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We are losing nearly ten percent of the planet’s insect population every decade due to human influence. If you have taken even an entry level biology course you understand how terrifying that figure is for not just humans but all life on Earth. As EO Wilson put it,

“If all mankind were to disappear, the world would regenerate back to the rich state of equilibrium that existed ten thousand years ago. If insects were to vanish, the environment would collapse into chaos”

Even despite the urgency of this issue, there are few conservation initiatives focused solely on preserving invertebrates. The Xerces Society is one such organization! If you share my concern about insect population decline (and you are able to do so), please consider donating to their current fundraiser to help protect our most vulnerable neighbors. They are still short of their fundraising goal!

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BAN ON CONVERSION PRACTICES IN THE EU. GO SIGN IT. DEADLINE IS FUCKING MAY 17. WE'RE STILL MISSING 800.000 signatures. FUCKING DO IT.

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End OTW Racism: A Call To Action

A fan protest against the lack of action from the OTW on addressing issues of harassment and racism on AO3 and within the organization

This is a Call To Action for Fans of Color and Allies

AO3 has acknowledged that they have a harassment & racism problem that its parent organization, the Organization for Transformative Works (OTW), needs to address. Currently, people can use AO3 to harass others through fanworks, comments, and tags. Just a few examples include: racist Untamed “spitefic” that used anti-Indigenous slurs and was written specifically to lash out at fans of color; a Transformer fic that used its Black-coded character to reenact George Floyd’s murder in July 2020; someone naming a fandom scholar who criticized their Nazi omegaverse fic in the tags of the fic specifically to incite harassment to the scholar; writers using racial slurs against commenters who pointed out racism in their hockey fic; and so much more.

In June 2020, after the murder of George Floyd, the OTW committed to addressing these issues. It has been nearly three years and they have not yet implemented any of the changes they promised, other than a blocking/muting tool that was already in development before 2020. We need to hold the OTW accountable to their own promises. (See the section further down on “Why Are We Doing This” for even more detail.)

As fans, together, we are powerful. We are organizing to protest the lack of action on promises made by the Organization for Transformative works to deal with issues of racism and harassment on their platform, Archive of Our Own.

We call on fans to do any or all of the following actions any time between May 17 to 31, 2023 to send a message to AO3 and OTW that we will hold them to their promises.

On AO3

Change the title of ten (or more!) of your most recent or most popular fanworks to include ‘End Racism in the OTW’ in the beginning, and provide a link to this post in your summary or first/top creator’s note

Post a new fanwork any time between May 17th to 31st with “End Racism in the OTW” either as the title or at the beginning of the title. The fanwork does not have to be long - it can be a 100-word fic, a quick sketch, a podfic of a ficlet, a 20-second vid/edit, a short piece of meta, etc. In the summary or first/top creator’s note, provide a link to this post

If updating any WIPs with a new chapter, add ‘End Racism in the OTW’ to the title and provide a link back to this post in your summary or first/top author’s note

Update your AO3 icon using the profile pic graphic in our Social Media Toolkit

Plan to maintain these changes until May 31, 2023, or longer if you wish

Send a message to the OTW asking for an update on their 2020 commitments!

For Readers: leave encouraging comments on fanworks with the "End Racism in the OTW" title to show your support of this initiative.

On tumblr

Reblog this Call to Action with the tag #End OTW Racism

Update your profile pics and banners using the graphics in our Social Media Toolkit

Follow this account for updates and signal boost our posts

On Twitter

Follow @/EndOTWRacism (remove the backslash) and signal boost our pinned tweet

Update your profile pics and banners using our graphics, and change your display name to include #EndOTWRacism

Use sample tweets and graphics from our Social Media Toolkit to tweet about your fanworks, and use the hashtag #EndOTWRacism

Help us make this a long-term campaign - sign up to help with other anti-racism projects and future actions!

What Do We Want?

Since their June 2020 statement, OTW has been working on updating their Terms of Service (TOS) to address racist and bigoted harassment, but with little transparency and only the vaguest of updates. It has been three years since their commitment to this update - we want to see the results of their work implemented in the next 6-12 months. Their TOS updates and complementary policies should include:

Harassment policies that can be regularly updated to address both on-site harassment and off-site coordinated harassment of AO3 users, with updated protocols for the Policy & Abuse Team to ensure consistent and informed resolutions of abuse claims

A content policy on abusive (extremely racist and extremely bigoted) content; by abusive, we are talking about fanworks that are intentionally used to spread hate and harassment, not those that accidentally invoke racist or other bigoted stereotypes

These points are not particularly new and are not our own innovation; please refer to Stitch's article written over two years ago, asking for several of these very things.

OTW has also already committed to various process-based actions for longer-term works towards centering antiracism, including hiring a Diversity Consultant. The last update that OTW published said that the consultant would be hired within the next five years (after already having had three years to work on it since their original commitment). That is not soon enough. We want to see the following process-based actions implemented:

Hiring a Diversity Consultant within the next 3-6 months

Committing to a policy of transparency on this topic, with quarterly updates on the progress of these projects including challenges and their plan for overcoming those challenges. These quarterly updates should be published on OTW News page and newsletters, not solely discussed in Board meetings

Why Are We Doing This?

16 years ago, Astolat famously published her manifesto calling for a fandom Archive of One’s Own. In that time, AO3 has grown to be a central pillar of fandom, likely far outstripping its founders’ original vision. It is more than just an archive now; it is a central hub of the modern fannish experience. AO3 and the OTW must continue to grow and evolve with fandom over time to remain a healthy and functioning pillar of fandom. To that end, there are several areas in which the organization, as it admits itself, is lacking.

In June 2020, in the wake of the George Floyd protests and the uprising of the Black Lives Matter Movement, The OTW published a “This Week in Fandom��� referencing the works of Dr. Rukmini Pande and Stitch, among others in which they discussed ‘making change for a better society’ through ‘conversations about race and racism’. In response, Dr. Pande and Stitch submitted a letter to the OTW calling for a more formal public statement than an offhand reference in a News Roundup that only served to call for thoughts and discussion without any indication the organization intended to do anything, policy wise, to address the issues being raised.

Eventually, the organization did remove the references to the works of Dr. Pande and Stitch and then made an official statement on the issue of racism within the organization and AO3. In it, they identified several things they would be prioritizing to combat harassment and benefit users. Some of those have been implemented (notably those that were already under development). However as of this writing, little else has been done especially in regards to:

Improving admin tools for the Policy & Abuse team

Reassessing the current mandatory archive warnings with the possibility of implementing others

And, most importantly, reviewing the Terms of Service (TOS) to allow the Policy & Abuse team to address harassment that is currently not covered by the existing TOS

By their own admission, the current tools and policies of the OTW are not sufficient to deal with issues of harassment and racism.

Several people who were involved in the founding of the OTW, including previous OTW Board members and staff on the original OTW Content Policy Committee, acknowledge that the founding of the OTW in 2008 and early board iterations failed us as a fandom by not doing enough, and by not even considering the way racism is perpetuated in fannish spaces, despite a long history of racism in fandom.

It has been nearly three years since the original commitment by the organization with little visible, measurable progress on these three crucial issues and a complete lack of transparency on where they are in regards to even beginning to deal with these issues. In fact, in Q&As, it was heavily implied by a member of the board that those calling for OTW to deal with issues of racism (which OTW had already acknowledged as a problem!) were not really fans but outside agitators.

This has cast significant doubt on the organization's sincerity and commitment to their stated goals, and on their position as leaders of a central fan tent-pole. Fans of color are not outsiders. They are right here, members of our community, and they are being harassed and targeted and driven out while space and platforms are being given to racists.

We, as fans of color and our allies, find the current state of fandom and current actions (and lack thereof) unacceptable. Fandom is our space, all of ours. We, as a fandom, have a right to a racism-free space and have a duty to our fellow fans to create that space. Unlike so much of the world, this is a space we can control and make better. It is a space we must make better. To read even more about this movement, visit our FAQs.

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I'll always believe that the fandom re-interpretation of Elias as a flamboyant, melodramatic theater kid who wears bright green suits and eye-themed jewelry does a disservice to how funny it is that he is, canonically, a very boring man.

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That face cats have when they’re very young and they look like they just woke up from a four hour nap,, yeah

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always going to be funny to me that all the magnus archives “official” media tried very hard to insist that actually the archivist’s name is spelled “john” and the majority of the fans simply responded with “nope.”

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the duality of jon is that he cares very deeply about people and will fight tooth and nail to not lose sight of himself and still has a lingering guilt for a death he had no control over at age eight but also he put peter lukas through a psychic wood chipper and then never thought about it again

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to me a lot of the appeal of jonmartin is that it’s presumably replicating the sensitive poet/stuffy academic trope except the poet sucks at poetry and the academic is completely unqualified and they’re both really bad at their jobs. so what you’re left with is just a guy who is incredibly stuffy for no reason and a sensitive artist type who is neither all that sensitive nor an artist engaged in a years-long bickering contest before admitting they’re in love. genius

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listened to the patreon AMA (2017-8 for anyone curious & with access) and the crew answered some questions about who would have pets (somewhat paraphrased):

valenti: kepler would have a ja-- eiffel would have a big old dog. or a big young puppy [was he about to say jaguar...] shachat: eiffel IS a big young puppy urbina: kepler would have like. a highly trained pack v: or a MOUNTAIN LION. with a laser on its back u: still highly trained. he would have like, alpha from [pixar's] UP. that dog with that level of training and loyalty s: it would be huge. probably an irish wolfhound, it would be the best trained irish wolfhound u: most of the others don't strike me as having pets someone in chat: lambert would have a chia pet v: he killed it, but he had it for like a week u: jacobi had a tamagotchi s: maxwell probably owned like, a section of neopets at one point in time, but that's not real pets

then they ranked their survival chances in a zombie apocalypse (all paraphrased):

shachat: eiffel dies instantly valenti&urbina: kepler just shoots him-- if they're eating eiffel, they're not coming after me! u: don't shoot him, it'd be a waste of bullets. he just shoves him u: pryce and cutter outlast everyone v: i feel like p&c cheat because they stay in a zombie-proof bunker, kepler and lovelace survive by sheer force of will and badassery s: kepler would be like those characters in the walking dead with a gated community (she has never watched twd) u&s: pryce and cutter last a long time even if they're all dropped into the wilderness hunger games style. i don't know if they last longer than lovelace or kepler s: i think lovelace wins u: minkowski does well, jacobi does slightly less well. s: maxwell does surprisingly well. she outlasts jacobi for sure, i wouldn't be shocked if she outlasted kepler u: hilbert would not last too long u: hera is tough s: either the power will go out or it won't. this whole flesh thing isn't really her concern u: hera might find the entire thing kind of entertaining

also a section about who would've won questions only between hera and kepler if no one interfered, and they said she would physically outlast kepler, because he would need to sleep at SOME point. one of them also said 'it would depend on which of them died first'

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thinking constantly about how goddard has 'demanded every inch' of kepler's life and how that manifests in the way he deliberately obfuscates and distances himself from his personhood, and in doing so he becomes a mirror to every other character that he interacts with. instead of imposing his OWN personality on others, he becomes the person they need, want, or expect him to be, because doing that makes his job smoother and easier-- and his job is, as he said, the only thing he has left. it adds depth and dimension to the whole cast, and you only catch glimpses of kepler himself in that reflection. the character writing in w359 is one of my favorite things about it.

hilbert calls him the most dangerous man you will meet after cutter, so kepler becomes this dangerous, intimidating figure who demotes him under the coffee cup and slams his hand in a drawer when he's being ignored. he emphasizes his rank, because that's what hilbert respects and defers to.

eiffel needs positive reinforcement and constant supervision, so kepler encourages and compliments eiffel, hovers over his shoulder on any long and tedious task, and keeps him company while he does it. he focused on eiffel's resourcefulness and the very impressive thing he did when they first met, because eiffel wants to be acknowledged, and being acknowledged makes him better able to do his work

minkowski responds to authority and clear objectives (she said that she'd save the captain in the riddle of the orion), so even though she resents and complains about the busywork he assigns her upon arrival, she still does it! she seems to relish the opportunity to test the boundaries of an authority figure, and also to finally not be the one in charge. the responsibility of running the hephaestus was taking a HUGE toll on her, so it almost seemed to be a relief when the si5 arrived. she also handed off authority to lovelace when it got to be too much, because she was honestly unprepared to lead that level of catastrophe with as little training as she got.

lovelace has been denied her agency, ignored, mistrusted, dismissed, insulted, lied to and traumatized for a very, VERY long time. so kepler arrives, he speaks plainly to her, he seems glad to see her, and he willingly negotiates with her and gives her the position she requested-- master at arms. AND he enforces her authority even against jacobi and maxwell. even though lovelace was definitely planning to wipe out the si5, and the si5 really didn't intend to allow them to get back to earth alive, she was able to cooperate with them to bide her time, because she understood that kepler wouldn't initiate hostilities against them as long as it was expedient, as long as they seemed willing to fall in line.

and (my favorite!) hera's been regularly dehumanized, taken for granted, and pretty much just expected to limp along with all the damage she sustained because of hilbert by the hephaestus crew. they didn't have the know-how or resources to repair her properly, and she didn't want to tell them that she was in pain because she was already feeling inadequate about her ability to work because of how they spoke to & treated her. so when kepler heads up to the hephaestus, he makes sure to bring maxwell and repairs her systems. he calls her 'young lady'. he never once uses a pronoun or name for her that hera didn't choose. he spoke to her exactly the way he would've spoken to a younger, civilian woman, and he went out of his way to enable maxwell to help her in limbo/memoria.

and when it came to jacobi and maxwell, jacobi is also someone who wanted to be acknowledged, so kepler acknowledged him. kepler sought him out specifically and said 'i know you've been deprived of opportunities, and i'm here to give you one because i think you're worth it'. when he recruited maxwell, per michelle agresti's own words, he gave her an unprecedented amount of agency and autonomy and that was what she had always wanted.

gabriel urbina has said that kepler is 'fascinated with what brings people to extraordinary heights' and that's held true for the entire length of his appearance in w359. absolutely wild that anyone can listen to seasons 3 and 4 and come away thinking that he's one-dimensional when a huge part of of kepler as a character is how he changes to fit himself against the mold of every other character.

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tumblr mobile won't let me upload a voice recording, so I guess you're all spared hearing about my thoughts that people (some of them at least) aren't actually desperate for comments. What they're actually missing is community.

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there is a door on the hephaestus. it is locked, and no one knows where the key is. it is only for emergencies. only for when you are alone. ☄️🏚️

a haunted house spaceship commission for rowan (and a bonus variant version!) if you're reading this when i post it, there's still 2 days left to back my haunted house artbook kickstarter, so if you like haunted things you should totally do that! 💫 ko-fi | patreon

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i need everyone to level with me here. i love jon and martin but i'm consumed by the idea of season five with jon and tim. the absolute misery of surviving in an apocalypse with no one to talk to but a man who would've killed you as indiscriminately as he would an enemy. even though, in what feels like a lifetime ago, you were once friends. struggling along together because there's nothing else to do, no one else who would want to see either of you, nothing here for you but one person who is barely a reprieve from constant pain. who still hates you, though not as much as he once did. maybe you start to rebuild. where else could you hide your face here but his shoulder? maybe both of you deserved this. maybe you really deserved each other. then, in the end, after everything feels like mending, he still has to kill you anyway.

wouldn't that be fucked up lol

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oh how far we've come

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Captain Lovelace on a spacewalk

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/ i'll be your nine pin

song

thinking about si-5... thinking about devotion, and the unwavering belief they have in each other that they will come through because they are the best of the best, and what happened the one time they couldnt :')

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Piracy is not Toxic Masculinity in OFMD

From what I can tell, the idea of piracy being a metaphor for toxic masculinity in Our Flag Means Death seems to be a prevalent opinion from critics and fandom. I strongly disagree with this interpretation and would argue that this as a takeaway relies on classist and racist biases.

So, what does OFMD say about masculinity?

When asked, creator David Jenkins has this to say about the role of masculinity:

In his response, Jenkins actually ties piracy together with freedom of gender expression and contrasts that against a modern day image of Fox News and Donald Trump, both of which are representative of a rich, white demographic.

Burlesque is a really interesting word choice here, evoking imagery of performance, exaggeration, and laughter. There's a falseness to it, but an expectation for others to play along, regardless.

It's noteworthy that when asked about masculinity, Jenkins doesn't go towards the violence of piracy first, but instead chooses to shine the spotlight on the upper class, while criticizing the heterosexual, whitewashing of the pirate genre.

Within the show, we most clearly see the question of masculinity centered around Stede Bonnet as he grapples with heteropatriarchy. I know that people describe OFMD as a world without homophobia, but I don't think that's accurate. It's less that homophobia doesn't exist, and more that it's watered down, and pushed just out of view. The show still engages with homophobia but does so through alternative means focused on an unspoken alienation that follows Stede his entire life as he fails to live up to expectations of masculinity as a child, and continues to fit uncomfortably within heterosexual family life.

The issue with presenting piracy as toxic masculinity, is that the comparison necessitates aristocracy having the inverse relationship which is obviously problematic for several reasons.

The thing is, yes, Stede is derided for his incompetency as a pirate and often mocked for his softness and failure at presenting as masculine. However, the root of Stede's trauma is firmly situated within the aristocracy. We do see plenty of moments of Stede being out of touch within the pirate world, where in the first episode he's met with resistance at something as simple as sewing a flag. It's interesting, however, that this opposition is short-lived where the crew picks up on sewing quickly and Wee John even admits to making dresses with his mother.

They then go on to talk about mutiny, but baby steps, ya know. Either way, although it's not instant, there is freedom within the ship to push the borders of masculinity and engage in new activities.

You don't see this same leniency within the aristocracy. At no point in time do we see that same openness among aristocrats. The only possible exception is the widow community Mary is friends with, but that community kinda literally necessitated the death of their husbands to occur.

It's interesting because the vast majority of the time Stede's moments of discomfort within the pirate lifestyle aren't because he's not masculine enough, but from being out of touch with the working class and doing stupid shit like showing up to Spanish Jackie's in all-white suits. It's easy to associate wanting nice clothes and soft material as the opposite of masculine, but it's important to remember that in Stede's world, these things aren't feminine. Yes, there are definitely times when he's mocked exclusively because he doesn't fit within gender expectations, but Stede not being accepted into the pirate life isn't a commentary on his gender/sexuality, it's a rejection of his class position. Oluwande says it in the first episode: "We don't do this because we want to, we do it because we have to." Stede is a tourist in their world, where most of them aren't there because it's fun, but because they're trying to survive.

In contrast, Stede's rejection from high society is consistently based on his "feminine" traits. He experiences cruelty as a child for things like crying too much or picking flowers. There's a purposeful isolation based on harmless behavior firmly rooted in his inability to fit in with the other boys. As an adult, he's forced into a loveless marriage by his patriarchal father as an obligation to fulfill a man's role. Something his father even highlights as his purpose as an aristocrat as "peasants marry for love." Aristocracy is a prison for Stede.

One thing that gets brought up fairly often is the idea that piracy demonstrates a need for violence, and that by moving away from this, Stede and Edward can escape this violence through assimilation into aristocracy. This is something that the show actively rejects, however.

There's two instances where we see this the most clearly. One is the episode with the French boat party. It's interesting because the French aren't what one would associate with toxic masculinity. Just like Stede, they love a fine fabric, music, food, and other softer things. They're in makeup and extravagant wigs, and I'm sure would all shudder at the thought of wielding a sword. This doesn't mean that they are a society free of violence though. Stede said it best, that pirates fight with their fists, and aristocrats fight using cutting remarks disguised as kindness. Sure, Ed had Fang skin someone alive, but the captain started it when he called him a donkey.

The violence of the aristocracy is simply hidden under pretty words and fancy dinner parties, and not even hidden particularly well. Simply look at the servants occupying the backgrounds.

We see this same violence demonstrated in episode one when the British come aboard. Until then, we only have Stede's point of view on piracy as a culture of abuse and how he's changing that, which is an accurate statement. But, what we don't realize until the British come, is that this is a facet of Stede's personality, not something inherent to the upper class. When the navy boards the ship, the culture of the crew shifts entirely, where they're briefly ejected from the world of piracy, and placed into higher society instead. And when this occurs, we see exactly how stifling and abusive that culture is.

Yes, the crew is dressed in fancy clothes, wearing wigs, and drinking tea. None of these are things one would associate as "toxic masculinity," but not engaging with that doesn't lead them to a world free of patriarchy or oppression. For the first time, there is a hierarchy aboard, where previously the crew interacted as equals, but now the crew of color are forced into roles of servitude. Is this not violence? Sure, the conversation around the table is polite, but it's a politeness that is obligatory where the rules of society forces them to engage with uncomfortable situations. Stede is obligated to give a tour of the ship even though he doesn't want to. Oluwande is unable to say anything in response to the verbal abuse directed towards him.

It's only when the crew sheds these costumes and react violently against the British that their humanity is returned.

The association of pirates as being held captive by their need for violence, inability to discuss their feelings, and general roughness or "uncleanliness" is a deeply hypocritical ideal pushed by the aristocracy. We see far more genuine human emotion and openness from the pirates, whether that be anger, joy, sadness, or love, than we ever do with the male aristocrats. Pirates are derided for their violence, but how many of them are escaping the confines of poverty, or even slavery? And when it comes to being rough or unclean, are these really virtues we want to associate with negativity?

And yes, there is misogyny within the pirate world, and whatever the fuck Izzy got going on too, but it's funny that this is the only place that gayness is accepted without a blink of an eye. Even when Izzy's bullying Lucius a bit, at least he's doing so for him being a lazy seductress with a smart mouth, and never as a way of punishing him for being gay.

There are definitely elements of the aristocracy associated as positively, but it isn't black and white. We see Ed long to belong to that world, and people are quick to want to fulfill that fantasy of being accepted into the upper class so he can be showered with fine things, soft fabrics, and as much lavender soap that he could ever need, but this is a desire that needs to be challenged. There is nothing wrong with desiring these things and I agree he should receive as much as he wants, but we can't mistake this for aristocracy.

Ed's desire for this life comes from the pain of a childhood of poverty. Of feeling lesser than, subhuman, and worth less than someone with money. He said it himself, he has more riches than you can shake a stick at, but he's not looking for more wealth, he's looking to belong in this rich, white world that will never accept him. The same world that Stede is fleeing from.

Wealth isn't the liberation Ed is looking for, what he desires is love and acceptance. Yes, he wears fine things well, but the focus isn't on his ability to adorn himself in riches that places more value on him. No, he's what's elevating these accessories. He's what's giving them value.

In the end, what we see throughout the series is Stede grappling with the weight of being stuck between two worlds: a pirates life vs that of an aristocrats. It matters that when he finally accepts who he is and who he loves, he follows this by renouncing any claim to his wealth. He gives up his place in high society, because piracy isn't a metaphor for toxic masculinity, it's an imperfect place that grants Stede freedom.