“garbanzo is a funny word”

we have a little bit of fun here in this nihilistic death-roll of a reality, drawing what i feel, and feeling what i don’t want to feel - ardy, autistic, queer, decaying

[ardys-cassette]

hi there!! im ardy!! im new to tumblr. im an autistic beginner furry artist who wants to make cool pictures, so check out my stuff! i dont really post a lot, but im trying to work past my self doubt and my mental slop!!! i think!! please help im trying so hard !!!!!!

[ardys-cassette]

hi arrdyt hi hi hi hello hi there hi hello helelo hi

HI HI HI HIEHEHRHC

37

[varaxous]

38

[ardys-cassette]

WOOO YEAAAGHFDFJH HYEEAAGAHFJFHH ;);&, $48.95 plus tax

[ardys-cassette]

hi arrdyt hi hi hi hello hi there hi hello helelo hi

HI HI HI HIEHEHRHC

37

[externalmemorycomic]

In honour of webcomic day, here's one of my favourite longer comics I've made, called "the worst ice cream in town". As always, you can find many more comics on my patreon, which is linked in my pinned post.

[externalmemorycomic]

I coloured it! (Please reblog this version instead ':) )

[mild-goth-sauce]

An informational comic I drew last year for my Comics 2 class, reposting it to my new account (had to jump ship from the old one unfortunately) with some minor grammar changes and learned my lesson in adding watermarks! Happy early pride :)

[biophonies]

made in honor of the now-extinct population of Falasteen crocodiles, the sunbirds that almost lost their names, and everyone else surviving the attempted erasure.

posted the other week as part of an ongoing fundraiser offering free prints and paid, with 100% of proceeds going to Care for Gaza. it has since been translated, wheatpasted, and flown on kites all over the world from Saigon to Scotland...!!!

monetary donations are never a substitute for holistic political action, and a push for a different world... but the shows of solidarity and support have lifted my spirits so much.

this is now available on a t-shirt too, screenprinted by hand in Texas!same deal: all profits go to food, medicine, and other critical supplies via Care for Gaza (& the PCRF). thank you for sharing.

image description below:

a Palestine sunbird holds red poppies in their beak next to the text RIGHT TO EXIST. a Palestine crocodile (a subspecies of the Nile, now extinct thanks to occupying forces) guards a shining key next to the text RIGHT TO RETURN. a Palestinian olive tree, full of fruit is next to the text RIGHT TO RESIST. a Palestinian family of five, all embracing each other next to the text RIGHT TO REMAIN.

[tortiefrancis]

[ ID from Under the Cut: a Palestine sunbird holds red poppies in their beak next to the text RIGHT TO EXIST. a Palestine crocodile (a subspecies of the Nile, now extinct thanks to occupying forces) guards a shining key next to the text RIGHT TO RETURN. a Palestinian olive tree, full of fruit is next to the text RIGHT TO RESIST. a Palestinian family of five, all embracing each other next to the text RIGHT TO REMAIN. /End ID ]

[marxism-transgenderism]

What always gets me about learning about settler colonialism is how once you learn about it you cannot unsee the violence to the land itself. My home state was previously nearly 100% wetlands, apart of the wider Ohio river valley whose biodiversity supported such large populations of hundreds of different species that many contemporary source from settlers describe it as like the garden of Eden.

The Indigenous people who farmed and hunted here (and still farm and hunt in what land they have been able to keep and reclaim) were able to grow miles of upon miles of crops with multiple harvests a year, encouraging this biodiversity by creating forest gardens with incredible amounts of food from staples like corn and squash to local fruits like pawpaws to European imports like apples alongside controlled burns which allowed fields and buffalo ranges to expand.

Nowadays my state is known almost exclusively for its fields of nothing but corn and soy beans. Driving through in between the comparatively small cities you'll see nothing but fields where the plethora of different trees and plants were chopped down mile by mile, the remaining wetlands drained and flattened, and the rich black soils robbed of their nutrients through decades upon decades of monocrop agriculture now preserved through the life blood of petrochemical fertilizers which destroy the surrounding environment.

This process was done mile by mile as the tens of thousands of Indigenous people were killed and displaced by settlers and the US army, the land measured and sold acre by acre to white settlers who raped the land as described, filling the pockets of wealthy land speculators (like George Washington and Thomas Jefferson) who bought the land directly from the government in schemes so corrupt historians have dedicated entire careers to mapping out their dramas.

It's like learning about commodity fetishism and suddenly seeing hundreds of strangers in the products that surround you. Once you learn how the land was destroyed for profit you'll never look at the miles of fields or the cracks in the concrete of buildings built on wetlands or the stench of now obsolete canals built solely for a once boat-dependent economy with no care for the environment the same.

[makrustic]

Moments in time, preserved through sentiments Twitter | Ko-Fi | Patreon

[alexbraindump]

the optimism of mundanity in sci-fi

[word count: 980]

Mundanity serves my favorite role in worldbuilding. Beyond fictional politics, cultures or races sits the - often overlooked - role of the mundane. The things we do in our day-to-day lives. Where we keep our keys, our routines before going out for the day, the junk we may leave lying around. It’s part of a tiny picture that lingers in the shadows of the vast worlds we build and stories we weave. Yet from that snapshot blossoms a viewpoint dripping with relatability, one that places you into the shoes of a character living in that world to a capacity far beyond that which anything else could even hope to achieve.

When I’m writing a character introduction, it’s about more than just the character’s current position and desires. It’s about integrating the world into their life. If space travel is a commonplace fixture of their world and they own a spaceship, what’s the role of that ship to them? Is it like a car, a mobile home, a flying armory? If it’s like a car, have they left it stock, or have they modified and tuned the way a car lover would in real life? If it’s like a home, what furniture do they deem priority, do they keep it clean, is there any decoration? If an armory, what’s the weaponry of this universe like, what kinds of weapons do they want to keep loaded, how organized is it? (check out the first chapter of my story 501-b, also on this blog, if you wanna see where that though process brought me ;3)

Opportunities for both character and worldbuilding are already pouring out from that simple hypothetical. So many things can be said right away with the mundane relationship between a character and their mode of transport. To them, that’s just how it is, nothing special. The same way you’d look at a car. To the reader, though? That’s a nuclear bomb of information you just detonated in their face and they probably didn’t even realize. If you get how a character views their ship, you already start to understand their personality and the role of space travel in that world right off the bat.

It’s always been alluring to me, an element my mind would hook its foxy paws onto right away. While the lack of it wouldn’t bug me much, I’d always start to wonder about it later. Where does this character live, what’s their home look like? By no means am I arguing that this is an absolute necessity to make a good story. Every story has its own unique needs that can be filled however the creator sees fit. But for me, what I want to see and make more of, is something more down-to-earth. And while a good chunk of that is - admittedly - just me being a neurodivergent nerd, I feel like there’s something more to it. Forgive me for getting a little pretentious from here on out, but-

Mundanity in sci-fi is optimistic. It’s this tinge of reassurance that, no matter what happens, no matter how bad things get or how far we make it away from our home planet, we’re still individuals. Whether its huge, bombastic threats like scary evil aliens, or depressingly real ones like corporate overreach and profit motives, we will persist. There’s comfort in that.

When I get to see a character doing their morning routine in a world separated from our own by anything between decades to centuries, it feels good. Like the artist/writer is patting me on the head and saying “there there, things may be shit, but life isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.” And maybe there’s a nihilistic twist on it, like propaganda on a television or corporate products lining a comfy home’s shelves, but that’s still a television or a home. They may come home from the Sub-Minimum Wage Employee Pulper 9,000™, and that will inherently be sympathetic, but when we get to see them toss their coat aside and go to the kitchen to make a lazy, unhealthy meal and slouch on their sofa and pick up a television remote to flip to their favorite channel, the connection that forms is irreplaceable.

And I feel that it’s severely underutilized. When I watched Andor for the first time (amazing show btw, check it out even if you aren’t the biggest fan of starred wars) and we got to see a character return to their mother’s apartment and eat space cereal with space milk, it was somehow one of the most jarring moments I’ve seen in a Star Wars thing. Living situations are oftentimes such an understated part of popular sci-fi media that I actually felt jarred upon seeing one. And I loved it.

That’s just how uncommon they can be. And I hate that. I hate that sci-fi loves to dismiss the mundanities of life, because those are when I feel the most at-home in a universe. I can immediately feel a character’s vibe if I see them kick their feet up in a messy impromptu living room in their spaceship. While you can put in the work to make me feel that same thing through dialogue and actions, it’s arguably even more work.

So next time you’re making a story, why not save yourself some trouble and show your audience a little snippet of day-to-day life in your world? Show us what a character’s phone looks like and how they use it, or maybe if they have a wallpaper (if applicable) or any stickers on the back of it? Or give us some tiny details about how they get from place to place. Is public transport a thing, do they own their own vehicle of some kind, or do they just walk? Hopefully these thoughts conjure the same kind of inspiration in you as the ones that run around wreaking havoc in my little fox brain.

[alexbraindump]

DESTINATION : DESOLATE

thingy i whipped up at 4am to act as a cover to my new worldbuilding playlist. partially inspired by the themes & setting of the novel i'm working on, partially just its own thing. i'd like to make more of these if i take more pictures like it, but it's not an active focus of mine

[racecarart]

I've noticed that I really enjoy this aesthetic.

[killersbabe]

the great north south divide has once again struck my home. friends, where are you from and what do you call this fellow?

US south, mosquito hunter

US south, mosquito hawk

US north, mosquito hunter

US north, mosquito hawk

elsewhere in the US, mosquito hunter

elsewhere in the US, mosquito hawk

I call it something else (elaborate in tags)

I'm from outside the US and we call it this: (tell me!)

Voting ended onNov 21, 2023

[sainamoonshine]

This is a “maringuin”

[kaelio]

Crane fly????

[realspacejunk]

What in the actual f is that monstrosity?

[ardys-cassette]

this is a mosquito eater, but im from texas so it was pronounced as “muskeeter eeter”

[headspace-hotel]

hey y'all if you're getting freaked over "overpopulation" or have heard of someone who is, watch this beautifully explained video please and thank you

[headspace-hotel]

I was going to get my degree in History

I dropped out and now I study Environmental Sciences

When environmental writers talk about "Overpopulation" I realize they have not studied History and I am afraid

I urge everyone to challenge and criticize the notion of "Overpopulation" whenever and wherever it appears.

As the video in the above link simply and elegantly illustrates, human population increased dramatically in the 20th century simply because fewer people were dying at young ages. For most of human history, half of humans died in childhood, and many humans died much younger than the modern life expectancy. In order to keep the population steady, human families had to have enough children so that on average, a pair of two humans would have two children (enough to replace themselves) survive long enough to successfully have their own kids.

Without modern medicine, half of children will die in childhood, so if you want 2 kids to grow up and have kids of their own, better have at least four. And in a world where an infected cut or a bad illness can easily kill you, even people who survive to adulthood might not live to become parents themselves, so better make it five. But as with the modern world, not everybody will have children, so six is a better number, given that a certain share of people may be infertile or run off and become a monk. And you might of course be particularly unlucky with any of the above, so better make it seven.

Of course, people weren't consciously thinking about the replacement rate thing, but I reckon cultural ideas about family size have this kind of math going on under the hood.

The exponential population increase of the 20th century happened because of an unavoidable lag in cultural changes after the change in death rate. People didn't know their kids would survive childhood at higher rates until the kids did survive childhood.

There is no possible way we can significantly decrease the human population within the next 50 or even 100 years without killing people. Why? Because most people who are 20 right now will still be alive in 50 years, assuming life expectancy follows current trends. Birth rates have already declined very dramatically in most areas of the world. This shows that humans are actually pretty damn good at self-regulating their population. It's just that the decline in death rate was relatively sudden and unprecedented, and humans couldn't respond to it until it had already occurred.

Areas that still have high birth rates, have little access to birth control and relatively high childhood death rates. The simple solution is to make health care and family planning safely and easily available for all people.

I think the video illustrates something that is particularly important to notice: WHICH populations are expected to grow. Africa grows the most. The countries that benefited first from lowered death rates—wealthy colonizing countries—have already re-adjusted their birth rates, so they don't grow. White skinned folks will soon be far outnumbered. Hmmmmm...why would we be concerned about this?

To illustrate why the overpopulation argument is so terrifying, here is a little excerpt from the book "Every Living Thing: The Politics of Life in Common" by Jenell Johnson. Trigger warning for genocide and discussion of Nazi ideology (what a surprise...not)

This very blatant and disgusting display of ecofascism being quoted and discussed is obvious, but I fear the concept of "Overpopulation" makes ecofascism acceptable in ways that are perhaps not so obvious.

I believe that every time we say: "Humans' impact on the earth is so terrible!" "Nature would be better off without humans destroying it." "Our species has had a devastating impact on this planet!" "Maybe nature will heal when humans go extinct." "Humans do nothing but kill and destroy everything." We are softening our world slightly more to the evil and abhorrent ideologies in these pages.

What would it look like, if "humans" were held accountable for the damage to the Earth? Do you think every human would be "held accountable" equally? Who do you think would be "held accountable" first? Who most likely dies when there are heat waves, floods, and tornadoes? Who cannot evacuate? Who loses everything, having no external store of capital outside of their home?

And if you think Earth would be better without humans, are you going to volunteer to go first?...or do you expect someone else to...? ...or do you say this to make yourself feel bad about being human as a form of self-punishment, disregarding that your contempt punishes others too?...

[onenicebugperday]

This exactly why I made this post a little while ago! It's an insidious mindset if you follow it through to its logical conclusion.

[palestine-info-uncensored]

[hools]

OUCH!!!

[sugas6thtooth]

Food from the beautiful culture of the Palestinians🇵🇸🍉!! This genocide must end! Their lives and culture must be preserved!!

[johnnysilverhandssuitcasenuke]