crazyscot

This is more partial even than usual, because I've had some download problems that I've since fixed. But we can let that filter out to the second quarter; time waits for etc. etc.

This Is Not a Love Poem, Alexandra Dawson (Reckoning)

I Met You On the Train, J. R. Dawson (Uncanny)

The Doorkeepers, A. T. Greenblatt (Uncanny)

Unsettled Nature, Jordan Kurella (Apex)

Straw Gold, Mari Ness (Small Wonders)

No Kings/No Soldiers, A.M. Tuomala (Uncanny)

Blade Through the Heart, Carrie Vaughn (Reactor)

Antediluvian, Rem Wigmore (Reckoning)

https://archiveofourown.org/admin_posts/34531

AO3 Tag Wranglers continue to test processes for wrangling canonical additional tags (tags that appear in the auto-complete) which don't belong to any particular fandom (also known as "No Fandom" tags). This post overviews some of these upcoming changes.

In this round of updates, we continued to streamline creating new canonical tags, prioritizing more straightforward updates which would have less discussion compared to renaming current canonical tags or creating new canonical tags which touch on more complex topics. This method also reviews new tags on a regular basis, so check back on AO3 News for periodic "No Fandom" tag announcements.

None of these updates change the tags users have added to works. If a user-created tag is considered to have the same meaning as a new canonical, it will be made a synonym of one of these newly created canonical tags, and works with that user-created tag will appear when the canonical tag is selected.

In short, these changes only affect which tags appear in AO3's auto-complete and filters. You can and should continue to tag your works however you prefer.

New Canonicals

The following concepts have been made new canonical tags:

• All Characters Are Of Legal Age
• Black Cat/Golden Retriever Personality Dynamics
• Cannibalism as a Metaphor for Love
• Canon-Typical Cannibalism
• Characters in Love
• Classism
• Cock Stepping
• Crotch Stepping
• Crying After Sex
• Dramatic Irony
• Established Friendship
• Fealty
• Fealty Kink
• Loyalty Kink
• Pain Kink
• Thigh Kink
• Frotting | Rubbing Penises Together
• Girls in Love
• Grumpy/Sunshine Relationships
• Happy Tears
• Mating Press Position
• Moodboards
• Muscular Female Characters
• Muscular Male Characters
• Consensual Omegaverse Bitching | Turning into an Omega
• Omegaverse Bitching | Turning into an Omega
• Omegaverse Studding | Turning into an Alpha
• Omegaverse Alpha Bitching | Alpha Turning into an Omega
• Omegaverse Beta Bitching | Beta Turning into an Omega
• Relationship Wingmanning
• Consensual Spanking

In Conclusion

While some of these tags may be tags and concepts you're intimately familiar with, others may be concepts you've never heard of before. Fortunately, our fellow OTW volunteers at Fanlore may be able to help! As you may have seen in the comments sections of previous posts, Fanlore is a fantastic resource for learning more about these common fandom concepts, and about the history and lore of fandom in general. For the curious, here's a quick look at a few articles about concepts related to this month's new canonical tags:

• Aesthetic Edit
• Alpha/Beta/Omega
• Cannibalism
• Domestic Discipline
• Friendship
• Grumpy Character and the Sunshine Character
• Loyalty Kink
• Sex Position

While we won't be announcing every change we make to No Fandom canonical tags, you can expect similar updates in the future about tags we believe will most affect users. If you're interested in the changes we'll be making, you can continue to check AO3 News or follow us on Bluesky @wranglers.archiveofourown.org or Tumblr @ao3org for future announcements.

You can also read previous updates on "No Fandom" tags as well as other wrangling updates, linked below:

• Past "No Fandom" Additional Tags Updates and 5 Things Said by Wrangling Volunteers
• Past Fandom-Specific and "No Fandom" Tag Wrangling Change Posts

For more information about AO3's tag system, check out our Tags FAQ.

In addition to providing technical help, AO3 Support also handles requests related to how tags are sorted and connected.​ If you have questions about specific tags, which were first used over a month ago and are unrelated to any of the new canonical tags listed above, please contact Support instead of leaving a comment on this post.

Please keep in mind that discussions about what tags to canonize and what format they should take are ongoing. As a result, not all related concepts will be canonized at the same time. This does not mean that related or similar concepts will not be canonized in the future or that we have chosen to canonize one specific concept in lieu of another, simply that we likely either haven’t gotten to that related concept yet or that it needs further discussion and will take a bit longer for us to canonize it as a result. We appreciate your patience and understanding.

Lastly, we're still working on implementing changes and connecting relevant user-created tags to these new canonicals, so it’ll be some time before these updates are complete. If you have questions about specific tags which should be connected to these new canonicals, please refrain from contacting Support about them until at least three months from now to give us adequate time to do so.

The Organization for Transformative Works is the non-profit parent organization of multiple projects including Archive of Our Own, Fanlore, Open Doors, OTW Legal Advocacy, and Transformative Works and Cultures. We are a fan-run, donor-supported organization staffed by volunteers. Find out more about us on our website.

https://archiveofourown.org/admin_posts/34531

I'm reading, and really enjoying, Annalee Newitz's Four Lost Cities.

I'm currently reading about Pompeii, and I was struck by the mention of about how little was recorded about that volcanic eruption and the cities that were "lost" in its aftermath.

I thought of how conspicuously absent our society's cultural response to the covid pandemic has been, even before Newitz themself drew an explicit parallel with the Spanish flu epidemic which apparently also had a similar effect.

I was struck by this because just this morning, I was in a meeting about an upcoming Mental Health Awareness Week event at work. I had to join a bit late so I don't know the context but as I joined, someone newish to my org -- which covers the whole country so we're mostly hybrid/remote -- said that starting this job was hard for me because going back to working from home was something he hadn't done "since covid." #CovidIsNotOver, of course. (I felt some kind of way listening to someone talk as if they were triggered by an event that is still ongoing if you ask me.) But he's totally right about how we haven't really addressed it in any meaningful way -- the lack of pragmatic mitigations almost requires us to participate in this cognitive dissonance of referring to the pandemic in the past tense when it's only the lockdowns, the testing, the mask mandates, the period of taking it as seriously as it warrants, which is past.

I was immediately reminded of that Audrey Watters piece I linked to the other day, about grief that isn't observed. If she's right that "it matters that GPT was released during the COVID pandemic (and ChatGPT shortly 'after')," (and how I appreciate the scare-quotes around "after" there!), this is a meaning that's lost if we don't talk about the covid pandemic.

I think covid is intimately linked to changes in transport infrastructure and the built environment that make my job harder -- hastily-enacted legislation to allow more tables and chairs on pavements means more obstacles that never had to undergo an Equality Impact Assessment; "pop-up" cycle lanes led to lasting trends in active travel infrastructure that still deprioritize pedestrians; e-scooters were seen as more useful in a world where people were discouraged to go anywhere but particularly to use public transport; I could go on -- and the further that lockdowns and other facets of pandemic mitigations get, the harder it is for me to address those things properly.

It's interesting to see what feels like such a modern ill also taking place as long ago as Pompeii, in as different a culture as that Roman one was. Is it such a fundamental human thing to just block out the bad times so thoroughly? I can't help but think we can do much better to look after ourselves, individually and as collective societies.

A couple of days ago, I determined that my webcam wasn't working on my laptop, for calls with my parents, or on my work laptop.

D kindly took it away the other day, and diagnosed it as Dead. He also reminded me we had one that I could use for work but doesn't work on Linux -- something I'd entirely forgotten about; I think I'd conflated it with the other webcam which had stopped working entirely...

He also sourced a replacement, sent me a link. Which I said was terribly sweet of him but I didn't really need, just for my parents when I could shuffle things around and just use the camera on the laptop. But it arrived the next day; he'd bought it for me anyway. "Thirty quid to keep your parents happen seems worth it," he said. Awww.

So, tonight I was so looking forward to the call with my parents starting with something other than my mom complaining that she can't see me.

Instead, the first thing she said when my camera pops on was "You're getting those deep wrinkles in your forehead too, like Grandma [my mom's own mother]."

Which a) only when I frown, or raise my eyebrows [so maybe this is the only way my parents will ever see me, lol] b) my grandma was a badass, so I hardly mind looking like her! c) to age is to live!

But most of all: she's treating me in a way she'd consider horrible bad manners if I behaved this way toward anyone.

Again. (A story I'm fond of trotting out is the time we were in a restaurant, my appetizer arrived, she looked disgusted at it and asked me warily what that was; I said "butternut squash soup" and she said "oh yuck!" A thing I'd have been told off for if I'd reacted that way to someone else's food that I both didn't have to and shouldn't have eaten!)

Can't believe D paid £30 for my appearance to be insulted like this, heh. It's a fancy webcam too; he said he got "only" 720p rather than the £50 1080p, and I was thinking this is already too big a number, I don't want my parents to see me in high definition (unfortunately for me, I said this as "that's too many p for my face!" which made D snigger because his mind is always in the gutter!). it's very zoomed-in too, which is unsettling for me too since I have to have my monitor so close to me. It's been such a long time since Mom commented on my facial hair and I'd like that to become a much longer time, an unbroken streak. She's gonna say whatever she wants as soon as she (thinks that she) is off-mic; all I ask is for her to be polite to my face!

Posted by fromtheheartofeurope

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/liberation-the-unoffical-and-unauthorised-guide-to-blakes-7-by-alan-stevens-and-fiona-moore/

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/?p=65685

Second paragraph of chapter on third episode (“Cygnus Alpha”):

“Cygnus Alpha” gives us our third iteration of a totalitarian society (in this case, a theocratic one), demonstrating that, even on the outskirts of civilisation, oppression persists. We have surveillance, both human and divine; we have social control which is as much by the individual as by the state the prisoners are not being held against their will and, when offered freedom by Blake, most choose to stay, simply because it seems the easier option); we have state-sanctioned torture and abuse (and, upon seeing Blake’s condition after torture, Arco blames the victim, telling Blake that he should have stayed out of trouble); we have control using drugs (in the form of Vargas’s Big Lie, that the drugs consumed in the religious ceremonies keep them alive; we have guards who attack Blake in a scene reminiscent of the flashbacks in “The Way Back”. Sexual abuse is not mentioned, but we do have sex as an agent of social control: while Kara is visibly attracted to Gan, her kissing him seems to be as much a way of getting the most powerful man in the new group on her side as anything.

A comprehensive episode-by-episode guide to Blake’s 7, with each season introduced with notes on the overall production context, and clear opinions about which are the best and worst stories. Originally published in 2003, so before Big Finish started to produce audios featuring the surviving members of the original crew (and then their replacements), but an appendix covers the spinoff novels, plays and audios up to that point. I don’t agree with all the judgements – I have a sneaking affection, for instance, for “City at the Edge of the World”, while on the other hand I found the skeevy gender politics of the three episodes by Ben Steed unredeemable. However it’s good to have a chunky reference volume to pore over.

You can get Liberation here (for a price).

This was the non-fiction book that had lingered longest on my unread shelves. Next on that pile is Mantel Pieces, by Hilary Mantel.

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/liberation-the-unoffical-and-unauthorised-guide-to-blakes-7-by-alan-stevens-and-fiona-moore/

https://fromtheheartofeurope.eu/?p=65685

Wish to inform those that are interested in Clorinda Cathcart's Circle that Volume 25, Choices: Taking Decisions will appear this coming Friday, 27th March:

A Parliamentary election causes considerable upheaval to the summer plans of Society in general, and of Clorinda and her circle. But besides any choices concerning the government of the nation, several of them find that they have to make decisions touching on more personal matters.

http://www.qwantz.com/index.php?comic=4450

archive - contact - sexy exciting merchandise - search - about

← previous	March 23rd, 2026	next
March 23rd, 2026: Hey, I've got a store - perhaps some DINOSAUR COMICS MERCHANDISE would interest you?? – Ryan

http://www.qwantz.com/index.php?comic=4450

1. Trump has delighted apocalyptic Christians. They say the End Times are coming

(tags:apocalypse religion Christianity politics Israel middle_east Palestine )

2. VFX artists vs. The Golden Gate Bridge

(tags:cgi bridge sanfrancisco )

3. The seven new towns set to be built across the UK, mapped

(tags:UK housing )

4. Iran says coastal attack will lead to full Gulf closure and mine-laying

(tags:iran middle_east usa war doom )

Compared with the climate emergency, genocide, inequality, corruption, democratic backsliding, authoritarianism and sustained racist, homophobic, misogynist and transphobic attacks, the internet is just a sideshow. But the internet ...is the communications medium we will use to organise to save our species and planet from their imminent eradication. We can’t win these fights without a free, fair and open internet. [introduction]

Audiobook, read (with vigour and enthusiasm) by the author. Doctorow's foundational argument is something most internet users will agree with: that big internet sites, such as Facebook, Amazon, and the-site-formerly-known-as-Twitter, have become much less usable and user-friendly over recent years. (I would add Del.icio.us, Vinted, Goodreads, LiveJournal...)

Posted by Daily Otter

https://dailyotter.org/posts/2026/3/23/why-is-the-fur-of-sea-otter-pups-so-different

Via Alaska SeaLife Center, which writes:

Look closely. Can you see the differences between the pup coat and adult coat of a northern sea otter?

Sea otters have a different coat for the first three months of their life, with a longer loft and longer guard hairs than an adult coat. The pup coat keeps pups afloat on top of the water, just like a lifejacket.

Our rehab team has described it like “a cotton ball in water.”

Here’s a close-up look at Un’a’s coat when she was first admitted at about 2 months old, and at her coat again 6 weeks later after she molted. Notice the reduction of the lighter colored guard hairs.

https://dailyotter.org/posts/2026/3/23/why-is-the-fur-of-sea-otter-pups-so-different

It always surprises me that Boots isn't open until 9am. You would have thought that there'd be enough people wanting to pick up painkillers or similar on the way in to work.

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260322.html

What would it look like to leave planet Earth?

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap260322.html

We were delighted by Shadow’s response to his first visitors last night. We kept him crated until they’d seated themselves ready to watch the first two eps of Slings & Arrows. He made not a peep when they arrived nor during our typically uproarious dinner. Once we let him out of the crate, he observed them closely. One guest had recently enjoyed a hot-and-sour sauce on her egg roll. She invited him closer and he licked her hands! He permitted the other to pet his back. He curled up in his bed (immediately below the TV) and peacefully admired the assembled multitude.

Early this AM MyGuy placed one of Shadow’s beds on my side of our bed. Around 6AM he tip tip tap tipped into the bedroom and curled up in it, keeping me company for 45 minutes.

He was in the breezeway with MyGuy 20 minutes ago, having just come back from his evening constitutional. Just as his lead was unhooked, the leonine March wind blew open the door to the backyard. Shadow was out like a shot. MyGuy called him back, but he kept backing up. At last, MyGuy leaned on the garage holding the door open, and Shadow scooted right back in to the breezeway.

The wisdom around rescues is a rule of 3: 3 days to decompress, 3 weeks to learn routines, and 3 months to feel fully at home. We’re on track.

(Got to get some Shadow icons!)