Ummm!!! Is anyone else getting comments like these? I wouldn't have noticed anything off about the comments themselves, but check out those usernames. And then in that context, those comments are very generic.

What's happening? What's even the point of spam like this? Is it worth reporting or would it just create unnecessary work for volunteers?

( @naryrising tagging for likelihood of you being more in the loop)

Yes, it's just spam. What's the point: spammers presumably trying to build up some 'realistic' comment history so they don't immediately get detected as spam, before they start spamming for real. You can simply mark them as spam, that doesn't cause any work for us at all because it's an automated system, and marking them helps better train that system to recognize this type of spam.

What is the J/B Solstice Reading series?

Here’s the idea: Jaime x Brienne writers will record themselves reading a 2-4 minute scene from one of their own fics, and then share it to their Tumblrs on/around June 21. They’ll all get reblogged by this account.

Want to participate? Here’s how:

1. Pick a scene from one of your fics. Remember, this is a short recording, so choose wisely! Most live author readings feature the author’s latest (or even forthcoming!) work, but we’d love to hear our favorite old classics too.

2. Record yourself reading the fic. Introduce yourself and the fic, and then start out by giving us a little context—set the scene up for us. Then: read the scene!

3. Post the recording to your Tumblr on/around June 21 and tag @jb-reading-series so we know about it. You can also do this in advance and schedule the post for the 21st.

This account will have a tutorial on recording and uploading audio for Tumblr soon, as it is (naturally) in no way straightforward or easy. Edit: here it is!

Looking forward to hearing you all and celebrating the amazing talented authors in the Jaime x Brienne fandom!

— @dame-lazarus

I love this idea! IDK if I’ll be able to participate myself but signal-boosting for others! <3  

ya'know, maybe the reason rural, small-town people don’t trust national media is because national news outlets pretty much ignore 85% of the country.

nebraska is literally flooded, at least one person has died and three are missing, 60 thousand have evacuated… and the first cnn article about this went up like ten minutes ago and only mentioned flooding around omaha.

like. i’m from omaha and i’m frustrated by the lack of attention the rest of our state is getting. someone died, and you’re not going to mention that? how was this not a story worth reporting this morning? are nebraskan farmers and small-town citizens not just as important as the californians displaced by wildfires, or southern/east coast people affected by hurricanes?

when we complain about nebraska being ignored, we’re not really talking about not having shows set in nebraska, as much as we might want that. we’re talking about this — thousands of people losing their homes, their livelihood, and yet no one seems to think it’s worth mentioning.

when hurricanes devastated the south last year, nebraskans donated what we could to help those affected. we sent trucks filled with donated items and coordinated with shelters and organizations to make sure we actually sent things that were needed. i’m just saying, it would be nice to see some of that support in turn. even if it’s just bringing attention to this.

At the very least you would think that the farmlands that feed most of the US being flooded would be important to someone other then us Nebraskans. But we are ignored. At best Omaha is briefly mentioned. At worst we’re ridiculed and looked down upon because we’re just some dumb hicks with a boring state and a laughing stalk of a football team.

I’m terrified for my fellow Nebraskans because even us in the city don’t have enough money to be the only ones who donate. This needs more recognition because more people will die because of exposure after the fact.

USA Today article

Omaha World Herald Article

Article with links to various places to donate

I live in Fremont Nebraska. We are literally a fucking island right now. There is no way in or out of town. Half our town is flooded and the water is still expecting to rise. Two of my friends have lost their homes and one lost pets. 

The thing about the flooding is that the other half of Nebraska is experiencing blizzards. Our whole state is in anarchy right now. There’s no water left in fremont. Two of our leveys have broke and our dam is being held together through sheer fucking will. This is fucking terrifying okay? Even if me and my family wanted to leave we CAN’T. If fremont get’s flooded anymore where are we going to evac to? We can’t. We can’t get out of town. Why has this not been a fucking emergency yet?

Currently my family is okay, but were close to losing our home too. 

If you can spare anything please. PLEASE Donate. Nebraska is in need of a lot of help right now…

I live smack-dab in the middle of the state, four hours away from Omaha, and these are some pictures my friends and family have taken.

There are so many bridges out, so many roads impassable. Hundreds of people are stranded.

See this little island? Zoom in. Those are cows. Stranded, freezing, with no food, in the middle of calving season.

People have been losing 3 out of every 5 baby cows, because they are freezing in the mud before farmers and ranchers can even get to them.

This is my Uncle’s house, on the left

It’s a two story, and that water is six feet below the roof. They have my grandparent’s camper parked next the the barn (on the right) and you can’t even see it. My uncle has three young kids, the oldest of which has severe cerebral palsy, and now they’re living out of a hotel. My aunt only had time to pack two suitcases for the five of them. They had to leave everything else.

Really you guys, Nebraska has been flooded before, we have tornadoes every year, our temperatures are just as extreme as Chicago or Phoenix - but this is so much worse than any of that. I know there are worse things going on in the world, but this is happening too, and it’s going to impact so much more than most people think it will. Nebraska is a huge supplier of beef, pork, corn, and soybeans. Just in my hometown we have a huge Tyson processing plant that is weeks behind in production because the trucks can’t get through, and it’s costing a lot of people their jobs. This is serious.

Nebraska has an Emergency Management Agency with a website for direct information at https://nema.nebraska.gov/ .  The county map of disaster declarations is staggering.  There are press releases, which include lists of shelters, hotlines, and assistance.

Welcome to the TF Big Bang!

Hello everyone!

I’m happy to announce that the TF Big Bang is officially on! This is a challenge for artists and writers in the Transformers fandom who want to team up to make and share some great content. This challenge will run from March to August of 2019, as participants create a 20k fanfiction or two illustrations based on a writer’s fic.

Writers Signups close on March 22nd.

Artist Signups close on May 30th.

Want to know more? Check out the FAQ.

Want to sign up? WRITERS sign up here. ARTISTS sign up here.

Still have questions? Check us out here on tumblr @tfbigbang​, on twitter at @TFbigbang, or by emailing [email protected]!

Two weeks left for writers to sign up!

We are officially halfway to our goal in only 3 days on Kickstarter. Thank you so much to those who have supported us so far! Please check out this amazing anthology I curated, edited, and participated in, full of fantastic artists like @coeykuhn, @harteus, @sjmillerart and more as well as writers like @monicawoe and @edwardii!! The more support we get the more will go directly to the participants so here’s a wonderful opportunity to show some of your favorite creators how much you love their work as well as purchase an awesome collaborative book.

Fantome is 72% funded with 25 days left to go!

Click on the link to see project details, tiers and the truly awesome promo video.

I saw this post by @astropixie about how it’d be nice to review fics on AO3 as you read. A little while back, because I was so in awe of the Clexa fic writers, I made this userscript (can install on Firefox by using Greasemonkey and on Chrome, ETA: Opera, and Safari by using Tampermonkey) so that I could do just that. It doesn’t have the wattpad or soundcloud functionality, it’s just a little thing added on to a page, not something supported by the site itself, but it’s better than nothing. 

The userscript is available here: http://pastebin.com/vYBCYWu4

ETA: FFN version: http://pastebin.com/addj3Xtm

Tampermonkey tutorial

ETA: User Tampermonkey on Firefox too

Oh, neat! 

Signal boost TODAY DECEMBER 14, 2018 to LITERALLY SAVE LIVES in the U.S.

“BREAKING- Good news for anyone who wants to enroll in ACA coverage but hasn’t yet. You can call 1-800-318-2596 any time before December 15 & your place will be held in line. You will get a call back after 12/15 and can still enroll! And lots of coverage is zero or low premium.”

- Andy Slavitt, former head of Medicare/caid

IF YOU ARE IN THE U.S. AND DON’T SIGN UP FOR A HEALTHCARE PLAN BY THE 15TH / TOMORROW, YOU WON’T BE ELIGIBLE TO SIGN UP FOR ANOTHER YEAR.

Call 1-800-318-2596 any time before December 15 & your place will be held in line. You will get a call back after 12/15 and can still enroll!!!

SHARE / SIGNAL BOOST TO STOP THE 1% FROM KILLING OFF CITIZENS BY DENYING THEM HEALTHCARE FOR 365 DAYS. THEY CHANGED THE DATE AND DIDN’T ADVERTISE THE DEADLINE.

If it’s hard for you to vote ...

In the town I live in, there’s only one place to get the state-required voter ID. It’s way out beyond the end of the bus line, and its hours are inconvenient and unpredictable. Also, the IDs cost like $30; the people who passed the voter ID law obviously didn’t think that was a budget-breaker for anyone who MATTERED.

If you have difficulty getting a voter ID, here are some thoughts:

- Contact a church. (I wish I could say contact ANY church, but to be honest, if you look unconventional, and you don’t know which churches in your town are the progressive ones, look for a Unitarian church. I suspect most synagogues would be more helpful than most evangelical churches, but I don’t know that from personal experience.)

When I was a church secretary, if someone had called and said, “I want to register to vote, but I don’t have a car and I don’t have $30 for an ID,” I’m pretty sure our entire governing board would have been lining up to help you out.

In this part of the country, nuns are a good bet, too.

- Contact the local Democratic Party office.

- Contact a YMCA or a YWCA. Did you know that fighting racism is actually part of the Y’s charter? Pretty sure somebody in that office will be able to help you get the ID you need to register.

- Go to your town’s website and look for a pro-diversity organization – a Multicultural Awareness Center, something like that. Give them a call.

- Call your library reference desk and ask if they know of anyone who could help.

I don’t actually think this would help, but it would be interesting: Call the local office of your senators and your representative, and ask if they can help you get a voter ID. At least it might be entertaining to hear them sputter.

Article 13 has been approved by EU. It’s worse than Net Neutrality has ever been. I don’t even know if we will have any access to Tumblr, Pinterest, Ao3 or even Instagram. Memes are probably dead, just like reactions, fanfictions and gifsets. Everyone in EU is in danger that they will not have access to their favorite sites. But I haven’t seen a SINGLE post about it on my dash because Americans doesn’t give a damn.

Also, I’m in Europe and ngl, had no idea this was even an article up for debate let alone it being fucking passed.

Don’t panic! This was expected at this stage and it is only the beginning. If you are a European and feel passionate about this, please keep on reading and help!

So what has happened so far … the Commission has drafted up a long overdue copyright reform. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/procedure/EN/2016_280 It contains a lot of good, and some bad: mainly Article 11 and 13.

This was put forward as a whole to the European Parlament, where it was voted down on the 5th of July 2018

This meant, this will not go through the fast way, and will be subject to scrutiny and change. 

The Commission made some alterations https://eur-lex.europa.eu/procedure/EN/2016_280 and put it forward again. If Parlament would have voted it down again, it probably would have meant back to the drawing board, but most people (including me) agree that Europe does need copyright reform, so on the second vote it passed the first step:

So what happens now? 

This will now go into what is called the Trilogue, where Commission, Parlament and representatives of all national governments will sit together to make alterations until everybody is happy implementing the regulation.

This means we can now influence this via our MEPs and our National Government!

In countries that are red your government is likely to support Article 13.

What to do now?

There are a lot of organisations that organise actions against article 13. Check out their websites and get in touch with your MEP or local government and let them know you are unhappy about this.

… and many many more, just google to find one in your country.

Also, as @asthesea-breezehitsmylungs pointed out, a lot of people are not aware of this going on. So make them aware! Share the memes and point them to the petitions. And don’t just complain how shit this is, get in touch with your politicians!

Oh good.

Yo, everyone, EU or not, please at least signal boost this shit. I’ve said it before and I will say it again: those two articles will suck majorly for all of us.

Like dude, how much time do you spend enjoying various things that relate to, Idk, your favourite show or book series. It’ll probs be gone. Funny memes and shit? Nah our generation doesn’t fucking need to laugh, it’s not like half of us are already depressed or anything. And so many other things that are cool about the internet, I’m not even gonna mention how some big, cool places like YouTube and Tumblr will be fucked by this.

So seriously, there’s only so much a small bunch of people can do. We need some noise on this. As much as I hate to admit it, some things require some fat numbres to be paid attention to. So even if you’re not planning on taking any action yourself, the best thing to do would be to spread this to everyone you trust to either get involved or pay it forward like you did.

And seriously, every little thing helps, ok? We should have a say in how the laws that deeply affect us are made.

SIGNAL BOOST

Signal boost again to all EU peeps. Keep pushing your MEPS.

Guys, please reblog and if you’re in the EU, please please contact your MEPs and express your objections to article 11 and article 13 and specifically that you want more protections for user-created content and expression. 

Also, whatever happens to Youtube and Tumblr will be nothing in comparison to what regulations like this do to smaller volunteer-run sites like AO3. The real problem here is that it’s yet another step in the networkification of the Internet and making it much harder for anyone who doesn’t have money and lawyers to share their content. 

Fight Fan-Unfriendly EU Legal Developments--Time to Act!

It’s time to act! The EU Parliament is voting on fan-unfriendly copyright proposals Article 11 and Article 13 on September 12. Signal boost this to your friends, and click the link to learn more and find out how you can help: https://goo.gl/8yhvDp

Guys, if you’re in the EU, PLEASE click the link and contact your MEPs! 

Updates:

“Where Are They Now? A Year Later, Mixed Fortunes For Panama Papers Line-Up.”

“Daphne Caruana Galizia, the journalist who led the Panama Papers investigation into corruption, was killed in a car bomb.”

Deep Signal - The Illustrated Anthology has launched on Kickstarter!

Stories from Ken Liu, Aliette de Bodard, Hamid Ismailov, Elaine Lee, Mike Kaluta, Moebius, Christopher Moeller, Bryan Talbot, and more!

I’m part of the “and more,” and am so excited to be a part of this great book! Two stories of mine are in the anthology: No Titans but Our Own, illustrated by the illustrious @patreddingscanlon and Gluttony, a flash fiction written to accompany an awesome piece by Bryan Talbot!

Please support and/or signal boost! Thank you everybody <3

Featuring stories and art by Michael Kaluta, Ken Liu, Jean “Moebius” Giraud, Elaine Lee, Aliette de Bodard, Chris Moeller, Stephen Hickman, Bryan Talbot, Andrea Jurjević, Jamie S. Martindale, Lee Moyer, Mark J. Brady, Toby Wyant, Mikus Duncis, Jason Murphy,  Pat Redding Scanlon, Eric Herenguel, Phil Trumbo, Monica Barraclough,  Gabriela Lee, John Harman, John L. Haverkamp, Tom Crosshill,  Hamid Ismailov, Cezars Torres, Brian Fisher, Ronald Kleijer, Kelly Zimmerman and Eric Olive.

Click the link above to join the mailing list!

My mom recently went along to help on a cruise with my cousin’s children. Both kids have INAD, a rare and terminal genetic disorder. The life expectancy for those diagnosed with INAD is 5-10 years old. 

They went on a carefully planned and very difficult Make A Wish vacation, a chance for the parents to take a break and the kids to have some fun. It takes a LOT of work with kids this sick for trips like this to be possible. My mother, who loves these boys like they’re her own, went along (along with the kids’ maternal grandmother) to help with the childcare.

On the trip back on February 17, 2017, my mother was in the Denver airport at Gate B54 around 5pm Mountain Time when her bag with her camera was taken. The SD card contained all the photos from this vacation (as well as our family Christmas). 

These little boys are going to have very short, very difficult lives, and there won’t be a lot to remember them by, certainly not a lot of happy fun memories. My mom isn’t asking for any of her belongings back, not even the camera. She just needs the SD card. 

She’s not looking to press charges or get anyone in trouble. We don’t know if the pack was taken on purpose or by mistake, and we don’t care. We would just really, really appreciate it if the SD card was returned.

Thank you and please boost. 

FINALLY.

We’re at the stage where we need funds to pay for post. Please help if you can, if you can’t we still love you and hope you will like and share the project and any press or mentions are appreciated!

Thanks for all your encouragement & support! xxx Hansi Oppenheimer… Troubled Girl Films

 Donate here: http://www.gofundme.com/squeefangirlfilm

We’re only three weeks away from the US release of A THOUSAND PIECES OF YOU! To celebrate, I’ve partnered with some fabulous independent bookstores around the country and in Canada for a pre-order promotion. If you’re one of the first buyers either via pre-order or in store at any of these bookshops. you will not only get the book, but also (a) a signed bookplate, (b) a signed poster of the cover art, (c) a sticker, and (d) two types of buttons, including one showing the cover that is exclusive to this promotion and my release-week appearances on the Compelling Reads tour. ALL THIS SWAG CAN BE YOURS. But supplies are limited - so act fast! You can find a complete list of participating bookstores, plus their contact information, at my site’s blog: www.claudiagray.com.