I find the whole concept of being “tumblr famous” to be really weird, like I am aware I have a fairly large and consistent following for someone who isn’t running say, a community blog or a clickbaity style blog where the content is taken from elsewhere. But I don’t really think of it as…I don’t know.
I don’t really have the words for it.
I think perhaps because it was something I fell into, rather than planned, so it’s just this really surreal thing that’s happening in my life and I’m not really sure how to handle it, so I’m just…kind of carrying on like normal and pretending the numbers don’t exist? Like I don’t want that to be the focus of what I’m doing.
And then sometimes it hits me, oh, this is actually a thing. My words are everywhere on the internet, usually without credit, but they are there. I see my fear quote go past my dash every other day being misattributed to Dune. I’ve been approached for interviews, I’ve given quotes. People recognize me in the super market and shout “hi mom!” and wave. People have referenced me in their masters thesis.
Other people, high up people in publishing companies I could only ever dream of working at, have—when I’m introduced to them by a mutual—snapped their fingers in recognition and gone “oh right, you’re the online entertainer, I love your stuff! we actually used your disability in fantasy article to talk about…” and I have a brief out of body experience because how.
How is this my life? What did I ever do to deserve this?
I mean, apart from black out and recount the story of Crucifix Nail Nipples.
What’s the fear quote? 😮 I don’t think I’ve seen that one yet
“Acknowledge your fear. Let it pass over and through you,
breathe it in and hold it in your lungs, then let it out like fire. You do not
need to be a ray of sunshine to be the positive change you want to see in the
world. Sometimes you can be a very small, very afraid flicker in the darkness.
Just don’t let that flicker go out.”
It’s actually from this post, which has comparatively few notes compared to some of my others: source
But I see that last part fairly often because people lifted it out, and attributed it to “anon”, and then hilariously on one occasion, someone tried to correct them like “actually it’s from Dune”, when in actual facts it’s from little old me rambling into the void, trying to make sense of my own anxieties in a terrifying world.
I see it being used in pastel colored mood boards on Pinterest, and I’ve had to file a couple of take downs when people have tried to sell it as inspirational merch, which hMMMM. Not okay.
I’m happy to collaborate with people, but if you’re going to make a profit from my words (like I consented for @deadgodjess to use my “I hope your god will forgive you because we will not” quote) then at least ask my permission first. And for goodness sakes if you like something I say and want to make it a tumblr quote, please feel free to do so—just make sure you attach my name to it.
I know “anonymous” maybe has a more romantic connotation to it, and makes it sound like wise old words, but please don’t take the words of a disabled queer writer and eradicate their existence. The world is already trying hard enough to do that as it is.
I plan to get a pillowfort account as well, and I should be eeyore9990 there when that happens. I also still have my old ij and lj accounts (eeyore9990) and if all else fails, hit me up on gmail. I bet you can guess my name there, heh.
(Also, this is why I never ever ever change my “name”. You’ll be able to find me five fandom purges from now wherever we end up by this username. It me!!)
So, like, I still have an excess of glitter and resin, and I have a supreme amount of bills to pay. As some of you may know, my mother was recently hospitalized. She passed out at work and had to go to the ER by ambulance. Those rides are Expensive, my friends. My Christmas gift to my mother, if I can swing it with your help, is to help alleviate the burden of her ambulance bill.
It’s $450, and if I can pay even a portion of that, I will be ecstatic.
Right, so my Etsy returns! I don’t have many listings, but I hope that in keeping the amount of product I have to offer to a minimum, I can push it out super fast in time for everyone’s holiday gift exchange.
Happy Wolfenoot! A wolf!Peter ficlet felt like an appropriate celebration.
__________
“So he’s stuck like this?” Derek asked, rubbing a tension line in his forehead.
“Likely for a few days, yes,” Deaton answered, ignoring the growls coming from the wolf on the examination table in front of him.
“Shut up,” Derek growled back at wolf, glaring.
The wolf barked, snapping his teeth, but Derek’s no doubt scathing response was interrupted by Stiles running full tilt into the room, skidding to a stop next to the cabinets.
Expression frantic, he swiftly asked, “Is he okay? Is he-” He stopped, finally noticing the huge black wolf in the room. His expression suddenly flipped a 180 into sheer delight. “Oh my GOD is that him?? Peter is that you? Holy shit you’re adorable!!”
Peter immediately sat up straighter and preened.
Derek rolled his eyes.
“Take your idiot boyfriend home, Stiles. I’m not going to let him pee on all my furniture.”
Stiles wanted to protest in Peter’s defense, but knew that Peter would, in fact, do something exactly like that if Derek tried to take him home. However-
“I don’t even know what’s going on though. I thought you guys were just going to go talk to the witch?” he asked, moving over to the examination to sink his fingers into Peter’s new thick fur, grinning when Peter rumbled happily.
“That’s all we did,” Derek said grudgingly. “She… didn’t like what we had to say.”
Stiles rolled his eyes this time.
“I told you not to be rude to her.”
Derek scowled back at him.
“She walks around on literal chicken legs, it’s not like we were afraid of her-”
“You should have been,” he said bluntly. “Can you imagine what kind of power you’d have to get in order to be willing to live with chicken legs in return? You’re probably lucky this is all she did.” He looked disapprovingly at Peter, who looked indignant and started yowling and shaking a paw at Derek.
Stiles raised an eyebrow, looking back at Derek.
“What did you do?” he demanded accusingly.
Derek’s mouth dropped open.
“I didn’t do anything!”
Stiles gestured at Peter behind him, who was looking smugly at Derek over Stiles’ shoulder.
“Peter says differently,” Stiles said staunchly.
Derek opened his mouth to argue back, but Deaton interrupted.
“You didn’t tell me she had chicken legs,” he said slowly, brow furrowed. “If she was a Baba Yaga, then this might be an even more archaic curse than I thought.” He frowned contemplatively, and then looked at Stiles. “How long have you and Peter been dating?”
“A few months,” Stiles answered, confused at the abrupt change of subject.
Deaton nodded thoughtfully.
“Do you love him?”
Stiles startled.
“Uh, that’s kind of personal-”
“It’s important, Stiles, have you told him that you love him?” Deaton asked in that infuriatingly placid way of his.
Stiles shifted on his feet a little.
“Yeah-”
“Kiss him.”
Stiles’ and Derek’s mouths fell open.
“I’m sorry, what?”
“Give him a kiss.”
Stiles waved a hand in the air expansively, trying to indicate the sheer amount of absurdity he felt the request deserved.
“Do you honestly think I can undo this with a true love’s kiss??”
Deaton shrugged.
“It can’t hurt to try.”
“It sure fucking could!” Stiles argued back. “Aside from you being severely unsympathetic to the possible emotional ramifications if this doesn’t work, exactly what kind of kiss are you talking about here? Because in the earliest versions of Sleeping Beauty-”
“Just a kiss, Stiles,” Deaton cut in, taking his own turn for an eye roll. “Like you would kiss the top of a pet’s head. And if it doesn’t work, that means nothing about the state of your relationship, it simply means it’s not the solution for whatever type of curse is on him. It’s best to start with the simplest answer.”
Derek and Deaton looked at Stiles expectantly.
Stiles sighed and looked at Peter, who was holding completely still aside from the occasional twitch of his furry little snout.
“You’re coming with me to therapy next week, and we’re gonna talk about this no matter how it turns out,” he said sternly. Then he leaned forward and dropped a smooch on Peter’s head.
Nothing happened.
Deaton nodded.
“Alright, at least we have the answer to that-”
While Deaton spoke, Stiles couldn’t help but be disappointed. The whole idea was absurd, of course, but…
Peter snuffled into his space, whining a little as he took in Stiles’ expression. He leaned forward and gave a little lick to Stiles’ cheek-
POP
Peter sat naked on the examination table, hair askew and looking just as surprised as everyone else.
“Ah,” Deaton said. Everyone was quiet for a beat.
“What the fuck does that mean?” Stiles blurted out. Did Peter love Stiles more than Stiles loved Peter? Was he Peter’s soulmate, but Peter wasn’t his? Was slobber a necessary component of the spell??
“It means she was a crafty old witch, Stiles,” Deaton assured him calmly as he fetched a spare set of scrubs. “She inverted the spell. Rather than receiving a true love’s kiss, he had to give one. It means nothing specific about your relationship. I’m sure you and Peter both…” He furrowed his brow just the tiniest amount. “Love each other very much.”
“Oh my God, please never go into relationship counseling. You’re the worst,” Stiles groaned out, leaning on Peter and scrubbing his face with his hands.
Derek quickly excused himself after that, clearly eager to get home and away from the love discussions. Peter pulled on the scrubs and allowed Deaton to check his heartbeat and lungs only because Stiles refused to take him home until he was cleared.
Stiles drove them both back to Peter’s apartment afterwards, and after a quick shower they rolled into bed together.
Peter immediately pulled Stiles back into his body as the little spoon, and whispered into his neck, “True love’s lick.”
Stiles snorted a laugh and brought Peter’s hand up to his mouth to kiss his palm gently.
“Personally I liked the kiss better,” he said. “What a dumb curse.”
Peter smiled against Stiles’ skin, peppering him with kisses.
“Very dumb.” He pulled at Stiles to flip him over so they were face to face. “I can think of a lot of uses for true love’s lick, though,” he said suggestively.
A slow smile spread across Stiles’ face.
“I’m not sure I can believe that without evidence,” he said, grinning.
Listen. Listen. I just took a double dose of cold medicine and I’m ready to ride this angst train into the jaws of hell.
Because Peter didn’t expect Stiles to take care of him. No one has taken care of him before, he’s always been perfectly self sufficient. Even as a child, his parents supplied his material needs and then left him to his own devices for everything else.
Peter doesn’t need anyone else to care for him, to care about him. If you ask him whether or not he wants someone to care for him, he’ll scoff and look down his nose at you… but he won’t answer.
And Stiles never wanted to be in this position again. After his dad got clean/Stiles left home/whatever, he was done. When he’s out with friends, Stiles stays for two drinks and leaves, every time. He’s never around when people get sloppy drunk because he knows he would feel obligated to help, and he’s done doing that.
So part of the reason Stiles turned the water on Peter was because he was angry. Angry at Peter for getting this drunk, angry at himself for seeking out Peter when he knew he would be this drunk- kind of hoping that the shock of water will sober him up enough that he’ll get up and take care of himself.
Instead, Peter just says “thanks” and then passes out in the shower.
And Stiles considers leaving him there. He really does, but he’s worried, and frustrated, and every of the other ten thousand feelings that come with caring about Peter Hale, and all of those feelings combined outweigh Stiles’ determination to never be put back in the same caretaker situation he was in with his dad as a child.
So he takes Peter home.
Cleans him up.
Puts him in recovery position.
And waits for him to wake up.
Peter’s hangover muddles his brain enough that it takes him a few minutes in the morning. When he finally realizes that he’s at Stiles’, that Stiles must have taken care of him last night, a part of him is thrilled. He feels loved in a way he’s not used to experiencing.
Stiles, on the other hand, upon seeing Peter awake and no longer in danger of choking to death on his own vomit, is furious.
He tears into Peter (loudly, with zero regard for Peter’s hangover) yelling about how irresponsible that was, and how Stiles isn’t a babysitter, and how Peter needs to start taking care of himself-
And that’s when Peter starts to cut back with words, because like hell is anyone going to accuse him of not taking care of himself when that’s all he’s ever done.
They’re both frustrated and confused and full of all those deep emotions that are so, so terrifying when you’ve had a childhood filled with coping rather than growing.
In the end, it comes down to Peter yelling (hangover be damned), “I didn’t ask you to come take care of me!”
And Stiles of course yells back, “You didn’t have to ask me to take care of you, that’s just what you do when you love someone!”
Peter is stunned into silence, but Stiles isn’t done yelling. He keeps going.
“I just never wanted to love someone who would put me that position again!”
And now they’re both silent, staring at each other.
Because where do you go from there?
JFC, @twothumbsandnostakeincanon , get your germ-encrusted fingers off the keyboard and go sit in the corner and think about what you’ve done. I need to fix this shit before you make me bawl like a baby at almost-2am.
Peter’s stunned like he almost never is, and Stiles is silent, won’t look him in the eyes as he starts to move around the apartment angrily, slamming around the kitchen as he makes breakfast and tortures Peter’s poor booze-soaked brain at the same time. It’s efficient, he’ll give the boy that.
He hauls his sorry carcass up and into the shower, and is too busy trying to wake up and put together the pieces of Stiles’s explosive cocktail of love and fury to snoop through the medicine cabinet while he’s in there. By the time he’s puttering back out in borrowed sweats and an old hoodie that has Stiles’s scent engrained in the fabric, he thinks he has the general shape of things–which is enough to make him push down his own resentment and bitterness, because he can indulge those later, but this, what Stiles said, that can’t be put off.
He waits until they’re both seated in front of scrambled eggs, toast, and coffee. “Why would you say you love me?” He asks it like it’s not important, like the answer he gets isn’t going to be the single deciding factor in where his life goes from here. Like this isn’t a fork in the road.
Stiles rolls his eyes. “Gee, Peter, I don’t know. Why do you think I said it?”
He raises an eyebrow. “I think your father is a functioning alcoholic, and that he had a non-functioning phase you had to steer him out of. I also think that you’re projecting your daddy issues onto a man old enough to be your father who happens to enjoy bickering as a hobby.” He smirks, and if it has more of an edge than usual, no one will know. “But, if it’s closure you’re after, kiddo, by all means, consider me at your service.”
So, FYI you guys, sometimes if you go to your favorite writers and flail at them a lot about how much you love their fics with lots of specific examples, they will let you read thousands of words of their unpublished WIPs and you can flail even more. Also sometimes after that you get to be friends, too, and help them come up with ideas. And vice versa! This is pretty much the best thing in the world and it is called fandom.
Listen. Listen. I just took a double dose of cold medicine and I’m ready to ride this angst train into the jaws of hell.
Because Peter didn’t expect Stiles to take care of him. No one has taken care of him before, he’s always been perfectly self sufficient. Even as a child, his parents supplied his material needs and then left him to his own devices for everything else.
Peter doesn’t need anyone else to care for him, to care about him. If you ask him whether or not he wants someone to care for him, he’ll scoff and look down his nose at you… but he won’t answer.
And Stiles never wanted to be in this position again. After his dad got clean/Stiles left home/whatever, he was done. When he’s out with friends, Stiles stays for two drinks and leaves, every time. He’s never around when people get sloppy drunk because he knows he would feel obligated to help, and he’s done doing that.
So part of the reason Stiles turned the water on Peter was because he was angry. Angry at Peter for getting this drunk, angry at himself for seeking out Peter when he knew he would be this drunk- kind of hoping that the shock of water will sober him up enough that he’ll get up and take care of himself.
Instead, Peter just says “thanks” and then passes out in the shower.
And Stiles considers leaving him there. He really does, but he’s worried, and frustrated, and every of the other ten thousand feelings that come with caring about Peter Hale, and all of those feelings combined outweigh Stiles’ determination to never be put back in the same caretaker situation he was in with his dad as a child.
So he takes Peter home.
Cleans him up.
Puts him in recovery position.
And waits for him to wake up.
Peter’s hangover muddles his brain enough that it takes him a few minutes in the morning. When he finally realizes that he’s at Stiles’, that Stiles must have taken care of him last night, a part of him is thrilled. He feels loved in a way he’s not used to experiencing.
Stiles, on the other hand, upon seeing Peter awake and no longer in danger of choking to death on his own vomit, is furious.
He tears into Peter (loudly, with zero regard for Peter’s hangover) yelling about how irresponsible that was, and how Stiles isn’t a babysitter, and how Peter needs to start taking care of himself-
And that’s when Peter starts to cut back with words, because like hell is anyone going to accuse him of not taking care of himself when that’s all he’s ever done.
They’re both frustrated and confused and full of all those deep emotions that are so, so terrifying when you’ve had a childhood filled with coping rather than growing.
In the end, it comes down to Peter yelling (hangover be damned), “I didn’t ask you to come take care of me!”
And Stiles of course yells back, “You didn’t have to ask me to take care of you, that’s just what you do when you love someone!”
Peter is stunned into silence, but Stiles isn’t done yelling. He keeps going.
“I just never wanted to love someone who would put me that position again!”
And now they’re both silent, staring at each other.
Because where do you go from there?
JFC, @twothumbsandnostakeincanon , get your germ-encrusted fingers off the keyboard and go sit in the corner and think about what you’ve done. I need to fix this shit before you make me bawl like a baby at almost-2am.
Peter’s stunned like he almost never is, and Stiles is silent, won’t look him in the eyes as he starts to move around the apartment angrily, slamming around the kitchen as he makes breakfast and tortures Peter’s poor booze-soaked brain at the same time. It’s efficient, he’ll give the boy that.
He hauls his sorry carcass up and into the shower, and is too busy trying to wake up and put together the pieces of Stiles’s explosive cocktail of love and fury to snoop through the medicine cabinet while he’s in there. By the time he’s puttering back out in borrowed sweats and an old hoodie that has Stiles’s scent engrained in the fabric, he thinks he has the general shape of things–which is enough to make him push down his own resentment and bitterness, because he can indulge those later, but this, what Stiles said, that can’t be put off.
He waits until they’re both seated in front of scrambled eggs, toast, and coffee. “Why would you say you love me?” He asks it like it’s not important, like the answer he gets isn’t going to be the single deciding factor in where his life goes from here. Like this isn’t a fork in the road.
Stiles rolls his eyes. “Gee, Peter, I don’t know. Why do you think I said it?”
He raises an eyebrow. “I think your father is a functioning alcoholic, and that he had a non-functioning phase you had to steer him out of. I also think that you’re projecting your daddy issues onto a man old enough to be your father who happens to enjoy bickering as a hobby.” He smirks, and if it has more of an edge than usual, no one will know. “But, if it’s closure you’re after, kiddo, by all means, consider me at your service.”
Listen. Listen. I just took a double dose of cold medicine and I’m ready to ride this angst train into the jaws of hell.
Because Peter didn’t expect Stiles to take care of him. No one has taken care of him before, he’s always been perfectly self sufficient. Even as a child, his parents supplied his material needs and then left him to his own devices for everything else.
Peter doesn’t need anyone else to care for him, to care about him. If you ask him whether or not he wants someone to care for him, he’ll scoff and look down his nose at you… but he won’t answer.
And Stiles never wanted to be in this position again. After his dad got clean/Stiles left home/whatever, he was done. When he’s out with friends, Stiles stays for two drinks and leaves, every time. He’s never around when people get sloppy drunk because he knows he would feel obligated to help, and he’s done doing that.
So part of the reason Stiles turned the water on Peter was because he was angry. Angry at Peter for getting this drunk, angry at himself for seeking out Peter when he knew he would be this drunk- kind of hoping that the shock of water will sober him up enough that he’ll get up and take care of himself.
Instead, Peter just says “thanks” and then passes out in the shower.
And Stiles considers leaving him there. He really does, but he’s worried, and frustrated, and every of the other ten thousand feelings that come with caring about Peter Hale, and all of those feelings combined outweigh Stiles’ determination to never be put back in the same caretaker situation he was in with his dad as a child.
So he takes Peter home.
Cleans him up.
Puts him in recovery position.
And waits for him to wake up.
Peter’s hangover muddles his brain enough that it takes him a few minutes in the morning. When he finally realizes that he’s at Stiles’, that Stiles must have taken care of him last night, a part of him is thrilled. He feels loved in a way he’s not used to experiencing.
Stiles, on the other hand, upon seeing Peter awake and no longer in danger of choking to death on his own vomit, is furious.
He tears into Peter (loudly, with zero regard for Peter’s hangover) yelling about how irresponsible that was, and how Stiles isn’t a babysitter, and how Peter needs to start taking care of himself-
And that’s when Peter starts to cut back with words, because like hell is anyone going to accuse him of not taking care of himself when that’s all he’s ever done.
They’re both frustrated and confused and full of all those deep emotions that are so, so terrifying when you’ve had a childhood filled with coping rather than growing.
In the end, it comes down to Peter yelling (hangover be damned), “I didn’t ask you to come take care of me!”
And Stiles of course yells back, “You didn’t have to ask me to take care of you, that’s just what you do when you love someone!”
Peter is stunned into silence, but Stiles isn’t done yelling. He keeps going.
“I just never wanted to love someone who would put me that position again!”
And now they’re both silent, staring at each other.
Because where do you go from there?
JFC, @twothumbsandnostakeincanon , get your germ-encrusted fingers off the keyboard and go sit in the corner and think about what you’ve done. I need to fix this shit before you make me bawl like a baby at almost-2am.
Peter’s stunned like he almost never is, and Stiles is silent, won’t look him in the eyes as he starts to move around the apartment angrily, slamming around the kitchen as he makes breakfast and tortures Peter’s poor booze-soaked brain at the same time. It’s efficient, he’ll give the boy that.
He hauls his sorry carcass up and into the shower, and is too busy trying to wake up and put together the pieces of Stiles’s explosive cocktail of love and fury to snoop through the medicine cabinet while he’s in there. By the time he’s puttering back out in borrowed sweats and an old hoodie that has Stiles’s scent engrained in the fabric, he thinks he has the general shape of things–which is enough to make him push down his own resentment and bitterness, because he can indulge those later, but this, what Stiles said, that can’t be put off.
He waits until they’re both seated in front of scrambled eggs, toast, and coffee. “Why would you say you love me?” He asks it like it’s not important, like the answer he gets isn’t going to be the single deciding factor in where his life goes from here. Like this isn’t a fork in the road.
Stiles rolls his eyes. “Gee, Peter, I don’t know. Why do you think I said it?”
He raises an eyebrow. “I think your father is a functioning alcoholic, and that he had a non-functioning phase you had to steer him out of. I also think that you’re projecting your daddy issues onto a man old enough to be your father who happens to enjoy bickering as a hobby.” He smirks, and if it has more of an edge than usual, no one will know. “But, if it’s closure you’re after, kiddo, by all means, consider me at your service.”
Stiles drops his face into his hands, muttering, “You monumental fucking asshole,” before he lifts his head back up to glare. “Look, fuckface, you don’t get to tell me how I do or don’t feel about you, because last time I checked, your degree was in environmental engineering, and not clinical psychology, so clear the shit out of your ears, and listen carefully to my heartbeat.” He leans forward, jaw clenched and still furious, but his heart doesn’t stutter as he deliberately enunciates each word. “I love you, you fucking prick.”
“Oh.” That’s–Peter needs a moment.
Of course, he doesn’t get one, because Stiles throws his hands up in the air. “’Oh’, he says! Yeah, fucking ‘oh’!” He stops and rubs his eyes. “You know, I was never going to tell you. It was just, going to be this thing that existed quietly until it didn’t and that we never verbally acknowledged.”
“And why’s that?” Peter asks, whisper-soft.
Stiles’s eyes are sad, even as one side of his mouth quirks into a gentle half-smile. “Because, this? Us? This can’t work, Peter. No matter how much I want it to.”
And oh, but the threat of having it taken away before he ever got the chance to hold it, to try, to fuck it up, feels like claws in the gut. “Why can’t it? If we both want it, why not try?”
Stiles gives an incredulous huff. “Jesus, what do you mean ‘why’? As evidenced by this morning, we’ve both got a bunch of fucking issues–and don’t even try to deny you have them, okay, you would not have gotten blackout drunk if you didn’t–and that’s.” He huffs again, but it’s wet this time, and Peter wants to say no, please don’t cry, but Stiles goes on before he can. “And just. This? This morning? That is not what I want my life to be, okay? I’m in a place where I get to choose what I want it to be, and it’s not–it’s not this.”
He ducks his head, but it doesn’t do jack for the salt-scent of gathering tears. Peter slips from his chair, crouching on the floor beside him. “You are allowed to decide, sweetheart. But I still think we deserve to give this a shot. You want it, and I want it, and if get to choose, why not try?”
Stiles laughs, even as he covers his face to hide the tears rolling down his face. “Therapy. We are getting so, so much therapy. I’ll drag you there at gunpoint if I have to.”
Peter stands and wraps an arm around the young man’s shoulders, dropping a kiss on the top of his head. “No weapons necessary, darling. I have the numbers of a few who know about all this. We can call and set up meetings, see if there’s anyone we click with.”
Stiles drags in a deep, shuddering breath. “Okay. God, this–this is absolutely, off-the-reservation crazy, but. Okay. Just,” he looks up, and his gorgeous face is raw and tired and Peter’s never quite wanted to kiss him this badly, “don’t–don’t do that to me again.”
He doesn’t elaborate. He doesn’t have to. “I won’t,” Peter promises, and he means it, too. The look on Stiles’s face says he’s not convinced, but he’s got time, now, to convince Stiles that he means it.
He’s surprised when he’s gently pushed away. “Now sit down and finish your breakfast.”
He salutes sarcastically, but there’s a warm little glow in his stomach, at being fed, provided for. He doesn’t say anything about it, not now, not this soon, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t savour it.
The tenth anniversary of the OTW and all the AO3 discussion going around this week inspired me to go look at astolat’s original post about creating an An Archive Of Our Own, and found my comment on it:
“I think this is needed and long past needed.
There are of course huge fanfic archives out there like ff.net, but the bigger and more public the site, the more restrictive it is, the more stuff around the edges gets cut off. I don’t WANT the public face of fanfic to be only the most easily palatable stuff, with the smut and the kink and the controversial subjects marginalized and hidden under the table.
And I particularly don’t want to see us all sitting around feeling frustrated while this fabulous community is commodified out from underneath us.
I’m not fit to be a project manager, but I’m great with details and general organizational work. If someone takes this and runs with it, I’d love to help.“
Eleven years and rather a lot of volunteer-hours later, I stand by every single word.
And then I found my original post on the idea that became the OTW/AO3, which says in part:
“However, as I was reading the comments over there, I noticed a frustrating, but not surprising number of comments along the lines of “well, it’s a good idea, but it’s way too ambitious”
I’m not talking about the really useful and practical comments bringing up pitfalls and difficulties to be aware of from the get go with something this massive and complex, I’m talking about all the comments that go something like this:
Taken separately, these comments don’t seem like much, but every time a new one showed up I couldn’t help but be reminded of
this post by commodorified, and her oh so brilliant and beautiful rant therein:
“WOMEN NEED TO LEARN TO ASK FOR EVERY DAMN THING THEY WANT.
And here are some notes:
Yes, you. Yes, everything. Yes, even that.
All of it. Because it’s true. We’re mostly raised to live on table scraps, to wait and see what’s going when everyone else has been served and then choose from what’s left. And that’s crap, and it’ll get you crap.
Forget the limited menu of things that you automatically assume is all that’s available given your (gender, looks, social class, education, financial position, reputation, family, damage level, etc etc etc), and start reading the whole menu instead.
Then figure out what you want. Then check what you’ve got and figure out how to get it. And then go after it baldheaded till either you make it happen or you decide that its real cost is more than it’s worth to you.”
And THAT is what Astolat’s post is about. It’s about saying “THIS is what we want, let’s make it happen.” It’s about aiming for the ideal, not for some artificially imposed, more “realistic” option.
And I think that’s fabulous. And I think we CAN do this, we CAN make this amazing, complicated idea happen. But in order to do so we’re going to have to be careful about those little voices inside our heads saying “well, it’s a nice idea, but” and “there’s no point in trying for that impossible thing, let’s aim for this ‘more realistic’ goal instead.”
Because, damn it, why shouldn’t we ask for every damn thing we want. And why shouldn’t we go out there and get it?”
I am so pleased to have been proved correct.
(And also, in the category of “women need to ask for every damn thing they want”? I took those words to heart, which is one of many reasons Marna/commodorified and I have been married for going on eight years.)
ETA: I know some of the links are broken, they copied over from my original post and I didn’t have the energy to either delete them or track them down elsewhere.
Asking for it and doing it!!!
So inspiring. And yes – at the time this seemed such a pipedream, but look at it now!
Yup. I remember saying I’d support it regardless, but it would only really be useful to me as a poster if it allowed every kind of content. Heh.
God this brings it back. People saying we couldn’t do it, that we would never be able to do it, etc. And then there was the sort of six months later moment where people were like, but where is it? (!) Dudes, we had to found a nonprofit company first! so we could be legal and raise money and pay taxes and have a bank account and enter contracts – and moreover, the archive was written from scratch: from a single blinking cursor on the screen, custom-designed from the ground up. I remember that I had the job of tracking wireframes in the early days as the real designers figured out how the flow of pages in the archive were going to go. Amazing.
Anyway, I want to say that the group that came together around the OTW /AO3 in those first years had a track record like WHOA: so many of those people had been archivists, web-admins, fannish fest-runners, newsletter compilers, community moderators, listmoms (kiddies, you won’t know what this is) or had other fannish roles that gave them enormous experience in working collaboratively in fandom and keeping something great going year after year. And OTW continues to attract great people–and so also, while I’m blathering, let me say that volunteering for the OTW also provides great, real world experience that you can put on your resume, because AO3 is one of the top sites in the world and TWC has been publishing on time for ten years and Fanlore is cited in books and journalism all the time and Open Doors has relationships with many meatspace university libraries and archives etc. so if you think you have something to bring to the table, please do think about volunteering somewhere. It’s work, believe me, but it’s also pretty g-d awesome.
I tell you what, if it weren’t for Ao3, 2013 would’ve been the last year I ever wrote anything for anyone other than myself. I was so disgusted and demoralized.
The first chapter of “This, You Protect” wasn’t a desperation move, exactly. It was the first time I’d had fun writing anything in months.
Putting it up, and those first few encouraging comments: that was the first time I’d had fun publishing in years.
And man, the people I have met through that place. I am eternally grateful.
So definitely 100% all of this, but I also have a question. And maybe it’s one of those stupid ones, but it’s something I’m honestly curious about. It has to do with this bit:
"I want to say that the group that came together around the OTW /AO3 in those first years had a track record like WHOA: so many of those people had been archivists, web-admins, fannish fest-runners, newsletter compilers, community moderators, listmoms (kiddies, you won’t know what this is) or had other fannish roles that gave them enormous experience in working collaboratively in fandom and keeping something great going year after year.“
My question is: how do you get there NOW?
And I don’t mean that like “how do you become astolat or esporanza”-
because let’s face it, we only get one of them since they are, in fact, themselves, and I’d much rather people try to be themselves than somebody else- but I mean it as in how do you rack up that record now? Because so many of those roles have vanished or gotten diluted in fandom, like, I genuinely don’t know how you’d position yourself into this, and I kinda want to know if only so that I can see the next wave of such fans coming.
I was going to be like, I don’t know! except then I was like, wait, yes, I do know! IMO, the answer is a Mr. Rogers-type secret, which is that the way to do this is to help. Be a helper! Help other fans, boost other fans voices/art somehow. Run a fest or a challenge, do a recs page, reblog stuff, wave your arms in the air, encourage people to make things, offer to beta, make art, do podfics, offer to collaborate – and I’m sure the future will (for better and for worse) provide us new opportunities to help or think about helping each other. But one that comes to mind: help a fan navigate a new platform! Confused about Tumblr/Twitter/Youtube/Pillowfort – can someone help? Will you hold their hand, tell them they’re wanted, get them to come with us to the new land? (I HAVE EXPLAINED TUMBLR TO SO MANY PEOPLE). I remember when I got into fandom, I was posting my stories to a mailing list and I didn’t have a website (because who did?) and MerryLynne came to me and said, like, I like your stories, can I help you host them? I was SO GRATEFUL. Resonant made me a cheat sheet for html which is how I learned. The initial archives had what were called Archive Elves, people who behind the scenes had to format and upload every story by hand. So, to me, true fandom is always encouraging of others, it’s COME WRITE FOR MY SHOW, make the thing, try the thing, do the thing, I will help you do the thing!
Aww. Yes, this!
I don’t think those kinds of roles are gone though, just changed. Maybe we don’t have so many people doing extensive Delicious-style bookmarking now, but plenty of fans run tumblrs with meticulous tagging that curate a great feed of a particular fandom or ship. [Thing] Weeks happen all the time. Someone’s organizing each one of those. People on tumblr have started and run fan conventions, most of which did not feature a deflating ball pit. There are zine presses started up through Tumblr!
As with a lot of fannish things, people start by loving something specific. They make their friends through a particular fandom. Pan-fandom meta, history, preservation, etc. are things people usually get into after they’ve been around a while and switched fandoms a few times or seen their single fandom change radically as people and platforms come and go.
If I had to guess, I’d say the next big organized fannish projects will come from circles of friends on Tumblr who started out shipping the same thing and have since moved on to being in different fandoms but still share the same taste in cons or in infrastructure or tools.
Yes to the above, but I will say that social media sites these days DO make community-building harder and less intuitive.
Partly because of recirculating content (eg on Tumblr, you don’t actually have to follow people for their good stuff, because it gets reblogged, and reblogging actually discourages following too many people in a single fandom because you’ll see the same thing 20 times). And partly because they push unhelpful values on us (making the # of public likes feel more important than a private personal connection, because more #s means more advertising money for them).
It’s the same underlying problem that made us start the AO3. Just like fanlib and 6A in the days of Strikethrough, the people who own and run these sites don’t give a shit about any of us, they don’t make these sites to use them personally. They’re making them to make giant sacks of money, not to build a community center.
So they don’t really want us to talk to each other in private-ish nooks in the way that’s necessary to build personal connection. If you post your thoughts on a public reblog, they can use it as an ad vehicle for everyone following you. If you post them to one pal in private, they are paying server costs to host the same amount of content but as an ad vehicle it is much worse. A lot of terrible usability and human choices that social media sites make are based on very sensible financial decisions the owners are making for their personal benefit.
So you have to deliberately go against what the site encourages you to do, if you want to build community. You can’t just sit there and read your dash and ticky the hearts and squash your own thoughts into tags. You have to make your own content, you have to send messages and chat, have conversations in comments, go to chatrooms, go to cons and meetups, build personal connections.
If you want to build a thing, the public post where you start the thing is the first bit of the iceberg that pokes up above the water. If you don’t have a whole lot of iceberg underneath, it won’t stay up.
Queer Fiction Writer 