Listen. I Fully Understand Why Celebrities (typically Musicians) Have The World's Plainest Merch. I Know

Listen. I fully understand why celebrities (typically musicians) have the world's plainest merch. I know its because it has to be mass produced and to maximise profits and to limit design expenses and production time.

I understand it.

I just refuse to accept it.

Like. Harry Styles will step onto a red carpet or stage in a one of a kind five-piece sequined, personalised, rainbow ensemble then sell me a plain black hoodie with 'TPWK' in tiny embroidery on the left collarbone. And that's it.

I refuse. I refute your shitty bland merch. I despise it. Give me fashion or give me death. I want the whole world to know I'm a Harrie just with a passing glance, not a squint and a magnifying glass.

If I'm already paying $75 for that low effort monstrosity I'd have no issue paying $100 for something that actually looks like merch, not a five minute craft you can do at home.

The concept that a lot of you don't understand is that AO3 is not just another funky little fanfiction upload site like Wattpad.

Its very specifically a content archive.

Its not a social media site. Its not like BookReads or Wattpad or the Kindle library.

Its for the preservation hosting of fanfiction. Think of it like a museum. When you upload your fanfiction there, you're basically donating it to a museum where its preserved, protected, and displayed.

That's why AO3 doesn't have the same rules and regulations as Wattpad. That's why AO3 doesn't allow for monetisation. That's why AO3 doesn't have content mining and ads and all the other stuff Wattpad does.

If you want to keep benefiting from those things, you need to understand and respect what AO3 actually is and how it functions.

My new favorite act of warfare is going on Instagram and commenting babygirl on posts involving Billy Hargrove. As we speak I have 16 pending message requests from positively incensed white girls.

This is just an FYI but no matter what issues you're an activist for or a supporter of;

Its okay to need moments or days where you simply don't talk about it.

Its okay to say; "I need to step back for a little bit to recharge and focus on the positives."

Its okay to tell someone you can't be their ear right now because you need to rebalance yourself and focus on your own wellbeing. Its okay to tell people you just want to enjoy this moment or this day and not focus on terrible, awful things.

Moments of happiness and peace are just as important as activism and engagement.

I know that it seems funny, but please stop bringing overly sexual and invasive signs to concerts. Especially if you know the artist is someone who's hypersexualised by the media or know they're not comfortable with being sexualised. If an artist has to call you out (even lightly) on a sexual sign, you should know you've crossed a boundary and are being inappropriate.

Signs telling them you masturbate to them, think about them while having sex, signs about how you want to touch them or things like 'cum on (my face) Harry' might be funny to you, but they're exhausting, uncomfortable and often just disappointing for the artists who are trying to have a good, fun, meaningful show and are trying to have a happy connection with their fans.

Find some other way to get noticed. Its not funny and its not fair.

On one hand I do understand the concept of a job having a relative value in terms of hourly wage based on required qualifications, ect, but on the other I absolutely do not understand the way some people talk about how someone is undeserving of payment above a certain value based on what job they do.

We are literally selling hours of our lives in order to afford basic survival necessities. If we want to eat, we first have to sell hours of our lives and skills and labour. If we want to sleep in shelter, drink clean water, have access to medicine and healthcare and transport, we literally have to sell part of our lifetime to working.

And often, its not a small part. I know people for whom an 80 hour workweek is just. Normal. And they're still only just making it by. I know people who are working two jobs alongside their partner's job(s) just to afford to run a small, minimal, two-person household.

Humans aren't meant to live life like this, period. No matter your political stance or perspective on class. Absolutely everyone should be able to have a healthy balance between time spent working and time spent actually living. If you have to choose between eating, doing laundry or getting more than 5 hours sleep between shifts, there's a problem. If you're pulling 60 hour weeks and still barely affording your bills, there's a problem. If your health is declining because you have to work so much just to live, there's a problem.

If your argument is that people need to 'be worth their pay' and not that people should be paid enough that they can do more than just afford the bare basics needed to survive, you are part of the problem.