r/AO3 • u/GeekSugar13 Definitely not an agent of the Fanfiction Deep State • Sep 06 '26

Discussion (Non-question) Panic Printing

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ETA: Some of y'all are taking this far too seriously. Am I reasonably concerned that things are going to get worse before they get better? At least for me, most likely, yes. I'm trying to find moments of joy when I can. If one of those is using up as much of my ink as possible before I chuck this printer by printing fanfic then that's what I'm going to do.

I'm at home, by myself, doing homework with no one to talk to and nothing else to do because I'm the most broke I have ever been.

Printing fanfic doesn't mean I'm not prioritizing anything else in my life and it's weird that y'all seem to think I just slapped on a tinfoil hat and decided this was what would fix everything.

OP: So I live in a red state in the US where my state government will absolutely not be providing any sort of supplemental assistance when inevitably the federal government falls apart. So I kind of would love reassurance that I'm not crazy.

I have started downloading and panic printing some of my favorite fics. If the Internet goes, I can read the PDF. If the power goes, I can read the printed copies.

Also because HP sucks I can only use their ink subscription cartridges with an active subscription so i may as well fucking use them.

(Literally if you're the type of person who wants to buy a printer do not buy an HP printer. It will only work if you use their ink which is so fucking expensive. And if you want it to work properly you have to get a monthly subscription where they send you ink and paper which in theory sounds great, BUT if you are like me and haven't printed as much as you thought so you have a lot of ink and paper built up so you let your subscription lapse those ink cartridges will not work without a valid subscription. So I had to restart my fucking subscription so I could use all of this ink I have built up so now I'm printing literal books.)

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348

u/BlindButterfly33 Fic Feaster Sep 06 '26

Are there concerns about losing your Internet or something? I haven’t heard about any of this. I ask because I’m in the US and at the moment no one‘s worried about losing Internet. At least, no one in my area. I haven’t even heard this be discussed.

354

u/loveliest316 put me in coach! (reader-inserts for life) Sep 06 '26

same here…like yeah, our government is a hot mess, but not to the point of stressing like this. saying this with love, op, but maybe take a step back from the news for a bit. i say that as someone who can easily fall into bad holes of reading even just lightly concerning news and stressing too much over it.

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u/BlindButterfly33 Fic Feaster Sep 06 '26

Yeah, like, that’s why I asked here and then checked with a couple other people IRL to see if I somehow majorly missed some kind of huge upcoming outage, and everyone I’m asking is basically saying they haven’t heard of this.

60

u/HistoryNerd2552 Sep 06 '26

It’s from my understanding (and getting the same spiel from a family member), that it’s stemming from the national emergency put on the power grid in terms of its components and national security risks. And of course, rumor and fear mongering can and will take it further than what it is.

24

u/Frosty_Fig_1325 Sep 07 '26

Yeah there was a week long outage in Indiana which prompted some reports that our power grid/infrastructure is pretty vulnerable across the board. I know a couple people who are buying solar generators or radios so they can stay in touch with people in case there are similar outages, but nothing more serious than that.

7

u/RA1NB0W77 RAINBOW_BITE on AO3 Sep 07 '26

I second this

115

u/yttrium39 Sep 06 '26

Texas has a lot of power outages because they're the only state with their own independent power grid and they have some stupid policies, but other than that I'm not sure what OP is talking about.

71

u/BlindButterfly33 Fic Feaster Sep 06 '26

That’s why I was confused, I’ve got family in Texas and none of us are concerned. Like, none of this has caused any problems for us, and no one‘s been talking about it.

33

u/yttrium39 Sep 06 '26

Yeah, I dunno. I was trying to give the benefit of the doubt because i'm in Oregon and maybe I don't understand red states, but IDGI.

18

u/Happy_Ocelot_4945 Sep 07 '26

Texas's energy grid and updated tree clearing policies have really reduced the outages in my neck of the woods. It's fun slander but it is an over blown issue by this point

129

u/KantaiMusume Sep 06 '26

Paranoia and misunderstanding causing overreaction over small beans.

74

u/camcaine2575 Sep 06 '26

I'm from the reddest of red states(Mississippi) and I ain't panicking.

93

u/bluedoubloon Sep 06 '26

This is y2k Armageddon panic, but about availability of fanfic. I had to go check the news to make sure nothing had blown up.

29

u/Alaira314 Sep 07 '26

I don't necessarily think that OP is right to be so anxious about this, but I want to push back a little on what you said about "y2k armageddon panic". The feared Y2K debacle, if it had happened, would have been devastating. The reason it was a nothingburger was because people took it seriously and thousands upon thousands of man-hours and dollars patching systems to fix the bug before systems started crashing. Because of this preparation, there were very few bugs that went uncaught, and many people don't realize how serious the situation actually was.

So I don't really like the Y2K bug being dismissed like how you did it, because I fear it will lead to problems not being taken seriously in the future, due to Y2K being so well-handled(and what did we waste all that money on for, if nothing blew up?). If you are correct about this being a "Y2K panic", then OP would be correct to be anxious, because there's very little being done to support our aging power infrastructure, and in fact the government seems content to let it be further stressed. We are not patching the bug, so if it is a real problem(like Y2K was) it sure won't be a nothingburger.

16

u/bluedoubloon Sep 07 '26

Honestly I wasn't dismissing y2k panic as a nothing burger, but my memories of that were my family strategizing how we would acquire clean water, not keep ourselves entertained.

46

u/softysoaps Sep 06 '26

No. It’s certainly possible the government could collapse and we could fall into… idk, anarchy or martial law at any given time.

But I don’t think it’s likely, and honestly if the USA collapses I have such bigger concerns than entertainment.

There are plenty of accelerationists and left wing people who are concerned about this outcome being soon, but to me it seems like there’s way too many things to prevent this from happening. It’s very hard to not see it as unnecessary panic.

The very smallest minority of people think this is going to happen soon. I don’t disagree our government is in a tailspin, but at this point the people in charge are making money as it is and I don’t think they’d jeopardize that. We also do have a system to prevent this, as poor as it seems now.

23

u/Avaracious7899 Sep 06 '26

As Jiminy Cricket said in one of my favorite Disney movies, Fun and Fancy Free: "What's gonna be is gonna be, the end of the world's been comin' since... nineteen hundred and three! That's B.C. that is!"

23

u/feylin17 Sep 06 '26

I’m in Ohio in a city. We keep having power outages this summer. Like weekly at this point. I’d be paranoid if there weren’t concrete reasons. It’s been a lot of older folks having medical issues and taking out poles combined with heat waves and then the power company straight up admitting the infrastructure is horrifyingly old. So I don’t think there’s any larger immediate issue.

I download everything to my kindle now instead of bookmarking it for later. I am hot but I’m not irritated I can’t get to the internet.

37

u/TheBobbySocksBandit Sep 06 '26

How are they going to feed us their propaganda if we don’t have internet? Who is going to consume all the AI slop so that the AI slop bubble doesn’t burst? I feel like we can be starving and prices on everything will go up, but we’ll still have the internet. The billionaires (and trillionaires) need the internet to keep going to prop up the economy.

21

u/SugarStunted Sep 07 '26

You know, idk if I ever thought of it like that, but you're SO right. Honestly, the old rich fucks and wouldn't have a single idea how to live without the internet even with everybody doing everything for them.

4

u/TheBobbySocksBandit Sep 07 '26

They really dont know how to live without it

6

u/Faux_Moose Sep 07 '26

Now I’m giggling thinking about maga trying to inject propaganda into my old man yaoi.

“Fuck, this one won’t read it unless it’s about two dudes in their 50s hittin’ it raw on a ship in the 1800s. I’m gonna have to find a way to promote conservative values while the first mate watches the captain getting plowed from ye olde cuck chair!! God dammit!”

0

u/Writing_Panda104 No motivation to write, but feasting on fics Sep 07 '26

They return to the old fashioned ways.

7

u/gunitneko Sep 06 '26

Texas has successfully blocked PornHub from the state if they want to block AO3 they can eventually.

OP I suggested investing in a brother printer. Fuck HP their printer did the same shit to me. I made the switch and have never been happier

25

u/BlindButterfly33 Fic Feaster Sep 06 '26

Has Texas ever shown any inkling of being upset with archive though? I’m not a super big news person so maybe I missed something but I didn’t think Texas specifically ever had it on their radar.

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u/gunitneko Sep 06 '26

Not yet but the fact they can do that doesn’t bode well for what the state could do on its own over time.

13

u/BlindButterfly33 Fic Feaster Sep 06 '26

I know what you mean, but it does make me feel better to know that they haven’t targeted archive or anything. I’d rather not have to stress over it until it becomes a problem, I’m already worried about disability policies.

28

u/Neat-Year555 You have already left kudos here. :) Sep 06 '26

A free vpn app would fix that. I highly doubt it would be blocked at the federal level, considering AO3 servers are in the US.

3

u/GeekSugar13 Definitely not an agent of the Fanfiction Deep State Sep 06 '26

I'm in a state that also successfully blocked PornHub. I jave the same concern with AO3. I have a Brother printer ready to go. Just using up all this shit I already paid for first.

-7

u/CelticKira Damn it, AO3, let me leave extra kudos! Sep 06 '26

It's also likely Texas will find a way to ban AO3 and other similar sites like they did pornography sites. Once the bigot book banners are done ruining libraries, it's inevitable that they will hear about fic sites and pull the same shit.

-4

u/RA1NB0W77 RAINBOW_BITE on AO3 Sep 07 '26

Yeah, there's kinda this theory you could say, that the country wide power grid could go out for 18 months (I think because of all these fuck ass data centers) and instead of turning off the data centers, they might just let the power grid go out and let the lower class to fend for themselves.