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Mariya Ise, Killua's seiyuu in the 2011 anime, answering a question at her panel at Otakon about whether Killua is in love with Gon. 🥰

EDIT: This video was taken by @nonpsychotic, so you can thank him for providing us with this footage, and his fiance @kuboe for asking the question! Original video on Twitter is here:

#an icon #she didn't even stop to think

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Mariya Ise, Killua's seiyuu in the 2011 anime, answering a question at her panel at Otakon about whether Killua is in love with Gon. 🥰

EDIT: This video was taken by @nonpsychotic, so you can thank him for providing us with this footage, and his fiance @kuboe for asking the question! Original video on Twitter is here:

#an icon #she didn't even stop to think

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the boy 🤞🤞🤞

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Top 10 Tips for Actually Writing

for the writer who can’t seem to write.

Buy a pencil and paper. Get a writing program and a keyboard.

Spill all your ideas into a notebook that will never see the light of day. Write down literally every idea you have that even sort of relates to the scene/chapter/book that you want to write until your thoughts converge on a pointed attack.

Quality vs. Quantity? No competition. Quantity all the way. The more you write, the better you will know your story. Worry about Quality LATER.

Think about where the idea came from. Go there. Set up a cardboard box and live there. This is your home now.

What is the coolest, most self-indulgent thing you can think of? That’s what you want to write at this point, until you get some steam.

Short-term goals, my friends. And by short-term, I mean a minute from now, ten seconds from now. What are you going to do to write RIGHT NOW? Stop thinking about an hour from now, stop thinking about a day from now.

This is not a book. This is not a book. You are not writing a book. You are writing a story. A story is much easier to take bites out of than a book. A book is a big, scary, colossal thing. Stories are fun and carefree.

Get yourself a writing friend. A cactus, an old bottle of nail polish, a fish in an appropriately sized tank, etc. Make them hold you accountable.

Set crazy low goals. Promise yourself you will write ten words today. Ten words and you will be the Best Writer in the Entire World to Ever Exist. Accomplishing things is a morale booster and will urge you to write more.

Just keep writing. I believe in you.

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HONEY WAKE UP NEW HAIKYUU IS HERE!!

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To people who tell us to give Tiffany G the benefits of the doubt because of language barriers and cultural differences, how about no? How about listening to Chinese writers/readers and SEAsian writers/readers, who can understand the nuances in her words in pick up on the blatant dog whistling, and who probably have to listen to these rhetorics from their govt every single day?

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“k-kodzuken?”

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Just clarifying this for the AO3 folks that aren't familiar with Chinese fandom, but Tiffany G misrepresented the reason for the AO3 ban in China. It was NOT because of "pedophilic content" like she claimed. AO3 was banned in late February 2020 after the fans of a Chinese idol named Xiao Zhan mass reported the site to the authorities. His fans found an RPF fic depicting him as a transgender sex worker, were pissed off by this, and then decided to take action by drawing the attention of the censors. His fans made detailed tutorials on how to report that AO3 fic to the government on grounds of pornography and pedophilic content and mobilized other fans to report it en masse. They were sucessful and the entire site was permanently banned. They also reported RPF content featuring Xiao Zhan on other Chinese sites like Lofter and Bilibili, and the result was even more stringent censorship for these already heavily censored platforms.

The reason their reports were honoured was not because the content they reported had any actual "pedophilic content" (The RPF fic did not have pedophilia), but because sexual intimacy 'below the neck' is banned in Chinese platforms, and LGBTQ content regardless of rating has been the target of increasingly strict state censorship for years. It was never about pedophilia like Tiffany G claims it is. I think a lot of people (including myself) think that censoring truly morally reprehensible content is a good thing, but from my experience with state censorship it always starts out that way, with things that we generally agree is abhorrent but then it never stops there. As of now, sexually intimate scenes are no longer allowed to be portrayed in stories, especially in LGBTQ centered stories, even though it was possible just a few years ago.

EDIT: Clarifying because I phrased the above line wrong and people on the comments think this means I'm pro censorship. What I meant was that there are people who may think that censoring morally reprehensible content like pedophilia is a good thing and I WAS one of them, but because of my experience with state censorship, I've come to realize that it doesn't stop there and will eventually spread to other "formerly acceptable" content and people should realize that fiction is not reality when deeming whether content is moral or not. My english is really not that good yet 😂 Thanks for helping me compose this @ravijahn

AO3 was able to exist as a gray area in Chinese internet for so long because of its niche existence. In the uncertain world within the 'Great Firewall', things like this can usually survive longer as long as it stays in its little niche corner, that's why minding your own business and being meticulous about tagging your content is such an important concept in Chinese fandom. It was generally agreed upon that no matter how bad things get in fandom disagreements, reporting content should never even be an option, because drawing mainstream attention is a surefire way to kill a free creative space within the firewall. Xiao Zhan's fans disrespected that and ruined everything for everyone, and since then rules like "No Xiao Zhan fans allowed" are common to see within Chinese online spaces.

This issue has made its way to weibo and plenty Chinese fans are pissed at that Tiffany person. Just look up 'Tiffany G' on weibo and read what people are saying. Although I have seen some genuinly hurtful and racist takes about Tiffany on international social media, I would also like to say that reducing the criticism against her as nothing more than 'white people being racist' isn't fair either because Chinese fans are just as worried and angry about this. I hope people can fight for this without unfairly misrepresenting Chinese fans, who were the biggest victims of the AO3 ban in China. It was the last bastion of creative freedom and uncensored LGBTQ content within the firewall and to have it taken away really brought so much pain to a lot of people. Tiffany G's views do NOT represent Chinese fans, and even though some people are painting her as possible representation for non-white fans on the OTW board, the reality is that her views are the exact opposite of what Chinese fans want.

Here's an excellent twitter post that explains this much better than I can. Please give it a read and share!

Thanks for reading and I apologize for the clumsy english 😂

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There is some spicy Chinese discourse about the OTW Election happening on social media right now

Note: This post contains some terms that readers might be unfamiliar with. I've attached ℹ️ links to those terms, which will direct readers to the relevant Wikipedia page.

A Chinese candidate, Tiffany G, is running for the 2022 OTW ℹ️ Board Election [election website] that is currently taking place.

The OTW, in case my followers are not aware, is the nonprofit organization that runs AO3 ℹ️, the world's largest fanfiction hosting web archive, as well as the world's 7th most popular entertainment website [source].

The AO3 website is banned in China, because it hosts content that violates China's censorship laws (see more details at the bottom of this post).

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I wanted to see what Chinese twitter had to say about this Chinese board candidate, so I picked a few tweets at random to translate.

最无奈的一点，是那个Tiffany G真觉得这么做是为了ao3好。 但是ao3即使和晋江一样，大爹也不会放ao3进来了。 她这种不是与世界接轨而是不仅在国内要阉，还要走出国门去阉的精神…… 称一句敬事房总管不为过了。

— loreki (@loreki1) August 12, 2022 [source]

Translation: It's a bit exasperating that this Tiffany G really thinks doing this to ao3 would be a good. But even if ao3 was the same as JìnJiāng, dà diē ("Big Brother") still wouldn't accept it. She is not in line with the global mindset; it wasn't enough for her to "castrate" (impose censorship) in China, she has to go abroad in the spirit of "castrating" other countries…… Respectfully, she should not placed in a position of power.

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🤡这个Tiffany G是不是虾啊···除了虾谁会说AO3被封是因为儿童色情···甚至举报材料都是故意曲解AO3分级，AO3是儿童X情文学集中地的谎言。

— Wendy (@Wendy21694072) August 12, 2022 [source]

Translation: 🤡This Tiffany G is a "prawn" (bully/mean girl ETA: I've been informed that in this case "prawn" 虾 refers to a Xiao Zhan fan group who take credit for reporting AO3 to the Chinese authorities and getting it banned)...Who else but a prawn would claim that AO3 was blacklisted because of értóng sèqíng (CP ℹ️)...going so far as misrepresent the charges that were brought against AO3; it's a lie [to claim that] AO3 is a place full of CP.

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Can ppl not wash down the AO3 Tiffany G thing with “oh you’re just xenophobic/racist” when tons of Chinese ppl from mainland China are telling y’all that this is a serious issue??? 有些老外对威胁他们创作自由的人完全没有戒备心，居然还帮人家说话… 我要吐了，你们是生活在真空里的吗

— Commander Goose | Levi’s Delivery Service (@CDR_Goose) August 12, 2022 [source]

Translation: There are some foreigners (Westerners) who are totally, dangerously oblivious to those who might threaten their freedom. I don't get how decent people would [defend Tiffany G]... I want to throw up, do y'all 'live in a cave' or what?

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Tiffany G自述10年AO3用户，高考失利当年接触AO3，那年龄推算跟我接触AO3的时间差不多，那个年代同人圈主流说白了就是审核去死，不要说欧美圈AO3，就是去ACG的B站A站也是一样，搁现在会被出警的内容到处都是，那时候如果就搞同人，怎么会不知道呢？我合理怀疑她在撒谎，在编故事，🦐味有点冲

— BrokenMesa (@yawezh0902) August 12, 2022 [source]

Translation: Tiffany G says that she's been an AO3 user for 10 years, and that back then she messed up on her college entrance exam being on AO3. That's about how long I've been on AO3. Back in those days, (Chinese) fan communities could speak openly in the mainstream [without worrying about being investigated]. No need to go on a Western fansite like AO3.

Whereas now, regardless of whether you go to Bilibili (B站 ℹ️) or AcFun (A站 ℹ️), the ACG ℹ️ fan culture is the same: any content that government censors might target has been taken down on all [of the Chinese fansites]. You have no way of knowing when the authorities might come for someone.

It's reasonable for me to assume [Tiffany G] is lying, and that her story is fabricated. Smells a little fishy.

⚠️I had a really hard time with this particular tweet, so there's a good chance I mistranslated some things.

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和朋友聊了tiffany g，她让我意识到这人的迷惑提议背后可能是试图让ao3面向主流社会的想法，国内那一堆同质化的应用已经够我受的了，有生之年还是别让我看到这个了

— 喘气等待世界毁灭 (@Sierranopatient) August 12, 2022 [source]

Translation: I discussed tiffany g with a friend. [My friend] made me realize that the purpose of [Tiffany G]'s proposals is to try bring AO3 into the mainstream. There's a whole pile of homogeneous apps/platforms in China and that's more than enough for me. Don't make me watch [AO3 turn into yet another mainstream platform] in my lifetime.

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Additionally, one twitter account has been leaving a bunch of replies on various Tiffany G tweets [source], endorsing her candidacy with the same copy-pasted comment:

我是Tiffany G的朋友，我认识Tiffany G很多年，Tiffany G非常有理想正气，我看不惯对Tiffany G泼脏水的人，特意声援支持Tiffany G，ao3不是法外之地，讲好中国好故事，弘扬中国正能量，人人有责，请大家支持Tiffany G

— 小潘女权日报 (@pyx18122270719) August 12, 2022 [source]

Translation: I am Tiffany G's friend. I've known Tiffany G many years. Tiffany G is very righteous and a paragon. I cannot bear to see Tiffany G attacked by mudslingers and I intend to support Tiffany G — ao3 is not above the law. [People should] say good things about China and spread Chinese positivity. It's everyone's responsibility. Please support Tiffany G

The account might be a sockpuppet ℹ️.

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At the beginning of this post, I alluded to the fact that AO3 is banned in China. The ban took place in 2020 [source]. The site is blocked by China's internet firewall.

People in China can still access AO3 if they circumvent the firewall with a VPN. Ironically, China's decision to block AO3 actually resulted in AO3 gaining even more Chinese visitors and members, many of whom had never heard of the website until after it was banned.

In Tiffany G's candidate bio [link] on the OTW election website, she mentions that she works for the government.

I've seen a few Chinese fans on tumblr expressing concerns [source], [source], that she is a government plant, and that if elected, she would use her position on the board to access private user information and doxx AO3 users living in China, reporting their activities to the Chinese authorities.

I did not find anything explicitly pro-censorship in Tiffany G's campaign platform, however several of the statements she made in the OTW Election Q&A [source] sounded like pro-censorship "dog whistles" ℹ️ to me.

Notably, she implied that AO3 was hosting illegal content. She quickly backtracked when questioned by the interviewer, claiming that her words had been misinterpreted.

The twitter account I mentioned above that has been endorsing her candidacy also implied that AO3 hosts illegal content.

AO3 is an American website subject to American laws. All of the content hosted by AO3 is legal in the USA. Of course, Chinese laws are very different from American laws. A lot of the content on AO3 is in violation of China's very stringent censorship laws.

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Was so baffled at people claiming there’s only porn on AO3, so did a quick stats search. 

This is how the ratings look at the moment of counting, over the total 9,3M works on the archive (9 380 645 to be exact, atm)

Explicit: 1 551 860 (16,54%)

Mature: 1 409 093 (15,02%)

Teen and up: 2 834 938 (30,22%)

General: 2 651 772 (28,27%)

Not rated: 932 982 (9,95%)

Even combined, Explicit and Mature works barely overtake the total percentage of T-rated ones. That’s the overall stats on AO3, but fandom to fandom the landscape would differ greatly, of course.

The Underage tag, which is used to justify the witch hunts against the archive as a whole, returns only 222 748 works (2,37%).

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I have been reading a bit on the OTW elections and the whole Tiffany G thing, but most of all, I've been reading comments from people supporting Tiffany saying that she just wants to clear AO3 from all the CP (child pornography) content and I don't know who needs to hear this but:

If someone comes to a predominantly QUEER space (like AO3) and tells you that censorship is necessary to eradicate CP... it's not actually CP they want to eradicate...

I've seen this type of discourse about Pride and about queer literature and queer movies and queer communities. It's a tried and true technique of the right and conservative movements.

First, they say there is a DANGER to the community through CP and they conflate the actual threat of CP in the community (we all know someone who thinks that writing a love story between two characters who are 16 is CP...), and make you believe that censorship is the only way to PROTECT THE CHILDREN. And since most people are (rightly) mind-bogled at having to explain that of course they don't support CP content, they bow down and accept the censorship for the greater good, without anyone actually trying to have a conversation about what qualifies as CP (which needs to, you know, actually involve real children and not fictional characters who are 17 and losing their virginity with their crush in a Mature-rated story about high school football and first love based on the author's own experience of losing their virginity at 17 to their crush in high school).

Then, they tell you that there are other forms of DISTURBING CONTENT, and what they really mean is porn that THEY find disturbing, for ex, (and I kid you not, I have seen comments like that) porn featuring disabled characters, which they consider to encourage the exploitation of vulnerable individuals, or BDSM porn (which supposedly encourages violence and lack of consent), or rough p*rn, or any kind of porn that isn't two (preferably white and skinny) able-bodied people doing it missionary style while lovingly gazing in each other's eyes. SO TO PROTECT VIEWERS, that needs to be banned as well.

And then, they tell you that even that sanitized version of porn is still porn and that people under 18 or under 21 or under whatever age they consider too young to view anything sexual regardless of the fact that not all countries have the same law about the age of maturity, should be free to surf the site without having to *gasp* filter out properly tagged works. So TO PROTECT THE CHILDREN, every explicit content is censored.

And then finally, when all that is left is a sanitized, white-washed, ableist, puritan type of content featuring General-Audience approved gay works of two nice men or two nice women holding hands and chastely kissing each other on the lips... Well guess what? :) CHILDREN SHOULD NOT BE EXPOSED TO QUEER CONTENT SO WE NEED TO BAN THAT AS WELL, and since we've basically done purge after purge before and there are still a handful of people on the website, well surely they won't mind/care anymore, will they?

It's not just a slippery slope, it's something that has been done time and again, and that is why censorship on AO3 will never, never have a positive outcome.

Thank you for coming to my TED talk.

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Ao3 isn't supposed to bend towards the laws of a country. Yes, it's sad that you cannot enjoy ao3 to full extent because of your country, but restricting and censoring it for everyone else isn't the solution either.

Those who may not be aware, for the OTW election in progress there is one candidate who is practically out to end it all:

Tiffany G.

They are wanting to censor and make AO3 a place of control. They want to take our freedom to write and form it to what they think is the correct guideline to, "Make it more friendly."

AO3 already has a ton of filters and tags in place to aid in helping each person tailor their own AO3 experience. Something triggers them? They can filter that tag out. Wanna read G only? Can filter out the rest. Want to read E only?

Filter out the rest.

What this person is wanting to do, it'll take away the beautiful community we have. It is a platform of freedom, of writing what you desire and posting it to find others just like you. To try and put a semblance of authoritive control.. it's repulsing.

Please, please please for those who can vote, DO NOT VOTE FOR TIFFANY G. IF YOU DO AO3 WILL END AS WE KNOW IT.

Can't vote? Pay 10 dollars a year to become a member so you can vote in the future. I just did and regret not doing so earlier.

If you can't vote like me? SPREAD THE WORD. LET THERE BE AWARENESS. DON'T LET THIS PERSON TAKE AWAY THE AO3 WE LOVE. STAND UP, YELL IT OUT:

DO NOT VOTE FOR TIFFANY G.

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“hey stupid detective agency motherfuckers!”

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IT IS HERE!!

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LISTEN UP DETECTIVE AGENCY MOTHERFUCKERS

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An artist : Aw man! I saw my arts were reposted on Instagram. I’ve asked them to take my arts down but they ignored me.

Me : Say no more! Click this link, then click ‘fill out this form’. Fill the form and wait for about 1-2 days, the staffs will remove the image you were reporting from the reposter’s account :^)