booklover2113

The Amur Leopard and Clouded Leopard (which recently celebrated its 50th cub born at the zoo!)

The Sumatran Tiger

The Red Ruffed Lemur and Ring-Tailed Lemur

The Cotton-Top Tamarin and White-Cheeked Gibbon

The Colobus Monkey and De Brazza’s Monkey

And the Mexican Spider Monkey!

So from then on whenever one of us called something problematic, he would make us talk it out until we could name the “bad” thing we were hinting at. In this particular class, 7/10 it was some type of oppression, and the remainder was like, “I’m uncomfortable because this is very new/confusing/pushing boundaries that made me feel safe.”

Once we stopped calling things “problematic” and stopping at that, class got way more interesting and... we all had to say, like, “that’s racist” or “that’s misogynistic” or “ew capitalism gross” out loud, which a lot of us had never done in a classroom before. Or we had to be like, “Uhhh... I’m not sure what’s so bad?” and confront our own beliefs and that was maybe even more useful.

Just a jingly jangly fool.

Memorial day at Marlas

Sliding in at the last minute to close off Mermay with some AU fanart of Simon and Baz from @rainbowrowell's Carry On.

Okay, so this particular illustration has been a rather long time coming. I did the original sketch for it two whole years ago, and since then I've worked on it a little bit here and there. But it's finally here! A bit messy for the odd journey it took, but still, HERE!

I had originally intended for Simon's tail and fin wings to be red, but after I posted my sketches, @monbons made these absolutely adorable dolls of them and gave them to me. (I treasure them!) She opted to make Simon's tail and wings green, and it got me thinking. I was then also inspired by the colors of the majestic sockeye salmon, and ta-da! Red and green. Baz also gets a purple(ish) tail. Because I too love putting him in purple. His tail and fins were inspired by those gorgeous tropical fish with striking patterns and beautiful diaphanous-looking fins. (I'm not sure which ones. I only know Alaskan fish.)

Anyway. Here, enjoy fishy Snowbaz! They will always have a special place in my heart.

Erasmus & Kallias

From The Training of Erasmus by C.S Pacat

Laurent & Damen

From the Captive Prince trilogy by C.S. Pacat

How to spring-load your bow!

You mean like how people read books at libraries, and end up buying them if they like them?

“That’s not the same 😡”

thank you, my darlings

for making this my most attended tour to date

for loving my books so much that you bring amazing handmade gifts and cosplay my characters and get TATTOOS (!!!)

for making the lows worthwhile

for being the cause of all the highs

i am so honored you let me make stories for you

Food Empowerment Project maintains an updated list of chocolate brands they recommend based on the following standards:

transparency about the country of origin for cocoa

if sourced from Western Africa, the workers must own the companies/be in charge of the profits from their labor (this standard is because child labor and slavery have been widely documented for decades in this area)

if sourced from Brazil, the workers must own the company and/or be in charge of the profits from their labor, or the company must be going above and beyond to support the workers and their families (this standard is because "child labor and slavery only recently have been documented in cocoa in Brazil" and they are "giving Brazilian companies that are trying to address the issue by supporting the workers and their families the benefit of the doubt.")

[Source: "Understanding Our Chocolate List" from their website]

So, Tony’s allied with Barry Callebut to get its cocoa. Barry Callebut is one of the biggest chocolate companies in the world, and it is unethical, obviously. This led to Tony’s revealing in February 2022 that 1701 child laborers were in their supply chain. Barry Callebut had over 21K at the time. Both of those numbers have risen, and Tony’s has outright admitted they don’t give a fuck about child labor laws when asked about it, content to let children to continue farming their cocoa instead of actually doing the activism they claim to do. (business-humanrights.org, feb 6 2022)

About a week ago, Tony’s joined Barry, Nestle and Ferrero in pushing against the reinstatement of important EUDR deforestation legislations. Under that regulation that they pushed against, they would’ve had to be more transparent about their supply chains for their more key ingredients - So Tony’s is lobbying against the exact thing they claim to stand for. (confectioneryproduction.com, mar 18, 2026)

Won’t restate @closet-keys’s addition, of course. That’d just be redundant and maybe annoying since, yknow, it’s already been said.

If you wanna find a better chocolate brand it’s really damn easy. There’s lists on slavefreechocolate.org of both the ethical and unethical companies. Both lists can be found here: