brynnmck

[brynnmck]

the fact that “the vibes here are rancid” is a power that the jedi actually have is insane to me

#star wars #lmao

[brynnmck]

no, my king— i mean daddy— i mean sweetheart— i mean sir— i mean—

#ahsoka #anakin skywalker #hayden christensen #ahsoka spoilers #this is just fucking rude

[brynnmck]

HAYDEN CHRISTENSEN as Anakin Skywalker in his Clone Wars armor 👀

#ahsoka #anakin skywalker #hayden christensen #ahsoka spoilers #i was not ready for this #and i may never recover #in my attracted to hayden christensen era in 2023

[brynnmck]

THE CLONE WARS | 7.09 AHSOKA | 1.05

#ahsoka #ahsoka spoilers #ahsoka tano #anakin skywalker #FEELINGS

[brynnmck]

Ariana Greenblatt as YOUNG AHSOKA TANO AHSOKA — Part 5: Shadow Warrior

#ahsoka #ahsoka spoilers #ahsoka tano #ariana greenblatt #she was AMAZING #that is not an easy role to play AS A CHILD and she was so good #and she was SO good at animated ahsoka's mannerisms #chefkiss #my best girl

[brynnmck]

force ghost obi wan: was the voice modulation totally necessary or

force ghost anakin taking out his yellow eye contacts: it was absolutely necessary

#ahsoka #ahsoka spoilers #anakin skywalker #lmao #drama queen to the end and beyond

[brynnmck]

Ok but Ahsoka seeing the Clone Wars with the perspective she has years and years later?? Knowing that all those lives lost, all of it, was for nothing?? Knowing that Anakin would become Darth Vader no matter what she did?? She’s asking him why, why are we doing this?? What does it matter?? I need to go lie down

#star wars #ahsoka spoilers #ahsoka #HELP

[brynnmck]

This episode was sooo relatable in terms of growing up and realizing the bad things that happened to you as a child. Like, when you're a kid and in a bad situation, you don't really realize how bad it was until you get older and understand the world more and then it dawns on you like "oh, this is definitely not how it was supposed to be"

Young Ahsoka was so heartbreaking because, in these scenes, physically she looks like the age she was when she fought in the Clone Wars (13 or 14), but mentally she's like in her 50s and has all the memories and knowledge that her 50-year-old self has. Now, she looks back and realizes that she wasn't trained to fight in a war. The training younglings received was to be peacekeepers. Now, she sees Anakin's lightheartedness and joking nature and, rather than joining in like she once may have done, she's disgusted by it. Now, she sees the pointlessness of the war and how so many people died for nothing. We see a child with the wisdom and understanding of an adult. It pushes the audience to understand more of the tragedy of the Clone Wars and the trauma that Ahsoka carries from it. This was the guilt and anger and sadness she has been carrying for decades.

Seeing this perspective is quite heavy and depressing, but it makes the line "I choose to live" so much more impactful. You can heal from your past and step forward onto a new path and choose to keep living.

#ahsoka #ahsoka spoilers #star wars #don't mind me i'm going through a thing

[brynnmck]

one of the funniest and most in character things ever is Ahsoka mentioning the whole Vader thing once and Anakin defensively going "is that what this is about" and rolling his eyes like "oh my god I went on ONE 20 year rampage and no one can let it go, I'm on my apology tour right now what more do you people want"

#ahsoka spoilers #anakin skywalker #ahsoka series #ahsoka #ahsoka series spoilers #ahsoka tano #this is so accurate #i'm crying

[brynnmck]

[alt text: Image of a cheerful Brown Owl in a cartoony style holding a dollar bill in its claw on a green field. Text above the Owl reads "End OTW Racism. Donate to the OTW & become an OTW voter" Text below the Owl reads "elections.transformative works.org/voting . Last day to donate to become a voting member is June 30"]

Eligibility to vote in the upcoming OTW elections is determined by membership. Due to legal requirements, the OTW restricts membership to those who have made a minimum donation. Read more about that here and if you are comfortable, donate by June 30th so you can Vote in this year's Board Elections.

Voting is only one way to make a difference, however, and we fully support those who are not comfortable donating (or are unable to). Follow us and look at our Call to Action for other ways you can help support change at the OTW and end racism within our fannish spaces!

#ao3 #otw #signal boost #fandom problems #and how to solve them

[brynnmck]

To write to the OTW Board, go to the OTW Contact Us page and for the question “Who do you want to contact?” select “OTW Board of Directors.”

[ Sample Message ] [ Call to Action ] [ FAQs ]

[ Our Stance on Harassment ]

#EndOTWRacism #ao3 #archive of our own #otw #End OTW Racism

[brynnmck]

End OTW Racism Link Round-Up: Week 1!

We are now in week two of our action demanding that OTW live up to its commitments to address racist harassment & abuse, which ends May 31st! There was a lot of great discussion during the first week, so we wanted to post a round-up of some of the longer-form discussion/analysis that people have been sharing (we're going with posts on Tumblr, Dreamwidth, and other sites, as well as Twitter threads that are longer than three tweets). These are posts that we think would be helpful to consider as fandom engages in the necessary conversations about these issues.

If we've missed something you've written, we'll be doing another round-up of week two, so it's not too late! You can either submit it on tumblr, tweet at us, or email us at endotwracism [at] gmail [dot] com. We do reserve the right to only share posts that are in line with the intent of the campaign and that we believe are adding to the conversation.

Tumblr

beatrice-otter: Why AO3 needs to be accountable for reducing fandom racism in its internal culture and the archive [link]

pretty-weird-ideas: End OTW Racism and the “Fed” Accusations [link]

aretethegreattelleroftales: You don’t understand what EndOTWRacism is asking for here, and because you clearly do not understand it, you should have known better than to speak on it. [link]

vex-verlain: In response to the reactions I’ve seen to #EndOTWRacism [link]

unrealromance: I don’t really understand how people don’t know the difference between ‘whoops I’ve fallen into a racist trope’ and 'I am literally writing hate speech that is unveiled, mask off’. [link]

pretty-weird-ideas: Codification of a Living Document as a solution to Harassment on OTW [link]

indifferentvincent: RE: End OTW Racism Derailment [link]

elumish: In light of some of the backlash to the End OTW Racism protest, and particularly the concern that an anti-harassment policy would lead to abuse of reporting mechanisms or censorship of unpopular authors/ships… [link]

seepunkrun: How to Find and Attend OTW Board Meetings [link]

indifferentvincent: The people who use the excuse of saying ao3 is an ‘archive’ and so 'must preserve’ the most vile, intentionally racist fics just sound like the most privileged motherfuckers on the planet to me. [link]

spacebeyonce & pretty-weird-ideas: wow this is such a normal and rational thing to say about having a diversity consultant to help ao3 fix their bullshit. [link]

indifferentvincent: I have to assume this is in regards to my promotion of the end-otw-racism call to action, because I don’t know what else it could be referencing. [link]

princeescaluswords: Writing Doesn’t Happen in a Void [link]

mousieta: There is a place, a magic place, a giant, ever growing park filled with sandboxes of every color and shape imaginable. [link]

Twitter

spacebeyonceart: alright so I want to talk about this post I made two years ago now that the #EndOTWRacism ball is finally rolling. [link]

generalfrings: This shit makes me so goddamn angry, yall. [link]

eruthosish: One of the calls of #EndOTWRacism is to improve the AO3's Terms of Service and how the AO3 deals with fanworks that are part of an offsite harassment campaign, so I wanted to share a story about the only time I have ever reported offsite harassment and had Abuse agree with me. [link]

buttonthemdown: They've proven they can move quickly *when they want to*, but the fact the OTW hasn't made an official statement acknowledging their lack of action and pledging to do better sends a signal they don't care about their POC fans. [link] 

Clonehub7567 Seeing the reactionary dismissals of #EndOTWRacism from white fans who pretend to care about racism is reminding me of the backlash i/we got for #UnwhitewashTBB. [link]

hydrochaeris3: ppl who are worried that not participating in the call to action will get them labeled racist..... first of all once again yall are showing that you care more about what others might label you than putting forth tangible effort into caring for a community [link]

m_sketchyart: If you think that #EndOTWRacism is censoring your escapism, here’s a thought to chew on: why is being anti-racist a threat to your escapism? Is true escapism not also leaving racism, antiBlackness, fatphobia, abeism, misogyny, etc out of your escapism? /rh  [link]

lunedraws: Have you wanted to walk the walk and not just talk the talk, re: racism, in one or more of your fandom spaces? This is a concise and timely line of actions we can take. [link]

aliasmarionette: One thing I see a lot in #EndOTWRacism comments which are in favour of the status quo is assumptions about who we mean by fandom, and about the user base of the Archive. [link]

SapphicScholar: New profile photo while participating in the important fan-led campaign to demand that OTW make good on the promises it has already made to address issues it has already acknowledged as problems in the archive—that is, instances of extreme racist harassment and abuse [link]

Fansplaining: Since the endotwracism campaign has begun, we wanted to highlight the timeline they've put together about the OTW's communications re: hiring a diversity consultant since their initial statement of commitment in the summer of 2020. [link]

gwenpendrcgon: ive seen so much backlash over #EndOTWRacism which shouldnt surprise me (also majority of this comes from tumblr is also to be expected) but most if not all backlash received by this event is done is such bad faith and complete wilful ignorance [link]

fiercynonym: so op of the #EndOTWRacism post on reddit dm-ed me and the situation is even more fucked up than i originally knew???  [link]

kitschlet: seeing a lot of people confused about what the OTW can do to address racism [link]

generalfrings: poor AO3 maintaining a 'absurdly heavy site'. all that text! [link]

RukminiPande: Fan scholars should be paying attn to #EndOTWracism. [link]

Saathi1013: The thing to notice about all the assertions that people know who's behind EOTWR is like... Okay, there are a few things, actually [link]

buttonthemdown: If you think that victims of racism need to "develop a thicker skin" you're a fucking racist [link]

mousieta: if i could have people understand one thing abt #endotwracism right now is that This issue matters not because racism makes you feel bad, or uncomfy, or squicky but because racism is actively harming Real Living Breathing Fans right now. [link]

fiercynonym: okay so…you know how OTW has been saying, when asked at meetings, that they have a budget surplus of about USD $1 million? well…manogirl & i did some digging, and it might actually be more than TWO AND A HALF MILLION USD. [link]

runpunkrun: Speaking of OTW Board meetings, if you're interested in attending, here's what you need to know [link] 

Dreamwidth

satsuma: A Chronic Habit of Avoiding Responsibility? #EndOTWRacism [link]

bcgphoenix: I have a lot of feelings about OTW and End OTW Racism as a book conservator/general preservation person, most of which verge into tl;dr territory. [link]

killabeez: Looking at past archive policies [link]

nyctanthes: End OTW Racism (Fannish Fifty #47) [link]

chestnut_pod: Be more democratic, be more autocratic, OTW [link]

Other sites

Lady’s Weblog: End Racism in the OTW [link]

The Rec Center: #384 Final Thoughts [link]

Stitch’s Media Mix: I’m Supporting #EndOTWRacism [link]

#end otw racism #racism in fandom #otw #ao3 #organization for transformative works #archive of our own #fandom racism #link round-up

[brynnmck]

Why? See our Call to Action and FAQs for more information!

[Image description: Bold text with a background exclamation mark: Change your work titles to ‘End Racism in the OTW’ today!]

Keep reading

#End OTW Racism #EndOTWRacism #ao3 #otw #archive of our own #signal boost #for authors #fanfiction

[brynnmck]

Chapters: 17/17 Fandom: No Fandom Rating: Not Rated Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Additional Tags: Meta, ao3 - Freeform, Racism, Bigotry, Suggested Solutions Summary:

Being a collections of suggestions on how AO3 might be improved.

#ao3 #otw #archive of our own #endotwracism #end otw racism #signal boost

[brynnmck]

Fandom Writing Sprints to EndOTWRacism

In honor of finishing up the first week of our action and to kick off our second week, we will be running writing sprints this Wednesday/ Thursday using https://ohwrite.co/!

You can use this link to determine what your local time will be! The event will run for 2 hours.

Feel free to work on your latest WIPs or consider starting some Drabbles, or just hang out and absorb the anti-racism vibes. We will update the blog with the room link shortly before the sprints begin.

And if you aren't sure what a writing sprint is, here's some light reading explaining the process.

#archive of our own #endotwracism #ao3 #end otw racism #otw

[brynnmck]

End OTW Racism: A Call To Action

A fan protest against the lack of action from the OTW on addressing issues of harassment and racism on AO3 and within the organization

This is a Call To Action for Fans of Color and Allies

AO3 has acknowledged that they have a harassment & racism problem that its parent organization, the Organization for Transformative Works (OTW), needs to address. Currently, people can use AO3 to harass others through fanworks, comments, and tags. Just a few examples include: racist Untamed “spitefic” that used anti-Indigenous slurs and was written specifically to lash out at fans of color; a Transformer fic that used its Black-coded character to reenact George Floyd’s murder in July 2020; someone naming a fandom scholar who criticized their Nazi omegaverse fic in the tags of the fic specifically to incite harassment to the scholar; writers using racial slurs against commenters who pointed out racism in their hockey fic; and so much more.

In June 2020, after the murder of George Floyd, the OTW committed to addressing these issues. It has been nearly three years and they have not yet implemented any of the changes they promised, other than a blocking/muting tool that was already in development before 2020. We need to hold the OTW accountable to their own promises. (See the section further down on “Why Are We Doing This” for even more detail.)

As fans, together, we are powerful. We are organizing to protest the lack of action on promises made by the Organization for Transformative works to deal with issues of racism and harassment on their platform, Archive of Our Own.

We call on fans to do any or all of the following actions any time between May 17 to 31, 2023 to send a message to AO3 and OTW that we will hold them to their promises.

On AO3

Change the title of ten (or more!) of your most recent or most popular fanworks to include ‘End Racism in the OTW’ in the beginning, and provide a link to this post in your summary or first/top creator’s note

Post a new fanwork any time between May 17th to 31st with “End Racism in the OTW” either as the title or at the beginning of the title. The fanwork does not have to be long - it can be a 100-word fic, a quick sketch, a podfic of a ficlet, a 20-second vid/edit, a short piece of meta, etc. In the summary or first/top creator’s note, provide a link to this post

If updating any WIPs with a new chapter, add ‘End Racism in the OTW’ to the title and provide a link back to this post in your summary or first/top author’s note

Update your AO3 icon using the profile pic graphic in our Social Media Toolkit

Plan to maintain these changes until May 31, 2023, or longer if you wish

Send a message to the OTW asking for an update on their 2020 commitments!

For Readers: leave encouraging comments on fanworks with the "End Racism in the OTW" title to show your support of this initiative.

On tumblr

Reblog this Call to Action with the tag #End OTW Racism

Update your profile pics and banners using the graphics in our Social Media Toolkit

Follow this account for updates and signal boost our posts

On Twitter

Follow @/EndOTWRacism (remove the backslash) and signal boost our pinned tweet

Update your profile pics and banners using our graphics, and change your display name to include #EndOTWRacism

Use sample tweets and graphics from our Social Media Toolkit to tweet about your fanworks, and use the hashtag #EndOTWRacism

Help us make this a long-term campaign - sign up to help with other anti-racism projects and future actions!

What Do We Want?

Since their June 2020 statement, OTW has been working on updating their Terms of Service (TOS) to address racist and bigoted harassment, but with little transparency and only the vaguest of updates. It has been three years since their commitment to this update - we want to see the results of their work implemented in the next 6-12 months. Their TOS updates and complementary policies should include:

Harassment policies that can be regularly updated to address both on-site harassment and off-site coordinated harassment of AO3 users, with updated protocols for the Policy & Abuse Team to ensure consistent and informed resolutions of abuse claims

A content policy on abusive (extremely racist and extremely bigoted) content; by abusive, we are talking about fanworks that are intentionally used to spread hate and harassment, not those that accidentally invoke racist or other bigoted stereotypes

These points are not particularly new and are not our own innovation; please refer to Stitch's article written over two years ago, asking for several of these very things.

OTW has also already committed to various process-based actions for longer-term works towards centering antiracism, including hiring a Diversity Consultant. The last update that OTW published said that the consultant would be hired within the next five years (after already having had three years to work on it since their original commitment). That is not soon enough. We want to see the following process-based actions implemented:

Hiring a Diversity Consultant within the next 3-6 months

Committing to a policy of transparency on this topic, with quarterly updates on the progress of these projects including challenges and their plan for overcoming those challenges. These quarterly updates should be published on OTW News page and newsletters, not solely discussed in Board meetings

Why Are We Doing This?

16 years ago, Astolat famously published her manifesto calling for a fandom Archive of One’s Own. In that time, AO3 has grown to be a central pillar of fandom, likely far outstripping its founders’ original vision. It is more than just an archive now; it is a central hub of the modern fannish experience. AO3 and the OTW must continue to grow and evolve with fandom over time to remain a healthy and functioning pillar of fandom. To that end, there are several areas in which the organization, as it admits itself, is lacking.

In June 2020, in the wake of the George Floyd protests and the uprising of the Black Lives Matter Movement, The OTW published a “This Week in Fandom” referencing the works of Dr. Rukmini Pande and Stitch, among others in which they discussed ‘making change for a better society’ through ‘conversations about race and racism’. In response, Dr. Pande and Stitch submitted a letter to the OTW calling for a more formal public statement than an offhand reference in a News Roundup that only served to call for thoughts and discussion without any indication the organization intended to do anything, policy wise, to address the issues being raised.

Eventually, the organization did remove the references to the works of Dr. Pande and Stitch and then made an official statement on the issue of racism within the organization and AO3. In it, they identified several things they would be prioritizing to combat harassment and benefit users. Some of those have been implemented (notably those that were already under development). However as of this writing, little else has been done especially in regards to:

Improving admin tools for the Policy & Abuse team

Reassessing the current mandatory archive warnings with the possibility of implementing others

And, most importantly, reviewing the Terms of Service (TOS) to allow the Policy & Abuse team to address harassment that is currently not covered by the existing TOS

By their own admission, the current tools and policies of the OTW are not sufficient to deal with issues of harassment and racism.

Several people who were involved in the founding of the OTW, including previous OTW Board members and staff on the original OTW Content Policy Committee, acknowledge that the founding of the OTW in 2008 and early board iterations failed us as a fandom by not doing enough, and by not even considering the way racism is perpetuated in fannish spaces, despite a long history of racism in fandom.

It has been nearly three years since the original commitment by the organization with little visible, measurable progress on these three crucial issues and a complete lack of transparency on where they are in regards to even beginning to deal with these issues. In fact, in Q&As, it was heavily implied by a member of the board that those calling for OTW to deal with issues of racism (which OTW had already acknowledged as a problem!) were not really fans but outside agitators.

This has cast significant doubt on the organization's sincerity and commitment to their stated goals, and on their position as leaders of a central fan tent-pole. Fans of color are not outsiders. They are right here, members of our community, and they are being harassed and targeted and driven out while space and platforms are being given to racists.

We, as fans of color and our allies, find the current state of fandom and current actions (and lack thereof) unacceptable. Fandom is our space, all of ours. We, as a fandom, have a right to a racism-free space and have a duty to our fellow fans to create that space. Unlike so much of the world, this is a space we can control and make better. It is a space we must make better. To read even more about this movement, visit our FAQs.

#EndOTWRacism #otw #ao3 #fandom #organization for transformative works #antiracism #archive of our own

[brynnmck]

#kitty #this is TOO CUTE i die