I am really baffled by the people attacking AO3 for hosting stories that involve rape, incest, pedophilia, and other dark things. Have…have they never been to a bookstore or library? People write stories about all manner of dark, horrible things. This is not remotely new. And at least on AO3 and other fandom platforms, the dark things are generally tagged. In bookstores and libraries, not so much.
V.C. Andrews was freaking popular when I was in jr. high and high school. Her books were in the school libraries. They needed to be stamped with trigger warning: EVERYTHING, but mainly things from the fun list of rape, incest, pedophilia, and child abuse. Her books are still sufficiently popular that there are new ones coming out despite the fact that she’s been dead for years!
Her books are in the library I work at. Her books are in most bookstores. Her books are probably still in the libraries of the jr high and high school I went to. Does that mean anywhere that has her books supports rape, incest, pedophilia, and child abuse?
That’s not how it works. Yes, there are occasionally things that a store or library will decide they don’t want to carry, no matter what. The first bookstore I worked at wouldn’t even special order The Turner Diaries. A lot of bookstores won’t even special order The Anarchist Cookbook. I’m sure there are other books out there that people are reluctant to touch, even with a ten foot pole. But, barring those few exceptions, most bookstores and libraries are not in the business of policing the content of the books they deal in.
Not because booksellers and librarians are all monsters who should be reported to the FBI, but because there’s a long history of censorship going very bad places very fast. Also, free speech is considered an American value. Hell, let me just link to the ALA page on censorship.
I don’t pretend to know why stuff like V.C. Andrews’ books, or the fics on AO3 that some people want to report to the FBI, are popular. I don’t get it. It doesn’t appeal to me. Yet I recognize that different dark things are in kinds of fiction that I do like – violence, murder, torture, war, other things that most of us really fervantly hope never to experience in our lives. I don’t know whether fiction is an outlet for whatever darkness lurks in everyone’s hearts, whether it’s a way of dealing with our fear of bad things happening, whether human culture just finds bad things fascinating, or what. Maybe humanity is just super fucked up and Pluto really is a warning buoy telling other civilizations not to go near the planet with the creepy mammal infestation on it.
But I don’t think going after fic platforms because some of the fic hosted there is disturbing is a solution to anything. (And if the people doing so are not also on an equivalent campaign against bookstores and libraries, I suspect that what’s going on is not what they claim is going on.)
VC Andrews was ABSOLUTELY the first thing I thought of when I started hearing about this, because hoooooo my god. And I definitely remember being able to get my hands on those at a young age.
There’s plenty of shit I don’t want to read on AO3. Luckily, that stuff – or at least most of it! – is TAGGED, so I don’t have to. That’s the ENTIRE POINT. It’s not breaking a law, and you are not being forced to read it.
if you’re offline or away and i message you something (like a link to a meme or a picture or w/e) honestly just assume that i’m just leaving it there for when you get back and not expecting you to answer straight away. i don’t need you to respond with “hey, sorry, i wasn’t at the computer!” or anything. i was leaving u a gift for later.
I do this all the time on Discord. I’m not expecting a response, I’m just sharing a thing for whenever you happen to see it.
I regularly send my friends memes when I know they’re asleep because I know
they will wake
and then
they will scream
This post, but also when you’re awake and online and even posting. It’s chill! I’m leaving that there for you whenever, that’s the nice thing about technological advancements like instance messaging, it means I can do that without sending you awkward clunky emails, and they DON’T mean we as human beings need to be available to each other immediately! I’m sending you a letter. Take care of it whenever!
recuva – accidentally deleted something in the recycling bin? recover it back with this program!
speccy – tells you the specs of your computer, among other things
defraggler – defrag the SHIT out of your hard drive and clean it right up
This is a great post what makes it even better is that most of these you can get from Ninite which will download and install the latest versions of all available software ALL AT ONCE without you having to worry about adware or the annoying clutter (toolbars, changing your default search engine) that sometimes comes with their individual installers. So, yeah. Have at it folks.
If you’re like me and constantly running low on space because you are never deleting old files and have no clue what is taking up all of your space then this is for you. It scans your hard drive and shows you which files are taking up space, what kind of file they are, and where they are located so you can easily take care of them.
Example (not mine):
It’s a life saver!
As someone who’s well acquainted with open source applications, I’m surprised Abiword isn’t on this list.
And for reading ebooks and even comic books, there’s always Calibre. It sadly isn’t on mobile, however.
Here’s a free video editor, as well; I’ve never done any video editing so I can speak on if it’s any good, but here it is regardless. It’s called Kdenlive and it’s a project of the same people who made the above Krita.
And obviously there’s always the option of ditching Windows altogether and using Linux :^)
There’s actually a whole web series where Liquid Jay gets his ring stolen and has to get it back, but it’s on this platform called Zeus and I think you have to subscribe to see it. Here’s the trailer.
rip tumblr 