn’t matter cuz you’re with me”. Never been so happy to hear a friend broke up with a partner
As a bi woman who’s in a m/f relationship, who’s favorite oc is a bi man in a m/f relationship. This is very important to me!
husband kissed me this morning and murmured “mlm/wlw solidarity[1]” which is frankly the entire point of bi folks of different genders ending up together
[1] pronounced mlem and wooloowoo
oh my god the Owl and the Pussycat were bi
i’m working on a play about 65-year-old lesbians, and my dramaturg is an older gay man who has been helping me with historical context and research, and also just in general giving me advice based on his own personal experiences.
fav thing he told me so far, said with a lot of love: “dyke drama was specific. it was always so specific. it was precise and narrowed and pointed. and also so dumb.”
also spoke to an older lesbian professor. i was asking her all these questions about marches and protests and summits and infighting and rallies and “what was it like what did this mean to you what was it like to experience that?”
and she kinda stared at me for a bit and said, “you know, it was a lot. and it was big and it did feel revolutionary. but also at that time i was mainly focused on getting my heart broken in a bar.”
and like. yeah.
another thing my dramaturg told me, from the perspective of a gay man who lived through the 80’s, was that whenever a young gay person asks him what the dating and play scene used to be like, he answers:
“we went to rallies and funerals.”
our persistence in our continued existence is big and scary and revolutionary, and the grief stretches on and the losses hit hard.
and because of that, i think it’s important to remember the dumb drama, and the first loves, and the first heartbreaks over beer. i think it’s important to go to rallies and vigils, and also dive bars and game nights.
it’s all so big and so small.
you wanted to be a good friend, because you loved your friends, but the truth was that everyone else somehow had a pamphlet on being normal that you never received. most of the time you learn by trial-and-error. you are terrified of the next big mistake you make, because it seems like the rules are completely arbitrary.
you've learned to keep the prickly parts of your personality in a stormcloud under your bed - as if they're a second version of you; one that will make your friends hate you. it feels feral, burning, ugly.
instead, you have assembled habits based on the statistical likelihood of pleasing others. you're a good listener, which is to say - if you do speak up, you might end up saying the wrong thing and scaring off someone, but people tend to like someone-who-listens. or you've got no true desires or goals, because people like it when you're passive, mutable. you're "not easy to fluster" which is to say - your emotions are fundamentally uninteresting to others around you; so you've learned to control them to a degree that you can no longer really feel them happening.
you have long suspected something is wrong with you, but most of the time, googling doesn't help. you are so-used to helping-yourself, alone and with no handbook. the reek of your real self feels more like a horrible joke - you wake up, and, despite all your preparations, suddenly the whole house is full of smoke. the real you is someone waiting to ruin your other-life, the one where you're normal and happy. the real-self is unpredictable, angry.
your real self snarls when people infantilize the whole situation. because if you were really suffering, everyone seems to think you'd be completely unable to cope. but you already learned the rules, so you do know how to cope, and you have fucking been coping. it's not black-and-white. it's not that you are healed during the other times - it's just that you're able to fucking try. and honestly, whenever you show symptoms, it's a really fucking bad sign.
because the symptoms you have are ugly and unmanageable for others. your symptoms aren't waifish white girl things. they're annoying and complicated. they will be the subject of so many pretentious instagram reels. if they cared about you, they'd just show up on time. you care, a lot, so deeply it burns you. you like to picture a world where the comments read if they loved you, they'd never need glasses to see. but since that's a rule you've seen repeated - "one must never be late or you are a bad friend" - you constantly worry about being late and leave agonizingly early. there are no words for how you feel when you're still late; no matter how hard you were trying.
so you have to make up for it. you have to make up for that little horrible real you that you keep locked in a cabinet. you are bad at answering emails so every project you make has to be perfect. you are weird and sensitive so you have to learn to be funny and interesting. you are an inconvenience to others, so you become as smooth as possible, buffing out all the rough parts.
all this. all this. so people can pass their hands over you and just tell you just the once -how good you are. you're a good friend. you're loveable.
YOU GUYS IT’S DECEMBER 10TH YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND THIS HAS BEEN IN MY QUEUE SINCE FEBRUARY
I almost scrolled past this but my mom was a janitor too. PSA.
PSA Just because someone is paid to sweep the floors doesn’t mean you’re allowed to leave your shit all over the place. Clean up after yourself and teach your kids to do the same.
[ID: a screenshot of a tweet by Tina Vasquez that reads: “My dad, who is a janitor, told me the holiday season is very hard on him because people have office parties & don’t clean up after themselves, which doubles his work. So, PSA: Don’t be an asshole. If you have an office party, clean up after. Shit doesn’t magically clean itself.” End ID.]
Don’t make other people’s lives harder on purpose
