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Hey

@upsilonscorpii / upsilonscorpii.tumblr.com

I'm gay

What's happening to AO3 right now?

As you may have noticed already, Archive of Our Own is currently down. This is temporary, but unfortunately we now know that this is much deeper than we thought.

AO3 is currently the victim of a DDoS* attack orchestrated by "Anonymous Sudan"

*Distributed Denial-of-Service Attack is a cyber-attack in which the attacker strives to make a machine or network resource unavailable to its intended users by temporarily or indefinitely disrupting services of a host connected to a network

Why? Because AO3 is home to thousands of LGBTQIA+ content and lots of NSFW content.

They're doing this as an Anti-LGBTQ+ attack. If they're doing this for or from America specifically, we're not sure. But this is what AO3 is facing at this time.

What can we do?

Spread the word. Spread the fucking word.

And PLEASE, whatever you do...

Stop using the Archive of Our Own website at this time.

The moderators, showrunners, and service providers all need to repair the damage done by this group. The amount of data flooding in from people trying to log in will cause more problems.

Keep yourselves off of the website.

Yes, the site is accessible but PLEASE do not use the site until they give the all clear.

They're still trying to fight off this DDoS attack. If you overwhelm the servers with your requests (ie. next chapter, opening bookmarks, etc.), it will be harder for them to get it done.

For anyone that needs further confirmation:

Please make sure you check the date and time of posts like this, too.

As far as I am currently aware, AO3 officials have not yet given the all clear.

(Posted July 10, 2023, 6:50pm CST)

A little explainer on what happened with AO3:

Basically, someone or a group of someones decided to levy a DDoS attack. What this means is that they created a botnet (network of devices controlled by a bot, usually run in the background of an unsecured IoT device or computer being used for other things. Think data mining) to flood the servers with false requests for service.

What this does mean: AO3 might go back down, if the attack is relaunched. These types of attacks are usually used against businesses where traffic = money, thereby costing a company money. This isn't really an issue here since AO3 is entirely donation and volunteer based.

What this doesn't mean: stories, bookmarks, etc will be deleted and your anonymously published works will be linked back to you. No vulnerable points are breached during this process, so unless this group ends up doing something else, no data breaches will happen. You are safe, your content is safe.

"average us president is indicted on 1.54 felony counts" factoid actualy just statistical error. average president is indicted on 0 felony counts. Spiders Don, who lives in cave in florida & is indicted on 71 felony counts, is an outlier adn should not have been counted

can we like…get rid of the so-called leather and rubber “pride flags” ? it’s honestly ridiculous and offensive to the lgbtq community. those aren’t pride flags. 

The leather pride flag is the second oldest pride flag. It has been at almost every single US pride parade and protest in history.

It’s older then you are, it’s older then I am. The leather community is responsible for pride. Leather daddies were the ones chasing away cops when they tried to arrest us for being queer in public back when Pride Parades were illegal in the US. They are still the ones chasing away cops and corporations from smaller pride events and those that aren’t sanctioned by Wells Fargo. The leather community is essential to the queer community and has a long and rich history.

Please fuck off if you’re not going to learn the actual history of pride.

And don’t fucking out your hate in our tags, asshole.

The leather pride flag represents an expression of self which is inherently queer, and a community which has been around for generations. It is not offensive to the LGBT+ community in any way. I have seen cis gay and bisexual men standing shoulder-to-shoulder with trans men, all of them united by their leather community roots. The leather community is more diverse and nuanced than you perhaps know, but that is no reason for you to shit on a community you don’t understand.

Here is a photograph from 1998, displaying the leather pride flag, the bear gay pride flag, and the rainbow flag. This is our history.

Here is a photograph from 1987: three queer women entering into the Ms. National Leather Association Contest, or simply gathering as spectators.

A flyer from 1989, rallying the leather community to march in a Stonewall anniversary protest.

A photograph from 1988: Tony Deblase, the creator of the leather pride flag, and a gay man, embracing a fellow member of the leather community. Over his shoulder is Judy Tallwing McCarthy, a Native American woman who was part of the leather community from 1959. She co-founded the first lesbian BDSM group in Portland, along with her partner, Sashie Hyatt.

Just because you don’t know the history, doesn’t mean it isn’t there. Be humble, and always assume you have more to learn. Hatred, and outright dismissal of communities you know nothing about, is the most aggressively anti-LGBT thing I can imagine.

The leather community has always included trans people, lesbians, gay men, and bisexuals. The leather community is global and nuanced. The leather community is where many of us encounter our found families, and our lovers. For you to dismiss that is cold-hearted and ignorant. Just because queer sex is involved, doesn’t make the community dirty or bad.

Do you have any. Any idea. Any god damn clue. How kink intersects with LGBT and queer community. Queer history. Do you know why the community pushed for, and against, closing the bathhouses during the 80s? Do you know who organized awareness campaigns about HIV, even way back when it was still called GIRD. Do you know who created the safe sex pamphlets, the classes, who pushed for disclosing your health history to partners, who distributed contraceptives and condoms and dental dams at parties and meetings and baths? Do you even know where the safe sex education we have now comes from? Do you know where a bulk of the language about consent came from? Do you have any good god damn idea what the kink communities have done for us, and continue to do for us?

Keep their names out of your mouths because you clearly don’t know what the hell you’re talking about

If there is one thing I could say to young queer folks, especially young queer folks in the U.S. who are coming of age in a world that is more accepting than the one I knew growing up, it’s this:

Don’t be so quick to sanitize your queerness and make it corporate pride daytime TV-friendly. Don’t be so quick to jump on the purity bandwagon. Don’t be so quick to speak on what your community should look like before you’ve actually learned the history of your community, and always be aware that there are things you probably don’t yet know.

These things will not protect you. They never have. And all you’re doing is isolating yourself from community, from support, from the strength we all have when we stand together in a world that would gladly pick us off one by one.

Queerness isn’t as hidden or embattled now (in some places) as it once was, but make no mistake: when our existence was illegal everywhere the people you have this knee-jerk “hide the weirdos” reaction to are the very ones who would’ve had your back against the cops and the gay-bashers.

The people who made me feel safe to come out in my 20s flew the rubber and leather flags alongside the rainbow flag and often the trans flag as well. You don’t get to tell any of them they don’t belong anymore just because you don’t understand.

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Rip this from my cold, dead hands

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I always want to be clear when reblogging this that OP no longer holds this opinion.