#BUT THE STRIKETHROUGH

[stylinson-spagghetti]

conan fonts cuz im bored and have nothing else to do

[robinade]

Ok, so I've read everyone's tags and notes on my previous poll. I've taken them into consideration and I'm now prepared to offer.…

[davinaclaires]

Nancy Drew rewatch Nace Encyclopedia — 1.13 'The Whisper Box' I am dreaming. I am stuck in a dream of my perfect life, and I need to find a way to wake up and get out of Larkspur Lane.

[acelessthan3]

I think there's got to be like a Robin Hood corollary to any pro-pirating stance in that if/when you can afford to, spend the money to buy from small/local/independent art.

Some big top 100 musician/major studio whatever doesn't need your money, but the $10 on Bandcamp for the local band you saw at the bar's new album or your friend's soaps on Etsy or that indie movie playing at the cinema when it comes out on DVD or literally almost any author's book that's not like already an NYT Bestseller or community theater producing new works by living artists. It really can make a difference to those people.

[zuzusexytiems]

OOML art, 4 years apart (2025 vs 2021)

aka the real secret to Art Improvement is to just be really, really obsessed with a rarepair that you never stop drawing actually

[disaster-goose]

Me, an ancient millenial watching another fanficition purge:

[morgan-weston]

There ain't nothing better than to be on a quiet lake during the early morning, watching the sun rise above the hills, and the deer come out between the trees after having woken up, and then spend the rest of the day, fishing. You can try to argue with me, but you'll be wrong. It's also just a great place to be alone.

[anghraine]

Okay, breaking my principles hiatus again for another fanfic rant despite my profound frustration w/ Tumblr currently:

I have another post and conversation on DW about this, but while pretty much my entire dash has zero patience with the overtly contemptuous Hot Fanfic Takes, I do pretty often see takes on Fanfiction's Limitations As A Form that are phrased more gently and/or academically but which rely on the same assumptions and make the same mistakes.

IMO even the gentlest, and/or most earnest, and/or most eruditely theorized takes on fanfiction as a form still suffer from one basic problem: the formal argument does not work.

I have never once seen a take on fanfiction as a form that could provide a coherent formal definition of what fanfiction is and what it is not (formal as in "related to its form" not as in "proper" or "stuffy"). Every argument I have ever seen on the strengths/weaknesses of fanfiction as a form vs original fiction relies to some extent on this lack of clarity.

Hence the inevitable "what about Shakespeare/Ovid/Wide Sargasso Sea/modern takes on ancient religious narratives/retold fairy tales/adaptation/expanded universes/etc" responses. The assumptions and assertions about fanfiction as a form in these arguments pretty much always should apply to other things based on the defining formal qualities of fanfic in these arguments ("fanfiction is fundamentally X because it re-purposes pre-existing characters and stories rather than inventing new ones" "fanfiction is fundamentally Y because it's often serialized" etc).

Yet the framing of the argument virtually always makes it clear that the generalizations about fanfic are not being applied to Real Literature. Nor can this argument account for original fics produced within a fandom context such as AO3 that are basically indistinguishable from fanfic in every way apart from lacking a canon source.

At the end of the day, I do not think fanfic is "the way it is" because of any fundamental formal qualities—after all, it shares these qualities with vast swaths of other human literature and art over thousands of years that most people would never consider fanfic. My view is that an argument about fanfic based purely on form must also apply to "non-fanfic" works that share the formal qualities brought up in the argument (these arguments never actually apply their theories to anything other than fanfic, though).

Alternately, the formal argument could provide a definition of fanfic (a formal one, not one based on judgment of merit or morality) that excludes these other kinds of works and genres. In that case, the argument would actually apply only to fanfic (as defined). But I have never seen this happen, either.

So ultimately, I think the whole formal argument about fanfic is unsalvageably flawed in practice.

Realistically, fanfiction is not the way it is because of something fundamentally derived from writing characters/settings etc you didn't originate (or serialization as some new-fangled form, lmao). Fanfiction as a category is an intrinsically modern concept resulting largely from similarly modern concepts of intellectual property and auteurship (legally and culturally) that have been so extremely normalized in many English-language media spaces (at the least) that many people do not realize these concepts are context-dependent and not universal truths.

Fanfic does not look like it does (or exist as a discrete category at all) without specifically modern legal practices (and assumptions about law that may or may not be true, like with many authorial & corporate attempts to use the possibility of legal threats to dictate terms of engagement w/ media to fandom, the Marion Zimmer Bradley myth, etc).

Fanfic does not look like it does without the broader fandom cultures and trends around it. It does not look like it does without the massive popularity of various romance genres and some very popular SF/F. It does not look like it does without any number of other social and cultural forces that are also extremely modern in the grand scheme of things.

The formal argument is just so completely ahistorical and obliviously presentist in its assumptions about art and generally incoherent that, sure, it's nicer when people present it politely, but it's still wrong.

[artbychromo]

found a reference photo that spoke to me... and reminded me of @swbookerr's shanks/ace fics 👀

[kindahoping4forever]

appropriate caption

[wolves-in-the-world]

if anyone needs a little softness post-werefic please know that:

1) wolfeliot starts out kind of prickly and dignified around the team. spending any time with them in wolf form just hanging out pretending to nap is a vulnerability and a mark of progress; accepting physical affection or accessories takes longer.

the first time, parker doesn't exactly ask. she plonks herself down beside him, doggie bandana in hand, and sophie's going "parker I don't think- that might not be-" and eliot's grumbling a little growl under his breath but, ultimately, not doing a single thing to stop her.

he looks very handsome.

2) so werequinn is incredibly tempting for so many reasons right? it feels wrong to me personally to give just one of them this to deal with, animal hangouts would be peak cuteness, @darkfinch has very much sold me on the benefits and contributed at least half of the details-

and there are, in fact, backstory possibilities that make up for the fact that this is meant to be a Rare Curse and Difficult To Handle.

but for cuteness' sake let me just say that werequinn is a very dumb big cat who he insists on treating as a seperate creature with his own shit going on. he enjoys long walks on the beach long nighttime adventures with his best buddy, biting people as a sign of affection, biting people as a sign of malice, and making a nuisance of himself when eliot's cooking.

and he answers only to Mr Paws.

[i-may-be-an-emu]

I have a feeling this was just Sam having a dig at AJ lol

(He’s wrong that’s a beautiful bald statue)

[dino--draws]

Bigass SCP doodle page because im stressed as balls so im blorbo posting

[daincrediblegg]

I’d be more patriotic if:

This were the secretary of war

This were the general of the army

And this was the president

And can you imagine if they were all fucking

[1997berserk]

reallyy old one from the sketch folder

[xmushy-gushyx]

I like when I get to sleep in my bed with him, I like being wrapped up in his arms and pressed against their chest, their hand starting in my hair till he makes his way down my bare skin. Me melting at the touch and cozying into him