pieces of you & i

You sure have seen this post. It has spread like wildfire over the past few days so I doubt there is any artist out there who hasn’t seen it. But even if you didn’t, you should read on because I’m about to tell you a handy little thing that can help you to protect your art from such assholes as the anon who submitted this bullcrap, as well as art thieves in general.

The magic word is Metadata.

Metadata is like an invisible signature that is embeded into a file. It can contain all kinds of information, like Title, date, keywords for online seach engines, and copyright information. And the best thing is, since this information is “hidden” in the code of your picture, it’s hard to remove it.

There is a nice basic tutorial on how to add Metadata, or “additional file information” to your images in photoshop. It’s really, really easy so check it out!

“Adding Your Contact And Copyright Info To Your Photos With Photoshop” on PhotoshopEssentials.com

I’m not sure if you can do the same with any other art program. If you know how to do this in other programs / can confirm that it works the same way there, please tell me so I can add the information to this post.

me: /opens metadata

Extra Dry Skin King of Skin In-Shower Body Conditioner, Skin Drink Facial Moisturizer, Sultana of Soap Bar, Tender is the Night Massage Bar, Each’s a Peach Massage Bar

Acne Fresh Farmacy Solid Cleanser, Eau Roma Toning Water, Full of Grace Serum Bar

Thickening Lashes Eyes Right Mascara / Lash Milk

Edges R&B Hair Moisturizer (if you put this on your edges before wrapping your hair, they’ll be relaxer-straight when you wake up, lasts about 12 hours), Dirty Styling Cream (cream-based edge control with a matte finish, no more shiny or crunchy edges) 

FACE / HAIR STUFF

Magical Moringa Facial Moisturizer Oh my lordy. Let me tell y'all about this stuff. It’s marketed as a moisturizer but I use it as a primer because when you put this on your face, it’s completely matte. Like completely. All day. And it will lock your makeup in place like no other. You can sweat in it, swim in it, whatever. Shit won’t budge. Ever.

Jason & the Argan Oil Shampoo Bar Amazing for volumizing. It made the three bundles in my head look more like five when I used this thing the first time, I kid you not. Also gives your hair a really natural shine. I only use it when I really need a volume boost, otherwise it’s just too much.

No Drought Dry Shampoo If you have a weave, you need this stuff. Period. A lot of times, the natural oils in our scalps (referring to my fellow black women here) are too heavy for Brazilian, Peruvian, etc hair, and so it’s easy for weave to get weighed down between washes. Shake this stuff in your hair, brush it out - bam, flow city.

Honey Trap Lip Balm My favorite lip balm, ever. Really improves the texture of your lips and seals in moisture. However, this is not for fixing chapped lips - use Ultrabalm for that first, and then this to prevent them from chapping again. Also, pro-tip, if you apply it before liquid lipstick, your lipstick won’t crease or dry out all day.

MASSAGE BARS

Strawberry Feels Forever Smells like fresh strawberries! Has a much thinner consistency than the other massage bars, so it can be used every day, like a solid lotion.

Soft Coeur Smells like chocolate and honey, and is ridiculously moisturizing. More heavy-duty than the other bars, so I like to only use this one on spots like my knees, heels, and elbows.

From Dusk til Dawn The shape of this one is amazing. It’s shaped like a cone, so it gives a deep massage when you’re using it. Definitely recommend if you have any sort of muscle pain.

SCRUBS

The Rough with the Smooth This stuff smells soooo good. Like cotton candy. I use it before I shave because it really does an amazing job at removing any dead skin and it doesn’t leave a residue, so it won’t clog your razor. However, it’s a sugar scrub, so it melts super quickly.

Ocean Salt This is a heavy-duty scrub. Really amazing if you have dry, flaky skin, and the healing properties of the salt are really great if you have acne. It’ll dry it up and heal it super quick.

Cup o’ Coffee Face & Body Mask I’m on my fourth jar of this already. The coffee beans are ground up just enough to give a deep, yet gentle scrub and the caffeine in the bar really does wake up your skin and make it look brighter. Great for the morning.

Buffy It smells like a vacation, that’s really the only way to describe it. It’s an exfoliant bar and body butter mixed together, so you rub it all over while you’re still in the shower, and then rinse the sand off. After, rub the oils in and pat dry. No need for lotion after because it seals in the moisture from your shower.

SHOWER GELS / JELLIES

Rose Jam Shower Gel Smells like roses and has a really bubbly lather. More cleansing than moisturizing. I like to use it before a more moisturizing soap because it’s great for removing dirt and oil from the skin.

The Olive Branch Shower Gel A long-time favorite of mine. Great for dry skin, as it has a really creamy lather versus a bubbly one. Also, the smell is very calming and lingers for a long time.

Needles & Pines Shower Jelly It’s a solid shower gel (consistency of jello), and it smells like Christmas trees! I like to store it in the fridge and use it when it’s hot outside, super cleansing and refreshing.

SOAPS:

Roses All the Way Personal favorite! Smells like roses & vanilla ice cream. Super moisturizing and so, so creamy. Definitely buy if you suffer from dry skin.

Yog Nog Very moisturizing and the scent lingers for a really long time. Smells like snickerdoodles and eggnog.

Bohemian Not at all creamy, as it’s an exfoliating soap. It’s great to use on dark spots like knees and armpits because the exfoliants soften the skin and the lemon juice evens out your skintone. Smells like lemons.

Karma Another favorite. It has a super thin consistency but is still very moisturizing, so it’s a good shaving soap because it won’t gunk up your razor. Smells like incense and patchouli.

Figs & Leaves Smells like dirt and grass, in a good way. Super cleansing. As in your skin will literally squeak after using it, so I recommend using an in-shower moisturizer like King of Skin after using it.

OTHER:

Atomic Toothy Tabs Solid toothpaste that you crush up in your mouth. It sounds weird but these things are phenomenal. They really leave your teeth squeaky clean, and are the sole reason my teeth are so white - I don’t use any whitening products. This particular kind smells like cloves and cinnamon.

Ultrabalm All Purpose Balm This stuff is amazing. It’s an all-over balm for rough spots. I use it in the winter time on my hands and lips, because they get dry. I also use it year round on my face where I get dry spots, as it doesn’t clog pores.

Sarah is allergic to strawberries. As soon as she puts them in her mouth, her face swells up and she gets hives. It’s non-life-threatening but uncomfortable for her.  

Sally is also allergic to strawberries, and has the same symptoms. 

Sarah informs her friends she is allergic to strawberries so they can stop using them in shared food. Some of them even stop eating strawberries too (or, at least, stop eating them around her), so she is more comfortable. Sarah researches places she can eat out that will take care with her allergy, and chooses restaurants who agree they can accommodate her, or who do not use strawberries in any of their cooking. 

Sally, on the other hand, goes into restaurants specifically advertising only strawberry desserts, orders a dessert, and makes a huge fuss when she gets sick. She takes to social media, the local newspapers, everywhere, to tell people how terrible this restaurant is for not specifically accommodating her personal allergy. She goes back frequently to insult and harass specific staff. Some staff have even quit because of her. Sally says it is her personal right to have her allergy accommodated in every single place she feels like eating! She posts pictures of herself all swollen and ill everywhere and blames the restaurant and the staff for her discomfort. 

Be like Sarah, not like Sally. 

Every book in a public library has to earn its spot on the shelf. If no one checks it out, then it will be weeded from the collection to make way for a book that will circulate. So, if you check out a book, you’ve just given it a much a better chance at being there for someone else to discover!

A recently returned book is more likely to be propped up as a display in the tiny nooks around the library. Every shelver loves an empty display space because it means they can quickly get rid of several books. A book on display is more likely to catch someone’s eye and on and on!

You might not be able to tell this just by looking at the shelves, but when a book first comes out from an author, the library often buys several copies and based on how many people have reserved the title and how heavily it circulates, they might buy even more copies! Also, when purchasing a new title from an established author, many librarians will look at the circ stats of the author’s other books and will use that as a guide for how many copies to buy of the new book. In case you didn’t know, libraries buy a lot of books - we make up a huge portion of the book sales market.

Many people use the library as a way to discover new authors. It’s a risk-free investment and helps them experiment with a lot of different titles that they wouldn’t be able to if they had to buy all of them. And if they really love an author, they might become a life-long fan who will buy their books for years to come, all because of kismet at the library.

If you check out the book at the library, your librarian can make a better case for inviting the author to come to the library for an event for which they can get paid! This is especially true for lesser-known authors.

In conclusion, borrowing a book from the library is a wonderful thing to do. It helps make sure other people have access to that book in the future, creating an ever-wider audience for the author.

Final Fantasy I - Four Heroes Break A Time Loop

Final Fantasy II - Star Wars Where The Emperor Dies And Then Comes Back As The Devil And Then Dies Again And Then Comes Back As God And Then Gets Killed By Obi-wan

Final Fantasy III - Four Orphans Fight A Man Who Threw A Hissy Fit Over His Inheritance

Final Fantasy IV - Star Wars But The Emperor Is  A Space Ghost On The Moon

Final Fantasy V - Evil Giving Tree And His Gay Lover Fight A Confused Harem Protagonist And His Princesses

Final Fantasy VI - Star Wars But The Emperor Is Killed And Replaced By The Joker Halfway Through, Racism is Bad

Final Fantasy VII - Eco-terrorists Recruit Man With Padded Resume, Discover Corporate Greed Has Caused Giant Meteor To Be Elected, Hold Recount

Final Fantasy VIII - A Group of Cadets Find Out They All Lived At The Same Orphanage: Amnesia To Blame, Lead May Be Dead

Final Fantasy IX - Star Wars But The Main Characters Are Either Clones Or Princesses

Final Fantasy X - Daddy Issues, the Real Sports Story, With Special Guest Christian Guilt Complex

Final Fantasy XI - Giraffe And Friends Stop The Writer From Erasing This Game

Final Fantasy XII - Star Wars But Half The Bad Guys Aren’t Actually That Bad.  Except Judge Bergan, That Guy Is A Dick

Final Fantasy XIII - Being The Chosen One Will Kill Your Dating Life

Final Fantasy XIV - Heroes Saved The World From Bad Gameplay, Bugs

Hey guys!

Sign-ups for the detergent exchange is open now! For more information check out the rules, faq and the intended schedule information can be found on tumblr and AO3!

although it’s true AO3 does allow all fannish content provided it’s properly warned for, there’s a long history there - of spaces being used by fans until the host decided whatever we were doing was too weird and distasteful and either kicking us off, banning certain content, or changing the nature of the site until it was no longer viable as a host.

you’re referring to the LJ Strikethrough of 2007, which, being an ancient crone, I lived through, and since I was hanging out in the last vestiges of SGA and in bandom, I saw some of the fallout. this was before LJ was sold to the Russians (which is a whole ‘nother story), when it was still owned by Six Apart; in an effort to clean up LJ’s act, Six Apart decided to delete all accounts using tags like underage, incest, rape, etc.

this was supposed to get rid of actual child porn on the site, and I hope it did, but it also targeted fan communities. this was a problem for a couple reasons; for one thing, not every story tagged with these words is in favor of them; for another, these things happen to real people and these personal posts were also potentially in danger of being attacked; for the last one, look, I ain’t into this kind of fic but people write about what people write about, and if it’s fictional and not explicitly banned in the TOS (correct me if I’m wrong; I don’t think written content about this stuff was banned?) then it’s not cool for a content host to just start deleting communities without warning.

but that’s what happened! these deletions were also primarily targeting slash communities, which smacked of some serious homophobia since things were deleted that had nothing to do with any of this kind of content.

eventually someone found out it was this super conservative religious group who’d sent a list of journal names to Six Apart, and who if I remember correctly targeted slash fic on purpose, even after it became clear that the fic was, well, totally fictional. after a while, Six Apart admitted they’d made a mistake and started to reinstate journals, but all of fandom was pretty shaken up.

THEN Boldthrough happened, which was essentially the same debacle several months later, at which point fandom began its long slow migration from LJ to GJ, IJ, and eventually AO3, Twitter, and tumblr.

AO3 was opened in 2008 in response to several incidents, of which Strikethrough was a really intense one. remember, also, that back in 2008 the stigma surrounding fandom was significantly greater and more shameful than it is today, so finding hosts willing to archive fic was difficult unless someone had the dough to pay for server space - often not an option. this was also back when fanfic.net’s HTML restrictions were so great that users couldn’t use any special characters or bold or italicize anything, and it didn’t allow R-rated content, so it was clearly not ideal. in addition, although cease & desist letters were much less common than they were in the early 2000s and before, DMCA takedowns were still a phantom on the horizon.

LONG STORY SHORT, even though pedophilia is reprehensible and I personally cannot stomach fanfic that involves that kind of content, AO3 was founded specially as a safe space for fandom communities that could not find homes elsewhere. it requires warnings precisely for that reason, and if you find a story that is not properly warned, you can alert the admins and get the story labeled appropriately.

In the same way, writing about underage teens getting it on–sometimes with each other, sometimes with adults, sometimes consensually, sometimes not–is not the same as child pornography, nor does reading a fic about Hermione and Snape getting it on while she was his student mean someone thinks that would be a good and/or healthy thing in real life.

Fiction affects reality, but fiction is not reality.  And writing about something does not mean you want to do it in real life, or believe that anyone should.

Let’s take a closer look at that “Ao3 supports pedophilia!” shall we?

1) The only fics I have ever come across that had actual pedophilia (i.e. someone having sex with a child), it was clearly and explicitly abuse.  It was not meant to titillate or arouse.  It was meant to horrify.  It was seldom explicit.

2) There’s a lot more incest, but it is usually portrayed either as explicitly mutually consensual (i.e. Sam/Dean) or as abusive.

3) I’ve been in fandom for a decade and a half.  When people start getting upset at “omg pedophilia, think of the children!” the fics they are usually objecting to aren’t actually pedophilia.  Usually, it is teenagers having sex, especially queer sex.  And people don’t like that, and use pedophilia as an excuse to shame people for writing/reading sex they don’t like.

Let’s look closer at Strikethrough, shall we?  I hope that, if there were any communities of actual pedophiles on LJ, they got taken down, too.  But here are some of the communities that got taken down that were not in any way supporting pedophilia and/or rape and/or incest that got taken down:

1) at least one support community for survivors of sexual abuse.

2) a literary book discussion group that was reading Lolita.

3) lots of slash fanfic communities, for things like Draco/Harry fic set in their fourth year (when both boys would have been 15).

Basically, this very conservative “family values” group hated porn, and they hated queer stuff even more, and used “but think of the children, it’s pedophilia!” to pressure LJ to get rid of huge swathes of things they didn’t like.  And one time taking down the worst of it wasn’t good enough for them.  No, this was step one on a moral crusade.  If you acceded to their demands, all that did was whet their appetite, and soon they would be back with a new list of demands.  This is why the 2007 strikethrough was not an isolated event, but rather one of a series of events, nor was LJ the only website thus targeted.  It starts with anything that can get labelled “pedophilia” or “incest” because that’s low-hanging fruit.  But they use that to go after anything relating to queer teen sexuality.  Then anything with teen sexuality.  Then once the community is already divided and diminished, they go after anything with non-con.  Then whatever is next on their list.  It doesn’t stop until they’ve won the point and nothing but suitably “family-friendly” fics that match their purity test are allowed.

Which is why AO3 has no morality content in their terms of service.  You can’t break copyright beyond fair use (and AO3 has an expansive view of “fair use” and a team of lawyers on call).  You can’t use AO3 for commercial advertising.  And you can’t post ACTUAL child pornography, i.e. the things that are legally prohibited, i.e. actual photographs or videos of actual children (not teens) in sexually explicit positions–you know, the stuff that actually hurts kids.  Other than that?  It’s fair game.  You can post anything you want, and the archive will not judge.  There is no handle for the Moral Majority Family-Friendly Thought Police to latch onto, no cracks they can exploit to divide and conquer.

During this period, Dreamwidth was also targeted by attacking its payment processor. They had to get a new one. These “Warriors” (literally called themselves that!) were totally on board with destroying fandom as a side effect of destroying the parts of fandom they didn’t like.

AO3 and OTW are HUGE, because now we have an organization, with very smart women and a lot of lawyers, that have our back. Fannish history is important, people! It has not always been this way.

LJ was, for many people, central.  

It was a fundamental part of the infrastructure of fandom at the time.  

Having it attacked, having parts of your fandom’s territory just deleted like that, was very very scary.  People didn’t know who was next.  Every day, the list of stricken journals grew.  And not all of them came back, not all of them recovered their content.  Some people even voluntarily deleted their content as a form of protest.  It was a bad time.

You do not have to interact with fic that grosses you out or makes you uncomfortable.  Tagging is a thing.  And even outside of tags, you are responsible for curating your own fandom experience.  It is not right to expect it to be curated for you.  And it is not right to lash out when someone refuses to do so and expects you to walk away from things that do not concern you.

I was gonna say “things that don’t harm anyone” but I realize you can argue that.  If you get triggered, that’s upsetting.  That could be considered harm.  And I have sympathy for that.  I do.

I have run across fic that triggered me.  I have pretty specific triggers, and people don’t always think to warn for them because they aren’t that big a deal for a lot of people.  Or it’s sort of bundled into kink and is presumed, that if you’re okay with certain kinds of kink, you’re okay with this.  So I’ve been blindsided by it before.  And it sucks for a couple of days while I get over it.

That was not the fault of the authors! You could argue that tagging should have been used, and maybe it should, but ultimately that’s not an ironclad obligation.  It’s a tool people provide out of courtesy.

That was not the fault of the site!  The site is there to give authors a way to make fiction available, not to judge each work and interrogate its validity and make sure everything is tagged so that nobody has to see anything bad, ever.

That was not even my fault!  It was my responsibility to try to curate my experience, and I tried, but it wasn’t my fault because I didn’t deliberately set out to trigger myself.

When I get triggered, unless it is by a deliberate act, it is actually the fault of the people who hurt me in the first place! And I refuse to let them off the hook and blame perfectly innocent people who just wanna write their fanfiction! I may hate that fanfiction, but that is irrelevant to the question of whether or not people should be allowed to post whatever they want.

Also, some people cope by writing about fucked-up shit.  My best friend in the whole wide world has shared her fic with me, and HOO BOY it is messed up. She wrote it during a time in her life when she was in and just coming out of a horrifically abusive relationship.  I mean, it was exactly the kind of relationship all of us here on Tumblr love to hate.  She was married to a shitty, abusive man who preyed on someone younger than he was and used his influence over her to treat her in a way that would be right at home in that Lundy Bancroft book Why Does He Do That?  He was a real rapist, a verified grade-A bad fuckin’ guy.  (She was lucky to escape.  I have immense respect for her.)  And she wrote some fucked up fic to deal with it, and she shared it, and people were invested in it.  And because this was early 2000′s, she had to host it on a foreign server and cover her tracks, because at that time no-place was safe to post it.

“Yeah, but if she’s writing it for therapy, she doesn’t have to post it where other people might have to see it!” I hear you say.

But like … what the hell??? “Shut up, don’t talk about it, it’s bad to talk about these things, because these things are bad!” is something used against folks with trauma.

“This isn’t good for me, I can’t talk about this, I can’t be your audience for this,” that’s fine, those are boundaries that people with trauma use to defend themselves.  You should learn to say those things!  It will help you!

But expecting other people to never create and share art about trauma is just so thunderously oppressive I lack the ability to fully articulate it.

And nobody should have to disclose their history of trauma to prove their motives are pure or virtuous enough for their speech to be protected.  I’ve only really been able to openly say “I was assaulted, it was traumatic, I am a little fucked up from it” for the past couple of years, tops.  I couldn’t talk about it before that.  Couldn’t!  And it was over 20 years ago!

I also believe, very firmly, that you don’t need a history of abuse to find writing really messed-up shit satisfying, or to find reading it cathartic.  I believe 100% in the freedom of creative expression, and the freedom to read whatever fucked up shit you want to read.

All y’all fandom youngsters can spit nails all you want over gross rape fic, incest fic, whatever.

Fine, I don’t like it either!

But that fucked up shit?  That fucked up shit helped carve out the spaces we have today.  You don’t have to like it, but campaigning to get it deleted, harassing content creators, calling people rapists and pedophiles who have never done and would never ever do such a thing, that is not the way to improve the world, it doesn’t keep actual kids or teens or assault/rape victims safe.  It wouldn’t have made me feel safe when I was 16 and did’t want what was going on.  It doesn’t make me feel safe now.  I can say with the perspective of someone 24 years away from that event, it doesn’t make the world safer for people like I was.  It actually makes it worse.

Learn to steer clear of the messed-up stuff you don’t like.  It’s a skill, you get better with practice.  Have someone else vet stuff for you if you need help doing it now.

Everything that is sketchy and gross is not criminal, and writing about a thing is not morally the same as doing it.  Please stop acting like writing about an adult and a teenager having really questionable, gross sex is as bad as the actual registered sex offender they caught hanging around an actual elementary school two neighborhoods over from mine, just trying to talk to the kids.  The former is, at most, in poor taste, and potentially triggering to abuse victims.  The second makes me want to vomit because even though he was just talking, that guy was gearing up to try something and create another abuse victim.  A g a i n.  

The first can be avoided because it is imaginary and you, an adult, have power over your back button so that you don’t have to witness harm to imaginary people.  The second, those very real kids had to rely on real adults and real law enforcement to keep them safe from very real assault.   (It worked!  The neighborhood rallied!  He was arrested for violating parole!)

Pretty sure Sleazebag McDongface didn’t read some gross NC-17 Draco/Lucius fic before deciding to harm an actual human being.  Pretty sure not having read it didn’t keep him from doing it. ‘Cause he fuckin’ did it.  And he would have done worse. But actual people stopped him.

I get wanting to protect victims when so many of us are victims ourselves, but man, going after fiction is not the way to do it.