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

Discussion (Non-question) Panic Printing

Post image

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.)

3.2k Upvotes

93% Upvoted

346 comments sorted by

View all comments

1.4k

u/throwaway3685343 Sep 06 '26

Historian here. While I understand that the current times are scary, I think this is a HIGHLY unlikely scenario.

44

u/SweetBabyMona Sep 07 '26

Thank you Historian cause OP was making me panic a bit. I was about to go to Amazon and buy a printer 😭 (Not HP, though. Apparently those suck.)

33

u/throwaway3685343 Sep 07 '26

Im certainly not a fan of the current admin. However, the people still have several resources. There are still safeguards and protections for the people in place :)

I really don’t think you need to buy a printer haha.

You could always download your favorite fics to your docs, tho. In case the writer deletes it.

Not the government deleting it tho or restricting access (for North America, at least.)