Hello ^_^

Something I really love about Oswald Cobblepot (The Penguin) across Batman media is that he almost always has animals around him 🐧

For someone who’s usually portrayed as a crime boss, he consistently ends up being a little… animal person, a pet dad.

Some examples:

🐧 Penguins: the classic! In Tim Burton’s Batman Returns, he literally lives with penguins in the abandoned zoo.

🦈 Tiny the Shark: in Batman: Arkham City, Oswald keeps a huge shark named Tiny in the Iceberg Lounge.

🦅 Birds: in media like Batman: The Animated Series, The Batman (2004), and some comics, he keeps aviaries full of birds.

🐕 Ed the Dog: in Gotham (2014) he has a little dog he clearly cares about.

🦃 Jerry the Turkey: yes, he has turkeys in Lil Gotham. In the Thanksgiving issue, there’s a big Gotham Thanksgiving parade… and Oswald attacks the parade to defend the turkeys.

I just think it’s sweet that, no matter the universe, Oswald tends to surround himself with animals. Maybe they’re the only ones he trusts, maybe they’re the only ones who don’t judge him.

Either way, I think that Gotham’s grumpiest bird guy being soft with animals will always be adorable 💙

@introvertsnation

(this came out of a conversation in the comments on a previous post about an author threatening to stop updating a fic because of lack of engagement)

So there’s this idea that fic writers should write for themselves and not care too much about stats or engagement,

and i totally get the sentiment behind that. if writing becomes entirely about stats and external validation, something important does get lost - creative freedom and joy, conviction in your own writing

but i also think:

“i write for myself, but i post for others.”

because posting fic is not only self-expression. it’s social. ao3 is called an archive, but emotionally it often functions as a community space.

people post for connection, for participation, for others to bear witness to their pain and trauma and grief,

and i don’t think most people are asking to be admired so much as acknowledged. there’s something deeply human about wanting another person to encounter something that mattered to you and go:

“ok, yeah, I see what you were trying to say. I see you.”

especially because fanfic is often people processing very real feelings through fictional characters at a safe distance, one step removed,

and then uploading that deeply personal thing into a shared archive and hoping somebody else might connect with it.

And i think that’s why it hurts so much when you summon up the courage and post a fic into the void and you get nothing back,

and then it’s like,

It doesn't matter if all you did was day-dream about your characters while staring at the ceiling.