#sorry for the rant :'^)

[mokeonn]

I think at some point in time we need to sit down and start explaining to artist who want to make a career out of art that there are FAR more options than just "living off of commissions" and "posting my art online and praying I get paid for it".

[lesbian-disaster-academic]

i used to be so good at writing strong, thoroughly-researched, thoroughly-edited essays.

as a kid in hs, my teacher literally came up to me, holding my 40 page essay on the intersection of the European witch hunts and capitalism/exploitation/gender roles (it was supposed to be 7 pages...whoops) and went like "this is literally a master's-degree level thesis. what are you doing?? you could literally use this as your final dissertation in a master's program, what the fuck."

NOW??? NOW?? you'd think I'd be oh so skilled. but alas. i can barely piece together two ideas. adhd skill-regression is so so real. im SOBBING

[honeypleasejustkillme]

i thought i was at my lowest but holy shit it gets lower

[oh-snapperss]

they'll fund a genocide and let their poor regions be destroyed. don't fucking forgive them for that.

my hometown is completely gone from what pictures i can find of it, i have not heard from my family (including aunts, uncles, parents, one sibling, and a grandparent), and the infrastructure in the mountain communities is wiped out. i cannot stress how catastrophic this is, or how difficult it will be for these communities to build back. i am angry, and scared, and heartbroken by everything that's happened.

and our government is spending it's money to fund a genocide.

free palestine, and don't be complicit. realize that this is not something happening that doesn't affect you--although it shouldn't take this to care about the deaths of thousands of people anyway.

[himeshifts]

reminder: shifting is real. you’re going to have memories from when you were a kid or random interactions with people you knew back then. even the dream you may have had when you were 10... oh and perhaps the supermarket you visited with your parents 6 years ago? your life in your dr doesn’t start from the moment you shift there. life is still life. don’t treat your dr as a ‘magical‘ place.

[affixjoy]

My darlings, my loves, my fellow weirdos, I am begging you all to REST after you have covid.

I know it is very hard, and our society asks you to get back up and running at full speed as soon as possible, before you’re even done testing positive even.

But please my friends, please rest.

If you push too hard too fast you might be sicker for longer, you might be doing long lasting damage to yourself.

So please my beautiful nerds, take care of yourselves and REST.

[lordandladywhistledown]

You can tell by the reaction people have to Penelope asking Colin to kiss her whether they ever experienced being a wallflower/insecure fat girl at a party or not.

Because you say it's pathetic, I say it's relatable, no matter how desperate it may sound. If you've never had your insecurity eat you up from the inside (but also the outside, as Portia literally told Penelope that she was delusional for thinking she was gonna find a husband in her third season out) to the point you genuinely, wholeheartedly believe no one will ever love you unless you physically change, then obviously the scene is off to you.

But Pen literally told Colin she felt stupid for thinking she's gonna find a husband (she just started believing what the ton and her mother said) and that she knows no one would want to kiss her. And for a romance girl like her, do you think the thought of never having a kiss, never experiencing that passion, would be easy to bear? I can so relate to being the most romantic of the bunch but also being the loneliest and aching for physical and emotional romantic love.

She is so vulnerable and so real in that moment but y'all gotta bitch about it because it doesn't make sense to you. It doesn't make sense to me either because she's gorgeous, but that's the thing - no one ever told her she's gorgeous and actually meant it. And even if they did, there must be 10 more people who didn't that keep that insecurity in her, specifically her sisters and her mother.

Nicola said this one was for the wallflowers, and it truly is, so if you find scenes like this cringe, you just don't relate to the character enough to feel it and recall moments when you had the same thoughts as her.

[cowgyaru]

wolverine sevika you are so special to me ….

[zorangezest]

thanks for listening

[sleepgarden]

Pupa ✢ The writing reads:

Time envelops and keeps me Not awake / Not asleep In this chrysalis / In this shroud I am stillborn / I am buried alive Yet I change / I am changing / And I ache Held still

I started this over a year ago and came back to it periodically, but I decided to just finally finish it. It’s morphed, undone itself, and transformed many times in the process of illustrating it. Sincerely, I considered giving up on the piece. I am glad I didn’t despite its awkwardness; I admit that it doesn’t sit in the eye well. But somehow I feel that it suits the piece and what it means.

I am, if anything, relieved to have finished an illustration finally. It’s been nearly eight months since my last. Prints are available in my shop. (I also have mini prints for $5cad/$3.40usd!)

[godforsakenpaladinofnigh]

Whatever my chilshi doodles dump

I drew them while working and not really have energy to finish any of them. Sometimes I thought if I’m too unimaginative. I don’t really have fresh ideas and kinda draw my old men being gay and in love and all cringe things like that. I’m probably just sad and a little depressed at this moment, feeling stuck and not knowing what my future will be. I guess I will be fine but sometimes I wish I am more confident optimistic and better at what I am doing etc. etc.

[planariaareneat]

How The Nocturnal Bottleneck and Nipples Make Us Human

Almost every post here considers what humans do have, really. It’s a little tiring; realistically every world has its harsh environments and vicious species and a sophont to match. We probably wouldn’t be unique for our adaptability or our persistence or even adrenaline

But our evolution is fucked up as hell, to put it lightly.

Mammals went through what’s been dubbed the nocturnal bottleneck essentially since the start of the mesozoic right up until the Cretaceous ended the archosaur’s exclusive hold over the daylight. We lost a lot of things from every mammal spending most of its time in either a cramped, suffocating burrow or scrounging around in the faint hours of nighttime. Our blood cells lost their nuclei to hold more oxygen while we spent time deep underground, we lost protections against ultraviolet rays in our skin and eyes, we can’t even repair our own DNA using the light of the sun. Most aliens probably wouldn’t have such traits unless their evolution followed a very similar path to ours. They’d be able to see ultraviolet and wouldn’t have to worry about sunburn and all the wonderful privileges essentially all fish, birds, amphibians, and reptiles enjoy as we speak. 

There’s also what we gained from spending so much time in the dark.

Brown fat is only found in mammals, it’s a special type of fat which bear cells with several oil droplets and are utterly jammed with mitochondria. This lets it make heat, a lot of it, fast. We don’t even need to shiver to induce this heat generation from brown adipose tissue - factor in our downright hyperactive mitochondria, and we can warm up quickly. Sure, it doesn’t have too much use in adult humans, but it keeps our infants warm and still provides a little boost the whole run we have in this universe.

Unless aliens also went through a time where their small ancestors had to face cold nights, they’d have to produce heat the old fashioned way when chilled. Aliens might have to shiver the whole time they’re in a cold room while the human watches in confusion, quite literally unshaken, and wonders if the room is a lot colder than the thermostat set to 60 says. The aliens stare at their companion in confusion, it’s just a normal temperature to shiver at after all, how is the human sitting so still?

Our small ancestors spending all their time out foraging at night is also why we have such a good sense of touch, smell, and hearing. They were more important senses than vision (we’re lucky to have even redeveloped basic color vision, frankly) at the time and place and simply ended up continuing to serve us well. Birds and reptiles rarely have acute senses of smell and the latter especially are lucky to have acute hearing, and birds rarely have impeccable hearing themselves either. Our skin is free of scales and honed to sensitivity, and our external ears and complicated ear bones provide an immense range of hearing (from 20 all the way to 17,000 hertz!).

Aliens might not be able to pin down the chirp of a cricket or the light click of a lock being picked. The human might be the only one on board a ship that can pick out the finer sounds of the engine’s constant thrum and know the critical difference between when everything is fine and when something is wrong. The human could probably pick out the sounds of an approaching enemy’s careless footsteps - they’re only as light enough for *them* to stop hearing them, after all - and be the one to see the horrified expression (well, more on that later) on their face when we get the drop on them in spite of their perceived stealth. 

But perhaps the most versatile, convoluted, amazing, and utterly unique trait we have is right on your face this instant. Lips.

Lips in most animals are a simple seal to hold in the mouth’s moisture and protect the teeth, even if they’re supple they’re NEVER muscular except in mammals, and we have only one thing to thank for it; milk and nipples. Lips evolved exclusively to allow babies to suckle, it required a vacuum to be created in the mouth, and with no other animal having anything like a nipple it never happened in other animals. Many animals make milk, to be frank, but no other animal has nipples.

Your cheeks and lips are a marvel among tetrapods, no other animal can suck like mammals can. Aliens wouldn’t have straws or even be able to sip from the edge of a glass, they’d have to have a proboscis or simply tilt the whole thing back. Aliens likely won’t have woodwind instruments or balloons you can blow into. We take so much about our lips for granted. Hell, our muscular faces are vital for expressions, we’re probably absolute facial contortionists among a cast of creatures with mandibles and beaks and expressionless scaly maws. Aliens might find us ridiculously easy to read, if anything, compared to their own kind (all the better to deceive them) - or perhaps they’d find us hard to decipher anyways, with our lack of color-changing skin or erectable crests of bright feathers. Baring teeth might not be seen as a sign of aggression in most of the universe, smiling would be all too distinctly human. 

Perhaps with how infectious we are sometimes, that’s what we’d contribute to the universe; others might have to make do with opening their mouths just enough to show their teeth or splaying their innumerable mouthparts with just the right curve, but perhaps we’d teach the galaxy to smile, one ally at a time. 

Wouldn’t that be amazing?

[yhwcomeback]

They are so divorced it's crazy.

[princeyralsei]

Shadow during that last fight scene

[kawareo]

"AI does this better than me :("

"My work is never as good as AI's :("

"I have to use AI to be good :("

you're devaluing yourself. AI is not smart, it's not creative, it just has access to the whole internet at once (which btw includes all the wrong things), and guess what, so do you. You're better than the plagiarism machine and you've been lied to and told that it's smarter than you and I hope you stop believing that because you deserve better

[girbirty]

house and wilson smoking weed together but wilson has a panic attack for no reason and house is The Same As Usual