Steddie this. Hellcheer that. Eddie has TWO HANDS!!

before i proceed, this is not a hate post!!! i am just saying things

i need people to understand that part of shinichiro's "charm" and appeal as a character, is that he isn't as good as people pointed him out to be. he's not the best person in the world. he isn't an "uwu" goody two shoes. he's pretty flawed and kinda selfish sometimes. he has good intentions ofc, but most of the time, they fall flat because of the outcome. and before people argue with me, lemme pull out some receipts

sano shinichiro has:

told haruchiyo to forgive mikey for uh *checks notes* mutilating his face

said "that's just how he is" in reference to haruchiyo swinging a katana at people and ending up in jail because of it

disregarded haruchiyo's mental health when it came to time leaping and made him shoulder the burden of his demented younger brother (😭)

gave an 8 year old time leaping powers because he had good vibes

murdered someone

let's stop pretending he didn't do anything wrong. love shinichiro for who he is!! a huge fucking idiot who has no foresight. with a really big heart, that is slightly compromised. because he's probably a traumatized kid. not like he had to raise his younger siblings with no support or anything. his mom died and his dad was a fucking hoe, then he died without ever being present in his life. the guy had it rough which in turn made him a little rough. i don't understand how you can like a character by fabricating facts about them and denying the actual...facts. i hate some of the things that shin has done, but i still love him. i am a true shin fan because i accept that he's fucking great and an inspiration to so many people but he's also kinda awful a bit <33.

(this post was inspired by a post @chaoticdelinqueerwithglitter made but idk how to link things!!! so check out their blog :))

disclaimer: I am a volunteer for the OTW. I am speaking for myself, not on behalf of the organization, anything expressed here is my own. I may be wrong about some things, I'm very much not involved in any of this as part of my work. Additionally, I haven't run this by anyone else in the org, so take that as you will. I'm just a person, hoping to reassure other people, fans like myself.

A few people have come to me asking questions about this, and asking clarification already, so I just.... Want to reassure everyone. A lot of people follow me and know I volunteer, even if I don't talk about it much.

No, Ao3/OTW is not endorsing AI. Scraping is not being allowed or encouraged (you can, in fact, see here in this link, the code of Ao3 disallowing scraping). There is only so much the organization can do to prevent this. If you set your works to logged-in users only, it does somewhat give more protections. Data miners are very proactive, and prevention measures can only do so much. After the data is harvested, with or without consent, it is that much harder to pry back and out of those hands.

Many, MANY people are panicking. They saw an excerpt of an interview in this week's OTW Signal news roundup. This interview was from someone on the legal team of the OTW. She was speaking not for the organization, but as someone with credentials in the fields being discussed. Much of this has been misinterpreted and relayed second-hand. It was a conversation primarily about trademarks and AI.

I don't know the course the OTW is going to take regarding AI with the law, myself. That's not my field whatsoever. I can say, how would we even have the TIME or ABILITY to "develop an AI to be integrated with AO3" as some people speculate? It took our volunteer coders years to work out a block/mute function and get it from idea through testing to implementation.

The OTW does not want to just feed everyone's fanfic into AI. The organization may end up taking a middle-ground stance on the legality of AI and AI-generated creations. I don't think that Disney would care much for the distinction between "This is an AI generated item infringing on our trademark, remove it" versus "This is a fan-made item infringing on our trademark, remove it." The legality of AI versus fan creations is a very tricky topic, and from my understanding, that was the focus of the interview and what was being discussed (along with some other ideas).

Protecting the right to fanfiction and fan creations existing is the primary goal, and navigating new, emerging technologies that could find similar arguments, whether or not people at the org agree with them, means they may end up protecting them somewhat. This is not a betrayal of fandom. Every volunteer is an individual, and opinions within the org are all over the place, but we are all fans as well, and we don't want random bots just lifting all our fics and creations without any say-so either.

The topic of AI is a landmine right now, and I do think it was insensitive and ignorant of the current fandom/political sphere to highlight something like that interview, especially in the way it was done. It immediately led to panic, distrust in the org, and people spinning off numerous infeasible ideas because they simply do not have information, and hear rumors or don't parse a conversation about legalese well (I know I had trouble with it! A lot of my understanding comes from reading discussion about it myself). Nuance is important, as is the fact that nothing is ever published or discussed in a vacuum.

I don't blame anyone for having misinformation, I get it. It can be hard to find correct info. Transparency is something the org is not always great at (it's being worked on! Everyone is aware it's an issue! We are just very,,,,, very slow at implementing changes, as a volunteer-run organization). Time is the OTW's most valuable resource, and we are constantly, constantly in demand and in need of more time and manpower. It can make communications difficult, and very stressing.

The OTW is a non-profit, it is not selling any data. It does not want to sell your data. The money it makes is solely from donations. There is not going to be any selling to AI, there is not going to be any attempt to implement AI for the OTW itself.

Honestly, beyond that, I'm super not qualified to talk about the legal aspects of everything in the article/interview. I don't know all the inner workings of the org, I don't know all the thoughts and opinions and legal stances. I don't even know all the nuances of AI legal issues myself. I just know that I don't think it can replace creativity, and that it could be a fascinating tool in a better world (but I do not trust how it could be used here and now).

I hope this helps anyone who sees it. I hope that this is a reassurance, and that maybe it will help people feel better. I know panic is a powerful force, and I know there is a great distrust in any organization even mentioning AI (usually for valid reasons!). I know information can be hard to find, and legal discussions hard to read, I've been there with the org myself.

But the OTW is a group of people trying their best to make sure that fandom has protections. There are like, a thousand of us or something. Not all of us are going to agree on everything, but we all agree fans deserve a space to create and have those creations protected. One of the inciting incidents of its founding was a hatred of the idea of some company trying to profit off of fanworks with complete disregard for the fans themselves.

The OTW was founded to prevent fans from being taken advantage of, and to protect fandom's right to exist. It is never going to betray that core tenet. Partially because we're all fans ourselves and have a vested interest in keeping it that way, but additionally: This organization is nothing without its volunteers, and if someone high up on the board or something genuinely tried, we would know and we would make ourselves known.

(Just look into the Board Election of 2015!)

Well, it's official, from now on you can be a person who talks about how bad billionaires are, or a person who talks about how great Taylor Swift is. You can't do both

"all these achilleans putting women dni in their posts are so cringe and misogynistic!! 😂😒😒"

meanwhile sapphics:

I have no interest in picking apart every little thing either of our ineffable duo says or does to the other to make them or their relationship look bad, because I really truly genuinely think a lot of the things they say to each other are just banter. But I always kiiiiiind of want to smack Crowley when he says "You really are terrible at magic" in 1941 because come on, your angel literally just saved you from getting dragged back to Hell with his silly little sleight of hand trick and he's so stinking proud of himself about it and you're going to choose this moment to tell him he sucks at it?

For the record, I'm not saying he should have showered him with praise instead, that's obviously not his style or their dynamic and I'm sure they're still kind of feeling out how they are going to be with each other after the holy water fight, but he could have just...not said that.

(In fairness, Aziraphale didn't look terribly offended or discouraged and I realize this is also probably bantery Crowley-speak for "I just almost shot you for your magic show, that was terrifying, let's never do that again," but it still gets my hackles up just slightly. It's such a cute sweet moment otherwise!)

i think that while micro labels can seem useful and affirming ultimately they're isolating and kind of an obstacle to your understanding of self. that's because you can never find a word specific enough. there will never be a label or two labels or even ten, twenty of them to perfectly capture and describe all of your thoughts, feelings, experiences, preferences, needs, interests, identities, etc. because you learn more and more about yourself every day and then you change and your wants and needs change with you. having to hop between labels, fearing that you don't 'fit' into a label anymore (both in your own and others eyes), worrying how soon your current label will wear out, questioning if you'll ever fully fit a single one. all that causes a lot of uncertainty and anxiety which could be avoided by just picking a more general thing and molding it according to what it means to YOU. because words will always mean different things to different people, you will never be understood immediately and maybe never completely by anyone but yourself and that's fine

sweating some small bullets bc a big rottmnt fan artist reblogged one of my more ambiguous rise apritello artworks and now it's getting mass-reblogged and I'm just sitting here waiting for someone to figure it out and be weird and rude about it

in a city of millions of people ONLY selina can care about the poor and east end/park row and ONLY helena can care about children and rape victims 😉😉 but we can steal jason's traits and give them to tim (btas lmao) or bruce (ul cheer) and then wholesale lie about jason's personality to make batman look good/victim blame him for his death 😉

Well, because I'm a contrarian at heart, now I will disagree with this a bit, even though I never shut up about the story-breaking double-standards imposed on Jason.

Just to touch on some stuff before I get to the "trait-stealing" discourse...

Almost all superheroes and even many villains-who-have-standards do care about children and rape victims. I can see how some fans would get upset at seeing the broad claim that certain characters really really care about victims, because it implies that most other characters don't care enough. So, yes, all heroes should and do care—although different fans might latch on to different characters that express care in ways they find personally satisfying.

I don't think too many people are arguing that BTAS "Timmy Todd" isn't an adaptation of Jason. Once people realize how much BTAS Tim was clearly inspired by Jason, then most people seem to agree that those are signature traits of Jason. There isn't much debate there, as far as I can tell.

Others have covered Cheer thing better than I could.

I would say, yeah factually, Jason hasn't been a community-based hero in canon, and that's something I find really compelling about him. Like several months back on Reddit (yeah yeah I know lol), I did bring up Selina in the Brubaker run as a contrast to Jason. Selina became a community-based hero in that era, and Jason was not.

I believe that Jason did not think of himself as someone who can make connections with others (at least before he was magicked back into the Batfamily by the Morrison run and the New 52). He couldn't be a community-based hero because he couldn't be part of a community. He wasn't building up a neighborhood, he wasn't a neighbor to anyone. He did help people—and then he'd leave them, just walk away without a personal connection. I can't quite articulate it, but there is a distinction between Selina's streak of running away from "being domesticated" for better or for worse, and something like Jason's belief that he is this thing that is incapable of connecting with people. (Jason's immature idea that it's not his role to heal people and be part of society is the very idea that Bruce keeps reverting to as a middle-aged ultra-rich man with several kids and a famously massive support system btw! Bruce is literally doing it again right now!)

Also Selina did do all sorts of selfish, hurtful things when she was Jason's age, and when she was older too. (And she was AMAZING at it! I'm not against her Robin Hood era, but I miss her self-indulgence and misadventures as a rogue.) Helena was going ham mowing down ᴛʜᴇ ᴍᴀssᴇs ᴏғ ʟᴏᴡ-ʟɪғᴇ sᴄᴜᴍ back when she was a bit older than Jason is now as a defanged ex-villain in current-day comics. (Hey, I'm not going to be some self-appointed cop holding her accountable for that. Sometimes fictional women set fictional men on fire to cope. 🤷‍♀️ Her outfit looked great while she was burning people alive in front of children. We Aquariuses are free spirits.)

I'd love for Jason to return to Crime Alley and set up there. He's this guy who kept having his connections cut over and over, then became this weird tumbleweed thing cut off from everything, and then he could regrow his roots where it all began. As you say, there are millions of people in Gotham to help (...or to haunt; lesser evil Jason could be my jam too). And that's exactly what fan fiction is supposed to be—fans' wish-fulfillment for the potential of stories and characters. Yes, there is fanon in the fan fiction. That's where the fanon belongs.

A lot of this "trait-stealing" discourse is not helpful, it's not kind. It's not interested in actually exploring the contrasts and parallels between these characters. It's actually stripping these women and girl characters of their traits and their journeys to label them "Female Jason". It's an echo chamber, maybe even a bit a snobfest.

Like I'm sorry. The stories of these women in their mid-20s and 30s who have lived in their own apartments, established their careers, formed adult relationships, come to understand their sexuality—they don't have the same journey as the societyless freak-of-nature zombie boy beefing with his own dad who is the local god-tyrant.

If I argued that Helena, JPV, Cass, and Damian all retread the same boring tortured killer cult-deprogramming redemption arc, then that'd be reductive and narrow-minded and frankly anti-storytelling of me.

Or if I just jumped to assume that fans who headcanon Bruce as Jewish are stealing his cousin Kate's canon Jewishness and refusing to engage with a canon Jewish lesbian character out of sheer bigotry, then that'd be skipping straight to the most negative possible assumptions that I could make about actual real-life people and their motives.

That's really the worst part of this. Reaching to assume the worst in real-life people. The moral posturing. This need to display superiority. Over—I can't emphasize this enough—the consumption of corporate American superhero comics.

I wasn't about to say anything to this annoying little bitch because they're 18 but when I tell you that aro/aces in this fandom are literally trying to police people for merely being attracted to Alastor now like??? This is why I'll keep on saying that some of you (aro/aces) are insufferable as shit and need to shut the fuck up?

Or how 'bout

Or how 'bout if Alastor respected Vaggie and hadn't sexually harassed her by way of chin tickling and arse slapping, I wouldn't in turn look at him disrespectfully and want to give him a taste of his own touchy feely medicine?

How 'bout fans can do and feel whatever they want about Alastor cause he's not real and how 'bout everyone should stop treating fictional characters like they're real when they're not real? Including goddamn fucking Valentino...

How 'bout another reminder to stop clogging the actual queer and ace tags on tumblr that real ace people might be using to find real community and resources, with posts about a goddamn fucking ~"tumblr sexy man"~ fictional serial killer cannibal because I'm sure that real aspec people trying to look for real resources in real life are sick of all the goddamn fucking fiction by now???

How 'bout "You can write about a characters sexuality/fucking/getting fucked, but you're not allowed to explore or acknowledge any sexual attraction to them while you're writing about them being sexual and having sex, which would inherently require taking sexual attraction into consideration in order to even do that, but you're not allowed to, because that's disrespectful!" is officially the most bullshit moronic take I've ever heard...

thats also why i dont like headcanoning will as ace. making the only gay character as ace and therefore making him 'not into sex / kissing stuff' doesnt seem so great, it's like wanting to keep him as this 'pure' uwu guy who just loves mike deeply romantically but can never be into sex / kissing. and im just tired of it, same reason why i dont like aroace dustin headcanoning. dustin's literally straight, he talks about kissing all the time and about suzie... but the fandom would rather headcanon the disabled guy as the one who is not into romance or sex. jeez, i wonder why is that the case. i wonder why the only gay dude and the disabled kid are the ones who are being headcanonned that way.

🤝🤝🤝🤝

hey btw - if you are the anon who sent me a message two days ago, asking about infantilized readers etc that ended like this...

Am I actually missing something? I just hope you could explain jt better for me? Again no malice or ill intent I’m just curious

...i want to give you another chance to DM me so we can have a discussion, otherwise i'm really sorry but i'm probably just going to block you. some of the wording in your ask makes me nervous about your current mindset and in this climate, i just really need to protect my peace. i want to answer your questions and i want to offer you clarity, but as i've already mentioned, i'm not comfortable doing so publicly right now. it's just fucking weird out here at the moment, and people are getting real bold about the ways they're misconstruing things.

i don't want this seem to like i'm just shutting down anyone who disagrees with me. if anything, i'm trying to open the doors with this request.

i'm sorry if this seems harsh. i promise i am open to having a healthy discussion and if you DM me with questions, i promise i won't judge you or demean you. i'm just asking that you respect my boundaries, in this case, and if you're genuinely curious, i ask that you please please just reach out to me directly.

Christ alive, just woke up to someone picking a fight with me over the concept of adopting fictional kids, in a very aggressive way: someone who didn't even follow me and thought my fictional f/os were OCs despite their clear sources in my bio.

If anyone actually wants to have a productive and private discussion about how that's handled in my familial selfships and my personal feelings on adoption as a kid who spent years getting bounced around other families (and as a person who's considering being a foster parent in a financially stable future), then that's cool and fine.

For the moment, if I accidentally blocked that person's sideblog and they're still interacting with my blog with a different username but I can't see them anymore, please let me know. I've had that happen before and I'm not 100% sure if tumblr has fixed that ridiculous feature but I would appreciate the help from anyone who sees this post <3

i adore sam for making fcg just fully, tits out (wheels out?) pro-deities in c3 -- it is so fucking funny

all three campaigns we've had even the sorta "pro-deities" (and tbh I find the idea of "pro-deities" and "anti-deities" in cr discourse to be so stupidly black-and-white but for the sake of a tumblr post, sure) characters to have some hangups -- like vax goes with the raven queen but it's obviously this unbelievably heart breaking thing where he has to leave his family behind

or jester creates her own god

fjord with ukutoa (ukutoa) and the wildmother -- even cad isn't so preachy with the wildmother!

so what does sam do for campaign 3?

like the incredible wrecking ball that he often is he just decides -- yeah fuck it. FCG thinks the gods are great and can do no wrong and no he cannot be swayed by other arguments

it's so good

and it is so funny

how and why is there discourse about whether or not certain queer identities exist/if people should be allowed(???) to use them. why is "people know their own identity better than you ever could, and they're the only one who get a say on what they are" such a tough concept to grasp

i think if you find yourself offended by the label someone uses (especially if they're a stranger) or think it invalidates your own, it's a good idea to look inside yourself and question why that may be. more often than not, it's a result of insecurity or uncertainty of your own identity (or many other things, but i won't make a whole list here). whatever reason it is, until you resolve it, you shouldn't take it out on people for having an identity you don't understand

many have said it before but it's worth saying over and over. infighting only helps our oppressors. conservatives don't care if you're a cis gay or a xenogender aegosexual aplatonic lesbian, they hate all of us either way. trying to fit in by going for people who are easier targets for them isn't gonna help you, it'll just alienate you from your own community, and you're never gonna please them. the momentary rush you get from hearing you're not like "one of /those/ gay people" is not worth it and is gonna do more harm in the long run, i assure you

also, it is important to me to say this, but having some less than nice kneejerk reaction caused by confusion about an identity you don't understand doesn't mean you're a bad person or anything. as long as you aren't mean to that person, and you take a second to think smth along the lines of "wait a minute, this isn't any of my business" after having said reaction, you're good 👍 a lot of reflexive reactions we have to things are ingrained into us simply by. well. living in a society 🤡 and you're not terrible for having those thoughts. it's your actions that matter, and your second thought (the "wait, why did i just think that?") is more defining of your actual character and morals than your reflex. i know that having thoughts like this, even tho they're unwanted, can very easily make one spiral, so it's important to me that whoever needs to hear this knows this doesn't make you a bad person 🙏 you're good, keep taking actions to be good, accept other people even if you don't understand them, and you're on the right track :)

Beefing with random Jews excitedly posting their Hanukkah prep and celebration photos in their notes and replies does absolutely nothing to help raise awareness or show support for Palestine, but I've already scrolled by it substantially more than I expected. This is the EXACT kind of shit Israel is going to be counting on this holiday season to rally the idea that pro-Palestinian support = antisemitism (which they already do relentlessly anyway). Don't fucking do their job for them by actually being antisemitic. It was established forever ago that not only are people not their governments, period, but in an adjacent vein, Jews are not Israel. Let people have a happy Hanukkah without harassment, especially the ones who've already been fighting for the Palestinian cause this entire time.