poise & propriety • he/him

Oh my god oh my god oh my god. Guys. This is so exciting. I am a ball of hype.

Okay – so – ahem. There is this academic field called fan studies. I've just finished a master's degree and my final thesis was in that field. (Technically, my field is LIS, library and information science. Don't worry, it overlaps.) Today, my university uploaded my thesis to the institutional repository, so now everyone can read it! It's right there! Look! LOOK AT IT I'm so proud!

TL;DR:

This study looks into a group of Good Omens fans' opinions about AO3's search and tagging systems, and also talks about their thoughts about fandom overall. Specifically, I wanted to figure out whether things like amount of time using AO3, experience using other fanfiction sites, level of comfort with AO3's tagging system, or experience in LIS/librarianship or IT make any difference to a person's opinions about search and tagging on AO3. (There were no strong correlations in my data, but there were plenty of interesting qualitative observations to talk about.) I also looked at how, exactly, people go about searching AO3 in practice, what features they like to use, what things trip them up, and so on, using a fun method from the computer science field of human–computer interaction.

And no one is ever ready for the switch, and even after it happens they can never fully prepare themselves for what they’re going to get. Shane has learned that when he’s going to do that he should take them aside to give them the card rather than in front of people

Once Shane feels comfortable with Hayden as a genuinely good friend in his birthday card that year he writes out a whole thing about how he’s always wanted a best friend like other kids had but never had one and had accepted he never would, and then Hayden came into his life and gave him a level of love and friendship he never thought he would get and he loves everything about Hayden and can’t wait to be by his side as friends and brothers for the rest of their lives. Hayden fully breaks down and loses it, Jackie notices they’ve been gone a while and walks into the kitchen to see Hayden hugging Shane and sobbing into his shoulder. She raises her eyebrows at Shane and Shane just gives her the OK sign and goes back to rubbing Hayden’s back

Ilya learns about the card thing when it’s yunas birthday and he notices her opening Shane’s card like she’s deactivating a bomb. She stares silently as she reads it and Ilya starts freaking out a little when she starts to tear up and then pulls Shane in for a long silent hug. He looks at it later and sees that Shane wrote about how the last year made him realize over again how lucky he is to have someone as strong and supportive as her as a mother and he hopes to one day be half the parent to his own kids as she was to him

When it’s their first time having Ilya’s birthday together he’s legitimately nervous because this is his first Shane Card and he doesn’t know what to expect and part of him is afraid he’s built it up too much in his head and Shane won’t have as nice things to say as he did with other people. And then he opens the envelope and there’s no card but instead multiple pieces of paper because Shane couldn’t fit it all into a limited space. Ilya spends the better part of the next hour walking around the house reading it, taking breaks occasionally to cry or hyperventilate before going back to reading it because holy shit does Shane Hollander love him. Like he knew logically that Shane did but now he’s got pages and pages of Shane walking him through his feelings over the last decade of their life and every moment he remembered and cherished. Shane finally catches up to him and he’s on the floor of the kitchen, face a splotchy red mess, chugging Gatorade because he’s dehydrated from crying

This is a spot from an italian estate agency (we are governed by the right-wing party)

The woman says "Ridiculous..."

In the late 1970s, a brand started in Canada that was the store brand for all the Loblaw-based supermarkets. That brand was called "No Name" to denote that it wasn't like Kraft or Hershey or whatever, this was not a name. (I'm not sure if everywhere calls the in-store brand or a generic brand a "no name brand" but we call all store brands in Canada "no name brands" by default, this is the official No Name brand)

They are also known for being less expensive, sometimes lower quality, and very very simple, but recognizable branding style.

Over the next few decades, this just became a part of Canadian grocery shopping. If you shopped in a Loblaw grocery store (Real Canadian Superstore, No Frills, Independent, etc) you will see the iconic plain yellow packaging. And that was what it was. A plain yellow box just saying what the product was. Eventually the product was labelled in French as well.

In the 90's they shifted to add images to the packaging to just make sure people knew what they were getting, (even though some people, me included, felt it was a bit less fun than getting a box of cereal that just said 'cereal').

So now in grocery stores, we see this:

This is a genuine product. There are hundreds of different kinds of products that look like this. And in Canada, everyone likely has at least one No Name product hiding in their pantry. Because, come on, baking soda is baking soda.

Recently, the company who owns this brand has decided to play with the popularity. There are now funny yellow things you can buy that just describe the thing.

These are jokes for Canadians, basically. Using the iconic branding in a silly, cheeky way, making fun of itself.

So! Just to go back and make sure you understand...

This is a real product:

And this is a Canadian inside joke:

I highly recommend googling No Name Brand. Thank you for attending my TED talk.

See the two versions of her first line below:

1. Have proof they're a teenager first. More than just a picture, have a video call with them.

2. If you want to meet up with them, have your parents or a trusted adult come with you. Even if they are a proven teenager, its still good to have supervision in case any issues happen.

3. If you are talking to an adult, and they start being sexual in any way, you run the fuck away. It doesn't matter if they're 40 or 20. An adult inherently has a power dynamic that teenagers do not. And its up to the adult to act responsible about it. There's exceptions of course, if you're 16 and dating an 18 year old, that's not a problem, we're not talking about that.

4. Being in a server with adults or ran by adults is not inherently bad. Talking to adults is not inherently a problem, and will likely happen in any number of Discord servers. It is only an issue when they are acting sexual and show predatory behavior.

5. Look out for grooming behavior. It can be difficult, because at first it seems like innocuous behavior, like complimenting or giving gifts. Especially if you feel lonely and have low self esteem. And groomers actively target people like that.

If they start trying to isolate you, talk sexual with you, state they depend on you for emotional needs, blame you for their own actions, try to be secretive about the relationship- Then you need to talk to people you trust, block the perpetrator, and call the police on them.

This thread right here. Just all of this. We all need to keep this stuff in mind, along with everybody tagging their hate/love properly, if we're ever gonna get over this stupid divide. Both sides need to stop stalking each other, jumping on each other's posts to insult them and tell them how wrong they are, and firing anons and DMs full of death threats back and forth. We both also need to STOP DENYING the other side is being attacked too. I guarantee you there are assholes on BOTH SIDES attacking the other. If all you see is your own circle of lovers/haters, then all you'll see is the attacks on your own side. That doesn't mean attacks on the other side aren't happening and we ALL need to acknowledge that fact. BOTH SIDES need to start calling out the bad apples their own camps. Even if we don't know who they are, we can ALL still condemn the behavior openly on our blogs and in the main tags and make it clear to whoever is doing it that it's NOT WELCOME HERE. I don't care if you hated the finale or loved it, we ALL need to come together and work TOGETHER to STOP this before it gets even worse.

So nah, I don't actually think that people on any sides should have a duty to do that. Although everyone is free to do that when it suits them, of course.

(Except for the people who have themselves harassed/threatened/etc – imo those people have a duty to stop, apologise, and distance themselves from their previous behaviour.)