bluethursday - Tumblr blog

[bluethursday]

hello! I love your writing, do you happen to have a master list for it? Or perhaps an A03 account? :))

Ok, so --- this is one comment but there have been many so I'mma use this to respond to concerns.

AO3 CROSSPOSTING + MASTER-LIST: I have...at a snail's pace...been moving my stuff to ao3. Yes, the Masterlist is broken. I don't really know how to fix it and I keep putting it off. I do have an AO3 with the same handle (bluethursday).

Hope that helps,

Blue

[bluethursday]

What happened to all your fanfic/writings? They aren’t all here anymore?

...I did not delete anything so...I’m going to go check. 

[bluethursday]

I still have 6 slots for commissions! 

I will draw: original character/fanart

I won’t draw: real people/furry/robot/nsfw

More information you can get here - ko-fi

[bluethursday]

Ao3 Donations BUT ONLY IF YOU FEEL LIKE/WANT TO?

If you happen to have the change to spare and feel like donating to Ao3, their donations are actually always open for those who didn’t know that. Not just when they’re fundraising. This being said, you don’t have to/please don’t feel pressured. I get people might not have funds for various reasons, but I don’t want to, is also a reason not to. It really is. I’m trying very hard not to guilt anyone up here, BUT if you do want to, the link is below. 

 https://archiveofourown.org/donate

[bluethursday]

Storytime:

Academics are the pettiest assholes you will ever meet and I say that with a lot of love and affection because I am one. Let me give you an example: First some context: Back in 2007, I was a sophomore in high school and I was minding my own business, trying to get my Harry Potter fan fic fix, when a Whole Bunch of Drama started about fan archives and the OTW and the folks proposing the archive that is now the AO3.  I thought the OTW folks had the right idea. After strikethrough and boldthrough and the FF.net purges, they were willing to not only make us a free archive that promised no censorship or deletions or trying to profit off fan work, but they were also willing to put their real-life professional selves at risk to defend transformative work as protected by fair use. These ladies were #goals to my 15-yr-old self.  Except obviously there were detractors. They were a minority, but they were vocal. And I recall reading multiple LJ posts from “anti-OTW” blogs and being So Angry because if a 15-yr-old like me could go study up on copyright law and agree with the OTW (with, you know, actual lawyers and law professors on their board) how were these adults getting things So Wrong? In some cases, it seemed they were even blatantly spreading misinformation. Why?? Except when I tried to point this out I was treated… let’s go with “badly.”

Ok flash forward a decade and change: I’m now writing my dissertation about digital fandom with a focus on the AO3. It’s the most-trafficked fan archive in the world and the second-most-trafficked digital archive full stop. It just won a Hugo. I’m having a lovely time interviewing all my teenage heroes. I’m living the dream. And then it came time to write about criticisms or detractors in the archive’s history. Some concerns are very valid, and I have over a dozen pages talking about these serious, often complex, criticisms. But you wanna know what else I did? I went back and I found my journal from 2007. I found the names of those posters on LJ who had such derogatory things to say about the OTW and the AO3, who took so much pleasure in bashing a 15-yr-old who didn’t understand why they were spreading misinformation. I found the old LJ posts (I had to use the Wayback Machine for those that had been taken down). I referenced some of those posts in my dissertation. I illustrated that every legal complaint, every fear (and fear-mongering tactic they used) was proven unfounded. I spent probably more time than I should going through their archives to discover that nearly all of them migrated to AO3 within 2 years of, often vitriolic, condemnations of the AO3. I footnoted this fact with a degree of euphoric malevolence that frightens even me. Why?

Because academics are petty assholes.

[bluethursday]

FROM VOX MAGAZINE: Ao3

The Archive of Our Own was born out of fans rebelling against corporate exploitation

AO3 isn’t just a fanfic archive: It’s the most well-known project from an organization called the Organization for Transformative Works (OTW). The OTW is an entirely fan-run nonprofit organization, with thousands of members and hundreds of volunteers devoted to protecting, preserving, and defending fanworks and their legal right to exist. There’s a whole backstory here, and it comes down to a group of fans — mostly women — deciding to take the fates of their fanworks into their own hands. (Full disclosure: I was a member of the OTW from 2008 to2016 and served on its development and membership committee from 2011 to 2014.)

The OTW, and subsequently AO3, was founded in response to a single 2007 LiveJournal postwritten by an influential fanfic writer called astolat. Astolat, a well-known writer of queer (also known as “slash”) fics with a large readership amid a community of other influential slash fans, was responding to community uproar over the creation of a company called “FanLib,” which had, like many companies before it, attempted to disrupt the fanfiction community by commodifying fanfiction and exploiting fans for their work.

Go Read the rest, if you’re curious. 

https://www.vox.com/2019/4/11/18292419/archive-of-our-own-wins-hugo-award-best-related-work

[bluethursday]

Me* yodelling in the background “Fight me!!!!”

I'd love for those conceited little shits who claim fanfiction has no value to come at us after AO3 won a Hugo Award.

I dare them.

[bluethursday]

now that ao3 has won a hugo award...

my future employer, at an interview: hmm it says here on your resume you 'contributed to a hugo award-winning project'

me: that's right

my future employer: may i see your contribution

me: ...no

[bluethursday]

AO3 won the 2019 Hugo Award for Best Related Work!

Here’s the speech given by Naomi Novik when the award was accepted:

All fanwork, from fanfic to vids to fanart to podfic, centers the idea that art happens not in isolation but in community. And that is true of the AO3 itself. We’re up here accepting, but only on behalf of literally thousands of volunteers and millions of users, all of whom have come together and built this thriving home for fandom, a nonprofit and non-commercial community space built entirely by volunteer labor and user donations, on the principle that we needed a place of our own that was not out to exploit its users but to serve them.

Even if I listed every founder, every builder, every tireless support staff member and translator and tag wrangler, if I named every last donor, all our hard work and contributions would mean nothing without the work of the fan creators who share their work freely with other fans, and the fans who read their stories and view their art and comment and share bookmarks and give kudos to encourage them and nourish the community in their turn.

This Hugo will be joining the traveling exhibition that goes to each Worldcon, because it belongs to all of us. I would like to ask that we raise the lights and for all of you who feel a part of our community stand up for a moment and share in this with us.

[bluethursday]

AO3 won the 2019 Hugo Award for Best Related Work!

Here’s the speech given by Naomi Novik when the award was accepted:

All fanwork, from fanfic to vids to fanart to podfic, centers the idea that art happens not in isolation but in community. And that is true of the AO3 itself. We’re up here accepting, but only on behalf of literally thousands of volunteers and millions of users, all of whom have come together and built this thriving home for fandom, a nonprofit and non-commercial community space built entirely by volunteer labor and user donations, on the principle that we needed a place of our own that was not out to exploit its users but to serve them.

Even if I listed every founder, every builder, every tireless support staff member and translator and tag wrangler, if I named every last donor, all our hard work and contributions would mean nothing without the work of the fan creators who share their work freely with other fans, and the fans who read their stories and view their art and comment and share bookmarks and give kudos to encourage them and nourish the community in their turn.

This Hugo will be joining the traveling exhibition that goes to each Worldcon, because it belongs to all of us. I would like to ask that we raise the lights and for all of you who feel a part of our community stand up for a moment and share in this with us.

[bluethursday]

This is a big deal. It really is, for a form of writing that can often be seen as less than it is. As embarassing. Fanfiction is composed by an unbelievable community of writers who put their hands to a keyboard and wrote something, anything. Because we wanted to. Because the story was missing, be that a crack fic, a fix-it, or a marginalized group of people making themselves heard. To every fucking person in an English class, proffesor and student alike, who kept trying to tell me with some serious twenty first century angst that "reading was dead". No. We moved. Readers moved. We made our own shit, for ourselves. Because we wanted to. Because it is tiring to read books written by old white men, because fanfiction taught me more about life than most serious literature (like don't get me wrong that's still some good shit, but it didn't exactly speak to me when I was a twelve year old girl and it still doesn't now). Fanfiction deserves that award. Ao3 deserves that award.

I’d like to say a massive, and heartfelt THANK YOU to the people who made  Ao3. Thank you for giving us a place to post and/or read fanfiction. You built us the best boat, mansion, castle, community, and you made it free. I know fuck-all about computer stuff but what I do know is that the platform is well moderated and easy to use...even for my illiterate ass. So thank you *I will be crying about this for five thousand years*. 

Congrats to everyone who’s ever written something and posted it on AO3 on your Hugo Award nomination.

(The entirety of AO3 was nominated in the “Related Works” category, so technically everyone who’s contributed to the Archive is a nominee.)

[bluethursday]

Friendly Neighbourhood Robin

The Villains on occasion, do Tim a favour or two. The Batfam is a bit confused. This is a prompt-fill for Yufei (you are the best) *smiles*. 

Tim stands crouched on a streetlamp, perching himself like a cat, the air is still and nothing is breathing tonight. He can see a figure moving in the dark, pouncing from rooftop to rooftop.

“Well, well, well, Baby Bat,” calls out Selene Kyle, holding the goods from a heist around her neck in the form of a diamond necklace. It is very cat burglar cliche if Tim doesn’t say so himself.

Blinking down at Catwoman, Tim gives her a wave. This close, he can see her holding a brown paper bag with grease stains on the bottom.

“I brought you…breakfast?” She offers, waving the baggie. Unsure of what the meal should be called.

Tim shouldn’t but he knows Selena well enough to trust the food, he’s hungry and he’s been out all night on patrol. Shimmying down the pole he swings himself down to grab the baggie, and stand beside the nice lady who brought him food.

Opening the bag Tim finds that he is in possession of what looks like a double cheeseburger and fries from one of the slummiest, yet most delicious joints in Gotham. It was shut down twice for health and safety violations.

Grinning up at Selena he says, “Thanks, Catwoman.”

Ruffling his hair Selena replies, “No worries kiddo, you helped me out in a tight spot at the Wayne party, it was the least I could do.”

Tim had served as an excellent distraction for Miss Kyle as she ran away fast as she could from one of the Gotham city council members who was convinced he could…solicit…her services. Tim dropped a wine glass on his crotch, entirely by accident of course. He was really, very sorry.

…

Joker stands at attention monologuing on about something to do with gas, and schoolchildren and killing, as Damian and Tim sit bound to each other by meters of sail rope. They’re back to back and not pleased with where they currently are in life.

Somewhere in his monologue Joker kicks a random floor knife backwards towards the bound heroes, and gives Tim a pointed look and a cough, before going on to say, “Batsy one and two will never get out of here alive, by the time Batman comes, I’ll have you dead…two little birdies in the garden.”

Which would ordinarily be very disturbing if he had’t just helped them out. They were wrapped up in rope like the world’s worst Christmas present. He gave them a knife. Ergo, he was giving them an exit plan. He also conveniently left the room he had no reason to leave while loudly exclaiming that he’d be gone for exactly thirty minutes to check on the other hostages.

It was such bad acting it almost felt like a trap. Tim pulled the knife close to his body with his feet, grabbed it and cut them free.

“It’s a trap.” Damian hissed.

Tim rolled his eyes, not that anyone could see the motion under the domino. “It could be, but either way we’re free. Let’s contact B. We’ll deal with the maybe-a-trap on the way.”

About two weeks ago, Tim had rolled Joker into a dumpster to hide him from some of Black Mask’s thugs, He didn’t think the clown was awake at the time, he also never expected repayment for his actions. But here he was, not dead, witnessing a cheesy looney tunes style villain monologue from one of the creepiest clowns in Gotham. It was…not reassuring but it was nice be…thanked…Tim guessed? Not that, not killing someone was usually a thank you, but in this case, Tim would take it.

“Come on Demon Bird, stop stalling,” Tim continued, grabbing Damian by the hand before repelling out the window.

…

Jay gaped in shock as he watched Slade give Tim a bo staff. Just give it to him. On a rooftop. It even had a little blue bow on it. It was a gift.

Pulling out a gun, after recovering from the shock, Jason pointed it at Slade and screamed, “What the fuck do you think, you’re doing Slade?”

Slade, creepy motherfucker that he was, stroked Tim’s cheek, as he purred out, “I’m leaving young Timothy a gift.”

Okay. Ew. “Back away from the little boy Deathstroke.”

“Relax, Jason. I’ll be out of your hair in a moment, though if you do pull that trigger you’ll find that you’ll be short one Red Robin.”

Who hit on someone, and then used that same person as a hostage? Jason kept the gun trained on Slade’s face.

He watched the assassin stroke Tim’s cheek one more time before running off. Tim, that moron turned to Jason, and waved the shiny new bo.

“Look,” he said. “I’ve got a new staff. Isn’t that nice?”

No. No that was not nice. Jason grabbed the thing and spat out, “We’re getting this tested, why the fuck is that creep even giving you things anyway in the first place?”

Tim kicked him in the shin, “It’s my staff. He’s just being nice.”

Jason raised an eyebrow in disbelief. “He’s Deathstroke he doesn’t do nice.”

Tim grumbled the entire way home, and was far too smug when the bo turned out clean. He helped out Rose the other day. He prevented her from getting caught by the police during an unexpected ambush, but throwing her out a window and into a tree. Slade was honestly just being nice. But it was funny to watch Jason panic so Tim was going to keep that information from him.

…

“Tim,” Batman started. “It has come to my attention that some of the villains are being…lenient towards you.”

That wasn’t an actual question so Tim waited.

“Do you have any idea why?” Bruce asked.

“Nope.” Tim replied. He lied. He knew exactly why. He was being a good samaritan. It’s not like the others didn’t help people get their penguins out of trees, or rescue lost cats, or help mentally unstable men find their things. It was just that Tim had the luck of running into villains pretty often, and those villains paid him back. Sometimes in increasingly questionable ways, but who was Tim to turn down a gift, even if that gift were a dead rat.

They hit lighter, created openings for him to escape, and sometimes gave him food. The highlight of his week was when Joker of all villains, tried to give him food, that wasn’t even poisoned. The muffin had a bite taken out of it, but it wasn’t poisoned, and if it was diseased Tim hadn’t noticed yet. They split it. J was cool when he wasn’t trying to kill everyone around him. Or having a mental breakdown.

Maybe if the Bats were nicer, they too would get half eaten muffins but until that point, Tim saw no need to enlighten them.

Bruce glared at him, and returned to his information map as though it would give him the answer Tim wouldn’t.

Smiling Tim turned, and left. He wondered if Ivy was growing apples again, he was craving some and she’d let him pick stuff in her garden if he helped prune the plants. Best grocery store on town.

…

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[bluethursday]

Rhandom/Honey was the one who actually showed me this. Thank you very much *smiles*. I appreciate the art, a lot. 

Little rough fan-art for this fluffy little story ‘Back to school’ by @bluethursday

As far as I know, Tim’d never graduated high school, so It’s gonna be fun when the overprotective family members realize that and take the ‘look after our baby bird’ mission to the extreme. Well, who’s to blame?

Here’s the story !! >> http://bluethursday.tumblr.com/post/57923366612/back-to-school

[bluethursday]

Ditto

I have like 2700 words for this KHRxBatman Sky!Tim fic

Blue what have you done to me

It was my prompt to you

How did this happen

Aaaughhh

[bluethursday]

Have you figured out why you can only 'heart' your posts from our own feed-dash, but if we go directly to your blog the only thing we can do is reblog your posts? Like when we click on the the 'read more' with the xBit mod, and it loads your post directly. Because that's probably effecting the number of likes. PC no mobile edition.

...I have no idea. If anyone does know the solution...send me mail? I’ll fix it if I can. 

NEW ADDITION: I think I fixed it though, I updated my blog...like it’s old so I changed it to a new thingy and now I see heart options? Send mail, if this worked? 

[bluethursday]

In Search of Blue, Blue, Skies.

Summary: Batman x KHR Crossover. Tim is a sky...who knew? 

Note: This is for avanalea. I’m not open for prompts, just filling a few for some old friends. 

Sometimes Tim closes his eyes and sees lights in endless colours trailing through the darkness like fireworks. Fissures of green and purple, explosions of red bursting through. Misty indigo, sunshine yellow…blue, like rain-water. If Tim closes his eyes and looks inwards, he is a supernova made flesh, his insides are the heart of a star, he glows orange gold, and he knows what this means like he knows the steps to his house. Like he knows the streets of the city. Like he knows he will never follow the other colours, will never look outwards, because inside him is all he’ll ever need. 

His mother was the same. An inverted sky, repelling those around her, forcing away instead of attracting. Pushing instead of pulling. 

It is all he ever does, all he knows how to do. 

He has never learned to take other elements into his blue sky, and for all of his mass, he is empty. 

He does not know how to so much as speak to other children, let alone make guardians of people. 

His sky was meant to be this way. Empty of everything but himself. 

….

He sees Dick first. 

Everyone thinks it was Bruce that caught his eye as a child, based on the photos he once took. Everyone is wrong. Dick came first, with his eyes like lightning and his soul like rainwater. 

Tim sees him and he wants to be clean. He could find that boy anywhere. Hunt him no matter where he went. Find him oceans away, all from his base in Gotham without moving an inch. He knows that boy like clockwork, tastes his water on his tongue and does not swallow.  

….

Bruce is the after, a massive cloud, hanging over Gotham. Gotham after all, is Batman territory. It’s a sad thing that most people don’t really know what that means. 

Bruce could never stand invaders in his city. 

….

Tim couldn’t stop following them if he tried once he caught sight of them. Watches them repel each other from rooftops, the way they their souls rubbed against each other causing sparks to form. 

Dick may have been rainwater, may have been made to soothe, but even rainwater pressed against the clouds in ways that irritated them. In ways that made them want to move. 

There was no way for two elements of that strength to be so close to each other without fighting over territory in some way, shape, or form. 

When Jason came, and Dick left to Bludhaven to eke out a corner of his life, free from Bruce’s control it only got worse. 

Storms, stirred up clouds to make explosions. Bruce and Jason tried, but they could not make it work. Far worse, was that Jason was as much lightening as he was storm. Split between two elements in perfect halves. Half suicidal in a melancholy fashion, half rage. Half drowning in a bathtub, half kamikaze plane pilot, fully ready to burn, and burn the world alongside his own immolation. He was a matchstick lit from both ends, burning itself like the worlds tiniest pyre. 

Cloudy days couldn’t put him out. All Bruce could do was attempt to exert his control, and all that did was stoke the fire higher, and call the storm to rage. 

Jason stuck between building up walls, only to burn them down and start over again, could not notice his own imminent self-destruction…or Bruce’s efforts to stop it. 

….

When Tim became Robin the watching felt worse. It felt as though he was watching his family through what felt like sheets of glass. So close, but so far away. His fingertips could reach out to touch, but they never seemed to get anywhere. 

He could not tell them what he was, his mouth had forgotten the words, and he did not know how to push soul from body, to show them where he burned….so he watched, as he always had.  

He was a sky flipped upside down, which is to say, he was not really a sky at all. He was buried alive…or was that Jason. Some days it was hard to keep the facts straight. 

Some days, Tim’s eyes felt glassy and his body felt cold. He had been dealing with such things his entire life. So had his mother. It killed her too. It’s killing Tim right now. His supernova heart, his insides pulsing, but they have no way out, so press they inwards, exerting pressure on his bones, his lungs, and his heart. One day he will burst. 

Some days he feels like he is a glass figurine, all smooth edges, and incased inside him is the sky. He feels the outside world swirl around him, but he cannot reach out. 

….

Damian is horrible. Half sun, half mist. Like some kind of fucked up nightmare mix, so unbalanced Tim cannot even imagine being in his body. Half construction, half activation. His illusions would be solid, but his personality….half reaching to conceal, half reaching for attention, all of him murderous when the results are not as expected. The results are never as expected when you want two different things simultaneously. 

….

Tim’s sky is empty, and he lives in a house filled with elements but walks through it unseen like a ghost. 

He is always a glass window pane away from them, and does not know how to bridge the gap. 

….

The crack comes, he thinks, when he’s dying. He throws himself over Damian’s body at the sound of a gunshot. Stupid boy never wears armour when he’s told to. Never looks back. 

He can feel himself begin to bleed out…and forces of nature are all about dying will…aren’t they? Sky’s are about pushing between that space that separates life and death, and saying…no. 

Tim is a supernova trapped in a fragile, mortal body, and when that crack comes, it shines like a lure at the bottom of the ocean, snagging the prey closest to it. So when Tim lays dying, drowning in his own blood, and he latches on to Damian’s misty summer day like a vice, Damian grabs back. Damian’s flames sense the crack and plunge through the entry way, the fissure the size of a hair, and pry it open with force, until the two of them resonate. 

Harmony clicks, and slides into them like a bullet wound, both of them winded. Damian’s hands glow gold as he presses them to Tim’s chest instinctively healing the wound. 

They will have much to talk about later, but for now, Damian would ensure his sky lived. 

[bluethursday]

Yufei is The Greatest

Yufei drew me an icon. I am so very happy. She is the best person. Ever. Anyone who doesn’t know her should check her out. 

She has great art, does comics, and takes commissions. So go FeiFei, thank you for this so, so, much. I am very grateful. It was a lovely and unexpected surprise.