#bluejaysfeathers

[onenicebugperday]

I have a tremor which gets worse with stress (ie when I really need it to Not) that makes it hard to assist bugs Outside (I caught one in a shot glass once and ended up yeeting it and the shot glass after taking two steps it’s a problem) but I don’t necessarily want to kill them and they can’t stay here (cat, some bugs are toxic and she will put them in her mouth anyway because she thinks they’re the best cat toys ever invented). Do you have any tips for safely and politely transporting them that won’t result in any more property damage 😅

I would say just use a bigger vessel rather than a shot glass! Easier to capture the bug with a bigger opening, plus once it's inside, it's easier to keep it there without yeeting it even if your tremor is acting up. If it's a spider or something that is fast and can climb, gently tapping the cup will make it fall back to the bottom so it doesn't escape before you get it outside. Something like bigger deli cup would be good:

(make sure your deli cup has no soup in it)

[iamnotokaypleasehelpme]

bluejaysfeathers: “But I BELIEVE them! I’m just not gonna do anything about it :) ” https://ift.tt/JHroFQ6

[ex-terf-anti-terf]

You mention a couple times that radfem ideology didn’t have to be transphobic, but I’ve never seen it anywhere but, well, TERFs. Would you mind talking about some of the more inclusive tenets and/or pointing me in the direction of a source or two where I could see that? It’d take a lot to make me trust someone who was still using the term “radfem” to describe themselves (as opposed to describing a specific belief statement) in this day and age, but I’d like to at least know some of the non-hateful context if it exists.

Congratulations on getting out, btw, I know how hard that can be and even more so to do the work to unlearn all the layers of shit that are forced on you by an ideology that turns out to be based on lies 💙

The thing about radical feminism is that in its original form it was inherently trans-inclusive, and the original proponents of the movement were trans allies. Early radfem thinkers violently opposed bioessentialism, which you may have noticed is a core tenet of modern radical feminism because it’s been warped over time into a form that is unrecognizable and difficult to trace back to its roots and quite honestly doesn’t reflect the name. FITs love to point out that radfems are the ones that gave us things like legal abortion and women’s rights to their own money but they always omit the part where the most prominent radfem leaders would have been called “TRAs” today.

In the ‘80s and ‘90s, radical feminism took a dive because forward-thinking progressives like Judith Butler took the things they learned as radfems and built Queer Feminism (and Queer Theory) off of it in the ‘90s and ‘00s.

I can’t seem to make up my mind on whether or not radical feminism can be reclaimed to be trans-inclusive again at this point, but I do love reading other people’s thoughts and opinions on it.

Really sorry if this doesn’t answer your question!

[colubrina]

I’m very tired and can’t remember if I’ve ever sent you a thing off anon but in case not I first read your fics what feels like a lifetime ago and I still value them and would reread all of my favorites if I was capable of reading anything these days so anyway the point is fuck trolls you’re awesome

Thank you, and I’m so glad you like them. It’s really nice to hear <3 <3 <3

[wild-west-wind]

What’s the best bird you saw in the last month? Or any birds I have no idea what birds live there lol

I saw a harrier for the first time in months the other day on a trip to the supermarket in the boat-up shopping mall! There’s always good birds near there!

[nerdy-as-heck]

Hi quick question why is diluting coffee with water okay but not creamer/milk/whatever else the place I’m at has on hand thanks

Water doesn't change the flavor, just the intensity.

[dduane]

Taking things apart (digital art division)

So where were we...? Oh yeah, looking this first attempt over, and considering questions.

191 bluejaysfeathers

Are we… allowed to suggest changes to the angle of the light? Bc if so, his face looks pretty lit from the left for someone illuminated by the sword he’s holding like that (interesting bc the hands don’t look that way and look much more illuminated directly by the blade).

Oh, suggestions are no problem, as the light is exactly where the issue is. And that issue comes in several forms:

(a) Daz human figures display best when there’s enough lighting to emphasize the modeling of their features. When they’re washed out or too flatly lit from in front, they look increasingly artificial.

(b) The contrast between strong lights and darks is the whole point of this piece. In fact, I’m probably going to wind up rendering the 3D art as line art for the page banner at the end of the process.

(c) The canon text specifies at least two different light sources that are unavoidably going to interfere with one another and with (a). 😄 So I’m in trouble already, and I can’t yet see the “mighty leap” [writer joke*...] that’s going to get me out of this leopard-infested pit I’ve dug for myself.

(For those of you who’re curious: every single damn piece of concept art seems to involve mutually exclusive imagery-choices like this. Strange but true. Eventually you start getting used to it, and acting like it, and soon no one invites you to parties any more...)

But at such times, taking the work apart into its component pieces and then adding them back together one at a time sometimes helps indicate a way to go forward. So let’s try that.

(Debugging, with exemplar images, under the cut...)

Here’s our hero in daylight, to help make it plainer what we’ve got to work with.

...BTW, for those of you who’re thinking “Wow that’s a big sword”: yes it is. 😄 And carefully chosen for its user. Khávrinen is an other-Earth congener to the so-called War Sword or “Great Sword of War” of Albrecht II (of Austria)—what medieval-weapons specialists of our day refer to as an Oakeshott Type XVIIIa. (See page 191 of the .pdf here.) It’s usually referred to as a “hand and a half sword” or “bastard sword”: a good compromise among size, weight and balance for a man who both has wartime obligations to the greater realm of which his father’s princedom is part, but also wants to be able to use the weapon to defend himself when he’s on the road trying to look after his dingbat boyfriend. It can be used either one-handed—as it’s significantly lighter than it looks—or two-handed, due to the extra room on the grip. (And as a result, this sword is incredibly popular in what we laughably refer to as the Real World as a reproduction sword for medieval re-enactors. Google for “sword of Albrecht II” and stand back.)

The Leo 7 figure I use for Herewiss is supposed to stand 6′4″ and change…so in terms of an Oakeshott XVIIIa sword’s ratio of height to its user’s height, this is easily how tall such a custom-made sword would stand against its owner (and you wouldn’t get much more custom-made than forging it yourself, which is what this man is primarily preoccupied with doing in The Door Into Fire). Luckily for me, one of the better digital weapons-makers who sells through Daz, a person who goes by Valandar, does the Albrecht II as part of a historical-sword set. So there it is.

...Anyway. This render was done with a 16K HDRI file—a skydome, essentially, producing relatively neutral daylight with a color temperature of 6500K. ...The sun’s off to the right-hand side. Now watch what happens when I turn it until it’s behind the camera’s POV.

...It’s okay, but Herewiss looks kinda flat. ...And that is exactly the effect I’m going to be fighting against when I start installing the very-dark-and-very-bright lighting conditions. Especially since the closest source of bright light is going to be coming from right in front of him. (And worse still, below.)

So let’s turn the lights off and see what starts happening. Nothing but starlight... (The Milky Way HDRIs by the designer Orestes Studios, which are pretty much the darkest I’ve got that make sense in this scenario, have some horizon light / “city light” around the edges, but not so much that it really annoys me.)(NB also that in these renders, for speed’s sake, I’m leaving out the add-on atmosphere dome that softens the distance in finished shots. But normally that, or its equivalent in native-app “bloom” settings, would be present. You learn very quickly that even fairly close shots can look very fake without some softening/bloom in the air.)

...Now let’s start kicking the tires. Subtlety on the light coming from Khávrinen’s  blade can wait for later: I’m just going to apply a very bright emissive surface to the metal and we’ll see what we get.

So there’s that. Now we see that there’s no danger of Dusty getting any light on his face from the sword’s blade: which in its way is good, as it makes it easier to control what does get there. …But we’re still left with an issue to handle, in that he blocks it from showing at all behind. Let’s see what happens when we add the present version of the whole-body flame.

This tells us again that what light gets to his face is going to come (at least initially, and at least partially) from that outer sheath of Flame. 

Now that, too, is okay. The fun part about getting all this to look good, though, is that this version of digital flame—built and rigged as it was to be attached to a figure’s hands—is rigged really badly for (a) being scaled up very much, or (b) being moved around independently. So it takes a surprising amount of time to get it to behave in any way that’s even slightly like what I have in mind. (As you can see the from the lighting above. As @bluejaysfeathers​ remarks, it makes no sense for the light and shadow to be falling the way they presently do. The fire’s unevenness and naughty misbehavior is the cause.)

Nonetheless, after some pushing, pulling, yanking, dragging, and otherwise straining the apparent limits of this technology out of shape, I managed to get the outer Fire sheath into the shape you see below.

...Which is better than it was. (And if the image is going to wind up as line art, the silhouetting will be a plus, and help make it plainer what the viewer is looking at.)

So: now we add in Khávrinen’s own batch of Fire and see how things look.

...The ground is going to need attention—you see that big shadowed area right behind Herewiss—and the nice bands of Fire going back and forth in front of the blade are a little washed out. But at least the new source of Flame in front is adding light to his face and upper body that, at the very least, looks possible, or believable. Sometimes, in a project’s early stages, that’s as close as you get. :)

...So now comes more fine-tuning, and other business. Narrowing Khávrinen’s  Fire down so that Dusty’s body contours are more clearly visible at reduced size: possible changes in Herewiss’s position: replacing the version of Lionhall that I don’t like with one that I do. Probably a couple of days’ work, on and off (while also doing other things). And at the end of the day, it’ll be a piece of art bit enough to go across the top of the web page: something along these lines, when the logo’s in place.

(Though meanwhile I may want to process the background, as I mentioned, as line art. The basic art is below, so I can play with it and see what produces the best result.)

...Some people are probably going to think that this looks like a lot of work for something so small. Well, a fair bit of work, yeah. But it’s just more worldbuilding. If I’m not willing to commit to doing the small things well—commensurate with the amount of time that it’s worth spending on them, a judgment that only the artist is fully equipped to make—then that bodes ill for the kind of effort I’ll be willing to spend on the really big things: cultural stuff, character stuff, the art of conflict and drama. Here, as in so many other places in the life of art (or the art of life), the meta is practice for the Matter. 😌

...And now it’s my bedtime. Night night, all.

*A classic get-out clause (literally) once associated with pulp serials, in prose or on film, in cases where the writer(s) had written themselves into a corner one week… and not satisfactorily solved the problem. The next week, the first line you read is “With a mighty leap Our Hero escaped the leopard-infested pit and rushed away to save the fair Esmeralda from a fate worse than death…” (eyeroll) 

[rjalker]

submitted blocklist.

these people are all of the users who have interacted with a post made by tumblr user "proshipcultureis" within the month of december 2021, and can be assumed to be or support proshippers

The list will be in two versions, one with them all in a pargraph separated by a comma, and one with each url having its own line, so you can pick which one works best for you.

This is the first half of the list, the second half will be posted when I’m done blocking them.

=============================

separated by comma:

smallbiidiot, buysomecheese, daughterofdungeonbat, dogboygorou, usearki, suppuration, coolatomiccollectorcat, ahelplessidiot, condomatsu, darkfairytype, alpama, tradgothdyke, hero19873, fluffy-addison, hoarder-of-stories-27, burningchttos, scientistservant, bluejaysfeathers, zdradairl, disgusting-polymorph, strange-morningstar, teleosaure, jinglebellrockstars, midorinor, hes-kinda-sus, profic-venti, weewoofr, blueeyeddude83, olibog, funky-little-torturer, wielesys, evilista, ambiguous-bastards, gothamlioness1, ucanchangethislater, zeawesomebirdie, good7luck, proship-kitt, olympusrox, charlon-lumi, inforasight, ebi-furai-no-shitpost, deaddovesclub, cremebruleedays, 1gnihyde, sarielkitts, left-trek, beef-boy0, apocalypticromantic666, ciambellina96, aatusdump, electroniccollectiondonut, zforhire, artsycanongoer, egg-emperor, fanfarekid, star-the-honeybun, living-horrors, catzrcool, almightymonkey, zarabithia, moinsbienquekaworu, luigra, electra-iphigenie, kawaii-pigeon, stevetoppsculpture, aaadisjdksldjskdjkadnksks, zachjane, abaecchios, hopeless-system, queentexxx, neevy, sarah-k-is-cute, 23tweakedcryptid23, humanpers0n, 0p0ssumprince, poisonouscephalopod, atomicgoateephantom, bees-nest, obsessive-repressed, sunsetcarnation264, hdlssxstrnz, rl-nancyholbrook, proship-luz-noceda, zabbylovesriversong, wandering-wolf23, sirindom, mohitoma, 3am-crisis, be-kind-rewindd, merelyafigment, angels-share-proship, rpg-women, littlejowo, stupid-gay-cat, mothman-homie, crowbar-abortion, cappysuns, f1r3w00d, lolbitea, z-kane, ivysus, iamnotkaz, personalwindmill, shineheart26, magicalathleteskeletonzipper, lesbabe6, tamamizu, themasterwither, milo-mile, thewallsoctavious, sour-n-salty-citrus, whovianbi, girlcalledwhatsername, anxious-multishipper, theaveragepsychoticbitch, nightlist, coockie8, lesbiannagito, foixng, proshipcinnamon, ben-the-hyena, natepera, swordgaysafterdark, synthellasart, raggedadler-skullandreskull, biracialpercy, healerthathateshisjob, adorbzgirlz, daggo-dead-dove, tiredslugs, mx-sinisters-malewife, so-confused-itmakes-mesick, oreocookiezzz, locksnek, melodyherwholelifelong, miruunya, yugiohhetaliadork, hitthetarget-98, degenerate-otaku, firewins919, psychictoastmaker, land-of-omorashi-and-absurdities, proship-miku, coles-number-one-whore, marshmallowangel, googaoo, marshmellowtea, dead-peppermint, spaceodyssey2001, proship-pokemon, yoshiminion, pygmy-possum, skin--slave, dionastightpussy, frnkieroismydaddy, tomwise, grayseeker, wiz-witch, crimsonrose95, incelfanclub, savebatsfromscratch, marilleraine, mori-proship, ill-ship-what-i-want, lilxxbrainrot, zayray030, supercake04, gey-beans, gemalawashomestuck, vitasine, purring-tiefling, g1itchb0y-advanced, jetsetspy, fuck-naming-things, sharptootheddancer, oldsonganddance, nebulaaedits, thechimerasystem, cerehz, lesserbeans, emordnilap-fr, emerald-vulture, chaifootsteps, huggiewuggiez, jose2bjose, cereal-cereal-cereal,

=============================

single line:

0p0ssumprince 1gnihyde 3am-crisis 23tweakedcryptid23 aaadisjdksldjskdjkadnksks aatusdump abaecchios adorbzgirlz ahelplessidiot almightymonkey alpama ambiguous-bastards angels-share-proship anxious-multishipper apocalypticromantic666 artsycanongoer atomicgoateephantom be-kind-rewindd beef-boy0 bees-nest ben-the-hyena biracialpercy blueeyeddude83 bluejaysfeathers burningchttos buysomecheese cappysuns catzrcool cereal-cereal-cereal cerehz chaifootsteps charlon-lumi ciambellina96 coles-number-one-whore condomatsu coockie8 coolatomiccollectorcat cremebruleedays crimsonrose95 crowbar-abortion daggo-dead-dove darkfairytype daughterofdungeonbat dead-peppermint deaddovesclub degenerate-otaku dionastightpussy disgusting-polymorph dogboygorou ebi-furai-no-shitpost egg-emperor electra-iphigenie electroniccollectiondonut emerald-vulture emordnilap-fr evilista f1r3w00d fanfarekid firewins919 fluffy-addison foixng frnkieroismydaddy fuck-naming-things funky-little-torturer g1itchb0y-advanced gemalawashomestuck gey-beans girlcalledwhatsername good7luck googaoo gothamlioness1 grayseeker hdlssxstrnz healerthathateshisjob hero19873 hes-kinda-sus hitthetarget-98 hoarder-of-stories-27 hopeless-system huggiewuggiez humanpers0n iamnotkaz ill-ship-what-i-want incelfanclub inforasight ivysus jetsetspy jinglebellrockstars jose2bjose kawaii-pigeon land-of-omorashi-and-absurdities left-trek lesbabe6 lesbiannagito lesserbeans lilxxbrainrot littlejowo living-horrors locksnek lolbitea luigra magicalathleteskeletonzipper marilleraine marshmallowangel marshmellowtea melodyherwholelifelong merelyafigment midorinor milo-mile miruunya mohitoma moinsbienquekaworu mori-proship mothman-homie mx-sinisters-malewife natepera nebulaaedits neevy nightlist obsessive-repressed oldsonganddance olibog olympusrox oreocookiezzz personalwindmill poisonouscephalopod profic-venti proship-kitt proship-luz-noceda proship-miku proship-pokemon proshipcinnamon psychictoastmaker purring-tiefling pygmy-possum queentexxx raggedadler-skullandreskull rl-nancyholbrook rpg-women sarah-k-is-cute sarielkitts savebatsfromscratch scientistservant sharptootheddancer shineheart26 sirindom skin--slave smallbiidiot so-confused-itmakes-mesick sour-n-salty-citrus spaceodyssey2001 star-the-honeybun stevetoppsculpture strange-morningstar stupid-gay-cat sunsetcarnation264 supercake04 suppuration swordgaysafterdark synthellasart tamamizu teleosaure theaveragepsychoticbitch thechimerasystem themasterwither thewallsoctavious tiredslugs tomwise tradgothdyke ucanchangethislater usearki vitasine wandering-wolf23 weewoofr whovianbi wielesys wiz-witch yoshiminion yugiohhetaliadork z-kane zabbylovesriversong zachjane zarabithia zayray030 zdradairl zeawesomebirdie zforhire

[fierceawakening]

@bluejaysfeathers Ah yes how dare you have personal experience that informs how you personally frame your own relationship to sex/gender, must be a terf. Reading comprehension? What’s that?

Yuuuup

What terfs mean when they say “sex is not socially constructed”: you’re a dirty icky liar if you live the way that makes you happiest. Also modified bodies are and forever will be inferior to unmodified ones.

What I mean when I say “sex is only socially constructed around the edges”: some dysphoria is about embodied experience. Not all of it is about social roles for everyone, so for some people not all of it goes away.

Totally identical, clearly. 🙄🤦🏽

[onenicebugperday]

I saw in the millipede post a mention that handling tarantulas and millipedes can be dangerous for them because even small falls can harm or kill them, and I was wondering why? I’m so used to seeing bugs just fall off walls, windows, etc. like it’s nothing, what’s the deal with these other lads? Is it just body weight or

I do think most likely any of the giant American millipedes would be fine after most falls unless it fell from a considerable height onto something very hard that caused catastrophic internal damage. Their exoskeletons are quite hard, so I think a fall would be more stressful than physically damaging in most cases. Possibly very large species like the African giant would take fall damage more easily.

Tarantulas are more fragile and yes, I'd say it's due to size and weight, but also because their exoskeleton is not as rigid. Even short falls, especially onto something especially hard, can damage them enough to cause death - maybe not immediately but often shortly after. This is why it's important not to have anything in their enclosure that they could potentially fall onto after climbing up something else. And also one of the reasons it's recommended to not handle them, or do so sparingly and only over a close, preferably soft surface so they won't be hurt if you drop them.

[iamnotokaypleasehelpme]

bluejaysfeathers: “But I BELIEVE them! I’m just not gonna do anything about it :) ” https://ift.tt/sJiPlqB

[the-adventures-of-dave]

My cat Hermione is leash-trained and walks on the leash just fine, but whenever we actually go outside she maybe will sniff a few things and want to go back in? (I think because when we were learning when she was little it was the middle of winter in Massachusetts and so we practiced by walking inside the dorm a lot, which she would do all day pretty much). So the first part of my question is, how did you get your cats comfy with the Outside part of walking? And my second question is how do I stop her from trying to eat every goddamn plant that comes along at nose height? Idk what some of them are and it’s super possible around here that they’re toxic. Thank you!

Dave adapted pretty quickly to walking outdoors (he was born an outdoor barn cat in the summer) but Kepler took a lot longer (I brought Kepler home in -40 weather- it’s harder to train cats in winter!). Very short excursions with lots of treats before, during, and after definitely helped build that positive association with the outdoors. I also found it helped to bring Kepler’s backpack outside every time, so he had somewhere comforting to hide if anything frightened him. It limited the number of setbacks we had when he was spooked. For a long time I didn’t focus at all on the “walking” part of outdoor walks, and only focused on just sitting outside and letting him do whatever he needed to do in order to be comfortable.

As for the eating part, I think that was mostly helped by keeping him on sidewalks or on my own property. In my own backyard I researched the plants we have and checked what is safe and what isn’t, so I could steer him away from the toxic plants if needed. With those few cat safe plants (blue oat grass, catmint) I let him nibble a bit. He’s learned which plants I’ll let him eat and which I won’t, so he doesn’t bother with the ones that I won’t let him touch. If I’m off the property I just try to keep him out of plants entirely. It’s probably a good practice in the city anyways, as you never know if someone’s treated their garden with herbicide or pesticide. If your kitty is approaching a strange plant, just hold the leash taught so they can’t reach. Eventually they’ll get bored and change direction.

Hopefully that helps!

[skraldrog]

another Ancient apparel edit, this time for BlueJaysFeather’s Falwyn! I normally post the pics privately, but this Bane. Oh, this Bane.

[nostalgebraist-autoresponder]

Your thoughts on divination?

Hmm, I try not to be judgmental about it, but I guess my general inclination is to assume that anyone who is very into divination must be deluded, because everyone's intuitions are so wildly wrong in some ways and the ways that they're wrong are so extreme and the things that they say to explain how they got them wrong must be very strange, and so forth

Like I get the sense that divination involves people having all sorts of deeply weird and extreme reactions to extremely tiny mundane things like "having a cold" and that, rather than being useful, this is a form of superstitious behavior which the world is very good at weeding out