perpetually off-topic

Mostly fandom. Sometimes art, sometimes writing, sometimes just weird biology facts. [they/them/their]

[creation-help]

🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍🌈PRIDE THEMED OC ASK GAME🏳️‍🌈 🏳️‍⚧️

Bc I wanted one and didn't find it so. Here

[Send ask aimed at a specific character]

1. What's your oc's gender identity? What's their relationship to their gender?

2. What's your oc's orientation? (Romantic/sexual/platonic alterous ect) Do they have opinions about it?

3. How did your oc discover themself? Did something cause them to question, or did they always know?

4. Is your oc's environment supportive about their identity? How does this impact them?

5. How did you figure out your oc's identity?

6. How does your oc feel about labels? Theirs, or in general?

7. Is there something that could cause your oc to question their identity? What?

8. Have they had struggles with their identity, be it due to internal or external reasons?

9. Are there cultural or lore specific aspects to their identity? If applicable, does their species affect it?

10. Does your oc celebrate Pride? How?

11. Is your oc open about their identity? Are they more lowkey or more blunt about it? Why or why not?

12. Does/did your oc ever wish they could change the way they are? Why? If it's in the past, how did they get over the feeling? (this can be about internalized homo/transphobia)

13. Would your oc be open to a poly relationship? Why or why not?

[Not aimed at a specific character] / [Aimed at creator]

14. Do you have ocs on the aro or ace spectrum?

15. Do any of your ocs use neopronouns? Which ones?

16. Did you ever change an oc's identity when they were already established? Why?

17. Do you share identity with any of your ocs? Which ones?

18. Do you prefer to give your ocs specific labels, or keep it unspecified? Why? If applicable, do you change their labels depending on circumstance?

19. Do you have preferences about depicting homo/transphobia in your stories? What, and why? Does it vary by story?

20. Have your ocs helped you in self discovery? How?

21. Free ramble card wee

[aubergion]

Rulette 2 takes a little bit to get going but when it picks UP omg

I don't know if Josh Ruben is the best or worst person to put on that wheel stage. Also I hope Rulette keeps coming back. It's so fun.

[icantspellthings]

Top 3 things people love insisting they don't have despite it being impossible

Pronouns

An accent

Bias

[fellshish]

maybe rereading one night in bangor would heal you

[sapierror]

and once you're done with it immediately follow it up with in mixed company as dessert

[19-020221]

we cannot never forget you, soft and only

[electricarpeggio]

Need more? How about Downpour?

[twwings]

nothing cheers me up like Hozier Missed a Trick

[ashfae]

All right, but had you considered dream to me?

[ngkiscool]

Yes to all, but - don't miss Don't Lose Your Cool.

[taleofdaringdo]

I summon thee, Pray for us Icarus, to heal us all

[itsineffhazbinle]

Demon of the Lamp is one of my favorites

[ezra-didntreallyfall]

And if you haven't read it already for whatever reason, there's always Demonology and The Tri-Phasic Model Of Trauma: An Integrative Approach

[politeanarchy]

Don't miss Upon the Place Beneath, with a much better take on how Crowley deals with the Slough of Despond.

[sunkissed-strawberries]

If I may offer We Can't Keep Meeting Like This and What Are You Doing Here? because these are absolute gems

[fellshish]

i’ll do it myself everyone applaud masterpiece slow show

[shadow-manor]

Since Slow Show is a human AU I wasn't sure if it fit; all the others seem to involve Aziraphale and Crowley as an angel and a demon. If we can slide in AUs, in the house we remain, Old Vines, What We Make of It (Shotgun Wedding), and The Curve of Old Bones are all worth a read.

[addledmongoose]

Or Be Nice, which I've read about 5 times. South Downs is my favorite actor AU. And if you want to see Aziraphale in Hell again, check out A Special Place in Hell, in which Aziraphale becomes the new king of Hell (as an angel).

[isadibus]

This is so beautiful, but I HAVE to recommend my all time favourites.

Against Expectations is the first human AU that I read (and the first Ao3 fanfic that I read), and it's so perfect. Arrange marriage, genderfluid Crowley, Anathema bestie of Crowley... I've read it 5 times (that I can count...)

But then, I really had to mention May You Be Forgiven . This masterpiece, this beast, has helped me with my own issues after reading it. There's part 1 and 2, but OH it's so good.

[rogue-bard]

I absolutely second Demonology, Slow Show, Pray for Us Icarus, Or Be Nice and so many others!

While we're on the big ones and the Human AUs, I will recommend Sit Tight, Take Hold by nieded.

[aubergion]

No list of human AU Good Omens fics could be complete without Ordinary People by Daegaer.

[persephinae]

(source)

[nattousan]

ok so, I approached my local library with a proposal to donate a mural as a way to A: build portfolio/gain practical experience and B: give back to a beloved public institution. The director was very enthusiastic about it and i've been working on it since the beginning of March. Come with me as I endeavor to paint what is in all honesty an excessive amount of birds

I wanted the birds to look like they were actually in the space so first thing after doing the draft was to do a lighting study

after that I covered the walls in letters in lieu of a projector/vr headset bc i have neither of those :) Then i take a picture of the section of wall and superimpose the lineart over top of it so I can pencil in the lines

et voila

and that was a whole week on it's own so next comes the paintin' >:)

[nattousan]

and now, the birds

Birds 1 and 2/14: Red Winged Blackbird, Male and female, Agelaius phoeniceus

[nattousan]

Bird 3/14, American Robin, Turdus migratorius

[nattousan]

hoo boy, ok *out of breath*

GIVE IT UP FOR BIRD NUMBUH 5, THE CANADIAN GOOSE, Branta canadensis!!!!

this guy took me about 4 days to completely finish, all of those freakingk coverts were a bear to render

[nattousan]

speaking of obnoxious coverts:

bird 5/14, Bluejay, Cyanocitta cristata

the friggin stripes almost got me chat, i may not make it

[nattousan]

Madam....

[nattousan]

birds 6 and 7: American Goldfinch, Spinus tristis, male and female

pleasantly simple to paint! next is the flickerrrrr

[nattousan]

*melts into goo*

BIRD NUMBER 8, (yellow shafted) NORTHERN FLICKERRRRR, Colaptes auratus

genuinely made me start questioning my sanity around day 3, it's half the size the of the goose, WHY did it take me 4 days to finish??

nothing but pain and suffering, i'm sure hope the next bird will be much easier and with FAR less barring :)

[nattousan]

in other news, I am losing my mind hairline

[nattousan]

SHE'S DONE!!

Bird number 9: Red-tailed hawk, Buteo jamaicensis

my chains are broken i am FREE. although i did have a great deal of fun with this, the barring on the wings itself took me like four days and i am READY to move on

this was a week and a half of continuous work so please excuse me for getting a little emotional in the bg 🙏

[nattousan]

*does a little jig*

BIRD NUMBER 10!!! The Male Mallard Duck, Anas platyrhynchos

the male and female ones are gonna be posted separately bc they're taking a lot longer lol but yea! super happy i was able to capture the iridescent green of the head, i found metallic green and blue paint at a craft store that really made his head POP. it looks better in person i promise

ALSO!! As this is the 10th one, BIG announcement. The end is in sight!!!!! I plan to finish within the next 3 weeks and there will be a small dedication ceremony/ unveiling happening at the library to commemorate its completion on the 16th of May. If you live in the Western New York region and want to check it out for yourself shoot me a dm!

Also thank you everyone for your kind words and support throughout this whole process, it's been a genuine treat thinking there are potentially thousands of you out there cheering me on while I paint this 🥹

[nattousan]

aaaand another one bites the duck,

we're movin right along with bird numero 11!! The lady Mallard!! Anas platyrhyncos

the 16th is looming in the distance so i'm trying to get thru these as quickly as i can so i can have as much time for the GBH as possible. i still need to do the names next to all of them so i've got about a week and a half to finish everything which is GREAT because i have adhd and nothing gets my ass in gear like a fuckin deadline, let me tell you

[nattousan]

power couple that they are, here's bird number 12 and 13,

the Northern Cardinals, Cardinalis cardinalis

and NOW that they are complete, ITS GO TIME, in the next five days (library's closed for mother's day 😭😭) i need to have the GBH fully rendered, the names of the birds vectored, weeded, masked, applied to the wall, and then painted, plus additional cattails throughout. I may be able to get away with just getting the GBH done in time for the unveiling and then just have the names and cattails added later, but i'm gonna really try to get it all done in time. BUT, i have a plan. Part of why i take so long on these is because i really am just figuring it out as I do it lmao. there have been many a time where i am sitting on top of the ladder googling "how to paint birds" but I think if i take the time tomorro to do all that figuring out how to approach it beforehand, this will go a lot faster. I may also recruit some of my artist friends to help with the placing of the names... hrmm we'll see.

Anyways, shout out to the librarian who tracked down exactly the thing i needed so i could figure out where to place the highlights in my birds eyes, ur the real mvp

[nattousan]

thanks for the reminder, kid

[nattousan]

at long last, we've reached the end...

Bird number 14 out of 14,

The Great blue heron, Ardea herodius

thank you to everyone who reached out or got excited about this project, it genuinely gave me the fuel i needed to keep going. In total, the 480+ total hrs it took me to cover this wall pales in comparison to how long its expected to spend on there, hopefully imparting a sense of beauty and love for the natural world to the next generation and here's hoping i'm only getting started with these.

i'll see y'all soon :')

[sanscest69]

I just realized that many many people have jobs

Rb with your job, wtf do you people do while offline???

[aubergion]

WIP Wednesday

I was tagged by @becausedragonage to share some writing! However, my latest WIP is a Dragon Age text game, and I don't think any of you want to see my source code. Ergo:

Review your notes on the southern Chantry. The southern bas worship an icon of the sun, which they claim to be their maker. They believe this sun calls them to sing without end, and when they sing sufficiently - loud enough, perhaps, or long enough, then the world will become a paradise. Until then, their maker sun has abandoned them for their misdeeds and cares nothing for the waste or suffering of the people. The bas take great offense if you point out that the sun is in the sky right now. The whole thing strikes you as rather simple-minded.

Tagging @ollifree, @dmonfoxfire, @rlainarin, and whoever wants to do this!

[puppygirllaika]

Could you personally navigate a cross-country road trip, door to door, without your electronics (phone/computer/tablet/etc)?

Yes

No

Voting ended onMay 29

[puppygirllaika]

every other note on this post is someone going "am i allowed to use paper maps?" yes. obviously. i did not say "without a map", i said without your electronics. And to the like, 20% of people saying "of course, i would simply take the train" that is definitionally not a road trip. i love trains too, but that is a rail trip. a road trip requires taking a trip on the road.

[puppygirllaika]

#a train can go on the road if you believe hard enough

casey jones off the shits

[ikarons]

fucked up how for a circle mage warden the joining is just the harrowing Again. secret test you have to take to become a full Member but u also don’t get to opt out and go be a regular person anymore once you’ve been tagged as Part Of It. nobody will tell you what the test entails but like half the people who take it never come back. and even when you pass the life you’ve earned yourself is all but guaranteed to be short and painful with a miserable lonely death. heart<3

[smashcut]

[twiststreet]

She got the idea for the study while walking with her advisor at Stanford to discuss her thesis topic, and the paper she eventually published in the Journal of Experimental Psychology in 2014 is sharp enough that it should have ended the seated meeting on the day it came out.

She ran 4 experiments on 176 people. Same person tested twice. Once sitting, once walking. The creativity tasks were the standard ones psychologists have used for decades to measure how good a brain is at generating novel useful ideas.

81% of participants in the first experiment produced more creative ideas while walking than while sitting. In the second experiment, 88%. In the third, 100%. Every single person walked into a more creative version of themselves. On average, people generated 60% more novel useful ideas the moment their legs started moving.

The skeptical question is the obvious one. Maybe it was the fresh air. Maybe it was the scenery passing by. Maybe it was the change of environment doing the work, not the walking itself.

Oppezzo killed every one of those explanations with one experimental decision. She put people on a treadmill facing a blank wall. No scenery. No fresh air. No environmental change. Just legs moving in place while staring at white drywall. The 60% boost held.

Then she ran the experiment that closed the case completely. She took participants outside in two conditions. Half of them walked through a Stanford courtyard. The other half were pushed through the exact same courtyard in a wheelchair. Same outdoor stimulation. Same scenery passing at the same speed. The only difference was whether the legs were moving.

The walkers produced dramatically more novel high-quality ideas than the wheelchair group. The outdoors did almost nothing on its own. The walking did everything.

She also tested the opposite kind of thinking. Convergent thinking. The kind where there is one right answer and you have to narrow down to it. Word puzzles where 3 words share a hidden fourth word that connects them. The seated participants did slightly better on these. Walkers got slightly worse.

Walking is not a general intelligence enhancer. It does one specific thing. It opens up the divergent search inside your brain. The part that generates options. The part that produces unexpected connections. The part that takes a problem and finds five ways into it instead of one.

When you need to converge on the single right answer, sit down. When you need to find the answer in the first place, get up.

The mechanism is now well understood. Walking selectively activates what neuroscientists call the default mode network, the system inside your brain that runs when you are not consciously focused on anything. The DMN is where mind-wandering happens. Where memories cross-reference each other. Where ideas that have been sitting in separate folders inside your head finally bump into each other.

When you sit at a desk and force yourself to concentrate, you suppress the DMN. When you walk at a natural pace, the executive part of your brain gets just busy enough handling the walking that the DMN comes online and starts doing the work that focus was blocking.

The most useful finding in the entire paper is the one almost nobody quotes. The boost did not turn off the moment people stopped walking. Participants who walked first and then sat back down stayed elevated. Their next round of seated creativity work was still significantly better than people who had been sitting the whole time. The rest lingered for at least several minutes after the legs stopped moving.

You do not need to do creative work while walking. You need to walk before the creative work. The brain holds the state.

Edited down a long tweet. (x)

[fellshish]

@ fic authors what do you personally consider a successful fic? What’s the bar?

[sherl-grey]

actually writing the fic down

[rpfofficial]

levels of mutualship :

the closest thing to real soulmates you can find

we fought in the same trenches and have a warrior's bond that carries over into every stage of life

friend i sit next to in every class and pass notes to/whisper to constantly

academic peer/colleague that i respect and have a little intellectual crush on

neighbour in the same apartment block that i say hi to on the stairs

neighbour across the street who i wave at every morning and evening

we're regulars at the same bar

i can't even remember who you are but if you weren't here there would be something fundamental missing

[canid-sys]

which mutual is prev?

the closest thing to real soulmates you can find

we fought in the same trenches and have a warrior’s bond

friend i sit next to in every class and pass notes to constantly

my little intellectual crush

neighbor in the same apartment blog that i say hi to on the stairs

neighbor across the street who i wave to every morning and evening

we’re regulars at the same bar

i can’t even remember who you are but you’re fundamentally important

nuance/prev is bald/tags

Voting ended onMay 30

i polled it 👍

[stitchposts]

everytime i see your pfp i always think its just the default one and then i look closer and see it is in fact embroidery

and by sending in this ask you are about to make at least like 5-10 more people also lose their minds. thank you for this rube goldberg machine kickoff. the marble has been plunked.

[despazito]

I don't have time for tumblr discourse they're calling the very hungry caterpillar degenerate art over on twitter

[despazito]

good art is when something looks like real life, the more real it looks the more better the art. abstracted figures give my trad children nightmares, one time they were exposed to cubism and couldn't go outside for a week

[beyondthisdarkhouse]

So what if it's a distinctive technique that's fun to do that will make my child want to experiment with different art media and styles? Children's early artistic exploration should be stifled as quickly as possible unless they're incredibly good the first time they do something.

[datsderbunnyblog]

Just consider the fact that Vetinari wears the lilac for a second.

It’s one hell of a political statement, coming from a man who is typically all about being very subtle and understated and keeping his cards close to his chest. Just consider how much of a— aha… ballsy move that is.

He’s openly stating with each passing year that he believed in the Glorious Revolution, that he believed that Lord Winder should have been assassinated, that he believed that police brutality on that scale needs to be stamped out once and for all.

That he believed, and still believes, that unfit rulers should be overthrown.

He meets with aristocrats and the “perennial waverers” as they are termed in the book with a lilac bloom pinned to his robe. He wears a symbol of the hopes and dreams of his youth, every year.

It almost reads as a throwaway statement at the end of an incredibly emotional book, but it’s far from it. There’s so much meaning in the fact that Vetinari wears the lilac and visits the little graveyard each year under the cover of darkness. Is it any wonder that he wound down a corrupt City Watch, and is so vehemently against the prospect of war and loss of life?