emboldenedbirdbrain

[emboldenedbirdbrain]

Teeth are bullshit. What do you mean you’re decaying. Get a fucking grip. You’re a bone now act like it. You don’t see my finger bones decaying from jerking it too much now do you

[emboldenedbirdbrain]

“average person eats 3 spiders a year” factoid actualy just statistical error. average person eats 0 spiders per year. Spiders Georg, who lives in cave & eats over 10,000 each day, is an outlier adn should not have been counted

[emboldenedbirdbrain]

my manager just asked me what my hobbies are outside of work and i cannot accurately describe how surreal it was. it was like being asked by the guy who locked you in the dungeon if you used to do anything fun before they locked you in the dungeon.

[emboldenedbirdbrain]

I heard that wattpad is doing a purge of NSFW works, so I'm going to be posting some general orientation type videos and some how to's to help folks learn more about Ao3.

If you want to follow (or avoid) those posts, I'm tagging them as welcome wattpad

[emboldenedbirdbrain]

you need to get it out of your mind that psychosomatic illness is just “making up symptoms” when it’s actually much more like your body is being actively poisoned by chemicals released from your brain

[emboldenedbirdbrain]

[emboldenedbirdbrain]

i think it's important for most people's mental health to have a space where they can safely and unashamedly express being horny and i don't mean milquetoast tongue-in-cheek "oh step on me mommy" jokes or whatever i mean capital h Horny

[emboldenedbirdbrain]

Destroy the myth that libraries are no longer relevant. If you use your library, please reblog.

[emboldenedbirdbrain]

As a kid, when your parents are poor, you're poor. If they don't have money, that means none of you have money. But if someone's parents are rich, that doesn't necessarily mean the kid is. Sometimes rich peoples' kids aren't rich kids, they're just some rich freak's exotic pets that can talk but aren't allowed to.

[emboldenedbirdbrain]

People are like, "He's not very active on here," but do y'all know how many unsent drafts I have clapping back at the haters who still think Paper Towns is a Manic Pixie Dream Girl novel?

[emboldenedbirdbrain]

just gonna start killing people i dont find funny

[emboldenedbirdbrain]

here are some more flags i made with comic book newsprint textures :-) to get the textures i scanned real comics!

[emboldenedbirdbrain]

There is something about proudly proclaiming a show "tumblrista catnip" that makes me emotional.

Something about how for years tumblrinas were ridiculed by show creators.

Something about Supernatural having a meta episode set at a convention with all the weirdo fans that made the main characters uncomfortable. Something something about Becky and the message that fangirls are gross and obsessive.

Something about Sherlock and the way fans were portrayed as crazy obsessive nutjobs for trying to figure out how he faked his death.

Something about creators mocking fandoms, dismissing them as freaks. Something about queer people not being welcome to engage in their creations because "why do you have to make everything gay?"

Something about the malicious culture of queerbaiting throughout the 2000s/2010s, followed by Bury Your Gays tropes across the media landscape because hell, you should be grateful we even gave you queer characters to begin with - and everyone dies in our show! You ain't special!

Something about Destiel questions being banned from conventions...

And then...

Something instead about Good Omens, and letting the story adapt naturally, embracing the fanbase and leaning into the fanservice.

Something about Our Flag Means Death, and the genuine outpouring of love and affection between cast, crew, and fandom that culminated in an explosion of fanworks that were never once mocked or deemed gross or wrong.

Something about Sandman, and staunchly digging in their heels on the queerness of it all, refusing to give in to the homophobes and instead avidly mocking THEM on social media rather than us.

Something about the writers hearing about fandoms favourite ships and excitedly stating that YES! We DID lean into that because it happened naturally and made sense.

Something about a firefighter coming out as bisexual after 7 seasons...

So yeah, something about a new high quality show made FOR US. By creators that love US. Respect US, and WANT our love.

Something about US FINALLY being a target audience for the best shows being made on TV now.

Tumblrista catnip. Creators saying "we made this for you. You are important. Your voices have been heard."

It just... all got a bit overwhelming for a moment there.

[emboldenedbirdbrain]

purge of 2002? of 2012? what ARE those?

Oh, how quickly the past is forgotten. 

They are part of the reason A03 is a thing now. Not the whole reason, but part of it. 

The Great Purges of 2002 and 2012 are when ff.net got a wild hair up their ass about THINK OF THE CHILDREN and nuked any fic posted on there that was explicit. Thousands upon thousands of nc-17 smutfics were lost.

It’s what led to the creation of alternate hosting sites for smutty fic…AdultFanfiction was the one I went to…but thousands of fics would never be recovered. 

[emboldenedbirdbrain]

I know "60s housewives who invented slash fanfiction" has taken on a life of its own as a phrase, but Kirk/Spock didn't really exist until the 70s and THOSE WOMEN HAD JOBS. They were teachers and librarians and bookkeepers and scientists and they damn well spent their own money going to conventions, printing zines, buying fanart and making fandom happen. Put some respect on their names.

[emboldenedbirdbrain]

if i'm being absolutely completely totally honest i think that "it wasn't you" doesn't go far enough in absolving someone of the guilt of being the subject of a brainwashing or mind control plot. because at the end of the day, it was you. it was your body, your mind, potentially even your soul, being stripped of its autonomy, intimately violated and turned against you as much as anyone else. it's a kind of assault, and should be treated as such, especially in more mature narratives. i think that "it wasn't your fault" and "your shame at being made helpless and unable to control your own body and mind's involuntary responses is understandable, but you are not in any way irredeemable or unforgivable because of what was done to you" are also necessary reassurances. and i think that there should be lingering resentment in spite of words of forgiveness and miscommunication and long-term post-traumatic consequences also.

[emboldenedbirdbrain]

"Don't use Libby because it costs libraries too much, pirate instead" is such a weird, anti-patron, anti-author take that somehow manages to also be anti-library, in my professional librarian-ass opinion.

It's well documented that pirating books negatively affects authors directly* in a way that pirating movies or TV shows doesn't affect actors or writers, so I will likely always be anti-book piracy unless there's absolutely, positively no other option (i.e. the book simply doesn't exist outside of online archives at all, or in a particular language).

Also, yeah, Libby and Hoopla licenses are really expensive, but libraries buy them SO THAT PATRONS CAN USE THEM. If you're gonna be pissed at anybody about this shitty state of affairs, be pissed at publishing companies and continue to use Libby or Hoopla at your library so we can continue to justify having it to our funding bodies.

One of the best ways to support your library having services you like is to USE THOSE SERVICES. Yes, even if they are expensive.

*Yes, this is a blog post, but it's a blog post filled with links to news articles. If you can click one link, you can click another.