fish bastard

Irena lived in Warsaw during the Nazi occupation, and dedicated her life to rescuing Jewish children from the Ghetto, and her story is complicated in a lot of ways but - well, this story isn’t actually about Irena, per se.

It’s about a bus driver.

It’s about a day when she’s traveling across town by bus with a very young Jewish child, and partway to their destination the child looks up and asks a question - in Yiddish. and the whole bus goes quiet, because everyone knows what that means. And Irena thinks, okay, we’re going to die here today.

And she’s running through her options - all of them bad - and suddenly the bus stops, and the bus driver announces that there’s been a mechanical failure and the bus needs to return to the depot immediately. Everyone off, please.

And she stands and goes to get off the bus and the driver says - not you two. Sit down. So she sits down as everyone else leaves, because, well, what else is she going to do? the options are all still bad, at this point.

and when the bus is empty the bus driver says,

“Where do you need to go?”

And then he drives them as close to their destination as he can, and lets them off, and drives away. And Irena lives, and the kid lives, and they never cross paths again.

So a janitor got three people killed, and a bus driver saved two lives - not to mention all the other lives indirectly saved because Irena was able to continue her work.

I think about that almost every day now, to be honest.

We can’t all be Irena. I couldn’t be Irena. She was in a unique place with very specific skills and connections that let her do what she did. I am just one mentally ill librarian. I can’t be her. But - I can be the bus driver. Or I could be the janitor. Because it doesn’t matter what your job is. It doesn’t matter who you are. In a world like this, every single one of us has the opportunity to do massive harm or massive good. We can save lives or end them.

And that’s scary. but it’s also very comforting? at least for me. Because at the end of the day it means this: no matter of how small and helpless and unimportant you feel, you’re never powerless in the face of great evil.

The content allowed on AO3 is legal according to American law. This is a sensible place to draw the line when your explicitly stated aim is to have a fanfiction site where the content is not subjected to random purges for obscure reasons

AO3 is run by a non-profit organisation. Nobody is making any money out of this, and when the donation drive goal is exceeded, excess money will go to running the site in the future and fighting potential legal battles for the right to create fanworks

It's possible to donate to AO3 and various charities etc, stop acting as though every cent donated to AO3 is a cent taken from "people who need it more"

Good Omens, the book, was not originally written as a queer love story.

Good Omens, in any adaptation--including but not limited to the TV show is not obligated to be a queer love story, either.

Neil Gaiman is not being a bad ally by being vague about the potential (or lack of potential) for a queer love story in Good Omens, the product he wrote with a friend in 1990 or any adaptions of said media because Good Omens is a comedy with biblical themes about the thwarting of the end of the world. Whether or not a queer romance (by your personal definition of what is queer enough) can be derived from that is, honestly?, not Neil Gaiman's responsibility. No creator owes you the story you want exactly how you want it. They couldn't even do that if they tried, in fact.

By playing this "wait and see" card re: Good Omens S2, Gaiman isn't trying to trick you (re: queerbaiting). He's trying not to spill the beans on a property that is still in production -- a pretty normal thing to do in this age of rampant parasocialism and concerns re: the impact of spoilers on the consumer experience.

If you motherfuckers want blatant queer romances with kissing/sex or whatever else you feel you need to check the "yep this is canon" box you've built, then there is other media out there and other creators you can bully discuss their content with, hopefully with WAY more basic human decency than you've exhibited about Good Omens at its co-creator previously.

The knowledge you would all be just as shitty to Prachett if he were alive is equally disheartening.

The “getting it done in an unconventional way” method.

The “it’s not cheating to do it the easy way” method.

The “fuck what you’re supposed to do” method.

The “get stuff done while you wait” method.

The “you don’t have to do everything at once” method.

The “it doesn’t have to be permanent to be helpful” method.

The “break the task into smaller steps” method.

The “treat yourself like a pet” method.

The “it doesn’t have to be all or nothing” method.

The “put on a persona” method.

The “act like you’re filming a tutorial” method.

The “you don’t have to do it perfectly” method.

The “wait for a trigger” method.

The “do it for your future self” method.

The “might as well” method.

The “when self discipline doesn’t cut it” method.

The “taking care of yourself to take care of your pet” method.

The “make it easy” method.

The “junebugging” method.

The “just show up” method.

The “accept when you need help” method.

The “make it into a game” method.

The “everything worth doing is worth doing poorly” method.

The “trick yourself” method.

The “break it into even smaller steps” method.

The “let go of should” method.

The “your body is an animal you have to take care of” method.

The “fork theory” method.

I’m going to try it.