karamelldiamant

Latest Posts by karamelldiamant

Why Percabeth Isn’t a Good Ship (Sorry 2x)

I’m definitely getting cancelled- 

1. Annabeth is physically abusive. The fandom makes this point seem controversial and debatable, but it’s really not. The definition of abuse is hitting someone. Annabeth hit Percy. Therefore, Annabeth abused Percy. Is that really that hard to understand? Annabeth hit Percy for the first time in The Titan’s Curse when she, Percy, and Thalia were looking for the di Angelo siblings. She punched him in the gut when he asked her who he should ask to dance with him. Annabeth knows that Percy can be oblivious at times…but punishes him when it benefits her? The second time was in The Mark of Athena, when she judo-flipped him because she missed him. That’s…what?? Usually when people are worried about someone else, they hug or kiss them, not flip them over their shoulder. And yes Annabeth kissed him first, but the judo-flip was completely unnecessary. Annabeth punished Percy for ‘leaving’ her despite him being kidnapped and his memory wiped. And everyone’s like ‘But Percy didn’t feel any pain!!11!!1!’ The chapter wasn’t in his point of view, so that claim is a guess. Just cause he didn’t say ‘Ow’ doesn’t mean he wasn’t in pain. Also- Annabeth slammed him on a stone pavement on his back. That definitely hurts, even if Percy is a demigod, physically strong, and has gotten hurt a lot. There’s a difference between ‘playful hitting’ and actually hurting someone. Yes they trained a lot, but this isn’t training. This is Annabeth punishing Percy for being traumatized with yet another life-threatening quest and being kidnapped. I don’t remember Percy judo-flipping Annabeth after he saw her again when she got kidnapped in TTC. Besides, the Romans were about to take out their weapons when they saw Annabeth attack Percy, so if all of them thought it was an attack…it was most likely an attack. Even Annabeth said herself “I only attack my boyfriend like that”. The thing is, if it was Percy who flipped Annabeth over his shoulder and slammed her on her back or punched her in the gut, all the fans immediately would’ve freaked out and cancelled him, calling him a horrible and abusive boyfriend, but because it’s the girl hitting the guy, it’s fine apparently. Nothing wrong with it, right? And then Riordan (and the fandom) had the audacity to romanticize that abuse. Abuse isn’t a sweet, romantic gesture. Stop making it seem like it is. That’s disgusting. 

2. Annabeth is also verbally abusive and toxic. Annabeth canonically lowered Percy’s self-esteem, constantly insulted him and his intelligence despite knowing he was insecure about it and always getting kicked out of schools and getting bad grades (even with her so-called ‘endearing’ name for him ‘Seaweed Brain’), and the overall idea of Percabeth is a super smart, pretty girl making a guy with below average intelligence feel insecure about himself. Percy’s self-esteem has plummeted since he met Annabeth and her behavior is never called out or even noticed, which implies some manipulation going on. Annabeth is shown to be extremely capable of manipulating her enemies and anyone else she pleases, and there are quite a few signs she’s using it against Percy (his feelings of obligation, fear, and guilt of and over her, questioning himself, having strings attached, always only thinking of her and no one else in his life, etc.), especially since Percy begins to gradually stop noticing Annabeth’s wrong and toxic behavior as the story progresses. 

3. Annabeth only likes Percy cause he’s the chosen one. Annabeth only hung around Percy since The Lightning Thief cause she thought he was ‘the one’ and so she could finally go on a quest. She literally used Percy to go out to the mortal world and ‘prove herself’ cause really, all she cares about is glory, which is shown multiple times throughout the series with all her pride and ambitions. Plus the fact that Chiron made Annabeth swear on the River Styx that she would keep Percy from danger is a pretty clear sign she didn’t stick around him just cause she wanted to, but because she felt obligated to and cause it would benefit her. Take all of this and it’s kind of obvious Annabeth only hung around Percy cause he was the chosen one of the prophecy, a son of one of the Big Three, and was destined to go on multiple quests and play a big part in the mythological world, which is what she always wanted since book one.

4. It was forced. Since the beginning of book one, it was so obvious that Percy and Annabeth were going to get together that their relationship ended up being boring, dull, and flat. Riordan made it so obvious they were going to be a couple that nothing that happened to their relationship really mattered, cause everyone knew it would work out in the end (which is probably why everyone *wrongly* hated on Rachel) so what happened in between didn’t matter. Their relationship was the typical ‘male lead and female lead’, ‘bad boy trouble-maker skater and nerdy good girl’ power couple that was way too clear. And Riordan made it worse by pushing their relationship and shoving it into the readers’ faces way too much. In MoA Annabeth states that she’s always had a crush on Percy (since they were twelve) which immediately rips all the development their relationship (which was supposedly ‘friends to lovers’, but not anymore) had away. Riordan made up a bunch of honestly dumb scenarios that were legit cringe to make Percabeth seem like ‘OTP’ that really didn’t make sense.

5. It ruined their characters. Percy and Annabeth would’ve been way better off as just friends. After they got together in HoO, all their personality and everything else that made them independent was destroyed to make room for more ‘Percabeth’. All of Annabeth’s skills, bravery, intelligence, pride, ferocity, judgmentalism, and all the other traits and flaws that made her a well-written character were never utilized or even mentioned. All she thought about was Percy, and the same goes for him. His loyalty, sarcasm, humor, obliviousness, etc. disappeared to make room for arrogant Annabeth fanboy. In PJO, they were amazingly well-written and great role models for younger readers (especially Annabeth), but in HoO their characters were exclusively ‘Annabeth’s boyfriend’ and ‘Percy’s girlfriend’. Their characters were completely dependent on each other, and they were way better off as just friends. 

6. Annabeth is way too possessive. And creepy. It’s fine and honestly normal for people to get jealous when another person likes someone they do, but Annabeth’s jealousy was downright creepy. Not only did she not know if her feelings for Percy were reciprocated or not, but she also didn’t know if Percy and Rachel liked each other, either. The very first time she met Rachel she immediately hated her. That’s not ‘I’m jealous cause this girl likes the guy I do’, that’s ‘I’m jealous cause the guy I like has another female friend’. She had no reason to believe that Rachel and Percy liked each other and has no say in who they can like, either. She thought that she and Percy absolutely had to be in a relationship and that he couldn’t even have friends with different genitals than him. And remember when Annabeth literally stalked Percy in The Sea of Monsters? Like when she creeped by his window, constantly watched him, and kept tabs on him just cause she ‘couldn’t find the right time’ to tell him something cause he was ‘never alone’ despite him being alone multiple times and despite the fact that she literally could’ve just knocked on his door like a normal person instead of creeping around his cabin and staring at him through the windows? Again- switch the roles. If it was Percy who was stalking Annabeth, everyone would’ve immediately called him a creep. If- according to Tumblr and almost everyone who read Twilight- Edward is a creep for stalking Bella, then Annabeth is a creep for stalking Percy. 

7. It’s mostly fan love. Honestly, the fandom is the only thing that fuels Percabeth. Riordan just destroys it. He shoved it down the readers’ throats, forced it way too much with really dumb and honestly unrealistic scenarios, and made it abusive and toxic. On its own, Percabeth freaking sucks. The fandom’s version of Percabeth is 1000x better than whatever the hell Riordan was doing, but even that version is toxic. Like, I’ve seen way too many jokes about Annabeth hitting Percy (as if abuse is hilarious and amazing meme fuel and not an extremely sensitive topic that triggers multiple people who actually went through it). Half the time, the fandom fixes Percabeth and the other half of the time they over-glorify and ruin it. The fandom over exaggerates and over glorifies it way too much. It’s not that great of a relationship, to be honest. Most of y’all only like it in the first place cause Riordan made it canon.

8. It was cringey. Like I said above, Riordan wrote some really dumb scenes for Percabeth. I mean- the matching gray streaks in their hair despite Atlas and Artemis not getting any? Percy’s tie to the mortal world while bathing in the River Styx being Annabeth and not his mom, Grover, etc.? Percy only remembering Annabeth, the girl he’s only known for four years and not his mom, the only woman who actually cared for and took care of him or Grover, his best friend who protected and continuously cared about him? Percy turning down immortality only for Annabeth and not even bothering to mention the pain of leaving behind his life, friends, family, memories, etc. behind if he accepted it? The romanticized judo-flip? The whole ‘dark-haired rebellious bad boy/nerdy blonde good girl who can be bad’ trope? Even the boring predictability of Percabeth is cringe. 

9. It’s a bad influence on younger readers. Basically the lesson of Percabeth is ‘Once you get a love interest nothing else in your life matters’. Besides that one single scene that took like three lines in The Son of Neptune, Percy never even thought of his own mom, nor did he think about any of his friends or passed allies like his dad, Rachel, Grover, Paul, Silena, Luke, Ethan, Bob/Iapetus, Tyson, Calypso, Charles, Michael (whose death he accidentally caused), Bianca, Zoë, etc. Even when in Tartarus with the curse of the Arai being forced to remember all the people he forgot and feeling guilty about abandoning Bob and Calypso, all he thought about was Annabeth. Even when faced with the man who broke the heart of the girl who sacrificed herself for him, Percy didn’t even think of her, only his jealousy of Jason. Same thing with Annabeth. She never thought about her mom, Luke, Thalia, her step-mom or step-brothers, etc. It was all about Percy. Cause yes, Riordan, that’s exactly the lesson you should teach your younger readers- forget everyone you ever knew the moment you get a partner. Besides that, it also teaches readers that being rude to people who like the same person as you is completely okay cause no one will care and once you start being rude, bitter, and possessive you’ll get exactly what you want (that’s literally what happened, with Annabeth and with Calypso, too). He also teaches that after you get a partner, everything that makes you you will disappear and you’ll be completely dependent on them and nothing in your life will matter, even your own independent life and personality. 

10. The fandom tries to excuse and explain Annabeth’s behavior??? What??? Since when does explaining and excusing hitting people put you in the right again? And the excuses aren’t even good, too! Percabeth fans use-  Annabeth was full of emotions/mad and doesn’t know how to deal with emotions. Annabeth really loved Percy. It was only one time. Annabeth was worried about Percy and mad that she left him. Annabeth didn’t mean to hurt him. Annabeth didn’t know what she was doing cause she was full of emotions. ??? Annabeth was full of emotions/mad and doesn’t know how to deal with emotions- Annabeth was seventeen years old, the daughter of the wisdom goddess, and is supposedly the smartest character in the series who is shown to be extremely good at reading people and their emotions. And y’all are really trying to say she doesn’t know how to deal with her emotions?  Annabeth really loved Percy- SO? A mother might really love her child, does that excuse her for hitting them for dumb reasons? It was only one time- actually, it was twice, and so what? If someone was slapped across the face ‘only one time’, does that mean they weren’t abused? ‘Abuse’ doesn’t mean ‘hit constantly’, it means ‘hit’. If someone was hit, they were abused. Is that really not a known fact in this fandom? Annabeth was worried about Percy and mad that she left him- last time I checked, people didn’t hit others when they were worried about them. If I was worried that my friend was going to get hurt, I wouldn’t hurt them myself. That literally makes no sense. And again- Percy didn’t leave Annabeth. He was kidnapped. Do y’all not know the definition of that, either? Annabeth didn’t mean to hurt him- yes, cause that’s why she decided to flip him over her shoulder, slam him on a stone pavement on his back, and punish him for ‘leaving her’.  Annabeth didn’t know what she was doing cause she was full of emotions- Annabeth??? the daughter of the wisdom goddess??? not knowing what she’s doing??? huh??? I mean, would any of you really, legitimately try to use any of these dumb excuses to excuse a man from hitting his wife? Hopefully not. And if you did, you would immediately get hated on and legit cancelled. So what makes this any different? Also- I see the excuse ‘Annabeth didn’t know Percy lost his Achilles Heel and thought he was still invincible’. Under different circumstances I’d accept that, but Annabeth knew that Percy’s Achilles Heel was on the small of his back…BUT SHE SLAMMED HIM ON HIS BACK. If Percy hadn’t lost the Achilles Heel, Annabeth literally would’ve killed him. Abusive enough for y’all? Or is attempted murder excusable and still ‘OTP’? 

11. They had no chemistry whatsoever. Was I the only one who felt…absolutely no chemistry between Percy and Annabeth? Like some of their moments were cute, their friendship was really good, and they had a lot of potential, but they didn’t feel right for each other. Remember- opposites don’t attract (they just argue, and no one has ‘another half’ that needs to ‘complete them’, everyone is their own person), they cancel each other out. I mean, Reyna and Annabeth had more chemistry in that one chapter of the New Rome tour in MoA than Percy and Annabeth had in 12+ books. They’re just…not right for each other, I guess. 

I’m definitely getting cancelled-

Edit 2: Sorry if I offended anyone with that last note. Just wanted to let y’all know that I am not here to start any drama, hurt anyone, or disrespect any Percabeth shippers. I respect your opinions 100% and only ask you do the same for me. Like I literally only wrote this at 12 am when I was bored and had nothing else to do and couldn’t sleep (same goes for pretty much everything else I write about PJ). Besides, why argue and start drama over dumb stuff like that when we can just find something we agree on? Don’t like Piper McLean? Let’s talk about that. Think Reyna Avila Ramirez-Arellano is a queen? Let’s talk about that. Think Nico di Angelo is freaking amazing? Let’s talk about that. Think Theyna would be adorable? Let’s talk about that. Want someone to vent to about writer’s block? Why the hell not? Want random writing advice and tips for writer’s block? Sure, I got plenty. Instead of arguing and starting beef over trivial fictional ships. 

i knew about it before hand (even put a reminder of it on the home page of my phone), and I still forgot about it.

Normally I just read a fanfic that I've downloaded before, but I just fell into a new fandom (it's a wonder I didn't get to pjo before with how many crossovers I read) and my hyper focus (sometimes ADHD is a bitch) refuses to read anything else. And I haven't downloaded any of them yet 😭😭😭

I already had to deal with some being down last night, and now again? I didn't even get the ao3 design, just a simple text :(

Seriously AO3? I just wanted to get to the next part of the series (the last part ended with a cliffhanger that would get solved in the next part. That's the only thing I remember from when I read it 5 years ago)

Please AO3, get back online. I just wanted to finish my bedtime reading :(

We're looking into some issues that are causing 503 errors for some folks, please stand by!

Posted: November 17, 2024, 11:15 UTC

[Image Description: Tag reading “I know everyone really reads this for the home renovation sections not the sex”]

The AO3 Tag of the Day is: An ace lesbian

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The AO3 Tag of the Day is: Parental guidance suggested for tricksy bastards, tomfoolery, hijinks, silliness, and otherwise mischievous, clown-like antics

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The AO3 Tag of the Day is: The internet of things has gone too far

w..whats a dental dam

A dental dam is a barrier which is used to protect against STI transmission while engaging in cunnilingus or analingus. To be a little blunter, it's a thing you put between your tongue and someone else's pussy or ass before you apply the aforementioned tongue to the aforementioned pussy or ass.

STI transmission is possible when having sex that doesn't involve a penis and you should protect yourself and your partner by using dental dams! Instructions for how to use them can be found here! They can be a little harder to find in stores than condoms, but you can make a DIY dental dam out of a condom like this!

sorry that you have become the sex ed blog but uhhh no one ever told us about dental dams at school so idk anything yikes. if it's your first time and someone eats you out are they meant to use a dental dam?? they can't catch anything from you if you haven't done it before, right??

Yeah, but you can catch something from them, friend. Gonorrhea, herpes, and some other STIs can live in someone's mouth. And if they have a cut in their mouth, they can also transmit bloodborne diseases to you.

Also, you should get in the habit of using protection in all your sexual encounters right now as you start to become sexual active, friend. You don't get a special exemption when you first start out. When you begin having sex, you are accepting responsibility for your own sexual health and, to some extent, the health of your partners, present and future. If you aren't ready to take that seriously, you should not be having sex.

I'm not trying to browbeat you, friend, but I'm not going to let you off the hook either. I got into the business of giving out sex ed info when I was 17, in an adolescent psych ward, and I had to help a 14 year old girl through a pregnancy scare. She was planning to handle it by drinking a lot of orange juice to prevent herself from getting pregnant, and then overdosing on her medication to induce a miscarriage if that didn't work. She could very well have accidentally killed herself. Once you've watched a situation like that unfold, you lose the ability to take this shit lightly.

Don't you take this shit lightly, friend. Don't you dare.

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The AO3 Tag of the Day is: A slight detour

You know, Hitler was obviously a big douche for what he did to the Jews. I think history would judge him differently, however, if he had just narrowed his focus to trannies. I could get behind that sort of thing.

Ok, wow. Yeah. I'm gonna go with wow.

So you know how I have this thing where I respond to anon hate with interesting historical facts? Yeah, that thing. See, that thing works because normally I get anon hate that's directed at me specifically. So I can brush it off and give y'all interesting history and everybody wins except the person insulting me.

But this isn't like that. I mean, sure, this is horrifically offensive to me, since I'm both Jewish and trans. But it's not just hatred towards me; it's hatred towards every other trans or Jewish person.

So, after some thought (by which I mean staring at the ceiling and saying "what the fuck" for several minutes and then cuddling my dogs for a while), I've decided to address the situation as follows:

Instead of me providing an interesting historical fact to make this anon feel exactly as pointless and irrelevant as they are, I'm throwing this thread open to every trans or Jewish follower who wants to add some historical facts. They can be facts about trans things, or Jewish things, or facts about bylaws or bog bodies or bridge construction. Whatever you want. If you're trans or Jewish or both, add some facts.

I'll start:

The Talmud (for those of you who don't know, the Talmud is a collection of Jewish legal commentary, opinions, and rulings and is essentially a guidebook to Jewish law and practice and also the Jewish tendency to argue over every goddam thing) recognizes 6 distinct gender categories.

The first two are the classic male and female (zachar and nekevah is Hebrew). But after that, it gets interesting.

The next gender category is "androginus," a word borrowed from Greek. It describes someone who has both male and female characteristics. After much argument, the Talmud more or less concludes that a person in this category is obligated to perform some male religious duties and some female religious duties, and that the details are determined by individual context. For instance, an androginus may or may not be alone with women (something a woman may do and a man may not), depending on the person and the precise situation. Essentially, in modern terms, an androginus is analogous to a bigender person.

Then, there's the tumtum. I know that sounds ridiculous in English, but I promise it's a totally normal sounding word in Hebrew. Tumtumim (yeah, that's the plural, and again, I promise it doesn't sound silly in Hebrew) are people whose gender characteristics are unclear in some way. A tumtum is different from an androginus because an androginus is acknowledged to inhabit multiple genders, while a tumtum has only one gender, but that gender is uncertain to observers. In modern terms, the tumtum might be analogous to someone whose gender presentation is ambiguous or who is questioning their gender.

The last two categories are the saris and the ay'lonit. A saris is a person who is identified as male at birth, but develops female characteristics later in life. An ay'lonit is the exact reverse (an afab person developing male characteristics later). These terms are generally understood to refer to intersex people, but there is an interesting exception. A saris can be someone who had a penis but who had it removed for some reason. This means that the status of saris (and that of ay'lonit by extension) can include those whose gender is altered by choice. So, saris and ay'lonit can apply, in modern terms, to both certain categories of intersex people and to binary trans people.

I personally know of multiple Jewish trans people who have started using some of these terms to describe themselves, and I love it. Would the rabbis of the 1st through 8th century recognize the way we use these terms now? Probably not. But hey, I don't need their permission, because:

For this commandment which I command you this day, is not concealed from you, nor is it far away.... it is very close to you; it is in your mouth and in your heart, so that you can fulfill it. (Devarim 30: 11-14)

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The AO3 Tag of the Day is: That sudden exhale from the nose that we all pretend is equivalent to a belly laugh for some reason

fun fact: wound fucking isn't specific to niche fanfics on the internet! crash (1996) has a scene where a man fucks a gaping bloody cut in a woman's leg and the movie won a prize at cannes :)

You know, I of all people ought to know that, for every subject in the world, there is at least one person who's a goddam nerd about it. And yet, somehow the fact that someone knows the history of wound-fucking in pop culture off the top of their head is....

Shit, I don't know. There's a lot of world out there.

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The AO3 Tag of the Day is: As long as you don’t leave the carcass on my doorstep

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The AO3 Tag of the Day is: Reblog if you are a demon, support demons, or are just trauma walking around in a trenchcoat

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The AO3 Tag of the Day Is: The wisest advice comes from experience

i made a meme to express how i feel right now

me: you’ve already used this exact turn of phrase two paragraphs ago, that’s too repetitive

me, an intellectual: if I use it three more times it becomes a motif

You know what I don’t get?  When fanfic authors apologize for long chapters.  It’s like?  You gave me bonus content, for free, and you’re sorry about it?  Bruh.  I have already named my firstborn after you.  Dude.

thedragonwoodconservancy on ig

Have you heard of the upcoming social media platform "Fanexus"? I was wondering what are your thoughts on it! Do you think it's gonna be good?

I’ve heard of it, but I haven’t done much of a deep dive on what it is or what it hopes to be. From my understanding, it’s going to be a combination social media platform and fan wiki? I’m curious how they’ll manage it. 

It could be a great thing. There’s definitely demand in fandom for more and better social media tools than we have now. I’ve seen posts that they’ll have a broadly accepting policy along the lines of AO3, so that makes me wonder where they’re going to base their servers and how they’re going to moderate content (if at all).

Another concern I have is around cyberbullying. Social media platforms all have downfalls in this area, and I don’t personally know enough about how to set one up to protect against that sort of thing. I think we’ve all seen or heard of cases where fans have bullied other fans, and I worry about how that sort of interaction will be handled and what their terms of service and privacy policies will be like. 

Also, how will they be paying for things? If I decide to put some of my fanart or writing on there, will I retain the copyright? Will there be advertisements next to it? Will I have any say in which advertisers are and are not allowed to have ads next to my works? Will I be able to disallow ads if I pay a subscription fee? What would that fee be?

The more I think about it, the more questions I have. There might be documentation about these things that I haven’t seen, but I haven’t really looked into it very much. Answering this ask is probably the most time I’ve spent on it to date.

At this point, I’m curious but I’m not going to be an early adopter. I’ll see how it works for other people before I dip my toe in. 

What about the rest of you? Have you heard of Fanexus? What are your thoughts?

Hogwarts House Sub-Types

Everyone who knows Harry Potter knows by now that, while a lot of stock is put into houses, there are more than four types of people and the four houses therefore lead to some oversimplification. I came up with these sub-types for one of the stories I’m writing, but thought I’d share them outside of it because I’ve never run into anything quite like this before.

Note: Within each house, you will have people who do not fit neatly into a sub-type listed here. Those people usually have a mixture of traits from different sub-types within their house, and are often the ones viewed as most stereotypical of their house. I call these “All-Rounders”.

Ravenclaw

Lost in Thought - Ravenclaws who often get pulled away with an idea. Sometimes, these runaway-thoughts lead to the exclusion of everything else around them, and can cause the Ravenclaw to forget what they were doing. These Ravenclaws are the most likely to be labeled as ‘dreamy’ or ‘eccentric’.

Experimental Method - Ravenclaws who enjoy putting things to the test, and refuse to accept something as true if it hasn’t been appropriately supported with evidence. When someone suggests an idea as truth (like this list), these Ravenclaws may wonder if the idea would stand up to scientific rigor.

Walking Library - Ravenclaws who love to read and learn from books. They tend to have a very good memory for what they’ve read, and will often share this knowledge without prompting. 

Experts - Ravenclaws who have a particular topic they are interested in, and are learning everything they can about that topic. Often, they have knowledge in one or two areas well beyond the expected level for their age and education but are perfectly average or even below average in every other subject.

Banned Books - Ravenclaws who believe no knowledge should be forbidden, or at least not to them. These Ravenclaws aren’t afraid to study dangerous or illegal topics, even if they should be. Not every Banned Books-type Ravenclaw will end up with the wrong crowds, but this is the type of Ravenclaw most likely to go there.

Hufflepuff

Social Justice Warriors - These Hufflepuffs recognize the unfairness in the world, but don’t accept it as natural and unchangeable. When these Hufflepuffs say something isn’t fair, it isn’t an empty complaint. They want change, and will usually put in the work or organize the group to make it happen.

BFF Defense Squad - These Hufflepuffs live out the words, “If you mess with my friends, then you mess with me.” They are extremely loyal and will go to corresponding lengths to defend and life up the people they love.

Soft Slytherin - These Hufflepuffs are so ambitious that others sometimes wonder why they weren’t sorted into Slytherin. Usually, the ruthlessness associated with Slytherin is traded out for Hufflepuff’s brand of hard work. These Hufflepuffs are less likely to take advantage of shortcuts on the way to their goals than someone sorted into the house of snakes.

“I can do anything, but not everything.” - These Hufflepuffs know that with enough hard work, any goal is achievable. They prioritize well, and will likely go far in the areas they choose to develop.

“I can do EVERYTHING.” These Hufflepuffs work just as hard as the second type, but fail to prioritize or focus their work. This often leads to having many unfinished projects, or burning out from overwork. 

Gryffindor

Hero(ine) - These Gryffindors will rush into a situation where someone needs help, regardless of the context. They cannot stand by while someone else is in danger or hurting. These Gryffindors have hearts of gold, but often end up hurt or in trouble because of this tendency.

Adrenaline Junkie - These Gryffindors love to take risks of any kind. They enjoy doing things that prove or display their bravery. Often this is in front of an audience, but it can also be proof to themselves. This category of Gryffindors is likely to produce athletes and performers because of this thrill-seeking behavior. 

Strong and Silent - These Gryffindors have a quieter type of bravery. They stand up for those who need it and do the right thing without drawing attention to themselves. Often, this means they are underappreciated or not seen as brave. 

Shaking Hands - These Gryffindors are the ones who struggle, but keep trying. They are afraid, but bravely push on. The right thing to do is not obvious to them when it seems to be to others, but they do their best every day. Shaking Hands Gryffindors are related to type three in that they aren’t recognized enough for their bravery.

Big Head Boy - These Gryffindors associate themselves with the Hero-types, the well-known Adrenaline Junkies, and the other desirable types of Gryffindors, but don’t do the same level of work to back this up. This can lead to them getting arrogant, becoming irritating to those around them, or even bullying.

Slytherin

Politician - These Slytherins love the power plays and complicated dynamics often associated with Slytherin House. Usually their goals for their adult life are political in nature, whether that means working in the government or behind the scenes. These Slytherins seek understand what is happening under the surface of every major interaction and read the subtext in everything.

Knowledge is Power. These Slytherins might be accused of secretly being a Ravenclaw. They love to learn, and will study a wide range of topics or look deeply into certain ones. What differs from a Ravenclaw, however, is that these Slytherins are driven to learn by the ways their knowledge can be put to use instead of for the sake of the learning itself.

Problem Solvers - These Slytherins will find the most expedient solution for any problem they are faced with. Often, they will find several effective, quick solutions. When giving a problem to these Slytherins to solve you should always give them all of the constraints you are working within, including moral ones. These Slytherins are not immoral but they often believe that the end justifies the means, so they need to know how far you are willing to go. Regardless of the constraints you give them, these Slytherins will find you an answer.

Behind the Scenes - These Slytherins embody the cunning and sneaky portions of their House’s reputation. Often, you won’t see the work they do or know how active they are. These Slytherins may control the gossip mill in their environment, or be the brains behind a political-type Slytherin. Unless you ask them, and they bring you into their confidence, you’ll never know.

Ruthless Slytherins - These Slytherins will do anything to get what they want. They are related to problem solvers, but don’t bring your problems to them unless you’ve accepted that the solutions they give will benefit them at least as much as they benefit you. This is the type of Slytherin most likely to cause or get into trouble, and then find a way out of it again that leaves them looking squeaky clean.

So, there you have it. There aren’t four types of people - there are twenty-one.

A town known as the “town of books”, Hay-on-Wye is located on the Welsh / English border in the United Kingdom and is a bibliophile’s sanctuary.

I realized that the updated Tag Search function makes it way easier to attempt to parallel search relationships including a specific character.

This method works better for characters who are not glitter and shipped with every person and creature and object under the sun.

This tutorial is written for people not familiar with tag ids. If you know how tag ids work, you should read the last two paragraph of this tutorial first.

You can find the Tag Search by looking at the menu at the top of the AO3 page that’s off to the left side.

Click Search and click Tag (the third option from the top).

Type in your character. If the character only ever appears in one fandom, you also include that. If the character you want to search as a very common name, you will probably have to include a fandom to avoid pulling in unrelated tags. Do not include more than one fandom otherwise the result will only pull up any tags that exist in all the fandoms you listed.

Select Relationship for type

Select Canonical

Hit Search Tags

The results should pull up every relationship that includes that character for that specific fandom or if you did not restrict by fandom, every relationship that has character with an identical name to the character you’re searching for.

For the character I picked, “Arm”, there are 29 results.

Open the Work Search page in a new tab or window. You can find a link in the same menu as Tag Search.

Or you can also open it through button labeled Work Search beside the Tag Search heading.

On the Work Search page, find the Any Field box. 

This next part will be time-consuming but you will need to format all the relationships you want to parallel search like this: “X/Y” OR “X & A”  OR   “B & Z”.

The tags need to match how they were shown on the Tag Search page. Each relationship needs to be placed between straight quotes. Curly quotes will break this search. Between each relationship tag, there needs to be an OR in all caps, but not one at the start or end.

After you’ve formatted things like this you can paste it into the Any Field box. (You could have just composed your search in there but if you’re parallel searching many relationship tags, doing it in notepad or something may make it easier to see what you’ve already included.)

There are filter options on this page. If you want to sort by completed or such, this is the point you need to do it at this point. This kind of search does not allow you to filter after you have clicked search. Unlike filtering on a specific tag, there is no filtering sidebar. A few other caveats:

If you want to exclude tags, you will have to input them into the Any Field box alongside the relationship tags. Those excluded tags will need to be formatted like such: - “tag 1"  - ”tag 2"

Basically they just need a minus sign in front of them. You do not need to include OR between them.

If you include more than one tag in the Character, Relationship, or Additional Tag boxes, the search will only bring up results that match all of your search parameters. So if you inputted “Fluff” and “High School” into the Additional Tag field, it would only bring up works that have both the “Fluff” and “High School” tag as well as any of the relationship tags in the Any Field.

I just want search for every work that includes Arm so I have no other filtering added. It looks like something below.

Once you’ve finished setting up your search, click the search button.

In the case of my search, I only set it up to pull up any of the 29 relationship tags I found  that included Arm. When I saved this screenshot, there were 412 results.

A few important things to note. While AO3 doesn’t really restrict how many text characters you put into the Any Field box, most browsers have a limit. So if you want to parallel search a lot of relationship or any tags in fact, you may run into your browser breaking your search.

If you’re searching a high number of tags, it’s better to use tag ids instead because they’re shorter and so you’ll be able to include way more information with less text characters. The tutorial works similarly except the list will be formatted like such: filter_ids:123 OR filter_id:456

You will not need to put quotes around a tag id. To find a tag id, you can open a specific tag and look at its RSS Feed, or by using the following script: https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/29917-ao3-display-tag-id  

Fanfic so funny because if you read enough of it, eventually you have a hard time differentiating between what’s canon and whats fanfic.

Like what you mean they didn’t kiss and fuck freaky as hell in canon.

Out of curiosity, if you could make one change to ao3, what would it be?

I'd want:

Change character tags to "MAJOR character" tags and relationship tags to "Relevant relationship" tags to prevent overtagging

Have authors have to click a box stating that their work is actually in line with ao3 terms of service and not a find a fic.

Ban DNI tags because they are against the spirit of the site. Its an archive. Not how it works.

FYI, I have also locked all my fanfics down to registered users only because of the AI scraping on AO3. I'm one of many fan creators doing this right now and I know it stinks for users without an AO3 account, but it's the only option writers have available to us at the moment to stop our work from being scraped and stolen.

If this makes you mad, the Federal Register is currently open to comments on AI accountability until June 12th, 2023.

It only takes a second to leave a comment to ask for legislation that works used in AI creations or training MUST secure the express consent of the original creator before they can be used. If we can get protections for artists, writers, musicians and everyone who creates that their work cannot be used in AI without their permission, we can go back to making fanworks freely available without fear of them being misused. Until then, we're stuck playing defense until the courts catch up.

(If you're a fan creator looking to do this as well, AO3 has a tool to let you do all your fics at the same time in seconds. On your dashboard, go to Edit Works and you'll be able to change the status on everything at once.)

If you missed the context, AO3 recently found that the archive was scraped for use in AI services like ChatGPT and Sudowrite. While they put in protections in December 2022 to try to stop it from happening in the future, it's not foolproof and there is nothing they can do about works already swiped prior to that date. The archive is recommending fan creators restrict their works to registered users only to prevent against additional large scale scraping in the future.

This is a callout post.