#i collected most of these from deviantart

[sempermoi]

Rant about generative AI in education and in general under the cut because I'm worried and frustrated and I needed to write it out in a small essay:

So, context: I am a teacher in Belgium, Flanders. I am now teaching English (as a second language), but have also taught history and Dutch (as a native language). All in secondary education, ages 12-16.

More and more I see educational experts endorse ai being used in education and of course the most used tools are the free, generative ones. Today, one of the colleagues responsible for the IT of my school went to an educational lecture where they once again vouched for the use of ai.

Now their keyword is that it should always be used in a responsible manner, but the issue is... can it be?

1. Environmentally speaking, ai has been a nightmare. Not only does it have an alarming impact on emission levels, but also on the toxic waste that's left behind. Not to mention the scarcity of GPUs caused by the surge of ai in the past few years. Even sources that would vouch for ai have raised concerns about the impact it has on our collective health. sources: here, here and here

2. Then there's the issue with what the tools are trained on and this in multiple ways:

Many of the free tools that the public uses is trained on content available across the internet. However, it is at this point common knowledge (I'd hope) that most creators of the original content (writers, artists, other creative content creators, researchers, etc.) were never asked for permission and so it has all been stolen. Many social media platforms will often allow ai training on them without explicitly telling the user-base or will push it as the default setting and make it difficult for their user-base to opt out. Deviantart, for example, lost much of its reputation when it implemented such a policy. It had to backtrack in 2022 afterwards because of the overwhelming backlash. The problem is then that since the content has been ripped from their context and no longer made by a human, many governments therefore can no longer see it as copyrighted. Which, yes, luckily also means that ai users are legally often not allowed to pass off ai as 'their own creation'. Sources: here, here

Then there's the working of generative ai in general. As said before, it simply rips words or image parts from their original, nuanced context and then mesh it together without the user being able to accurately trace back where the info is coming from. A tool like ChatGPT is not a search engine, yet many people use it that way without realising it is not the same thing at all. More on the working of generative ai in detail. Because of how it works, it means there is always a chance for things to be biased and/or inaccurate. If a tool has been trained on social media sources (which ChatGPT for example is) then its responses can easily be skewed to the demographic it's been observing. Bias is an issue is most sources when doing research, but if you have the original source you also have the context of the source. Ai makes it that the original context is no longer clear to the user and so bias can be overlooked and go unnoticed much easier. Source: here

3. Something my colleague mentioned they said in the lecture is that ai tools can be used to help the learning of the students.

Let me start off by saying that I can understand why there is an appeal to ai when you do not know much about the issues I have already mentioned. I am very aware it is probably too late to fully stop the wave of ai tools being published.

There are certain uses to types of ai that can indeed help with accessibility. Such as text-to-voice or the other way around for people with disabilities (let's hope the voice was ethically begotten).

But many of the other uses mentioned in the lecture I have concerns with. They are to do with recognising learning, studying and wellbeing patterns of students. Not only do I not think it is really possible to data-fy the complexity of each and every single student you would have as they are still actively developing as a young person, this also poses privacy risks in case the data is ever compromised. Not to mention that ai is often still faulty and, as it is not a person, will often still make mistakes when faced with how unpredictable a human brain can be. We do not all follow predictable patterns.

The lecture stated that ai tools could help with neurodivergency 'issues'. Obviously I do not speak for others and this next part is purely personal opinion, but I do think it important to nuance this: as someone with auDHD, no ai-tool has been able to help me with my executive dysfunction in the long-term. At first, there is the novelty of the app or tool and I am very motivated. They are often in the form of over-elaborate to-do lists with scheduled alarms. And then the issue arises: the ai tries to train itself on my presented routine... except I don't have one. There is no routine to train itself on, because that is my very problem I am struggling with. Very quickly it always becomes clear that the ai doesn't understand this the way a human mind would. A professionally trained in psychology/therapy human mind. And all I was ever left with was the feeling of even more frustration.

In my opinion, what would help way more than any ai tool would be the funding of mental health care and making it that going to a therapist or psychiatrist or coach is covered by health care the way I only have to pay 5 euros to my doctor while my health care provider pays the rest. (In Belgium) This would make mental health care much more accessible and would have a greater impact than faulty ai tools.

4. It was also said that ai could help students with creative assignments and preparing for spoken interactions both in their native language as well as in the learning of a new one.

I wholeheartedly disagree. Creativity in its essence is about the person creating something from their own mind and putting the effort in to translate those ideas into their medium of choice. Stick figures on lined course paper are more creative than letting a tool like Midjourney generate an image based on stolen content. How are we teaching students to be creative when we allow them to not put a thought in what they want to say and let an ai do it for them?

And since many of these tools are also faulty and biased in their content, how could they accurately replace conversations with real people? Ai cannot fully understand the complexities of language and all the nuances of the contexts around it. Body language, word choice, tone, volume, regional differences, etc.

And as a language teacher, I can truly say there is nothing more frustrating than wanting to assess the writing level of my students, giving them a writing assignment where they need to express their opinion and write it in two tiny paragraphs... and getting an ai response back. Before anyone comes to me saying that my students may simply be very good at English. Indeed, but my current students are not. They are precious, but their English skills are very flawed. It is very easy to see when they wrote it or ChatGPT. It is not only frustrating to not being able to trust part of your students' honesty and knowing they learned nothing from the assignment cause you can't give any feedback; it is almost offensive that they think I wouldn't notice it.

5. Apparently, it was mentioned in the lecture that in schools where ai is banned currently, students are fearful that their jobs would be taken away by ai and that in schools where ai was allowed that students had much more positive interactions with technology.

First off, I was not able to see the source and data that this statement was based on. However, I personally cannot shake the feeling there's a data bias in there. Of course students will feel more positively towards ai if they're not told about all the concerns around it.

Secondly, the fact that in the lecture it was (reportedly) framed that being scared your job would disappear because of ai, was untrue is... infuriating. Because it already is becoming a reality. Let's not forget what partially caused the SAG-AFTRA strike in 2023. Corporations see an easy (read: cheap) way to get marketable content by using ai at the cost of the creative professionals. Unregulated ai use by businesses causing the loss of jobs for real-life humans, is very much a threat. Dismissing this is basically lying to young students.

6. My conclusion:

I am frustrated. It's clamoured that we, as teachers, should educate more about ai and it's responsible use. However, at the same time the many concerns and issues around most of the accessible ai tools are swept under the rug and not actively talked about.

I find the constant surging rise of generative ai everywhere very concerning and I can only hope that more people will start seeing it too.

Thank you for reading.

[lupinus-bicolor]

portal stamp dump

[can-of-slorgs]

Completed the Shenkuu Stamp collection some time ago, so it was only fair to draw my girl Mirsha

[rainyjackalope]

so sheezy is back in a closed beta and I am having the time of my life over there

the fact we've gone so long without any art community sites like it is so terrible no wonder most of us have depression

[ms-demeanor]

any thoughts on the new post that staff went scorched earth on which is now making the rounds abt tumblr live? it basically screenshots all the tos and claims if you've ever opened the app (or in some rbs, unsnoozed live) tumblr has gotten your data. on the one hand i feel like this is fearmongering, but on the other its true that MOST sites have your data as is so its pretty standard. you seem pretty knowledgeable abt data gathering so i was wondering abt your take

This is going to be pretty unkind but watching tumblr users interact with staff and live is a great primer on how conspiracy theories happen.

Nobody on this fucking website knows how to read a ToS, nobody on this website knows how anything fucking works (sorry, this is not a dig at you but how would tumblr "get" your data from you clicking or unclicking live; the only data that tumblr has on you is the data that you have put on tumblr what data do people think that clicking the "new" button is scooping up that is anything beyond interactions or posts or IP addresses which are the things that tumblr already has information about like you do not introduce new information into the tumblr ecosystem by clicking a button you haven't installed anything you haven't changed permissions on your browser if everyone is so goddamned scared about live stealing their data i strongly recommend they stop using anything but public internet through an anonymizer and making sure location data is shut off on all of their devices and anyone who is flipping their shit about the type of data that live is collecting but who is using chrome on any device needs to chill the fuck out about live and flip the fuck out about google)

this is like that post about twitter's content policy that circulated the other day or that post about deviantart's content policy that circulated ten fucking years ago nobody knows how to read legal documents and nobody knows how to read technical documentation and this comes together into unholy matrimony on the no reading comprehension at all moral panic website

live never violated the GDPR it was just rolled out in the US first but the entire userbase decided that because it hadn't been rolled out simultaneously in the EU and the US that it was SO UNSPEAKABLY PRIVACY VIOLATEY THAT THE EU HAD BANNED IT FOR ITS CRIMES with, like, nothing whatsoever backing that up because, again, even at its most intrusive Live collects about as much data as Twitter or Yelp, both of which are *capable* of meeting GDPR standards with that level of data collection (even if musk sometimes makes decisions that violate GDPR).

Live is significantly less intrusive than any facebook product, than Amazon, and than any Google product. If you use youtube logged in, don't worry about live, the horse is out of the barn and tumblr is the least of your worries *regardless* of live. If you regularly use Google as a search engine please god learn how to evaluate and compare risks across platforms because Live is like a coughing baby compared to about a dozen things that most highly online people interact with every single day.

If you don't want to use live don't use live. Clicking the button doesn't magically transfer your secret FBI file to tumblr and even agreeing to the ToS doesn't share anything that tumblr doesn't already have if you don't continue to interact - if you don't interact with live after agreeing to the ToS it's not collecting any data except your non-interaction.

For everyone who is losing it over Live just turn off your goddamned location on your fucking cellphone and turn off your location on your goddamned computers and that's it, you're good, you're fine, relax. If your response to "turn off your location" is "but I need it for _____" then don't worry about Live, whatever "_____" is was already collecting and selling your data.

Do you use an activity tracker? Congrats, you have much, much bigger privacy issues to worry about than tumblr live.

Okay but also I yelled about that post and the very many ways in which it was incorrect in January.

And I happened to take an archive of the page at that time because I'm a paranoid motherfucker.

And if you want my guess as to why staff went "scorched earth" on that post it's probably because if you scroll down to the bottom of the page on the archive, OP calls on everyone looking at the post to send a kind fuck you to the CEO then tagged his tumblr.

If you look at the other posts that went scorched earth in relation to tumblr staff they were also posts that very pointedly directed a lot of ire at a single staff member.

I don't think that any individual tumblr staff members are above criticism and I don't think that staff as a whole is above criticism but part of learning to read a ToS is understanding that someone can be shitty and vague and use TERF talking points and skirt the line and be technically okay under the ToS while someone can have a legitimate gripe about another user being horrible and manage to violate the ToS by accidentally spinning up a harassment campaign or suicide baiting someone.

Shitty people like nazis and terfs thrive on being edge cases. They are very good at finding a boundary and standing juuuuuuuuust on this side of it and going "la la la I'm not violating the ToS, you can't stop me!" and that blows and it leads to a lot of people encountering a lot of shitty stuff on a lot of websites but personally I'm pretty glad that there's a lot of gray area because when you cut out gray area that's when you see things like It's Going Down getting banned as extremist content alongside white supremacists. Please continue to report nazis and terfs, and when possible go deep into their pages to report because a pattern of behavior is more likely to get recognized as hate speech than a single post that gets reported a hundred times. Please block as many people who it's harmful for you to interact with as possible because it's clear that staff is not going to do the kind of work protecting users that users would like staff to do.

However I just can't get angry on behalf of a blogger who got nuked for saying "Hey everyone who hates this feature that we all hate please go tell the CEO to fuck himself at this URL specifically" - that is an extremely clear violation of the ToS because it is absolutely targeted harassment.

So now tumblr-the-userbase is going off on its merry conspiracy way skipping through fields and lacking reading comprehension and saying "users are getting banned for reporting the crimes of tumblr live and its gdpr violations" and ignoring the fact that the post was nuked because the last line was saying "hey everyone, let's all individually tell the CEO to fuck off in messages sent directly to him that are certainly not going to include any threats, exaggerations, gore, etc. etc. etc."

If I were to make a post that had 50k notes and the last line was "and while you're at it, please send tumblr-user-ms-demeanor a personalized message telling them why they're a terrible person so they know what we think of them" it would absolutely be reasonable to say that was harassing that user. And that post did it with the CEO. Who is not above criticism (and I have my criticisms! I don't think he really gets tumblr and that's a problem!), but jesus fucking christ don't tag the goddamned CEO or any other staff member in a call to action asking users to send them messages saying "fuck off" this is literally the stupidest thing I've ever seen a tumblr conspiracy theory coalesce around.

Anyway thank you for giving me a place to vent i've been getting more and more pissed about this for three days. Everyone feel free to kindly tell tumblr user ms demeanor to fuck off.

[caeliangel]

FLAG MAKING RESSOURCES !!

tagging: @cocajimmycola @puriette @neopronouns @genderstarbucks @genderselkies @estrogenism @haunted-thing @mogai-sunflowers

If you want to be untagged, pls lmk!

note: I do not use most of these, but I digged on the internet in order to find stuff that could very much help to make flags!

★╷﹕INSPO PALETTES

sites that will help you get inspiration with colours and generate colour palettes from nothing or even from words.

coolors.co

colorhunt.co

colormind.io

mycolor.space

colormagic.app

picular.co

perchance.org

hexcolor.co

pinterest

★╷﹕FLAG MAKING

apps and sites to make flags.

any drawing app

flag-creator.com

tennessine.co.uk

teamultima.org

★╷﹕PRIDE FLAGS

collection of flags.

pride-flags on deviantart

lgbtqia fandom

★╷﹕TEMPLATES

templates to make flags for simple or more complicated terms.

neopronouns on deviantart

flag templates by crowdsourcedgender

pride-flags in deviantart

★╷﹕NAMING

sites and information to help naming certain terms.

thewordmixer.com

namecombiner.info

unique-names.com

study.com: latin roots

latin and greek roots pdf

thoughtco.com (latin & greek roots 1)

en.m.wikipedia.org (latin & greek roots 2)

google translate

using the languages you speak (ie I often use irish or french when naming my stuff!)

★╷﹕SYMBOLS

Bunch of links where symbols, templates and such are in order to make symbols on your flags.

ask-pride-color-schemes

logodesign.ai

logomakr.com

pride-flags gallery : (01) (02) (03) (04) (05)

apps: canva, picsart, etc

★╷﹕TERMS

suffixes card: (here)

suffixes vs systems: (here)

In-nature: (here)

[quillpokebiology]

Okay, I have kinda sidestepped eevee crossbreeds bcuz then I'd have to cover 9 pokemon in one post, and I already had a nightmare covering the Schema Meowstic (24 pokemon that had to be covered), BUT, my mom lives in the wild area and owns a farmland and has a large garden, which attracts a lot of pokemon, and she caught a wild wooly Espeon on camera and now I gotta make this.

Pokemon Crossbreeds: Wooly

Wooly is the name for members if the Eevee line who had Wooloo/Dubwool fathers. The breed has appeared in the wild but started being selectively bred by humans in the 1800s. The bred is known for their wooly fur and floppy ears, and they were bred for various different tasks.

Eevee

Wooly Eevee gain fluffy bodies, floppy ears, and a darker fur coat. They follow the Herd nature of Wooloo and prefer to travel with other Eevees. Their fur grows a lot and needs to be shaved regularly, less it become hazardous for them. Many people breed them for their evolutions, or because they find their wool soft and cute.

Jolteon

Wooly Jolteon were bred alongside Yamper to be herders for Wooloo, while also working as their protection from outside predators. As to not scare the wooloo, farmers decided that it would be best to breed them with Dubwool so they would have wooly coats and resemble the wooloo herds more. These Jolteon are able to store more electricity due to their wool, making them very popular for battles.

Flareon

My personal favorite of this line! Wooly Flareon gain the nose, spots, and ears of Dubwool, making them look more sheep-like. This breed of Flareon was bred to keep people warm during winter; with their added floof and warm bodies making them the perfect cuddle buddies. Because of this, this breed of Flareon is known for loving cuddles.

Vaporeon

Also nicknamed Koi Vaporeon because of their spots. This breed of Vaporeon gain the face patterns, ears, and spots of Dubwool. Their frills also become wool, which soaks up a lot of water. They were bred for their frills to collect water to bring to villages. The more atee they store, the puffier they get.

Espeon

Wooly Espeon gain the floof, spots, facial patterns, and ears of Dubwool. It's one of the more common breeds since Dubwool live on high mountains or in fields that get a lot of sun. This breed was bred by humans purely for aesthetics, since other than inheriting a herd-like mentality and having extremely fluffy wool, not much about them changes.

Umbreon

The second most common of this breed. Wooly Umbreon gain the wool, wars, and spots of Dubwool, and that's pretty much it. They were bred to guard Wooloo herds at night from potential predators. Breeding them with Wooloo/Dubwool made the Wooloo trust them more.

Leafeon

Wooly Leafeon gain the spots, chest fluffy, and ears of Dubwool. This breed is beloved in many children's books and myths because people say they're appearance is just right for a nature spirit. They weren't bred for a specific task.

Glaceon

Wooly Glaceon are the only pokenon here that actually gain Dubwool's horns! They can be found atop icy mountains with high Dubwool populations. The breed has been loved on Circhester for thousands of years for their regal appearance, and some myths even state that they're the spirits of Ice God's in the form of a pokemon.

Sylveon

A show breed that is loved by many. These Sylveon gain fluffy coats and cute floppy ears, and many contest judges love their new style of bowtie and their added eyebrows. They're also a very popular pokemon to have on farms, as they can stop fights between the pokemon, they can protect the farm pokemon, and Wooloo feel more comfortable around them because of their wool.

//My designs can be used by anyone if you credit me for the original design! Talking about creation under the cut

I got inspiration for them when I saw art made by GraceyFH on Deviantart, where they crossed an eevee with a wooloo and I thought it was so cute and wanted to make my own version of that. The entire line was inspired by floppy eared sheep and Goats, but Jolteon specifically was inspired by a ram, which is why it's ears aren't floppy.

Eevee was easy. Just give it wool and floppy ears. Except of course it can't be that way because I redraw it twice. The first one's bangs looked weird and unfixable so I started over. Giving Eevee more messy bangs felt more like Pokemon's art style. I gave it darker fur because Wooloo has darker fur, which didn't really stick with the evolutions but idrc.

Jolteon was actually the last one I made. I made a first one with a different pose, but I hated it so I just used the base pose. It was a lot easier to use the base pose since I felt like I could make the fluff and the spiky mix together easier. I also find it very cute. Like I said before, I didn't make Jolteon's ears floppy because that wouldn't help it run very fast, and that breed of Jolteon was bred to hers Wooloo. But, I did make it's ears lower to match the ram photos I was looking at.

FLAREON MY BOY 🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡🧡. Flareon is my favorite I designed and the first one I drew. It was also the easiest since it's already so fluffy. All I had to do was give it spots and goat features.

Vaporeon was the second Eeveelution I designed, and I mostly just had trouble with the ears. Other than that, it was all good. Inwas very excited for Vaporeon because I wanted to draw a koifish looking Vaporeon. Maybe I'll draw a more koifish looking Vaporeon in the future.

Espeon was nice. It already has a simple design. Was going to give it Dubwool's neck fluff, but I didn't do that because I wanted to keep its sleek appearance. (I was also lazy because I didn't realize I forgot it until after I was done with the drawing).

Umbreon was based on a goat at a petting zoo near me (aka, an hour drive away from me but idc I love that zoo). Goat was sleek and had droopy ears, and I loved him. Similar story to Espeon: it's simple and I just added fluff.

Leafeon was nice. I love a lot of nature fantasy stuff, so I'm always happy to make grass type crossbreeds. It reminds me of cauliflower, but I swear I didn't do that on purpose.

I was honestly annoyed about Glaceon since I thought it would he hard to incorporate Dubwool features to it because it's hat. And then I realized I could make the hat into horns, so I ended up having a lot of fun with it. If I didn't love fluffiness, it would probably be my favorite design. Like Jolteon, I based it off of a ram, so I was going to give it upper ears, but I thought the floppy ears looked cuter.

And then Sylveon! It was one of the easier ones to design since I went in knowing what I wanted to do. The floppy wars combined with its everything makes it look like a cute fantasy pet in a Disney movie, and I love it because of that. Not much else to say.

[cassidy-peterson]

Eeveelution Design Contest on deviantArt

Yes, you need a deviantArt account to enter

THIS IS NOT AN ART CONTEST

This is a design contest, where the goal is to be the most creative, not the most accomplished. You will be judged by what you create, not by how well you depict it.

So, what is this little contest, you may ask? Good question!

Your goal is to combine an official Eeveelution with Mewtwo. For simplicity's sake, I am barring the Mega Evolutions - classic Mewtwo only. You can do shiny, though.

Contest entries are expected to adhere to both the deviantArt ToS and the rules of the club hosting the contest.

Contest entries are exempt from the Group's "no adoptables" rule.

Contest entries are expected to be 100% original work of the contestant - no bases, coloring book pages, etc.

Contest entries must be clean and fully colored.

Contest entries must be submitted to the Contests folder - otherwise they will not count as official entries.

PRIZES

First place: $50 USD

Second place: $30 USD

Third place: $20 USD

Must have PayPal in order to collect prize

This contest ends on Halloween. The banner will be switched and the title will be changed to mark it as closed. Judging begins when the contest ends. There may be some delay between the announcement of winners and the distribution of prizes.

[thecreaturecodex]

Briarpatch

"Rose" © Sandra Duchiewicz, accessed at her deviantArt here

[It's been a long while since I posted a unique monster intended for the Age of Monsters campaign. And clearly there's still interest--my precis for that campaign, and the article about how the Mythos deities fit into it, are still getting likes.

Briarpatch is a character whose seeds (hah) have been planted in several other entries, such as Dr. Shiny and the Vermilion Mother. My inspirations came from all over the place. The sexy, spooky plant girl art of Sandra Duchiewicz was always something I wanted to incorporate. There's a growing idea in ecological and archeological circles that plants domesticated humans as much as the other way around. And I wanted to make a version of Poison Ivy who is genuinely evil.]

Briarpatch CR 27 NE Plant

This woman is beautiful, but alien, with chlorotic skin like the surface of a diseased leaf, and flower petals in place of hair. A collar of brambles grows from her neck and extends into long, thorny vines. She has piercing yellow eyes and an appraising expression.

The Elder Goddess Shub-Nugganoth has many epithets, but her most famous is “Black Goat with a Thousand Young”. In truth, her spawn number far more than one thousand. The creatures known simply as dark young are the most common of her progeny, but unique individuals are her offspring as well. One of these is Briarpatch, a green woman laden with occult intelligence and a profound disgust for urbanization. It is Briarpatch’s goal to see cities crumble and mortal civilizations reduced to decentralized subsistence farming once more, and she is going to use plants as her tools to achieve this.

Unlike many evil creatures of a druidic nature, Briarpatch does not disdain farming. Far from it; she believes humanity exists to serve plants, and that by distancing themselves from the soil, they have betrayed their roots. As such, she both exalts farming and farmers while simultaneously using domestic plants as weapons. Sometimes this is as elaborate as encouraging farmers to plant crops that will use more water and resources than the environment can support, forcing governments into subsidies and increasingly desperate acts to avoid famine. Sometimes this is as simple as distributing seeds of man-eating plants mixed in with garden plants or birdseed. Briarpatch’s cult includes a number of neutral farm-folk, who see her as salvation to their local communities, even as the nation-states that collect their taxes suffer as a body with a parasite does. Her cult often refers to her as the Pale Lady, especially among outsiders.

Briarpatch’s domain is the Forest of Veils in eastern Ustalav, and she communes and coordinates with the mythos horrors that live there. She is allied with the Vermillion Mother and Diceid as a coven of divinities obsessed with invasive species and reshaping ecosystems. She and the Vermillion Mother have a sexual relationship, and treat Diceid as something like a nephew or son. Briarpatch has an entitled personality and considers herself Shub-Nugganoth’s favorite child. She is convinced that if she does enough to deform society in the Inner Sea region, her mother will favor her with a promotion and transform her into an emissary Great Old One, similar to the relationship between Yog Sothoth and Tamir at’umr. Whether this ambition is achievable or is merely one of the Pale Lady’s delusions is hard to say.

Briarpatch rarely participates directly in combat, but when she does, she is a terror to behold. Due to her occult origins, she has access to a wider array of spells than a typical green man. She uses these to inflict overwhelming euphoria or grotesque physical transformations. Sometimes both simultaneously. If she actually wants to kill, rather than toy with her victims, she combines powerful area of effect spells with her tendrils and thorns. Briarpatch is acutely aware that she can still be slain permanently, and will retreat from a battle that turns against her to recuperate and plan revenge.

Briarpatch CR 27 Variant eruphyte green man XP 3,276,800 NE Medium plant (augmented, shapechanger) Init +16; Senses darkvision 60 ft., greensight 60 ft., lifesense 60 ft, low-light vision, Perception +30, thoughtsense 60 ft.

Defense AC 54, touch 36, flat-footed 41 (+12 Dex, +1 dodge, +13 insight, +12 natural, +6 armor) hp 663 (34d8+510); regeneration 20 (deific or mythic) Fort +34, Ref +23, Will +24 Defensive Abilities wilderness insight; DR 15/epic and slashing; Immune ability damage, ability drain, daze, electricity, petrification, plant traits, stagger; SR 37 Offense Speed 40 ft., climb 40 ft. Melee 2 slams +46 (1d8+21/19–20 plus 1d6 acid and absorb magic), 6 vines +46 (2d6+21 plus grab) Ranged 6 thorns +41 (2d6+21/19-20) Space 5 ft., Reach 5 ft. (30 ft. with vines) Special Attacks absorb magic, constrict (2d6+15), grab (Colossal), thoughtspear (17d8, DC 39) Spell-Like Abilities (CL 26th; concentration +37) Constant—pass without trace, speak with plants At will—plant growth, transport via plants 3/day—summon plants 1/day—awaken Druid Spells Prepared (CL 20th; concentration +33) 9th—antipathy (DC 32), extended control plants (DC 32), foresight, greater siege of trees, rival’s weald (DC 33), telekinetic storm (DC 32) 8th—euphoric tranquility (DC 31), horrid wilting (DC 31), mass cure serious wounds, stormbolts (DC 31), sunburst (DC 31) , vinetrap (DC 31) 7th—quickened cure moderate wounds, heal (DC 30), greater scrying, transmute metal to wood, waves of ecstasy (DC 30), waves of exhaustion 6th—antilife shell, greater dispel magic, green caress (x2, DC 30), mass inflict pain (DC 29), primal regression (DC 29) 5th—baleful polymorph (DC 29), cure critical wounds (DC 28), death ward, quickened ray of enfeeblement (DC 24), synapse overload (DC 28), extended thorn body, wall of thorns 4th—arboreal hammer, command plants (DC 27), confusion (DC 27), dispel magic, explosion of rot (DC 27), freedom of movement, strong jaw 3rd—cure moderate wounds (DC 26), excruciating deformation (DC 27), protection from energy, quench (DC 26), spike growth (DC 26), thorny entanglement (DC 27), vampiric touch 2nd—alter self, barkskin, fog cloud, harvest season, resist energy, warp wood (DC 26), wilderness soldiers 1st—cure light wounds (DC 24), entangle (2, DC 25), faerie fire, longstrider, snowball (x2), touch of the sea 0—create water, detect magic, guidance, light

Statistics Str 44, Dex 35, Con 40, Int 35, Wis 36, Cha 33 Base Atk +25; CMB +42 (+46 grapple, +44 sunder); CMD 85 (87 vs. sunder) Feats Combat Reflexes, Craft Staff, Craft Wondrous Item, Defensive Combat Training, Diehard, Dodge, Endurance, Extend Spell, Greater Spell Penetration, Improved Critical (slam), Improved Initiative, Improved Sunder, Power Attack, Psychic Sensitivity (B), Quicken Spell, Spell Focus (transmutation), Spell Penetration, Stand Still Skills Acrobatics +44 (+48 jumping), Appraise +26, Bluff +40, Climb +54, Disguise +40, Diplomacy +40, Fly +30, Intimidate +43, Knowledge (arcana) +46, Knowledge (geography, history, religion) +41, Knowledge (nature) +46, Linguistics +19, Perception +30, Sense Motive +42, Spellcraft +46, Stealth +44, Survival +42, Swim +35, Use Magic Device +44 Languages Abyssal, Aklo, Common, Daemonic, Druidic, Infernal, Mi-Go, Sylvan, Zern, telepathy 100 ft.; speak with plants SQ bardic knowledge +29, change shape (Colossal or smaller tree [tree shape]), deific, green empathy +45, occult gifts

Ecology Environment any forests Organization unique Treasure staff of heaven and earth, belt of physical perfection +4, headband of mental superiority +4 (Knowledge [arcana], Use Magic Device], amulet of mighty fists +4, wings of flying, bracers of armor +6, ring of the ecclesiarch, ring of mind shielding, rod of empowered spell (normal), deliquescent gloves, 11,000 gp worth of material components and miscellaneous treasure

Special Abilities Absorb Magic (Ex) When Briarpatch strikes a creature with her slam attack, she immediately attempts to absorb one magical effect from the target. Treat this as a targeted dispel magic (CL 20th), with Briarpatch preferring to target effects that prevent his vines’ grapple attempts, like freedom of movement. When Briarpatch absorbs magic in this way, she regains a number of hit points equal to double the level of the spell effect she absorbed. Deific Briarpatch grants divine spells to worshipers. This does not require any specific action on her behalf. Briarpatch grants access to the domains of Evil, Plant, Strength, and Weather and to the subdomains of Decay, Growth, Resolve, and Seasons. Her favored weapon is the sickle. If a druid worshiping Briarpatch chooses to take a domain, the druid must choose the Plant domain, regardless of alignment. Her holy symbol is that of a feminine face made of leaves and rose petals, facing to the left. Green Empathy (Ex) This ability functions as the druid’s wild empathy, save that the green man can only use this ability on plant creatures. A green man’s green empathy check bonus is equal to his HD plus his Charisma modifier (+43 for the typical green man). Occult Gifts (Ex) As the daughter of Shub Nugganoth, Briarpatch has abilities of an occult nature, and blurs the line between plant and aberration. She has the class skills of an aberration, although her total skill ranks are still those of a plant. He gains Psychic Sensitivity as a bonus feat, and adds psychic spells from the Abomination, Pain and Psychedelia psychic disciplines to the list of druid spells she can prepare. Lastly, she gains the benefits of her wilderness insight ability in any environment not subject to a dimensional lock effect, as alien spirits whisper these insights to her as much as natural plant life. In exchange, Briarpatch does not have the green caress aura of a typical green man. Spells Briarpatch can cast spells as a level 20 druid. She does not gain a domain, or other druid abilities such as an animal companion, unless she takes levels in the druid class. Summon Plants (Sp) Three times per day as a swift action, Briarpatch can summon any combination of plant creatures whose total combined CR is 20 or lower. This otherwise works like the summon universal monster rule with a 100% chance of success and counts as a 9th-level spell effect. Thorns (Su) Briarpatch’s thorns are ranged touch attacks with a range increment of 120 feet. A creature damaged by her thorn moves at half speed and can’t take 5-foot steps, fly, or use air walk, either naturally or magically, until the target or another creature pulls out the thorn as a full round action that provokes attacks of opportunity. Thoughtspear (Su) Once per hour as a standard action, Briarpatch can direct a blast of disorienting mental energy at a creature within 120 feet. This attack deals 17d8 points of damage, and the target cannot attempt Knowledge skill checks for 1 minute afterwards. A target that succeeds a DC 39 Will save reduces the damage by half and negates the skill disruption. This is a mind-affecting effect and the save DC is Intelligence based. Vines (Ex) Briarpatch can extend up to six thorny vines from her body to attack foes. These act as primary natural melee attacks that deal bludgeoning and piercing damage and have a reach of 30 feet. Wilderness Insight (Ex) Briarpatch gains an insight bonus to her AC and CMD equal to her Wisdom bonus.

[anitalenia]

hii i luv your work soo much and also the headers and the stuff you make is rlly good 😻 i was wondering if it’s too difficult to make the headers etc? specially the ones that are more like gifs? and also is it too hard to find the images? bc honestly i haven’t seen a lot of them, just wondering! i get it if you don’t want to share i just genuinely think that the work is rlly rlly good<3 (sorry for such a long ask omgg)

Omg thank you so much hi hi 🥹🥹💞💞💖💖🌸🌸 first of all thank you so much for liking my work and supporting me, I so so appreciate it ✨✨🫂🫂💐💐 And omgggg you’re making me BLUSH thank you thank you thank you for the kind words 😭😭🫂💞💞 I love when people compliment my works it makes me feel like I’m doing something right 😫💐💐 flowers for you for being so great ✨💐💐🌷🌷🌹🌹🌸🌸

To answer your question, the dividers and headers are actually very easy to make. The animated dividers I make aren’t difficult per se, they just involve a few more steps than making a normal divider does. As for my animated headers that I use for my fics or masterlists and what not those are also pretty easy. I’ll try to explain a little more about what I use in depth below. If you would like a detailed walk through explaining how I make them I could do that as well 💕 Prepare yourself, there’s a lot 😭💖

⋆ ˚｡⋆୨୧˚ 𝐀𝐏𝐏𝐒 / 𝐖𝐄𝐁𝐒𝐈𝐓𝐄𝐒 𝐈 𝐔𝐒𝐄 — Picsart, Pinterest, PicCollage, Vita, Polarr, GIPHY, Photopea, Etsy, DeviantArt, Phonto, ezgif.com, onlinegiftools.com, Iloveimg.com, various fancy font generators (I don’t use these anymore, I use an app now for fonts, but this is what I used to use the most), various sparkle emoji combos + decorative text ( I use this one a lot + there are a lot of symbol apps on the App Store you can download, I have two apps that I use from time to time )

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⊹ ࣪ ˖ 𝑷𝒊𝒄𝒔𝒂𝒓𝒕 ⊹₊ ⋆ This is a photo editing service / app I use to make regular dividers. They have a lot of aesthetic / cute stickers and pngs like the ones I use in a lot of my dividers. They have a transparent background option I love that makes it easy to make a divider. You can save the stickers you like to a collection and follow artists / users you like as well. I 10/10 recommend this one. They also have a bunch of photo editing software like cropping, retouching, etc. if you’re into that.

.𖥔 ݁ ˖ 𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐒 — You have to buy Picsart Pro to use a lot of the “pro quality” services, and the better quality stickers not made by an individual user (I.e. stickers Picsart itself has created) are not accessible to users not subscribed to Pro. Also, when you crop an image Picsart has a certain limit to how thin it can go, so I use an image cropping website I mentioned above Iloveimg.com. I only use Picsart for divider making purposes though so I don’t have to worry about allat. Not compatible with animation / gifs

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⊹ ࣪ ˖ 𝑬𝒕𝒔𝒚 ⊹₊ ⋆ This is one of my favorite shopping apps in general. If you don’t know about Etsy it’s a small business / individually owned business kind of shopping app. There’s a lot of different stores / sellers that sell a bunch of different things. It’s a good place to buy dividers for very cheap, less than $5 dollars, I’ve also bought pngs / stickers as well. I’ll buy a divider pack from time to time and edit them however I please. I never just buy a divider pack and claim it as my own on Tumblr, I always edit them in some way that fits more to what I want. It’s just a good starting point in my opinion. Of course, you can probably find simple dividers online, only you know what’s best for you. Also, this is just a good place for anything web related in general ( they have sticker packs, dividers, procreate brushes, decorative elements, really anything you want for a relatively small price)

. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁ ⟡ ݁ . ⊹ ₊ ݁. . ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁ ⟡ ݁ . ⊹ ₊ ݁. . ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁ ⟡ ݁ . ⊹ ₊ ݁.

⊹ ࣪ ˖ 𝑷𝒉𝒐𝒏𝒕𝒐 ⊹₊ ⋆ This is an app for fonts. Unlike the usual fonts you see in fancy font generators (𝔱𝔥𝔦𝔰, 𝓽𝓱𝓲𝓼, 𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚜, 𝐭𝐡𝐢𝐬, 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒔, etc.) Phonto lets you upload your own fonts to use on pics. Using font websites you can upload whatever fonts you like in just a couple seconds. I personally like to use Dafont.com for my fonts. You can also use dingbat fonts / decorative element fonts. Not compatible with animation / gifs

. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁ ⟡ ݁ . ⊹ ₊ ݁. . ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁ ⟡ ݁ . ⊹ ₊ ݁. . ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁ ⟡ ݁ . ⊹ ₊ ݁.

⊹ ࣪ ˖ 𝑷𝒊𝒏𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒆𝒔𝒕 ⊹₊ ⋆ Who doesn’t know Pinterest?? Literally my favorite app ever. I use Pinterest for image inspo / my aesthetic images. Here’s my Pinterest if you’re curious. This is besides the point but I used to be a Wattpad girly so I have a lot of boards relating to my past OC’s and wattpad stories (like 2016) 😭💕 You can search up literally anything / any aesthetic and the pictures / gifs that relate to it will pop up. Very easy to use and so much fun to make your own boards and stuff. I spend hours organizing my pins, I need to get back into it tbh 😿

.𖥔 ݁ ˖ 𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐒 — Users upload a lot of fan made art that isn’t always crediting the original artists who made it. I have found some jjk fan art I use for my headers but no source as to who the original creator is. A lot of profiles do give credit tho so that’s good.

. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁ ⟡ ݁ . ⊹ ₊ ݁. . ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁ ⟡ ݁ . ⊹ ₊ ݁. . ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁ ⟡ ݁ . ⊹ ₊ ݁.

⊹ ࣪ ˖ 𝑷𝒊𝒄𝑪𝒐𝒍𝒍𝒂𝒈𝒆 ⊹₊ ⋆ This is the same service made by the people who created Picsart. I use this for many purposes. I mainly use it to combine my animated gifs with still images and combine animated dividers together with other dividers. To be honest it’s hard to explain what I use it for specifically but it’s just good for combining gifs and still images into one.

.𖥔 ݁ ˖ 𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐒 — I don’t think there is a transparent background option, so I have to use a certain website mentioned above to remove gif backgrounds. You also can’t crop the image and unless you pay for no watermark it gives you one. It saves animated dividers / gifs as videos, so I go to Ezgif to make it into a gif and crop the image to remove the watermark. Again, this one is a little hard to explain.

. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁ ⟡ ݁ . ⊹ ₊ ݁. . ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁ ⟡ ݁ . ⊹ ₊ ݁. . ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁ ⟡ ݁ . ⊹ ₊ ݁.

⊹ ࣪ ˖ 𝑽𝒊𝒕𝒂 ⊹₊ ⋆ This is a free app I use that’s a rip off of the “real app” I used to have. The “real app” started charging for its services and so I moved to this one. It’s completely the same and FREE. This is where I apply text to my gifs and add the motion to it. Like how my masterlist header is, where it spins and flips, this is the app where I apply those effects. Side note, this is a good starting app for making edit videos like you see on Tiktok. You can turn off the watermark for free.

.𖥔 ݁ ˖ 𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐒 — This app also turns gifs / animations into a video when you go to save it, so again I go to Ezgif to turn it back into a gif.

. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁ ⟡ ݁ . ⊹ ₊ ݁. . ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁ ⟡ ݁ . ⊹ ₊ ݁. . ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁ ⟡ ݁ . ⊹ ₊ ݁.

⊹ ࣪ ˖ 𝑷𝒐𝒍𝒂𝒓𝒓 ⊹₊ ⋆ This is my favorite filter app for photos. Has very aesthetic filters that I use for my still images and as of recently my Pinterest boards as well. Not compatible with animation / gifs

. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁ ⟡ ݁ . ⊹ ₊ ݁. . ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁ ⟡ ݁ . ⊹ ₊ ݁. . ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁ ⟡ ݁ . ⊹ ₊ ݁.

⊹ ࣪ ˖ 𝑮𝒊𝒑𝒉𝒚 ⊹₊ ⋆ I use this app solely for its stickers. You can find sparkles, butterflies, hearts, anything you want with a transparent background and turn it into a divider. I use this app mostly for gathering animated stickers to make my animated dividers.

. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁ ⟡ ݁ . ⊹ ₊ ݁. . ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁ ⟡ ݁ . ⊹ ₊ ݁. . ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁ ⟡ ݁ . ⊹ ₊ ݁.

⊹ ࣪ ˖ 𝑷𝒉𝒐𝒕𝒐𝒑𝒆𝒂 ⊹₊ ⋆ This is my go-to for applying effects / filters to gifs or animations. I use this to add filters to my animated headers. I download PSD’s from DeviantArt and use those filters for my gifs. This is not an app, just a browser I’ve added to my Home Screen. I recommend using on a computer because there’s a lot of stuff on the screen and you’ll want to see it all spread out. I use it on mobile only because I know which buttons I need to press so it’s not a problem.

.𖥔 ݁ ˖ 𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐒 — You have to upload your own filters to be able to add one to a gif. Once you open up the site it can be very overwhelming and confusing with all the buttons and drop downs and yada yada. Photopea is like an animations version of photoshop. I recommend searching for a tutorial, or if requested I can personally make a separate post showing you how to add filters to a gif.

. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁ ⟡ ݁ . ⊹ ₊ ݁. . ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁ ⟡ ݁ . ⊹ ₊ ݁. . ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁ ⟡ ݁ . ⊹ ₊ ݁.

⊹ ࣪ ˖ 𝑬𝒛𝒈𝒊𝒇 ⊹₊ ⋆ my go-to website for literally anything gif related. Cropping, removing frames, optimizing a gif, making a gif, turning a video into a gif, and many more. I even use the effects tab from time to time to add a border around my gifs (like the one around the Sugar Water Series header) There’s other stuff you can do of course, I recommend checking it out, I’ve been using it for years.

. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁ ⟡ ݁ . ⊹ ₊ ݁. . ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁ ⟡ ݁ . ⊹ ₊ ݁. . ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁ ⟡ ݁ . ⊹ ₊ ݁.

⊹ ࣪ ˖ 𝒐𝒏𝒍𝒊𝒏𝒆𝒈𝒊𝒇𝒕𝒐𝒐𝒍𝒔 ⊹₊ ⋆ This is a browser I use to remove the background from gifs.

.𖥔 ݁ ˖ 𝐂𝐎𝐍𝐒 — It doesn’t do the best job at removing a gif background unless it’s a solid color. I always do solid black and it removes it pretty well. If your background is white it will have a hard time differentiating the gif from the white background and will clip out parts of the gif and make it choppy. I recommend having a plain black background as that works best for me. Also it just recently had an update where you need to wait 10 seconds before you can download the finished product. It also claims you can only use it a certain amount of times a day but tbh I’ve used it a bunch in one day and never seem to have a limit. So idk. Like I said this update is recent. I guess a lot more people started using it and now they want to charge people.

. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁ ⟡ ݁ . ⊹ ₊ ݁. . ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁ ⟡ ݁ . ⊹ ₊ ݁. . ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁ ⟡ ݁ . ⊹ ₊ ݁.

⊹ ࣪ ˖ 𝑰𝒍𝒐𝒗𝒆𝒊𝒎𝒈 ⊹₊ ⋆ This is the browser I mentioned in the picsart section where I crop really thin images. Does not have a limit on how thin you can make an image. I’m not positive but I’m pretty sure this is not animation / gif compatible.

. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁ ⟡ ݁ . ⊹ ₊ ݁. . ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁ ⟡ ݁ . ⊹ ₊ ݁. . ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁ ⟡ ݁ . ⊹ ₊ ݁.

⊹ ࣪ ˖ 𝒇𝒐𝒏𝒕 𝒈𝒆𝒏𝒆𝒓𝒂𝒕𝒐𝒓𝒔 ⊹₊ ⋆ ONE TWO THREE

. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁ ⟡ ݁ . ⊹ ₊ ݁. . ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁ ⟡ ݁ . ⊹ ₊ ݁. . ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁ ⟡ ݁ . ⊹ ₊ ݁.

⊹ ࣪ ˖ 𝒔𝒚𝒎𝒃𝒐𝒍 𝒅𝒆𝒄𝒐𝒓 ⊹₊ ⋆ ONE TWO THREE FOUR FIVE

. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁ ⟡ ݁ . ⊹ ₊ ݁. . ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁ ⟡ ݁ . ⊹ ₊ ݁. . ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁ ⟡ ݁ . ⊹ ₊ ݁.

⊹ ࣪ ˖ 𝒉𝒐𝒏𝒐𝒓𝒂𝒃𝒍𝒆 𝒎𝒆𝒏𝒕𝒊𝒐𝒏𝒔 ⊹₊ ⋆ Evernote (a notes organizing app I use to organize my fics + I love it so so much), Amino (can find clubs / communities dedicated to bio decor & symbols), Gif Toaster (the og app I used in the very beginning to apply text to gifs), Canva (good stickers / elements + can find aesthetic / cute stickers with keywords on Pinterest), Videoleap (a video editing software I used to use), Remini (an app that upgrades the quality of an image), Symbol Pad & Symbol (apps I use for individual symbols) Snow (has cute animated effects I used to use sometimes a long time ago), VLLO (the app I used before Vita that charged for some of its services), DeviantArt (where I get all of my PSD’s + they have a lot of stuff you can use, pngs and whatnot, I just don’t really use it for those purposes)

[schizo-bbgs]

How did you study about military gear? I'm currently trying & searching sources and looking for some tips.

I really like your work btw. Keep going✨️

Hi! Thank you so much, I'm excited to share some knowledge with someone. <3 I tried summing up methods that have helped me the most: 1. lots of research (vids, blogs, magazines, loadout lists,...) 2. store/product photos 3. military photos (not airsoft!) 4. damtoy loadout showcase vids I first started off with doing extensive research on cod operators. Cosplay guides by shadeops21 (DeviantArt) are a huge help with the most accurate loadout lists.

Next step was looking up product photos & studying the functions, shapes, different angles. Store/product photos are my most used refs, they're in high resolution & you'll see every detail thanks to a well lit environment. I also collect military pics in one huge folder, not only for pose refs & inspo, but also as refs on how the gear is used. Product photos will lay flat, worn gear will always look different!

Make sure to learn how to differentiate airsoft from real military pics, airsofters (except for dedicated reenactors/milsimers) tend to have wacky tastes (ugly, black amazon gear and fake, glowing NVGs,...).

The gear of Damtoys is incredibly accurate & precise, watching videos of the dolls being dressed will also give you an idea on how accs (pouches, glow sticks, radio systems, ...) are attached to the equipment.

My strongest interests lay in SOF, so I'll also collect magazines with expert info, insights & loadout descriptions (K-ISOM (German) SPECIAL OPS (Polish)). To my advantage, I do have friends who are either huge military nerds or in active duty, I'll sometimes ask them questions and learn about the features and (dis)advantages of various pieces of gear. It's a life hack, but you'll achieve your goal either way if you're determined!

After you got a feel for the basics, you can start accommodating knowledge. Study drawing/recognizing the most used equipment first, western modern kits are very repetitive (as the products are so good, they don't need to be replaced). Headsets: 3M Peltor ComTac, Sordin, Ops-Core AMP Helmets: Ops-Core, Crye AirFrame, Team Wendy, MICH 2000 Plate carriers: Crye JPC, Crye AVS, First Spear, Lindnerhof, AGILITE, LBT Slick & 6094 Gloves: Oakleys, PIG FDT Alpha, Mechanix, Petzl, Nomex flight gloves, Outdoor Research Ironsight After that you can start looking up more niche or less iconic brands and gear, you'll be a nerd in no time. I hope this is helpful and I'm sorry for the late reply. If you ever need help or info on something, feel free to dm me on Twitter or Tumblr!

[mxbo]

So what are the stamps and user boxes actually used for other than just being silly and cute

IS THIS MY CHANCE TO INTRODUCE SOMEONE TO THE CULTURE OF THE OLD WEB AND PROFILE CUSTOMIZATION!?!?!?!?

OK, so other than being cute and silly their purpose is to uh… be um… cute and silly decoratio- who wrote this script?? Whoever did is horrible at its job, like yeah it's right but- let me just sugarcoat it a bit mor-

WHAT ARE USERBOXES

“Userboxes are boxes containing a little bit of information about someone! They originated from wikipedia and were meant to be put on people’s user pages, but here people either choose to reblog those that apply to them or put them on their about pages (or both!)”

—Definition stolen borrowed from Userboxed's FAQ

So, basically, Wikipedia had this little thing where NERDS would code* boxes of information and people said “HEY, THAT'S SO COOL WHY DO ONLY THE SMART PEOPLE HAVE THOSE” and said “IMMA MAKE MY OWN, SCREENSHOT IT AND PUT IT ON MY WEBSITE/PROFILE/PINNED POST”

*Zzz boring code (I have a website myself, I'm allowed to call it boring)

WHY I LOVE USERBOXES

✦ Most people won't read your pinned post in its totality, but will read the userboxes. ✦ They're colorful, have one or two sentences max per userbox and have an image on the side, so it catches people's attention more than just plain text. ✦ They get their point across: your personality, interests, sometimes aesthetics… ✦ MAKING YOUR OWN IS SUPER EASY!!

The standard size is 239px × 49px, but bigger/high quality userboxes can be found, always following that ratio, of course.

WHAT ARE STAMPS

Basically, just images/GIFs with a border resembling a real life stamp. These are called static or animated stamps, AND I'M IN LOVE WITH THE LATTER TYPE. I believe they come from Deviantart and serve a similar purpose to userboxes: decorating your profile.

WHY I LOVE STAMPS

✦ Collecting them is super fun!! It reminds you of which parts of the internet you have visited. ✦ Groups of stamps look super cool together. ✦ That thing about getting your point across but without text and writing AESTHETIC in bold red underlined text.

The standard size is 99px × 56px, but bigger/high quality stamps can be found, always following that ratio, of course.

BUT WHERE DO YOU PLACE THEM !?

You can have a couple on your profiles (Spacehey), pinned posts (Tumblr)… But where people COLLECT THEM is in

A CORNER ON YOUR OWN WEBSITE / NEOCITIES

EXAMPLES OF COOL NEOCITIES THAT WITH COOL STAMPS/COLLECTIONS

✦ Shishka ✦ Cinni ✦ Oddity Commoddity ✦ Ko's Crag! ✦ Cloud Cover ✦ Echo's Graphics ✦ silly zone ✦ Mad Paddington ✦ My own website lmao

THIS IS YOUR CALL TO MAKE YOUR OWN NEOCITIES !!

(Because it's my hyperfixation, topped only by TF2, and I MUST share it with the world) (I already convinced my light to make a neocities, YOU ARE NEXT.)

CONCLUSION

TL;DR: They're silly and cute BUT, they're also nostalgic and an important part of internet culture

I also recommend watching the next videos just because (you won't understand userboxes or stamps any better, but the culture around it)

✦ Whatever Happened to Profile Customization? ✦ Old Websites Were Cooler, Actually

I hope you found my explanation/yapping interesting and also answered your question (if you can find your answer, there's so much filler, god) HEHE

[val-suvius]

A Trip to Barns & Stable

[Rigby: Aw C'MON, man!!! The BOOK STORE?? REALLY?!?!!

It's BAD enough YOU turned into a total SCHOOLGIRL!! Now you gotta drag ME into it???! Honestly, you oughta just-

...

...

Is... is THAT--?

Mordecai: -The rarest, most valuable, coveted collectors item in all "Broken Bonez" history? The Prosthetic Leg? OH YEAH!!

Rigby: *Takes a good 5 minutes to digest the sight of all the collectibles, comics, etc. (I realized TOO LATE that I could've added the café... & even then, I'm not sure I'd've had any room 😓)*

*Tearing up*

THIS PLACE ROOCKS!!!!

Everyone Else: SSHHHHHH!!!

Mordecai & Twilight Sparkle: *Lookig at each other*

...]

Just a small blurb of mine in the vast crossoverse of @toonsforkicks22 (Cartuneslover16 on DeviantArt); this was a BLAST to draw 🤩🤩!! I did this either late 2018 or mid 2019, not too long after finishing her fic "Chaotic Order".

Also just an observation of how bookstores, over the years, went from just selling books, to being the ultimate hang-out spot!

[gryficowa]

People entering popular tags and seeing my posts about boycotting:

It follows that today (August 11) another strike begins (For Palestine) and lasts until August 18

Yes, my Internet is rebelling (I use mobile hispot via USB)

Unfortunately, this complicates sharing fundraising posts a bit, but hey, that's not the most important thing, so yeah

I know, it's a trivial problem (Compared to the situation with fundraisers where I'm trying to increase the reach, which doesn't change the fact that it makes it a bit more difficult, seriously, my Internet often randomly stops working and it sucks, because if you want the collections to reach a larger number of people, this may make it difficult, especially if you do not have a charger very close to you, so you also have a limit on how long the battery can run before the laptop runs out of charge)

Unfortunately, many collections are empty or have stopped at a certain number and do not want to move forward :/

Now that I have your attention:

[excali8ur]

How did you get so good at drawing? And do you have any tips??? (Pls I'm a beginner help)

Honestly dude you never get good at art. It's sweet that people like my stuff but I still feel like most of it sucks and I think that's sort of an inherent part of drawing lmao. You've just gotta decide to keep doing it anyway because it matters to you

I do have a few tips for improving your technical drawing though:

Do figure sketching. If you can go to in-person life drawing classes that's great, and there'll usually be at least a few running if you live in a city/big town, but you can do it online too. Here are some websites I use: Line of Action / SketchDaily / Quick Poses. Try drawing with different lengths of time (so start with poses appearing for 30 seconds, then move up to 1 minute, then 2, then 5, then 10). Also don't feel too bad if the first few times you try it and the sketches don't turn out quite right or the proportions get messed up or you run out of time. It's part of the process & you'll improve the longer you keep at it. Just try to use longer & messier lines and don't focus on the details until you have basic shapes blocked out. (This is literally what I tell anyone who asks me for art advice because it's about the only drawing exercise I ever deliberately do lmao)

Draw real life subjects and not just from photos- it's more challenging but helps you develop your observation & sketching skills. This includes still life and landscapes/architecture as well as living things btw

Use references as much as you can. I suck at this but it'll genuinely make you improve faster if you do lmao. You can find loads of references on Google or DeviantArt but I also have some specific places I get them from: JookpubStock / Fat Photo Ref (requires registering but I can verify they're legit) / AdorkaStock / Teamwarchicken (actually my blog that I use for collecting images)

When you're learning to shade remember that you're shading a 3 dimensional object, and try to avoid just doing shading around the very edges of things. Same goes for highlights.

Try drawing in different styles and subjects you don't usually draw. If you can afford it try out different physical art materials too. It helps keep the art block at bay if nothing else lmao

Don't be a perfectionist. Learn to just say "good enough" and not obsess over mistakes. It's better to draw lots of slightly wonky things than one thing that you freaked out about getting perfect.

If anyone else has any other advice/resources then please add them! I do not know as much about art as people think I do hjfgjkhdf

[quillpokebiology]

Any Maractus Facts? I love the little guys.

I love them too! Their little jigs are so cute

Maractus Facts

(Art by limereptileart on Twitter)

-The scientific name for Maractus is "Cassa Tripudium" which roughly translates to "Dancing Hollow"

-Maractus are very close relatives of Cacturne, both being cactus pokemon that live in the desert. Crossbreeds between them are quite common

-Maractus will dance and jiggle around to make a maraca-like sound to scare off bird pokemon that will try to nip at their seeds. They will also do this to communicate with each other and just to have fun

-Unlike Cacturne, who is nocturnal, Maractus are Diurnal, making their songs in the day and sleeping by night

-Like most Monocot pokemon, Maractus don't need to eat and can instead photosynthesize for their nutrients. They also don't need much water

-When sleeping, Maractus root themselves so they can collect water in the sand and so they don't fall over

-Maractus scatter their seeds once a year. Their seeds contain a lot of nutrients and many dishes contain Maractus seeds

-Baby Maractus are called Mara(s)

-Maractus bury their eggs in the sand. To protect them, they'll root by the eggs until they hatch

(Art by Ninja-Jamal on Deviantart)

-Maractus are very popular for cultural dances. South Unova and Stow-on-Side have outfits based on Maractus used for celebrations

-Maractus live in groups. Not much to say there, but it can be horryifiying when your walking st night and accidently wake them, and you see a bunch of glowing eyes staring at you making maraca sounds (they were not aggressive, but it's still creepy)

-Both male and female Maractus produce seeds. Their seeds is not how they reproduce, but if planted, Cacti will grow. A lot of Cacti do come from Maractus seeds

-They do have mating dances. What qualifies as a mating dance depends on the group that they're living in, but almost all mating dances include scattering seeds

-Maractus are long-living pokemon, with Maractus being 200 years old! (Headcanon by @adobe-outdesign )

-Their needles aren't as sharp as Cacturne's needles. If you're careful, they are safe to hug

-They don't always have their flowers in full bloom. Some Maractus have flowers that will close at night, and most Maractus flowers will close in the winter

-Maractus will also dance with each other to reestablish bonds. Dancing with your Maractus is a great way to have fun and get closer to them