school districts and administrators are working hard to scare students out of protesting in the wake of the Parkland shooting.
don’t fall for their bullshit. you have the right to speak up and make yourself heard. a local superintendent doesn’t overrule the first amendment, much as they might like to.
and here’s an open invitation: I’m a teacher, recent PhD, one-time educational administrator (although not in a public school), and hopefully soon to be a college professor. if you need advice on navigating the crap your school is giving you or minimizing the impact they can have on your chances of getting into the college of your dreams, message me. I’ll help you find legal resources, write admissions essays, find ways to argue for your right to protest to your school board – whatever I can do.
please signal boost this, and if you’re someone who can help (civil rights lawyer? college admissions counsellor? experienced activist leader?), join in and let young activists know what you can do to help.
Question! Do you need to inform administration before a walkout?
I’m not an expert on the legal aspect, but as far as I know, no. the only legal power schools have over student speech comes if they can claim that you are disrupting educational activities, so if you were planning an event of some kind at the school during school hours, you would have to get permission from the school administration, but calmly and quietly leaving school grounds is not the same. you are up against truancy laws there, and they can impose punishments after the fact for absence from class, but most states have laws or at least past court decisions that establish suspensions are not an appropriate response to a first-time unexcused absence.
Can you tell us anything more about the walkouts? Or anything else at all we can do without jeopardizing our “safety” in the school?
my biggest piece of advice is safety in numbers. it’s easy to suspend one student, even if it’s illegal. or even ten. but if half the students coordinate a time to walk out, the administration is going to have a hard time taking that kind of action. you’ll also have an easier time getting past any teachers who might try to physically keep you in school (it’s happened), and local law enforcement will have a harder time quietly rounding you up as “truants” and taking you back to school.
also, as much as possible, get your parents on side. there’s literally nothing a principal is more terrified of than angry parents. I can tell you that right now, what hundreds of principals around the country are having nightmares about is dealing with a parade of soccer moms who suddenly have the ACLU on speed dial.
also, make sure your actions inside the school are as peaceful and non-disruptive as possible. hold a walkout, and protest on public property away from the school. the law says your free speech rights in your school can be limited so that you don’t interfere with the school’s educational activities, so if you are quiet and calm as you leave and hold your protest off school grounds, they have far less legal ammunition to try to interfere.
hope that helps! as always, follow other safety tips for protesting, like bringing water and avoiding confrontation with law enforcement.
Somewhere along the way fanart become worth more than fanfic to fandom.
Artists have Patreon accounts where people pay real money to view their art early or to access special pictures like scraps or tutorials.
Whereas writers are expected to produce more and more, faster, for nothing in return. No one wants to see our “scraps” and writers who do provide Tips and Tricks often get crap for “policing” how people write.
And it falls into the prevailing notion that somehow writing is something easy, something anyone can do.
This isn’t an attack on fanartists. You deserve to receive some sort of compensation and accolades for your work. And so do fanauthors.
Writing fic is hard work. Yes, anyone can type out a story, same as anyone can pick up a pencil to draw, but what makes the difference, what makes a good piece is the experience and talent of an author. It’s all the stories no one saw, it’s all the writing books we’ve read, it’s the classes we have attended, all rolled into a package that works weeks, months, years to bring the fandom their fic. Yes we write for ourselves but we also write to contribute to fandom – just like artists do.
We’re just the same – artists and authors – and we deserve the same respect for our work.
Thank you so much, OP. And thank you to everyone who remembered us on Fic Writers Appreciation Day.
Let’s be clear, writing takes for-fucking-ever to do and it’s hard, lonely, strange, isolating, exhausting work. There is no art that is easy to make. NONE. All art is hard and deserves recognition if it has made you feel something or you enjoyed it.
Allll of this
As both an artist and writer, I have to say that I’ve been struggling and asked to write fanfic faster than I can produce, and I’ve been producing more art than fanfics because it is faster and easier to produce and more people come in. It drove me away from writing and honestly it does help when both sides are appreciated. As everyone else said, both take really long to create, and all should be deserved of recognition.
I can say writing is a lot more exhausting than drawing, but that’s my personal opinion.
^^^^^ this for days
I’m not saying artists have it easier, you guys legit blow my mind and I worship the ground you walk on But people pay for fan art while (most) people still don’t consider writing fan fiction to even be a skill. I’ve STOPPED telling people I write fan fiction because they just roll their eyes and ask if I write anything real.
Like, sorry if my 50k, heavily researched fan fiction with an original plot and excellent dialogue isn’t as “real” as the original six page story you wrote in tenth grade
A GODDAMN MEN. I’m so glad you wrote this OP. Something similar has been pinging around my brainspace for ages and ages and I couldn’t figure out how to say it. It’s like, here, take my soul and my heart and my ideas and my creativity and just *have it*, for nothing. Because I want to talk to you, because I want to connect with you, because we share the same fandom language. And somehow, in the last 3 years or so, Fan Authors have become the strange little hobbyists in the world of fandom, quality doesn’t matter, care doesn’t matter, research and talent and learning about writing doesn’t matter.
Which – if a writer writes a story and no one reads it, does it exist in the fandom? One wonders, and it makes it hard to continue screaming into the void if all you get back is the echo of your own voice, sometimes.
This is the greatest post ever. It is so true though- I’m a shitty artist but I write fanfic and pour my heart and soul into it. I also write original stories. Both are hard. Art is hard. All three involve talent, creativity, and a lot of goddamned work. And then you look comparatively at a beautiful piece of art and an equally beautiful piece of fanfic? The art almost always has more likes. It almost always has more comments. Let’s take fics on ao3, for example. The hit ratio to kudos- I’ve had fics with hundreds of hits, no comments, and two kudos. Like, I get if you hit something, read a bit, and decide it’s not for you. That happens with every fic, and it doesn’t mean it’s bad- people just have different tastes. Some people also hit something so they can mark it for later and haven’t read it yet. That’s cool too- thanks for considering my work interesting enough to want to get to at some point. But I KNOW that that wasn’t the case for all 298 of 300 people that read my fic and DID NOT EVEN LEAVE KUDOS!!! I’m not trying to sound vain here, but I KNOW that fic was good. I’ve been writing for years and have extensive training. Sure, there might be some typos, but that’s just because my brain snags on an idea at weird times and flows really quickly and I’m rushing to get all the ideas down. I will go back and edit at some point, but haven’t yet had the timing or motivation (also, I’m majoring in a second language, so some of the minor grammatical issues might be simply because my brain is kinda frazzled from switching back and forth constantly and studying literature and semantics in a language I wasn’t raised speaking). Anyway, I know that I deserve more than two kudos. Kudos is literally the BARE MINIMUM you can do for something that has provided you with at least some level of entertainment. And comments- you don’t have to write a book (although on the occasions I do receive such a comment, I’m literally on cloud nine for a long time and reread it every day and glow all over), but anything that has at least something nice (ie, constructive criticism is appreciated, but also say something you liked so there’s a balance) is amazing and we love it. I know some people don’t like to comment because they feel they don’t have anything profound to say and don’t wanna ‘annoy’ us with ‘redundant’ comments like “this is good” or “nice chapter!” But I promise you, we could never be annoyed by nice comments. Even something as small as a smiley face is like pure heroin (without the negative effects obvs). Since I’ve started posting my fics, I’ve made a point not only to leave kudos on a fic that I even marginally liked but also to comment, even if it is just with a smiley face and I can’t think of anything to say besides *heart eyes*, because they deserve that. PLEASE APPRECIATE ALL ARTISTS BECAUSE WE ALL WORK HARD AND ALL OUR WORK HAS VALUE!!!!
Ignore all polls. Register. Get a friend to register. Get a non voter to promise to vote. Stay in touch. Get all your IDs in order. Re-check all your registrations close to Election Day. Plan your day around this vote. Vote in packs. We have ONE SHOT. 311 days. #FlipTheHouse
Whatever state you live in, DO NOT wait till the last minute! Get registered, or make sure your information is up to date NOW. Do some google searching. Maybe you can even complete the process online.
As a nurse, particularly one who works the unit of my hospital that takes Influenza patients, I feel it’s my duty to get this out there to everyone I can. The Influenza vaccine never covers ALL strains; this year there is one that seems to have morphed beyond the vaccine coverage. It hits HARD, guys. I had it and was down for two weeks. This was crawling to my bathroom to pee fatigued and breathing through congestion in my head and chest that choked me.
PLEASE: IF YOU ARE SICK STAY HOME, WASH YOUR HANDS, COVER YOUR COUGH, STAY HYDRATED, AND REST.
Influenza doesn’t respond to antibiotics because it’s a virus, but there is a medication that doctors can prescribe to help lessen the symptoms. Remember, Influenza is a RESPIRATORY illness, but symptoms can include nausea and diarrhea. If you have nausea and diarrhea alone, that’s another virus that people call the “stomach flu” called Norovirus/Gastroenteritis, which is also ridiculously contagious and should keep you at home as well.
Here’s the CDC’s information on Influenza, including symptoms, course of illness, and how to manage. This virus is particularly threatening to small children, the elderly, and the immunocompromised. I’ve had three patients die from Influenza in the last two weeks. It’s serious guys.
Signal boost: I had a coworker come into work with it, and now our entire team is sick. He was in our office for about an hour, people. That’s all it takes. If you’re sick, stay home. If someone calls in sick, clean the door handles and work surfaces with the strongest stuff you’ve got and wash YOUR hands often.
Again it disturbs me that people in their early twenties are ashamed of being virgins as though it should be normal and expected for middle schoolers and high schoolers to be fucking lile crazy particularly when those are the most vulnerable amd likely to be taken advantage of by adults. This world’s fixation with sex is disturbing
tips for running away from home, from someone
who did that:
don’t tell your abusers what you’re up to;
they will put their energy into sabotaging you, for example, I was fairly
clear about intending to move out, and my parents took great effort to convince
me that it’s absolutely impossible for me to survive on my own, tried to take
away my money by any means necessary, even getting me to sign a contract with a
bank so i wouldn’t be able to access my money in there (luckily i didn’t put any
of my money there to that scheme failed), and in the end they tried to convince
me that any money i made freelancing will be stolen before i ever see it, and
tried to prove that the money doesn’t even exist. it didn’t stop me but sure
made me a lot more miserable than i should have been
don’t let your abusers know where you are,
they will try to get to you; i ran away after an extreme violent outburst my
parents threw at me, there was death threats, injuries, broken mobile phone i
tried to use to film the violence, door taken away from my room, it was enough
for anyone to get the hell away from a place, and when my mother found out my
first hiding location she came to tell me that i have to think about why all of
that was my fault. again, making me a lot more miserable than i should have
been.
first few days (weeks) you’ll be in state of a
shock, especially if you’ve been unsure if you’ll be able to get away; i
couldn’t determine if i could function at all after escaping, my head was
spinning, i had breakdowns every other day convinced that i’m about to die, it
was due to the heavy brainwashing that made me believe that i was dead if i
were to run away, there was no way to escape the fear and the torture of it, I
hope not everyone is brainwashed this way but I do see a lot of people doubting
if they have what it takes to go thru life without parents, and the answer is
yes you do, you got it all.
your abusers will react in the way that will
hurt you most; i know of some parents who aimed to injure their run away kid by
pretending they could live just fine without them, like the
child was a nuisance to their life and they were better without it, and in that
case it was the most hurtful and cruel thing they could have done, since the
child slaved their life away for the sake of acknowledgment and attention from
parents. In my situation however, my parents kept acting their entire life like
i was a huge burden and worthless waste of space, and it made me feel like if I
were to run away they would let me be and pretend I never existed, and I would
be free. However I was wrong. They contacted my friends, parents of my friends,
entire outer family circle and anyone they knew to be in contact with me to
make me feel guilty for leaving and tell me i was wrong and should come back,
they found the person who sheltered me and convinced even them to tell me to
return (this was the person who saw me after the violent attack, while i was
shaking and out of my mind with fear, they saw me hide under the bed constantly
convinced i was about to be killed, and this person was still convinced by my
parents that i should go. back. to that.), they made their friends add me on
facebook and request information about my whereabouts until i had a panic
attack and deleted facebook, they kept on finding means to contact me and storm
me with guilt and shame even after i cut every means of contact i knew, they
still sometimes barge into the house of my friend demanding to get in contact
with me, demanding that letters, food, even money be given to me that they
leave there (it took me a while to figure out they would never ever give me
money for the sake of my survival, but would absolutely use money to control
and sabotage me) – all you can do is in any case, to be ready for the worst. Be
ready for whatever you fear the most they would do – because they will do that. Make plans of resistance, plans of keeping yourself safe thru it, plans of retreat and safety if what they do makes you suicidal.
when you’re free, the trauma symptoms will go
berserk at first; your entire system is experiencing protection from abuse for
the first time (protection is abusers not knowing where you are or how to get
to you), and this means you’ll finally be free to actually feel all the fear,
panic, pain, anger, exhaustion, torture and everything else your body has been
holding in all this time for the sake of surviving with abusers around. After I
settled in my hiding place, I could barely get up for 8 months, panic attacks
were almost daily, i couldn’t sleep from how strongly i felt i was about to be
killed and punished for escaping, flashbacks and nightmares wouldn’t stop,
chronic exhaustion and chronic pain were so bad I could barely move, it was
draining my life energy just to make food for myself, and i could often not
leave the place and go outside at all, and would get anxiety attacks around any
kind of people. Only tip I have is to not feel guilty for resting. Don’t feel
guilty for taking your time to recover, you need it, what is happening to you
at this moment is recovery from a war, that lasted all of your life. You are
wounded and tortured and you need rehabilitation and as much rest as you can
get. I know it doesn’t feel good to just lie about and not get anything done, I
know the guilt of not being productive, but lying down for almost a year made
me feel shameless about resting and taking my time. It also helped me realize
that causes of my chronic pain and chronic exhaustion were all the things i was
forced to do against my will, basically anything abusers forced me to do,
anything school related, and anything i was doing for well being of others and
not myself. Resting allowed my natural will to do things to awaken, even though
it took long, I now don’t have to force myself to move anymore, i can get up
without thinking about it, doing things i want to do makes me more energetic
rather than exhausted. So, no more doing things against your will, for anyone.
you will slowly find out just how much your
abusers lied to you about the world. and trust me they lied to you a whole
fucking lot. you will find out all the threats they made were empty, all their
opinions and insults sent at you baseless and imaginary, all the doubts they
planted into your mind, will start sounding ridiculous and stupid. A lot of
abusers try to make their children incapable of making their own choices and
fighting their battles and gathering knowledge about the world, so they would
always feel like they can’t do anything on their own, and would turn to their
parents for guidance, however, abusive parents while making choices and
guidances for you, only thought about themselves and whatever is convenient for
them, and not for you, which by default, makes you the person capable of making
better choices, because for the first time, choices would be made for you, by
you. Control over your life will feel good once you realize it’s not hard or
scary, but gives you the power to do what you please, without having to respond
to anyone.
there will always be people who will try to make you doubt your decision and blame you and take your abuser’s side, those people are wrong, and they are your enemies. From this point on, anyone who tries to make you doubt your decision to save your life is an enemy. Nobody should ever try to make you doubt if you could have done anything else but pick yourself up and save yourself from abusive environment. You can absolutely decide that those people are scum who would have you dead for their convenience, and turn your back on them.
I don’t have any financial advice, because i
only ran away after earning enough money to not end up homeless, and I just did
it by freelancing over the internet, which is something my abusers didn’t expect
me to be capable of, so they failed to sabotage me on time, they however did
make sure to throw abuse my way every time i was doing good and achieving
something, but i stubbornly kept working until it got me out.
Conclusion: running away is fucking hard, you
lose your family, in some cases all of your relatives as well, you lose your
heritage more often than not, your use your security and backup in life, your
life just ceases to be what it was and turns into something completely new. You
gain: yourself, your freedom, your life, your sanity, your health, your
personhood, a chance to heal and recover, a chance to experience life as it should have been. Absolutely. Worth It.
Stop asking little girls if they have boyfriends
Stop referring to the boys that little girls are friends with as their “little boyfriends”
Stop telling little girls they’re going to have boyfriends or be “boy crazy”
Stop raising children on heteronormativity and let them be children
Additionally: 1. It’s not funny 2. It’s not cute 3. You are embarrassing them 4. You are completely disregarding them when they tell you “no” and you insist
Stop doing the same to little boys too.
They are not “a little lady’s man.”
Don’t excuse him picking on a girl as him having a crush. Correct the behavior and stop treating it like it’s cute and normal.
Also stop insisting little boys have crushes on significantly older women. It’s gross.
Just let kids be kids.
Also, if a child has a crush, don’t keep referring to it over and over for months on end. They grow. They change. They don’t want you harping on the fact that they used to have a crush on someone who’s now just a friend, or an enemy or someone who they just see in the halls. Leave it be. You’re embarassing them.
it’s time to face facts: charles xavier’s liberalism does nothing for the mutant cause.
if you didn’t know about their powers, charles xavier and erik lehnsherr would look like a pair of distinguished elder gentlemen. the difference between the two is that for as long as he’s been in the public eye, erik lehnsherr has always explicitly identified himself as the mutant magneto, while for years, professor xavier put on the facade of being a “normal” flatscan scientist.
but it doesn’t end there: as leader of the brotherhood, magneto never required his allies to wear masks or hide who they were. meanwhile, professor x almost always appears in public with only the most attractive (by conventional flatscan standards) of his students. he even goes as far as providing holographic image inducers for his less “palatable” students.
what all this tells us is that charles xavier only cares about you if your powers and appearance wouldn’t cause a stir at the country club, while magneto fights for the rights of all mutants
Death By Catchphrase 