achillea millefolium

she/they || enjoyer of all things green

[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 :')

[snickering-doodles]

There's a very loud horror to being Aidey that over powers her quirky behavior for me. Her profile lists all these worldly indulgences: mountain air, pizza topping prefs, returning a shopping cart. Aidey wants to be a part of the wider world, she would thrive being let loose. Yet, I do not think we have seen her off of that pillar, let alone ever eatin anything. There is a chance that she cant even leave that pillar because of her programming. She exists to perform, and then go back to her room. That is her beginning and end. She herself calls the court room a stage.

Her body is not even hers it is one she shares with The State and her 83 siblings. She is only herself when performing her role. At all other times shes shoved in a digital holding pattern twiddling her thumbs till she gets to front again. I would be fuckin extra af if I only got to be a person for like, 5 hours a week too !!! If she only exists to perform then let it be a fun performance!

Her design too screams in your face how this world thinks of her. If justice is a performance at least make it something worth staring at. A woman on a pedestal to be looked at but never listened too. She is here to keep the play moving. The second anything the state would deem important happens an actual human judge steps in.

You could argue that shes not truly sentient so it is ok to treat her like this, but can you?? In a game about the masks we wear and what it truly means to be human, who is to say an android or two haven't made the same leap Serra did in their own way? How can you be sure.

Sometimes the best mask of all is the fool. No one would suspect a woman is suffering when all they see is a buggy robot. Being a full person means death so better a clown than scrap metal.

It is by this very role shes carved for herself that she can engage with the world the best now that I think about it. No one is going to bat an eye if the "quirky pandemic era vocab rawr ex three" robot asks about drama, or unimportant details. She has but a small peephole to see the real world and she is taking full advantage.

In conclusion I wish I could give Aidey a hug.

[clonerightsagenda]

When I was at the natural history museum, the fossil section had stickers on the glass to engage children - things like "Flap your arms like a pterodactyl" or "Measure your hand against the mosasaurus." However the first of these I encountered, which I found alarming and threatening without context, was a sticker reading "Struggle like you are stuck in a tar pit"

[clonerightsagenda]

I feel like more bright colors, an exclamation mark, or a more whimsical font choice would've also helped here to indicate that it is a Fun Activity For Children. Instead it felt like getting instructed in my inevitable fate by a road sign

[holyunholy]

should be able to leave kudos on scientific studies. i liked your paper dude keep at it

[holyunholy]

sorry, Dr. Dude

[thepioden]

Dude et. al.

[wormofmouth]

need y'all to know that most academics have publicly searchable email addresses and this not only makes their day but they can put nice emails in their giant packets for applying for jobs or tenure. "hi i read your paper for a class and it was very helpful, im at xyz college and the class is blah with professor blah" is sufficient and ENORMOUSLY helpful

[link-the-feral-anon]

It seems that, once again, when you can't kudos, commenting is the way to go

[wickedsick]

I'd say I'm sorry but its actually surprising how un-sorry I am

[polux-aka-hyakunana]

I am once again thinking about this very specific AU (notes are rewritten in alt caps because some are unreadable)

"But Polux, I never watched Kamen Rider Geats / played Lies of P, what is this AU even about?"

Me, gently sliding this out-of-context montage I spent way too much time doing under the cut:

[evil-catboys-fan]

it's april 1st somewhere

[beardedmrbean]

[theman]

I GOT A FUCKING RAISE THE POTATO WORKED WTF

[tattooedzombigirl]

This potato works. Every. Fucking. Time.

[secondlina]

Reblogging because it’s a damn potato and I want to encourage people to assume potatoes are magical.

[plagued-roses]

MAGIC POTATO GO!🥔

[queen-of-gotham]

I’ll update you Tomorrow on the results

[mariya-rose]

DOING IT ONCE AGAIN🔥🔥

[kineticpenguin]

At the risk of sounding anti-intellectual, I think that college should be free and also not a requirement for employment outside of highly specialized career fields

[kineticpenguin]

At the risk of sounding like an effete intellectual, I do actually think you should be allowed to just take college courses indefinitely

[yourunderwaterskies]

technically you can, if you don't care about degrees.

Free Harvard courses. Free Courses from Stanford. Free Courses from MIT. Free courses from Yale. Free courses from Princeton.

Free courses on Coursera.

Free Courses on EDx Free Courses on Alison

For paid, there's The Great Courses+/Wonderium. 20$ a month for unlimited courses.

When searching, the phrases you're looking for are Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs), or you can do a general search of say, "free online college courses." Oh, and so you don't get surprised like I did, have an avoid: Hillsdale College is a conservative Christian site and not a valid MOOC place. Sign up with them and you will get things like THIS IS WHY THE LEFT IS TURNING YOUR KIDS TRANS AND GAY in your inbox.

[aloeverawrites]

@yourunderwaterskies I wanted to say thank you so much for adding these links, seriously, they've been life-changingly helpful to me-

And I also wanted to mention that humanitarian organisations have free courses too, like the Red Cross on international humanitarian law.

Humanity in War

Learn more about the Red Cross International Humanitarian Law (IHL) Program to train policy professionals, government officials, academics,

Kaya

Kaya is a free humanitarian learning platform which offers hundreds of training opportunities across a range of key topics, including the hu

[swniji01]

Paper Note (2)

Free resources for GFX, f2u no need credit~ You can join my Discord server for more :3

[bardic-tales]

Be careful of the double-speak in the Update Post.

Staff has officially posted an update regarding the reblog decoupling, and while they are reversing the change for now, we need to look closely at the language they are using. This is a classic example of corporate "double speak" designed to de-escalate a PR crisis while keeping the door open for the same harmful features later.

The Post: Reblog Update: We’re Reversing the Change

The Red Flag:

"We still believe there's a better version of how reblogs can work. One that gives every voice in a chain the credit it deserves. But we want to get there with you."

The Breakdown: When they say they want to give every voice the credit it deserves, they are still justifying the decoupling of notes. They are framing the destruction of the original creator's attribution as a feature for the rebloggers or the loss of community. Their goal hasn't changed. They just realized their current execution was a technical and social disaster.

They also mention working "directly with some of you." This often means selecting a small, curated group of "power users" who may not prioritize the accessibility or safety needs that we have been fighting for.

Viral Hell & The Power of the Call to Arms

To my friends and followers: my condolences for going viral are accepted. I love you. Let’s look at the numbers. My original post on this has cleared 24,000 notes. This is exactly why a Call to Arms was necessary. When we first saw the decoupling, we saw the immediate theft of credit.

In my case, over 10,000 notes were stolen or hidden by the uncoupling before I even realized the extent of the damage. This isn't just a UI preference. It is the systematic erasing of a creator’s reach and legacy.

Why we cannot stop now:

Staff’s reversal is a tactical retreat, not a surrender. Their language proves they still intend to push for a version of decoupling in the future. We forced their hand because:

The volume of feedback was undeniable. 24k notes on a single advocacy post is a massive indicator of user dissatisfaction.

Emails and Support Tickets work. They specifically cited emails as a reason for the reversal.

Public pressure creates friction. By making this a PR nightmare on Bluesky and X, we made the cost of the update too high for them to maintain.

The Mission Moving Forward:

We have won the first battle, but the Double Speak in their post tells us the war isn't over. They are going to try to rebrand a change like this in a few weeks or months.

Keep the pressure on: Continue to reblog your concerns when they surface.

Stay Vocal: They are betting on us getting tired and going back to business as usual. We need to show them that our safety and our creative credit are non-negotiable. Continue to voice concerns when they surface.

We’ve seen that we can move the needle. Let's make sure they don't try to move it back when they think we aren't looking.

[kerink]

i know we're all sick of self-care being a marketing tactic now, but i don't think a lot of us have any other concept of self-care beyond what companies have tried to sell us, so i thought i'd share my favorite self-care hand out

brought to you by how mad i just got at a Target ad

[themythicalcodfish]

OP this is EXCELLENT

[whatbigotspost]

Now THAT’S a self care resource! If you’ve gotten distracted by capitalism’s appropriation of “self-care” and watering the meaning down to nothing this is a super helpful guide to cut through the bullshit.

[g5-iguazu-deactivated20240408]

back in the 00s a single dancing anime chibi gif would feed us for months on end

[kurenaiwataru]

Here’s the template. Go forth and recreate the dancing anime chibi gif. Revive the old ways.

[enbyhyena]

This fucking thing all over deviantART in the 00s-10s LMAO

[onemillionfurries]

The bases on this post are all JPEGs for some reason. That makes them hard to use properly. I will link to the originals and provide some additional ones, along with a tutorial on how to actually make them into a GIF.

I couldn't find the caramelldansen base in this post, but here is a version that should work just as well.

Here is the original lick icon base.

To save these and have them be usable, you have to click the "free download" button underneath the image.

Some other good bases:

Dance Icon

Caipirinha

Run Run Run

You can find many other bases like these through DeviantArt.

How to make them into a GIF:

Step 1. Edit the base however you like (I used MSPaint)

Step 2: Crop and save each frame individually as PNGs (Note for the lick base: It's best to crop them to include the black boarder. This makes the GIF 50x50, which is the standard DeviantArt icon size and can easily scale larger if need be.)

Step 3: Go to ezgif.com/maker and upload all your frames

Step 4: Set "delay time" to 10, then click "Make a GIF!"

Step 5: Right-click the result and save it. Congrats! You used a GIF base!

[magz]

ID: 1. A collection of early 2000s animation meme gifs and their still images. 2. screenshots of instructions to edit animation meme templates in ms paint and ezgif.com to result in a licking gif. End ID.

[apoemaday]

The Book of Longing

by Leonard Cohen

I can’t make the hills The system is shot I’m living on pills For which I thank G-d

I followed the course From chaos to art Desire the horse Depression the cart

I sailed like a swan I sank like a rock But time is long gone Past my laughing stock

My page was too white My ink was too thin The day wouldn’t write What the night penciled in

My animal howls My angel’s upset But I’m not allowed A trace of regret

For someone will use What I couldn’t be My heart will be hers Impersonally

She’ll step on the path She’ll see what I mean My will cut in half And freedom between

For less than a second Our lives will collide The endless suspended The door open wide

Then she will be born To someone like you What no one has done She’ll continue to do

I know she is coming I know she will look And that is the longing And this is the book

[lelif]

on survival

-// @aridante // @orivu // @buzzkillgirls // ? // ? // richard siken// @cemeterything // moomin, tove jansson// @disenchanted-killjoy // isn't that enough, shawn mendes// @ prettytheyswag on twitter// @ coletyumuch on twitter// ? // ? // bird by bird, anne lamott// undertale// @strawberrycircuits

[wonderstruck]

If you see this you’re legally obligated to reblog and tag with the book you’re currently reading

[depsidase]

[dandelionsresilience]

Just gonna drop these here as a starting point :)

How to identify, and then deal with, your emotions

Emotional regulation skills

Conflict resolution skills

Creating and enforcing boundaries

Dialectical Behavioural Therapy skills

Emotional intelligence ideals to aim for

Axes of self-care/wellbeing

Self-care self-evaluation (find out where you’re starting)

How to make a self-care checklist

How to start a self-care habit

Reparenting resources

Crash Course Psychology

KhanAcademy: Understanding the Self and Society (some units more relevant than others)

Emotional education activities for children and teens

Social-Emotional Learning activities for kids (information can be adapted for adults)

[radak1985]

I'm reblogging to actually use this