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cimorene) wrote2025-08-28 10:25 pmPuriteens, as I've seen them called on Tumblr
today someone commented on a My Chemical Romance alternate universe fanfiction novel she posted SEVENTEEN YEARS AGO just to tell her they were super creeped out to realize that the characters in the fic were 15 and 21, respectively.
LOL.
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otw_news_feed) wrote2025-08-28 04:52 pmOTW Signal, August 2025
Every month in OTW Signal, we take a look at stories that connect to the OTW’s mission and projects, including issues related to legal matters, technology, academia, fannish history and preservation issues of fandom, fan culture, and transformative works.
In the News
An article from Roster Con analyzes how fans are reinventing community online, creating inclusive digital spaces that thrive, and fundamentally changing the way people with shared interests connect and interact with each other.
Instead of waiting in line at conventions or gathering in packed theaters, people are now forming tight-knit communities online—spaces where shared interests thrive without borders.
What’s striking isn’t just the tech that brings people together; it’s how fans are reshaping what it means to belong, connect, and celebrate something bigger than themselves.
Today’s pop culture fans are constructing elaborate digital networks that have no geographical boundaries and do not follow traditional media consumption patterns. For example, the article notes that the Stardew Valley network on Discord has grown from a small chat group into an expansive community where players share content and organize multiplayer events. This transformation from content-focused discussion to community-centered interaction is taking place across online fandom spaces. Platforms like Discord and Twitch support active fan communities and host virtual conventions, complete with panel discussions, cosplay, and live Q&As, allowing fans to experience the excitement of fandom gatherings while removing barriers like travel and cost.
What’s even more powerful is the reach. People who would never have made it to San Diego or Tokyo due to cost, distance, or accessibility now have a front-row seat. A fan in Nairobi, a student in Warsaw, and a parent in São Paulo can all be part of the same hype cycle, cheering and reacting together.
The article also addresses how creative platforms like Archive of Our Own (AO3), FanFiction.net, and DeviantArt are no longer simply repositories for fan-created content. Creators post works in progress to seek input and engage in collaborative projects that may span multiple authors and extended timelines. Similarly, social media has become a powerful tool for fan communities, with hashtag campaigns fueling organized fan movements and creative collaboration that spreads quickly and travels far. These activities provide a sense of community and support previously found in schools, clubs, and community groups, reshaping how fans engage with each other in the digital age.
For Gen Z fans in Australia, the sense of belonging that comes from participating in fandom is particularly valuable right now, according to an article by Lucinda O’Brien in Amplify. With the rising cost of living and a looming recession, one in four young Australians reports loneliness and isolation as daily stressors. Fandom offers a space for them to express themselves and to make friends with others who share their passions—an antidote to the ongoing loneliness.
Fandom expert Dr. Georgia Carroll explains that fandom provides a critical sense of community and belonging, especially in difficult times:
Joining a fandom often begins as a light-hearted endeavour for Gen Z to bond over shared interests, but these spaces can deepen into emotionally rich communities where personal stories and identities are shared. Fandoms become places where fans feel seen, validated and safe to express themselves.
For Australian fans of international fandoms, distance often makes it difficult to meet with other fans in person, leading them to seek connection through online communities. As digital natives, Gen Z are adept at connecting through online fandoms.
As conventional community spaces continue to decline and social isolation grows, these digital communities offer something more than just entertainment or distraction. For Australian Gen Z, online fandom offers new and invaluable opportunities for connection and belonging.
OTW Tips
The AO3 community is now nine million users strong! In 2024 alone, users shared over two million new fanworks, and the site received an incredible 34 billion page views. You can find these and other highlights in the OTW’s 2024 Annual Report.
Bonus tip: many of our statistics are also available as graphics that chart the OTW’s growth over the years.
To everyone who helps this space thrive—thank you for building community with us!
We want your suggestions for the next OTW Signal post! If you know of an essay, video, article, podcast, or news story you think we should know about, send us a link. We are looking for content in all languages! Submitting a link doesn’t guarantee that it will be included in an OTW post, and inclusion of a link doesn’t mean that it is endorsed by the OTW.
conuly) wrote2025-08-30 06:54 amStandards for signing up with ICE are so low
( Read more... )
conuly) wrote2025-08-29 07:41 pmLet's just pretend I posted this on International Left-hander's Day
Which are you?
( Read more... )
tablesaw) wrote2025-08-28 12:23 amZeroing In
I'm idly trying to do an Inbox Zero type of thing, which is rough after something like two decades of ignoring it. But as terrible as it email is, it is at least reliable, with the ability to build one's own algorithms in even the most hostile of programs. It'll work, if I can work it.
So many of the writers who could have been bloggers are turning to email-list congregators as their post-Twitter platform. Much of it is for ease of use, but I've seen at least one person turn to a no-cost Patreon subscription primarily as a way to prevent AI scrapers from finding their writing.
I'm willing to consider an RSS reader, I guess, but every time I look into it, I still see other people looking for something that'll do what they want. And in my heart, I know that this is something that can probably help me greatly at this point. My inbox is a locus for attention that I do believe I can master, and I want my attention to be my own.
boxofdelights) wrote2025-08-28 12:12 amMount TBR
We Do This Til We Free Us for Slow Book Club, which had its first (online) meeting Monday. We discussed parts 1 and 2. We'll discuss parts 3, 4 and 5 next month. I thought the discussion was really good! It's open to new members, so if you would like to jump in, let me know.
Always Coming Home for Solarpunk Futures bookgroup, later today (Thursday). This bookgroup is also online and open to new members, so if you are interested in discussing Always Coming Home this evening, let me know.
The Meadow for Classics bookgroup
Artful for 1000 Books To Read Before You Die
Lula Dean's Little Library of Banned Books for Fort Collins Reads
The All-True Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton for Tawanda bookgroup
Lonely Castle in the Mirror for SF bookgroup
Mathematical Mindsets for ideas on working with a kid who is way behind where school wants her to be in fourth grade
The Paper Playhouse and Craft The Rainbow due back at the library soon.
torachan) wrote2025-08-27 10:08 pmDaily Happiness
2. Gemma's soaking in the sun.
conuly) wrote2025-08-28 07:32 pmDW and Bluesky (and probably others)
Link to DW explanation
Link to Tedium post on Bluesky
So, yay, piracy and VPNs all the way?
(I fucking hate this timeline, have I said that lately?)
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(no subject)
My parents preferred my siblings my whole life. I was never abused, but they just weren’t as interested in me. They said my school events were too boring, but went to every game my siblings played in. I had everything I needed at home; I never went without food or essentials. But I didn’t get much attention, and I never got focused on time together like my siblings did.
They gave me a small amount of help with college, but I also took out loans and got scholarships. Both my siblings got fully paid for undergraduate degrees. I got a $200 check to help me with my first home, while both siblings got fully covered 20 percent down payments. They prioritized my siblings emotionally and financially, and eventually, I accepted that it wasn’t changing.
I dealt with this through therapy, and building my own support network of friends. My husband and I are close with his parents. My dad passed away during the pandemic. My mom died suddenly a few months ago, and I’m still processing it. I really wish we could have been close, and knowing that the door is closed forever hurts. She hired a professional to manage her estate, and I assumed she would do in death what she did in life. I didn’t expect to receive much.
Instead, I’m apparently receiving 3/4 of her estate, and an apology. It’s not millions, but it is shocking and I don’t know what to think. My siblings, with whom I’ve had a vague, surface-level relationship as adults, are furious. My husband says it’s late but deserved, while my siblings say it’s selfish and clearly Mom wasn’t in her right mind. Meanwhile, I’m just sad that she didn’t act in life, and instead left me an apology after death. How do I handle this?
—Sad on the Seacoast
( Read more... )
You Can Be Warm Without an Embrace
I recently saw an occasional collaborator — with whom I’ve built a nice rapport — at a concert. When I approached him, I instinctively went in for a hug. His body stiffened, and he kept his arms at his sides. I thought: Oh, this was a mistake! I backed off, and we exchanged pleasantries. But his response felt excessive and rude. Should I let this go?
FRIEND
It’s easy to feel defensive — or chastened — when we accidentally overstep with friends. But it is wrong to blame others for our unwanted touching. Your collaborator had no obligation to return your hug or to make you feel better about it. So, to answer your question: No, you shouldn’t let this go. Instead, rethink your instinct to hug people who you aren’t sure will welcome it.
conuly) wrote2025-08-27 02:51 pmWanton and dissipation
Me: Oh, there is no way the comments to this post are going to be helpful.
And I was half right! I was just about the only person to give the asked-for definition of "dissipation". As predicted, everybody else used the science sense rather than the moral decay sense. What surprised me is that they also all defined the word "wanton" in terms of violence rather than sexual promiscuity.
Anyway, I said myself that dissipation (meaning debauchery) is an old-fashioned term and that I'm not quite sure how I even know that one off the top of my head, but then the next day I was re-reading Ancillary Justice and there it is, right in the first few chapters. Seivarden is in a bad state due to her dissipated lifestyle, and that's the word used to describe it. Huh. (But I think I already knew that word before I read the book for the first time.)
( Read more... )
torachan) wrote2025-08-26 09:15 pmDaily Happiness
2. It was much nicer weather today. Even when I came out to the car after being at work, I didn't have to blast the AC to get it bearable for the drive home.
3. Yesterday's episode of Game Changer was so good. This season has really been hitting it out of the park, but man. That was amazing. I can't wait to watch the behind the scenes episode next week. The episode also involved mentioning a lot of previous episodes, which made us want to do a rewatch, so I think we'll be doing that soon.
4. I love Chloe's little foot freckle.
zero to nuclear?
Last year, my wife’s fourth adult child died so I inherited her 3-year-old.
We had nine people in our home. I am not their father but tried to give them an opportunity in life until I realized they didn’t want help getting on their feet, they wanted to be taken care of.
So, I filed eviction on all of them. This obviously created some hard feelings and things got very ugly. I’ve decided to cut all ties with my wife’s family due to this which obviously causes problems for her because I will not attend family functions, holidays, etc. Do you think I am wrong to do so?
— Stepfather
Stepfather: My first question is, where is your wife in all of this? I don’t know the financial setup of your marriage, of course, but the home you live in is also her home so one would think that she gets a say in who gets to live there and who gets evicted, particularly if they’re her own children. And maybe there was more joint discussion about the adult children not contributing enough to the household — nine is a lot of people — but it reads like some of these decisions were unilateral and that can cause a lot of conflict.
There are many people who don’t have smooth relationships with in-laws. Sometimes that’s unavoidable. But your wife is your family, and so her family is your family. Refusing to engage with them puts her in an impossible position. Who is she supposed to choose?
You don’t have to let them live with you, but more conversation will be helpful here. Getting into the habit of making joint decisions with your wife, even if it requires more compromise than you’d ideally like, will help your marriage. And finding a way past some of the animosity with her adult kids will help everyone.
(no subject)
Two examples in the past week: Jane is enjoying running and sliding in socks on our wood floors. I tell her she might bump into something so maybe take the socks off. She ignores me and within a minute has bumped her head and shoulder into the wall and bursts into tears. Last night she was chewing on a pen that had a little pompom on a chain. I tell her to stop or it will break. She continues chewing and somehow latches the clasp on a small gap between her teeth. It gets stuck, takes my husband and me about 10 minutes of holding her down screaming so we can unhook it.
In cases like these, I really want to say something after she calms down, like, “Honey, I give you warnings to stop something because I don’t want you to get hurt.” My husband feels like a lecture after she’s been crying isn’t going to help. Who is right?
— Natural Consequences
( Read more... )
ao3_news_feed) wrote2025-08-26 10:13 amFaerie: Tolkien Fanfiction is Moving to the AO3
Faerie, a Tolkien fanfiction archive, is being imported to the Archive of Our Own (AO3).
In this post:
- A bit of background explanation
- What this means for creators who had work(s) on Faerie
- And what to do if you still have questions
Background explanation
Faerie: Tolkien fanfiction was an archive founded by Esteliel in 2011 and run with the help of mods Narya and Spiced_Wine. The site welcomed all sorts of stories, poetry and non-fiction writing, regardless of genre, rating or pairing. Due to unforeseen circumstances the site owner could no longer maintain it and the site was taken offline sometime in 2021. As a result and in order to keep the stories available to the fandom, the mods Narya and Spiced_Wine decided to move the archive to the AO3 as part of the Open Doors project.
The purpose of the Open Doors Committee’s Online Archive Rescue Project is to assist moderators of archives to incorporate the fanworks from those archives into the Archive of Our Own. Open Doors works with moderators to import their archives when the moderators lack the funds, time, or other resources to continue to maintain their archives independently. It is extremely important to Open Doors that we work in collaboration with moderators who want to import their archives and that we fully credit creators, giving them as much control as possible over their fanworks. Open Doors will be working with Narya and Spiced_Wine to import Faerie into a separate, searchable collection on the Archive of Our Own. As part of preserving the archive in its entirety, all fanfictions currently in Faerie will be hosted on the OTW's servers, and embedded in their own AO3 work pages.
We will begin importing works from Faerie to the AO3 after September 2025. However, the import may not take place for several months or even years, depending on the size and complexity of the archive. Creators are always welcome to import their own works and add them to the collection in the meantime.
What does this mean for creators who had work(s) on Faerie?
We will send an import notification to the email address we have for each creator. We'll do our best to check for an existing copy of any works before importing. If we find a copy already on the AO3, we will add it to the collection instead of importing it. All works archived on behalf of a creator will include their name in the byline or the summary of the work.
All imported works will be set to be viewable only by logged-in AO3 users. Once you claim your works, you can make them publicly-viewable if you choose. After 30 days, all unclaimed imported works will be made visible to all visitors. We will then permanently close down the site.
Please contact Open Doors with your Faerie pseud(s) and email address(es), if:
- You'd like us to import your works, but you need the notification sent to a different email address than you used on the original archive.
- You already have an AO3 account and have imported your works already yourself.
- You’d like to import your works yourself (including if you don’t have an AO3 account yet).
- You would NOT like your works moved to the AO3, or would NOT like your works added to the archive collection.
- You are happy for us to preserve your works on the AO3, but would like us to remove your name.
- You have any other questions we can help you with.
Please include the name of the archive in the subject heading of your email. If you no longer have access to the email account associated with your Faerie account, please contact Open Doors and we'll help you out. (If you've posted the works elsewhere, or have an easy way to verify that they're yours, that's great; if not, we will work with the Faerie mods to confirm your claims.)
Please see the Open Doors Website for instructions on:
- importing your works to the AO3
- adding your works to the new collection Faerie: Tolkien fanfiction
If you still have questions...
If you have further questions, visit the Open Doors FAQ, or contact the Open Doors committee.
We'd also love it if fans could help us preserve the story of Faerie on Fanlore. If you're new to wiki editing, no worries! Check out the new visitor portal, or ask the Fanlore Gardeners for tips.
We're excited to be able to help preserve Faerie!
- The Open Doors team, Narya and Spiced_Wine
Commenting on this post will be disabled in 14 days. If you have any questions, concerns, or comments regarding this import after that date, please contact Open Doors.
The Organization for Transformative Works is the non-profit parent organization of multiple projects including Archive of Our Own, Fanlore, Open Doors, Transformative Works and Cultures, and OTW Legal Advocacy. We are a fan-run, entirely donor-supported organization staffed by volunteers. Find out more about us on our website.
otw_news_feed) wrote2025-08-26 10:09 amFaerie: Tolkien Fanfiction is Moving to the AO3
Faerie, a Tolkien fanfiction archive, is being imported to the Archive of Our Own (AO3).
In this post:
- A bit of background explanation
- What this means for creators who had work(s) on Faerie
- And what to do if you still have questions
Background explanation
Faerie: Tolkien fanfiction was an archive founded by Esteliel in 2011 and run with the help of mods Narya and Spiced_Wine. The site welcomed all sorts of stories, poetry and non-fiction writing, regardless of genre, rating or pairing. Due to unforeseen circumstances the site owner could no longer maintain it and the site was taken offline sometime in 2021. As a result and in order to keep the stories available to the fandom, the mods Narya and Spiced_Wine decided to move the archive to the AO3 as part of the Open Doors project.
The purpose of the Open Doors Committee’s Online Archive Rescue Project is to assist moderators of archives to incorporate the fanworks from those archives into the Archive of Our Own. Open Doors works with moderators to import their archives when the moderators lack the funds, time, or other resources to continue to maintain their archives independently. It is extremely important to Open Doors that we work in collaboration with moderators who want to import their archives and that we fully credit creators, giving them as much control as possible over their fanworks. Open Doors will be working with Narya and Spiced_Wine to import Faerie into a separate, searchable collection on the Archive of Our Own. As part of preserving the archive in its entirety, all fanfictions currently in Faerie will be hosted on the OTW’s servers, and embedded in their own AO3 work pages.
We will begin importing works from Faerie to the AO3 after September 2025. However, the import may not take place for several months or even years, depending on the size and complexity of the archive. Creators are always welcome to import their own works and add them to the collection in the meantime.
What does this mean for creators who had work(s) on Faerie?
We will send an import notification to the email address we have for each creator. We’ll do our best to check for an existing copy of any works before importing. If we find a copy already on the AO3, we will add it to the collection instead of importing it. All works archived on behalf of a creator will include their name in the byline or the summary of the work.
All imported works will be set to be viewable only by logged-in AO3 users. Once you claim your works, you can make them publicly-viewable if you choose. After 30 days, all unclaimed imported works will be made visible to all visitors. We will then permanently close down the site.
Please contact Open Doors with your Faerie pseud(s) and email address(es), if:
- You’d like us to import your works, but you need the notification sent to a different email address than you used on the original archive.
- You already have an AO3 account and have imported your works already yourself.
- You’d like to import your works yourself (including if you don’t have an AO3 account yet).
- You would NOT like your works moved to the AO3, or would NOT like your works added to the archive collection.
- You are happy for us to preserve your works on the AO3, but would like us to remove your name.
- You have any other questions we can help you with.
Please include the name of the archive in the subject heading of your email. If you no longer have access to the email account associated with your Faerie account, please contact Open Doors and we’ll help you out. (If you’ve posted the works elsewhere, or have an easy way to verify that they’re yours, that’s great; if not, we will work with the Faerie mods to confirm your claims.)
Please see the Open Doors Website for instructions on:
- importing your works to the AO3
- adding your works to the new collection Faerie: Tolkien fanfiction
If you still have questions…
If you have further questions, visit the Open Doors FAQ, or contact the Open Doors committee.
We’d also love it if fans could help us preserve the story of Faerie on Fanlore. If you’re new to wiki editing, no worries! Check out the new visitor portal, or ask the Fanlore Gardeners for tips.
We’re excited to be able to help preserve Faerie!
– The Open Doors team, Narya and Spiced_Wine
Commenting on this post will be disabled in 14 days. If you have any questions, concerns, or comments regarding this import after that date, please contact Open Doors.
torachan) wrote2025-08-25 10:58 pmDaily Happiness
2. I just remembered next Monday is Labor Day, so I've got a three day weekend coming up! And Carla has a very early doctor's appointment that Tuesday at a location that's not super far but also not really close, so I offered to drive her, and was at first thinking I'd just go to work after that, but then decided to put in a sick day request for that day and just take the day off, so I've now got a four day weekend. :D
3. Molly has been really into my chair lately.
