she has an aversion to conviction

EVERY YEAR I'm like, "I will finish it this year. Nothing will go wrong this year. Nothing will go wrong with my body, my mind, my work, my home, my family, my laptop, my files..."

I've only ever posted one incomplete story, because it was for a fundraising challenge and I accidentally started a whole-ass novel. I still think about it all the time. I still absolutely intend to finish it.

@pea-green hey look, more fuel for your rage

The tenth anniversary of the OTW and all the AO3 discussion going around this week inspired me to go look at astolat’s original post about creating an An Archive Of Our Own, and found my comment on it:

“I think this is needed and long past needed.

There are of course huge fanfic archives out there like ff.net, but the bigger and more public the site, the more restrictive it is, the more stuff around the edges gets cut off. I don’t WANT the public face of fanfic to be only the most easily palatable stuff, with the smut and the kink and the controversial subjects marginalized and hidden under the table.

And I particularly don’t want to see us all sitting around feeling frustrated while this fabulous community is commodified out from underneath us.

I’m not fit to be a project manager, but I’m great with details and general organizational work. If someone takes this and runs with it, I’d love to help.“

“However, as I was reading the comments over there, I noticed a frustrating, but not surprising number of comments along the lines of “well, it’s a good idea, but it’s way too ambitious”

I’m not talking about the really useful and practical comments bringing up pitfalls and difficulties to be aware of from the get go with something this massive and complex, I’m talking about all the comments that go something like this:

–

Amen. I want a site like that. I’d pay money for an archive like that, and I’d invest time and effort to make sure it’s as great as it can be. […] But then I hit the realism switch in my brain and it goes ‘splodey. Because sadly it’s not a very realistic concept.

And this:

–

In a perfect world it could be an amazing thing and a great way to “rally the troops” so to speak and provide a sort-of one-stop shop for fan-fiction readers and writers. I see a couple potential problems, though.

Or this:

–

Oh god. I like what you’re saying, I really do, but I think it’s actually impossible to achieve.

and all the various comments that start with

“It sounds like a cool idea…but”

or words to that effect.

Taken separately, these comments don’t seem like much, but every time a new one showed up I couldn’t help but be reminded of

this post by commodorified, and her oh so brilliant and beautiful rant therein:

“WOMEN NEED TO LEARN TO ASK FOR EVERY DAMN THING THEY WANT.

And here are some notes:

Yes, you. Yes, everything. Yes, even that.

All of it. Because it’s true. We’re mostly raised to live on table scraps, to wait and see what’s going when everyone else has been served and then choose from what’s left. And that’s crap, and it’ll get you crap.

Forget the limited menu of things that you automatically assume is all that’s available given your (gender, looks, social class, education, financial position, reputation, family, damage level, etc etc etc), and start reading the whole menu instead.

Then figure out what you want. Then check what you’ve got and figure out how to get it. And then go after it baldheaded till either you make it happen or you decide that its real cost is more than it’s worth to you.”

And THAT is what Astolat’s post is about. It’s about saying “THIS is what we want, let’s make it happen.” It’s about aiming for the ideal, not for some artificially imposed, more “realistic” option.

And I think that’s fabulous. And I think we CAN do this, we CAN make this amazing, complicated idea happen. But in order to do so we’re going to have to be careful about those little voices inside our heads saying “well, it’s a nice idea, but” and “there’s no point in trying for that impossible thing, let’s aim for this ‘more realistic’ goal instead.”

Because, damn it, why shouldn't we ask for every damn thing we want. And why shouldn't we go out there and get it?”

I am so pleased to have been proved correct. 

(And also, in the category of “women need to ask for every damn thing they want”? I took those words to heart, which is one of many reasons Marna/commodorified and I have been married for going on eight years.)

I want to pull this out for a second because I have in fact generally spent much of my life aiming for big unrealistic goals, very few of which I’ve actually achieved, and many of which I didn’t actually want by the time I got close to them. 

The thing about aiming for “unrealistic” goals is that the work you do to achieve those goals doesn’t disappear even if you don’t achieve the goal. We still haven’t accomplished everything on our giant AO3 wishlist. There remains plenty of work to be done (and the OTW and the amazing current team working on the AO3 can always use more help, as Cesperanza says!) 

Let me talk about why I was wrong.

I manage big websites for a living. When I said “great idea, but too hard,” I was speaking from experience. ‘How hard it was going to be’ was my daily life, then and ever since. Big websites like AO3 are hard in a technical way, and they are even harder in an organisational way. To make them work takes a lot of different skills and capabilities, so you need a lot of coordination and collaboration, and there's a lot of difficult problem-solving and decision-making, and it's always fraught with office politics and turf wars. And that's what it's like when everyone involved in the website is being paid to get things done. In a volunteer-only operation, in an online organisation, distributed across the globe, the level of difficulty was going to be even harder.

When I said "great idea, but too hard," I honestly don’t think I was wrong about how hard it was going to be. I was wrong about how many people were going to work to make it happen, and how hard they were going to work.

I've watched the AO3 happen from the sidelines because I was already too busy doing this for a living to do it as a volunteer as well. I've watched it get built, and supported, and improved, by volunteers who gave their time and passion to this on top of everything else they had going on in their lives. This thread has made me think back and acknowledge the extraordinary collective effort, and sometimes the blood, sweat and tears, that went into this thing -- the Archive itself and the OTW that supports and protects it, in the early bootstrapping days and in every single goddamn year since.

It brings me SO MUCH joy that the plot of Chamber of Secrets basically happens because Lucius is terrified out of his mind of Arthur and Molly Weasley and their SEVeN kids who were all raised to hold the line in case anyone tried to start a genocidal regime again. They are so powerful and so dangerous to any attempted rise to power from the Death Eaters, and Lucius feels the need to try and marginalize and demonize them in order to decrease the threat they pose.

And boy was he right to be concerned, they are…unstoppable. Each and every one of them. You thought it was impressive that it took five Death Eaters to kill their uncles? Try having a couple Weasleys illegally on the airwaves, one destroying Voldemort’s Horcruxes, one protesting at Hogwarts, one running loose in the government, one housing escaped prisoners, and one getting foreign support!! More children than they can afford? Try more children than you can effectively stop!!

And then when they ALL show up to fight in the Battle of Hogwarts? What a trip for Lucius Malfoy! Hey bigots! Would you like to pick an opponent based on which Quidditch position they excel at, or do you wanna roll the dice and go with one of the brothers who got 12 OWLs? Those are your only two options because Weasleys are EVERYWHERE and the weak link is NO ONE. The fear that must have been in his heart when one or two of them was around every corner of the school taking down his DE pals…is so amazing to think about. Glorious. Iconic. Every Weasley has red hair, freckles, and a drive to destroy the concept of blood purity at all cost!!

Let them save their sisters who still wear the flower crowns and don’t yet have a taste for violence

Me: Alright, I guess we could do that for a bit. What do you wanna read? 

Brain: Don’t know. Wanna read. 

Me: There’s a lot to choose from. How about this? 

Brain: No. Not that. I wanna read a thing that fits these exact specifications. 

Me: Uh, alright, wow. Those are really exact specificatio-

Me: …

Me: Are you telling me you want to read the exact thing we were writing? 

Brain: YES! I wanna read that. Let’s read that. 

Me: …

Malcolm Turnbull is our Prime Minister! He doesn’t get elected the way a president does (getting less votes than his opponent), instead he gets chosen to lead the party by the party (Liberals - the conservatives. It’s confusing to Americans I know but just remember that this is the land down under where things are topsy turvy) and then must get elected in his own electorate in his own right. He does this by making sure to never tackle housing affordability because his electorate is full of rich fucks.

He might just be the first Prime Minister to serve a full term since 2007 but fingers crossed.

He rose to power off the back of Tony Abbott, which was made easier by the good firm grip he had on the knife he placed there.

His kinks are:

Taking public transport to give off the illusion of not being disconnected from the ordinary Australian despite being the richest currently elected politician in Australia

Being vocally critical of his party until he got in charge of it so he can backflip on everything he’s ever pretended to care about

Building shitty infrastructure projects that blow out of budget by billions and are headed by CEOs who don’t understand the product their providing (*cough* NBN *cough*)

This is The Devil. He is in charge of ensuring refugees are tortured and detained indefinitely in island prisons where we paid foreign governments to store them. You’d think that is an exaggeration, or that the following photo is photoshopped. It is not. He is true evil. His entire department is growing increasing power to deport whoever he wants, increase police powers, and campaigning to stoke the flames of racism.

His kinks are:

Not understanding empathy

Human rights abuses

Curvy potatoes

This is Tony Abbott. He used to be the Prime Minister of Australia before he became so incredibly unpopular his own party thought “fuck. This guy is a wreck. Look, he’s superglued his hand to his face for the fifth day in a row.” They ceremoniously kicked him out of the position of PM, replaced him with Malcolm Turnbull, then narrowly avoided defeat in the next election by 1 seat. Yeah. We can do that. We can remove leaders in power with ease and 0 bloodshed. Bet America is real jealous of that thing huh? 

He used to be a boxer, wanted to be a priest, but then something went horribly wrong and he went into politics and Australia has suffered ever since.

He decided to go back to being an MP and stay in government, a fact he’s made everyone painfully aware of by interjecting every now and then to go “well, actually, uh, if I were still Prime Minister….”

His kinks are:

Budgie smugglers

Hating the LGBTQIA+ community

Destroying any hope our country has of combating climate change

This is Barnaby Joyce. He used to be the Deputy PM and leader of the Nationals, which are a conservative country-focused party that is most commonly seen latching onto the Liberals to form the Coalition because neither of them have been popular enough to form government outright except about 2 or 3 times in Australian history. Joyce, pictured below trying to call up whatever is left of his integrity and getting a “number not found” signal, had to resign as leader because he cheated on his wife and had a baby with a staff member.

He’s been replaced by Michael McCormack.

His kinks are:

Lecturing others about the “sanctity of marriage” and “traditional family values” then ignoring these values entirely

Sexy beetroots

Tricking farmers into voting for him then doing nothing to stop climate change destroying their crops

Getting paid to talk about his infidelity

This is Michael McCormack. He’s the current Deputy PM of Australia and advocates for caning children and the death penalty.

His kinks are:

Wait - what??

REALLY? WHAT THE FUCK DUDE?

Collecting bound volumes of the British newspaper The Times for some fucking reason

This is Bill Shorten. He’s the leader of the opposition which means he leads the Labor Party, the centre-ish (depending on the mood) party. This means every now and then it’ll go “GAYS? WE LIKE THOSE! WE WANT TO GIVE YOU RIGHTS!” followed by “REFUGEES? BACK TO SEA THEY GO! CAN’T GIVE THE COALITION A MONOPOLY ON RACIST VOTERS!” Here he is pictured below feeling unease and suspicion that somewhere nearby a member of his party is secretly advocating for decency and compassion towards a refugee.

His kinks are:

Opposing bills for a while, then giving up

Stifling internal debate in his party about “hey, what if refugees are people?”

Talking about “the working family” lots

This is Richard Di Natale. He’s the leader of The Greens, the left wing party your grandparents warned you about. You know those SCAAARRRYYY immigrants the other people don’t like? He likes them. You know what he’d like as well? For people to be allowed to smoke some goddamn weed. 

There was a massive scandal recently where a ton of politicians were found to be ineligible to serve because they’re dual citizens (you can be born overseas and still be a politician you just need to renounce foreign citizenship) and unfortunately this meant 2 of his Senators resigned (though the other parties got hit way harder). This scandal also revealed that Richard’s middle name is “Mario.” Yeah. That’s it. 

Unlike in the US, voting for another party besides the main two can actually get people elected. The Greens won’t form government but they sure can block some legislation every now and then.

His kinks:

Hugging trees

Making the trees feel like they’re supported and cared for, like they could really trust him for once even though they’ve been hurt before

Actually caring about human rights

This is a Haunted Trash Bag. She leads the party One Nation (AKA: Pauline Hanson’s One Nation), a far-right extremist political group whose main goal is to flip back and forth between racism and screeching. She was elected briefly in the 90s and then spent about 20 years unsuccessfully trying to get re-elected until recently the country’s hatred of Muslims reached critical mass and she cruised right back in. As her personal motto goes: “if it ain’t white, it ain’t right, and I don’t like it! I just don’t like it! I DON’T LIKE IT!”

Her party attracts the most delusional far-right assholes ever including a guy who mowed a swastika onto his lawn then took a photo of him doing a Nazi salute, a guy who tried to use a hoax study about penises to prove climate change isn’t real, a guy who advocated for killing journalists, a guy who said that welfare is destroying evolution’s ability to weed out the weak, and a woman claiming that marriage equality is the result of a nazi-inspired mind control program. There’s more. There’s waaaayyy more. Holy shit is One Nation the worst.

My favourite part of her political career was when he went to jail. My least favourite part was when she got released.

Her kinks are:

Trying to make you afraid that your Easter eggs are funding Islamic terrorism

Blaming immigrants for problems they have nothing to do with

Saying “I’m not racist, but…” followed by some serious fucking racism

Getting pissed off at her party members the moment they disagree with her and demanding they resign