#same level of energy I guess

[x-adoringvoid-x]

Apparently that's called the 'irresistible force paradox'

[lightbulb-warning]

i used to freehand comics all the time as a child and since the part i liked was the drawing part i would just draw panel after panel because i didn't want to stop drawing to think about icky icky words, plus the story TOTALLY still made perfect sense! to me! and noone else, but 'whoooo caaaaares omgggg its not like comics and sequantial art are a communicative meeediummmm lmaoooooo'. i spent my entire childhood telling myself stuff like "oh pfft I know this story by heart- ill SIMPLY remember the dialogue and write it later" ...and. I can't help but admire baby maiora's (call that a minora ba tm tsk) fucking audacity? hubris? confident wrongness? kid couldn't even remember to finish the comics in the first place? INCREDIBLE levels of unearned self assurance, wish that were me, genuinely- what an icon!!! anyway i think i have forever cursed myself

[windydrawallday]

Long-PSA-short of sorts that's more a vent: I was always aware my behavior and way of expressing myself online can surprise many people, especially if they are not used to someone who uses the writing medium as a playful form to tell emotions in a very descriptive way as I do. I'm quite affectionate with words, yes. And I always beg people I hang with personally to let me know if some of that bothers them, curtly of course. So far there have been few instances of individuals confusing those signals with ulterior means, things I assure you there's nothing more than me being friendly and supportive.

Imagine idk an excited dog seeing its owner haha

Until the past week, I found myself being tackled by something that made me almost knock everything aside because it made me realize that probably I'm a walking trigger/squick inducer with even the way I wield words like "love" and "friendship".

Almost...

I'm pretty tolerant of whatever way people conduct themselves in this life, the only moment I flinch is when an individual assumes from my default behavior and presentation that I want to impose my way of life... And nopes.

This is simply how and who I am. Nothing more, nothing less. I don't search for conflict but for understanding. My language for expressing marvel and reflections is like this, never to make the other feel awkward or attacked.

So, it upset me knowing that by wielding this forever welcoming and lovable disposition, I can be something to fear and even despite... to some people.

But, you know? That means that my "love" and "friendship" lifestyle are not made for you, no reason to come back to me and point at it. Just keep walking if you have only rage and rejection to give as a reply to my point of view. Because by wielding rage and rejection, what you only do is burn bridges. To create conflict and assume imaginary antagonistic scenarios where there's nothing of that at all.

You can't create the world you wish to live in by burning bridges.

It took me a lot too to forge who I am right now. I even keep learning and chiseling through traumas and mistakes—kindness and patience taught me more than rage and rejection. And "love" and "friendship" are the bricks I chose to build those bridges. I know everyone else uses different concepts but in the end, we all build bridges. By creating bridges and inviting others to do the same, I expand not only my world, but the other's too!

Isn't that better than demanding to be this or that through a black/white flag of rage and rejection? I think so. And I understand perfectly we sometimes need to be blunt when marking our boundaries. Still, never justifies treating the other bad.

And if some of you find "fake" or distasteful the way I wear this flag of "love" and "friendship" I'm sorry: this place will never be safe for you then. The exit door is always open. Go ahead.

I hope you find your place and flags out there too, but don't forget that to do that you need to build bridges. If you don't want to call it "friendship" call it "glue" or whatever makes you comfortable, but don't kick people like me who fought with claws and teeth to reclaim those words and feelings.

Fight your fight by being a good example, not a bad experience that makes someone never want to deal with something like this again in their life.

"Any color you like, (in the end) they're all blue."

[seventh-district]

not even gonna tag this properly bc i don't wanna get Involved but i do have some Thoughts i need to get out into the void so here we go

(aaa quick edit: CW for mention/discussion of Boothill leaks)

[boynextdoorcoverpoison]

I’m just so… I don’t want jaehyun to eventually alter the way he acts or presents himself due to backlash from fans (in and out of the bonedo fandom) regarding his “loudness” and energy. it doesn’t cause harm to him or his band members. he’s relatively good at reading the room and adjusting his seriousness (like sometimes I think people think they chose the bonedo leader willy nilly lmao) and he’s not oblivious or unaware of his bandmates and others. like anyone else, I’m sure there’s moments when he might need help refocusing or w/e, but I have yet to see anyone who is warranted to have an opinion (ie: knows him irl) react negatively to his personality? like he’s not the first idol to be talkative. he’s not the first idol that might run around a bit. he’s not the first idol to make a lot of jokes or flirt with half his bandmates. it’s not a new personality. it’s a little different than what we see in other leaders but again, it’s not “new”. loud people were not invented in 2003. and over time, maybe he’ll mellow out a bit. it happens. or maybe he’ll remain as he is, that’s cool too. and as a leader, I kind of hope for the latter bc the industry will work them and burn them out and I hope they’re able to maintain their youth and softness towards the world. that not everything is a battle or a fight, that the job while a job, can be one they continue to enjoy to do.

[cerealmonster15]

i dont think i ever felt more annoyed at commercials than when those mean girls walmart ads were playing a few months ago or whenever that was

[pizzaqueen]

Man, I’d be a way better writer if life didn’t keep kicking me in the ass

(Probably not the most important thing to worry about though)

[elegyofthemoon]

tbh i think i just need to get into a media thatll shake me to my core the way me revisiting p//andora hearts at a crucial time shook me

[thesilverlady]

it's strange thing when i've opened the book i've discovered that the greens barely has any characterization, yes i got it , it's a history book so they will not be as complex and as deep as pov characters in the main books. But honestly even minor black characters get more characterization than main green characters, like take for example baela and rhaena we know about their personalities , childhood and their relationship with others much more than we know about Aegon ii the main claimant of the green and if you see Rhaenyra as the main protagonist Aegon could be considered as the main antagonist. so it's such a weird choice from grrm , was he more interested in writing the blacks than the greens, that's why they get more to them and the greens were neglected along the way, or Grrm simply made a deliberate choice of writing the greens as undeveloped?

I'd say the latter one, anon. Look at the Blackwood & Bracken Feud for example. George made it very clear who he wants his readers to side with. Same goes for the blacks and the greens.

While the overall dance is rooted in misogyny when it comes to the figureheads of the war I consider aegon & rhaenyra to be that.

George didn't develop the characters that were meant to be disposed quickly. And while the greens as a whole were definitely never given much of an insight I'd argue team blacks suffer the same. Rhaenyra is one of the main and most important characters of the dance and George always had her restraint; first passing over her isolated childhood, then brushing off the horrible marriage. The only happy moments we get are few sentences at the time when aegon III and viserys II are born. Lucerys and Joffrey also have the exact amount of personality as Helaena has aka none.

Meanwhile characters like Corlys, Addam, Daemon, even freaking Criston have a personality in which you can make a case of.

So I wouldn't even say it's a matter of "making the good characters shine more than the antagonists"

It's George playing favorites.

[theloveinc]

.

[eyivibyemi]

✧ I won’t really write descriptions for these, but see original post tags for explanation/commentary on the song snippet ✧

[insanechayne]

~ ~ ~

[fresnosnightcrawlers]

SORRY I liked the glass animals more than I expected to but I was underwhelmed ngl. I feel like it’s very Normal music but maybe I’m just always gonna miss zaba

[baltears]

if i am not thinking about them i am simply not thinking

[nimomo-mo]

Vent

[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!