rhivolution | (no subject)

A few random thoughts that I need to have more energy to write about. Tomorrow.

- Yes, the previous post on vidding was frustrated hyperbole. I do feel like vidding is an exclusive community, though, if a welcoming one in some cases.

- I think I need to talk about warnings again. I'm a user of warnings...and I write extensive author's notes because I am a bit like that. However, as someone with OCD, my triggers are so fucking weird and random that I can see how it's impossible to warn for them...COMPLICATED. That does not mean other people should not warn, mind.

- And you shouldn't keep from warning because of Your Art. This post by

thingswithwings makes me want to write about that.

- I did take the warning label off Iowa Stubborn because 'Author Chooses Not To Warn' is NOT accurate for me, but anything I might warn about is not covered by the AO3 code. I wasn't aware some people automatically read that as 'Author Is An Inconsiderate Wankbucket', which is not how I roll.

- There needs to be another option on AO3, like 'No Warnings Apply' and 'No AO3 Warnings Apply', because I do see a distinction. Sigh.

- It's Independence Day, which is ever so fun for someone who no longer believes in Dictionary Definition patriotism, per se, with regards to any nation. I am now going to try to figure out how to say this without the hegemony that it implies.

Anyway, my country, you are borked and twisted and fucked up. Hell, even the holiday itself is fucked up, because the Declaration of Independence was bullshit for most people, and it also wasn't the beginning of the war. (As I've said plenty of times, American Studies is the major for emotional masochists.) But at the same time, I feel a certain amount of claim and maybe a bit of pride, sort of. We fuck up so badly, so often, and we have a superiority complex that needs to be kicked firmly in the metaphorical balls. But there are unique cultures, POVs, and ideas here, and those are what I believe in with regards to the US.

So yeah. I don't know. I can't quantify it; cognitive dissonance, perhaps. And perhaps I am wrong. As Jackson Browne puts it:

I have prayed for America
I was made for America
I can't let go till she comes around
Until the land of the free
Is awake and can see
Until her conscience has been found

Though I mean it in more senses of kyriarchy smackdown than Browne did, I think that sums up my POV pretty well.

Says she who is bunking off to Britain in a matter of weeks.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

I think one of the options (or maybe it's what happens when you leave it blank) reads as "No Archive Warnings Apply" from the user end (you can see several stories labeled this way in the racebending collection for example).

I really like what you have to say about American history. I never feel 'patriotic', either.

Actually I think that you can select warnings & yet still leave the "Author Chooses Not to Warn" thing ticked as well--I had that by mistake, but it is now corrected... like Rhi, I don't want people to interpret that as "I think warnings are for delicate flowers, so fuck you if you want them." (& plus obviously if I selected a warning I was choosing to use them... ?)

Someone over here asked me why I don't "celebrate" July 4th (there are a few other US Americans at work & they were all excited about bonding by doing something for the holiday--luckily I went to London & thus avoided having to bow out). And... how to say that to coworkers that you don't want to tell a micron more about your life than you don't have to? I just said, eh, it's a nice day for a picnic, I like fireworks, but I don't feel particularly excited about it. (& also, if I was that patriotic, would I even be here???)

Yeah, I hear that about the Fourth While Abroad. I got asked entirely too many times about Thanksgiving, for example.

Yeah, there's 'No Archive Warnings Apply', but I feel like that could be split into two, because you can read that both as 'there's nothing that's a major trigger here' and as 'there are triggers here that aren't the archive specified ones'. Which feel very different to me. Or I could just be way too into classification!

I have a hard time with 'patriotism' and holidays like this. I have one of many forms of US American identity, and while that's tied up with so much fucked up stuff that it makes my head hurt, there are, shockingly, some good aspects. In my case, I don't feel that those aspects should be specifically separated from US American identity, like I don't feel that being from Wisconsin should mean I support all of the sociocultural aspects therein. I don't agree with

catvalente's post today on the topic, though I definitely see where she's coming from.

No, you're not too into classification - that makes perfect sense, and I always wonder before I click an AO3 link, which possible meaning does the author intend to use? I don't really care much for warnings, personally - as in, I have no personal need for them - but the difference is still a critical thing. :(