So… I Got A Notification From The State Department At Like 8 PM Pacific That My Passport Was Approved,

Due to a misspelling on my part while writing down a wish I wanted the djinni to grant me, I have been transported back in time and turned into a servant of the king of England, Denmark, and Norway

The Exotic Animal Photo Reference Repository is live!

You can find it at: https://www.animal-photo-references.com!

Here's how this repository works: all photos were taken by me, a human, at zoos, aquariums, sanctuaries, and other facilities with animals in human care. There is no AI involved in the photo editing or creation and there never will be. Right now there's 56 species on the site; my catalog has over 300 and I will be uploading the rest of them as fast as I can.

Artists creating derivative or transformative works (without AI) have blanket permission to use these references. Yes, even for work you're going to sell.

All other usage/reproduction requires permission, but assume I'm friendly and please do ask! That's educators, researchers, the media, people who need images for a school presentation, etc. This is just to retain copyright/control in case they're scraped/reused unethically - it doesn't meant I don't want folk to have access! So please do reach out via the contact form on the repository website, I don't bite and I'm most likely going to say yes.

Please don't repost the repository photos to your own blogs: I've created @animalphotorefs as a dedicated blog to share photos from the site, and of course I'll reblog a lot of it here! That again just helps with retaining copyright and sourcing of the images. If you really want to repost some for a specific purpose, please just ask me first!

Also, folks, this project has no funding. It's just me and my camera.

There will never be a paywall on the site - I believe resources like this absolutely must be free for everyone to access. So please, please, please support the repository if you use it. Want sneak peeks at photos, cute videos I take, or to help choose what I photograph and what gets posted first? You can do that through Patreon (and there's a free trial on the most interactive tier!) If you'd like to just drop a tip, I've also set up a Ko-Fi.

I can't wait to hear what everyone thinks of the repository.

To whet your thirst for cute photos, here's an Indian rhinoceros contemplating a goose.

gay Italians in their natural habitat

I think it’s right to emphasize that Palestinian men don’t deserve this and it’s also right to rally around Palestinian children, children being the most vulnerable members of any society and also being half of Gaza’s population

My sister is doing pet play with women on roblox and I don’t have the heart to tell her it’s probably a kink for the others involved

honestly reading the Neil Gaiman piece on Vulture I was just thinking about Bojack Horseman the whole time. like. he's got trauma and whatever else, maybe he even convinced himself it was all consensual, but at the end of the day he's empowered by a larger system to do this type of shit & it will always be easier to not change, to not grow, and to just indulge your worst possible impulses over and over again. because everyone around you wants you to do that. they want to enable you. they want you to either get away with it so they don't have to face consequences by extension, or they want you to do it so you're as bad as they are and you're less likely to challenge them when they do it.

Like no, he's not a monster; he's a human person who knew better but chose worse anyway. I don't totally believe he knew exactly what he was doing, or that he's doing it to maintain some kind of rich vs. poor, powerful vs. powerless dynamic.

I think he's a man with childhood trauma who has been told that he should not heal, he should not change, he should not challenge the system, and in fact it is better that he participate in it. That he can take the easy way out (not that it'll ever actually lead him anywhere close to "out"), and he should, and it'll be easy, and everyone around him will enable and protect him if he does. That if he decides to fight for real healing and real growth instead, he will have to fight hard against everything and everyone around him, and he will be alone in that fight.

That's the wrong choice. He's responsible for all of the hurt he caused every single time he made it. He deserves no sympathy from fucking anyone for any of it. The only way out is through, and that means facing all of the full consequences of his many, many fucked up and horrible choices.

And I think we need to reckon with the system that makes the horrible shit Gaiman did feel like the easiest option, or we're not gonna get anywhere.

It bugs me that so many people's default example of published fanfic is 50 Shades of Grey.

What about West Side Story, a famous modern AU of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet?

What about Dante's Inferno, a self-insert RPF if I've ever seen one?

What about Wicked, a pre-canon AU of The Wizard of Oz?

Hell, what about Percy Jackson? There's definitely an argument to be made that that's a modern AU of various Greek myths.

Humans have been writing fanfic as long as they have been telling stories. In about the year 20 BC, our dear Roman poet Ovid wrote the Heroides, a series of aggrieved "letters" from the female characters of famous myths to their respective male heroes. Are you telling me that Ovid, writing a letter from the perspective of Queen Dido to Aeneas -- Aeneas, whose fantastical adventures were put into poem by Virgil -- wasn't writing an outsider-POV fic? A fic that is, in fact, translated in Latin classes world-wide today!

There is so much famous fanfic out there, but people tend to forget that it is fanfic once it becomes mainstream enough. And as a consequence of that, people who aren't into fandom don't see how beautiful fanfic is, and some members of fandom feel shame associated with writing and reading fic. But fanfic is beautiful, and it is something humans have always done, and it is nothing to be ashamed about.

So if you ever find yourself in a situation to give an example of published fic, think outside the box. Remember that published fanfics hide in plain sight; once they're famous enough, we no longer think of them as fanfic. And never forget that fanfic is a very, very old human tradition, and your ancestors who partook in it would not have wanted you to feel ashamed of it.

Idk man it’s so easy to get bogged down in all the bullshit online but when my then-6 year old cousin found out I was trans he said “ok” then corrected my grandma when she misgendered me. I was once the third between a gay man and a lesbian. Two lesbians once invited me back to their place when I presented as a man. I met an AMAB nb butch who looked strikingly to outsiders like a cis man and it was one of the more sapphic experiences I’ve had. I nervously wore a boydyke shirt to pride and got 3 different cis-looking femme folks tell me they loved my shirt. I once told a trans group at a protest that any pronouns were fine for me and one person said “wow, I’m impressed and intimidated by people like that. I don’t know that I could be that chill with pronouns.” I once told a GNC friend I wished I could wear a type of “opposite” gender clothing after I had already transitioned and so it would be associated with my AGAB and he said “You could just do it.” I’ve had cishet men fight cops for me before. The first time I had a doctor ask me if my name was different than what was on my forms I had to try not to cry. Last week, a phone call with a doctor’s office where I am generally cis passing asked unprompted if my name listed is what I want to be called. It touched me then too. I told a lesbian friend once I felt like my attraction to men AND women both felt gay. She said “makes sense.” And we moved on. I go by different pronouns in different circles. I’ve had gay women love my facial hair. I’ve had gay men like my tits. It’s all out there, I promise. It can be hard to find it but I promise there is community like you and community who likes you. And it’s more messy and beautiful than tumblr discourse makes it out to be.

hey genuine question why do people put that fucking water filter over screenshots. just post them. fuck you.

stolen off instagram but i laughed so hard when i saw this