#I think I've read most of these

[clarisse-doodles]

inspired by this post, in which Damian does not know what Vine is

[caffichai]

Cutter discovers something about herself

Made in surprise collaboration with @foxgirlplushie, which was ultra cool! Check out the story here!

Extra spice version here

[benevolenterrancy]

("Always. Continuously. With increasing apprehension, and decreasing hope. I will love you if I never see you again, and I will love you if I see you every Tuesday. I will love you as a corpse loves the beak of the vulture. I will love you no matter what happens to you, and no matter how I discover what happens to you, and no matter what happens to me as I discover this." -- paraphrased from The Beatrice Letters, Lemony Snicket)

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Thank you all for an incredible 500 days of love and support. I offer you: answers to questions that no one has asked.

(As always, more can be found in the tags <3)

[ricky-mortis]

Hatchetfield @femslashfortnight Day 1: Make It Sapphic AU

[starflungwaddledee]

from: @starflungwaddledee to: @post-it-notes7

message from santa: "happy holidays post-it-notes! 🎄🥳 i know you very politely only wished for a few modest things- characters high fiving, or struggling in christmas attire- but i hope you'll still enjoy this given that i kinda went the opposite direction entirely! i'm an enormous fan of your work and most times you post anything i wind up browsing your art tag from tip-to-tail in enraptured delight. as such, i thought it was only fair i give back something a little more significant in gratitude for all the joy your work has given me. i knew i wanted to do a comic, so i was thrilled you already had a whole storyverse for me to work from!! this scene seemed the most obvious choice (chapter 8 of "wishful thinking" on ao3) given that i enjoy a dramatic fight scene 😂 i tried to stick as beat-by-beat to the writing as i could and worked in as many details as possible; i hope it'll be fun to see it envisioned this way! merry christmas! ~starflung 🎀🔔 "

[deedala]

Ian and Mickey from Intro to Quantum Dating by @spoonfulstar

[the-judicial-assistants-notebook]

not enough discussion about the gavins' complicated relationship with feminine-coded/beauty products, i don't think.

[starry-bi-sky]

yall ever think Shen Yuan went through like, internet withdrawal after being transmigrated into Shen Qingqiu? Like, he's canonically a NEET shut-in who did nothing but spend his time online, you can't tell me that for the first week or first few weeks of being SQQ he wasn't twitchy.

Like, reaching instinctively to his pockets for a phone that wasn't there, having an obsessive itch in the back of his mind that he should check and see if X or Y novel or webcomic has updated -- only to realize he can't anymore and being irritated by it. Wanting to go and see if there's new posts about this or that, but again realizing that he can't.

When he's bored or uncomfortable or just feels like wanting to escape he tries to go for his phone to distract himself, but oops! Not there anymore, and now he has to find a new and different way to distract himself from his feelings. And going through system notifications, quests, etc only does so much.

And there's that Tetris Effect too. SQQ makes a mistake while writing and instinctively goes to backspace on it except hey-ho that's not a keyboard and now he just dipped his pinkie into a bottle of ink or on a still-drying letter.

With him scrambling to fix his reputation and learn how to be a peak lord, I think his abrupt cold-turkey from all things internet would just be another straw on the camel's back that he promptly Ignores until it goes away on its own after he acclimates to his new surroundings.

[fictionadventurer]

Maybe the problem with Christian fiction is that it's non-denominational. People are just "Christian", with no effort put into showing what practicing that religion looks like for them specifically. No indication that there are other Christians who could have different beliefs. No wrestling with differing ideas and the struggle of how one should live out their Christian faith. And that makes it unrealistic and unrelatable.

[astradyke]

warning this might be a nothing post i'm just a little emotional & rambling but like... i think a lot about hometown showdown and gay and not proud a lot. and i understand this was in the peak of YouTube's fuckery with Dan and disrupting his plans for DINOK so i understand there's like a tension behind a lot of what was ongoing. i also realize that YouTube-- more obviously with hometown showdown-- but generally had strong business rationale for wanting Phil to feature in these videos, with Dan & Phil being the duo of HS and Phil being there in gay and not proud (sorry the acronym for this looks ugly).

but man... i think a lot about how hometown showdown was just kind of a lot of dates. i've not seen the other ones but i hear a lot that they were way more competitive versus Dan and Phil were just casually exploring their hometowns together, showing pieces of themselves to the other. i think about all the dialogue that was cut (that I think was alluded to in WDAPTEO 2?)

and i think about like. the seismic Importance of Phil being in gay and not proud as like... Dan's safe space. the same way he's remote crisis manager, the same way he was part of WAD's pre & post show, the same way he filmed that haircut video basically to promo YWGTTN and Dan is leaving me to talk about WAD. the same way that Dan got a taxi to his place after his nightmare experience at the laundromat to do laundry because "for the first time since I was a tiny child, I actually felt safe."

and after the latest mukbang it's like... it's really insane to me how their personal relationship has continued despite the pressures they've faced as being a comedic influencer duo. the fact that they work as business partners but still have this relationship. the fact that even in these YouTube originals that Dan was resentful of at the time anyway you can still glowingly see how much they love each other. like Phil being in gay and not proud wasn't a cameo, it was a fucking love confession.

i dunno. this is something that's been talked about a Lot but i do think about it frequently. i don't tend to rewatch these specials a lot because Jesus Christ the editing really gets me, but like... idk. "you're next to me in my life," or whatever. 15 years have passed and Phil's still cheerleading for Dan, from his first YouTube video to his first solo tour. i dunno.

[red-moon-at-night]

okay the whole vase is great but something about Helen sitting on Aphrodite's lap as she wraps one arm around her shoulder and brushes her leg with her hand, staring into her eyes like that... as she is persuading Helen to go with Paris (while Peitho aka persuasion stands behind them) is so incredibly iconic.

and gay. toxic yuri, if you will.

[bonefall]

the worst parent poll made me realize just how many ppl in the fandom are willing to jump straight into abuse apologia. bc on one hand you have ppl dumbing down crow's abuse to "him just being mean" and on the other end you have ppl saying that curlfeather didnt abuse frostpaw because she sacrificed herself and frost + her siblings love her so she couldnt possibly be an abuser. truly mindboggling stuff take these serious topics away from the fandom asap.

Part of me feels like it's because many in this fandom have a feeling that if a character's actions are abusive, it means you're "not allowed" to like them. Like there's an impulse where if you liked a character, it MUST mean they weren't THAT bad, because you'd personally never like "an abuser."

As if it reflects poorly on your own morality, as a person, that you connected with An Abuser. Understood them, even. Even if it was just a character.

If it's immoral to Like Abusive Characters, of course your reaction is going to end up being abuse apologia. To enjoy something isn't logical, it's emotional, so you will get defensive about it when questioned. When you do, it's not going to be based on logic because you didn't reason yourself into that position in the first place. It's an attack on you as a person.

I feel like that's often the root of abuse apologia in this fandom, and sometimes the world at large; "If I admit that this character/person IS abusive, it means I was doing something bad by liking them, so I have to prove to everyone else that they weren't or it means I'm bad too."

And to that I say... That's a BAD impulse! Grow up and admit you resonated with a character that did a bad thing! If that's an uncomfortable thought, sit with it!

Sometimes abusers are likeable! They usually DO think they're justified in their actions, or doing it for "a good reason," or were just too preoccupied to care. MOST of the time, people who commit abusive actions are also hurt or traumatized in some way. You might even empathize with them. None of this means their actions have to be excused or downplayed.

"Abusers" aren't a type of goddamn yokai, they're people just like you and me. You don't help victims of abuse by putting the people who hurt us in an "untouchable" category.

In fact, all it does is make you less likely to recognize your own controlling behavior. You're capable of abuse. People you love are capable of it, too. People who love YOU can still hurt you.

In spite of how often people regurgitate "It's Ok To Like A Character As Long As You're Critical Of Their Actions," every day it is proven to me further and further that no one who says it actually understands what that means.

All that said; I think it's no contest which one's a worse parent, imo.

They both mistreated their children, but Curlfeather did it through manipulation without verbal or physical abuse. She politically groomed her into a position of power so that she could use her as a pawn. It can be argued if this counts as child abuse-- but it's firmly still under the broad category childhood maltreatment, which is damaging.

(though anon I'm with you 100% at seeing RED when "but she sacrificed herself" is used as an excuse. Curlfeather's death does NOT CHANGE what she did to Frostpaw in life. I think it's a valid point to bring up when comparing her to another terrible parent for judgement purposes, such as in the context of this poll, but I really hate the implication that redemption deaths "make up" for maltreatment.)

Crowfeather, meanwhile, is textually responsible for putting Breezepaw through verbal AND physical abuse, as well as child neglect. His motivations include embarrassment from a hurt ego, revenge on his ex, and being sad because of a dead girlfriend. This abuse drives Breezepelt towards radicalization in the Dark Forest.

You could argue Curlfeather is a worse person for Reedwhisker's murder, but as a parent? It's not even a question to me. Crowfeather's one of the worst dads in WC.

[sysig]

Two skeletons in a trench lab coat (Patreon)

Bonus:

He’s very careful! Everything was fine before you interrupted!

[farshootergotme]

"Dick Grayson has anger issues-" okay, but does he actually? When I thought that was true I come to find that most of the evidence to make that claim come from a time in which Dick was being mentally controlled by Brother Blood or right after the death of his parents which obviously would cause anger after finding out they didn't even die naturally but were murdered on top of that.

[baejax-the-great]

Fanfic isn't a possession.

When an author deletes a work on AO3, they haven't taken anything from the readers. It's not a physical object that can be snatched away, and if readers wanted a digital copy to keep, AO3 made that possible. It is the reader's choice whether or not to keep a copy. The author has absolutely no say over whether or not they do this.

If you have a favorite exhibit at the museum, and that exhibit closes for whatever reason, nobody "stole" art from you. Same thing with whatever play is currently at your local theater--it's temporary, and when it closes, the actors didn't take away your entertainment. Before streaming and box sets of tv shows being sold at Target, all of television was ephemeral, too. You caught it or you didn't.

I don't know why there is an expectation that fanfic should be permanently made available to readers. The archive certainly gives a place where that can happen, but there is no reason to assume that it always will happen, nor that readers are entitled to that.

There are many reasons to delete a fanfic--not orphan, not post anonymously, but delete. It's fine to be disappointed if that happens. It's not fine to harass authors or try to wrest control of the work from them or create archives full of stolen work.