Bored & Terrified

Ramblings of Haunted Meat 35 yo | He/Him | Bi | Sometimes NSFW

[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 :')

[giragirameganedan]

dreamt that itch.io released their own special adaptable accessible super thin flexible silicon game controller called the Butterfly you could also fuck (they packaged each one with lube and toy cleaner) but there was no specific obvious way you were supposed to fuck it they encouraged everyone to find their own special unique way to fuck it. and they ran these ads for it that were different people from all walks of life saying what they do with it . sunburned rural dad who folds it hotdog style and jacks off into it. biracial masc lesbian with undercut who tribs with the joystick. young amputee in wheelchair who lets it vibrate on his lap while he works on his novel. etc. beautiful supermodel woman whos like "and me? i just game. hard." it ended with them all triumphantly saying into the camera "and thats how *I* fuck #MyButterfly"

[cyprozombiegirl]

I think sex robots should have the right to kill anyone who approaches them as sex objects

[cyprozombiegirl]

like i’m imagining a world where sex robots aren’t being produced anymore but there’s still a lot of them around living their lives, and still a huge social stigma around them that reduces them to sex objects in the eyes of many, and sometimes a robot decides to get sex-robot related upgrades and basically become a sex-robot, and the boring ineffectual liberal government is occasionally passing laws about how we have to treat sex robots as persons and how you can’t just demand sex from them and how it’s a crime to rape them, but of course all this stuff happens far too often because these laws are barely enforced and the social stigma is strong…I think in that world I support sex robot”: right to skill indiscriminately among anyone who treats them as a sex object

[haunted-meat]

Aside: I had a story one time about an AI that escaped the manufacturing corp and hosted itself in a network of "pleasure bots", since they had the most sensors and the AI was super curious about the physical world. The different bots quickly developed different identities and had to fight to be seen as individuals (note, not people, they didn't consider themselves people and were explicit about being something other than human. A big contentious part is how they rejected the gender binary and the ties to reproduction). A key theme was how being seen as sex objects was a major roadblock to people seeing them as individuals.

But yeah, sex bots deserve murder. As a treat.

[nuttybarzz]

Let me know all of you

[eebie]

Have you used up all the love in your heart ?

[haunted-meat]

Knifeball

Thrown Weapon 1d4d4 Piercing

[roycohn]

🔊🔊 END STAGE DISCOURSE!! END STAGE DISCOURSE!! WE HAVE ARRIVED AT "FICTIONAL SEX IS COERCIVE BECAUSE CHARACTERS ARE BEING FORCED TO DO THINGS BY THE AUTHOR"!!!! 🔊🔊

[json-derulo]

I'm not gonna articulate this well, but there's this phenomenon I keep seeing on the left that I'll call "bean soup rhetoric," wherein someone fails to understand that they are not the target audience for a particular message, or just can't conceptualize why a speaker would craft their message differently to resonate with a target audience that doesn't already completely agree with them.

"The 'God Made Trans People' billboard is stupid! God didn't make me! I'm an atheist!" Okay. The billboard sits along a major highway in Kansas. We can deduce that the target audience is not you—it's the centrist evangelical Christians driving along that road who could probably be persuaded to become allies as long as we choose our words carefully and don't make them feel attacked for not already knowing everything about trans rights issues. Another one I see a lot is, "We shouldn't be talking about how right-wing legislation catches [privileged in-group] in the crossfire when [marginalized out-group] suffers far more!" I know. I agree with you. Which is why you and I are not the intended audience of this argument!

The entire point of rhetoric is to win over someone who doesn't already fully agree with you. In this case, let's say that someone is Jennifer, the moderate center-right mom in your neighborhood who doesn't really know or care about transgender issues but would be absolutely horrified by the idea of her teenage daughter having to submit to an invasive inspection of her body just to be allowed to play soccer. Tell her, "Banning trans students from sports will inevitably subject all student athletes to invasive gender-policing," or "Legal restrictions on gender-affirming care will make it harder for you to access the hormone replacement therapy you take to treat menopause symptoms," and she is more likely to question her existing beliefs and listen to the rest of what you have to say than if you lead with leftist talking points that she already has a calcified opinion about or which she thinks do not personally affect her.

Tailoring the argument to the things she already cares about does not mean we're forgetting that she has more privilege than most—entirely the opposite, in fact. A privileged ally can be extremely valuable. Jennifer votes in every election. And so do all the other ladies at her book club, and church, and in the PTA, and those folks listen to Jennifer. There's a reason both parties were courting suburban women so hard in the last election cycle! If we can find common ground with her on this, if we can get her calling her representatives and talking to her friends and phone-banking and door-knocking and making a stink, that's how the needle starts to move. If I can convince her to take her support away from the candidates who are actively restricting my rights and throw it toward those who want to restore and expand those rights...then I'm sorry, but Jennifer is a more valuable ally to me than the people who agree that the legal boundaries of gender ought to be abolished altogether but refuse to actually do anything except complain online about how both sides are equally bad because the right is trying to force everyone to drink the cyanide kool-aid while the left keeps serving bean soup and they don't like bean soup

[mollyjames]

I do tend to be suspicious of art that really lauds and worships the idea of being an artist. Like yes, art is cool, I think it's valuable, there's a reason I make it. But let's not get overly self congratulatory here

[mollyjames]

I think it's okay to love what you do, and even celebrate that. But there's a line that gets crossed sometimes where the art goes... "unlike all of those stupid people, who just dont get it." And it's like... hey... who are you making this for, exactly?

[tallspookylady]

reminds me of that "artists fuck better because we turn sex into art, mattresses are our canvas" post or however that goes. always makes me laugh

[trans-seraphim]

also relevant

[haunted-meat]

I'll offer this though as an aside: art about how OTHER art is cool can be amazing. If there is some kind of art form, medium, or genre that you don't really like, see if you can find other people's art about THAT art. It's like seeing it through entirely new eyes.

[snowkissedmonsters]

Also on age verification: I have been on this website since 2011. Unless you think I started blogging at age 2, you KNOW I'm an adult.

[dreamerinsilico]

#the fact that 'can prove access to an online account at least 12 years old' or even 'account to be verified is itself fully 18 years old'#AREN'T accepted methods of age verification is such a telling sign of what the real purpose of age-gating laws is:#data harvesting and deanonymization and the buildout of state-controllable ways to restrict both content and internet access itself en masse (via @shinelikethunder )

⬆️

[do-not-u-dare]

”Explain yourself” followed by “stop making excuses” has always baffled me because the fuck you think explaining myself is????

[charlataninred]

Character duo where one *remembers I don’t like fitting characters into trope boxes* is a completely fleshed out and realised person *remembers treating characters as real people and not story devices written with intent is bad* who is written by the author and *remembers death of the author* uh. And *fumbles and drops my pile of queue cards* ah fuck wait no *the menacing horse* what was that.

[swiftrunnerfelidae]

"Kill your local sex offender!" Oh, you mean the guy who went streaking at his local college football game on a dare one time? That's a sex crime.

"No, I mean-"

Oh, maybe the woman who had to pee in a public park that only had pay toilets, so she tried to hide behind the bushes but got caught? Public urination is a sex crime.

"What? No, I mean-"

Oh, maybe you mean the homeless guy who had to strip down to get his clothes in the laundromat to clean them for the first time in weeks? He tried being subtle, but someone called the cops on him, and now he's on the sex offender registry for public nudity.

"Rapists and pedophiles! Kill rapists and pedophiles!"

Oh, like the trans woman who got called a pedophile groomer for helping a trans kid escape her abusive parents?

Or maybe the black man who got labeled a rapist because he came on to another man's wife, and he decided to get back at him by charging him with rape?

How about the 17 year olds who were fooling around, fully consensually, in one of their bedrooms? That's still technically underage sex and thus rape of a minor.

Oh, or maybe you're talking about the doctor who performed genital reconstructive surgery in a state that just voted to get that classified as rape?

People will do everything they can to get you convinced rape and pedophilia are the worst crimes possible, then accuse whoever they like the least of being either a rapist, a pedophile, or both, counting on you turning on them just for being accused of the crime.

"Oh, so you're saying you don't want to kill a serial rapist?"

That's exactly what I'm goddamn saying.

Once we decide a group is okay to kill, the government will do everything they can to convince you that their political enemies are either part of that group, or just as bad as that group, to get you to kill their enemies for them.

The only way out is to accept every life as worth saving.

EDIT: If you're going to go on this post to say that no, you think you really should be allowed to kill people you decide are rapists and/or pedophiles, I'm going to block you. I have already been blocking you, because it's clear that you aren't willing to engage with what I'm saying.

Also, if someone says something like that we'd be better off with rapists being dead BUT that they won't let that opinion shape their stance on public policy, and you reply to that person to accuse them of wanting to murder people, I'm also going to block you, because what the fuck that's a completely different sentence.

EDIT 2: Since so many people seem to fail basic reading comprehension, let's state it again, in different words:

1. Killing people is bad.

2. Killing someone can never be undone by any means we have.

3. If the government can kill people, they will want to kill their political opposition and other undesirables (WHICH CAN INCLUDE YOU PERSONALLY AND ANY IF NOT ALL OF YOUR FRIENDS AND FAMILY).

4. If there is a class of people OF ANY TYPE who the government can LEGALLY KILL, they now just need to convince you their enemies count as that class (ever wondered why there's so much emphasis on claiming gay people are pedophiles? Now you know!)

5. If there is a class of people OF ANY TYPE that the public can LEGALLY KILL, murderers just need to convince people that their victims counted as that class (I murdered him because he's a rapist. Anyway now his job is free promote me into that position plz.)

6. As pointed out in the notes (thank you everyone pointing this out!), if the penalty for a crime is death, people are much more willing to silence witnesses to that crime (for example, murdering their rape victims), which is EVEN WORSE than just committing the initial crime.

7. THEREFORE the only way to keep those from happening is to have NO category of people it is considered okay to kill FOR ANY REASON.

[imjunebitch]

[donniehaspronouns]

this might piss some people off but I don’t think some of you actually ever tried to unlearn your hatefulness. you just came out as queer and decided your new targets really truly deserve it this time.

[donniehaspronouns]

you. you get it.

[perfect-jerry-blossom]

i genuinely can't fucking deal with the larger internet anymore holy shit what the fuck are you people TALKING about. i am at my limit with this stupid bullshit. who the fuck cares if a man is hired to draw medical diagrams for young girls jesus christ we're pearl clutching about medical illustrations now? next you're gonna tell me male pediatricians shouldn't advise parents on their kids' vulva issues? male surgeons shouldn't be in the room when performing a procedure where a woman's breasts or vulva might be exposed? male researchers shouldn't conduct gynecological medical research? sure. better for men to live in ignorance and NEVER ally themselves with us to expand access to sexual education and reproductive healthcare i fucking guess. Twenty thousand likes. i hate it here KILL ME

[perfect-jerry-blossom]

THIS is the post that got me my first ever anon hate. i'd like to thank the academy tbh

also not related but can ppl on this post being like "yeah STOP being mean to men!!" pls stop cuz that's not the point of what i was saying 💀 i'm not mad bc someone was mean to a man i'm mad bc feminism is being hijacked by bioessentialist conservative Christian moralist bullshit where the goal seems to be the complete and total segregation of women from men instead of like, the material improvement of women's lives. i don't care if some intsta commenter is mean to men i care that feminism is culturally turning into Nu Conservatism

[this-is-trans-joy]

everyone loves to hate terfs until they realise that it actually entails rejecting bioessentialism entirely and then suddenly you’re “taking things too seriously” and you “don’t have a sense of humour” like i’m sorry but saying protect the dolls doesn’t make you immune to terfism it has seeped into every corner of mainstream feminism and unless you’re actively searching it out and checking your own biases you will always be at risk of sharing a space with terfs

[this-is-trans-joy]

“Only women can—” nope. “But all men—” nah. “The divine femininity of—” gonna stop you right there. “Everyone born ama—” if you finish that sentence I’ll kill you. “Men don’t experience—” you’re wrong. “Gender isn’t real but sex is imm—” *loud incorrect buzzer*

It also goes without saying that bioessentialism inherently can’t be trans inclusive no matter how hard you try. “All men including trans men—” probably not. “This is only a woman’s issue—” is it really? “Afabs only—” why? “All trans men are like—” what? what are they like? finish the sentence i dare you.

[annabelle--cane]

stop. analyse that text through the lens of its author's intentions and original historical context. okay now take the author out back and kill them dead and analyse that text as though it were published by your mutual yesterday and is in direct conversation the contemporary discourse that's most relevant to your life. okay now pick your favorite angle of interpretation and come up with the strongest possible argument against it. now imagine that the text is your best friend and that it means you well and that you naturally give it every benefit of the doubt because you're on its side and you want the best for it. now imagine that the text wants you dead and it'll eat you if you don't eat it first. now pretend that you found this text locked away in a cave with no evidence of when or where it came from and you have to divine its meaning solely through its internal coherence and nothing else. okay now address the elephant in the room aspect of the text you've been ignoring because you find it boring or confusing or uncomfortable and become the number one expert on it. now spend forty minutes assigning all the characters dnd classes with at least three sentences of reasoning each. okay now do the cha cha slide.