If a child is overwhelmed, remove them from the overwhelming situation.
If a child is hungry or tired, address those needs.
If they are throwing a tantrum in the department store, take them somewhere quiet and let them cry until they are calm. They’re probably just bored or cramped or overwhelmed and need a minute.
Address the cause of misbehavior, not how it manifests.
Make sure things like transitions, when you are leaving or moving on, are clearly communicated. Sudden transitions can be a huge trigger for tantrums. Best to try and mitigate with proper advance notice.
Explain your reasons to children when you are enforcing rules
Listen to children when they explain their objections to rules. You don’t have to agree with them all the time, but you should listen.
Understand that you, the adult, can also be overwhelmed, tired, hungry, and frustrated too. Acknowledge, to your kids, out loud, how these things are impacting you and apologize if you snap at them unfairly. Again, this is modeling emotional response.
Make the rules clear, simple, and consistent. Don’t change what the rules are based on your mood that day, or if you must, explain it before hand. If you normally let them play video games in the car, but you can’t today because your head hurts and your driving to a new place and you need to concentrate so you don’t want the sound to distract you- explain that to your kids. If they counter with “I have head phones. Is that ok?” Then, yeah. It’s ok.
If you need to have consequences for their actions, then actually follow through. Don’t threaten with consequences that you won’t really do. That makes it a lie, and makes it super ineffective in the future.
Make consequences fit the behavior. Explain why that is the consequence.
Some good consequences might include: cleaning up a mess they made, taking a cool down time for a few minutes, not getting to a special treat like a trip to the movie theater with their friends, etc. Remember, we are trying to avoid physical pain as a form of punishment.
Speak to children respectfully and prompt them to speak respectfully back.
Choices. Give kids a reasonable, manageable number of choices. Do you want to wear the green shirt or the blue shirt? Do you want Cheerios or waffles? Carrots or green beans? Do you want to give grandma a hug or a high five? Older kids can handle more choices than younger ones.
General rule of thumb: You aren’t trying to raise an obedient child. You’re trying to raise a thoughtful, respectful adult. And you have to be a role model, not just in what you say, but also in what you do.
Hi guys! So I know we all don’t actually read the terms and conditions of things and just hit agree assuming there’s nothing important in there (I do it too oops) but if you take writing commissions or anything involving money, then there’s actually something in the AO3 terms and conditions to be aware of.
Linking to a personal website or blog/social network where you are taking donations, posting commissions or mentioning published works is permitted, but advertising it directly on the Archive is not, nor is using language which one might interpret as requesting financial contributions. For example, you can say something to the effect of “check out my Tumblr if you want to know more about me and my writing” and include the link to the site, but you cannot specifically state anything about donations, commissions or sales on the Archive.
Today someone reported one of my fics as violating this condition – presumably because I’d mentioned my patreon in the author’s note (I wasn’t actively requesting donations either… I’d literally just mentioned that it existed, and that the fic in question was written as a thank-you for hitting one of my goals).
I’ve written to AO3 to check whether just saying ‘thank you to those who support me on patreon’ is fine and I’ll let you guys know when they get back to me, but if it’s still going too far in terms of being a ‘commercial promotion’ then I’ll just avoid mentioning this in the future! :’)
As I said, someone did actually report my fic for this – so there are people out there who are noticing/reporting these situations. Please be aware of this if you take fic commissions, or use patreon or ko-fi, because your account could end up suspended, which of course no one wants!
❤ ❤
UPDATE: AO3 got back to me – you’re not allowed to mention or link to patreon at all, regardless of how it’s phrased. Not sure if it’s the same for ko-fi but it might be better to be safe than sorry!
❤ @kahnah23 relevant to you and possibly some others~
That’s a fucking bullshit rule, I’m sorry. They shouldn’t deny you the opportunity to advertise your own work.
this isn’t just a self-determined descriptor; that’s a legal definition that requires adherence to specific rules and laws regarding income, profit, and donations.
this isn’t a “bullshit rule” just meant to prevent creators from advertising. in op’s post, the contact from ao3 offers a roundabout way to advertise. this rule ensures that ao3 and the organization for transformative works to stay a non-profit organization – this “bullshit rule” is essentially a way so that ao3 and the other services that the organization for transformative works can stay online.
it’s not just about maintaining nonprofit status. (i question if that’s even applicable here, since the profits in question don’t go to the organisation, but i know very little about nonprofit law. just a gut feeling.)
the actual point is, they run a legal services organisation for fans who get into legal trouble. they literally exist for the purpose of helping you not get into legal trouble. profiting from fan fiction very much opens you up to the possibility of getting into legal trouble. they’re not going to let people do things on their website that they know will land them in exactly that trouble.
and to be clear, just because everyone who slaps a patreon button on their tumblr isn’t getting sued, doesn’t mean they aren’t doing something for which they could be sued.
let me say it again: profiting from fan fiction very much opens you up to the possibility of getting into legal trouble.
here’s why.
use of other people’s characters is subject to copyright law. the general principle that makes downloading a movie or a song piracy also applies to the use of a character, assuming certain factors such as uniqueness.
how fan fiction has come to scrape by in the past: by not being a commercial enterprise.
in contrast, for use music, video, images incorporated into new works: by being significantly transformative.
these two factors, commerciality and transformativity, are considered side by side. the greater the transformativity, the less weight commerciality will be given. if something is highly transformative and non-commercial, then it’s almost certainly fine. down the other end, if it’s not at all transformative and commercial, forget it.
it’s a matter of judgement as to what degree of transformativity there is in the work that will push it over the line to overcome the general prohibition against commercial use. but fan fiction in the truest sense is barely transformative. in fact the goal is to come as close to copying a character as possible.
an analogy with the use of music: a cover band, despite every part of the performance of the song being done by that band, is still playing a song that was created by someone else. you, the fic writer, as covering someone else’s character.
the cover band you see at your local bar? they, or the local bar itself, have paid a fee to obtain permission to play that song. (even if they were playing for free they would still have to obtain permission, because any public performance of copyrighted music is prohibited.) in contrast, use of a line from one song in another another song that uses the line for parody? fine (Campbell v. Acuff-Rose Music, 510 U.S. 569 (1994)). let’s call that the AU with the names changed, the location different, and everything about that character’s backstory is gone. they just look like the actor and have a dialogue pattern that matches.
the better you are at writing a character in character, ironically the more likely you are to violate copyright law. and that’s why the commercial factor becomes incredibly relevant.
basically, don’t get paid, keep being cool with the law*.
*this is not an endorsement of the principles of copyright law itself. this is about what that law is and how it works.
People also forget the reason why disclamers on fics became so prevalent.
Please understand that profiting off fanfiction, fanart and all forms of fan-content is direct violation of copyrighted material.
Your commissions to draw popular characters? Direct violation of Copyright. AO3 works hard to maintain fandom expression protected. You hurt their cause by not adhering to their term of use.
They’re there so you won’t get sued.
On this front, fandom creators in the US may want to batten down the hatches because the Trump administration is pretty much guaranteed to highly favor intellectual property owners–especially groups like the MPAA and RIAA–over fair use and transformative works.
We’ve got a lot more legal precedent than we used to on our side, but this kind of ‘bullshit detail’ has historically been a lever for these people to hang a lawsuit on and no doubt it will be again.
Yeah, afaik fanworks have more legal protection than they used to, but that could go away in an instant.
Anybody else old enough to remember writing at the beginning of each chapter of their fiction “I DO NOT OWN X, I AM NOT MAKING ANY MONEY OFF X, I WRITE ONLY FOR THE LOVE OF A/B. X is the property of Y, please do not sue me I am 13 and you will only get 37 cents” because I am and this is why you don’t fuck around with copyright law. Fanworks have come a long way in respectability and legality. But profiting off it can still get you in trouble. Be careful kiddos.
The OTW has done so much in getting non-profit transformative works to be legalized, especially getting copyright exceptions for vidding. Let’s not screw this up now, guys.
The discussion of copyright could be refined a little here…but let’s be blunt, to some extent, it doesn’t matter. Regardless of the law, AO3 was established with a deliberately noncommercial ethos–in fact, in specific response to contemporary attempts to commercialize fandom. The rule exists in service of that ethos. Don’t like that “bullshit?” Well, then, I guess you should just go read and publish fic on that other free platform that doesn’t exist to turn you and your personal data into a product to sell off to capitalism’s highest bidders. What’s that? You say that doesn’t exist? Hmmmm, I wonder if that’s a coincidence.
I’m really glad this anti-Confederate backlash has picked up steam, because we’ve allowed Confederate apologists to completely seize control of Civil War history. The fact that we even think of it in terms of “North vs. South” or “Union vs. Confederacy” is a sign of that influence. It should be “America’s Slaveowner Revolt.” We ask questions like “what if the South won the war”, as if that was remotely possible given their numbers and logistical failures. The Confederacy was barely a government. Within a year of forming there were riots from food shortages. The whole notion that this was between two equally formidable and legitimate sides is a fallacy of the so-called Lost Cause.
This isn’t griping from a history buff by the way, the Lost Cause has been one of America’s chief guardians of white supremacy for 150 years. The Big Lie about states rights affects politics to this day, and always in the context of letting states curtail civil rights that the federal government has guaranteed. Prior to the Civil War, when Northern states tried to push back against fugitive slave laws and make themselves sanctuaries for runaway slaves, the government cracked down hard on them. There was not a peep about states rights on that. We see it happening today. The states rights scolds have not said a word about Jeff Sessions threatening to destroy cities that refuse to hunt undocumented immigrants. Yet somehow the rights of states become sacrosanct when they want to keep gay couples from adopting kids. All of this is relevant to our current situation, and hopefully taking down some statues of (frankly overrated) treasonous generals is just the beginning.
When white leftists make spurious notions about needing to unite under “class struggle” and not racism, it’s clear they don’t care about People of Color.
Just look at the way welfare and the minimum wage have been gutted and maligned. It’s ahistorical. There’s innumerable examples like these.
This is one of the best pieces of comedy that I have ever had the pleasure of witnessing. I love this. I have been looking for this online for awhile.
[Audio transcription: I wanted to tell you one story. Uh. This is the story of the best meal I’ve ever had in my life, okay. Happened when I was eleven years old in Chicago, IL where I grew up. I went to a place called the Salt & Pepper Diner, uh, with my best friend John. We walk into the diner one day, and they had a jukebox there, okay? And the jukebox was three plays for a dollar. So we put in 7 dollars and selected 21 plays of of Tom Jones’s What’s New Pussycat. And then we ordered and waited.
Here’s the thing about when, uh, What’s New Pussycat plays over and over and over and over and over again. The second time it plays, your immediate thought is not ‘hey someone’s playing What’s New Pussycat again.’ It’s ‘hey, What’s New Pussycat is a lot longer than I first thought. The third time it plays you’re thinking maybe someone’s playing What’s New Pussycat again. The fourth time it plays you’re either thinking ‘whoa someone just played What’s New Pussycat FOUR TIMES or at least someone played it twice, and it’s a really long song.’ So the fifth time is the kicker, alright?
Now, John and I we’re watching the entire diner at this point, alright? Most people have gotten wind as to what’s going on. And we’re staring at this one guy and he’s sitting in like a booth with his stupid kids jumping around, and he’s like staring at his coffee cup like this, and he’s been onto us since the beginning. And he’s sitting there, and his hand is shaking, and he had this look on his face like, aw, like he had just gotten his thirty day chip from anger management. And he’s staring like this, and the fourth song fades out. It’s dead quiet. Then, I don’t know if you know this, but the song begins very quietly…
BWAAAH BWAAAAAH WHAT’S NEW PUSSYCAT and he goes GOD DAMN IT and pounds on the table, silverware flies everywhere, and it was fantastic. But a word about my best friend John and what a genius he was because when we first walked into the diner, okay? When we first got there and I’m punching in the What’s New Pussycats alright? I’ve punched in like 7 at this point then John says to me ‘hey hey hey before you punch in another What’s New Pussycat let’s drop in one It’s Not Unusual.’
Oh yes. That is when the afternoon went from good to great. After sevenWhat’s New Pussycats. In a row – It played seven times. Suddenly – Dum da dum, IT’S NOT UNUSUAL and the sigh of relief that swept through the diner. People were so happy. It was like the liberation of France. You know for years scientists have wondered can you make grown men and women weep tears of joy by playing Tom Jones’s It’s Not Unusual and the answer is yes you can. Provided that it is preceded by seven What’s New Pussycats. It’s true. Dead honest.
And on the other hand. When we went back. Holy shit. It’s Not Unusual fade out. It’s dead quiet. BWAAAH BWAAAAH WHAT’S NEW PUSSYCAT people went insane. People went out of their minds. No one could handle it. No one could handle it. And they were surrounded by this seemingly indifferent staff that was just like ‘yup some crap as always.’
They unplugged the jukebox after eleven plays. And that was the best meal I ever had.]
reblogging again coz this time it has audio transcription (bless you) and it’s still forever hilarious omg
If this is your first time seeing the Salt & Pepper Diner story, I envy you. Sometimes I wish I could hear it again for the first time.
1. Navigation. You can see all your chapters, scenes, character & setting planning at one glance and switch between them very easily – compared to scrolling up and down in one long word processing document. Every file can also be a folder, so you can have collapsible items underneath it.
2. Word count targets. The “Project Targets” are particularly useful for NaNoWriMo so you don’t have to keep looking back at the website to see how you’re doing for the day, but more so outside of it, when you want to keep yourself working to a target but don’t have Nano’s charts and daily word counts. It also gives you a nice ding when you hit your session target.
3. How many pages? I only recently discovered this, but it’s very nice to be able to see in Project Statistics approximately how big your manuscript would be in pages without worrying about formatting.
4. Outlining. Scrivener has two methods of outlining – one is Corkboard, which is exactly what it sounds like, a digital corkboard with notes pinned on it that represent your chapters/scenes with their summaries. The screenshot above is called ‘outliner’ and lists collapsible chapters/scenes with various statistics you can select as shown in the tick menu. Generally I prefer Corkboard, but Outliner is useful if you just want to see everything in a clear order.
5. Full screen. I get distracted very easily when writing, so the full-screen writing mode is wonderful for me to avoid that – but you can still choose certain windows from the normal Scrivener view to show up. I have my targets and my summary, so I can stick to my plan when I’m writing and also see what progress I’m making.
6. Notes. No screenshot, but it’s a simple post-it note style box to the side of every document (chapter, scene, character etc.) that allows you to add notes. This may sound very simple, but it’s far more useful than I’d expected. During NaNoWriMo when I’m not meant to be editing at all, but I know something needs fixing, I will jot down something in the side like ‘Take out the horse’ so that when I go through again to edit I know exactly the things to focus on immediately but which would have taken too much time before. It’s linked to the scene so I don’t just have a pile of notes in one document at the end and then have to work out where it needs fixing.
Overall
I downloaded Scrivener for the first time two years ago, and now I can’t imagine working without it. It’s so nice to have the planning and the writing all combined into one place where I can easily switch between the two. I haven’t yet got as far in a novel created in Scrivener to use the compile features so I can’t comment on those, but so far all my experiences of it have been good.
One thing to note is that if transferring project between a Windows and a Mac version of Scrivener, it’s generally best to zip the file first.
[Screenshots from my current novel Kindling Ashes using the Mac version of Scrivener – some features may not be available in Windows yet.]
So let’s discuss the last scene of Hamlet, shall we? (Caution: long post.)
It starts out with just Hamlet and Horatio, discussing the deceit of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Horatio is explicitly made aware that King Claudius was at the root of the plot to kill Hamlet. Then Osric enters and informs them that Claudius has made a wager on Hamlet beating Laertes in a swordfight.
A swordfight. You know, with those sharp, pointy, potentially lethal things?
Come on, it’s obvious that this just the next attempt to get Hamlet killed. But it’s also fairly obvious that Laertes is not going to just come out and stab Hamlet to death – that would be better done in private and not in the most public situation imaginable at court, implicating the king. So, another plot is rather obviously afoot. Yet Hamlet hardly seems worried; instead he proceeds to make fun of Osric.
Why so? Well, the only rational explanation would be that Hamlet and Horatio have a plan of their own. Horatio’s offer to forestall the king’s arrival and “say you are not fit” could be read as a final test of resolve: “Do you really want to go ahead with this?” – And Hamlet replies with “We defy augury.” Given that the scene is replete with references to fate (e.g. the famous “divinity that shapes our ends”), this is hardly a throwaway comment. It is Hamlet answering: “Yes, let’s do it. Let’s play fate.”
Claudius and his party promptly enter. Hamlet, rather unsurprisingly, goes off on one of his hotch-potch rants. Its contents actually make sense – denial of responsibility due to insanity – but the phrasing is still rather more complicated than necessary, half mocking, half confused. You can just picture him waving his arms around wildly and drawing attention to himself. Meanwhile, no mention at all is made of what Horatio is up to.
So, what if he used the distraction provided by Hamlet to manipulate the rapiers? Being Horatio, he is of course well prepared. Romeo and Juliet teaches us that there is a non-lethal potion that can be used to fake death. What if Hamlet and Horatio, given the ominous circumstances, had already discussed its use in situations like this. What if Horatio, ever since then, carried a clean cloth and a flask of the potion. What if Horatio picked out the rapier which was anointed which that rather suspicious-looking liquid, wiped it clean, and dosed it instead with the non-lethal potion. What if Horatio thereby saved Hamlet using Juliet’s potion.
It explains why they went with the rapier fight at all – it gave them an opportunity to resolve things in a way that would get Hamlet out of the spotlight and allow them to start a new life in peace and quiet elsewhere. It explains why Hamlet isn’t bothered about which rapier he chooses – he knows that Laertes will choose the one carefully prepared by Horatio and actually wants to be hit. It explains why, after stabbing Claudius, Hamlet also forces him to drink from the poisoned cup – neither Gertrude’s nor Claudius’s death were intended, but the poisoned drink was not part of the plan. The fact that Claudius just lets Gertrude die gives Hamlet the final kick to actually kill him too, though, and he knows that the stab wound alone would do no harm.
It also explains all the references to playing fate – by successfully using the make-me-seem-dead potion that Shakespeare was so fond of, Hamlet and Horatio shaped their own ends in a way that would seem like fate to anyone else. All they had to do was act out the rest of the scene for the remaining courtiers (rather dramatically, one might add) and then sneak off sometime the next day. “Goodnight, sweet prince” literally means “sleep well, darling, and see you tomorrow morning”.
tl;dr: Headcanon that Hamlet and Horatio are happily living on a desert island together (just like Mercutio and Benvolio).
just moving along like everyone else 