Perception

Once every year I decide that maybe I Will go on the internet. This is that time.

[lullambii]

Day 7 of #Veiltober - Davrin Griffon Daddy.

[hattedhedgehog]

I've finally finished my Dread Wolf tarot embroidery from Dragon Age Inquisition! Clocking in at 64 hours of work, it measures 11.5 X 19.5 cm and I've been chipping away it during my downtime at work. My fellow community council members on Dragon Age: The Veilguard may have been biased while helping me choose which character's card to do, but I'm so grateful they did because it was so much fun to work on, and so different from the previous ones.

This is my fourth large Dragon Age character card project, and the first one I started since I uprooted everything to train as a costumer. Having a portable yet elaborate project was comforting while travelling for new experiences.

Now, who's excited for the new game later this year?!

[fruitzbat]

i just got here but sincerely what is wrong with dorian pavus. he’s a necromancer. he helped invent time travel with his phd supervisor; this is never touched upon again. he comes out to you in front of his homophobic dad by going “sex. with men. ever heard of it”. he’s canonically so good at magic that he can keep up with god in conversation about it. constantly complains about the weather and all while he has one tit out at all times. his backstory is that he’s simultaneously a delinquent and a girlboss. he’s an alcoholic. his facial hair is completely fucking indefensible. h

[thatrandombystander]

Rip to everyone on this site who didn't realise they were following sleeper dragon age fans. The fandom is awakening from its deep slumber.

[saint-nevermore]

a visitor

[steveyockey]

To be aware you might be trans but unwilling to do anything about it is to create endlessly bigger boxes within which to contain yourself. When you are a child, that box might encompass only yourself and your parents. By the time you are a gainfully employed adult, that box will contain multitudes, and the thought of disrupting it will grow ever more unthinkable. So you cease to think of yourself as a person on some level; you think not of what you want but what everybody expects from you. You do your best not to make waves, and you apologize, if only implicitly, for existing. You stop being real and start being a construct, and eventually, you decide the construct is just who you are, and you swaddle yourself up in it, and maybe you die there. There is still time until there isn’t.

This reading of TV Glow’s deliberately anticlimactic, noncathartic ending cuts against the transition narrative you typically see in movies and TV, in which a trans person self-accepts, transitions, and lives a happier life. Owen gets trapped in a space where he knows what he must do to live an authentic life but simply refuses to take those steps because, well, burying yourself alive is a terrifying thing to do. The transition narrative posits a trans existence as, effectively, a binary switch between “man” and “woman” that gets flipped one way or another, but to make our lives so binary is to miss how trans existences possess an inherent liminality.

Humans’ lives unfold in a constant state of becoming until death, but trans people are uniquely keyed in to what this means thanks to the simple fact of our identities. You can get lost in that liminality, too, forever trapped in a midnight realm of your own making, stuck between what you believe is true (I am a nice man with a good family and a good job, and I love my life) and what you know, deep in your most terrified heart of hearts, is real (I am a girl suffocating in a box).

And yet if you want to read the film as being about the dangerous allure of nostalgia, you’re not wrong. I Saw the TV Glow totally supports that interpretation, too! But in tempting you with that reading, the film creates a trap for cis viewers that will be all too familiar to trans viewers. Somewhere in the middle of Maddy’s story about The Pink Opaque being real, you will make a choice between “This kid has lost it!” and “No. Go with her, Owen,” and in asking you to make that choice, TV Glow is simulating the act of self-accepting a trans identity.

See, the grimmer read of the film’s ending truly is a nihilistic one. It leaves no hope, no potential for growth, no exit. Yet you must actively choose to read that ending as nihilistic. If you are cis and the end of I Saw the TV Glow left you with a gnawing sense of dissatisfaction, a weird but hard-to-pin-down feeling that something had broken, and a melancholy bordering on horror — congratulations, this movie gave you contact-high gender dysphoria.

In an infinite number of possible universes, there is at least one where I am still living “as a man,” embracing my fictionality, avoiding looking at how much more raw and real I feel when I “pretend” to be a woman. I think about that guy sometimes. I hope he’s okay.

Consider, then, my cis reader, that TV Glow is for both you and me, but it is maybe most of all for him. I hope he sees it. I hope he breaks down crying in the bathroom afterward. I hope he, after so many years locked inside himself, hears the promise of more life through the hiss of TV static.

Emily St. James, “I Saw the TV Glow’s Ending Is Full of Hope, If You Want It to Be,” Vulture. June 4, 2024.

[gallusrostromegalus]

What is your philosophy for dressing for air travel?

I dress to look nice in public

I dress up because Flying is An Occasion (TM) like a date or concert

I dress for maximum comfort on the flight

I dress for the climate conditions of my destination

I dress to intimidate or confuse my fellow passengers

I wear what I usually wear

I wear like 6 layers of clothing so I won't have to pay for a checked bag

I have a specific outfit for flying

I go in my Work Uniform (Pilot/cabin crew)

I go in my Work Uniform (not a pilot/cabin crew) (military uniforms go here)

Something Else / I'm naked and/or bald

Voting ended onAug 28, 2024

[theveryworstthing]

SpaceDancer over on patreon suggested land sharks so here are some land sharks from the Small Guide universe.

all land sharks are amphibious and they come in a wide variety of shapes and sizes. when some people think of land sharks they tend to imagine a dog or cat with shark attributes, but nature itself pushes beyond the mammalian cross borders and asks: but what if slug? what if crab? what if snake? if it can hang out on land for any period of time in its chosen ecosystem then that body plan is free real estate.

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

“X bodily fluid is just filtered blood!” buddy I hate to break it to you but ALL of the fluids in your body are filtered blood. Your circulatory system is how water gets around your body. It all comes out of the blood (or lymph, which is just filtered blood).

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

“Okay but why is it always so chemically roundabout and unnecessarily complicated” well buddy, that’s because your blood is imitation seawater. See? It’s very simple.

[badwificonnection]

Blood is what now?

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

It’s imitation seawater what part is confusing

[badwificonnection]

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

#are you telling me#humans are just sentient aquariums? 

Buddy if anything is living in your blood (except for more parts of you) in detectable amounts then you have a serious microbial infection and need to go to the hospital.

Humans are seawater wastelands kept sterile of all but human cells, with microbial mats coating their surfaces.

[badwificonnection]

Thank you that’s…very disturbing

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

It’s not my fault you’re human.

[apatheticshipwreck]

Ok but “It’s not my fault you’re human.” Is the best comeback ever.

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

You can use it against anyone except children that you biologically helped to create.

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

#/blood is imitation seawater/ is the part that’s confusing 

Picture this: you are a Thing That Lives In The Ocean. Some kind of small multicellular animal a long time ago, before proper circulatory systems existed. “Wow,” you think, metaphorically, “it sure is difficult to diffuse chemicals across my whole body. Kinda puts a hard limit on the size and distance of what specialised organs I can have. Good thing I have all this water around me that’s the same salinity as my cells (they have to be that way so I don’t explode or shrivel up) so I can diffuse and filter chemicals with that.”

“Wait a minute,” you say a couple of generations later, because you’re not actually a small animal but an evolutionary process personified and simplified to the point of dangerous inaccuracy for the purposes of a Tumblr post, “instead of losing all these important chemicals to the water around me, how about I put it in tubes? I can keep MY water separate from the rest of the world’s water! Anything I want to keep goes in my water! Anything I don’t, I dump back into the outside water! I’m a genius! An unthinking natural trial-and-error process that’s a GENIUS!”

“Wow,” you think a great many generations later, “being able to have such control over such high concentrations of important chemicals is so great. Look how big I’m getting. I even have a special pump to move my seawater around, and these cool filter systems to keep the chemicals in it right, and that control and chemical concentration has let me grow so many energy-intensive, highly specialised organs! Being big is so hard. I need special cells just to carry my oxygen around now, to make sure my enormous, constantly-operating body has enough of it.”

At this point you are embodying a fish, and eventually, fish start straying into water with different pressures and salinity levels. (I mean, they do that since befor ehty’er fish, but… look, I’m trying to keep things simple here.) “What the FUCK,” you think. “My inside water is at a different salinity and pressure to the outside water?? How am I supposed to deal with that? I can’t have freshwater inside my seawater tubes! My cells have a set salinity and they would explode! I need to start beefing up my regulatory and filter systems so that my inside seawater STAYS SEAWATER OF THE CORRECT SALINITY even if the outside water is different! Fortunately, adding salt to my seawater is a lot easier than removing it, and I want to be saltier than this weird outside water.” At this point you beef up your liver and urinary systems to compensate for different salinities. (Note: the majority of fish, freshwater and saltwater, have a fairly narrow band of salinities they can live in. Every fish doesn’t get to deal with every level of salinity; they are evolved to regulate within specific bands.)

You also, at some point, go out on land. This is new and weird because you have to carry all of your water inside. “It’s a good thing I turned myself into a giant bag of seawater,” you think. “If I wasn’t carrying my seawater inside, how would I transport all these important chemicals between my organs and the environment?” As you specialise to live entirely outside of the water, you realise (once again) that it’s a lot easier to add salt to water than to remove it in great quantities. Drinking seawater in large amounts becomes toxic; your body isn’t specialised for removing that amount of salt. Instead, you drink freshwater, and add salts to that. The majority of your organs are, at this point, specialised for moving your seawater around, protecting it, adding stuff to it, or taking stuff out. You have turned yourself into an intelligent bag for carrying and regulating a small amount of imitation seawater, and its salinity (and your commitment to maintaining that salinity) is based entirely on the seawater that some early animals started to build tubes around a long time ago.

And that’s what a human is!

[elodieunderglass]

Well, there’s another few steps, of course.

Because at some point, operating along lines of logic that worked out perfectly so far, you did decide to be a mammal.

A mammal is a machine for adapting to Circumstances. A mammal is a tremendously resilient all-terrain life-support system, with built-in heating, cooling, respiration, and incubators for reproduction. Mammals internalise everything (grudges, eggs) and furthermore are excessively, flamboyantly wet internally. Sure, everyone’s a bag of chemicals; but mammals slosh. Mammals took the concept of an internal ocean and took it in an unnecessarily splashy direction, added aftermarket mods and a climate-control system,

and just to show off, you leaned across the metaphorical gambling table and said: “my internal ocean is so good-“

“Bullshit,” said the shark, keeping it salty (ha)

“My internal ocean is so brilliantly resilient, more so than any of YOURS,” you said, holding their attention with a digit held aloft, “that for my next trick, I shall artistically recreate the ballad of evolution as a performance. I shall craft a complex chemical ballet depicting the origin of multicellular life - using some of my own material, of course-”

“Oh, ANYONE can lay an egg,” yodel the fish, and the ray adds: “ontogeny does NOT recapitulate phylogeny!!”

And you’re like, “yeah no, it’s an artistic rendition, not a literal thing. Basically I’m going to take some cells and brew them up-“

“Like an egg.”

“Like an egg. An egg but internally.”

“Yeah,” said the viviparous reptile, “yeah, like, that can work really well. I’ve always said it’s the highest test of one’s chemical know-how. It’s a lot of work. And forget about support from your family - forget about support from your PHYLUM - all you get is criticism.”

“I’m gonna do it on purpose forever,” you said. “The highest chemical, thermoregulatory, immunological, everything-logical challenge. It’s gonna be my thing.”

“I’m with you,” said a viviparous fish, stoutly. “Representation.”

You kindly don’t point out, once again, that you’re planning to do this outside the ocean, in a range of temperatures; carrying the dividing cells in a perfect 37.5• solution of saline broth in all terrains, breathing oxygen in a complicated matter, you know, bit more difficult; but you need your allies.

“It’s solid,” says the coelacanth.

“But is it metal?” says the deep-vent organism.

“Oh, it’s metal. I will feed the young,” you say, magnificently, “on an echo of the mother ocean. The first rich feast of cellular matter, the first hunt for sustenance, the first bite they sip of our liquid planet-”

Everyone waits.

“Will be a blood byproduct. My own blood byproduct.”

Everyone looks uncomfortable.

“But,” a hagfish says carefully, “don’t you outdoorsy guys still need your blood?”

You cough and explain that if you stay wet enough internally and hydrate frequently, you should be able to produce enough blood byproduct to sustain your hellish new invention until they can eat your peers.

The outrage that follows includes questions like “is this some furry shit?” And: “milk has WATER in it?”

And you won the bet. “My inner ocean is such a perfect homage to the primordial soup that I can personally cook up an entire live hairy mammal in it. And then generate excess blood byproduct from my body and give it to the small mammal until it gets big.”

That is an absolutely bonkers pitch, by the way, and everyone thought you were a showoff, even before the opposable thumbs. When the winter came, and the winter of winters, and the rain was acid and the air was poison on the tender shells of their eggs and choked the children in the shells; when the plants turned to poison, and the ocean turned against you all; when the climate changed, and the world’s children fell to shadow; your internal ocean was it that held true. A bet laid against the changing fates, a bet laid by a small beast against climate and geography and the forces of outer space, that you won. The dinosaurs fell and the pterosaurs fell and the marine reptiles dwindled, and you, furthest-child, least-looked-for, long-range-spaceship, held hope internally at 37.5 degrees. Which is another thing that humans do, sometimes.

[kyrosion]

It has been MONTHS, @elodieunderglass, and I am still mumbling “furthest-child, least-looked-for, long-range-spaceship” under my breath as a comfort phrase, and the FUCKING INDIGNITY that it came from this godforsaken post about THE HORRIBLE WETNESS OF MAMMALS!

[derinthescarletpescatarian]

“The horrible wetness of mammals” would make a great band name.

[gallusrostromegalus]

“hold hope, internally, at 37.5 degrees” and “Mammals internalize everything (eggs, grudges)” Now live permanently in my vocabulary

[dduane]

Always reblog.

[rovermcfly]

proud to say that I have never once in my life figured out the whodunit in any crime story I've read or watched. I just let the facts and clues wash over me, absorbing absolutely none of it. I am the audience they think of when they throw in red herrings, in case you've ever wondered "who would fall for this obvious false lead". it's me. I am the idiot viewer/reader. not once has an obviously framed clue revealed anything to me. my head is completely empty when I consume these stories.

[thehungrycity]

[voyaging-too]

Making students proofread an AI essay is a brilliant teaching moment, it gives students a first-hand understanding of what current LLMs can and cannot do, and especially of the things they look like they can do but absolutely cannot do.

[succubusboyfriend]

being a self-taught artist with no formal training is having done art seriously since you were a young teenager and only finding out that you’re supposed to do warm up sketches every time you’re about to work on serious art when you’re fuckin twenty-five

[succubusboyfriend]

someone: oh yeah, do this exercise during your warm ups! it’ll help

me: my what

[suave-eddboy]

[thepioden]

What’s up I have an actual college degree in art and I was never ONCE taught to do warm ups.

[sparksel]

when i was in undergrad, it was kind of mentioned in and offhand way that we should do warmups, but we were never shown what that meant. And, y’know, we were young so it didn’t matter so much. 

Being older now and having an art job it’s…kind of essential. 

So: a quick primer for those of you who are like ‘ok but how do i actually go about doing this warmup thing.’ 

1) you may be tempted to do ‘a warmup drawing’ which is just a drawing that will take longer than it needed to and probably be frustrating and kind of bad because you didn’t warm up first. It’s tempting but always a trick your brain is playing on you! Do not trust! 

2) warmups will vary based on what feels good to you/what task you’re about to do/what motor skills you want to practice. That being said, some good standbys:

a) circles. Just a whole page of circles on whatever drawing surface you’re going to be using, whether that’s your tablet or your sketchbook or a drawing pad on an easel. For these circles you should make sure that you’re drawing from your shoulder and not your wrist. In fact, you want to be drawing from your shoulder rather than your wrist most of the time! forever! your wrist is delicate please preserve it! 

In order to ensure that you’re drawing from your shoulder, when you’re holding your pencil or whatever drawing tool you’re using, the only part of your hand that should be touching the drawing surface is part of the last two fingers–some people prefer the finger tips, but I tend to favor the first knuckles. Either way, the fingers should really be ghosting over the surface, providing guidance rather than support. 

I usually start with big circles and then go to smaller circles and lines of ellipses, and then try to fit circles and ellipses inside other shapes i’ve already drawn as a precision exercise, but i don’t do that unless i’m feeling loose

b) spirals! i don’t always do spirals, but if i’m stiff and the circles just aren’t cutting it, spirals are a good fall back. I start from the center and work outward, going both clockwise and counterclockwise until i feel comfortable with the whole range of motion. Some people really care about getting perfect spirals but for me it’s all about making sure i’m comfortable with how i’m moving so who really even cares about how the spirals look. Not me! 

c) lines! straight lines! in parallel! i do a mix of vertical, horizontal, and diagonal. These are often more from the elbow than the shoulder, especially if I’m working on a smaller surface. For this exercise, I recommend holding the drawing tool perpendicular with the surface

d) connect the dots. This is a precision and accuracy exercise and takes two forms. The first is to draw two dots and then draw a straight line between them. The second is to draw three dots and draw the curve that connects them. This sounds a lot simpler than it is in practice. Take time to ghost over the line you plan to draw before actually committing to your line. (I don’t always remember where I picked up my warm up exercises, but I’m pretty sure I got this one from Scott Robertson. His how to draw and how to render books are very technical but also accessible and worth checking out)

e) cubes, spheres, cones, and cylinders. These help get your brain into a more volumetric space. I draw multiples of each, rotating the forms around, and I’ll often take the time to do some rough shading on at least a few of them

f) spidermans! This one is really good if you’re going to be storyboarding or working on dynamic poses. Just fill a page full of spidermans doing all sorts of acrobatics. 

g) beans. I don’t do beans too much anymore, but I know a lot of people like it so I’m mentioning it here. Fill an area with different size bean shapes without lifting your pencil off the paper. 

h) short medium and long line repetition. draw a short, medium, and long line on your page, and then draw directly on top of them 8 to 12 times, doing your best to exactly trace what you’ve already drawing. Repeat with a wavy line. I’m bad at this one, which means I probably need to do it more. 

And there are lots more options too! Hit up youtube to see what other people recommend, put together your own go-to list, mix it up when you’re getting bored, etc. 

This is a long list, I know, but I usually don’t take more than 10 to 15 minutes to warm up, and I can warm up one handed while I’m drinking coffee, so, multitasking hurrah. 

Sometimes I’ll advance to a precision warmup and find that I haven’t loosened up enough yet; it’s totally ok to go back to an earlier exercise! Also, all of this has the added benefit of kind of ritualistically getting you into the drawing mode so even if I’m not feeling it before I start, by the time I’ve gotten to the end I’m usually Ready For Drawin’. Brain hacks. 

so, yeah! that’s a lot of words, but! Warmups are important! Save your joints, take less advil, do better drawings! 

[concerningwolves]

[t-c-art-inspiration]

How on earth are you supposed to draw from a sholder? might as well tell me to draw from the foot. It makes no sense

[justpickupthatpen]

https://youtu.be/pMC0Cx3Uk84

https://youtu.be/NBE-RTFkXDk

:3

[stupidlittlesideblog]

Reblogging to save a wrist

[thecolorblockcurator]

Another thing that is fun to draw is Matisse style coral & plants. It’s very flowy & gets you thinking about simplifying shapes.

But I 100% have never drawn with my shoulder & I have like a hypermobile death grip on my pen. Should probably do something about that lol

[hometoursandotherstuff]

Justin posted the 1956 house he and his wife bought in Jasper, Indiana. It is a complete time capsule. Absolutely NOTHING has been updated or touched.  

Everything is still here- look at the appliances. All original. This is not like the classy expensive updated mid century homes we’ve seen before. 

The furniture has to be the original pieces and sets the previous owners bought. 

The wall hangings are aged.

This is an interesting piece, this bar. 

Look at the bathroom- pink fixtures.

Those lamps!

The master bath has a yellow tub and fixtures.

A 2nd bdm. Even the bedding is vintage.

And, this bath has blue Fixtures. Wow, I would definitely keep them.

More cool lamps and original furniture in the knotty pine family room. 

Wow, look at the built-ins in the office.

The lower floor.

The basement is cool- look at that floor! And, the TV. The bar is classic. I wonder if they were leaving any of this.

Off the rec room is a 2nd kitchen. A pink fridge!

And, there’s this room, too. Look at the stone wall.

for the love of old houses

[stonedrunkwizard]

I’m reblogging this just because it’s great reference. Who knows if i ever get the chance to draw a fifties living room?

[minim-calibre]

@teatotally – please join me in whimpering with a strong need to go to there.

[ostdrossel]

Oh my goodness, the woodpecker 😆 (other two are Oriole and female Grosbeak)

[lostinhistory]

@bbcwhereareyou

[ceekari]

[canreblogforsher]

@todaysbird

[todaysbird]

this is a magical interaction. the grosbeak’s face is everything

[tytonidyke]

These are so fun to make

[tytonidyke]

@thedisablednaturalist @fagtabulous

Ask and you shall receive!

[inthefallofasparrow]

[tytonidyke]

Love your additions! Birds got that drip

[tytonidyke]

Oh yeah should probably add this one too-

[mist-the-wannabe-linguist]

I’ve never done this before

[inthefallofasparrow]

[inthefallofasparrow]

[floral-hydrate]

Sorry this is the best post I’ve seen in a while

[floral-hydrate]

I’ll leave this post alone now

[mist-the-wannabe-linguist]

This is way too much fun

[floral-hydrate]

I’m not done yet I suppose

[inthefallofasparrow]

[floral-hydrate]

[floral-hydrate]

no no no you dont get it this is all i wanna do now. I love birds I love them I love them

[octy-in-boots]

[octy-in-boots]

[inthefallofasparrow]

[inthefallofasparrow]

[floral-hydrate]

Here’s another

[floral-hydrate]

Your local pigeon

[inthefallofasparrow]

[nicoroni]

@todaysbird

[grayraccoon]

@bigmeatpete69420

[sxmply-chikinuggies]

[floral-hydrate]

for @mecha-opabinia and anon!!!!

[deluxeloy]

Human: Deal.

Fey: Very well. When you return home tonight, your mother will be in pristine health again. It will be like she never fell ill at all. Even the memory of her suffering will fade…

Human: Thank you so much. She means everything to me.

Fey: I know, I know. Let’s hope the price wasn’t too much for you after all… Only time will tell.

Human: So, when do we start?

Fey: …If I may ask you to elaborate?

Human: You said you wanted my firstborn.

Fey: Yes? And you agreed?

Human: Yeah, so, when do we start?

Fey:

Fey, blushing: Ah.

[hayleyolivia]

So good. It deserved some art. 😊

[neenarchive]

infinite changeling glitch

[stevelieber]

I was talking shop with an artist in the studio today and I shared this page from Andrew Loomis, which might be the single most valuable page I've ever encountered in a how-to-draw book. I can't BEGIN to say how many hours this "hanging figures on the horizon" technique has saved me.

(EDIT: Over on another site, someone said they didn’t understand how to read this pic, so maybe adding a second pic and some explanation will help?)

Let’s say I want to draw “Joe” standing further back. I need to know where to place him so he looks like he's the same height, even though he's further away. If I get it wrong, he’ll look giant or tiny.

I can do that by making sure that the horizon cuts thru Joe AT THE SAME HEIGHT, no matter how close or far away he is. In the original picture, it cuts thru the original Joe at the waist.

So let’s look at three different Joes.

A: Wrong. Horizon goes thru his knees. In this context, he’s a giant.

B: Correct. Horizon goes thru his waist, just like the original Joe!

C: Wrong. Horizon goes thru his head. In this context, he’s tiny.