posting this to everyone on tumblr can see it too

Reblog with your score

HOW?

here's something stupid: the catcatfish

some quick facts:

Official fish post

This was the funniest hour of my life

At the end of the panel we gave them a round of applause for being so brave in trying to write straights and cisgenders

Especially Jasika, who got very emotional about her childhood with straight parents

types of comments on this post:

-straight people saying :/ love is love :/ gay or straight why does it matter ://///

-gay people saying wait no really i’ve never written a non-lesbian pls help

-people pointing out that even straight people don’t know how to write straight people without unnecessary romance

the truly impressive part of this panel was how for an hour, a FULL hour, they talked about writing straight characters like the st8s talk about writing queer characters and they did. not. break. It was the most amazing piece of improv comedy i’ve ever seen. 

FOUND THE LINK: https://castbox.fm/episode/How-to-Create-Straight-Characters-id1117790-id62875239?country=us

t h e l i n k

[image: screenshot of the PodCon 2017 schedule listing for a panel entitled “How to Create Straight Characters”, moderated by Gaby Dunn of Bad With Money with participants Cecil Baldwin of Welcome to Night Vale and Jasika Dunn of Alice Isn’t Dead. (not shown, but identified in the Castbox link for the panel recording: panelist Brie Williams.) the panel description is below:]

So often straight characters are defined by their romantic relationship with someone who is a different gender. How do you keep a story from being overwhelmed by the sexuality of your main character? Is it possible to have a straight character in a story without having a romantic relationship in order to demonstrate their straightness? And how does an LGBTQ storyteller include straight characters while remaining true to their own values and ideals?

Wayback Machine saved the link at some point before it 404ed, but not real usefully. happily, Past Alex saved the audio!

…I don’t suppose anyone is up for transcribing the audio?

Genuinely, I don’t know how else to get the word out, but I feel like if your home-cooked dinners don’t taste right, you're missing either paprika, sugar, butter, or chicken bouillon.

Still not right? It might be missing one of these: Mustard powder, soy sauce, fish sauce, vinegar. MSG. Ketchup. Mushroom powder. Maple syrup. Honey.

✨ Please reblog the polls to make them reach out to as many people as possible, but KEEP IT SPOILER-FREE to make people listen to the music with an open mind 💖 Artists and titles will be revealed after the poll's conclusion, check the original post for an update! ✨

Source

"Isn't it exhausting being someone you're not?"

"No! Isn't it exhausting being the same?"

See also: "Isn't it exhausting being someone your not?" / "Yes it was. That's why I finally transitioned."

bro yes he did lol says it in my bible 649 times

transman christian/catholic here, firstly, thanks for sticking up for our rights even if you're not trans yourself, i appreciate you doing that and it means a lot to me, if not a lot of others.

i'd like to raise a counterpoint however, and obviously feel free to dispute me on this, but considering jesus asked his disciples to partake in consuming his flesh, would that not imply jesus bottoms?

incredibly important question, lets ask the internet

my favourite contributions so far to this discussion

dungeon meshi has some four humors shit going on

IM FUCKING CRYING

Megitsune

"They roll harder than you."--Rob Zombie

Hey!! It's Tidy Up Tuesday! You should tidy up your living space a little!! It doesn't have to be a lot, it can just be picking up some clothes or taking out the trash! Start with your immediate space, and expand out to the room itself if possible! Can you do it? For me please? I'll be proud of you even if you don't but I promise you that you'll feel better if you do :)

[ID: a screenshot showing two tweets by lumpen_princess. The first tweet reads "i feel like if [you're] french u should never call urself bisexual, if someone asks u you should just sorta shrug your shoulders and go 'oui, avec des hommes ... des femmes ... avec d'autres' while somehow smoking like four cigarettes at once"

The second tweet reads "this was the default sexuality of everyone in france until les américains invented le wokisme and ruined everything"

End ID]

yeah, people do lie on the internet, however i am so passionate about things that if i lie it will feel like i committed an autistic sin

if i just accidentally say something wrong i panic tbh catch me putting "to my knowledge" and "from what i remember" disclaimers on everything to account for human error

From what I remember, 1 + 1 = 2. I think. Not an expert though, feel free to fact check me! This is just an educated guess.

and i think to myself

what a wonderful world

My new bread pans make the most... Symmetrical loaves & they scare me kinda

THE TAURUSES ARE BULLYING ME!!!!!

Alright, to ao3's soon to be arriving Wattpad Refugees, a basic guide to general user culture:

1.) Unlike Wattpads vote system that let's you like each chapter, the ao3 equivalent kudos only allows one per work. Everyone is generally quietly annoyed about this. To engage with each chapter, you're heavily encouraged to comment. Trust me, it makes people's day.

2.) Ao3 has no algorithm. By default it's latest updated work first. You can find things to your taste through searches, filters and tags.

3.) 'No archive warnings apply' and 'user has chosen not to use archive warnings' mean two very different things. No archives warnings means the work is free from any content that could require a warning tag (character death, graphic depictions of violence, non-con, etc). User has chosen not to use archive warnings means it could contain any of the warning content, be it hasn't been explicitly tagged. Treat it like an allergen. No archive warnings apply is allergen free. User has chosen not to use archive warnings, may contain traces or whole chunks of the allergen. If you're likely to have a bad reaction, maybe don't take the risk.

4.) Speaking of warnings, ao3 has very few restrictions on the type of work that's allowed. Whatever your personal thoughts or feelings on that are, thats how the site is. You're likely to run across some dark subject matters and a lot of people are uncomfortable with reading that. You're well within your rights not like these works and have your opinion on whether they should be allowed, but harassing the authors of such works (or any works) is more likely to come back on you than them. Ao3 operates on a strong policy of 'don't like, don't read'. Use the tagging system to your full advantage to only engage with the kind of works you want to see.

We look forward to welcoming you all and seeing the fantastic works you create. Happy writing!

To add to this: AO3's tagging system is significantly more sophisticated than Wattpads, and it might be harder to grasp at first. Thats okay! Here's a little primer (and you can ask questions or read the FAQ whenever you want)

[Disclaimer: I am really autistic about AO3 tags and want to be helpful]

Okay so:

The only mandatory tags on AO3 are:

The Rating: What general age range it is written for. This is where a reader can check quickly how graphic a fic is going to be, so its important to be honest.

The line between M and E is a hot topic of debate: you will find porn and violence in both in varying degrees of on-screen visuals. Generally speaking, I like to think M ends before the pants come off and E keeps going, but your mileage may vary.

The Archive Warnings: OP told you about these above but I'll mention them again: They are:

They're organized just like that in Alphabetical order as a multiple choice list. You have to tick off at least one, and you can tick off as many as are necessary. Remember that "No Warnings Apply" means none of the archive warnings are relevant to the fic, and "Chose Not to Warn" means any of them could be but there is no guarantee.

The Fandom Tag: what source material, be it a show, comic, boyband, book, or ancient Mesopotamian poem, goes here.

The Work Title: You have to name your fic something

Language: AO3 is open to all cultures and backgrounds, so it hosts works in a lot of different languages. You have to tag what language your fic is written in.

After that, the tags are optional, but they are very very useful, and I'll explain some more!

OPTIONAL TAGS!!

The Category tags are also multiple choice style, and these are where you tell readers what kind of Ships are in your fic:

Lastly we have the Longform Tags! (These are my favorite).

Although users can generally write these out however they want, AO3 will "wrangle" them (re: sort and relate them to) a searchable tag with a specific syntax. I'll talk about them only in relation to their AO3 standardized syntax, since thats how they get Auto-suggested when made filterable.

Characters tags are where the canonical name of the character from the Fandom goes. Some characters may only have one name (like "Mario (Nintendo)") while others may have a first and last name (like "Cloud Strife"). Some may have fandom suffix appended to them to disambiguate them (like "Burgerpants (Undertale)") and some may not. Some may have a pipe separating two equally important names in canon (like "Zelda | Sheik").

Relationship Tags are tags where you define what characters are in what relationship with other characters. They are written in alphabetical order of character name, first by the character's last name, then their first name, as one would write them in the Character Tag field.

A relationship can be written with either a slash (/) or an ampersand (&), and these mean different things. / means that it is a romantic or sexual relationship and & means it is platonic or familial. Therefore: "Sokka & Zuko (Avatar)" means that Sokka and Zuko are in a platonic or familial relationship with each other, and "Sokka/Zuko (Avatar)" means that Sokka and Zuko are in a romantic or sexual relationship. This makes them very different tags in term of content indication.

3+ characters in a single relationship tag is quite common and appreciated! However, it is AO3 standard for relationship tags to only contain one kind of relationship sign, either all / or all &. It would be standard-noncompliant to tag "Aang & Sokka/Zuko (Avatar)". For such complex relationship dynamics, multiple ship tags are recommended [such as: "Aang & Sokka & Zuko (Avatar), Sokka/Zuko (Avatar)"]

Additional Tags (aka Freeform Tags) are the most varied! This is where tropes, detailed content warnings, kinks, Alternate Universe tags, and everything else goes. Once you get to the Additional Tags, you have to get to know your fandom to see what tags look like. Every fandom has fandom-specific tags and it is a lot of fun to figure out what tags end up being prevalent in yours <3

Welcome to AO3!