#but I'm fairly certain it is accurate

[aceofwhump]

Is it true in America you eat sweet potato with marshmallows melted on top at Thanksgiving? :O I just want an explanation

LOL! Yup! That is a very popular American American Thanksgiving dish. It's not one that my family is into so I can't tell you if it's actually any good but it is indeed popular in the U.S. We like our marshmallows and our sugar here lol.

I was curious why how it came about so I did a little research (historical research is honestlyone of my favorite pastimes lol). Turns out it's a dish that has been around a while. Sweet potatoes have always been popular in the states but it was in 1917 when the creators of Crackers of Jack created the Angelus Marshmallows, the hired the founder of Boston Cooking School Magazine, Janet McKenzie Hill, to come up with a book of marshmallow recipes “to encourage home cooks to embrace the candy as an everyday ingredient.” Among the recipes that Hill incorporated marshmallows into was sweet potato casserole.

So basically the dish was invented because of capitalism and the desire to sell marshmallows. And it became a Thanksgiving dish because we were already eating sweet potatoes at that time so the casserole just kinda took its place.

That was probably more information than you wanted but I like sharing fun facts like this so I hope it was interesting!

[stardestroyer81]

Can I offer you a nice transfem sheep in this tryin' time? 💙🏳️‍⚧️✨

[la-cocotte-de-paris]

Obsessed with these colourised versions of Edwige gifs I made

[why-animals-do-the-thing]

average United States contains 1000s of pet tigers in backyards" factoid actualy [sic] just statistical error. average person has 0 tigers on property. Activist Georg, who lives the U.S. Capitol & makes up over 10,000 each day, has purposefully been spreading disinformation adn [sic] should not have been counted

I have a big mad today, folks. It's a really frustrating one, because years worth of work has been validated... but the reason for that fucking sucks.

For almost a decade, I've been trying to fact-check the claim that there "are 10,000 to 20,000 pet tigers/big cats in backyards in the United States." I talked to zoo, sanctuary, and private cat people; I looked at legislation, regulation, attack/death/escape incident rates; I read everything I could get my hands on. None of it made sense. None of it lined up. I couldn't find data supporting anything like the population of pet cats being alleged to exist. Some of you might remember the series I published on those findings from 2018 or so under the hashtag #CrouchingTigerHiddenData. I've continued to work on it in the six years since, including publishing a peer reviewed study that counted all the non-pet big cats in the US (because even though they're regulated, apparently nobody bothered to keep track of those either).

I spent years of my life obsessing over that statistic because it was being used to push for new federal legislation that, while well intentioned, contained language that would, and has, created real problems for ethical facilities that have big cats. I wrote a comprehensive - 35 page! - analysis of the issues with the then-current version of the Big Cat Public Safety Act in 2020. When the bill was first introduced to Congress in 2013, a lot of groups promoted it by fear mongering: there's so many pet tigers! they could be hidden around every corner! they could escape and attack you! they could come out of nowhere and eat your children!! Tiger King exposed the masses to the idea of "thousands of abused backyard big cats": as a result the messaging around the bill shifted to being welfare-focused, and the law passed in 2022.

The Big Cat Public Safety Act created a registry, and anyone who owned a private cat and wanted to keep it had to join. If they did, they could keep the animal until it passed, as long as they followed certain strictures (no getting more, no public contact, etc). Don’t register and get caught? Cat is seized and major punishment for you. Registering is therefore highly incentivized. That registry closed in June of 2023, and you can now get that registration data via a Freedom of Information Act request.

Guess how many pet big cats were registered in the whole country?

97.

Not tens of thousands. Not thousands. Not even triple digits. 97.

And that isn't even the right number! Ten USDA licensed facilities registered erroneously. That accounts for 55 of 97 animals. Which leaves us with 42 pet big cats, of all species, in the entire country.

Now, I know that not everyone may have registered. There's probably someone living deep in the woods somewhere with their illegal pet cougar, and there's been at least one random person in Texas arrested for trying to sell a cub since the law passed. But - and here's the big thing - even if there are ten times as many hidden cats than people who registered them - that's nowhere near ten thousand animals. Obviously, I had some questions.

Guess what? Turns out, this is because it was never real. That huge number never had data behind it, wasn't likely to be accurate, and the advocacy groups using that statistic to fearmonger and drive their agenda knew it... and didn't see a problem with that.

Allow me to introduce you to an article published last week.

This article is good. (Full disclose, I'm quoted in it). It's comprehensive and fairly written, and they did their due diligence reporting and fact-checking the piece. They talked to a lot of people on all sides of the story.

But thing that really gets me?

Multiple representatives from major advocacy organizations who worked on the Big Cat Publix Safety Act told the reporter that they knew the statistics they were quoting weren't real. And that they don't care. The end justifies the means, the good guys won over the bad guys, that's just how lobbying works after all. They're so blase about it, it makes my stomach hurt. Let me pull some excerpts from the quotes.

"Whatever the true number, nearly everyone in the debate acknowledges a disparity between the actual census and the figures cited by lawmakers. “The 20,000 number is not real,” said Bill Nimmo, founder of Tigers in America. (...) For his part, Nimmo at Tigers in America sees the exaggerated figure as part of the political process. Prior to the passage of the bill, he said, businesses that exhibited and bred big cats juiced the numbers, too. (...) “I’m not justifying the hyperbolic 20,000,” Nimmo said. “In the world of comparing hyperbole, the good guys won this one.”

"Michelle Sinnott, director and counsel for captive animal law enforcement at the PETA Foundation, emphasized that the law accomplished what it was set out to do. (...) Specific numbers are not what really matter, she said: “Whether there’s one big cat in a private home or whether there’s 10,000 big cats in a private home, the underlying problem of industry is still there.”"

I have no problem with a law ending the private ownership of big cats, and with ending cub petting practices. What I do have a problem with is that these organizations purposefully spread disinformation for years in order to push for it. By their own admission, they repeatedly and intentionally promoted false statistics within Congress. For a decade.

No wonder it never made sense. No wonder no matter where I looked, I couldn't figure out how any of these groups got those numbers, why there was never any data to back any of the claims up, why everything I learned seemed to actively contradict it. It was never real. These people decided the truth didn't matter. They knew they had no proof, couldn't verify their shocking numbers... and they decided that was fine, if it achieved the end they wanted.

So members of the public - probably like you, reading this - and legislators who care about big cats and want to see legislation exist to protect them? They got played, got fed false information through a TV show designed to tug at heartstrings, and it got a law through Congress that's causing real problems for ethical captive big cat management. The 20,000 pet cat number was too sexy - too much of a crisis - for anyone to want to look past it and check that the language of the law wouldn't mess things up up for good zoos and sanctuaries. Whoops! At least the "bad guys" lost, right? (The problems are covered somewhat in the article linked, and I'll go into more details in a future post. You can also read my analysis from 2020, linked up top.)

Now, I know. Something something something facts don't matter this much in our post-truth era, stop caring so much, that's just how politics work, etc. I’m sorry, but no. Absolutely not.

Laws that will impact the welfare of living animals must be crafted carefully, thoughtfully, and precisely in order to ensure they achieve their goals without accidental negative impacts. We have a duty of care to ensure that. And in this case, the law also impacts reservoir populations for critically endangered species! We can't get those back if we mess them up. So maybe, just maybe, if legislators hadn't been so focused on all those alleged pet cats, the bill could have been written narrowly and precisely.

But the minutiae of regulatory impacts aren't sexy, and tiger abuse and TV shows about terrible people are. We all got misled, and now we're here, and the animals in good facilities are already paying for it.

I don't have a conclusion. I'm just mad. The public deserves to know the truth about animal legislation they're voting for, and I hope we all call on our legislators in the future to be far more critical of the data they get fed.

[c4rdsharp]

WHAT CRYSTAL ARE YOU ?

snowflake obsidian.

you are all grit and closed fists. you refuse to let anything in through the cracks of your armor. you would burn the world to protect those you love. the heart of a warrior burns in your chest. and it also weighs your shoulders down. what is the price for being so strong? what have you sacrificed to make yourself feel safe? when was the last time you let someone see your soul? when was the last time you let someone see you and not just the masks you hide behind? not everything must be a fight.

tagged by : @zorkaya ( thank you! ) tagging : literally go for it. steal it from me. i am holding it out as we speak.

[becausegoodheroesdeservekidneys]

I have another Welsh language question. What is the word for butterfly? Only on the subject of popty ping not being the word for microwave, I'm fairly certain I learned that pili pala (spelling?? I'm sorry) is the Welsh for butterfly from the same source and now doubts abound muchly. Thank you for teaching us!

Pili Pala is very common! That's accurate. As with most animal names, though, there's a lengthy list, but the difference is basically dialect. However... well. We basically can't stop naming animals and particularly the butterfly and the names are batshit.

Ooh, tell you what, people seemed to like the jellyfish poll, let me do a butterfly equivalent

Only one of these is not a butterfly. CHOOSE WISELY, YOUNG ONES. YOU CAN'T TAKE IT BACK

[prokopetz]

So, you've mentioned before that TTRPGs always have an expected "mode of play", that is, the basic concept from which the gameplay loop is derived. I admit I have little experience with this kind of thing, but I'm having trouble wrapping my head around the mode of play of Lasers and Feelings. Like, what's the unifying thread between Lasers and Feelings, Radical Catgirl Anarchy, and Lily is Girls With The Ability? Or between L&F and something like Speeding Bullets, for that matter? Is it just that they're all rules-light shitposts? Or is it based on, like, the tension between the two different ends of a dichotomy?

One-page games can be tricky in this respect because they just don't have the bandwidth to explicitly state many of their assumptions. They necessarily depend on the players (and the GM, if present) bringing the "correct" set of assumptions to the table regarding how the game ought to be played.

Still, there's enough there to draw certain conclusions. For example, in a typical Lasers & Feelings hack, rolling the dice gives a pass-or-fail outcome (with optional complication) for a discrete physical, mental, or social task. This frames a session of play as a sort of narrative obstacle course: the story consists of overcoming a series of well-defined obstacles in order to arrive at a particular goal. That might seem like a fairly banal observation, because that's how a lot of tabletop RPGs frame a session of play, but we need to make that explicit to contextualise the next step.

That next stop, of course, being the approaches.

One of the baseline assumptions of any tabletop RPG is that you're going to use it to tell the kinds of stories about which the rules have something to say – indeed, a tabletop RPG has to assume this, because if you're not telling the kind of story about which the rules have something to say, you're not playing the game!

To that end, a Lasers & Feelings hack is usually going to give you a pair of approaches to roll against, each consisting of a set of ways of conceptualising the obstacle in front of you. I'm not using the term "conceptualising" just to be fancy here; in Lasers & Feelings, the GM (if present) describes the obstacles, but it's on the player, not the GM, to decide "this is the kind of obstacle which can be overcome with [insert approach]", and nobody gets to tell them they're wrong.

Thus, a Lasers & Feelings hack assumes that the story of your game is going to consist of a series of obstacles (see above) which can usefully be conceptualised using at least one of the game's two approaches. A game where your approaches are "the power of friendship" and "the power of unimaginable violence", for example, probably isn't one that you'd want to use to play out a scenario inspired by Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, because those approaches aren't useful ways of conceptualising the kinds of obstacles such a story is likely to present – and if you used it anyway, the story would rapidly stop being a Pride and Prejudice pastiche.

All that in mind, it might be more accurate to state that Lasers & Feelings as a framework presents meta-expectations; the framework provides a set of mechanisms for a particular hack's chosen approaches to direct play, but you have to look at what that hack's chosen approaches actually are to pin down what that direction is.

[mayakern]

Hi! I love your skirt designs so much, but it is important to me for religious reasons that skirts go past my knees. I'm also fairly tall - 5'10", although with a long torso - and prefer to wear skirts at my natural waist. I could of course try to measure, but since it seems fairly close and I don't have experience measuring skirt length, I'm worried it won't be accurate. Can you give me any information on whether you think this might work? Thanks!

hi there! this isn't something i can accurately answer since where the skirt falls also depends on where you like it to comfortably sit. i would recommend measuring the length of the skirt from where you usually wear your waistband.

since the skirts fall around knee length or a little bit over on our 5'5" models, i'm going to guess that they would probably not cover your knees if you're 5'10", but i can't say for certain!

we do have some maxi skirt collabs over at @freshhotflavors if that's your thing, though!

[suudonym]

stream of consciousness thoughts about jp>en translation as it pertains to closeness in demon society, etc.

it's no mystery that when iruma asks azz and clara if he can think of them as friends, the word he uses is 友達/tomodachi. it's a casual word that denotes... you know, a friend. someone you like to spend time with. very straightforward.

there's also a more formal word for friend, 友人/yuujin, but to the best of my knowledge this one doesn't get used in mairuma, and this may be because it seems to strictly avoid using the 人 kanji (hito/jin/nin/person). it's often said that the way 人 is written makes it look like the two strokes are supporting one another, implying that people are things that live with the support of others. to my understanding this isn't the actual origin of the glyph, but it is a fairly common saying - and so it fits the worldbuilding nicely that the highly egocentric demons don't have 人 in their language. they do use the word "hito" sometimes, but I can't recall seeing it written in kanji

speaking of words demons do have, we see 仲間/nakama quite a bit, but while there are plenty of situations where it's valid to translate nakama to "friend," you don't actually have to like someone to consider them thus. someone is your "nakama" when you're united under the same banner, so to speak. it could be a classmate or a teammate or a coworker - anyone you share circumstances and goals with. the fact that this is one of the most friend-adjacent words demons have is also very like them.

demons also have 仲良し/nakayoshi and 仲が良い/naka ga ii, both of which describe getting along with and having a good relationship with someone. so demons do clearly have the concept of friendship, even if they don't have the word for it.

anyway, soulmates. the word iruma uses to describe what azz is to him is 親友/shinyuu, which is... I mean, it's really hard to translate this as anything but "best friend." it's a very close friend and/or someone you've been friends with for a long time. however, there's two reasons it's hard to translate 親友 to "best friend" specifically in the context of mairuma, both of which are summed up in this exchange:

it's a word that azz doesn't recognize. demons have the word "best" and azz knows the word "friend," so why would he have to ask what a "best friend" is? shinyuu sounds completely unlike tomodachi, so to have the same effect, the english word used to translate it also has to sound completely unlike "friend"

iruma's kind of embarrassed about it. "best friend" is usually a rather light term in english and not one we'd typically get flustered talking about. your best friend might just be the person you like spending time with more than anyone else. you could be talking about the past and say someone "was your best friend back then" and it doesn't necessarily suggest that you had a falling out or anything, you might have just kind of drifted apart or met someone else you got even closer to or something similar. I don't know if I'm explaining this completely accurately but from what I gather, "shinyuu" is more of an intimate, time-tested friendship. there seems to be a certain level of emotional vulnerability associated with it that "best friend" doesn't always convey by default.

if absolutely pressed for an alternative translation, I might posit "kindred spirit," but that doesn't quite feel like as natural a thing to say as "soulmate." I do think it's a shame that it has that automatic romantic connotation, but honestly that's society's failure. embrace the concept of platonic soulmates, you cowards.

anyway, them's the thoughts.

[sarcastictissy]

Just a friendly reminder that saying things such as "the qsmp better not come back before 2025" or "in less that 3 or 4 or 6 or 8 or 12 months" is not helpful as we genuinely have no clue what progress has or has not been made behind the scenes. They could be starting from the beginning, they could be halfway through the process, they could be in the brainstorming stage, they could be taking a hiatus before working on things behind the scenes. We truly have no idea what is going on.

Don't get me wrong, it's absolutely fair to say we want them to take the time necessary to sort out all the issues, but realistically, we don't know how long that may or may not take. None of us have been in that situation before and therefore have no real accurate expectation of when things should be sorted by.

I want things to work out, I want admins to be paid and I want all workers to be in a good position where they're treated fairly. However, I'm not going to say it should or should not take a certain length of time to complete this restructure and I hope you all realise the same.

[sergle]

People are failing to realize that clothing, and cameras for that matter, can be fairly deceptive. I don't wanna say deceptive because it carries a certain connotation, but I hope you'll know what I mean. I look fairly "thin/avg" with a shirt on, but without it it's rolls and folds lol

Furthermore, it's wild to assume someone who's pretty passionate about accurate plus-size rep would be stick thin. Maybe their metric of "average" is skewed or something, but it's still weird to just show up in a strangers Asks and assume things about them and their bodies.

sorry for answering an ask about this like 4 days later but I'M STILL THINKING ABOUT THIS... this person is talking about these asks btw.

FIRST OF ALL, thank you so much for the ask, it really is good to know that other ppl are aware of the Covering Of Fat With Clothing. Like. hi. my body is obscured. people are just noticing my torso for the first time bc there isn't 5lbs of breast tissue hanging off of it. SECOND OF ALL. This is still making me insane. I am still thinking about it so I'm gonna completely just do a brick of text to talk about it. Like, there's the first part of this, right? The fact that, all of these people who were sending asks like these, are the same people who came to my account because they liked the body positivity stuff or they related to the proportions of the girls I draw, right? And yet somehow managed to miss that ALL OF MY ART IS ME. So you're relating to MY body, AGREEING that this is plus sized art, then turning towards moi and saying, okay but you're skinny though. HUH? HMM??? I literally made a 12-part series of self portraits that have been like, my most seen, most stolen, reposted, enjoyed, stolen again, pieces. And I've been so crystal clear that these are literally me. Once again, I'm pointing at the aforementioned MATERIAL.

Pictured above: a thin, skinny woman who just happens to have large breasts, ig! And outside of those, which are *literal* self portraits, I've spoken lots of times before about how I make girls of a certain size and shape because I'm modeling them off myself. Or as close as I can get, depending on how good/bad I feel and if I took a photo to ref or not. It really couldn't be clearer that this is obviously me being self-serving, I do it when I feel like I need to see it. So the thing being implied here, or flat out accused in a handful of messages, is that I'm drawing fat girls forrr clout? AWESOME. I didn't want to dignify every message but that did seem to be the rough consensus. BUT I WANT TO TALK ABOUT THAT ONE TOO. WHEN would it become a bad thing for a skinny person to draw body positive art? In a positive light? Even if it was for clout? Am I going insane? That would be Good. It honestly might be even more meaningful than what I'm doing now. If I was actually 115 pounds soaking wet, if I looked like that one girl from ANTM with the like 14 inch waist, and I was out here making the exact same art, would that make the art LESS meaningful to other fat girls? That someone who doesn't have this body type or relate to it at all found it beautiful enough to draw it so many times, treating the subject with respect? Fat people being the subject of art again? The cycling of a trend that's been gone too long? That is, I thought, what we've literally been begging to see. I have been thinking about this. And finally, the last part of it that's been vexing and haunting me:

Is it supposed to be my responsibility that someone gets dysmorphic LOOKING AT ME. HUHHHH. On the art account where I draw a lot of Me. HUH. I was meant to anticipate this? Looking at pictures of me. And that makes you feel dysmorphic. and that is my fault. I'm just double checking. On the account where I draw bodies that I relate to, that you followed because you relate to. And then seeing me. Makes you dysmorphic. Whew. Got it.

I'm putting a bow on my insane winding ramble about this. Or at least trying to, now. It is wild to have my body commented on so much. This year, bc of the breast reduction, comments on my body have increased a hundredfold. Positive, negative, passive aggressive, predatory, all of the ways it can go. There was a really obvious way to rebuff these particular comments, which would be to post a picture of myself where my body ISN'T mostly obscured. But hey, those aren't free. The art will have to do for now. I wouldn't be that surprised if half the messages were jokes meant to see if I'd post pics "proving" that I look how I look. I also thought briefly about like, what if my body did change that drastically? Would some ppl's immediate reaction be betrayal, disgust, anger? I've been sick in my life before and lost weight at alarming speeds. But I've still been fat all my life. I've gotten sick and gained weight at alarming speeds. Does my presence as a "body positive artist" mean that my body gets to be put on trial anytime it changes? Does the switch flip from "your fat art means so much to me" to "you're not in the club anymore, since you got rid of your breasts, you look different"

Anyway I thought it would be funny to draw a thin girl "drawing" a scrap sketch I already have on hand. And imagining someone's response being fully negative, bc a thin person drawing fat ppl would be somehow dishonest lmao. Look how evil this bitch is. Her body doesn't match her art.

[tozettastone]

I'm not going to finish this either, but I do think there should be some more fun casefic for the Akatsuki so one day perhaps I'll write one:

---

"You're the best person for the job," Konan admitted. Her eyes were hooded beneath the shadow of her thick dark hair, and her usually serene face was troubled. "But temperamentally you're unsuitable. I wouldn't ask you if I had another option. If Sasori were still here..."

"Itachi?" Kakuzu prodded. It was true that a casino wasn't really the kind of environment in which Kakuzu thrived. He didn't enjoy gambling, partying, or networking.

Sasori wouldn't have been a perfect match, either. He lacked the patience for cover work. But he could count cards, and he had been very beautiful, and had enjoyed being on display.

But there was no use in wishing for the dead to come back.

"I tried. Itachi is sick."

"Still?" He had been getting sicker and sicker, lately. Kakuzu's eyes narrowed.

"Not still. Again." Was that better or worse? "It shouldn't be more than two weeks. The main problem I foresee is the attention."

"I'm not shy," Kakuzu said drily.

He took the mission request from her and examined it. It seemed fairly standard: show up, stay at the same table as Mizashi-san, and find out who he was meeting and why across the ten days of his proposed stay at the event. It was a closed and private event, with heavily vetted security and staff, so the path of least resistance was to buy in as a guest and player. Kakuzu could see that.

Konan sighed quietly. "It's not that. Every high roller in the room will have a companion. It's the fashion now."

"A prostitute?"

"An escort, yes." Konan was, as always, unflappable. "These men and women make good money that way. At the moment we plan to send you unattached, and in that case you should expect to attract a certain amount of... attention." She met his eyes head on. "You can't get frustrated and kill the sex workers."

Kakuzu would have been annoyed by this faithless assessment of his temper... had it been sent less accurate. It was hard to muster irritation when he knew Konan had seen him do that kind of thing at least four times.

"I could bring my own... escort," he said slowly.

There were people Kakuzu had managed to work well with, over his time in the Akatsuki. And they weren't as few and far between as it sounded, either: his habit of killing the people with whom he worked poorly had rather separated the wheat from the chaff, in an intra-organisation sense.

"I'm not temperamentally suited to this mission, either," Konan refuted flatly.

"No," he agreed.

"...Surely you don't want to take Hidan on a cover mission?" Konan's dark eyebrows rose. "To a private party at a casino?"

"Deidara," Kakuzu corrected. Itachi would have been his first pick, but if Itachi had been well enough to complete the mission, Kakuzu would never have even seen this scroll.

Konan blinked. "Deidara," she repeated.

"Yes. Deidara."

"Uh, yeah," came Deidara's voice from the vicinity of the doorway. He was covered in dust and had the defiant air about him that made Kakuzu suspect he'd blown up something important. It was clear in the pugnacious set of his jaw. "That's me?"

Konan turned towards him too. Her eyes lingered on the clay dried to his hem. Her lips thinned.

"Ah. Deidara," she sighed. "Come in. It seems you're right on time."

[brabblesblog]

What if it was Ban’s turn to dog sit scratch at the Crimson Palace? I’m sure Lord Ancunín would LOVE that 😅

Love is made of fur and dander

Alright! First ask I'm answering. This is a nice, rather fluffy AA piece for fun. I hope you guys enjoy reading it as much as I did writing it.

The mutt's here. Here. In his Palace, in his home, tracking mud and fur and soil in its paws and gods know what else -

Astarion bites back the urge to yell at the wretched creature as it runs past where he's perched on his throne to Ban, who's seated on the floor, arms open for the mutt.

He sighs. "My dearest consort - you do realize how much fur this animal sheds, do you not? Do have some mercy on our floors and upholstery, please, and take him outside."

Ban looks up at him from the mess of white fur she's half-buried in, shooting him a small smile. "Oh, come on. It's only for a day, the servants can clean it all up afterwards, and the house will be none the worse for wear!"

He opens his mouth to retort; Ban gives him no chance. "Besides," she adds, "didn't werewolves use to live here? I remember seeing them the day we did the rite."

"They were a fairly recent addition by Cazador," Astarion replies, crossing his legs irritably. "Only summoned once I had escaped. And that doesn't trivialize any of my concerns; if anything it only proves them accurate - did you not see the sheer amount of fur littering the house that day?"

He's not mad, he thinks. Just... piqued. His beloved always has a penchant for loving strays. This dog, the owlbear that he worried would eat them one day, and, well - himself, if he's being honest.

Astarion watches more intently, leaning forward on his throne, watching his wife disappear into white fur yet again. He feels a slight pang of sympathy for the mutt, a creature who was picked up from certain doom by Ban, who's been given a new lease in life, who's been accepted by her, loved by her - and hopelessly loves her in turn.

Choosing to momentarily ignore that rush of affection in his breast the Ascendant stands and approaches the pair. The moment he's close he regrets it; Scratch immediately bounds towards him, standing up on its haunches in an attempt to lick his face. The dog's forepaws land on the cream lapels of his suit and he curses, despairing of what its condition will be.

"Gods! I've half a mind to drink you dry, mutt!" he hisses, only to be met by his wife's incensed glare. Ban calls Scratch back to her, and holds him protectively.

"Astarion," she chides. "He is a dog. He does not know any better."

"Yes, I am fully, painfully, aware of that fact - but look at my suit!" He gestures at the cream soiled by mud, the rest of the suit none too worse for wear other than for a smattering of dander.

She shrugs. "And so are my clothes. We can have it washed. Stop whinging." Ban finally stands, patting her thigh to ask the dog to follow her. "We're heading to the bedroom. I'd very much like to nap, and I missed cuddling Scratch like we used to in camp."

The Vampire Ascendant, the greatest vampire in all the realms, splutters at those words. Their bed. Really? When Ban has always been so precious about the sheets, asking him to remove your shoes, please and don't wear anything other than nightclothes on the bed, my love and yet she'll let Scratch stay there?

"Ban," he manages to grit out, jaw clenched. "The bed. Are you serious?"

"Oh, completely," she says, not even looking back. "You're free to join us, you know."

He watches them go, crossing his arms. No. Under no circumstances is he joining them. Never mind that they used to do that, back in their adventuring days, Ban wrapped in his arms while the dog slept on top of them. Never mind that it was comfortable, even nice - and oh gods, is he actually considering this?

Ban peeks her head out from the mass of white licking her face to see her husband walk in, a sullen look on his face. He's taken his clothes off save his underwear in some ridiculous attempt to save them, she realizes; she can't help the bark of laughter that crosses her at this.

He glowers, then sits at the edge of the bed. "I had nothing better to do, so I'll indulge you this," he grumbles, "but you can never complain about clothes on the bed ever again. Is that a deal?"

She frowns, weighing it; Scratch chooses that moment to bound over to Astarion again. Despite himself he lets his hand run through the dog's fur, the feeling of it sending him back to those days at camp. He absently cards through the white, coarse hairs, smiling a little.

"Fine," Ban finally says. "You can wear whatever you wish to the bed, but -"

"I know," he says, "no footwear of any kind is allowed; I am fully aware. You needn't remind me every single time."

She rolls her eyes. "Well you need reminding, considering how many times you do it."

Another sigh and he finally crawls towards her, grabbing her by the waist and tugging her close. He presses himself against her back, placing kisses down her jaw to her throat. "Can I tempt you into something a little more interesting than a nap, darling?"

She chuckles, and as she does Scratch settles over his usual spot on top of their legs; Astarion groans at the reminder.

"I suppose that's a no," he mumbles, and Ban's bark of laughter is all the confirmation he needs.

He lets out an exaggerated, long suffering sigh, then settles against her. "If only I didn't love you so much, Ban," he whispers right against her ear.

"Ah, don't pretend, Astarion." She turns to place a kiss on his lips, one he returns with eagerness. "We both know you enjoy this too."

He harrumphs, but knows the battle is lost. Not that he minds much, really.

This, after all, is nice.

Taglist: @elora-the-slutty-songstress @tragedybunny @spacebarbarianweird @ayselluna @enterthedreams @coltaire @qiific3 @misscrissfemmefatale @vixstarria @eatyourheartoutmylove @linllewellyn @ battisonsgf @micropoe10 @thegoodwitchs-blog @akirahime @velcyrptrr @i-cant-get-into-my-other-account @babblebrain-blog@asterordinary @last-but-not-the-least @artist4theworld @gracemisconduct @decadentcoffeewizard @rootin-tootin-n-kind@pursuitseternal @youngtacobanana @krispeenuggiez @girlygmer-blog @cheezits4lyfe @vinegarjello @the0ldmann @wisteriaofthegraves @girlygamer-blog

[sigynpenniman]

Help me update Gerard's Wikipedia page photo!

I'm on a mission, and I need help. The primary photo on Gerard's Wikipedia page is currently this, from 2017:

It's a fine photo, but it's 7 years old. I'd very much like to update it to something more current, optimally something from the tour. Unfortunately, that hasn't gone well in the past. Several people have attempted to do just that, but the issue is that Wikipedia doesn't allow copyrighted images to be used except in extremely specific circumstances, and primary images on pages of significant people don't count. All the images people have previously tried to use (the most recent was a photo from Dallas) have been copyrighted and pulled from the Wikimedia commons, and replaced back to this one. I'd like to get it updated properly this time, but I need everyone's help.

In order to get under the Wikipedia copyright rules, the image needs to either be creative commons, public domain, explicitly permissioned, or own work. In other words, essentially, if it's not already released as creative commons, it basically needs to be an image you took yourself. I obviously don't have any, so I'm calling on the fandom.

I need photos that are:

taken either by you yourself or someone you personally know that you can seek permission from

relatively high quality and clean - photos taken on a phone are potentially okay, but they need to be decently straight on, crisp & well lit, not grainy or too dark. He needs to be framed fairly close (full body is fine, just not a tiny little mousegirl as seen from the back of the room) and facing the camera. They don't need to be looking directly at or making eye contact with the camera, but nothing from extreme angles or in profile.

semi-neutral - not of him screaming, rolling around on the floor, eating the microphone, etc. Singing & posing is good just no chaos or major upskirts.

decently representative - meaning, it looks fairly accurate to what Gerard actually looks like, so no makeup, blood, or masks. This means Sydney, Tokyo, Osaka, any shows with the clear plastic mask, the skeleton, black swan, the forehead bullet hole and WWWY (the old man night) are out. The rest of the shows are good though. I would especially love photos of the cheerleader. I would really love to make the main wiki photo cheerard.

SOMETHING YOU ARE WILLING TO RELEASE COPYRIGHT OF. Any image that goes onto Wikipedia effectively becomes creative commons when uploaded, and there is a rule specifically prohibiting the use of images that have been given "wiki permission" from their photographers - ie, the photographer says "this is okay to upload on Wikipedia but not anywhere else." That's against the rules, so you/your friend needs to be okay with the image being allowed for use by anyone forever, effectively

IF YOU HAVE A PHOTO THAT COULD WORK: DM me here or on discord. My handle is the same over there. I know there's not going to be a lot out there. Most of the best photos are copyrighted and most of what everyone has taken is chaotic, dark, grainy, etc. I know this is a longshot, which is why I'm crowdsourcing.

NOT YET ASKED QUESTIONS (FAQ):

"Isn't wikipedia editable by anyone? Why are you putting yourself in charge of this and asking for people to reach out to you instead of just asking someone with the photo to upload it to wikipedia themselves?"

Yes, Wikipedia is editable by anyone who chooses. If you have an image you have taken yourself that you think will work and want to go make this change, go for it. However, unfortunately, this is a less trivial thing than it seems. As detailed above, Wikipedia's copyright rules are extremely strict, which is why previous efforts have failed. Additionally, Gerard's article is semi-protected, which means it can only be edited by a registered Wikipedia user with a certain number of days on the website. Additionally, Wikipedia is actually pretty tightly controlled. Most of Wikipedia is closely watched by experienced editors and changes to popular articles (pages about current celebrities very much count) will be reverted if they don't meet guidelines. In fact, if you go look at the talk page on Gerard's wiki right now, a lovely soul has offered a beautiful photo of the secretary to be used for the article, but it's never been updated, likely because the photo is very low quality and not very clear, and doesn't show their face well. I have some experience editing Wikipedia, and I want to use that to guide this towards being done the right way. Previous attempts to update the image that fall outside of Wikipedia's guidelines have been reverted half a dozen times and that's why we still have the image we have. If you have a photo to use and Wikipedia experience, please go swap it in yourself, I'll love you forever. However, I know that's not something a ton of people have. So I promise I'm not trying to make myself god of a Wikipedia article here - I just want to shepherd this towards getting fixed for good by making sure it's done 100% above board this time, so it sticks.

If you don't have a photo, I would appreciate a reblog. I need as many eyes as I can. I know someone out there has something that will work - help me find them!

[whatusername00]

Which Baldur's Gate Characters Know How To Lace Up Their Clothing - Tiefling Edition

Or, Part 2. Honestly didn't expect my earlier post to be so popular, but I enjoyed doing it and enjoyed taking the screenshots for this one too. Honestly I intend to continue doing this regardless of how popular it is because I need to know.

I went through all the tieflings at the Emerald Grove, so if someone's not listed here it's probably because they just don't have anything that laces shut. I don't think I missed anyone.

Starting with Zevlor. Honestly I'm not even sure this is actually lacing rather than decoration. If it is laced, it's the only spiral lacing I've seen so far, but's its so miniscule I'm not totally sure. There are other instances of this same pattern that definitely are decoration, but this is the only one that looks like it goes over two pieces, so I'm convincing myself it's actually laced. I give it a 8/10. Perfect execution, but so small I don't know why it's there at all.

So Alfira, Lia, and Rechel all where the same corset with slightly different colors, so I'll just judge them all at once. Something I've noticed is that Larian rarely shoes the knot where these characters tie off their lacing, which really bugs me. It especially bugs be here, since corsets are one of my favorite things to make. But, the corset (both the front and the sides) have a horizontal lace at the top and bottom, which is accurate and not seen on a lot of the lacing in game where it should be, even if it is missing a knot. Lia and Rechel get a 9/10, and Alfira gets a 9.1/10 because I like the purple lacing.

Zorru and Lakrissa both have this sleeve lacing. One of the very few instances of knots being shown! Unfortunately, it's not laced properly. They do the same thing Astarion does - one eyelet in a pair is laced from the outside, and the other is laced from the inside. For cross-lacing, they should match. Also, I think this is two separate pieces of lacing instead of one long piece, which bugs me, but there are clearly two knots which is nice. 7/10.

As far as his front closure goes, it's nice! Honestly I'm a little bored of the cross-lacing at this point, but I guess that's just the style at this point in time. The lacing is consistent, which is something some of our companions couldn't do. 10/10.

As far as his shoulders go, I don't know how I feel about it. It's a bunch of different pieces of lacing, which means a bunch of different knots to tie. Definitely tied everything together once and never bothers with it again. Which, same. I do that with my shoes. 8/10 at least cut the ends to be the same length dude.

Bex's shirt is the same as Tav's starting outfit. Her skirt, however, has...this on the back. We're going to ignore her tail phasing through the top two crosses. At first, I hated the design, because why do you need a skirt that's split down the back. Honestly, the only thing that would be needed to sell this design to be would be to get rid of the top two crosses that I can obviously see, then it would make sense, because of the tail. But then why don't you just sew the skirt together from there down instead of lacing it? It already ties in the front. I guess I still hate the design.

But I digress. I'm arbitrarily judging the actual lacing job, not the skirt design. 8/10 there's no knot.

Toron is cursed with the lack of knots. I'm also fairly certain this is 3 separate laces, because I don't think this pattern is possible with one lace. If it's not knotted and the ends are just hanging down on the inside of his overshirt, I can only imagine how annoying it is. Honestly like 3/10 I hate looking at it.

Asharak, Danis, and Kanon (and Blurg, but he's not here) have the same outfit. And the way this is laced is not physically possible without fastening the lacing into place with sewing or glue or something. The lacing goes in and back out of the same eyelet on each cross, which would just pull the lacing out. Also, once again, not ends, no knots. 0/10 not physically possible.

Listen. This lacing is kind of atrocious. And given the circumstances (orphan, child) I'm willing to forgive him. However, that top right eyelet. He laced it in and back out of the same eyelet. Can't do that. At least 2 eyelets are missing. And I was having a hard time actually following the lacing so I pulled out a corset to try and follow - that lacing is not possible. The 4th eyelet from the top on the left has too many lines going to it. So, sorry Mattis, but 0/10. Meli also wears this top, btw.

Mirkon wears the same overshirt that Yenna does. So someone taught him how to lace his shirt properly. Didn't really help him with the harpies, but at least he looked put together while being lured. 10/10.

Arabella and Zaki wear the same outfit. And there no knot. Can you believe it? No knotting your lacing, in this game? Never seen before. It also seems to have the opposite issue and Asharak, Danis, and Kanon. Her lacing seems to go in and back out of the same eyelet, but instead of coming from the top, it comes from the bottom. Regardless, same issue, 0/10 not possible.

Locke and Umi wear the same outfit that Tav wears by default, except Locke's pants button instead of tie. That means the notes are about the same. They know how to lace, yay. Though they switch the lacing on the final cross, it has purpose - to keep the ends of the lacing on the outside (though it still sticks out.) 9/10.

And I think that's all the tieflings. And wow is it a lot. If you want to see this same thing for other characters, I'll link them below.

Camp Characters

[arceespinkgun]

The weirdness about seekers has blended so much into fanon that you can hardly find a fanfiction without the creepy exotic bird concept! If people wanted to explore the seekers through their alt mode, I personally like the idea that they suffer sensory drawbacks from their high functioning targeting systems when in bot mode. In fact, Starscream has canonically experienced sensory overload from loud noises or certain frequencies! Or y'know maybe they're just aliens who transform into jets and people can not reinvent racism :')

Also where did the trine telepathy come from because as far as I can tell the first canonical twin telepathy was introduced in Bayverse through Mudflap and Skids, but they're not even seekers let alone Decepticons. The same continuity has tertiary material with Megatron and Optimus as twins, therefore they have the ability. An example of Optimus sensing his twin can be seen in age of extinction where he deduces that Galvatron was made from the remnants of Megatron. How on earth did it find its way so heavily characterized in elite trine/seeker fanon if the original concept didn't even involve the elite trine and the only miniscule link is that Bayverse Megatron turns into a jet???

It is extra appropriate that you mention the sensory overload thing since that panel people sometimes share where Starscream goes through that was caused by Thundercracker (and then Skywarp shoots him down) XD

From The Transformers (UK) #15

Some fanon is cool so I don't think fans should throw all of it out, but sometimes I wonder if it might be a nice challenge for people to occasionally attempt to make something where they attempt to utilize either no or as little fanon as possible, and either keep it 100% canon, or use only the headcanons and new concepts they've personally made up that aren't based on any existing community fanon. I think that might help people think of new ideas in fic especially, where a lot of the same fanon just keeps getting reused everywhere.

Okay, so, I don't 100% know if this is accurate, but I'm fairly certain the telepathy thing doesn't come from any canon source about twins like the Bayverse examples you mention. I may be wrong since I wasn't there (anyone else feel free to explain more), but from discussions and fics I've seen, I think it comes from the old and popular fanon that sparkbonding results in a psychic and emotional link between partners, especially since a lot of fics I've seen have said things about twin or trine characters along the lines of, "we share a link, not like couples do but a different kind" and so on.

...Or... look, I kinda didn't want to bring this up, but while I love the idea of transformers having relationships that aren't similar to ones humans have, and I think relationship anarchy can be a great thing, sometimes I really can't help but feel that in a lot of fanon, trines were maybe invented by fans to explore both being siblings and dating... simultaneously... and it can be really weird or creepy.... >_>

So, I'm an Oplita fan, and Elita-1 and Optimus were/are girlfriend and boyfriend in the Sunbow cartoon but then both ended up saying they see the same guy as a dad figure who rebuilt them to only be able to interface with each other. I think this is just funny, and I don't mind situations like this happening. They're robots! When I'm saying the trine stuff can be really weird, I mean that it's often presented as like, characters in a trine get created to be like siblings and have a very sibling-like bond from the start in a human-like way, and then do romantic and sexual stuff and have that added to the bond. That can feel creepy to me, particularly since trines are 100% fanon and do not exist anywhere in any canon media, so that can make me feel even more suspicious about what the intentions are....