#honestly I don't know how to begin

[maenimalist]

thoughts

[crittermakingthings]

Here's one of my more nature themed projects I did recently! Just a tiny pine display box (i think from dollar tree? actually found it at a thrift store but it has a dollar tree tag lol). I don't have any before pictures of it (blasphemy). I got a hold of wood stain last year and have been having at it with a lot of cheap wood stuff laying around

Used to hold my moth collection but it has since outgrown it! So I stained it with wood stain + hot glued moss all over and decided to use it to display my more fragile specimen's that didn't have a place yet!

(Inside: dragonfly, dried shelf fungi, twin pine seed, bird skull, white lined sphinx moth (if I'm not mistaken), butterfly I forgot to identify, cicada.

On top: porcupine quills and a chicken bone.

Porcupine quills were a gift, everything else I found and saved. Actually my brother found the moth and saved it for me.)

It does have a protective casing on the front, but I took it off for the picture because of the glare.

[a-really-cool-blog-name]

I find it so incredibly funny whenever fast food advertisement is just this

[coquelicoq]

been paying more attention to my r sounds in french lately and while i do default to the voiced uvular fricative /ʁ/ most of the time, in intervocalic contexts i'm doing what i'm pretty sure is a voiced uvular approximant /ʁ̞/ maybe half the time? i wasn't sure if it was a tap/flap or an approximant, but it does sound a lot like the audio clip for the approximant, and apparently the approximant is often an allophone for the fricative, while the tap/flap is an allophone for the trill (which makes sense since a tap/flap is basically an abbreviated trill), and i don't really do uvular trills in speech.

the fricative has always been difficult for me and at this point i doubt it will get much easier than it is now. it makes sense that as i learned to speak faster i would end up producing the approximant in at least some contexts, and i suppose that it makes sense that the main context in which that happens is intervocalic, since approximants are kind of like if you took a fricative halfway to being a vowel.

the reason i've been thinking about this lately is i've been listening to a lot of stromae and his r sounds keep jumping out at me. i mentioned in some tags the other day his r sounds in bonne journée (skip to 1:24):

Si l'bonheur [tap/flap?] des autres [elided] te rend [trill] malheureux [trill] C'est qu't'es un rageux [tap/flap?] Si l'malheur [trill?] des autres [elided] te rend [trill] heureux [approximant??] C'est qu't'es un rageux [tap/flap?]

that sound in heureux in the third line is really interesting because he pronounces that exact word (within the word malheureux) two lines before, but there he's clearly trilling the r, and here he is not, and it doesn't sound like a tap or flap to me either! it sounds like an approximant!

he does do the uvular fricative as well...specifically in consonant clusters (also in variation with trills) (skip to 1:37):

Tu profites [fricative] jamais vraiment [trill?] de ce moment présent [fricative] En fait t'es juste dépressif [fricative]

elsewhere in the song he seems to trill a lot of consonant cluster rs, so i think it may also be a function of syllables/second - in these two lines he's going really fast, and possibly fricatives are faster to pronounce than trills? they certainly are for me, but i'm not sure if that's because i'm not a native speaker or because of some fundamental property of trilling.

between a vowel and a consonant he's sometimes doing a trill and sometimes something else, i think an approximant but it might be a fricative. hell, maybe it's a tap/flap. (rs in this context are fairly difficult for me to distinguish with any accuracy if they're not trills or really emphasized fricatives, so fuck if i know.)

ultimately i think he (at least in song) trills every r possible and resorts to (not consciously, obviously) one of the other options when necessary. i am nowhere near that proficient at uvular trills and can pretty much only do them on extended notes (because they take extra time for me to pronounce) and on higher pitches for some reason. i'd love to learn the uvular tap/flap, and it's probably the fastest of all the options (citation needed but it feels right lol), so maybe a year from now, when my speaking speed has increased another incremental amount, i'll notice that i've started spontaneously producing those as well. i live in hope.

[topnotchquark]

Behind F1's Velvet Curtain

This article by Kate Wagner on her INEOS sponsored trip to the Austin GP at COTA last year was commissioned by Road and Track magazine and then taken down. Presumably because Kate has was pretty staunch in her opinions about what was essentially a paid trip.

It is exactly the kind of thing I have wanted to read about the felt experience of the money business of F1. It doesn't get into technicalities and does not produce any spreadsheets for reference. It's just, her experience of the presence of wealth in the sport.

She starts off by talking about how she has been covering cycling and NASCAR for a while now and both of those, in comparison, are scrappier sports with smaller sponsors and cheaper tickets.

What I also especially loved was how fascinated she was with the cars themselves, and how they seem like a true marvel of human engineering. She almost described the cars like these alien beasts that came into this dimension out of nowhere and were being constantly monitored and dueled with to furnish wins and glory (and shareholder value for sponsors).

I think I always had an understanding of the weird myth making surrounding F1 and the kind of media attention it attracts, but someone like Kate (who I have loved reading for a while now) putting it into perspective really made it click for me. This sport thrives off of the kind of cocoon it has built around it and understands exactly the certain exclusiveness it needs to maintain to keep the story alive.

Anyway, give it a read, especially because Road and Track is trying to bury it to not piss off sponsors.

[mzminola]

Protective big brother Dick Grayson finding out Bruce nailed Jason in the fucking neck with a batarang and promptly losing his shit about it is good, it’s good okay, but also.

Also.

Tim.

Tim who saw Batman getting way too recklessly violent against petty criminals and decided hey, this situation is fucked up, this is Bad, this needs to stop, kicking off his entire Robin career, that Tim finding out Bruce nailed Tim’s inspiration who he repeatedly hoped he was making proud in the neck with a batarang. I need Tim finding out exactly what went down on the pier that day.

[anxiescape]

oh man oh man, things are HAPPENING in Celestial Bodies. If only I could get around to finishing the first chapter. 😭

[magentagalaxies]

.

[idiosyncraticrednebula]

I really wish some of the actresses who have voiced Disney Princesses would stop comparing their princess to the previous ones and claim how she was the "first" one to have *gasp* independence and strength *gasp*. Have they ever watched a Disney movie outside of their own?

[bitchthefuck1]

Talking to my dad after listening to Unreal Unearth like

[shopcat]

as much as i enjoy conceptually the whole Everyone finds out how zuko got his scar tropey thing bc i agree it's a strange little knowledge gap for them to have to be happily exploited for like, patting him on the head, but i also feel like it's just like. well OBVIOUSLY it's an excuse to throw some love at him which is good and i like it but when people use it as a way to like ... have people tell him it was Wrong and Bad well that's just stupid. the literal entire point of his confrontation with ozai during the eclipse is zuko TELLING his father that himself and then leaving to follow his own path. it's one of his biggest moments as a character and IS his most defining moment of deciding to take a stand against his father. like he knows it was bad he came to that conclusion himself he literally even said it was cruel!!! "how could you possibly justify duelling a child. it was cruel and it was wrong"!!!! he doesn't need people telling him Child Abuse Is Bad Zuko like. he knows. it's kind of part of his whole arc.

[the-mechanisms-system]

god fuck does the doubt ever go away?? we’ve known for almost half a year now i think but still here i am having an anxiety attack over the doubt and fear that we’re not really plural. i wish we acted different when we front i wish things were clearer i fucking hate this i just want us to be more separate and distinguishable individuals both for individuality’s sake and so we would know. masking is the worst thing because we dont know how to stop and everything is so muddy All The Time

[saintofpride201]

There's like... 5 layers of irony in the existence of Genlock season 2. The theme of the Ship of Theseus being prominent in season 1, and later season 2 being transfered to a different company, with writers, artists, and overall staff being replaced entirely to the point where it's not the same show anymore. The hamfisted anti-capitalist ideology that wasn't present in the first season (or at least not in the way s2 presents it), and the fact that season two is what it is because of greedy capitalistic practices. The fact that a plot point was greed and wanting results as quick as possible (also leading to the plot being rushed), and the fact that season 2 was quickly rushed out with only about a week of marketing out of nowhere.

Just... So many things. They may have had an RT supervisor, but a lot of good THAT did.

[maddy-ferguson]

unpopular opinion but one of the worst takes i've read is ''mike loves will because will makes him feel wanted and needed.'' it sounds like he loves will because of will's love and need for him rather than his own personal love for will himself for who he is.

it painfully sounds like the ''mike loves the person behind the painting.'' take lmao it is just... so bad i am not sure why ppl think these are good takes

yes it's so superficial i never liked it either! if you think like this you might like byler but i like them in a much deeper and more intellectual way than you ever will. and i mean that. will saying "el needs you" isn't the most important part, they're not ending up together because he repeated mike's words back to him, it's because of everything else he says in the scene that they're good together. i see you you're a great person here's one of your best qualities that has to do with who you are intrinsically not with what you can do for people and part of the reason why i love you...of course your girlfriend still wants to be with you.

there's a disconnect between what mike says about his relationship with el and the reassurance will gives him because will's words and feelings alone could never fix mlvn. because that's not his relationship lol. and saying that mike loves will because he makes him feel needed implies that he would love el if only she needed him and i just don't think that's true. mike is saying that el doesn't need him to survive anymore and that he's of no use to her now and while will has absolutely needed mike in the past and has survived thanks to mike before, that's never what their relationship was about. this post explains the way i interpret it very well. if mike was like normal he would've worried about el not loving him anymore (since that's quite literally what the note she left him implies) and then will would've said el loves you and she always will and it still wouldn't have been the reason why they're ending up together. because that's just silly. "mike loves will because will makes him feel loved" like...okay, he would love anyone regardless of their personality then.

what it boils down to #TOME is i want you because i need you vs i need you because i want you. i love you because you need me is not on my radar. it makes mike have no internal conflict and no arc beyond going from dating el to dating will just like "mike is in love with the person behind the painting" and "mike is just starting to like will in season 4" takes.

[xannerz]

seeing people casually interacting with the height difference feti$hminer in the fandom tags after they spent so long harassing fandom artists etc is so,,,

[prolibytherium]

I like guides for new artists on this site giving the worst advice possible like "tag your art as artists on tumblr so people can find it!!". Excellent strategy to ensure that pretty much no one ever finds it