It really is hilarious because whenever you start your art journey, you watch all the videos and ask artists and they all give tips and help but it all ends up coming down to "you just have to practice".
And it pisses you off because bruh how am I supposed to practice this shit if I can't even do this first couple of fucking lines to make a good cylinder.
And then you start drawing and it sucks and you keep doing it, and you learn new skills and tricks, and you even end up developing an art style naturally (which they told you you would do, and you didn't believe them, but it came free with the constantly drawing in a way that made you comfortable and learning the medium).
And at the end of it all, someone else asks wow how you did all of that, and after all this time of putting in effort you finally have to eat crow and admit that the answer is... Damn... you really have to practice 🤣🤣🤣
I'm sorry guys, I hated it too, but it's true. You gotta study other artists. You gotta study your craft. It doesn't have to be boring sit down for thirty minutes a day, but at some point you GOTTA LOOK at other people's stuff to learn! 99% of us are just not the magical art genius that looks at a body once and just Gets It! The rest of us peons gotta use references!
Apparently a lot of people get dialogue punctuation wrong despite having an otherwise solid grasp of grammar, possibly because they’re used to writing essays rather than prose. I don’t wanna be the asshole who complains about writing errors and then doesn’t offer to help, so here are the basics summarized as simply as I could manage on my phone (“dialogue tag” just refers to phrases like “he said,” “she whispered,” “they asked”):
“For most dialogue, use a comma after the sentence and don’t capitalize the next word after the quotation mark,” she said.
“But what if you’re using a question mark rather than a period?” they asked.
“When using a dialogue tag, you never capitalize the word after the quotation mark unless it’s a proper noun!” she snapped.
“When breaking up a single sentence with a dialogue tag,” she said, “use commas.”
“This is a single sentence,” she said. “Now, this is a second stand-alone sentence, so there’s no comma after ‘she said.’”
“There’s no dialogue tag after this sentence, so end it with a period rather than a comma.” She frowned, suddenly concerned that the entire post was as unasked for as it was sanctimonious.
they are sexually mature at ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY YEARS OLD.
their (live!) young gestate for. wait for it. eight to eighteen (??) YEARS. can have up to 10 at a time. good grief.
longest lifespan of any vertebrate, up to five hundred years
toxic flesh
has giant eyes but is usually blind because of a weird little crustacean that's evolved to live on and eat their eyes. this doesn't seem to bother them much.
lives in deep cold water and has the lowest swim speed and tail-beat frequency for its size across all fish species. just generally lives life in extreme slow motion
largest genome of any shark
eats everything including moose and polar bears
ma'am you are delightfully strange and I'm privileged to share a planet with you
Clarification: I don’t hate this book, I love it, it’s amazing. It’s just that taking a step back and looking it out of context is still really funny. Especially the line “We participated in a genocide, Barney.”
Bedrock is having a mayoral election. One of the candidates is a violent war mongering asshole that riles people up against the lizard people. This reminds Fred and Barney of their time in the army.
Back then the father of said violent candidate was riling people up against the “tree people”. Fred, Barney, and other soldiers fought what they believed to be a defensive measure against the tree people. Turns out, it was actually an invasion, in order to kill off the tree people and take over their forest to build Bedrock.
That’s what Fred means when he says he and Barney participated in a genocide. They literally did.
(Extra fun fact, Barney adopted a tree person baby after the war, and his son Bamm-Bamm is the last tree person.)
If you don’t have $30 going spare, check your local library. If they don’t have it, they can help you with interlibrary loan. Or they might just buy it - libraries want to carry books people will read!
i hesitated for a bit on sending this before, as it'll directly doxx where i live, but this is so important that i think it needs coverage.
on jan 22, 2026, jaque ramon was shot 11 times in the back and murdered by (at least) three unidentified san bernadino sheriff's department officers who refused to identify themselves when filmed and confronted at the scene.
they just. left jaque there. for paramedics to pick up. we still don't know why in the world they thought this could have ever been a necessary response to an unarmed Black man, no matter his supposed crimes; the department refuses to properly comment on the situation.
i have not been able to support his family financially because i am going through extreme hardship right now. however, this is my community, and this is my home; i try to be there for the gatherings (every 22nd, on the monthly anniversary of his death, at place it happened, by the petco across from the tyler mall) i can make it to.
if any of you can please help boost & support his case and his mother's gofundme, please please please do so.
we think the media has been suppressing his case, so there's been very little coverage even locally. despite being very involved in my community, both i and many others did not even learn about this until very recently. please try to signal boost, share, support, etc if you can. it is so important word gets out there.
jaque's mother is struggling a lot, too. i haven't been able to talk to her much, but it's very plain to see for anyone who sees or talks to her directly. she deserves answers, justice, and peace.
Heartwarming story: Little girl doesn’t have to do anything to fund her dad’s surgery because his expenses are covered by his country’s universal healthcare.
Human determination: Man bikes 18 miles to work every morning because he wants to and not because he can’t afford a car and would be fired if he’s late.
Spirit of Brotherhood: Neighbors host housewarming party for elderly resident who doesn’t need help in paying rent because his pension is more than enough.
SO INSPIRING: Local middle school students bake dozens of cupcakes because their home economics class is doing a baking unit. Their school is fully funded with everything they need.