Y’all R Wildin OUT

(british lady from hitman voice) Elon Musk eliminated. Good job, 47. Your next target, Jeff Bezos.

A New History of Fandom Purges

On November 24th, 2018, I posted a list of major deletions of sites or of content on sites that stripped fandom of its history. A bunch of pro-shipper blogs had just been deleted, and people were nervous. I suppose I was thinking “All this has happened before…”

On December 3rd, 2018, Tumblr’s Department of Irony announced the NSFW ban. Thanks for providing this salutary lesson to The Youth and a billion reblogs to me, I guess.

Today, we have AO3 for writing. Audio, images, and video are in as much danger as ever, yet fans attack AO3 every donation drive. For those of you who forget our past…

HERE IS WHAT HISTORY HAS TAUGHT US!

1992 - Chelsea Quinn Yarbro forces a zine to be destroyed

1995 - Viacom/Paramount goes after fansites

1995 - Anne Rice gets IWTV fic deleted everywhere

1997 - Fox and Lucasfilm go after fansites

1998 - AOL goes after X-Files fansites

2000 - Warner Brothers goes after Harry Potter fansites

2000 - Anne Rice anne rices again

2001 - Tripod Massacre

2001 - Anne Rice goes after IWTV fic on FFN

2001 - The Bronze shut down as Buffy changes networks

2002 - FFN bans porn

2002 - FFN bans RPF

2003 - Gryffindor Tower implodes

2004 - FFN bans script format

2005 - FFN bans CYOA, Readerfic, 2nd person, Songfic

2005 - Sheezyart bans adult content; y!gallery founded

2005 - Viacom/Paramount goes after fansites again

2006 - Sakura Lemon Archive suddenly closes

2007 - Strikethrough, Boldthrough on Livejournal

2007 - Youtube institutes Content ID, deleting many fanvids

2008 - Slash Cotillion closes, taking much historical m/m with it

2009 - GeoCities shuts down, taking old fannish websites

2009 - Greatestjournal shuts down; RPGs deleted

2009 - Marvel gets scans_daily deleted

2009 - imeem, major vidding hub, closes suddenly

2010 - FFN forums purged for inactivity

2010 - DeviantArt purges adult fanfic

2010 - Literate Union goes after Twilight fandom on FFN

2011 - Delicious destroyed by Yahoo’s incompetence

2011 - China arrests women for writing m/m; destroys danmei.org

2012 - major FFN crackdown on porn

2012 - Megaupload deleted for piracy; also destroys vids, podfic

2013 - Max-Dan-Wiz.com purged of fan-generated content

2014 - Quizilla shuts down

2014 - China purges m/m story websites; arrests female authors

2014 - Blip.tv deletes vids

2014 - Viddler deletes vids

2015 - Journalfen’s servers become fully robust, deleting Fandom Wank

2016 - y!Gallery deleted

2016 - Elfwood goes offline

2016 - Audiofic Archive corrupted; major blow to podfic

2017 - Chinese author jailed after being ratted out over fandom drama

2017 - Parents get queer Warrior Cats fic purged from Wattpad

2018 - Tumblr deletes pro-shipper blogs

2018 - Tumblr announces NSFW ban

2018 - Wattpad deletes accounts/fics without warning

2019 - China purges weibo of m/m; more women jailed

This is only a small taste of the many times that:

Fannish moderators got bored, ran out of money, or had a falling out, deleting a site/list/forum along the way.

Sites got bought out and closed for being unprofitable.

Fandom got hit as governments targeted piracy or political dissidents.

Fans grudge reported each other.

Official forums got deleted when the canon finished.

It’s not always malicious. It’s not always about us. But we lose every time.

Some of these purges hit everyone. Many of them hit m/m content specifically or female gaze-y material in general. This is why antis are dead wrong. This is why anti-fujoshi policies end up being anti-m/m policies. This is why we need clear labeling, not content restrictions.

This is why we need AO3.

And it’s why we need a solution for audio, visuals, and video too.

The Dimming Signs:

Aries: This was supposed to be a place of silence and contemplation, and contemplate you have. Perhaps you have become to accustomed to the deep places, or perhaps the things that scare the old gods are more deserving of worship.

Taurus: You give warning after warning and still they come. The world dies around you and yet they cling to any rumor, any scrap of life they can find. They will find nothing, because there is nothing but you, and you are the price they pay for such doomed curiosity. 

Gemini: You were the least of your brethren, but now you’re the only one left. The last to hold the title you coveted for so, so, long. Yet it weighs heavy on your name, there is no honor in victory by default. Flowers grow from their bones now. You will keep pests out of the garden.

Cancer: Heaven was less than you expected. No gods here. Someone had to step up. You will not repeat the mistakes of the past, things will be different this time. You know it will. You know it will.

Leo: You were born as engines of war. How far the world has fallen. There is nothing left worth fighting over, yet still, after all this time, they still come. The legends of you are long forgotten but it matters little. These trespassers will know the glory of the old royal war machines for themselves.

Virgo: What is faith without crisis? Yet you, you saw angels fall burning and dead from the sky, you watched the very birthplace of gods overcome with toxic seawater and burning rain and never did you waver. What is faith when faced with the corpses of gods?

Libra: Salted earth, burning rain, invincible engines of calamity, war. All fall to dust under the winnowing blanket of time. Now the burning storms are gone and orange clouds paint the sky. The sun is beautiful and you are finally alone. 

Scorpio: You knew what was coming long before it happened. It was all bound to crumble and fall. You beckon those who doubt, beckon them with visions of wings, beckon them to join you and watch from the sky as the world crumbles.

Ophiuchus: You know it could have been different had you just been more ready. But your chance has passed and the rivets in your skeleton weigh heavier than they should. You’ve had an eternity to practice. Maybe once someone has the strength to free you from this place, they will also have the strength to fix the mistakes you made.

Sagittarius: The world rots and the old gods still broadcast from their heavens, messages of tribute and service. Of fear and the seals to the deep places. But you and your sisters have seen something truly new. If you want something done right…

Capricorn: What is precious must be protected. The world is a covetous place. You watched the forges like one watches a child. Now there is no need. It was painful but you left your weak skin behind. Now you are molten and painless, with enough eyes to watch over your bounty.

Aquarius: What a wondrous legacy to leave behind. A desire, a compulsion to create, to twist and shape and work the ugly ugly world into more beautiful things. Things that can defend themselves.

Pisces: You know the consequences of your choices. So you sealed yourself away from the world, a prison built from the inside. But you know they dont need revenge, they need you. Perhaps you are delaying the inevitable. 

his first pride :) reblog if u support him

like a year ago I saw a trailer for Some Fucking Romcom where I thought for the first thirty seconds the plot was “bride asks her gay brother and his boyfriend to get heterosexual dates for her wedding”

turns out the plot actually was “bride asks her two Commitmentphobic ™ brothers to get dates for her wedding” which, lame

I like my idea, where two gay dudes and two lesbians have to pretend to be straight for an entire weekend 

“I can definitely pretend to be straight,” Lesbian One says, “I successfully pretended to be a straight man for twenty years.”

“No,” her girlfriend Lesbian Two says, “no you definitely didn’t.”

Lesbian Two, who is butch, discovers an eyelash curler. “What is this, a torture device?”

Gay Guy One hooks up with the DJ, the wedding planner, three caterers and the best man. Shenanigans happen as he narrowly avoids getting caught by the bride.

Gay Guy Two, of course, finds himself falling hopelessly in love with the groom.

At the climax of the movie Gay Guy One falls out of the closet where he’s making out with his latest conquest, the florist. The bride screams, eyeliner smearing from tears, about how he’s RUINING HER WEDDING and she didn’t choose to have a brother who was QUEER and why didn’t he ever think about HER and why couldn’t he just pretend to be NORMAL for her SPECIAL DAY–

the groom is like “honey, I’m bi”

the bride says “no, you’re not! you’re marrying me! you’re straight now!”

and then the wedding is called off and Gay Guy Two and the groom live happily ever after. the after-credits scene is Lesbian Two suspiciously poking her eyelids with an eyelash curler

!!!!!!!!!!!!! HEY EVERYONE!!!!!!!!!!!! NONBINARY RIGHTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I had a dream where a bunch of grey long-snouted creatures were gathered around this other creature, who was their creator, and were chanting “give us the wisdom of not knowing death” over and over again in a cheerful sing-song tone. They wanted their creator to make it so that they wouldn’t know about death/know that they will die, believing this would free them or enlighten them, or make them wiser.