Gaywatch

This month and every month I want to send out my love and respect to everybody who has been brave enough to be honest about the way they feel, to live their lives as they are, how they feel they should be, and how they identify.

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Simon coping with it all and Grace happy to help

I’m still trying to figure out posting everything to Ao3 but I fully intend to!

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Lying* I’m again very stupid

Inventory time!

Missing- arm, sapling, large amounts of radioactive human blood

Accounted for -unmutated Simon, the iron lung black box, clothes and sheath

the subject of Knox's talk was mainly how, on the right, this deep belief in the innate power of the written word is a large part of what drives efforts to have books removed or banned from public libraries, as if good "normal" white children are going to instantly become polyamorous atheist antifa supersoldiers if they're exposed to degenerate filth like And Tango Makes Three.

I am asexual. I don't mind reading spicy books on occasion, as long as it's not surprise spice, but I don't write it. It bores me and makes me uncomfortable, and my misery comes through in every word.

The publishing industry has been chasing fads for a long time. There was the magic school boom post Harry Potter, the YA supernatural romance that dominated after Twilight, and then YA dystopia after The Hunger Games. Likewise, there has always been authors that have been urged to chase those trends for the sake of sales.

As for cheap low quality fast fashion books, those have also always existed. The entire reason for the term "penny dreadful" is because the Victorians were pumping out short and cheap scandalous books that existed solely to get as many people as possible to buy them. And not to mention pulp-- named because it was made on low quality paper because these books weren't meant to last-- which dominated the sci-fi and fantasy industry for decades. They were also designed to be cheap and low quality, and if any book genres were pumping unnecessary sex in to attract more readers, it was sci-fi and fantasy.

sometimes I’m reminded that there are still people who don’t know ao3 was literally created by incest shippers — and the site’s sole purpose is to 1. be completely against censorship and 2. host all kinds of dark, taboo fics that are banned on other platforms — and the first ever fic that was posted on ao3 was a fic about an incest ship from supernatural.

you are in the house that was created by freaks. for freaks (affectionate). every disgusting thing you can think of is rightfully allowed and welcomed on ao3, because they are exactly the reasons why ao3 was created in the first place.

ao3 was created because its creators got tired of censorship, they got tired of dark and taboo fics getting banned on pro-censorship platforms, and they wanted a place that was safe for ALL FICS THAT WERE DARK AND TABOO.

ao3’s main principle is being against censorship and being proship / profic.

there are some things in fiction that make me uncomfortable, but instead of shaming people who are just minding their own business and not harming anyone in real life, I choose to curate my own internet experience by blocking/muting what I don’t want to see. ao3 has excellent tagging system, so instead of being a bitch, use their tagging system properly and you won’t see the things you don’t want to see.

it’s your job to curate what you see. it’s not other people’s jobs or responsibilities to censor themselves for your personal comfort. the world does not revolve around you.

also you cannot censor “only the things you personally hate” without expecting everything else, that isn’t of conservative beliefs, to be censored too. because censorship is a slippery slope and a fascist tool. I promise you there are people who think “why do tags for queer love even exist on ao3? they’re grooming children”.

if you allow the things that you hate to be censored — because someone with enough power gets to control what other people can and cannot create/consume, it will not stop at the things that you hate.