#you don't fit the rating

[rockethorse]

The basegame wedding dress has a pregnancy morph??

[the-way-astray]

i've seen a fair amount of people that have a take that's something along the lines of "alden isn't abusive/toxic/a bad parent but i like exploring that in fic, so i often characterize him like that anyway" and i'm so curious as to why these people are not extending this same purposeful character assassination to other parents, like grady, or even kesler, and why it seems to be an only alden thing /gen

[not-gray-politics]

Trans women. I'm grabbing you by the shoulders and yelling. YOU DO NOT HAVE TO BE SKINNY TO BE FEMININE AND PRETTY AND CUTE. PLEASE STOP MAKING DIETS PART OF YOUR TRANSITION GOALS. WEIGHT LOSS IS A SCAM. I LOVE YOU. TAKE CARE OF YOURSELVES. YOU'RE BEAUTIFUL.

[royalarchivist]

Pac: Zuko, and the other one doesn't have a name. Oh, probably she needs a nametag. Mmm, if I had one I would give to her... unfortunately I'm poor...

Fit: Oh, you’re not poor Pac! You know, you’re rich in intelligence, you came up with the cure. Like, you helped find it, so, you’re pretty damn smart as far as I’m concerned.

Pac: Thank you Fit, yeah that’s actually true. I need to have faith in me, you’re right.

[nostalgia-tblr]

What do English people call a close? You know, the stairwell bit where all the flats are in a tenement? If you go to visit someone at their flat, what do you call the bit where you wait for them to answer their door? That communal stairs… area?

("Modern AUs don't require research" MAYBE IF YOU'RE ENGLISH THEY DON'T 😭)

[meowmeowuchiha]

I personally headcanon that Deidara is insanely good at math, but ONLY when it pertains to his art, because to him that's the only time it matters.

Making damn near immediate calculations regarding power of an explosion + all the objects around it + locations of targets to be hit and things to avoid in order to determine exactly how shit will blow apart? So he can set off a bomb in close quarters to get his target but not severely wound himself? He's so good at that shit it's subconscious at this point

If he's asked to calculate percentages for some financial piece of bullshit from Kakuzu or something? Suddenly he's absolutely incompetent and gives a wildly incorrect estimate because he just couldn't care less and decided to spit out a random arbitrary number

Very very good at math, but only when he WANTS to be

[dying-suffering-french-stalkers]

Plot aside, I'd forgotten just how charming the animation of Lupin Zero is

[sadfraudfrogs]

Ah how I love that the tag for something I have experienced is full of terfs and anti mspec lesbians

[asheanon]

Moral Alignment Test

You are 43.3% good, 14.2% chaotic, making you neutral good.

Neutral Good

People who are Neutral Good are guided by their conscience and typically act altruistically, with only secondary regard for whether their actions are lawful or in line with cultural expectations or traditions. Neutral Good individuals have no problems with what is lawful as such, and nor are they rebels by nature, but they believe in furthering kindness and good deeds through whatever means seem necessary to them. If fostering good means supporting an organized society, then that is what must be done. If good can only come about through the overthrow of the existing social order, then so be it. For many who are Neutral Good, insistence on either lawfulness or rebellion is seen as detriments to or distractions from the greater goal of promoting true kindness in the world.

Tagged by: @rcsetorn (thank you for the tag!) 💕

Tagging: @vinjaryou, @oomerkabaoo, @daffodilzae and whoever else would like to align their OCs' (or their own) morals and whatnot. Whatever suits you, my dudes.~

[draconicace]

i don't know how to explain how i got here in a concise way but suffice to say kim kitsuragi would not vape. it simply isn't cool in the way cigs are. vaping once a day is nothing. no one good will notice that. and you think kim would allow himself something that actually tastes okay? you think he'd smoke raspberry pink blast? inconcievable.

smoking one nasty, tar-filled cig every night lit up by sodium streetlights. that's something. that's a completely unnecessary trial of will. headcanon: kim saw an older guy smoking at night One Time and it plucked a string in his brain to play one single, melodious gay note and he's never been the same since.

[pride-of-storm]

first day of work and :( my feet hurt :(

[kensingtonmarketstall]

i just had a 14 year old kid try to follow me. my last post is a photo of me holding a miller high life, i think you're lost

[paganinpurple]

AO3 Etiquette -UPDATED

Based on both decent and not so decent replies, I have made some changes to my original post below.

It would seem a whole new kind of AO3 reader/writer is emerging and it is becoming clear not everyone quite understands how the website community works. Here is some basic guidance on how most people expect you to go about using AO3 to keep this a fun community archive that funtions correctly:

As well as likes, kudos is for when the story was interesting enough to make you finish reading. If it sucked or was badly written, you probably left. If you finished it, you liked it - so kudos.

If you really liked it, you should try to comment. It can be long and detailed or a literal keysmash. Writers don't care, we just love comments.

No critisism unless the author has specifically asked or agreed to hear it (so use your notes to say if you want some constructive feedback). Even constructive critisism is a no-no unless an author note tells you it's okay. No, posting it online is not an open invitation for that. Many people write as a fun hobby or a way to cope with, among other things, insecurity and just want to share. Don't ruin that for them. I've seen so many authors just stop writing coz they can't handle the negative emotions the critism brings, and it's only meant to be a fun thing shared for free (pointing out tagging errors is not included in this).

Do not comment to ask the author to write/update something else. It's tacky and off-putting and will probably have the opposite effect than the one you want.

There is no algorithm, it's an archive. Use the search and filter function to add/remove the pairings/characters/tropes etc. you want to read about and it will find you the fics that fit the bill.

For this to work, writers must tag and rate stories. This avoids readers finding the wrong things and missing the stuff they want. I don't care how cringy that trope is in your eyes - it gets tagged.

The tag exception is if you don't want to tag a million things or spoil your story, you can rate it as "chose not to use warnings," and maybe tag the bare minimum.

Don't censor tags. How can someone exclude a tag if the word isn't typed out correctly? There are no content bans for terms so don't censor them.

If the tags are mostly content/trigger warnings, especially if they are things considered very fucked up or graphic, you might want to use "dead dove - do not eat" to ensure people know that you're not messing around with tags and what they get is exactly what you've warned them about.

Character A/Character B means a ROMANTIC or SEXUAL relationship of some kind. Character A&Character B is PLATONIC, like friendship or family.

Nothing is banned. This is an rule because banning one thing is a slipperly slope to banning another and another, until nothing is allowed anymore. Do not expect anyone to censor for you. Because of the tags system, you are responsible for your own reading experience.

People can create new chapters and sequels/fic series any time after they "complete" a story. So it's considered perfectly normal to subscribe, even to a finished story. You can even subscribe to the author instead just to cover your bases.

Do not repost stories or change the publishing date without an extremely good reason (like a complete top to bottom rewrite or an exchange youve written for going public). It's an archive, not social media. No one cares what's the most recent, only what fits their tag needs.

Instead of deleting a story you wrote if you hate it - consider making it anonymous or orphaning it so others can still enjoy it, without it being connected to your name anymore. If you still want to delete it, fair enough.

It's come to my attention that metaworks ARE allowed on AO3, which is something I wasn't aware of. So if you do post an essay or theory, please tag it as such so others can choose to search for it or exclude it. Art is also allowed.

The only reason this archive works is because NON ONE PROFITS. Do not link to your ko-fi or patreon or mention monetary gain in any way or you violate the terms and risk having your account removed. If anyone does link, it leaves the archive open to people claiming it's for profit and having the whole thing removed.

I KNOW there's plenty more I missed but I'm trying to cover most of the basics that people seem to be struggling with.

I invite anyone to add to this, but please explain, don't berate.

[threadmonster]

My coworker quickly covered the suggested searches to try and save me from character death spoilers in a popular series. Girl, you think people keep spoilers under wraps anymore? I already knew these characters die. I don't even go here and I knew that already.

[why-animals-do-the-thing]

I promised you some lions! Let's talk about manes, males, and management.

This is Tandie, the current male lion at the Woodland Park Zoo.

Notice anything odd about him? He's got one of those hilarious awkward teenager manes. Except... this cat is nine years old.

I was, of course, immediately curious.

Manes serve a lot of purposes for male lions, including being an indicator of health and fitness - it's actually a sexually selected trait and a social signal. Mane texture / hair quality / length is dependent on nutrition and the body having energy to grow (and carry around!) that much hair! The color is also a signal: males with darker manes have been found to have higher testosterone levels.

In one research report, wild males were much more likely to avoid a lion decoy when it had a longer or darker mane - but the girls really loved a dark mane. It's thought this is because a long, dark mane is an indicator of mate quality. Males with longer, darker manes have higher testosterone and were pretty healthy: meaning they had more energy for fighting, had a better chance of recovering if they got injured, and generally had a higher rate of offspring survival. Manes matter!

So, back to Tandie. He was actually born at the Woodland Park Zoo in 2014 alongside two brothers, to dad Xerxes and mother Adia.

This was Xerxes (rip).

Obviously, a very large, dark, lush mane on Xerxes here. So where did these blond muttonchops come from on his son?

I asked the zoo docents and got an answer that didn't make a lot of sense. They told me that after the three cubs grew into adolescents, they were moved to the Oakland Zoo together. But living together suppressed his testosterone, and he never grew a mane.

Hmmmm.

Here's a photo from 2016, when the brothers debuted at Oakland. They're a year and a half old in this photo.

(Photo Credit: Oakland Zoo)

And here's from an announcement for their third birthday.

(Photo credit: Oakland Zoo)

Okay, so these dudes obviously all were growing manes as of 2017. I think Tandie is the one on the left in the first photo, and laying down in the middle on the second. What happened?

I was just in the Bay Area for a zoo road trip, of course I went to Oakland and tracked down a docent to ask some questions.

It turns out that shortly after the brothers turned three, they started acting like adult male lions: they started scuffling regularly. It's a normal social thing for male lions to live in groups, called coalitions, but according to my lion experts there's generally a baseline level of some social jostling within them. It wasn't quite clear from what the docent said if they couldn't manage the boys together, or if they just wanted to avoid the scratches and small wounds that result from normal lion behavior. Regardless, they put all three of the boys on testosterone blockers in order to be able to keep them together as a social group.

Now, I don't know a lot about the use of hormone alteration as a form of captive animal management, except in the case of birth control. I don't think it's something that's unethical - there was just a webinar on it that I saw go by - but I don't think it's commonly done with big cats. Lions have kind of complicated reproductive cycles, and for instance, we've been learning that female lions can take much longer to come into estrus again than expected after coming off hormonal birth control.

In males, testosterone blockers (or being neutered) means they lose their manes. This is why a lot of rescues will do a vasectomy on their males instead of a neuter - it allows them to keep their mane and the social signals that accompany it.

Tandie returned home to Woodland Park Zoo after Xerxes passed in early 2022, and the docent told me all of the lions had been off their blockers "for while." I'd guess those things happened around the same time, since bringing the trio down to a duo at Oakland would reduce some of the social tensions.

Hormones are such interesting things, though. One of Tandie's brothers has a full mane again, and the other is still totally mane-less.

As for Tandie, his mane is growing back in, and it looks like he might rival his dad for length and coloration.

He started here, in February:

Yesterday:

What a difference four months (and maybe proximity to a girl) makes!

[romanticizingmurder]

Trans men: here are the largest surveys ever conducted in the trans community which show that trans men face equal rates of SA, being unhoused, police harassment, domestic violence, etc. as any other trans peer group. Here are endless clips of politicians talking about "confused girls" as why they want to ban HRT.

People on here: you just don't understand Material Feminism (if your evidence of oppression doesn't fit into my framework of gender dynamics, it can't be material), trans men aren't even a main target of national transphobia.