Hi there! I am a researcher at Carnegie Mellon Universityâs Human-Computer Interaction Institute. I am working on a research investigation of fanfiction writersâ practice and communities. Have you written or are you planning to write fanfictions in the coming weeks? If so, I would like to talk to you!
You may choose to participate online over Skype/Google hangouts. We will observe your writing process and hear your thought processes. The study will take about 1 hour. You will be compensated with $25 for attending the study.Â
Thank you all for all your support with the twelve days of angbang! As you have noticed, I didnât quite make it and shabby internet connection plus a computer and woftwere I am not comfortable with made me miss posting this on Christmas eve as was my intention. BUT – there still be Christmas day, so have afailed attampt at the boys getting cozy while taking over Manweâs home as a well-erned finale to the whole bag of questionable mushrooms.
So a Merry Christmas to all of you! A hereâs to a productive new year!
heads up before you spend $$ on pillowfort, especially note the paypal thing. the io domain concern does not seem carefully enforced but is in the TOS so đ€·
These are valid concerns but like. Have we tried not making a call out post to promote hate against a brand new company made by fandom for fandom? This is the same shit that has been pulled on AO3 this year. Contact them and ask them to clarify their content moderation. Ask them about their concerns about Paypal â theyâve already mentioned on their Twitter that theyâre changing domains because of the adult content ban on .io domains. Theyâve been nothing but open and honest about everything since they were first announced and far more patient than is reasonable with the amount of questions they receive. And the site was down because it was fixing security issues in order to make the site safer for users. Theyâve been absolutely transparent about this issue, which is unheard of these days.
Pillowfort will only survive if we support it. We need our own space that isnât going to get sold out. Do you think Twitter is gonna allow NSFW content forever? Instagram doesnât give a shit about fandom. And while Dreamwidth would be great, it would be a total culture shock to a lot of people â they have a 500mb cap for images, a tag limit, and communities decentralize fandom unlike Tumblrâs ability to just look at all of the posts under a single tag.
Iâve been looking into Pillowfort a lot. Obviously, there have been lots of tumblr-adjacent projects that havenât worked out in the past, so itâs reasonable to be cautious. However;
Pillowfort has existed in beta for months now, with a fairly small user base. They created, funded, and closed their kickstarter over 3 months ago- you can check, itâs dated. They earned $57k, reasonable to get started, but not enough to create a fully operational social media site in 3 months. And unless theyâre psychic, their site was clearly NOT created to take advantage of users fleeing tumblr, but rather out of genuine desire to create a platform that addressed the concerns of tumblr users.
With the money they earned, they have been working on the site, and the site being down was SCHEDULED (posted about before and while it was happening, keeping registered users updated on why it was taking so long and when it would be up again) maintenance to, you know, work on the site like they promised they were going to. It is literally in beta.
Again, unless theyâre psychic, they had no idea tumblr was going to drop this bombshell while they were doing their maintenance (and again itâs in beta, ie the time when the site is SUPPOSED to be under maintenance!!)
They address the .io domain on their twitter (plan to change) and their FAQ addresses their business plan and how they plan to implement it. Plans to on board moderators are discussed on their FAQ.
So yeah, I get being cautious, but you should actually DO the research on this instead of knee-jerk reaction deciding itâs a scam. Iâm not saying it IS going to turn out like everyone is hoping, but I have scoured all the info on their kickstarter, social media, and website; i have checked out the demo version of the site; I like what I see and so far everything checks out. So yeah Iâm willing to bet a whole $5 on this site.
One of JRR Tolkienâs ideas for Aragornâs backstory in The Lord of the Rings was that he was actually just three or four generations removed from Isildur himself.
Then how did he survive for the thousands of years between the Second and Third Ages?
The story goes something like this:
Many hundreds of years ago, young Aragorn fell in love with an Elven woman, who exactly resembled LĂșthien TinĂșviel in shape and outward form.
She called herself Arwen UndĂłmiel, the Evenstar.
He fell for her, and romanced her, and gave himself to her; together they lived in her kingdom, where her magic and her power slowed Time to a crawl for them, while hundreds and hundreds of years passed in the world outside.
At first, the Elven-maid seemed every inch a queen: beautiful, graceful, soft-spoken, meek, and with the manners befitting an upbringing in Valimar long ago.
But over time, Aragorn came to realize that his beloved had a hard, greedy, grasping side, even a cruel streak, which more and more showed itself in unexpected flashes.
Worse, she was not who she seemed to be.
Eventually Aragorn pieced together the secret.
His bride was Sauron, divested of her usual male disguise.
Greatly weakened by the loss of the Ring, Sauron yet maintained strength enough to craft a prison for the heir of Isildur: a false realm of hollow bliss and sterile delights, where the one she thought was the greatest threat to her power could languish in eternity.
A part of herself, wearing a female aspect â the gender she had hidden long ago in the deeps of time, to gain entrance as an apprentice to the smithies of Aule â remained in this pocket world, as Aragornâs bride: a plaything to keep his attention from the bars of his gilded cage.Â
But eventually, Aragorn figured it out.
Eventually, Aragorn escaped.
Thousands of years had gone by in the world outside since Aragorn had been ensnared by Sauron.
Now, emerging from long captivity in a magical sub-realm, he studied the world around him, and learned what had changed and what had endured.
He met Gandalf, and learned much from the Grey Pilgrim, and taught him some things of his own; and, in search of information, he pursued and captured Gollum, who had possessed, and been possessed by, the One Ring for so many centuries.
(PS: Christopher Tolkien or another amanuensis may have written this story down as part of the Secret Library Archive Project.)
I ship this now.
My reaction:
âAragornâs backstoryâ Oh, ok, is this gonna be what the whole Amazon thing is going to be about?
âHe meets Arwenâ Yeah ok
âShe seemed evilâ um, okâŠthatâs new.
âShe was Sauronâ
so youâre telling me Sauron was getting ploughed by Aragorn for thousands of years âas part of a fiendish plan to waylay the heir of Isildurâ, no other reason, Sauron just lying back and thinking of Mordor, hating every second of it, is that what youâre telling me
So when Sauron showed Aragorn the visions in the Palantir, it was less âCheck it out, your girlfriendâs deadâ and more âI know what you did last summer (ps it was me)â?
Sauron: You can not hide, I see you! There is no life, after me. OnlyâŠdeath!âŠI think, I mean, I donât actually know what happens to you after I kill you but thatâs not the point, I want that ring back!
Iâve always wondered why we canât have our carâs wheels just all turn sideways to sidle into parallel spots. Like the Batmobile does in Batman Forever.
trash blog 