I love stuff @going-in-spirals - Tumblr Blog

day 1 at the communal puzzle club: i see a puzzle with a sign next to it that says "please help with our communal puzzle" and i say to myself "don't mind if I do" and did the whole thing

day 2 at the communal puzzle club: i get gently reprimanded for not sharing the puzzle experience with the others. in my defense I thought they needed all the help they could get

day 3 at the communal puzzle club: we start a new puzzle and i put one of the pieces in my pocket and save it for later so i can be the one who puts in the last piece

day 4 at the communal puzzle club: the puzzle is almost complete so i reach into my pocket and realize i left the last piece in my other pants which are currently in the washing machine. i feign ignorance

day 5 at the communal puzzle club: the others are suspicious but they have no proof. they check my pockets before i leave but little do they know that this time i ate the pieces

day 6 at the communal puzzle club: i put an entire bottle of miralax in my coffee to get the pieces out of my digestive system but they are too far dissolved to be usable. my stomach is in so much pain and i can't stop shitting but i rinse off what's left of the pieces and make it to puzzle club anyway, only to find out they don't meet on mondays. i am inconsolable.

day 7 at the communal puzzle club: i realized those pieces are incriminating evidence so i slipped them in someone else's pocket. i should be good as long as they don't find residual traces of my dna

day 8 at the communal puzzle club: there is an odd feeling in my gut. i feel as if something has been awoken in me

day 9 at the communal puzzle club: i am in such deep focus that the others are starting to fear me. either that or they are cowering away from the communal puzzle out of sheer respect for my skills

day 10 at the communal puzzle club: i'm getting better and better, i can now do several puzzles in one day. the others are discussing what to do about me in hushed tones. little do they know my laser focus allows me to hear everything they say. they aren't a threat.

day 11 at the communal puzzle club: the club manager unlocked the door but already i am inside. ive been here all night doing puzzles in the dark. they threaten to ban me from the club so in response i pick a 500 piece puzzle at random and complete it in under 45 minutes, just to show them who the real authority is

day 12 at the communal puzzle club: i have been officially banned from the communal puzzle club. in a fit of rage i grab as many pieces as i can and eat them, making sure to thoroughly chew and swallow every single one. if i can't do them, no one can.

day 13 at the communal puzzle club: it's monday again. the club doesn't meet today. it's the perfect opportunity to break in and do as many puzzles as my heart desires, without any of the club's petty drama to distract me

day 14 at the communal puzzle club: i am in jail because the club manager snitched to the cops like the pathetic weakling they are. this is the worst night of my entire life there aren't any puzzles here

day 15 at the communal puzzle club: the judge let me off with a restraining order since I didn't actually steal anything. i show back up to communal puzzle club just to make a show of ripping the order to shreds. no piece of paper will dictate my life, only jigsaw-cut cardboard has that power. nothing else.

day 16 at the communal puzzle club: everyone is so quiet today when I walk in. I eat some pieces in a show of force, just to remind everyone who's in charge. I comment that they taste somewhat like strychnine, they say it's just because Ravensburger has a new method of chemically processing their pieces. sounds plausible. 30 minutes later i am convulsing violently but i beg them not to call an ambulance until i finish the puzzle i was working on. but the bastards don't listen and I'm shipped off to the hospital kicking and screaming.

day 17 at the communal puzzle club: i spent the night in the hospital. a detective comes in and says they're investigating the manager of the communal puzzle club for attempted murder and asks what i know. i tell him honestly that i ain't no snitch and spit in his face. he says they have more than enough evidence to prosecute regardless.

day 18 at the communal puzzle club: the club manager is on trial for attempted murder and i am called as a witness. i tell the judge that i ain't no snitch and spit in his face. i am held in contempt of the court

day 19 at the communal puzzle club: the defense makes a plea of justifiable self defense, citing the restraining order that isn't even 1 week old. somehow the judge buys that flimsy defense. i mean, this is the same judge who didn't even recognize me from that same case despite being the same judge. i think the poor old man has dementia so i make a motion for a mistrial. it gets shot down because the system is corrupt.

day 20 at the communal puzzle club: the judge says i should get jail time but he decided i should be in a mental facility instead. i don't know why he would think that, i have been nothing but sane my entire life. god forbid a woman have hobbies

day 1 in the psych ward: they have puzzles in here this is amazing

day 2 in the psych ward: all the puzzles are missing a few pieces. this is unacceptable. im going to go insane

day 3 in the psych ward: i have been informed that they do not use the word "insane" in here so i take back my previous statement.

day 4 in the psych ward: i need to find those missing pieces i need to find them i need to find them i have been questioning everybody all the nurses all the doctors all the patients all the miscellaneous hospital staff but nobody knows anything. this is hopeless. i will never be able to overcome this trauma. my life is over

day 5 in the psych ward: it's so boring in here. without complete puzzles there's nothing to do except watch tv but the only channel they get is the local news. i begrudgingly watch out of nothing but all-encompassing ennui. but one of the stories is about the communal puzzle club and suddenly i am overcome with nostalgia. turns out there was a series of alleged poisonings attributed to that location. strychnine was found in three people so far, one of whom was myself. but the others didn't survive. this confirms my suspicion that i am in fact the chosen one

day 6 in the psych ward: with a renewed sense of purpose i will attempt to convince the doctors of my "sanity," but i also came to the realization that they don't care about sanity, they only care about sedation. they want to supress my passion, eradicate my truth, condition me to fall in line with the rest of the "sane" people. with that knowledge, i was able to tell them everything they wanted to hear. i acted polite, pretended i was cured, i even feigned complete disinterest in puzzles! it made my stomach boil but i did it, i convinced them, and just like that, i was free.

day 28 at the communal puzzle club: i don't know why everyone was so surprised to see me again, it's only natural that i'd come to finish what i started

(i know this is supposed to be day 27 at the communal puzzle club but day 27 was a monday so nothing happened) like what am i gonna say, "day 27 i sat alone in my studio apartment eating cereal and biding my time"

day 29 at the communal puzzle club: the communal puzzle club has been disbanded, the club manager has been arrested, and the whole place is swarming with cops. i watched as they hauled off a bunch of expensive looking printers and like a billion reams of paper and loaded them onto a big police truck.

apparently, the communal puzzle club was just a front for document forgery and counterfeit cash, and i had been inadvertently sabotaging them this entire time. which is sad because i support both of those things. but it also explains why they met 12 hours a day, 6 days a week and why they had their own building despite having no profit model and also why i was the only one who seemed to actually care about the puzzles. everyone else was too busy making fake passports to care.

in hindsight, i always knew they were all a bunch of casuals. but i didn't mind because they had so many excellent puzzles. I asked one of the officers if i could at least have the puzzles but he said they were already taken and locked away in the evidence room. the thought sickens me- all those puzzles, gathering dust, never to be assembled again. or maybe the pigs just took them for themselves! so they could have all the puzzles they want while the rest of us ordinary, law-abiding citizens have nothing to do except die of boredom!

the moral of the story is that we can never have nice things because of the fucking pigs. fuck the police.

dat-physics-gal

the fuck did i just read?

my local library was having a puzzle swap and there was a puzzle with a sign next to it that said "please help with our communal puzzle" and i thought "wouldn't it be funny if i did the entire thing by myself" and then i did the entire thing by myself while rolling that thought around in my brain and as it rolled it started picking up all the various mold spores and fungus i keep up there. like a katamari

crowboy-bebop

unauthorized fucking thing!!!!!!

(warning: loud chirping throughout)

source: hellgate osprey cam

curlicuecal

aetherograph

More context:

the first osprey is the father, the one that comes later is the mother.

ospreys are not eagles, they're ospreys

ospreys only eat fish, that's why they don't register this starling as possible food

the starling got home safely

the starling was not trying to eat the eggs, it was mostly curious and you can see it trying to hop under the osprey every time the osprey tries to sit down again--this is because the starling is still a baby and has the instinct to get under an adult for warmth, even though it mostly has its feathers. this scares the osprey because that is a Foreign Creature near its eggs.

at the end of the video you can see the ospreys starting to turn the eggs. birds do this so the yolk and/or embryo don't stick to the shell of the egg, which is bad for the egg's health.

ospreys have eyes adapted to seeing beneath the surface of the water!

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' >:)

and now, the birds

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

Bird 3/14, American Robin, Turdus migratorius

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

speaking of obnoxious coverts:

bird 5/14, Bluejay, Cyanocitta cristata

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

Madam....

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

pleasantly simple to paint! next is the flickerrrrr

*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 :)

in other news, I am losing my mind hairline

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 🙏

*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 🥹

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

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

thanks for the reminder, kid

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 :')

“If I had time travel I’d kill Hitler” “If I had time travel I’d stop my favourite politician getting assassinated” you’re all thinking way too small. If I had time travel I’d stop Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin from dying on the moon due to Soviet sabotage, kicking off the Great Nuclear War and devastating half of the planet.

stavarosthearcane

Good Job.

#this post gets me every time

It’s from two days ago fam how many times could there have been

heroofthreefaces

do you think no one else has time travel

Happy one month anniversary to this post that has not allowed me a single day of fucking peace since I made it.

#surprise reblog!!

STOP IT’S BEEN MONTHS. MONTHS!

YOU CAN STOP.

roach-works

wow if only you had a time machine

transdaughterofthesun

Honestly having reached a billion notes I think it’s safe to say that in the Year of our lord 2041, this is the most popular tumblr post out there.

I’m killing your parents before you’re born

iforgotmyfandom

idiototheinternet

Still here, why’d you hesitate @derinthescarletpescatarian

Your mum’s ability to hold up under active gunfire was really hot. I’m your dad now.

lizyarikus

Isn’t that the plot of Terminator

anexperimentallife

Where do you think the plot for Terminator came from?

what-if-i-just-did

This is such a classic trainwreck post that has the vibes of a 2014 screenshot posted to Pinterest and then the last addition is just last Tuesday I can’t even

Imagine how I feel

mrsjdavis

POST, LIVE FOREVER!!!!!!