[Image ID: The Destiel confession meme edited so that Dean answers 'JK Rowling posted upskirt photos of a woman on Twitter' to Cas 'I love you'. /End ID]

No one doing this should be allowed to call themselves a feminist.

So on top of everything else... It sure as hell seems like Rowlings is making fun of this person's weight. Which even beyond anything else, is just a flat out asshole move. Like... their weight has no bearing on anything even remotely related to the supposed 'topic'.

What does weight have to do with anything related to this supposed 'event'? Would Rowlings be more accepting of a woman Carmen Carrera's size? If the answer is 'no' (which it is...) then it has no value beyond poking fun of somebody.

There aren’t a host of women out there insisting that they know more because ‘mom instincts’ or 'woman’s intuition’ about how to raise their children. Not at all.

Secondly... Ah yes. Because women advocating that vaccines cause autism, that sugar causes ADHD, and red dye 12 causes obesity is definitely a-okay. It's good to know that feminists will defend even the most wrong women, women actively endangering their children, women actively saying they'd rather dead kids than autistic kids, in their quest to prove that women are never ever wrong ever.

There aren't a host of women out there insisting that they know more because 'mom instincts' or 'woman's intuition' about how to raise their children. Not at all.

"Iroh lied about killing the last dragon before Zuko was born because he wanted to protect them! They actually deemed him pure of heart and worthy to learn the truest form of firebending🥰" .......... even though he continued to be a violent general in an evil genocidal empire long after that...? I'm questioning the dragons' wisdom now.

Which is all to say I think it would be perfect if we got to the season three end game and realized Iroh was actually still an errand boy initiate in the White Lotus. And Piandao pulls aside the main tent flap to reveal our Supreme Grand Lotus:

Gran-Gran

Canonically traveled the world without Committing A War, thus reasonably having met and networked with most of these other people in a positive way? Check

Saw the Avatar and told her only grandkids to go help that kid ASAP, don't worry Gran-Gran's just going to stay riiiiiight here while you're gone and definitely not relive the excitements of her youth? Check

Would recontextualize Pakku's constant sour grapes face (and his reaction to seeing Katara's necklace) to "my ex left me and now she's my superior, if I don't train her grandkid she will mobilize a global movement to Kick My Ass"? CHECK

Firstly, let's start with Iroh because I take personal offense to how much you misconstrued his character.

Iroh was never supposed to be evil; he's the one who walked Zuko's path before Zuko. A loyal son, doing what he's told, because honor is the most important thing, followed closely by loyalty, and being Honorable and Loyal means being A Good Son TM. So he goes off to war, and he sieges Ba Sing Sei for 600 days, because Azulon has ordered that this impenetrable city that has never fallen has to fall.

So he sieges this city for almost two years... then he loses his son. In trying to do this impossible thing, he loses the most important thing he has, and he realizes... what is the point? Where is the honor in men dying? Where is the honor in what I'm doing? How do I find honor?

This event broke him, much like we see Zuko break when he starts questioning his beliefs. Except unlike Zuko, Iroh had lost his son due to his search for 'honor', and by the time he recovers... well, his brother is Fire Lord now, and he knows exactly what his brother is, which severely limits his options.

Moving on to the White Lotus Society, and its various members:

The White Lotus society was not a society of 'Doers of Good'. They were an ancient society dedicated to preserving knowledge, with philosophical undertones, that transcends political boundaries -aka, even if the Earth Kingdom and the Air Nomads were at war, the Earth Bender and the Air Nomad still shared information and knowledge of culture, practices, techniques, etc., in the White Lotus. So that knowledge wouldn't just be lost forever.

Which is why they eventually stepped in against Ozai: he wasn't just a political threat anymore, he was going to decimate an entire people. This wasn't a war between nations, this was one man's war against the world.

But here's the thing... This is a cultural thing. Because it's not about, I must protect this bending technique. Because if that's all it was... well, Pando -a non-bender -wouldn't be there. This was about cultures. About histories. So obviously we're not demanding the paragons of virtue, only the good people are allowed in here. Which is why your whole concept of 'doers of good' is inherently flawed and lead you to flawed conclusions.

Because for better or worse, Pakku might have been a misogynistic, arrogant, pompous fool... but he was a product of his culture, a leader of his people and their ways. For better or worse, Iroh spent his younger years as a general and a warrior, a man dedicated to bringing honor to his family, his people, and his land... but he was a product of his culture, a leader of his people, and their way of life.

Gran Gran has several big issues. The first being... the Southern Water Tribe had insulated itself from other cultures and lands, leading to them being incredibly isolated, with very minimal -if any, before Hakoda took the men and left -interaction with people outside of their tribe other than the Fire Nation raids. So unless we propose that she was going to leave her tribe, and sail on her little canoe by herself to a city somewhere -because you can't invite a secret organization to a secret meeting in a village of fifty people -there was no way for her to be a part.

The second big issue is a bit more nuanced, and speaks to a bit of outsider perception, and Pakku's own biases. Because hey... the White Lotus Society has a Water Tribe member. And the Water Tribe is... the Water Tribe... right? What do you mean that the Southern Water Tribe and the Northern Water Tribe do things differently? Pakku over here says that the Southern Water Tribe isn't any different, except for their geographic location.

So why make a point to sale to these people that have isolated themselves, kept themselves apart, and learn about their culture, when Pakku here says that their culture is the exact same as his culture? We can just ask a Northern Water Tribe person to share their stories, their heritage, and their culture. Because the Northern Water Tribe isn't insular and isolated, they interact with outsiders, so why would we show up to a people who clearly don't want outsiders to show up?

Next problem is... Gran Gran didn't 'travel the world'. She moved from the Northern Water Tribe... to the Southern Water Tribe. Seeing as how the Water Tribe is a seafaring people... There's no reason to presume that she went on a casual and leisurely stroll through through war torn lands, on foot when there was just... a whole sea... right there... for this seafaring member of a seafaring people.

And the fourth problem is... well, I'll admit this is more of a personal interpretation of the character, rather than canonical but...

While it's true that Iroh was on a Zuko journey before Zuko (which wasn't always the plan when the show was in production), there's still argument to be made that Iroh did not keep in touch with White Lotus that much (as it wasn't until library that he thought "hey, maybe azking white lotus would help my and my nephew's situation") so him having a high rank doesn't make more sense than Gran gran's as he clearly also had things to do, which was supporting Zuko (who would have learned sooner about WL if Iroh was more involved, especially during the search for the avatar). I could still imagine Iroh being initiated to a higher rank during the finale before reconquering Ba Sing Se as part of his journey still.

Second, Kanna may be from seafarming culture, but it doesn't mean she couldn't meet some white lotus members if she decided to stay in some port villages for a bit (I mean, Kanna was barely older than Sokka and Suki, and even they had to reach towns to get supplies for their journey from south to north). So it's not like travelling Kanna is off the table, even if she wasn't in the mainland.

It should be noted though that the White Lotus still could recognise that South differe from the North (and it very much does) and deserves to have its own say in preserving its culture. I mean, we meet old mentors that are indeed from different nations, but they aren't the only members, they're just familiar with the audience and the gaang along with being combatants.

It is true that Kanna had stuff to do, but she also wasn't alone. Like there are other adult and elderly women in the tribe. I don't think it'd all collapse on itself if she left for "business trips", which is what she would be doing and what we want her to do. Not to sit around talking philosophy but ensure the avatar is safe as part of the cultural heritage he represents - Kanna's role would be ultimate guardian angel command so to speak.

Firstly, I do agree that Iroh wasn't terribly involved with the White Lotus until Things Got Real TM. Mostly because, as I see it, the same reasons as Gran Gran to a certain extent: they had something they considered more important. Gran Gran had her village, her son, and her grandchildren, on top of all the other daily tasks that any small village has (less people, more work). Iroh had his nephew, who he was trying to keep alive. Remember, it wasn't Ozai who got the boat, who found the crew... It was Iroh.

And could the White Lotus have recognized that there were differences? Of course they could have... But again, as I stated... They were an isolated people: it's heavily implied that while there might have been other villages in the Southern Water Tribe, they weren't a nation as such; at best, much like many more tribalistic societies, they were a group of people with a similar culture and values that occasionally interacted.

Now, the next part takes putting some puzzle pieces together, admittedly. However, at one point, it's stated that nobody came to help the Southern Water Tribe while they lost their benders, one by one in these raids.

We can also see that there's no technological 'drift' per say from their nearby (as a relative term for people dwelling at the south pole) neighbors. One of whom was the Earth Nation, which was relatively advanced for the world/setting. To a point where they have next to nothing beyond a basic dark ages village. Even their ships were small, little more than Scandinavian karves.

Almost every single person the Gaang meets is shocked to hear that Sokka and Katara are from the Southern Water Tribe. Several of the graphic novels state repeatedly that the Southern Water Tribe was near extinction

Given all of these facts, it is highly unlikely that the Southern Water Tribe was interacting with anyone at all outside of scattered meetings with neighboring tribes.

Now, moving further into Kanna not being 'alone': you're right, she wasn't. But again, even discounting the fact that we have no evidence they interacted with anyone outside of their tribe, and the numerous pieces of evidence saying that they didn't... Her leaving on 'business trips' would a) be highly unusual, b) a detriment considering they were missing almost an entire generation, and c) incredibly inconvenient to a group of tribal villages.

Now point b first: as we can see in the show, and as we're told through various characters' pov (both in the show and the books), the Fire Nation kidnapped any water bender they could find. Given that about 20-25% of any given 'nationality' were Benders, this would have been devastating to a population that was already much smaller at the start of the hundred years war, and after even fifty years of raids, this would've lead to a massive generational impact. For reference, look what happened in WWI when the British put Irish soldiers on the front lines, and how that decimated the Irish population.

This means that the older generation would've been needed to teach the few remaining grandchildren of each successive generation. Elderly people would've been incredibly important, because as more and more people were taken, there was a greater and greater chance for lost knowledge.

As for point c: again, as we can see... They had next to zero technological advances. They were barely Iron Age tech, much less anything further. In a society like that, even children often have basic tasks to do around the village, and as we can see from both Katara and Sokka's upbringing, they weren't 'children' as we would think of a child. Hell, we meet the two of them while they're out fishing for food for the village, at fifteen and fourteen respectively.

So yes, one person leaving -much less a valued elder with all the knowledge they possessed -a tribe for months at a time would've been inconvenient, if not outright devastating.

And it bears reiterating: they had a Water Tribe member. For all Pakku's faults... he was Water Tribe. If he even bothered to share that there was another group of Water Tribe people to the south -if he even knew they still existed -as far as he was concerned... it was the same tribe. He tells Katara a few times that 'clearly' the Southern Water Tribe has lost its way if she's doing this or that, and everyone in the Northern Water Tribes seems quite surprised at everything she does. So clearly they were unaware of the cultural/societal shift that had happened in the first place.

So unless Gran Gran had already known about the White Lotus, and went out specifically to hunt them down... Why would any of them bothered to go looking for someone in a group of people thought to be on the brink of extinction, or extinct, who were supposedly the exact same as this other group of people who are over there?

To put it in context... This would be like insisting that they wanted/needed people from each city in the Earth Kingdom. Well... why? Why bother? They're more or less the same people, and we can't get one person from every village that maybe does things slightly differently (again, remembering that the Northern Water Tribe was apparently unaware of the massive cultural/societal split that had occurred between them and their sister tribe).

And as to my last point, which I believe was your third point... The White Lotus wasn't dedicated to 'teaching' the Avatar, or 'protecting' the Avatar. Remember, as far as the world was concerned, the Avatar was dead. And as far as the world was concerned... The Southern Water Tribe was either also dead, or mostly dead.

And even if they hadn't thought that... Gran Gran wasn't a Bender. She would have had nothing of value for the Avatar, beyond things that he could've gotten from any halfway decent human being, or any other old person in any other random place.

And as a final point... Each member of the White Lotus was incredibly talented in one particular area; maybe not Bending, but they were either leaders of their people, had renown or glory attached to their names, or were people that had been/were very highly placed in their respective culture/society.

Gran Gran... was none of these things. She had been married to the chief (presumably, given that Hakkoda is chief now and it seems to follow hereditary succession rules), but she wasn't the chief. She wasn't the possessor of unique skills; she was no more or less competent than any other elderly woman of the Southern Water Tribe. Her only minor claim to something approaching 'fame' would be that she almost married Pakku a few decades ago... but didn't.

Again, could every single one of these issues have been possibly written around? Could the writers have simply 'done it', and ignored everything about their own world/creation? Sure, they could have. But given the knowledge that we have of the world and the characters, it would have been a major plot contrivance to have her be a member of the White Lotus.

Especially when you consider if she had been, at some point you think she would've mentioned, "Hey, the Fire Nation is wiping out our people, and we're literally living in small igloos and sailing in boats slightly larger than the average bison; wanna help us with that?"

Having Gran Gran as a member of the White Lotus would have ruined the entirety of the Southern Water Tribe story line, ruined Gran Gran's character, or ruined the entirety of the White Lotus purpose. Because we'd have to assume that...

A) She never said anything, and let her people be decimated and nearly driven to extinction, including making everyone's lives far more complicated by not getting any of the other nations' technological advances brought down, because she just... didn't care at all about the quality of life for the Southern Water Tribe, who were barely surviving.

B) She did say something, and the White Lotus -whose purpose was the preservation of knowledge and culture -simply laughed and said, "Haha, sucks to suck, loser!" and did nothing to stop this culture from being extinct.

C) She did say something, and the White Lotus did help, but through magical plot devices, somehow they were nearly driven to extinction anyway.

They get left to make dinner for younger siblings, having to hear the whining, "But I don't want that!" or "You're not doing it right!" while Mom and Dad work.

They're the ones who get told, "What's the big deal, can't you just help out 'the family'?" whenever they want to do something that isn't babysitting, or dragging younger siblings along.

They're the ones who miss out on field trips and after school activities because, "We really need you to not be selfish here."

Because I am very much anti-AI to be sure. But we're poking fun at ChatGPT people... when we were the JFGI generation -just fucking google it.

As someone who has worked a multitude of jobs over the last almost twenty years... I can't tell you how many times I had people come in, insisting they needed X, or our policy was X, or X worked like this, or the law said X or I had to do X... because Google said so.

We aren't 'innocent' in this... Our generation (90s-early aughts) started it with JFGI. Instead of asking people who know things... we just started googling everything, and trusting google to know.

Because ao3’s tagging system explicitly allows romantic pairings in Gen fics as long as the relationship is not the focus of the fic.

(But real talk: this comes up a lot on Tumblr and on r/ao3 and while most people know the Gen fic rules, there’s always a portion of people who don’t and get extremely frustrated when they can’t find a fic devoid of romantic relationships. Which is valid! But definitely not a reason to blame authors or their fics.

What concerns me is the growing amount of people who acknowledge ao3’s correct tagging rules and then say “well I don’t like/believe in it” and proceed to ignore the rules and continue to be upset because they don’t want it to be a rule and they think they can apply their own “beliefs” to the system and others should too.

That’s not how rules work.

If you want to change ao3, join the OTW. Run for one of their elected seats. Petition for a rule change, etc. Help wrangle the “no relationships” tags and encourage use of one others might want too.

But stop treating every relationship like it’s icky and that others are morally inferior because they’re okay with the Gen rules. You don’t make the rules, and that’s a good thing!

Go take a perusal through the Batman-All Media Types fandom. Now, here's what I want you to do. Very specifically.

First, go over, and filter out all 'Original Female Character'. See how many results that gets rid of. Scroll through just the first page. See how many fics with OFC, Female Main Character, Original Character Female, OC Female, or Original Female Character/(Some Male Member Of The Batfam).

Now go ahead and filter all those out. Scroll back through the list again.

See how many results you get for 'Original Female Reader Insert'. 'Female OC Insert'. Daughter/Girlfriend/Lover of (Male Member Of The Batfam)'. 'Reader-Insert'.

Let's get really desperate here. Let's just exclude vaginal sex, and everything related to it. See how far that narrows it down. Since I'm trying very specifically to avoid this one specific thing.

Scroll through that first page again. And you're gonna get at least three or four fics that have come up with yet another 'clever' way of trying to bypass the tagging system to make sure that people who very much do not want to read about an original female character are forced to see their original female character.

So now we just get rid of all pairings. We'll just 'Gen' tag. Get rid of 'Explicit' rating. Surely that will eliminate all of this nonsense, right?

Yeah, except now we've gotten rid of fics that we probably would've liked to have read, but these people are so damn insistent that we see their fic, their fic that we aren't going to read, aren't going to click on, that those are the lengths you have to go to to get rid of something.

And Christ forbid you want a m/m ship; that you're looking for a very specific thing that isn't gen, because now... you can't even take the easy route, and just miss out on fics. Now you've got m/m tagged, and you're still getting Original Female Character/Dick Grayson popping up at least once a page.

At some point, saying, well, everybody tags differently, and well, maybe it's a mistake, and well, sub-tags, and well this and well that.

No. I shouldn't have to take two hours to filter out every possible variation that these people are trying to tag-duck around.

I mean this in the best way, this is a you problem and not an ao3 problem.

I want to make tasty muffins for a bake sale. Now, I use flour and honey and maybe even nuts in these tasty muffins I make. Now, I know that there are a lot of people who don't like these things. There are people who are even allergic to these things. But you know... I just really, really want to make these delicious muffins and have everybody eat them so they can tell me how much they like them. And if I tell them honestly what's in these muffins... they won't eat them.

So. I'm going to mark them as gluten free. As nut free. As honey free. Are they these things? No, of course not; the main ingredient is flour and nuts and honey. But you know, again, if I tell people that they won't eat them. So I'm going to just mark them as different things. That way people will eat them and tell me how good they are.

That's perfectly acceptable... right?

Would you feel the same way if a published book, that went through an editor and publishing house, tagged something mlm, then had a love triangle between two men and a female? Would that be acceptable to you? Would you write it off as just 'an innocent mistake'? Would you say that people upset by it just 'shouldn't read'?

Or let's try yet another way of making you see what you're really arguing. Let's just say... you do not like Bat-cest. You won't read any m/m pairing with the bat bros. Maybe you're a Tim/Steph shipper. Maybe you're a Dick/Babs shipper. Maybe you're a Joyfire shipper. A Damijon shipper. But you very much do not agree with Bat-cest. You exclude Bat-cest, every variation of shipping between the brothers. Tim/Dick, Dick/Jay, Tim/Jay, Dick/Dami, Dami/Tim, Dami/Jay, polycule versions of these... cool, you should be good right?

Well. Here I present to you a fic that's tagged Tim Drake & Dick Grayson & Jason Todd & Damian Wayne. Looks good, right? Go ahead. Take a read. Oh... wait, did you miss the Robin!Pile tag? Oops. Go ahead and filter that out. My bad.

Oh. That other one pops up with BatBroLove? No worries; exclude that out too. My bad.

Oh. The other one pops up with Robin Polycule? No, no worries, just add that to the exclude list. I promise, you don't have to read Bat-cest. Just keep excluding those tags. You'll get there; it's fine. Promise.

There are a lot of people -and yes, I'm one of them -who try very hard to tag correctly. To make sure that every relationship is accurately tagged. That every possible trigger, every possible situation that might disturb someone, is tagged. I go over my tag list two or three times usually, and the one time I didn't and missed something, I added a note to the story apologizing as soon as someone pointed out I'd missed something.

Because ao3’s tagging system explicitly allows romantic pairings in Gen fics as long as the relationship is not the focus of the fic.

(But real talk: this comes up a lot on Tumblr and on r/ao3 and while most people know the Gen fic rules, there’s always a portion of people who don’t and get extremely frustrated when they can’t find a fic devoid of romantic relationships. Which is valid! But definitely not a reason to blame authors or their fics.

What concerns me is the growing amount of people who acknowledge ao3’s correct tagging rules and then say “well I don’t like/believe in it” and proceed to ignore the rules and continue to be upset because they don’t want it to be a rule and they think they can apply their own “beliefs” to the system and others should too.

That’s not how rules work.

If you want to change ao3, join the OTW. Run for one of their elected seats. Petition for a rule change, etc. Help wrangle the “no relationships” tags and encourage use of one others might want too.

But stop treating every relationship like it’s icky and that others are morally inferior because they’re okay with the Gen rules. You don’t make the rules, and that’s a good thing!

Go take a perusal through the Batman-All Media Types fandom. Now, here's what I want you to do. Very specifically.

First, go over, and filter out all 'Original Female Character'. See how many results that gets rid of. Scroll through just the first page. See how many fics with OFC, Female Main Character, Original Character Female, OC Female, or Original Female Character/(Some Male Member Of The Batfam).

Now go ahead and filter all those out. Scroll back through the list again.

See how many results you get for 'Original Female Reader Insert'. 'Female OC Insert'. Daughter/Girlfriend/Lover of (Male Member Of The Batfam)'. 'Reader-Insert'.

Let's get really desperate here. Let's just exclude vaginal sex, and everything related to it. See how far that narrows it down. Since I'm trying very specifically to avoid this one specific thing.

Scroll through that first page again. And you're gonna get at least three or four fics that have come up with yet another 'clever' way of trying to bypass the tagging system to make sure that people who very much do not want to read about an original female character are forced to see their original female character.

So now we just get rid of all pairings. We'll just 'Gen' tag. Get rid of 'Explicit' rating. Surely that will eliminate all of this nonsense, right?

Yeah, except now we've gotten rid of fics that we probably would've liked to have read, but these people are so damn insistent that we see their fic, their fic that we aren't going to read, aren't going to click on, that those are the lengths you have to go to to get rid of something.

And Christ forbid you want a m/m ship; that you're looking for a very specific thing that isn't gen, because now... you can't even take the easy route, and just miss out on fics. Now you've got m/m tagged, and you're still getting Original Female Character/Dick Grayson popping up at least once a page.

At some point, saying, well, everybody tags differently, and well, maybe it's a mistake, and well, sub-tags, and well this and well that.

No. I shouldn't have to take two hours to filter out every possible variation that these people are trying to tag-duck around.

I mean this in the best way, this is a you problem and not an ao3 problem.

I want to make tasty muffins for a bake sale. Now, I use flour and honey and maybe even nuts in these tasty muffins I make. Now, I know that there are a lot of people who don't like these things. There are people who are even allergic to these things. But you know... I just really, really want to make these delicious muffins and have everybody eat them so they can tell me how much they like them. And if I tell them honestly what's in these muffins... they won't eat them.

So. I'm going to mark them as gluten free. As nut free. As honey free. Are they these things? No, of course not; the main ingredient is flour and nuts and honey. But you know, again, if I tell people that they won't eat them. So I'm going to just mark them as different things. That way people will eat them and tell me how good they are.

That's perfectly acceptable... right?

Would you feel the same way if a published book, that went through an editor and publishing house, tagged something mlm, then had a love triangle between two men and a female? Would that be acceptable to you? Would you write it off as just 'an innocent mistake'? Would you say that people upset by it just 'shouldn't read'?

Or let's try yet another way of making you see what you're really arguing. Let's just say... you do not like Bat-cest. You won't read any m/m pairing with the bat bros. Maybe you're a Tim/Steph shipper. Maybe you're a Dick/Babs shipper. Maybe you're a Joyfire shipper. A Damijon shipper. But you very much do not agree with Bat-cest. You exclude Bat-cest, every variation of shipping between the brothers. Tim/Dick, Dick/Jay, Tim/Jay, Dick/Dami, Dami/Tim, Dami/Jay, polycule versions of these... cool, you should be good right?

Well. Here I present to you a fic that's tagged Tim Drake & Dick Grayson & Jason Todd & Damian Wayne. Looks good, right? Go ahead. Take a read. Oh... wait, did you miss the Robin!Pile tag? Oops. Go ahead and filter that out. My bad.

Oh. That other one pops up with BatBroLove? No worries; exclude that out too. My bad.

Oh. The other one pops up with Robin Polycule? No, no worries, just add that to the exclude list. I promise, you don't have to read Bat-cest. Just keep excluding those tags. You'll get there; it's fine. Promise.

There are a lot of people -and yes, I'm one of them -who try very hard to tag correctly. To make sure that every relationship is accurately tagged. That every possible trigger, every possible situation that might disturb someone, is tagged. I go over my tag list two or three times usually, and the one time I didn't and missed something, I added a note to the story apologizing as soon as someone pointed out I'd missed something.

Because ao3’s tagging system explicitly allows romantic pairings in Gen fics as long as the relationship is not the focus of the fic.

(But real talk: this comes up a lot on Tumblr and on r/ao3 and while most people know the Gen fic rules, there’s always a portion of people who don’t and get extremely frustrated when they can’t find a fic devoid of romantic relationships. Which is valid! But definitely not a reason to blame authors or their fics.

What concerns me is the growing amount of people who acknowledge ao3’s correct tagging rules and then say “well I don’t like/believe in it” and proceed to ignore the rules and continue to be upset because they don’t want it to be a rule and they think they can apply their own “beliefs” to the system and others should too.

That’s not how rules work.

If you want to change ao3, join the OTW. Run for one of their elected seats. Petition for a rule change, etc. Help wrangle the “no relationships” tags and encourage use of one others might want too.

But stop treating every relationship like it’s icky and that others are morally inferior because they’re okay with the Gen rules. You don’t make the rules, and that’s a good thing!

Go take a perusal through the Batman-All Media Types fandom. Now, here's what I want you to do. Very specifically.

First, go over, and filter out all 'Original Female Character'. See how many results that gets rid of. Scroll through just the first page. See how many fics with OFC, Female Main Character, Original Character Female, OC Female, or Original Female Character/(Some Male Member Of The Batfam).

Now go ahead and filter all those out. Scroll back through the list again.

See how many results you get for 'Original Female Reader Insert'. 'Female OC Insert'. Daughter/Girlfriend/Lover of (Male Member Of The Batfam)'. 'Reader-Insert'.

Let's get really desperate here. Let's just exclude vaginal sex, and everything related to it. See how far that narrows it down. Since I'm trying very specifically to avoid this one specific thing.

Scroll through that first page again. And you're gonna get at least three or four fics that have come up with yet another 'clever' way of trying to bypass the tagging system to make sure that people who very much do not want to read about an original female character are forced to see their original female character.

So now we just get rid of all pairings. We'll just 'Gen' tag. Get rid of 'Explicit' rating. Surely that will eliminate all of this nonsense, right?

Yeah, except now we've gotten rid of fics that we probably would've liked to have read, but these people are so damn insistent that we see their fic, their fic that we aren't going to read, aren't going to click on, that those are the lengths you have to go to to get rid of something.

And Christ forbid you want a m/m ship; that you're looking for a very specific thing that isn't gen, because now... you can't even take the easy route, and just miss out on fics. Now you've got m/m tagged, and you're still getting Original Female Character/Dick Grayson popping up at least once a page.

At some point, saying, well, everybody tags differently, and well, maybe it's a mistake, and well, sub-tags, and well this and well that.

No. I shouldn't have to take two hours to filter out every possible variation that these people are trying to tag-duck around.

Because if I have one more middle aged white woman explaining how we really need to ban Mark Twain in the libraries, because he says the 'n' word, I'm gonna scream.

Mark Twain was an avowed abolitionist. He was loudly anti-slavery, and pro civil rights... in Missouri, in the 1800s.

In Huckleberry Finn, pretty much the only character who is kind to Huck, for no reason, with no expectations placed on him, is Old Jim.

Mark Twain used language that was the commonly used vernacular at the time; trying to erase this man's books when he was married to family that was an active stop on the goddamn Underground Railroad is just absolutely mind-boggling.

The person responding? Yeah, they can kindly just... not.

Because sorry, that's some hard-core gatekeeping right there. It takes me right back to the early aughts, when you had fans of certain bands insisting that no, they were true punk, and all other bands that didn't sound exactly. like. them. were just 'posers'. Losers who shouldn't be making music. The days of, "Wow, you listen to (insert generic band)? And here I thought you were punk.

In particular... I remember a whole ass high school career of people insisting that dyed hair wasn't enough to be 'punk', you had to have a mohawk or shaved head. That six piercings in each ear and an eyebrow ring wasn't enough to be 'punk', you had to have at least a lip ring, or a big nose ring.

That sure, you were wearing bondage pants, but they were black, so you weren't 'punk', you were 'goth' or 'emo'. Ugh, you're wearing a Sex Pistols shirt, name me one Rancid album! Oh, you listen to Rancid? Real punks don't listen to anything so mainstream, ugh, you're such a poser.

I never really realised how much difference it makes until I went to England and realised that here the change of seasons is an obvious, visible, physical change in the world. Like, everything REALLY IS orange and foggy in autumn! In spring there are flowers EVERYWHERE, so much more than any other season, and the trees really do have all blossom and no leaves. Even if it doesn't snow, in winter there's frost all the time and the trees are bare and the sky is visibly greyer all the time. You don't need to be told "this date is the first day of spring", you can SEE IT (although this is getting way messier and less precise due to climate change).

By contrast, most places in Australia the seasons we're taught feel like arbitrary categories - and is it any surprise considering they're colonial constructs? Orange-leaved autumn and blossom-covered spring is a cartoon stereotype with no relevance on a continent where ALL NATIVE TREES ARE EVERGREEN!! Snowy winters are a joke in the desert, and even sunny summers don't ring particularly true considering that much of the country is in the tropics, where summer means monsoons - not that I've ever seen the concept that WE HAVE A MONSOON SEASON taught at an Australian school.

the 4 season model as you and i know it is a european invention, though 4 season models aren't unique to europe! most notably china has the same type of season subdivision.

I don't know many places where four seasons exist, much less in neat little three month blocks.

I'm currently in Central New York. We (usually) start getting snow around the last week of October, first week of November. But we've had years where Halloween was, effectively, cancelled because of snow storms. This usually lasts until mid-April, although we've had years where we get snow in the first week or two of May.

And we don't have 'spring'; we have 'the snow is melting' season, which really is just based on how much snow we got before we charge right into summer with 60+ degrees after a week or two of 40-50. Sure, we get a few weeks of fall (namely, mid-September until Snow in October).

HOWEVER... I grew up in Texas. And in Texas you have pre-summer (60+), summer (85+), post-summer (60-70), followed by 'fall', coming in usually between 40-60 depending on the day, with a few weeks either in January or February where it drops below forty. Occasionally, we even got snow that lasts for more than a few hours!