'cause when it's colder i feel much better

Hey internet, it's Hope. Most of my posts are fiction, music, and Jesus, or some combination of the three. I wanna be a writer when I grow up (heh) and sometimes I draw stuff

[ot3]

another reason this is the only social media site i give a fuck to actually use is because you're allowed to add links to text instead of just having to paste a url into the body of your post like some kind of caveman.

[lillinhuang]

[lady-raziel]

This is why we can never let local news die. Commitment to the bit as an art form must survive

[all-mammal-creechur]

Proboscis Bat Rhynchonycteris naso

It is found from southern Mexico to Belize, Peru, Venezuela, Bolivia and Brazil, as well as in Trinidad. The bats are nocturnal, sleeping during the day in an unusual formation: most of them line up, one after another, on a branch or wooden beam, nose to tail, in a straight row.

In the photo, the two bats on the lower left are carrying young.

img source

[all-mammal-creechur]

I really love how dedicated these guys are to queuing.

[interdimentional]

[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 :')

[kaijuno]

[tsunderebird]

[willemdaflutist]

[gasterofficial]

[babyghuleh]

I love being a nobody on tumblr.com

[maskdoll]

deadpan kuudere girl who holds up printed out discord emojis so people can understand what she's feeling

[tahthetrickster]

it’s plain white rice you idiot obligate carnivore

[celebutante]

please appreciate this very low quality meme i made out of official neopets art to reply to my friend (a relatively new neopets player) telling me that playing neopets is becoming a chore for him

[amixedwitch]

tchaikowsky donating his skull to the royal shakespeare company in the hopes of becoming yorick is the most dramatic ass dark academia shit ever and you can’t convince me otherwise 

[disordercinema]

I CAN’T BELIEVE THIS IS TRUE and you will not believe it that they never used on actual productions, only rehearsals because people got creeped out and didn’t want to use it, UNTIL DAVID TENNANT IN 2008

THAT MAD MAN ACTUALLY PERFORMED WITH THE REAL SKULL!

They had to stop using cause once the audience found out that was Tchaikovsky’s fucking bones(!) they got creeped out too and didn’t want it there, BUT DAVID JUST WENT “YEAH, LET ME HOLD THIS PIANIST’S FUCKING SKULL, WHO CARES”

[marzipanandminutiae]

Tchaikovsky DONATED IT FOR THAT PURPOSE. why did this creep anyone out? and why did they cave to the audience’s weird hangups?

some people are cowards

[limetimo]

Cowards I’m not watching Hamlet unless there’s a real-ass skull in there

[archaeo-geek]

Let the man have his post-mortem stage time.

[onelonelystory]

Man if you have the chance to recite Shakespeare to Tchaikovsky’s actual skull and you turn it down, I have already lost faith in your ability to embody Hamlet

[swiftactionrecovery-deactivated]

Guys, guys I looked up the rest of the story and it turns out this isn’t the end of it:

After the use of Tchaikowsky’s skull was revealed in the press, this production of Hamlet moved to the West End and the RSC announced that they would no longer use Tchaikowsky’s skull (a spokesman said that it would be “too distracting for the audience”).[10] However, this was a deception; in fact, the skull was used throughout the production’s West End run, and in a subsequent television adaptation broadcast on BBC2.[11] Director Gregory Doran said, “André Tchaikowsky’s skull was a very important part of our production of Hamlet, and despite all the hype about him, he meant a great deal to the company.”[11]

They told everyone they stopped and then QUIETLY KEPT USING IT because OF COURSE they did.

[sour-charity]

For anyone who might not know, Andre Tchaikowsky is not the same (or even related to) Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky (composer of Swan Lake and The Nutcracker)

Andre Tchaikowski was born in the 1930’s and even adapted some of Shakespeare’s work including his seven sonnets and an opera based on The Merchant of Venice!

He passed away in 1982 which is almost funnier to me. Like this isn’t the Tchaikovsky who died in 1893, this is the skull of a man who saw the rise and fall of disco

[eileensdress]

Oh my god I was just looking to see how much a copy of Hamlet would be through Barnes and Noble and PEOPLE ARE ROLEPLAYING WARRIOR CATS IN THE REVIEWS??????

[toadcroaky]

@vriska

[shamesonlydaughter]

ok i was VERY involved in the. b&n reviews warrior cats roleplay scene when i was like 10-12. the first two books of the series were general hubs where ppl would post ads for their clans and other groups. there was a huge percy jackson community i remember participating in too. it worked through search results, eg. riverclan might be under the search result “rivers”. book 1 was rules and a “map”, book 2 might be the main area, book 3 the medicine cats tent, etc. there was also usually a book where ppl would post lengthy descriptions of their character(s). it was a rlly bizarre little corner of the internet jdksj also it was impossible to find any real reviews of any of the warrior cats books bc of it

[darkcomedies-deactivated2022042]

this is unironically kind of cool

[dia-tribe]

I rbed this silently but I think I've gotta answer some questions now. I was a big part of this whole thing and the reason we didn't use forums was because 90% of us didn't have normal internet access. Barnes and Noble had an e-reader that could connect to the internet and reach their digital store, which was great for those of us with controlling parents who only let us read books.

[dragon-in-a-fez]

I want to go back in time and write my doctoral dissertation on this

[yamada-ryo]

Really cool and useful website

[yamada-ryo]

It's worldwide???

[yamada-ryo]

You can track Nina's path through Tokyo station

[nature-nerd-sarah]

I love that they give a shape to the geographical extent of the anime, and that Bocchi's is mostly defined by that one time they used hydro-electric dams as placeholders for vomiting:

[feeshies]

Funny growing up in the late 2000s and seeing constant "don't text and drive" warnings, PSAs telling us to put our phones down behind the wheel, wait until you're home to send that text, a phone-distracted driver is a deadly driver etc etc

Only for modern car manufacturers to be like "we made the car a phone :) now you have to text and drive to change the radio station :)"

[lisaabunny]

"i love sleep" says the girl who stays up all night doing nothing