Flaming Well

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!

We're asking our community to stand with us in protecting the animals, habitats, people and future of Nashville Zoo.

A proposed 69,000-square-foot data center is planned for property directly adjacent to the Zoo. While developers claim the facility will have no impact, no environmental studies or impact assessments have been conducted to evaluate potential effects on our animals, visitors, staff, or the surrounding community.

Data centers consume enormous amounts of electricity and water; straining power grids, depleting natural resources, and damaging our watershed. With nothing more than the word of a profit-seeking developer, how are we to know this new data center will not lead to irreversible damage to the animals we exist to protect?

We cannot afford to find out years from now how this facility has negatively impacted our 1.4 million annual visitors, our local community, or the 3,000 animals entrusting us with their care. We are calling on the Nashville community to join us in our fight to stop this data center from being built, now.

Rest in peace to the incredible Anthony Stewart Head (20th February 1954 - 1st June 2026)

For the fourth year in a row now, it's time for Small Fandom Summer! Join me for Small Fandom Summer! It's real easy to play:

Make a fanwork for something that has fewer than 1000 English-language works on AO3

Post it to AO3

And then you've done it! You've made a thing and you've diversified the fandom ecosystem! You're basically a hero.

Q: The fandom I want to create for has more than 1000 English-language works on AO3, but the specific pairing I want to write for has fewer than that. Does that count? A: Yes! Q: What if it has more than 1000 English-language works on AO3, but, like, just barely? A: Okay! Q: What if it actually has a lot more than 1000 English-language works on AO3, but it still feels small? A: Sure! Q: What if I don't want to post it to AO3? What if I don't even have an AO3 account? Can I post it somewhere else? A: Wherever! Q: What if-- A: Just do a thing, friend. Make a thing. Share the thing. This is not meant to be restrictive; this is meant to be inspirational. Create the fanworks you want to see in the world. Make a stranger happy by appealing to their niche interests. Bring joy.

And if you want to give yourself some silly little Steam-like achievement badges to commemorate your accomplishments, well, you're in luck! I've made a bunch of them right here! You can grab the ones that apply to your work and paste them wherever you like and feel good about what you've done. Here's a few of my favorites:

So you see? This is meant to be silly and fun.

There's nowhere to sign up. There's nothing to commit to. There's zero pressure. You just do it if you do it, and don't if you don't. But if you do want to play (yay!), tag your stuff with #small fandom summer so we can all swoop in and appreciate everyone else's efforts.

Green icon of a magnifying class over a beetle. Who's That Boy? (wrote for a character that previously had no AO3 tag)

Orange icon of a tape measure. Size Matters (wrote the longest fic to date in the fandom)

Grey icon of two women holding hands. Lesbifriends (wrote the first F/F fic in the fandom)

Yellow icon of a smiling face surrounded by hearts. My Special Person (wrote something because you knew that one person who'd appreciate it)

Blue icon of an elephant and a mouse. Lorge and Smol (wrote a crossover between a fandom with more than 1000 works and a small fandom)

Grey icon of handcuffs. Testing the Waters (this had better not awake anything in you)

Yellow icon of two fish approaching a hook. Hooked! (wrote something for the first time and are already planning on writing something else for it)

linked tree (includes options to donate to Ghanaian projects)

I love seeing other people make the overblown OOPS I FORGOT SOMETHING performance for no-one that most of us do when we have to turn around in the middle of the pavement.

- when someone thinks no one’s paying attention and they sing-talk themselves thru a task

- when people are looking for scissors, in their home or in a store, and they make the scissors gesture with their non-dominant hand as an aid to remind them what they’re doing.

- when automatic social interactions glitch, like when you tell a waiter that you hope he enjoys his food too, or tell the stranger on the phone that you love them. 

- the hand gesture people make when they’re thinking at their computer, not typing, and their elbow rests on the table, and they feel the edge of their fingernail with their thumb. This is such a lovely little gesture and to my knowledge I have never seen it in fiction. You’d think it would come up all the time in fic.

- when you’re sharing an experience with a complete stranger (like watching a seagull throw up in public, or waiting for a late train) and you make eye contact, and some comment to each other, and then you guys are, like, ALLIES now. Like you would willingly ride to war to save them. You can’t make eye contact again, but you are very aware of them. 

*proceeds to make him a wire ring and gets down on one knee.*

THAT'S FINE. 🫠🤪

Ya know, there's parts where Luo Wenzhou is being his absolute in love self but also holding back - because he knows he has to - and then Fei Du says something, something so simple or does some small romantic gesture and it knocks me over. He's really trying and it probably feels strange and awkward and he's unsure but he's really trying.