nope.

Anyone worth knowing is inevitably also going to be exasperating. Bee. born in the late 1900s if you've seen me lurking, no you haven't. i have many sides.

[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 :')

[redstonedust]

idk how to explain it but im never truly comfortable with the way people insinuate that all older folks are inherently bigoted. it always feels like it kind of hand-waves away personal responsibility like ohhhh grandpa cant help homophobic, hes old. well ive met plenty of older folks who are normal about gay people. i think grandpa could be better. i think we should hold grandpa to higher standards.

[thethirdromana]

The 100 best novels of all time

The top 100 novels of all time published in English, as voted for by authors, critics and academics worldwide. How many have you read?

How many of the Guardian's 100 best novels of all time have you read?

0-10

11-20

21-30

31-40

41-50

51-60

61-70

71-80

81-90

91-100

Voting ended onMay 19

Bonus: add in the tags which one is your favourite.

[penny-anna]

Guardian Top 100 Books

https://www.theguardian.com/books/ng-interactive/2026/may/12/the-100-best-novels-of-all-time <- the guardian list

^^ ease of counting!

[penny-anna]

Hello hello, off the back of the recent book polling i decided to put together a little reclist i'm calling:

Literary Fiction I really enjoy as someone who is mostly an SFF reader

some of these have speculative elements; others are books that I just think go hard. here we are:

Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell:

most of David Mitchell's books are simply a blast IMO if you're only going to readone it has to be Cloud Atlas. if there was ever a book that has everything it is Cloud Atlas. as a word of warning I will say: if you are unfamiliar it consists of 6 nested stories and the opening section (The Pacific Journal of Adam Ewing) is a bit dense but if you power through it you will get to other sections like the 1930s doomed gay romance and the fast food clone dystopia that are a great time.

Invisible Cities by Italo Calvino:

I would warmly recommend reading this one if you are into writing fantasy in particular. a breezy 165 pages where each chapter is a description of a different fictional city.

The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie by Muriel Spark:

we now enter into 'books that simply fuck'. I feel like The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie is potentially a tough sell if you are not already into the classics given that the premise does not sound very exciting but i gotta say: dude trust me. this one ranks on '100 books to read before you die' or whatever lists over and over for a reason. probably the most perfectly constructed novel i have ever read. and under 200 pages.

Fictions by Jorges Luis Borges:

this is another one i would recommend if you are into writing fiction. "Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote" in particular has been living rent free in my mind for years. im always wanting to reference it. i wanna be like 'wow this is a real Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote' situation but i worry no-one will know what I'm talking about and i will sound like the Gregory Berrycone guy. anyway Borges is really good.

The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood:

i've read a good chunk of Margaret Atwood and this is solidly my favourite. just an absolutely banging read. the sections about the titular blind assassin are extremely cool. the plot creeps along to this like slow-burning reveal that will have you like ohh... OHHH!!

We Have Always Lived in the Castle by Shirley Jackson:

as w Blind Assassin this is another one that will slow burn you into a big oh... OH NO?? i read it in a single day (it's under 200 pages) (I like a book that is short) and it really cracks along.

Black Narcissus by Rumer Godden:

i would just like to say that Rumer Godden is a wildly underrated writer. i came across her first via her children's books and subsequently sought out her adult fiction and was like FUCK me. anyway: Black Narcissus is about a group of English nuns trying to set up a convent in the Himalayas and instead get into some messed up psychological horror. has a movie adaptation that offended the Catholic Legion of Decency.

Rebecca by Daphne Du Maurier:

this is one of ur classic books where everyone says its really really good and then you read it and are like wowie that was really really good.

The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka:

look u have probably already read this one bcos we all love it but if you haven't then you definitely should. its only 70 pages. big bugge.

[indigosfindings]

how do you pronounce the honourific "Ms." in english

"miss"

"miz"

other

unsure/see results

Voting ended onMay 21

[mortalityplays]

really good "shocking number of people are confidently objectively demonstrably completely wrong" poll

[3liza]

i am losing my fucking mind

[avocado-moon]

#we dont use honorifics in my first language so whenever i have to select options (usually for flights) im always so confused#like what is actually the difference between miss and ms#i like miss bc it sounds more historical and im a historian so

"Miss" means an unmarried woman. "Mrs." means a married woman. (both of these have origins in the word "mistress" as in "mistress of the house".)

"Ms." - prounounced MIZ, btw - is a third option popularized by gloria steinem in the 70s - mainly through her feminist magazine Ms. - which is meant to be a neutral term, usable for any and all women regardless of marital status (hence the soul destroying irony of the tags above). it gained wider general acceptance when geraldine ferraro, the first woman to be nominated as VP on a national major party ticket, started using it widely to avoid confusion, since she was married but used her maiden name professionally. eventually over the years it came into common use though i do think the brits are a little more critical of it than americans (as far as i'm aware lol)

[avocado-moon]

"obscure facts only a tumblr user would know" and it's one of the most influential institutions of second wave american feminism. PLEASE open the schools

[onbearfeet]

Hi. I'm an unmarried woman in her forties. I use Ms. and pronounce it "miz", though I don't correct people who accidentally use a soft S. I use Ms. because it's no one's business but my own whether I'm married, to a man or anyone else, and that's what Ms. means. It means fuck off, my marital status is irrelevant, just as it is for every man who uses Mr.

I've had people (usually children) ask me at work if I'm a missus or a miss. I have replied that I am a miz, full stop. And when they pressed for which one I was REALLY, I have replied, "Why? Are you going to treat me differently depending on whether there's a ring somewhere?"

That's what Ms. is for. That is its linguistic function. It says, "This is an adult woman," and nothing else. Nothing else is necessary, and in my case, nothing else is desired.

I also use miz for other women unless and until they express a preference for something else because I don't magically know everyone else's marital status when I meet them. That's a courtesy—I'm declining to assume marital status and allowing them to decide whether they wish to declare it.

Also, I've taught English and worked as an editor for twenty years. I am quite literally the grammar police. This use of Ms. is a standard construction. If you didn't learn it in school, someone failed you.

[squeeful]

“Obscure facts” Boo boo I was taught it in elementary school. One with a state standardized curriculum.

Ms. is marriage-neutral and it’s pronounced Miz. It is deliberately different from Miss.

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

#in the episode of Daria where there’s a rumor that her and tom had sex#upchuck knowingly refers to her as the lovely MIZ Morgendorffer#this was the end of season five meaning this would’ve been fairly common knowledge in 2001

[penny-anna]

they should have made another search engine called Ask Wooster where it gives you the wrong answer every time

[hometoursandotherstuff]

[carbon-ate]

[transjester64]

Adding this from the comments...

[bitchontheprairie]

longhorn sheep looking through a window, 1981, linda mccartney

[foldingfittedsheets]

Holy god. It’s the bomb of all Drama at work today.

[foldingfittedsheets]

Okay it might be less insane than previously thought.

Basically I got in and there was an email that there was a new policy on lunch breaks which is that we are required to clock out for 30 minutes for a meal break. Which wouldn’t be a problem except we’re often staffing stores alone. And the company was like “You’re not allowed to close the store, though, just clock out and don’t get paid for 30 minutes.”

This made a lot of people very unhappy and was widely regarded as a bad move.

So our manager was trying to go over the changes and I was like, “So I’m required to clock out for 30 minutes even if I’m alone in the store for the day.” Yes.

“I am going to leave the store. I am legally allowed to leave if you are not paying me.” You will get written up.

“That violates the labor laws and this company has had to pay for these violations previously. I will leave and look at birds.”

After a very long very aggressive meeting it turns out we might be able to waive the break and still get paid but calls are flying and we still have the right to clock out and close the store if we are working alone all day. The company loves to pretend that we do not.

[foldingfittedsheets]

As a follow up on this policy the company stated that we couldn’t close the store if there was only one person on shift.

When we clock out we get an option to say whether we took a lunch. If we say no it then asks if it was voluntary or not.

If it’s not voluntary then the company has to pay us a penalty for not giving us an opportunity to take the break.

Every single shift I worked alone (which was most of my week at that time) I marked the penalty box. If I couldn’t close the store and was working alone then I did not voluntarily give up my lunch. Turns out, I wasn’t alone in doing so.

Three months later the company sent out signs that we could put on the door for lunches and an official update that we could close the store to take a lunch.

Malicious compliance their asses.

[jeniferprince]

we really, really should. 🚬

another piece for my noir series ;)

patreon // buy prints here

[lonlonranching]

[penny-anna]

i confess i don't really understand what people mean when they say they cannot find good books to read anymore. like. go to the shop or library and choose a book??

[penny-anna]

the problem generally seems to be something along the lines of 'everyone on tiktok is telling me to read books i think sounds bad' and its like ok i do not think those people have your best interests at heart

[distinguished-shipper]

My "trick" is to go to the nearest physical place where you can get books. Bookstore, library, charity shop, whatever suits you.

Once there, scan the shelves and physically pick up the first book that sparks even the slightest interest in you. No nuance, no further thoughts, just grab it.

This book is now your baseline.

From here, you can keep browsing and compare every next book you see to the one you've got in your hand.

If something else seems more interesting, swap it out! If another choice would be more practical, e.g. a little paperback instead of a thick hardcover tome whilst on vacation, swap it out! And so on and so forth, for as long as you fancy and/or have other books available.

Having a real book in hand to start with allows you to compare and contrast, which is a lot easier on the brain than hunting for the nebulous idea of a "perfect choice".

[penny-anna]

^^ yeah i know its not a great option for everyone but there's something about being able to physically browse books. online shopping is great for finding specific stuff but u cannot beat being able to pick up and handle books if you don't know what you're looking for

[thecollectibles]

Water Ruins by Anya Jo Elvidge

[liarsblade]

It's so obvious that a lot of people on here are inexplicably convinced that bad books are a recent invention

[blackwoolncrown]

[blackwoolncrown]