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Let’s say there IS a simulation. After all, the device on their heads might be creating one even if it is more implied that they are kept drugged up in a mindless miasma. For argument’s sake, let’s say there is a simulation.

It’s EASY. It’s as easy as popping a pill and putting on a VR headset. There’s no challenge, there’s no struggle, there’s no competition. The pleasure and joy you feel is not the result of hard work, struggling to achieve your goal but an undeserved illusion created through the drugs being pumped into you and false information being delivered to your brain.

And really, when that pleasure high dies down, what remains? A hard quiz engraves the knowledge into your brain eternally, the defeat of a strong opponent etches your strength into reality, the scaling of a great mountain carves the techniques and instincts into your body. Our brains hardware us to seek out pleasure through hard work because it builds us up, refines us further and improves us little by little. But this abuse of that system for fleeting pleasure gives NOTHING in return, making it meaningless.

‘But the pleasure is eternal!’

Is it?

The human body adapts and adjusts. You ever wonder why drug addicts need a bigger and bigger dose of a drug in order to get high (similar to THESE people): because their body adapts to the drug and lessens it’s effects. They cannot get the same level of euphoria from the same dose forever. Just as well, you will need more and more dopamine in order to feel your so-called ‘pleasure’. And just as the drug addict dies a pitiful death from an overdose, so shall your end be.

And truthfully, at end of your extended life, when the sun burns out and the all consuming void freezes your very being-

What, precisely, did you accomplish?

What, precisely, did you achieve?

In what way shape or form did you manage create something MEANINGFUL?

Our lives alone are meaningless things…but through our actions, through our EFFORTS, we create something worthwhile with our limited time. Be it a monument to our greatness, to making the lives of all humanity better through advancement, to making the lives of others a little easier to simply making the day of our loved ones a little brighter: We created something meaningful from our meaningless existence. But your way would rob us of that and reduce to nothing more than corpses.

And that is what you will become. That is what those people are. Corpses encased in mental coffins, embalmed in pleasure inducing fluids and sucked of all life through drugs and inaction. They are lower than people, lower than animals. They are DEAD BREATHING.

Human life is defined by contrast. Life and death, pain and relief, sorrow and joy, hatred and happiness, misery and comfort- Even the very world we see is only made possible through contrast, the contrast of light and dark. This is the truth of humanity and you either ACCEPT IT and live your life or you can deny it, live in a coffin and die early!

Let’s say that humanity will achieve all that it ever will (assumes humanity has a limit), or just enough to enable humanity’s permanent survival beyond even the death of the universe (if you believe humanity has no limit).

Let’s say you’re in a world where you can live forever, or already have an infinite life.

People/machines have made all the artworks possible, of all sizes, of all the ranges of the electromagnetic spectrum, to form art that ranges from splatters of paint to a miracle people can’t pull their eyes away from.

People/machines have made all possible arrangements of music, of all possible lengths, composed of the entire possible range of frequency, amplitude, and period to form music that is nothing but static to the most beautiful harmonic rhythm that synchronizes life itself.

People/machines have written all possible stories, composed of all the languages of the world, all the words, letters, to form gibberish combinations of letters and/or words all the way to the most beautiful, heart-wrenching, heart-pulling, emotional roller-coaster of a journey.

In such a world, what else would there need be doing besides indulging in the pleasures of all life can give, be it from spending the times it takes universes to die to indulge in the nigh-infinite culture humanity has made throughout its history or by living in a euphoric illusion in a machine?

Even if you want to live a hedonistic life, the mere action of seeking out different avenues of indulgence is itself a form of effort. These people aren’t reading books, looking at art, watching movies or so on. They’re not truly experiencing what humanity created. Not to mention the effort of seeking out these experiences and indulgences would help alleviate the issue of the human brain adapting to the constant dopaime and serotonin, thus becoming incapable of experiencing joy and pleasure.

this argument only makes sense if you

1. dont understand how any of human biology works

2. think of porn, depiction of the sexual act, as containing the primordial fucking sin, something that corrupts the minds of anyone looking at it

- filter your searches like you would on a library website or in an online catalogue

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- there is no algorithm. ao3 sorts by date posted/updated unless you filter with specific search criteria

- ao3 is a non profit. that means it doesn’t sell ads to make money — it only survives on donations. this is why it can show you so many fics without ever flashing an ad or pop up at you!

- report fics that break TOS when you see them (I.e., placeholder fics, searches) to help other users navigate better

- the tag “dead dove, do not eat” doesn’t equate to gore/awfulness automatically. it is a complementary tag that enhances current tags. E.g., if the fic is tagged “gore” and “dead dove, do not eat” the author really wants you to mind the gore tag

- most fandoms have a variation of “no beta, we die like (x character)” and they all link back to the “No beta” tag

- publishing a new fic sometimes means it won’t show up in the fandom/pairing tag for a few minutes

- subscribers receive update emails at different times, depending on when you update/publish your fic. there’s no good way to predict when an e-mail will be sent — it can be in 30 seconds, or two hours later

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- you can block commenters now! this didn’t use to be a thing

- if your fic includes original character/s or reader insert or y/n or etc, then TAG THOSE IN THE CHARACTER TAGS. Not just in the relationship tags!! They are characters in the story, so include them in the character tags. Failing to do so means people who want to find fics with those tags won’t be able to, and people who want to exclude fics with those tags won’t be able to.

- NEVER EVER EVER ADD A LINK TO A PATREON OR KO-FEE ACCOUNT OR ETC. Ao3’s entire legal protection hinges on the fact that no one is making money from fics. If you start commissioning fics or linking to a monetary platform, you are in breach of the Ao3 terms, risking legal action, and risking ao3 as a whole. There are loads of authors/companies who WILL sue if they think you’re making money off their intellectual property.

there are no best times to post but generally sunday and monday are a good zone for traffic

you must double check and make sure the publication date matches the day a chapter is posted or it won’t show up on the first page of updates. sometimes you have to physically edit the posting date multiple times for this to be fixed.

on that note: artificially editing your publication date so your fic shows up at the top when you haven’t added a chapter is the dickest of moves and will make you a pariah. do not do this. yes everyone will notice.

editing existing chapters doesn’t count as updating a fic and won’t change the publication date.

ao3 usually adds weird spaces after italics if you copy and paste in your writing pre-formatted. it doesn’t add these until after you’ve saved a draft or posted so you have to re-edit.

check the “add space after paragraph” option in your word precessor of choice to avoid having to delete an extra space between all your paragraphs on ao3.

when you add a second chapter to a one chapter fic, your original start/end authors notes will now be appended onto the notes of every chapter unless you move them to the now extant first chapter notes sections. this is confusing, but you’ll see what i mean.

to post on anon: add your fic to the anonymous (anonymous) collection. it’ll take up to fifteen to minutes to show in the tag once posted. it’ll show up (to you) as AUTHOR NAME: fic title. no one else sees it this way. it will never show up on your own dashboard unless you go to your stats page. if you ever de-anon, all your subs will get an email about it as if it were just posted.

if you update multiple fics at once, ao3 will group the updates into one email.

to transfer a fic to a new ao3 account: make a new account, make the new account a co-author, remove the old account as co-author.

you cannot mention money changing hands for fic on ao3, ever. don’t say commissions. say a fic was requested if you must say anything. your fic can get taken down for this.

reply to comments or never complain about engagement in fandom.

per that: EVERY TIME YOU EDIT A COMMENT, THE AUTHOR GETS A NEW COPY OF YOUR COMMENT IN THEIR EMAIL. we can see all the edits. be aware.

tagging is both a warning and an enticement, do so accordingly. you really don’t need to tag things that fall outside that unless you want to.

on that note: please don’t do the “short fics for 300 different fandoms in one fic” thing. no one wants to scroll past that. i mean you can but it just makes it harder for people to find the thing you’ve written that they want to read.

if you are really bad at summaries just think of it as a movie tag line and don’t say you’re bad at summaries. don’t neg your own fic.

Remember the Block and Mute feature. Block means that someone cannot interact with your works. Mute, however, means you will not see the person’s works in the search. If you don’t want to see fics by a specific author, mute them.

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If you wish to make a collection of fic that includes all of the fic you have read, consider making a collection of your bookmarks instead. Not every author wants their work to be in a million collections, but you don’t have to ask permission to make a collection of bookmarks.

The “Inspired By” option is great if you draw inspiration from another author’s fic. And it helps give credit to other amazing fanfic writers.

Fic can be downloaded in many different ways. If you want to download a fic and use it like an ebook, go for the EPUB version. But all versions have their merits.