thunder-of-dragons

[thunder-of-dragons]

So, you might or might not have other people in the car but no taking turns and swapping drivers. Just you driving for the whole day

[thunder-of-dragons]

you have to be around asexual perverts it’s good for your health

[thunder-of-dragons]

im laughing so hard because no matter what song you listen to 

spiderman dances to the beat

no matter what song ive been testing it and lauing my ass off for an hour

[thunder-of-dragons]

-despite everything, there is still love

@arthoesunshine/ @artsheila/ @daisies-on-a-cup/ @gayarsonist / @hjarta/ @yunawinter on twitter/ @bakwaaas/ @death-born-aphrodite/ anon on gentleearth/ @classicnymph on twitter

[thunder-of-dragons]

Growing up Mormon AND with long hair that I didn’t cut because of pressure from my mom, to me the metaphor here is pretty obvious… you can read it how you want though.

[thunder-of-dragons]

And that’s that on that.

[thunder-of-dragons]

they went off with this

[thunder-of-dragons]

Well my loves, it appears as though the answer to "Can the Big Pattern Company (Simplicity/Burda/McCalls/ect.) survive the death of JoAnn?" has come.

The answer is no. No it cannot. It has been sold to a liquidator just like JoAnns was.

So if there is ANYTHING you want I suggest you get it now. simplicity.com is currently having a pattern sale and I snatched up some that might be useful for cosplay purposes.

I am very glad these last couple of years I have built up my collection.

[thunder-of-dragons]

You keep talking about the origins of AO3 as this group effort by an actual group of people who were friends and who spent time discussing this with each other in person. It's kind of blowing my mind. Is there a post or a journal somewhere that specifically keeps record of this?

--

I'm dying.

Nonnie, seriously?

No, that's mean, I know you're serious. It's just flabbergasting how much fandom has expanded and how much there isn't a direct link to the past.

Astolat and Cesperanza floated the idea at Vividcon and various places, I think, though I wasn't going to cons in that era. We were all on LJ in those days, and Astolat made a big post nailing her theses to the door. Discussion in the comments was instant and prolonged.

A LJ com was set up to discuss. It was later renamed to otw_news, but if you go all the way back to the beginning, you can see brainstorming mess instead of official news posts.

Fanlore page linking to Astolat's post and giving a little context.

Early brainstorming: https://otw-news.livejournal.com/2007/05/

For example, here I am collecting links to older archives to look at for research when designing AO3.

Fun fact, we never intended to call it AO3. There was a whole call for name suggestions, but nothing was as evocative as astolat's original post title referencing Virginia Woolf. (For those who haven't thought about it, AO3's name is a reference to A Room of One's Own.)

Here's the name discussion

Here's the poll that came out of it

But also notice how many people voted: 562.

That's how many people cared at the time: a few hundred. Maybe a thousand if you count lurkers, but frankly, that community was not as lurkery as now. It wasn't just ten friends. It was a community effort. But what "our" community looked like at the time was vastly different. It was six degrees of Kevin Bacon astolat, not a vast sea of strangers like fic fandom on AO3 is now.

Here's an early post suggesting we ban the under 18s from the site entirely. Pity we didn't do so, given the rise of antis.

Here's the invite to a fundraising party at astolat's in NYC that following Halloween. I dressed as Amanda from Highlander, not very well.

You can tell we knew each other by looking at those comments on astolat's initial post. You can also tell how discussion-based that part of fandom was back in 2007.

The way my tumblr is now with a ton of text, back and forth, and hopping around between threads of conversation, all featuring a consistent set of faces, is very much like LJ. Most of tumblr is not.

[thunder-of-dragons]

My favorite genre of post on here is the one where someone has written something on how funny it is when a post blows up, because they’re always like “lol isn’t it funny when people get way more notes than they want, anyway what is up my three (3) followers” and then you scroll down and it has 35k notes and with each new reblog the op sounds like they’re one step closer to moving to the woods and never returning

[thunder-of-dragons]

Neurotypical people will teach you that it's rude to interrupt others, that you shouldn't talk over people, and then make fun of you your whole life for being "quiet" and withdrawn because you're waiting for a break in the conversation that never comes.

[thunder-of-dragons]

You all need to hear this:

1. You probably dont suck at your craft as much as you think you do, I bet a lot of people are amazed at what you can make, and

2. If you actually are the Literal Worst In The Whole Wide World at your craft... who the fuck cares? What are they gonna do, call the police on you? Keep making your shitty little things, youre the boss of you, fuck the haters.

[thunder-of-dragons]

Finished! Partition Pullover by James N Watts in Plymouth Yarn Sea Isle (50% cotton, 50% merino, cabled twist).

[thunder-of-dragons]

Moses Supposes

[thunder-of-dragons]

Today I was chatting with two guys and mentioned I was aroace. It went a little something like this.

A: wtf is that

B: it means she’s not attracted to people in that way

A: bro you can’t just not pick a side, that’s crazy

B: nah, it just means she’s spectator mode

A: OHHH IT MAKES SENSE NOW

I have never felt more validated or laughed so hard

[thunder-of-dragons]

stop earning advanced degrees i need you to finish your fanfiction

[thunder-of-dragons]

Having a traumatic childhood means you cannot talk even objectively about your basic foundational experiences without it being "venting", even if you're not actually venting. You just straight up have a huge chunk of your life you can't talk about, full stop, without it being trauma dumping.

And it not being socially acceptable to talk about your own childhood is super alienating. Sometimes people want to know why, and any answer you can give them is going to be off putting.

It's to the point I get irritated when something I said is framed as venting when I'm literally just talking about my life experiences, doing my best to keep emotion out of it.