vgfm: fandomshatepeopleofcolor: stephanemiroux: bigskydreaming: Okay heads up for all Americans...

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vgfm:

fandomshatepeopleofcolor:

stephanemiroux:

bigskydreaming:

Okay heads up for all Americans eligible to vote:

The Supreme Court just issues a ruling allowing Ohio and other states to purge voters from their election registration rolls due to their failure to cast a ballot in previous elections.

This is a major victory for the Trump administration and the GOP, and a direct consequence of the Supreme Court being stacked with more conservative judges (the votes were 5-4). This is also a huge part of what Trump/the GOP were counting on to save them in the 2018 midterm elections, which is where Democrats have been hoping to take back a majority in the House, giving them more power to combat Trump’s abuses of power and Republican legislation.

What this means is YOU CAN NOT ASSUME THAT YOU ARE REGISTERED for the 2018 elections, just because you SHOULD be. Thanks to this decision, red states can purge voters’ registration based on their not having cast a ballot in even just previous federal elections, NOT just the national Presidential elections. Effectively, if you haven’t voted in previous senate races or for congressional representatives in the past few years, that’s all they need now to say you’re no longer registered and need to register again.

They’re deliberately counting on people assuming they’re still registered and so not checking until after registration deadlines have passed, or showing up to vote this November and only then finding out they’re no longer registered, when its too late to do a damn thing about it.

And this is absolutely targeted at marginalized communities, low income voters, disabled voters, and basically anyone who simply can’t always AFFORD to keep on top of every federal election and show up to vote in every senate race, etc. Which not so coincidentally happen to be all the communities and voters who have the most to gain from Democratic victories in the 2018 midterms and are the least likely to cast votes for GOP candidates at this point.

This was absolutely a calculated effort aimed specifically at keeping the GOP in power with a majority control of the government come November, and unfortunately, it has a DAMN good chance of accomplishing just that if it goes by unacknowledged. I’m not looking to alarm or panic anyone, simply to say:

If you are a registered voter in a red state at this point, please please please do not take your registered status as assumed. Check on your registration status, look up all relevant voter registration deadlines for your state and district, CIRCLE THAT SHIT ON YOUR CALENDAR, and check your registration status AGAIN right before those deadlines pass, so you can be sure of it before its too late to do anything about it til the next voting cycle.

Yikes

Reblog this shit right now

Here’s a Twitter thread with resources for voters in every state to check on their registration status: https://twitter.com/AnaMardoll/status/1006221580458790912

Make sure you check it periodically because the newest voter roll purges likely haven’t happened yet.
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Fanfic and Editing: Beta vs. a Concept That’s No

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squeeful:

inkandblade:

chicklette:

mayalaen:

Over a decade ago when I first started getting into fanfiction, the term Alpha was used more frequently.  A writer had the option of finding either an Alpha or a Beta to help them with their writing.

A Beta is for all the basics like grammar, but when it came to an Alpha, they did so much more.  Alphas almost co-wrote the story with you, but not quite, and it was such a fun and interactive process.

What an Alpha Does:

Proofreading (like a beta)

Bouncing Ideas (email, chat, phone ideas back and forth)

Discussion (ideas, plots, problem points, or even just a pick-me-up)

Editor (small and large instances, often marked in red in your document)

Story Structure (does it flow? does it follow the format writer wanted?)

Canon vs Fanon Advice (distinguishing and suggesting)

Consistency (e.g. character has same color hat from beginning to end)

Major Rewrite Suggestions (an entire chapter doesn’t work? help!)

Cheerleading Through an Entire Fic (not just chapter by chapter)

Presentation (help in picking out everything from cover art to the tagline to the finished product structure, maybe even creating the PDF or HTML page for the writer)

And more that I’m not even thinking of right now

An Alpha would get credit for this (most of the time right underneath the author’s name on the cover art and in the story info), and people looked to alphas like they were special, they were very much appreciated, and if you found one, you would do pretty much anything for them.

I’ve been on both ends of this, and I really miss it being a more widespread thing.  I’ve got my own alpha in the form of a friend who has been with me from the beginning of Alpha House, and she’s still a HUGE help.  It wouldn’t be the fic it is without her, and I wish more writers could experience this.

How Using an Alpha Works

First you find one, and you get their email/chat ID/phone number.  You tell them the ENTIRE idea for your fic (spoiling it all), where you want it to go, how you want it to feel, what the characters’ motivations are, etc.  Then you send the alpha what you have so far, which can be part or all of the fic.

Once the alpha reads it, they mark in red any suggestions, but instead of just marking mistakes, the document looks like a professional editor from a book publishing company got a hold of it.

You’d either email back and forth or (more often) chat online or talk on the phone with them while you both went over it, each making different suggestions.  It wasn’t just a one-day/one-sitting thing, and from then on there’s emails back and forth with cheerleading and ideas and chunks of fic from both the writer and the alpha, so that by the time the fic is done, anywhere from 1% to sometimes 49% of the writing is from the alpha (with your fic in mind, not their own way they wanted the story to go), and the rest of it was at least helped along by the alpha.

It was very rewarding to do this for other writers.  I enjoyed it a lot.  And having an alpha myself was such a treat.  I can’t even explain it to you.  It’s an awesome experience, and one I’d love every writer to experience.

What it Does for Beginners

New writers are vulnerable and don’t know their way around.  An alpha would take them under their wing and help them along, helping them find where and how to post, how to use warnings, summaries, tags, etc.  If a writer got bad feedback, the alpha was there to listen and encourage.  If they got good feedback, an alpha was there to celebrate right along with them.

In my opinion, it made for more confident writers, because they were prepared for some of the shit writers get, and alphas stopped them from ever making newbie mistakes in the first place that get some writers flamed and ridiculed.  Not that I’m condoning flaming, but the truth is it happens.

All in all, I’d love for the concept of Alphas to come back.

This this this this this this this!! 

We live in a world of grammar and spelling checkers that can do a reasonably good job of proofing your work.  But an Alpha reader, someone who understands concrit, who can say whoa, wtf are you doing here?  Or holy crap!  genius! - those are like diamonds, like gold, like a parking space right in front of the restaurant when you’re already running ten minutes late.   I am so, so grateful to @buffyscribbles for all of her help and support for my writing.  It has made oceans of difference and, IMO, has led to some of my favorite stories being written. 

Bring back the Alphas, please.  They mean everything to the writers.

I would love an Alpha – I’ve never explicitly had one, though I can think of several people who I’d call this if asked specifically. 

*edited as I shouldn’t comment on anything at 4am.

I…have been reading and writing fanfiction since the 1990s and have never heard of this or the difference from a beta before.  Just that sometimes people had different betas for different things.  Because the alpha, if the term was ever (never heard it) used, was the author.

Huh. This is already how I beta (by request). I am an AlphaBeta, the packleader of the betaing.
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keightmaclean: “The Birth Of Suburbia”

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keightmaclean:

“The Birth Of Suburbia” by Rosaleen Ryan

I think this might be perfect
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sesiondemadrugada:Hiroshi Yoshida.

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sesiondemadrugada:

Hiroshi Yoshida.
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