Hey, wanna make music? Yeah? Got a buncha money? No? Well that's perfectly fine, check this free stuff out:
Vital - A powerful wavetable synth, my personal favorite VST synth, very easy to figure out creating new synth sounds, with the help of the plenty of tutorials that are out there for the plug-in. (There are paid versions but they are completely unnecessary to get 99% of the features of the plug-in.)
Synth1 - A classic piece of synthesizer software.
Pendulate - An interesting, chaotic synth that you can make weird little sounds with.
Native Instruments' free plug-ins - Various cool VSTs, including the Komplete Start pack.
The Free Orchestra - A set of orchestral instruments for Kontakt Player (see previous link).
BBC Symphony Orchestra Discover - More orchestral stuff! This one has its own player so you don't have to download a separate VST to use it if you don't want to.
Magical 8bit Plug - A chiptune plug-in, intended for producing sounds like that of 8-bit systems like the NES and Master System.
Genny - A synth VST made to emulate the soundchip of the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive.
MT Power Drum Kit - A nice rock n' roll style drum kit plug-in.
This guy's weird VST collection - 6.4 gigabytes of weird VSTs, including some you might know, like Delay Lama and MeowSynth!
sforzando - A free player for soundfont files.
Musical Artifacts - A resource I mainly use to find soundfonts, on which you can find other various things as well.
Kilohearts Essentials - 30 effect VSTs including reverb, delay, compression, pitch shifting, transient shaping, ring modulation, phase distortion, and more.
Xfer's freeware VSTs - Exactly what it says on the tin, including the one and only OTT compressor.
Illformed - The good ol' dblue Glitch 1.3, Crusher, Stretch, and TapeStop.
Hysteresis and Fracture - Two interesting glitch effects, one being a delay and the other being a buffer.
Codec - A cool digital audio degradation effect.
Le Phonk - A slick distortion plug-in.
MAIM - An effect that mimics the sound of MP3 compression.
Soundly Shape it and Place it - One is simply an equalizer VST, the other is an effect that emulates a speaker (ex: a radio) and a space (ex: a cave).
Fresh Air - An effect that adds high end information to your sounds, to provide brightness.
ValhallaSupermassive - A combo reverb and delay plug-in that sounds quite big.
UnplugRed - A collection of various interesting VSTs, most of which have free versions.
Chowdhury DSP - I can't personally speak for all of these but their tape model effect is great for some lo-fi style effects.
TAL-Chorus-LX - A thick sounding chorus, good for "retro" sounds too.
Polyverse Wider - A great effect for widening sounds up, really simple too with only two controls.
Freesound - A good audio file resource, mainly for foley recordings.
Cymbatics Dubstep Starter Pack - A little sample pack with some good drum and synth samples.
fishmonger drum kit - A pack of samples from the album 'fishmonger' by Underscores!
WangleLine's sample packs - Free samples put out by my awesome mutual WangleLine!
aaand I might as well include this set of drums I made a while back :P
As for DAWs, it's been a long while since I've used anything other than FL Studio (not counting Audacity, which I still occasionally use for specific purposes), which, while being the only one I can directly recommend, is paid. However, I've heard good things about Reaper which has a "free trial" that you can technically use forever, akin to WinRAR. Additionally, I've also heard some good things about Waveform Free.
Which brings us, I think, to the fundamental toxic precondition lurking behind every other toxic precondition: the strong desire we have for some kind of guarantee – before we embark on a new activity, or even just allow ourselves to relax into life – that it’ll all unfold safely and securely, that we’ll retain the feeling of being in control. That’s what you’re surrendering, in a small way, when you go ahead and write a few hundred words of your novel, with no certainty they’ll be any good. Or when you move forward with the day’s projects despite not having carried out your morning routine to the letter. It’s also what you’re surrendering when you decide to cut yourself a bit more slack in life – because who knows what chaos might unfold if you stopped yelling internally at yourself to work harder or do better, if you stopped watching yourself like a hawk for signs of backsliding? In other words: we don’t erect toxic preconditions simply because we’re irrational, self-defeating idiots. We do it because we want to feel secure, and to avoid the risk of experiencing emotions we’re unsure we’d be able to handle.
This explains why it can be so powerfully liberating – and action-triggering – to understand that the uncertainty and insecurity you imagine you’re avoiding is in fact how things already are for you. As the great Elizabeth Gilbert puts it: “You are afraid of surrender because you don’t want to lose control. But you never had control; all you had was anxiety.” Getting past toxic preconditions is less a matter of being willing to step into the unknown than of realising that you’re already in the unknown.
Our next order of birds are the Accipitriformes, colloquially called “raptors” or “birds of prey”, though these paraphyletic terms are often used to include unrelated orders such as owls and falcons as well. Accipitriformes are comprised of the living families Cathartidae (“New World vultures”), Sagittariidae (“Secretarybird”), Pandionidae (“Osprey”), and Accipitridae (“hawks”, “eagles”, “kites”, and “Old World vultures”).
Accipitriformes typically have a sharply hooked beak with a soft cere housing the nostrils. Their wings are long and fairly broad, adapted for soaring flight. They have strong legs and feet with raptorial claws and opposable hind claws. Almost all Accipitriformes are carnivorous, hunting by sight during the day or at twilight. They are predominantly active predators and/or scavengers, and many are specialized for particular prey items.
Accipitriformes are generally monogamous over many years, though they will choose a new mate if their old mate dies. Females are usually larger than males, sometimes to a substantial degree. Courtship typically involves displays of flight, and presenting gifts of food. Most Accipitriformes build nests, and return to the same nest site each breeding season. Typically, both the male and female will build the nest, incubate the eggs, and raise the young. Many Accipitriformes are long-lived, and can take several years to reach sexual maturity.
Accipitriformes arose in the Eocene, around 50 million years ago. DNA sequence analyses suggest that divergences within the Accipitriformes began around the Eocene/Oligocene boundary, about 34 million years ago.
Do you have a favorite in Accipitriformes?
One or more of my favorite animals is in Accipitriformes
I love at least one or more of these animals
I like at least one or more of these animals
I am neutral about all of these animals
I dislike all of these animals
Voting ended onMay 10, 2025
Propaganda under the cut:
The California Condor (Gymnogyps californianus) is often considered a conservation success story, having just barely escaped from the brink of extinction. In 1987, only 27 individuals remained. Conservationists at the San Diego Wild Animal Park and the Los Angeles Zoo rounded up all 27 remaining wild birds and began a captive breeding program. Beginning in 1991, captive bred California Condors were reintroduced into the wild. Today, around 561 California Condors live wild. The bird is still critically endangered, and its population is only kept stable by regular vet checks and frequent captive releases, with all wild California Condors being tagged and closely monitored. Like many North American Accipitriformes, the California Condor is threatened by lead poisoning. Lead shot is often used for hunting, and when it enters an animal, it explodes into tiny fragments. When hunters field dress an animal (ie. butcher it at the kill site and leave the inedible bits for scavengers) small fragments of lead shot often remain in the carcass. It can take a fragment of lead as small as a pea to kill a bird the size of an eagle.
The Black Vulture (Coragyps atratus) and the King Vulture (Sarcoramphus papa) (image 4) appear in a variety of Maya hieroglyphs in Mayan codices. While the Black Vulture is often depicted as a symbol of death or attacking humans, the King Vulture is sometimes portrayed as a god with a human body and a bird head. According to Mayan mythology, this god often carried messages between humans and the other gods.
The genus Cathartes locates carrion by detecting the scent of ethyl mercaptan, a gas produced by the bodies of decaying animals. The olfactory lobe of the brains in these species is particularly large compared to that of other animals, giving Cathartes vultures an incredible sense of smell.
The Secretarybird (Sagittarius serpentarius) (image 3) is a highly unique Accipitriform, sporting long legs and being mostly terrestrial. The tallest Accipitriform, it can grow to a height of as much as 1.3 m (4 ft 3 in). The Secretarybird eats small vertebrates and insects, which it flushes from the grass by stomping its long legs. It will then chase after its prey on foot and kill it by stomping. Only small prey items such as wasps and grasshoppers will the Secretarybird kill with its beak.
The Osprey (Pandion haliaetus) (image 2) is the only living species of its family, and the most widespread Accipitriform, living almost worldwide wherever there is water. The Osprey's diet consists almost exclusively of fish. Their vision is well adapted to detecting underwater objects from the air. Prey is first sighted when the Osprey is 10–40 m (33–131 ft) above the water, after which the bird hovers momentarily and then plunges feet first into the water. They will often completely submerge underwater, only to immediately surface and take flight with their prey in tow.
The Palm-nut Vulture (Gypohierax angolensis) is a uniquely omnivorous Accipitriform, with a diet consisting of 60% to 90% palm-fruit, as well as wild dates, oranges, other fruits, some grains, and acacia seeds.
Most vultures have flat feet adapted for walking, and lack the grip strength of their predatory cousins. But the Bearded Vulture (Gypaetus barbatus) has maintained strong feet, which it uses to carry and drop large bones in order to crack them open to more manageable pieces. The Bearded Vulture is the only known vertebrate whose diet consists of 70–90% bone.
The Egyptian Vulture (Neophron percnopterus) is one of the few birds known to use tools. Egyptian Vultures will use a pebble as a hammer on large eggs they wish to eat, swinging the pebble down onto the egg repeatedly until it cracks. They will also use twigs to roll up wool, making it easily transported back to their nest.
The Bearded Vulture and the Egyptian Vulture are the only birds known to use cosmetics. They will bathe in iron-rich dust or mud, or rub it on their bodies, dying their feathers yellow, orange, or even red. Both sexes will dye their feathers, and it seems to serve no purpose other than to look good.
The Snail Kite (Rostrhamus sociabilis), Slender-billed Kite (Helicolestes hamatus), and Hook-billed Kite (Chondrohierax uncinatus) are specialists in preying on snails, which usually constitute 50–95% of their diet.
Many accipitrids of almost all sizes have been recorded as capturing and then flying with prey of equal weight or even slightly heavier than themselves in their talons, a feat that requires great strength. Usually, the bird will leave prey at the kill site and return to feed repeatedly. Accipitrids such as the Golden Eagle (Aquila chrysaetos), Wedge-tailed Eagle (Aquila audax), Martial Eagle (Polemaetus bellicosus) and Crowned Eagle (Stephanoaetus coronatus) have successfully hunted ungulates, such as deer and antelope, and other large animals (kangaroos and emus in the Wedge-tailed) weighing more than 30 kg (66 lb), 7–8 times their own mass.
Most accipitrids are solitary, or only share space with their mate, but the Harris's Hawk (Parabuteo unicinctus) is known for being a “pack hunter”. Flocks of Harris’s Hawks generally consist of a dominant female, her mate, and the young of previous years. The flock will hunt cooperatively, working together to hunt comparatively large prey such as hares, and sharing the meal after bringing it down.
Some harriers have evolved to become polygynous, with a single smaller male breeding with and then helping multiple females raise young.
The single largest known tree nest known for any animal belonged to a Bald Eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus), and was found to be 6.1 m (20 ft) deep and 2.9 meters (9.5 ft) across, and to weigh 3 short tons (2.7 metric tons). Bald Eagles usually build onto their previous nest every year.
The Bald Eagle is considered a conservation success story. The Bald Eagle was severely affected in the mid-20th century by a variety of factors, among them the use of the pesticide DDT. While DDT was not lethal to the adult bird, it interfered with their calcium metabolism, making them either unable to lay eggs, or lay eggs which had thin, brittle shells which could not stand the weight of a brooding adult. By the 1950s there were only 412 nesting pairs in the 48 contiguous states of the USA. Other factors in Bald Eagle population reductions were a widespread loss of habitat, as well as both legal and illegal shooting. In Alaska alone, approximately 70,000 Bald Eagles were shot in a 12 year period. The Bald Eagle was declared an endangered species in the USA in 1967, and laws were put into place prohibiting killing of the birds. But the most significant protection occurred in 1972, when DDT was finally banned in the US, and in 1989 when it was banned in Canada. The Bald Eagle has significantly rebounded since then, and as of 2007, is classified as “least concern”, a testament of what regulation can do. However, today, the greatest threat to eagles in the US and Canada is the continued use of lead, with more than half of adult eagles across 38 US states already suffering from lead poisoning. Bald Eagles mainly eat fish and carrion. Lead poisoning comes from lead shot used by hunters, as well as lead sinkers used by fishermen and ingested by fish.
The White-rumped Vulture (Gyps bengalensis) is critically endangered, with a global population of less than 6,000 individuals. Once numbering in the millions, the White-rumped Vulture was thought to be “the most abundant large bird of prey in the world”. Following the Indian Vulture Crisis (see below), the White-rumped Vulture has declined by 99%, the steepest decline in birds since North America’s Passenger Pigeon (Ectopistes migratorius).
Vultures are nature’s disease control. They are highly effective scavengers, and are able to digest and resist many diseases with their highly acidic stomach acid, stopping the spread when they scavenge a carcass.
Old World Vultures are the most imperiled group of birds on the planet, with around 70% of vulture species threatened with extinction. The extent to which we need vultures became incredibly apparent beginning in the 1980s in India, with an ongoing event now known as the “Indian Vulture Crisis”. Most of India’s vulture populations plummeted due to indirect poisoning from NSAID painkillers left in the bodies of deceased cattle. After vultures began to disappear, carcasses were left to rot, increasing the populations of less-effective scavengers such as rats and feral dogs. The feral dog population increased by the millions, also increasing the amount of rabies bite cases. Since the disappearance of vultures, India has seen a significant amount of rabies cases, causing more than 47,000 extra deaths. Animal carcasses left to rot have also contaminated the water supply in rural areas. It is estimated that the Indian Vulture Crisis has cost over $40 billion in economic impact.
Similarly, the African Vulture Crisis has only just begun. In Africa, vultures suffer from accidental and intentional poisonings, as many farmers leave poisoned carcasses out to keep predators away from their livestock. Poachers will also poison and kill vultures, as their presence can alert park rangers that the poachers have made a kill.
While New World Vulture populations seem to be doing fine (excluding the California Condor), and are protected under the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, it is best to be wary should the Americas face their own vulture crisis. Like in Africa, American farmers may target vultures as perceived threats to their livestock, or poison predators resulting in the accidental poisoning of vultures. Vultures also suffer from many of the same threats as other birds of prey, including lead poisoning, rodenticide poisoning, and loss of habitat. Most South American vultures are also severely understudied, and their populations could be dropping without our knowledge.
Write a short scene where two characters are trapped in a confined space (e.g., a stuck elevator, a supply closet, a basement during a storm). Each character should have a conflicting goal or need, and those goals must come into direct opposition during the scene.
By keeping the perspective intentionally limited, you'll learn how to develop strong, contained scenes that rely on interaction and pressure rather than external action or changing locations.
Write a short scene where two characters are trapped in a confined space (e.g., a stuck elevator, a supply closet, a basement during a storm). Each character should have a conflicting goal or need, and those goals must come into direct opposition during the scene.
By keeping the perspective intentionally limited, you'll learn how to develop strong, contained scenes that rely on interaction and pressure rather than external action or changing locations.
"People forget how beautiful she was. Her enormous eyes were lovely pools that naturally drew your attention. She was stunning and, because she was beautiful, I think people forget she could act.” -Ann Blyth
