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only thing that comes to mind today.

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hot artists don't gatekeep

I've been resource gathering for YEARS so now I am going to share my dragons hoard

Floorplanner. Design and furnish a house for you to use for having a consistent background in your comic or anything! Free, you need an account, easy to use, and you can save multiple houses.

Comparing Heights. Input the heights of characters to see what the different is between them. Great for keeping consistency. Free.

Magma. Draw online with friends in real time. Great for practice or hanging out. Free, paid plan available, account preferred.

Smithsonian Open Access. Loads of free images. Free.

SketchDaily. Lots of pose references, massive library, is set on a timer so you can practice quick figure drawing. Free.

SculptGL. A sculpting tool which I am yet to master, but you should be able to make whatever 3d object you like with it. free.

Pexels. Free stock images. And the search engine is actually pretty good at pulling up what you want.

Figurosity. Great pose references, diverse body types, lots of "how to draw" videos directly on the site, the models are 3d and you can rotate the angle, but you can't make custom poses or edit body proportions. Free, account option, paid plans available.

Line of Action. More drawing references, this one also has a focus on expressions, hands/feet, animals, landscapes. Free.

Animal Photo. You pose a 3d skull model and select an animal species, and they give you a bunch of photo references for that animal at that angle. Super handy. Free.

Height Weight Chart. You ever see an OC listed as having a certain weight but then they look Wildly different than the number suggests? Well here's a site to avoid that! It shows real people at different weights and heights to give you a better idea of what these abstract numbers all look like. Free to use.

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In the spirit of encouraging people to comment on fanfics while also making it easier to do so, I feel obliged to share a browser extension for ao3 that has quite literally revolutionized the comment game for me.

I present to you: the floating ao3 comment box!

From what I've seen, a big problem for many people is that once you reach the comments at the bottom of a fic, your memory of it miraculously disappears. Anything you wanted to say is stuck ten paragraphs ago, and you barely remember what you thought while reading. This fixes that!

I'll give a little explanation on the features and how it works, but if you want to skip all that, here's the link.

The extension is visible as a small blue box in the upper left corner.

(Side note: The green colouring is not from the extension, that's me.)

If you click on it, you open a comment box window at the bottom of your screen but not at the bottom of the fic. I opened my own fic for demonstrative purposes.

The website also gives explanations on how exactly it functions, but I'll summarize regardless.

insert selection -> if you highlight a sentence in the fic it will be added in italics to the comment box

add to comment box -> once you're done writing your comment, you click this button and the entire thing will automatically copied to the ao3 comment box

delete -> self explanatory

on mulitchapter fics, you will be given the option to either add the comment to just the current chapter or the entire fic

The best part? You can simply close the window the same way you opened it and your progress will automatically be saved. So you can open it, comment on a paragraph, and then close it and keep reading without having the box in your face.

Comments are what keep writers going, and as both a writer and a reader, I think it's such an easy way of showing support and enthusiasm.

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Well shit, the Republicans brought a certain anti-online porn bill back to the table.

The Interstate Obscenity Definition Act.

This should alarm you guys.

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Remember when I told ya'll last month to be ready to start looking for a Discord alternative?

Yeah things aren't looking good for discord.

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Ok so, I just remembered how people in the comments of a tiktok video were being assholes, and I want to rant now :3

The video showed two wheelchair users at a train(?), who had just arrived to their stop to find nobody was there with a ramp so they could leave the train. One of them blocked the door so it wouldn't close, and this lasted for 15 minutes. The train was stopped for said 15 minutes. There was a button by the door, that said that it'd contact the driver when pressed. It didn't. People offered to go find the driver, and they came back with the news that there were no people in the platform to put the ramp. In the end, passengers had to go out, and place the ramp themselves, before the train could carry on. The wheelchair users had warned they were coming, and asked to have the ramp put there so they could get down. The platform turned out to have workers, they all just ran away because they'd never encountered the situation in which they needed to do this simple task.

Because of the workers' negligence, the train was forced to stop for 15 minutes.

Everyone's comments?

"Why did they block the doors and stop the train? So selfish" Selfish were workers who refused to do their job.

"What if someone had needed to get to their stop urgently? They shouldn't have stopped the train" It wasn't the disabled people's fault, it was the workers who were negligent.

"Why didn't they just wheel themselves down those steps?" They shouldn't have to risk their (expensive) chairs just because people didn't do what they were paid to do.

"If I had been in that train I would've been pissed, how dare you stop it" And you probably wouldn't have even thought about fixing the problem yourself, would you?

"Entitled assholes" Ok I'll leave you stranded in a train with everyone who could help you get down outright refusing to. Let's see who's an entitled asshole now.

If someone fights for accessibility, as much as it might be a bother for you, you do not have the right to be mad at them. If someone fights for accessibility, it is exclusively the fault of a world catered exclusively for able-bodied people.

So next time you think, "hey the consequences of these disabled people fighting for their rights bother me", instead of blaming them for this, help them solve the issue. This way, next time they will not have to fight at all.

Able bodied people, go out and fight for a fucking accessible world if you're not an asshole.

[ Able-bodied people are encouraged to reblog this post, but try not to derail ]

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Okay I’m currently furious that migraines are often so blindly easy to treat and I had to find this out myself at the age of 26 when I’ve been to a neurologist since I was 11 lol so I’m about to teach you two neat and fast little tricks to deal with pain!

The first is the sternocleidomastoid muscle, or the SCM muscle.

This big red section is responsible for pain around the eye, cheekbone, and jaw, as well as some temple pain. Literally all you have to do is angle your head down a little, angle it away from the side that hurts, and then you can gently pinch and rub that muscle. I find it best to start at the bottom and travel upwards. The relief is so immediate! You can increase pressure as you feel comfortable doing so.

Here is a short and easy video showing this in action

The second is a fast and easy stretch that soothes your vagus nerve, which is the nerve responsible for calming you down. The vagus nerve, for those unfamiliar, is stimulated by deep breathing such as yawning, sighing, singing, or taking a deep breath to calm your anger in a tense situation.

You can stretch this out by sitting up as straight as possible (this does not have to be perfect to work) and interlacing your fingers. Put your hands on the back of your head with your thumbs going down the sides of your neck and, while keeping your face forward, look all the way to one side with just your eyes. Hold that until you feel the urge to breathe deeply or yawn, or until you can tell there’s a change. Then do the same thing on the other side. When you put your arms down, you should clearly be able to turn your head farther in both directions. If the first session doesn’t get rid of your migraine, rest and repeat as many times as necessary. I even get a little fancy with it and roll my eyes up and down along the outer edge sometimes to stretch as much as I can.

If you need a visual here’s a good video on it. I know some of the language they use seems questionable but this is real and simple science and should not be discarded because it’s been adopted by the trendy wellness crowd!

I seriously cannot believe I didn’t hear a word of this from any doctor in my life. Additionally, if you get frequent recurring migraines, you may want to see a dietician. Migraines can be caused by foods containing histamines, lectin, etc. and can also be caused by high blood pressure in specific situations such as exercise, stress, and even sex.

If any of this information helps you I’d love to hear it btw! It’s so so fast and easy to do. Good luck!

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A boy can dream, can't he?

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“Reality is unrealistic” exists for a reason.

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I need non-Canadians to know that everything in this thread is true

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I need to give Zuko credit where credit is due here:

Being able to successfully redirect Ozai's lightning, which is definitely much more powerful than Azula's, is insane. Especially since this was his first attempt at doing it.

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Wizards can't lie in the Young Wizards universe, or they shouldn't. Does this mean being carefully accurate when cursing? No incorrectly gendered comments, no calling something what it isn't, etc? Are there wizard-specific curses to help with that?

Hmm.

Well, best place to start is by defining our terms. Where’d I put the OED?

(To save time, I’m leaving out the meaning-specific etymological citations that the OED provides for each entry.)

So. The noun form of “curse” first. General etymology:  “Late OE curs, of unknown origin: no word of similar form and sense is known in Teutonic, Romanic or Celtic.” Hmm, isn’t it interesting how the word seems to sort of come out of nowhere?

The main meanings (and it’s interesting that the word has only a couple of columns in the OED: normally the shorter words are the ones with the longer entries): 

(1) An utterance consigning, or supposed or intended to consign, (a person or thing) to spiritual or temporal evil, the vengeance of the deity, the blasting of malignant fate, etc. It may be uttered by the deity, or by persons supposed to speak in his name, or to be listened to by him.

(a) A formal ecclesiastical censure or anathema: a sentence of excommunication. (As in cursing “by bell, book & candle”.)

(2) Without implication of the effect: The utterance of a malediction with invocation or adjuration of the deity; a profane oath, an imprecation.

(3) An object of cursing or execration: an accursed thing or person.

(4) The evil inflicted by divine (or supernatural) power in response to an imprecation, or by way of retributive punishment. 

(5) Attributive and combinatory forms such as curse-blasted, curse-scarred (noting here with interest the unusual formation “curse-meet”, formed after the erroneous “help-meet” for “help meet” or the modern “help-mate”. Huh.)

And the verb form:

(1) To utter against persons or things words which consign, or are intended or supposed to consign, them to evil spiritual or temporal, etc.

(a) Said of the deity or supernatural power.

(b) Said of persons claiming to speak in the divine name, esp. officers of the church: To pronounce a formal curse against: to anathematize, excommunicate, consign to perdition.

(2) Hence (without implication of the effect): To imprecate or invoke divine vengeance or evil fate upon: to denounce with adjuration of the divine name: to pour maledictions upon: to swear at.

(3) To speak impiously against, to rail profanely at (the deity, fate, destiny, etc.), to blaspheme.

(4) To utter curses: to swear profanely in anger or irritation.

(5) To afflict with such evils or calamities as are the consequences or indications of divine wrath or the malignancy of fate: to blast.

Wizards do occasionally have opportunity to get involved with a number of these options. Against some of them, wizards are strictly enjoined – for example, intentional malediction of the “May a truck hit you when you next cross the street” type. When working in a language routinely used to define or redefine physical reality, the dangers of such usage are obvious. Too much of this will get you sanctioned – and not just by your local Senior, either: the Powers take misuse of the Speech quite seriously. 

Sometimes (5) comes up as something you’re going to have to do, but it’s always approached with caution, and first making sure you have the necessary authorizations. Indiscriminate “blasting” is not permitted.

But more often in a wizard’s general practice, (2) of the verb form comes up for use. Some challenges to the Lone Power are phrased as formal adjurations invoking the attention of the One or the Powers to the intervention one is about to enact on Their behalf. (There is a cultural similarity to the concept that one must give fair warning before one uses a firearm or other weapon of deadly force. Cf. Nita at the Crossings in Wizards at War, using one of the numerous forms of the monitory declaration.) 

I assume that what we’re discussing here is (4) in the verb form, and part of (3). It would be the rare wizard who doesn’t succumb to some “railing profanely” every now and then. (”Profane” here should not be considered in its relationship to the word “profanity” but it its position on the far end of a spectrum that has “sacred” residing at the other end.)  

So. Can you be profane in the Speech? Oh yeah. There is an extensive vocabulary set aside for this, mostly consisting of Speech-words which are “etymological nulls” – with no relationship to any word in the Speech that denotes or implies any real person, place, thing, force, or physical law. This allows the annoyed wizard to vent as necessary in the Speech without being concerned about inadvertently damaging anything real.

There is, however, also another class of swear words in the Speech for those who find the nulls a little too bloodless or unevocative. These words are more specialized, and exploit a function of the way spells work.

Specifically: for a spell to fire, you need two things: enacture and intent.

(And a structural substrate in the Speech.)

You need three things. Enacture, intent, a structural substrate in the Speech —

(And nifty red uniforms.)

Ahem. Where was I? …Anyway, the second class of Speech-based swear words is “culturally devised” to invoke the spirit or sense of a home culture’s nasty horrible things without actually invoking the things themselves – the words having been “enacture-stripped” by the Powers that Be to prevent accidental ill effects on reality. (And yes, there is a linguistics-oriented Power among whose many jobs is riding herd on the many recensions of the Speech. This Power ranks very high indeed, a colleague of the Michael Power / One’s Champion: in Earth-based cultures it has routinely been identified with Thoth and other such gods intimately involved with language and words of power.)

Anyway. These vocabularies, both the nulls and the devised, are very popular and are frequently enriched by lively additions from wizards in the field. Somewhere in Games Wizards Play we find* Nita realizing that while at the Invitational she’s been hearing a lot of fabulous swearing, here and there, and she wonders why she hasn’t spent a lot more time finding out where these words are coming from.  

All the swear words, in the end, are a service the Powers gladly enable for their mortal colleagues who really do put up with a lot in the course of errantry, and ought to find venting easy rather than difficult. But also, it’s kind of an initiative to keep wizards swearing safely in the Speech, rather than in their milk languages / the local vernacular.

Because… well. On occasion, particularly occasions of great stress, enacture can slide out of the Speech (always in the foreground of the working wizard’s mind) and slop over into one’s vernacular usages. The subsequent effects can be, um, disruptive.

Let’s take a readily available example. If this man (click previous for the full-size gif) was a wizard —

— and said what he just said there, well, there’s a range of possible results.

I think it’s fair to assume from the visual and verbal context that occurs before and after this image that John here—had he been a wizard—would not have been intending to inflict shapechange on anybody. Especially not the person he’s addressing. He’s just had a bad last few minutes, that’s all, and his best friend has as well, and then (for, as usual, a tangled knot of ridiculously convoluted reasons) his BF has turned around and played a godawful trick on him. 

The context suggests that John is more interested in having Sherlock stay just as he is, the better for John to hurl invective at him. But let’s assume also, for argument’s sake, that this wizard!John had a spell ready to use to deal with the problem they’ve just been through, and then he didn’t have to use it because Sherlock found the solution. The spell’s still lying around ready to fire, though. All the energy bound up in that construct is ready to go. All it needs is the trigger.

When there’s already enacture present, and a structure compatible with triggering by more than one method, and if one of those was a mere expression of intent –  if you’re a little on the short-tempered side and for the moment blind to the complications that can sometimes ensue in English-language idiom, well, after the above utterance, in the next moment the wizard’s consulting best friend might have been abruptly replaced by… well… something like this.** Because, you know,  accidents do happen.

So the habit of keeping one’s cursing in the Speech, where the precision of the language doesn’t allow idiomatic hiccups like the above to occur, is generally a wise one: and the thoughtful wizard spends a certain amount of time every now and then looking up the “dirty words”.

Hope this helps.

*Well, maybe I should say ‘I find’. You lot will find it later. 

**Or, who knows, if the spell read the uttered idiom a little bit differently… which could happen, where John Watson is involved… you might wind up with something else entirely. …It’s just a roll of the dice, isn’t it? :)

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Wait, have I really never talked about Economy Of Information, the thing I made up that is also the thing I use the most when writing?