#be so much easier

[scytheld]

loud groaning of icon redoing and looking back towards my other icons- why cant i ever have my stuff saved over in bulk??

[victorluvsalice]

-->And then -- time for a snowball fight! Because, well, it was cold, there was snow on the ground, so why not? XD They all ran around throwing snowballs at each other and having a lovely time for a few rounds (Smiler even getting a happy sentiment with both Victor and Alice about how much fun they were having) – but, unfortunately, Alice’s werewolf instincts interrupted and made her very testy and in need of a nap. *sigh* Darn finicky temperaments... So I ended the fight and let her get in a snooze in the snow by the bar while Victor headed over to the observatory to observe the sky (no new print, unfortunately) and Smiler went looking for frogs in all the frog logs (getting a Striped Leaf, Striped Eggplant, and Striped Dirt -- none of which they actually needed, but at least they can be used for breeding?). Alice woke up once her energy was better and her instincts quieted, then grabbed another plate of meat and cheese before running over to meet Victor and Smiler by the observatory, where they were making more snow angels. Everyone happily came together to spin some noisemakers and throw/blast confetti in honor of the holiday –

Just in time for the date to end on gold level! :D You love to see it. (Though I think all they got out of it was another VIP bucket – I wish that the date rewards were a little more varied!)

-->However, before they went home, I REALLY wanted them to get a cute trio shot together somewhere in the park. You know me and my love of taking in-game pictures of them, after all. :p After looking around (and unsuccessfully trying to direct them all to the same spot in front of one of the fish fountains just off-lot), I decided one of the corner fountains would do and had them head over there via their various teleports. I had Alice get out her tripod, then tried positioning it right outside the gap in the hedges leading to the fountain, hoping that would lead to a good shot. There was the usual trouble in trying to set UP the group shot – a bit of lag, Smiler insisting on presenting some flowers to Victor just before they were to wait for the photographer – but, having learned my lesson from previous attempts, I just shut off autonomy for a while before giving it another go –

Aaaand discovered that the camera was facing at the most awkward angle to the group EVER. XD Now, fortunately, when your camera is on a tripod, you can actually spin it around 360 degrees to get a better angle. UNFORTUNATELY, when I did that, Victor and Smiler were half-behind the hedges, meaning there really was no better angle. *facepalm* I took a few snaps just because I wanted SOMETHING from the date, but I don’t know if any of these will be going up on the wall! At least, not where visitors can see. :p

[queer-is-future]

so when straight people ask me why I say I’m “queer” or “gay” instead of sharing my actual identity as a panromantic demisexual non-binary sapphic queer I just tell them “ok look, when you’re talking to someone who isn’t local and they ask you where you’re from and you either say the name of the largest city nearby or ‘town name, suburb of large nearby city’ so they can get some geographical context of where you’re located right, bc they’re probably not going to know the name of the little town you actually live in.”

but if you’re talking to a local you can say the name of your actual town bc they have a greater chance of knowing where/what that is.

ok well when I’m talking to a straight person I start with queer bc chances are they aren’t as familiar with the context of all the little towns in that big queer city and need gps (gay positioning system) to find me.

if I’m talking to another queer person and I say I live in a suburb of gay city in a town called panromantic on the demisexual side of the tracks which is in the county of queer and I live off the intersection of non-binary and sapphic, they’d probably be able to find me with little to no problems, make sense?

[katsinspats]

I think my copy of the game is broken they've been doing this for 30 minutes

Crop of the Biolizard edit I did bc it makes me laugh:

[notbecauseofvictories]

I don't know how strictly accurate this is, but one of the things I find shocking about watching historical dramas is how many people there are around all the time---according to Madame de... (1953) a well-off French household in the Belle Epoque maintains a workforce of at least 3, and the glittering opera has staff just to open doors. According to Shogun (2024) you can expect a deep bench just to mind your household, and again, people who exist to open doors.

Could people....not open doors in the past? Were doors tricky, before the standardization of hinges? Because otherwise, the wealthy used to pay a whole bunch of people to do it for them in multiple contexts, and I find myself baffled.

[ponderosa121]

He can keep the greasy tits out a little longer…

[wanologic]

always good to keep a screamhole handy

[sqrkyclean]

being vulnerable for a second to use my pooltoy furry oc to convey what recovering from contamination ocd has been like while undergoing hrt.

[collgeruledzebra]

the thing about trying to recommend fiction podcasts to someone who isn't familiar with them is that not only are so so many genres represented but also the level of production can fall anywhere from "basically an audiobook" to "major motion picture minus the pictures"

[blueskittlesart]

what'syour thoughts on everlark yuri

objectively good concept but can you imagine how fucking annoying gale would have been about it

[geomimetry]

woe be upon ye

[fonulyn]

since I've seen it talked about in several places recently:

if you are going to do a whump- or kink- or ANY-tober or other similar challenges please please please don't post them as one fic with 31 chapters unless it actually is one coherent fic. if they're 31 completely separate fics or ficlets then please just make a collection for them or just post them as separate fics. it doesn't matter if they're only 100 words or if you think they're too small or insignificant to post alone, they're not.

and why this?

because if you post all 31 of them in one fic the tagging is absolutely useless. if I look for things to read on ao3 I'm gonna look at the tags, and if the tags include something that's a dealbreaker for me, i won't even click on the fic. I might not even SEE the fic because I've filtered out the nope-tag! so I'm gonna lose out on reading 30 perfectly nice fics because of one fic that my nope-tag applied to.

ao3 is about archiving. it's about clear tagging and being informative. there is nothing informative about it if the tags in the fic apply to random chapters while others have nothing to do with it. it makes so much more sense to have each work as an individual fic with its own individual tags and warnings, so readers can make informed choices.

of course, you do you. I can't police what other people decide to do. but personally, I find it incredibly frustrating to weed through 31 chapters to find the ones I actually want to read. so I don't. I automatically scroll past all works posted like that. and I know some others do, too.

there is absolutely no shame in posting short things on ao3. there is no minimum word count. no one is going to look at you funny if you post a small ficlet on its own, I promise. it's just going to make some readers very happy when they can actually find the things they want to read.

so, please. at least consider the upsides of posting each work as their own fic.

signed, one very frustrated fandom grandma.

[demaparbat-hp]

Here I am, pushing the Jian Li (Akai Kotou! Zuko) = Jinshi (The Apothecary Diaries) agenda.

[hinamie]

wonder if they know what he's on about

[jasminebythebay]

for true story

now available as a print!

[suja-janee]

I’ve been losing my mind over these guys recently