A close up of the Blanket Octopus during a blackwater dive with The Three P diving club , Romblon Island, Philippines. Credit: Joseph Elayani

@starsong-dragonheart

Banzai by Cloudtail

ok so, I approached my local library with a proposal to donate a mural as a way to A: build portfolio/gain practical experience and B: give back to a beloved public institution. The director was very enthusiastic about it and i've been working on it since the beginning of March. Come with me as I endeavor to paint what is in all honesty an excessive amount of birds

I wanted the birds to look like they were actually in the space so first thing after doing the draft was to do a lighting study

after that I covered the walls in letters in lieu of a projector/vr headset bc i have neither of those :) Then i take a picture of the section of wall and superimpose the lineart over top of it so I can pencil in the lines

et voila

and that was a whole week on it's own so next comes the paintin' >:)

and now, the birds

Birds 1 and 2/14: Red Winged Blackbird, Male and female, Agelaius phoeniceus

Bird 3/14, American Robin, Turdus migratorius

hoo boy, ok *out of breath*

GIVE IT UP FOR BIRD NUMBUH 5, THE CANADIAN GOOSE, Branta canadensis!!!!

this guy took me about 4 days to completely finish, all of those freakingk coverts were a bear to render

speaking of obnoxious coverts:

bird 5/14, Bluejay, Cyanocitta cristata

the friggin stripes almost got me chat, i may not make it

Madam....

birds 6 and 7: American Goldfinch, Spinus tristis, male and female

pleasantly simple to paint! next is the flickerrrrr

*melts into goo*

BIRD NUMBER 8, (yellow shafted) NORTHERN FLICKERRRRR, Colaptes auratus

genuinely made me start questioning my sanity around day 3, it's half the size the of the goose, WHY did it take me 4 days to finish??

nothing but pain and suffering, i'm sure hope the next bird will be much easier and with FAR less barring :)

in other news, I am losing my sanity hairline

I know this is a deeply American thing to say but I am begging everyone to stay the fuck away from military recruiters. Especially high school kids. You are going to be seeing an unholy amount of them in schools or around schools or literally anywhere kids are known to congregate. THIS INCLUDES ALL FORMS OF ROTC. Stay the fuck away from military recruiters. As someone who’s familiar with entirely too many branches through entirely too many friends and family, including my partner, recruiters are authorized to say literally any fucking thing they think will make you sign on that line. They cannot and will not deliver on those promises. They need bodies for the war they’re pretending is only now starting up again. That’s all you are. A body. Stay the FUCK away from the military.

No but this. Seriously.

My brother enlisted coming out of high school. I was in high school the next year. He bombed out of basic training PDQ and was back at home and SERIOUSLY fucked up from it and never actually recovered, I don’t think.

So I get to my junior year in high school and we *must* talk to the military recruiters. It’s required. We can tell them any old thing we want to, but we *must* at least hear them out. Being the kind of person I am, I did. I listened. I talked, and I listened to the guy’s responses. I told him I’d discuss it with my brother who had done basic training.

I got home, and told him that I’d had the conversation with the recruiter. He looked me dead in the eye and said, “Whatever he told you, it was a bold-faced lie. They’re allowed and ENCOURAGED to lie to get recruits. Do NOT even give him a “no thanks.” Just ignore any contact.”

This was in 2001, BEFORE 9/11.

Imagine how desperate they are for recruits now.

If they ask you what time it is, refuse to even look at your watch. Don’t even let them get into it. If you *have to* talk to them, tell them flatly that you’re not interested and that you aren’t going to budge. And then DON’T.

Because they don’t give one single solitary shit about you.

Can confirm, those fuckers LIE

They also go out of their way to target poorer areas and prep kids to barely pass the asvab, and if I hadn't been a stupid 17 year old, I should have noticed the giant red billboards they were waving

DON'T DO IT!!!

There are other options like trade schools and apprenticeships and things that I wish I'd known about

and PS:

There was a thunderstorm last and, of course, there is now an earthwurmm in the middle of my kitchen.

The crime scene investigation begins. Was it Malice, the Meatball Supreme? Or No Bones Jones, Mayhem Jane?

Or was it, perhaps, the Wyrmsinger himself???

Your Honor, I move to dismiss the entire case on the grounds of a mistrial. The prosecutor has prejudiced the jury against my client with the presentation of circumstantial evidence and usage of an unsubstantiated epithet!

Your Honor, circumstantial evidence is admissible in our jurisdiction and can be the basis for a criminal conviction, so long as the circumstantial proof facilitates reasonable inferences of causation, not mere speculation. People v Wang, 505 Mich 239, 251 (2020). Furthermore, calling the defendant by his legal name and by his known alias is not per se prejudicial, and must be subject to the balancing test described in MRE 403. The probative value of this alias in a case of malicious woim depositing is substantially outweighed by any potential prejudice. Please see People v Thompson, 101 Mich App 609, 613; 300 NW2d 645 (1980). And to preempt a potential hearsay objection about the admissibility of the Wyrmsong itself, this statement is not hearsay, as it is the statement of an opposing party, admissible under MRE 801(d)(2).

I have a question about what the wyrmsinging involves

It's the extremely specific noise created by a cat whose normal speaking tone is dainty high-pitched castrato squeaks, trying to yell as loudly as he can, while running, with his mouth full of live earthworm. It is a song of triumph and terror and bugges being delivered upon the ungrateful.

I've never recorded it because if I hear it I'm trying to intercept, not document. Suffice to say that it's his loudest noise but also kinda weirdly muffled.

I conceptually understand this description, because one of our girls will come running down the hallway with her toy witch in her mouth, singing around it to let us know of her successful hunt. It is, thankfully, nowhere near as alarming as the times one of her sisters has come to us with a live mouse in a similar grip and much more baffled "what do I do now??" meows around it.

why is ao3 is blocked on the hospital wifi????

It’s not even the public hospital wifi. I’m on the staff wifi. which one of you anesthesiologists was reading omega verse on the clock.

Thankfully, I am saved by the power of having a total of 7 followers on this blog.

The power of having a total of 7 followers on this blog has failed me.

World Heritage Post

Digital files from my "Good News" zine

This work is about the joy and freedom that come with deconverting from an oppressive religion. I hope you enjoy!

Debates about belief/religion are not welcome. If you disagree, just keep scrolling :)

Hey y’all I have an announcement! My web app that I’ve been working on, Afro Index, is now live! It’s a visual reference library of Black hairstyles, for artist, animators, writers, and anyone who wants to learn more about them!

Check it out at afroindex.org! 💛✨

i really need healthy, able-bodied people to understand that there are many illnesses that cannot be cured and which, in many cases, don't even have effective treatments

and that constantly putting the onus on the people who have to live with these illnesses to simply "get better" is an incredibly shitty thing to do

and that it's not "toxic" for chronically ill and disabled people to feel down, and occasionally talk about how down they feel, in a world which continually disregards their suffering and makes their lives much more difficult than they need to be, sometimes deliberately

and that telling these people that they continue to be ill only because they haven't tried a certain exercise, supplement, therapy or diet will only further damage their health by causing them stress

and that doctors are not only not infallible magic-workers, but are very often actively prejudiced against their patients; especially female patients and patients who belong to marginalised and minority groups

please just understand this and accept that the chronically-ill and disabled people you speak to know more about their health and their limitations and what works or doesn't work for them than you ever could

thank you

[as if this is not a normal and natural human thing to want] yeah i just really want to connect with people for some reason. Like some weird loser freak

We’re settling this once and for all!!!

*by whatever metric you choose

Artiodactyls include bovids, cervids, giraffes, camels, pigs, hippos, and whales

Perissodactyls include horses, rhinos, and tapirs

walking down the street and saw someone walking the other direction with a pig in a harness and leash and I stupidly asked, "is that a pig?" and he replied, "I sure hope it is, it was a pig when I left the house"

One last look at Earth before we reach the Moon. This view of the Earth was captured on April 5, the fourth day of the Artemis II mission, from inside the Orion spacecraft. The four astronauts will reach their closest approach of the Moon tomorrow, April 6. 

Joy and whimsy I found on another platform! How joyful and whimsical!

Ppl make fun of that genre of horny post where words are different colors but I actually think it’s funnier that this website even has customizable text colors, something most social media does not have, and that’s like the only thing ppl use it for

Not true. We also use it for House of Leaves jokes