#he probably knows

[oatmealdaydreams]

To Thomas: A Friendly Reminder

Hello there, Sanders.

I highly doubt you'll ever actually see this, but it needs to be said.

We, the entire fandom of Fanders, love you. I'm not talking about loving you for your work. We love you for you.

Life can be a b*tch, and sometimes Karma is negligent. Things go wrong. You make mistakes. Sometimes you hurt loved ones, unintentionally or otherwise. And you know what? That's okay. It happens. It sucks major d*ck, but it's okay.

I don't know what you've been through. All I know, like many of us Fanders, is whatever you make public. I've seen one of your most recent YT Shorts, the one that starts off saying "if you told me..." The one where you tell us a little tiny bit about the things you've gone through this year. I don't know you personally, of course. I'm literally just another random fan on the Internet. Literally I don't even expect you to ever see this at all.

But I need to say it, so you don't forget: we love you for you.

Do we love your work? Yeah, no duh we do. We love Sanders Sides and Cartoon Therapy. We love learning from your content. We love your jokes and little reels and the Vines you've done.

But we don't love you because of what you produce/create. We don't love you because of what you give. We love you because of who you are. You are Thomas freaking Sanders, and absolutely no one else could be you. Because you're you. We love you for you.

You are many things: compassionate, empathetic, sensitive, caring, loving, insightful, intelligent, kind, curious, and such a kind-hearted soul. You are creative and so wonderfully inclusive and open-minded.

You know who you are? You're a safe space. An educator. An inspiration. A literal life-saver because you're you.

You've helped me, and so many others, love themselves again. Learn how to help themselves, or that it's okay to get help. That our thoughts- including you, yes- don't make us bad people. You taught us that morals are messy and grey. That people are flawed and imperfect, and how wonderfully beautiful it is to be human. That being selfish? It's okay. It isn't necessarily a dirty word. That our mental health and well-being should come before anything else, or else it'll blow up in our face. Or else it could lead to the plane crashing down, as Janus would say.

So yes, I may not know whatever you've got going on in that head of yours, Thomas. But I do know that we love YOU, not for what you produce, but because it's you.

Please remember this. Know this whenever life decides to f*ck you up.

We love you. Your friends and family love you. You're worth it, Thomas. Not just as a creator, but moreso as a person.

I'm sure many of my fellow Fanders can agree on this.

I wish you well, Sanders.

Sincerely, a fan

Oatmeal

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

The math just adds up!

[wanologic]

sorry danny, sam will never think you’re cool

[tossawary]

This is petty fandom salt, BUT... I've been chewing on this phenomenon that I've been calling "Fandom's Darling". It is related to things like "Author's Darling" and "Mary Sue / Gary Stu" and "Protagonist Halo" and all that jazz, where one character gains a peculiar narrative weight in a story.

"Author's Darling" is when a writer has a favorite character, and the world and all other characters sort of get... warped to put the Darling in the spotlight. It's most noticeable in TV shows with multiple writers, when a character you personally like suddenly has their previous characterization destroyed to make another character look good somehow. Every other character might become weirdly incompetent. The Darling's feelings are treated as The Most Important Feelings in any given situation. The logic of the fictional world seems broken past suspension of disbelief in order to validate this one character's beliefs or skillset or some other fantasy. And so on.

"Fandom's Darling" is what I've been calling the pattern where a fandom essentially crowns a New Protagonist for their fanfiction stories (it's often a side character rather than the original protagonist, but it can also happen to protagonists). This character becomes the self-insert for all sorts of indulgent fantasies, gaining special powers or backstories, and/or becoming the focus of extreme whump, and/or hooking up with all the various hotties, starring in all sorts of tropey AUs, and so on. They're not always an obvious Mary Sue version of themselves, but the character's original personality and interpersonal relationships tend to get warped or dropped completely, and other characters tend to become a little flat around them. I call it "Fandom's Darling" because it's not just one self-indulgent fantasy fic (you do you! Have fun!) with characterization choices that I don't vibe with (I have neither the time nor the desire nor the authority to police anything, I am just venting), but rather a prolific mini-fandom of sorts revolving around this empty doll / fanon version of the chosen vessel character, so it becomes a little unavoidable.

I am salty about this (mildly frustrated) (imagine a soft sigh of disappointment before I just go do something else) because you are FUCKED if you actually liked the canonical version of this character and their interpersonal relationships. It's almost worse than liking an obscure character that no one cares about. There's about a thousand fics starring your fave, but maybe only about a dozen of them are actually rooted in any kind of recognisable canon.

[musubiki]

my favorite fields of mistria boys 🥰

[egophiliac]

still ruminating over Lost In the Book With Spooky Skeletons Part 1, so here's a selection of some of my favorite little bits! (...some more loosely paraphrased than others) (I just feel like Idia has no room to criticize in general, okay)

anyway, I'm sure we're just going to have a fun time celebrating Halloween and nothing bad is going to happen whatsoever! :)

[brainrotcharacters]

the next time Logan does this, wade is going to keel over CACKLING

[insomniphic]

I like to think that it was really hard for Telemachus to consider Odysseus as his father despite all of the years he's been titling him as one. It's easier to trust that someone gone will come back, than to actually believe and envelope the fact that they're here.

[cloudysarts]

yeesh. touchy subject

hey have you guys noticed that in dreamscaperers, bill has to squint and get really close to the memory to be able to read the numbers. i have. heres a low-effort comic about that

(edit: theres more to this comic now! you can find follow-up doodles here and here!)

[gothiethefairy]

i kinda love before marcille calls the demon!laios out, kabru can definitely tell there was something super off about laios.

kabru is like, "hold up, this is not my man. wtf."

[swiggity-swexual-i-am-asexual]

We all know the semi-canonical ‘all the Robins know to hide/duck inside of Batman’s cape, even as adults’ thing.

We also know that Danny ‘is LITERALLY a ghost’ Fenton sucks at remembering his own intangibility while ALSO forgetting to look ahead of him.

All I’m saying is, Danny Fenton (or Phantom, if you’d really like) would absolutely SLAM into Batman on accident while running on roof tops and Bruce ‘Brooding Instinct’ Wayne doesn’t even think twice about letting the kid hide and scanning around for danger before there’s a record scratch of ‘wait who tf is this?’ kicks in.

[skullsandcorals]

"I'm dyslexic. I'm not stupid."

[aceofstars121]

I made the guys in the style of the cursed etho skizz built

Bonuses!

Cursed skizz (my first attempt)

Etho but if I built him the same way I built the other guys if that makes sense

Me for fun (:

[bluejayscrying]

Jason died pretty young, right? And it's not like he had a great education before that- and we all know Bruce is too awkward to give Jason any kinda talk so it's most likely he still doesn't know where babies come from.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Bruce: Here is your other brother, Damian

Jason: Wow another one Brucie? the baby-storks must really like you huh?

Jason: why are you all looking at me like that

[chloesimaginationthings]

FNAF Phone guy was wild for saying that to Michael..

[venelona]

This is how I envision reunion happening