There's something about how Agatha Ledge is killed by being bisected by mica and Saskia describes losing her body in the Vault as feeling like being cut in half. Duality is pretty common in the story: Fold/Un, Valor/Caenum, Trust/Breach; there's a lot of episodes that have a parallel or a deliberate counterpart as depicted in the icons or setting (notably that Trustfall takes place in the same location as Mica, with a number of callbacks, and Ghosts similarly echoes Secrets, but see also the icons of A Good Man/Compensation, Trust/Blood Ties, or Wake/Inside).

Everyone in the main cast finds themselves facing dilemmas or being torn between multiple places and identities: Lark's story is about running or staying. Weepe is pulled by a past in the Fold and a present in the Un. Phineas's is about being Valorous or being good.

The way forward, for the most part, is finding something either in between or outside the dichotomy altogether. There's a reason the story's called Midst. Weepe was only able to do any good while he was there, between the two extremes. Phineas froze when he had to make his choice but ultimately, his way forward is a third option of getting rid of Valor entirely. We have yet to see the end of Lark's story but you can't survive being cut in half, whether it's accidental or whether you choose it. You need to either change drastically, or find a way to allow yourself both options.

You exist and it doesn’t. You outlived Valor.

Is there a way to report users for posting works made with/by ai?

According to this news post from May 2023, AI works are not currently against the Terms of Service (whether that changes in the future, I have no way of knowing). In most cases, those works are not something that PAC will take action against.

Instead of reporting, I recommend you mute authors who post those works. That way you won't see them in your search results or tags in the future. To mute an author, click or tap on their username to visit their profile page, then click or tap on the Mute button you can find underneath their name.

Full text of the relevant portion of the news post is copied below. Bold is in the original.

At the moment, there is nothing in our Terms of Service that prohibits fanworks that are fully or partly generated with AI tools from being posted to the AO3, if they otherwise qualify as fanworks.

Our goals as an organization include maximum inclusivity of fanworks. This means not only the best fanworks, or the most popular fanworks, but all the fanworks that we can preserve. If fans are using AI to generate fanworks, then our current position is that this is also a type of work that is within our mandate to preserve.

Depending on the circumstances, AI-generated works could violate our anti-spam policies (e.g. if a creator posts a significant number in a short time). If you're uncertain whether a work violates our Terms of Service, you may always report it to our Policy & Abuse team using the link at the bottom of any page, and they can investigate.

This statement reflects AO3’s policy at the time of writing, as we wanted to be transparent with our users about what our current stance is and what can be done – and is being done – to mitigate scraping for AI datasets. However, these policies are also under discussion internally among AO3 volunteers. If we agree on changes to these in the future, those will be announced publicly; additionally, if there are any proposed changes to the AO3 Terms of Service, they will be made available for public comment as is required of any and all changes to our Terms of Service.

We hope that this helps to make things more clear – this is a complicated situation, and we’re doing our very best to address it in a way that doesn’t compromise AO3’s principles of maximum fanwork inclusivity or legitimate uses of the site. As discussions and approaches evolve, we will keep our users updated.

this has been discussed before but reducing female characters to the girlboss braincell holder in the name of combating misogyny in fandom is ironically also a form of misogyny

This was fully Essek's energy while at this Inn

I'm not gonna put this on the other post cuz I don't really want it rebloggable but I do want to specify that like, yes I was being dramatic about Essek in terms of affect, but every part of that post is also quite literally a description of my experience with a creative field that is pretty centralized around a few locations and that has made it stringently difficult to enter and stay in the field. There are obviously monumentally different aspects around those circumstances, but like... look I left Los Angeles literally two weeks after the c2 finale with a very clear understanding that once I did, I was not going back, and that because of that, my career would never look like I'd wanted it to in any capacity, and in fact it was likely that it meant I would not work in the field I'd trained for ever again, and also knew it was the only choice that made sense if I wanted to, like, have a life. And I do! And it's great! And it still makes me very upset to think about for many reasons! So you can see why I have a lot of feelings about the whole situation.

great blue heron , Ardea herodias

reblog after voting!!

me, yelling loudly down the office hall at 4:30 on a Wednesday: Look, the problem with nuclear deterrence as a strategy is that it only has to fail once!

Reblog and put in the tags what wall decor is closest to you right now 

does violence have to be the last resort. cant it be like third

Reminder that you're actually interesting. Your hobbies are interesting, your interests are interesting, you are important and loveable and people appreciate you. You're just a loveable, interesting person.

Person: What's your book about?

Writers:

I'm both somehow 🙃

he’s back bitch

i love you im glad you exist im so happy you’re alive