Palestine Action permanently shut Elbit down in Tamworth! After sustained direct action, the Israeli weapons maker was forced to sell due to increased security costs which cut their profits by 75%. The new owners wrote to Palestine Action to confirm the factory is no longer associated with Elbit and have discontinued all arms manufacturing contracts.
The 'write for yourself uwu' culture shift has done real damage to fic writers imo. I recently had a post on the importance of strategic commenting break containment and I'm surprised by how many strangers who rb it in agreement feel the need to reassure in the tags that they do write for themselves, but...
There is a kernel of truth in the heart of this sentiment--if you only chase stats, you are unlikely to find joy in your writing. At the same time, I think we've veered too far in the other direction.
It is only natural to want engagement and the write for yourself crowd often overlooks how communal an effort fic writing usually is. So many story ideas are born from casual discussions about h/c's and favourite scenes and what ifs and the comment box is a cornerstone of this process. Not only can the discussions in the comment box be a hub for idea generation on their own, but even when the said idea generation takes place in DMs or Discord chats, commenting is often the first/easiest way into befriending authors; it's where community building starts.
Further, the write for yourself crowd similarly overlooks that the things a writer can write for themselves are often vast and many at any given time, and relative engagement levels across fandoms/ships can play a large part in which of those ideas a writer chooses to pursue--or whether they choose to publish their finished work at all.
In sum, I don't think we need to be this apologetic as writers for wanting feedback and engagement for what we post -- writing is hard work and it's only human that we want something external out of it in turn, however rewarding the process might intrinsically be.
peer approved tags
THIS TBH
you know what worries me most about the disney merger? that they’re going to sanitise the queerness of ncuti’s doctor. like, i’m praying i’m overreacting and that disney won’t have as much of an influence as i’m scared of but until i see proof of the opposite i’m going to remain sceptical
i am. so sorry if i have ever used the phrase “i have an au where—” and led you to believe that there is an actual fic out there for you to read rather than, at best, a post where i explain the concept, and at worst it is simply something that lives in my brain
if it helps i also wish there was a fic
FYI I just came across a thread on twitter which says that an author shared on google docs an explicit story with a friend for beta reading and google removed the file due to violation of TOS (apparently it has been updated where you are not allowed to share anything with sexual content). Not sure if it’s just this instance or if it’s going to become a widespread thing but if you guys write in google docs MAKE BACK UPS!!
Edit: also wanted to add that it seems that Microsoft word has the same language in their TOS so onedrive is not a safe alternative!
incredible. can people share what they’re actually using as a google docs & microsoft word alternative? it really is time to move.
sometimes being out of the loop is self preservation
It amazes me how many teslas I see out and about. Like you guys bought one for real? On god? No joke?????
hmmmm giving an intern on their second day a quality check assignment which has been translated from a language they don’t speak and having that be the final version doesn’t seem like the best practice
ARCHIVE YOUR FIC ON AO3 FOR ETERNAL GLORY
It physically pains me to see people post awesome fanfiction to tumblr and nowhere else. Tumblr moves so fast! By tomorrow people who didn’t look in a tag at the right moment won’t know it existed. By next week even people who did read it won’t be able to find it back to reread. Finding anything on tumblr via search function is practically a fluke. For all intents and purposes, your hard work has a halflife of about a week at most.
PUT YOUR WORK ON AO3 WHERE IT CAN LIVE ETERNALLY, I BEG YOU
- People who come into that fandom in a month, a year, even a decade will be able to find your work!
- People can bookmark it!
- People can rec it to others!
- People can reread it into infinity! (and people like me can do that and comment every time!)
- You can get comments & kudos until the endtimes because people will keep finding your work! (seriously I still sometimes get new people finding and loving my work from ~2013)
- And best of all, people can SUBSCRIBE to your work so they will get email about new chapters and stories! (I’m seeing people do manual ‘Tag you in the next chapter’ lists and seriously, physical pain, this wheel has already been invented and it is rolling beautifully)
- PLEASE LET ME BOOKMARK YOUR FIC I BEG YOU
Yes, and the waiting list is currently 2-3 days. That’s hardly worth not doing this for, right?
“But I only read fic, I don’t post it”
Lately I’ve been the tumblr person who jumps onto people who post cool fic to tumblr and going HEY HAVE YOU POSTED THIS TO AO3, YOU REALLY SHOULD, HIT ME UP FOR AN INVITE CODE and I hereby invite all you fellow fic readers and posters to join me into spreading the good word.
Please reblog this and tag your favourite fandoms and pairings! Spread this post to the people who need to see it! Save great fic from the tumblr void!
I get comments on fic written in the 1990s. On AO3 it lasts forever. 💜
its always some fucking day in some fucking month in some fucking year isnt it
#babygirl and her pet lizard ♡
lucy gray baird + soundtrack