Amateur-genius:

Wait, let me back up.

Hi, my name is Cara and I’m a 21 year old woman. Every 28 days, give or take, I have a period. And it fucking sucks. Today, was one of those where I take from the 28 day cycle. I wasn’t due for another period for at least a week, but considering that my period is pretty...

Strength for Amy

So I don’t know if you’ve been paying attention or not, but a member of our Supernatural family has been struggling for her life against a tumor that has recently been exacerbated by the flu. She has been really touch and go for awhile now, but...

I think there are some really important discussions to have about why disclosing aspects of personal identity can be challenging but important for all kinds of people, why the concept of “coming out” has appealed at times to a wide variety of groups (including people who are poly or kinky, sex workers, people with HIV, atheists, and people with mental illness), and why other groups using that language can be harmful to people in the LGBT and queer communities. But it’s going to take me some time to really be able to address all that.

In the meantime, I also think it’s worthwhile to focus specifically on the coming out experiences of people who are LGBTQIA. Of course, these experiences can vary a lot too. There are some differences between coming out about sexual orientation and coming out about gender identity, for example. And even two people who identify the same way may face pretty different challenges in their individual lives. I do believe, however, that there is a certain commonality shared specifically by these groups.

Gentle reminder that very little fandom labor is automated, because I think people forget that a lot.

That blog with a tagging system you love? A person curates those tags by hand.

That rec blog with a great organization scheme and pretty graphics? Someone designed and implemented that organization scheme and made those graphics.

That network that posts a cool variety of stuff? People track down all that variety and queue it by hand, and other people made all the individual pieces.

That post with umpteen links to helpful resources, and information about them? Someone gathered those links, researched the sources, wrote up the information about them.

That graphic about fandom statistics? Someone compiled those statistics, analyzed them, organized them, figured out a useful way to convey the information to others, and made the post.

That event that you think looks neat? Someone wrote the rules, created the blogs and Discords, designed the graphics, did their best to promo the event so it'd succeed.

None of this was done automatically. None of it just appears whole out of the internet ether.

I think everyone realizes that fic writing and fanart creation are work, and at least some folks have got it through their heads that gif creation and graphics and moodboards take effort, and meta is usually respected for the effort that goes into it, at least as far as I've seen, but I feel like a lot of people don't really get how much labor goes into curation, too.

If people are creating resources, curating content, organizing the creations of others, gathering information, and doing other fandom activities that aren't necessarily the direct action of creation, they're doing a lot of fandom labor, and it's often largely unrecognized.

Celebrate fan work!

To folks doing this kind of labor: I see you, and I thank you. You are the backbones of our fandoms and I love you.

There might be more than just 2 idiots but otherwise definitely me.

Hands up if you were the child that read thousands of books and as an adult you hit burn out and now only read stories about the same 2 idiots falling in love over and over as you don't have the brain power to get emotionally attached to new characters.

OKAY TUMBLR. IT'S TIME TO SETTLE THIS ONCE AND FOR ALL.

Reblog this if you pronounce “.gif” as “GIF.”

NOT JIF,

GIF.

And here is the link for the opposite.

WE SHALL SEE WHICH ONE PREVAILS.

I hear you.

Petition for all the Marvel actors to agree that whenever Scarlett gets a blatantly sexist question one of the Chrises just takes it instead.