#or that SOMEONE would

[the-badger-mole]

AU Bot Plots: I Don't Feel Like Dancing

This would only truly work in a visual medium, but I love the idea of Sokka finding himself trapped in a musical. Let's make this an in-universe story.

There is no lead in to this story. No framing device, like Sokka declaring his hatred of musicals and being cursed by an old, musical loving drifter or spirit. He just wakes one morning and the opening number starts, with everyone singing their motivations and desires and personalities. Sokka is just staring at everyone in complete confusion, and when they stop, he asks them why they did that and when they practiced, and no one has any idea what he's talking about.

Somehow Sokka is present for what are supposed to be private moments, so he hears everyone sing their thoughts. This is how he finds out that Toph secretly likes flowers; that Aang lost his connection to the AS because he can't let Katara go; that Suki misses being in the middle of a battle; that Katara and Zuko are stuck on each other but are deeply in denial about it. Even Appa and Momo get a number about how they're each other's best friends. Sokka is convinced he's losing his mind, but in between numbers, it's life as usual, and there are no other signs of something being wrong in his brain. After a while, he gets past his worry and he's just annoyed.

The mid-show number is a big number. The whole thing centers on how unprepared Aang is to face Ozai- who makes a brief appearance in the number, to Sokka's horror. It ends with the entire company telling Aang he has to actually do something to end the war. Sokka is back to being scared, and he demands to know why everyone is pretending they aren't singing and dancing, and for a moment, it looks as if Sokka really is going crazy, but then the director (I'm actually picturing my drama teacher here) appears and tells him that the others don't know they're in a musical, and that it's almost over. He just needs to get through the second act. Sokka begrudgingly agrees (because honestly, what choice does he have?).

Sokka gets a solo in the opening scene of act 2. He sings a short, but powerful song about how stupid life is and how dumb musicals are, and he hopes that the trend doesn't catch on. The others are there for the song, and they applaud him, but then immediately act as if they hadn't seen him singing at all. At some point, Sokka is separated from everyone else, so if they have any more songs, he doesn't witness them. He's just glad there are no madcap musical numbers while he's fighting for his, Suki and Toph's lives. There is a final number when all of his friends are together. They sing about their hopes for the future and what "tomorrow will have in store". It's a beautiful show, but in the end, Sokka decides he absolutely loathes musicals.

[clairenatural]

there's a cherry blossom tree in DC that keeps blooming every year even though it shouldn't and the park service keeps thinking it's dead and then it keeps blooming! well they're removing a lot of trees to rehabilitate the area and they've said it's finally time for stumpy to go and they're going to mulch it and use the mulch to enrich all the other trees so it can help everything else keep going. and they're also going to plant spliced little pieces of it all over so that stumpy can live forever and this is genuinely sending me into a spiral

[avaantares]

Yet another AO3 bot situation - please spread the word!

Hi, it's me again, the person who wrote that viral post about fanfiction plagiarism! Today I'm here to warn you about abuse perpetrated by bots who have stolen AO3 usernames.

There's currently an epidemic of bots going around leaving (apparently random) horrible, hateful comments on people's fics. This isn't the first time bots have invaded AO3, but the big problem with this wave is that they're using real AO3 usernames to do it.

I learned about this when another writer contacted me after receiving the following comment on their story:

Now, while that is my username, I DEFINITELY did not leave this comment (and anyone who would leave something like that on a fic should be slapped! What an awful thing to post). This fic is in a completely unrelated fandom that I have never participated in, nor has that author participated in any of my fandoms, so the probability of it being some intentional fandom drama thing to make me look bad is also low.

The writer whose fic the comment was left on enlisted the aid of some friends and tracked down other guest comments with unrelated usernames attached, which is pretty strong evidence that they are being left by bots at random.

The TL;DR: If you receive a cruel comment from a (Guest) with an actual AO3 username attached, it's most likely from a bot. Please do not lash out at or dogpile the AO3 user who owns that name, and who in all likelihood has no idea that their name has been hijacked for evil.

If finding this kind of comment on a fic, even left by a bot, is likely to upset you, I would recommend changing your comment settings so that only users who are logged in can leave comments. To do this, edit your story settings, and under "Privacy," select the radio button that says "Only registered users can comment," as shown below.

Please spread the word to other AO3 users! And if you see mean guest comments on other fics, maybe let the author know that it's probably from a bot and not a real person who thinks their writing is bad.

[shyflops]

[beebfreeb]

[professorcalculusstanaccount]

as newspapers today dont tend to hire children, a modern day Tintin would run a clickbait YouTube channel, except the clickbait is 100% real every single time

he starts off as an irritating conservative pundit at 14, meets Chang then leaves the think tank paying him and launches his own independent channel and blows up shortly after. Chang helps with video editing and managing his socials and they often chat on video calls between adventures. Haddock, his foster dad, has absolutely no knowledge of his earlier videos.

[stil-lindigo]

lead balloon (the tumblr post that saved me)

if this comic resonated with you, it would mean the world to me if you donated to this palestinian family's escape fund.

--

no creative notes because this isn't that kind of comic.

I know I don’t owe any of you anything but I still felt compelled to write about my long term absence. And I feel far enough away from the dangerous spot I was in to be able to make this comic. I have a therapist now, and she agreed that making this could be a very cathartic gesture, and the start of properly leaving these thoughts behind me. I am still, at seemingly random times, blindsided by fleeting desires to kill myself. They’re always passing urges, but it’s disarming, and uncomfortable. I worry sometimes that my brain’s spent so long thinking only about suicide that it’s forgotten how to think about anything else. Like, now that I've opened that door for myself, I'll never be able to fully shut it again. But I’m trying my best to encourage my mind in other directions. We'll see how that goes.

I am still donating all proceeds from my store to Palestinian causes. So far, I've donated over $15K, not including donations coming from my own pocket or the fundraising streams which jointly raised around $10K. In the time since I made my initial post about where this money would be going, the focus has shifted from aid organisations to directly donating to escape funds.

If you'd like to do the same, you can look at Operation Olive Branch, which hosts hundreds of Palestinian escape funds or donate to Safebow, which has helped facilitate the safe crossing and securing of important medical procedures for over 150 at-risk palestinians since the beginning of the genocide.

[coldalbion]

As a disabled person who's loved LEVERAGE and LEVERAGE REDEMPTION since the beginning - for the characters but also the whole ethos of performing acts that help people against crap systems, it's wonderful to be reminded that it springs from reality.

[professor-pants]

Genre of character: submissive like a guard dog is submissive

[goddamnshinyrock]

people not realizing the extreme rarity of captive walruses is k i l l i n g me dear god. Just any old zoo does not have them! They are hard to transport, hard to care for, and hardly ever successfully breed in captivity so zoos only get them when an injured or orphaned individual gets picked up by a rescue in the arctic and is deemed unreleasable. That’s not a frequent occurrence! This isn’t a tiger king situation with backyard breeders all over the place!

[anarchopuppy]

I, a hearing person who likes subtitles just as a preference, shouldn't have to read a subtitle that's obvious nonsense, go back a couple seconds, and listen again in order to figure out what's going on. An accessibility feature should not be the most half-assed part of a professionally made production. Scripted media has absolutely no excuse for not having subtitles or having subtitles that aren't perfectly verbatim. Professional captioning services should be ashamed of the shoddy work that they put out. Captions should be treated as a part of the production, just like filming, editing, audio balancing, etc - and anything that releases with missing or bad captions should be seen as unfinished

[seren-dipitous-art]

I’ve been obsessed with the Olympics for the past week, and obsessed with Dick Grayson for longer, so here’s the crossover we all deserve.

Plus, gorgeous sweaty acrobat in gymnastics poses? Only positives.

[artistic-cocoon]

Saw someone on twt say they wanted to see Percy drawn like Yusuf Dikec and I couldn't help myself

[steveharrington]

i think ultimately the core of what irritates me about the t swift craze is that she’s constantly getting props for things that … literally aren’t true. people act like she’s self made, she is not. people act like she’s a social activist, she is not. people act like she’s constantly going to great lengths to uplift other women, she is not. like if people were just like yeah i love her music :) then okay! but it’s the constanttttt applause and praise and worshipping for things that are just patently false that really makes me feel insane

[sweatermuppet]

redesign for lesbian visibility week 🩷🧸🫶

click for quality (my shop) (instagram) (tip me) (shirts)

[lazylittledragon]

more of karlach's coffee shop which isn't just an excuse to draw more shadowlach