My Mind

SO YOU WRITE DOWN A WORD

BUT ITS NOT THE RIGHT WORD

SO YOU TRY A NEW WORD

BUT YOU HATE THE NEW WORD

AND YOU NEED A GOOD WORD

BUT YOU CANT FIND THE WORD

OH WHERE IS IT

WHAT IS IT

WHAT IS IT

WHERE IS IT-

Everyone who is reading this: I’m so glad you’re alive. I’m so proud of you. You are loved. I’m here. Don’t give up, we’re almost there.

Fanfiction is fiction.

Fictional people are not real.

Fictional people do not have rights.

Fictional people cannot be abused.

Reading or writing about something does not mean the desire to do or support it in the real world.

If I find art upsetting/triggering/disgusting/outraging/unpleasant/squicky/distressing/offensive, it is on me not to read it, not the creators and hosts to remove it.

Curate your own experience. The back buttons exist for a reason.

If you don't trust yourself to do that, get someone you trust to do it for you.

Fandom is an adult space. Adults create and own and host fandom spaces. If minors want to participate, then the onus is on them and their parents/guardians/trusted adults to ensure they participate appropriately, not on strange adults to stop being adults.

You often don't know the assault status or mental health status or neurotype or race or nationality or religion or gender or sexuality or age of a creator or consumer, and they do not have to disclose to you to justify their fantasy.

AO3 is not a safe space. It is not intended to be a safe space. Proceed accordingly.

Just because you don't like something or find it offensive doesn't mean it is a "problem" that "has to be dealt with".

Most characters in anime are not white.

There is no onus on you to reblog or share anything.

Everyone makes mistakes in fandom and is less than their best self sometimes.

Persistent pseudonyms encourage long term relationships.

Ship wars are stupid.

Someone else enjoying things does not impact on your own enjoyment of other things.

Tagging and warning is a courtesy, not a requirement. Assume any fic might contain untagged content.

Rating is an imprecise art, not a science.

Don't hassle IP creators.

Most people who are in fandom are hoping to make connections based on a shared passion.

Trying to profit from transformative fanworks puts us all at risk.

No one is obligated to share your head canon or fanon.

Being kind rarely fails to pay off.

It is okay to block and remove people who make your experience unpleasant. You don't have to placate them. (Learn from my mistakes).

Britpicking is a good thing.

You don't have to justify why you like a canon/pairing/trope/kink. Sometimes navel gazing is fun, but you don't have an obligation to explain yourself, especially to strangers. I share the overwhelming desire to refute an unfair accusation, but the people accusing you are rarely doing so in good faith, so you're batting a losing wicket.

I'm not your Mum. (Well, okay, a very few of you can call me Mum or Mom, but if you are one of them you already know who you are ❤️)

For those who don’t know: 

Tom Ruegger is the original creator of Animaniacs. He’s the guy you have to thank for the iconic characters Yakko, Wakko, and Dot (for whom the primary inspiration was his own three sons.) Among many others, including the equally popular Pinky and the Brain.  He was also an involved writer/lyricist for the show and played a huge part in coming up with new song & story ideas.

Yet despite all of this, Tom was never asked back for the 2020 reboot. In fact, he wasn’t even aware that a reboot was in production until it was announced to the public. Although Tom has expressed plenty of interest in being involved in the reboot, WB/Hulu has repeatedly turned him away.

Tom’s oldest son, Nate Ruegger (voice of Skippy Squirrel,) has spoken out about this on his twitter: 

“the naked greed on display here to reboot a series without involving any of the original creative team so they can make *more* money, & then joke about it, is gross.” (x)

And he’s absolutely right. Outside of the main voice cast, none of the original team was consulted for the reboot. Tom was/is an integral part of Animaniacs. Without him, the show would never have existed, let alone become a cultural phenomenon. It doesn’t seem right for him to be cut out of the revival of a show that he is largely responsible for bringing to life in the first place.

The mistreatment and blatant disrespect of creators by big-name companies is something I’ve seen way too much of lately, and even though this is far from the first time, that doesn’t make the practice in anyway right or okay.

I’ve seen petitions for this going around, but they rarely gain enough traction, so I’m taking a more direct approach:

I’m asking fans of the series - new & old alike, regardless of your opinion on the reboot itself - to please reblog this. Or, simply spread the hashtag #BringBackTomRuegger somewhere on your social media.

So that we can let the new showrunners know that we, the fans, want to see Tom brought back for future seasons!!!

My drunk ass had actually walked home without them, pounded on my apartment door, gotten let in by my rightfully-disgruntled roommate, and proceeded to pass out on the couch.  Apparently I puked in the toilet before passing out.  I do not remember this part.

The next morning, I schlepped back to the frat house.  I stood there, right in front of the front door.  This was a novel experience for me.  I’d never been at a frat house in broad daylight before.

A boy, presumably, of the house, asked me what I was doing. 

“I lost my keys in here last night,” I called back.  “I was seeing if I could go in and look for them?”

He opened the door and gestured for me to come in.

“Go wherever you want.”

I’d never seen a frat house post-party before.  Wandering up the stairs and through the halls, I was surrounded by hungover and still-drunk frat boys stumbling around in their socks and sandals and gym shorts, seeking out food and showers like moths to a porch light.  A few of them threw puzzled glances my way.  I’m sure they thought I was some post-bacchanalia hallucination.

I entered one room where a boy was drunkenly watching some Old Yeller-esque movie on a tiny TV in the corner of his room from his bed.

“Do you like dog movies?” he asked, voice all mumbly from grogginess and also from the fact that his face was squished against his pillow and half-buried by his blanket.

I told him I did.

He mumbled again, pleased, and asked what I was doing.  I told him I was looking for my keys.

“Sorry, I haven’t seen any keys around here.”

I didn’t doubt him.

Twenty minutes had passed.  I’d searched just about every bedroom and nuclear-waste-dump-site of a bathroom in that house.  I’d given up on ever finding my keys and was prepared to beg my roommates’ forgiveness and get a new set copied.

As I stood there in the hallway, silently bewailing my predicament, a particularly-burly frat boy approached me.

“You need help with something?”

“I lost my keys here last night and I can’t find them, I’ve looked everywhere.”

“What do they look like?  I’ll put it into the group chat.”  He was already pulling out his phone.

No one ever checks a group chat, I thought, but what the hell.  It was worth a shot.  “Um, it’s just a ring of keys.  The keychain is a pink plastic cat, though, like yea big.  Like bright pink, you can’t miss it.”

He nodded, presumably typing this description faithfully into the group chat.

“Alright, I sent the message out.  Good luck.”

And with that, he turned and left.

A few moments later, I heard a distant thundering.  It was coming from upstairs, and it was getting louder and louder.  One assumes that how I felt in that moment was how Simba felt seeing the wildebeest stampede through the ravine as a horde of large young men all thundered down the stairs, making a beeling for me.

“Someone tell the girl!” One of them shouted, faceless in the mob.  “Girl!  Hey, GIRL!!!  We found your keys, girl!!!”

They circled around me.  I hadn’t felt that small since I was maybe eleven years old.  One of them split himself off from the crowd.

“Are these -” he pulled out a ring of keys from his pocket, “your keys?”

And lo, there was the distinctive bright millennial pink cat keychain dangling off the ring.

“Yes,” I whispered.  “Oh my god, yes.”

“EYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!”

The cheer went up.

we (the camp leaders) found the most efficient way to do so was to blast music from a tinny little speaker one of us owned.

so before the sun itself has risen, we’re walking down a corridor with 8+ rooms filled with 6 or more boys in each, blasting the one and only Let It Go from Frozen, hoping to wake a few students, preparing for hateful commentary.

instead, what we got was the thumps and shouts of boys excitedly leaping from bunk beds, stuffing on shirts and bursting into the corridor to scream the lyrics to Let It Go.

every.single.boy.did this.