About the AO3 "No Guest Comments for a while" warning

If you're not following any of AO3's social media accounts you might be in the dark as to what kind of "spam comments" have engendered this banner at the top of the site:

These spam comments have been posted about a great deal on the AO3 subreddit for the past couple of days. Initially they comprised a bunch of guest (logged out users) bot comments that insulted authors by suggesting they were using AI and not writing their own fics. Some examples, from the subreddit:

But it then escalated to outright graphic porn images and gifs being posted in comments, again by logged out 'Guest' accounts. Obviously, I'm not going to give examples of those, but between these two bot infestations, AO3 has clearly decided to act and has temporarily closed the ability to post comments for users who are not logged in with an AO3 account.

Unfortunately, this means that genuine readers who don't have an AO3 account won't be able to leave comments on fics that they enjoy.

If you are a genuine reader who doesn't yet have an AO3 account, I strongly suggest getting yourself on the waiting list for one. More and more AO3 authors are now locking their fics down to registered users only - either due to these bot comments or concerns about AI scraping their work - which means you're probably missing out on a lot of great stuff.

Hopefully guest commenting will be enabled again at some point soon, but I suggest not waiting until then. Get yourself on that list.

Wait times are going to be longer than usual at the moment, due to the current Wattpad purge [info on Fanlore | Wattpad subreddit thread], but if you're in line, then your invite will come through eventually.

Update: There's now a Megathread about this on the AO3 subreddit.

Was at the art museum earlier and i have a new favourite painting

Is this not the cutest??? Its called ”Me and Brita” and this guy in 1895 was like ”i love this kid so much imma do a painting of us having fun so the world will always know how much i loved her and what a good time we had”

the painting in the background is looking at them like “my word what a cool pair”

More specifically that is Carl Larsson with one of his 8 children.

He came from a extremely poor and abusive background but worked his way into fine society, where he fell in love with fellow artist Karin Bergöö, and his works shifted to painting his home life.

Painting titled "My Loved Ones"

[in reference to his career] "the most immediate and lasting part of my life's work. these pictures are of course a very genuine expression of my personality, of my deepest feelings, of all my limitless love for my wife and children."

OMFG I used to work at Carl’s house which in now a museum in Falun, Sweden, and now his art is on my dash! 

I could tell so many stories about this family, but to sum it up they lived the definition of what we would call a cottagecore life where both Carl and Karin worked as artists in their dream house that they designed and built together. It really was an artist’s home built with pure love, and also a big contrast to what a typical Swedish home looked like at the time. The late 1800s trend was to have a dark home with gothic vibes and brown and dark red colours. The Larsson’s home though is bright and colourful with big windows and homemade textiles sewn by Karin.

I also wanted to tell a bit about Brita, the cute little girl on her father’s shoulders in the painting in the original post. She was the fifth child of seven and felt sometimes like she didn’t get enough attention from her dad as a middle child in a big family. To get more time with her dad she would ask him to paint only her as often as possible since then she could talk to him without any of her siblings annoying them. This is how she became the most painted of all the children with hundreds of portraits made with her as the model. She was 89 years old when she died in 1982 and loved to talk about her childhood and those many, many painting sessions with dad.

This is one of my favourite paintings of Carl Larsson, A Viking Raid in Dalarna. Here we have all the children in a boat during a cool summer’s eve (from left, Pontus, Brita, Lisbeth, Ulf, Kersti, Esbjörn, Suzanne).

I reblogged this post too quickly before checking the notes and seeing this fantastic addition. I love how Brita came up with a solution to her problem -- wanting some undivided attention from her father -- in a way that worked for both of them.

don't fear the reaper!

i can be ur angle 😇 or yor devil 😈

What I’d give for one of the Cinderella remakes to go into how when you’re in an isolated and abusive situation, sometimes you need to be saved and you’re not weak if you can’t escape by yourself

I’ve never been a fan of bad faith reinterpretations of fairy tales, especially ones which flatten the originals into “princesses is saved by a prince and nothing else”, to then go #girlboss. The princess can save herself because she’s a strong female character! (Implying if you’re in a bad situation, it’s because you’re not strong enough to get out)

Also the concept of the Prince over the course of like… a couple hours hanging out with Cinderella  going from ‘Haha nice I really like you’ to ‘oh fuck i can tell from context clues alone that your home situation is FUCKED UP’   it’s good shit   ‘I have just met you but ON GOD I’m gonna get you out of there beautiful mystery woman’   cinderella  makes desperately yelling into the night ‘how can I find you again!??!’ when she’s taking off that much more poignant really

He’s been trained to read the room. To read the context clues. To read politics and scheming and planning and people. He’s a Prince, it’s either that or accidentally drink poison by age 15. And he reads her and …

She’s impossibly wealthy. The dress isn’t a fabric he can recognize, but it’s beaded with cut diamonds, faintly milky opals that shimmer with a rainbow, little pale aquamarines, and somewhere are little bells gently ringing with each step - he’s a Prince and he can’t afford to dress like that. The slippers ring too … there is nothing like that crafted by the hands of humans. That’s fairy stuff. She has an in with them that eclipses royal politics. She is powerful in the Old Ways.

All this wraps around the poorest woman he’s ever seen in his entire life, and he’s seen some very, very, poor people in his time.

Poor in money, but poor in “oh you poor thing!” as well. This is someone who has been robbed blind. This is someone who carried themselves waiting for the lash, for a browbeating, for harsh, cruel, abrupt, punishment.

He expects her to be haughty, or hard, or meek or… something else… but she’s just nice. She’s just … nice.

The rigid posture comes out of his back, his tongue unsticks. She’s like sitting by the embers of a low, calm, fire. He feels warmed and rested simply speaking to her. He wonders if it’s magic, and it might be, but if it is it is magic that is her own.

And that terrifies him, because he’s trained to see these things and he knows someone with a cruel hand is waiting to douse her, and snuff her, and beat the last glimmer out of her shining eyes - eyes that put that dress to shame and and and and… she’s gone.

Oh god, she’s gone. It will be all over her sweet, kind, warm face that she transgressed and … oh god they’ll kill her, whoever they are. This will embarrass them and if there’s anything he knows, it’s that you don’t humiliate someone who has power over you and walk away unscathed.

And all he has is a fairy slipper that will only ever fit her foot (it’s not merely shoe size, it’s a kind of spiritual fit as well), and the vain hope that he can keep such a bright light from burning out. It doesn’t even touch his heart that what he’s feeling is a kind of pure philia, not until it enraptures him soul to bones, all at once. Oh god, oh no, oh shit… he’s reached well above his station, but…he can try to be good and worthy.

The way he sees it, sometimes even the strongest people can be brought low and need just… a little help. She had enough in her to do whatever she had to do to free herself of those evil relations if she had to, but she shouldn’t have to. There’s no glory in blood. Sometimes it’s okay for the ending to be happily ever after.

Happy 10 year anniversary to this absolutely foundational post

i want you all to know i say pull the trigger piglet far more than i should

I HAD TO DO THIS

🤣 🤣 🤣

MR MIDNIGHT, YOU KNOCK EM DEAD

I turn to Ares.

⚔️ If you want to read some queer retelling of arturian legends have a look at my webtoon

“Hope” is the thing with feathers - That perches in the soul - And sings the tune without the words - And never stops - at all - And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard - And sore must be the storm - That could abash the little Bird That kept so many warm - I’ve heard it in the chillest land - And on the strangest Sea - Yet - never - in Extremity, It asked a crumb - of me.

-Emily Dickinson

Happy Pride :) 

EDIT!

Now available as prints! Thank you to everyone who’s interested!

Draxum Raises the Turtles AU....................................but make it regency era

also, credit to @thr-333 for giving me the idea of naming Leo "Edelweiss"

Posting old art, Powerpuff girls but they’re cyberpunk robots