Albali, 36, bi, nb. Pronouns are she/they, but please don't refer to me with feminine nouns.

[angrysexyshortstack]

Cis people simply don’t understand that the entire harry potter franchise is basically a hate symbol these days

[pikestaff]

"Stop saying 15 year olds with weird interests are cringe, they're 15" this is true however you should also stop saying adults with weird interests are cringe because who gives a shit

[themythicalcodfish]

To wit:

[switchelsweets]

I want to share some wisdom from my high school art teacher.

In my AP Art class, there was a girl who was just starting to experiment with mixed media. At this point she was still playing around, trying to decide what direction she wanted to go with her portfolio. So one critique day, she brought in an abstract canvas with some rhinestone highlights and painted and real peacock feathers. She loved sparkles and peacock feathers so she thought she’d try introducing them a *little*. And after everyone had given some input, the teacher gave her his advice, VERY roughly paraphrased here:

“So here’s the thing… I do not like this style. These are just elements that do not speak to me personally, but I see that you like them, and you’re doing interesting things with them.

“My biggest critique is, I only merely *dislike* this piece. I want you to make me HATE it. Go crazy with the things that you like. Don’t hold back trying to make it palatable to people like me. Because I am NEVER going to like it. And if the audience does not like it, it should drive them crazy seeing how much YOU love it.”

Her portfolio was chock full of neon colors and glitter and rhinestones and splashes of peacock feathers and it was a delight. Our teacher despised every piece lol, but she got great marks and I think even won some awards. And more importantly, she was happy and proud of the results. Because she didn’t limit herself by trying to appeal to people who were never going to enjoy what she enjoyed.

Takeaway here: be as cringe as you want. Don’t limit yourself based on other ppl’s tastes. They’re not you, and you are incredible 💕

[magnuspeccatori]

This is the most inspirational thing I've read all week. Possibly all year

[pansy2025]

goo goo dolls if they were in dune: and i don’t want the worm to see me

[mezzodical]

[crazyaboutfilm]

[northshorewave]

Handing the Google executive currently chained in my basement a piece of paper that reads "Shall I end your torture?" with one checkbox that reads "No" and another that reads "Maybe later."

[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 :')

[mapleejay]

does anyone else think about how brave all their friends are and get really emotional about it

[mapleejay]

I'm glad everyone is alive rn

[screenshotsofdespair]

[nudityandnerdery]

From the media that brought you "Millennials are killing [insert industry here]" articles for years and years and years, now we have....

"Hey, Gen Z, we're gonna relabel vacations into something else now and tell you how you really should be wary of taking vacation because it might impact your financial future."

This is a goddamn dystopia, we know this, right?

[rabid-transcendentalist]

[taippen]

Vash the Stampede

He's been one of my favorite characters since I was a kid, so I wanted to draw him again :)

[catchymemes]

[disgruntled-foreign-patriarch]

it’s almost as if Tolkien knew what he was talking about

[thepieking]

It’s almost as if Tolkien personally witnessed one of the bloodiest wars in human history and then used that to fuel his writing.

[rottencore]

This post keeps making me cry laughingg

[funstyle]

Im always like "i will not add my two cents. i will not add my two cents" but i cant lie the pennies are getting sweaty in my hand

[hollowboobtheory]

"What if we find a way to keep fetuses alive outside the womb" that already exists, it's called the NICU and it took decades of advancements in medical science and technology. it takes an entire team equipped with state of the art technology to keep a fetus alive outside the womb. because it cannot perform basic life-supporting functions like breathing on its own. this isn't an anti-NICU post tbc. I'm actually considering the nicu as an option after going back to school because I really like fetuses and babies, I think they're neat. but the fact remains that it takes an entire team of doctors, nurses, respiratory therapists, and more to keep a micropreemie alive. and most abortions occur even before the point that it becomes possible at all. "viable" doesn't mean ready to be born. it means it is possible to keep it alive thanks to medical science developed by the same "abortionists" whose executions you're always calling for.

[hollowboobtheory]

also, it's not an "after birth abortion" when they "let" micropreemies die, it's fucking hospice care.

[borntomeowworldisafuck]

absolutely. and to add onto this, i was a nicu baby, and i was a late term abortion. when i was still in the womb i was dying inside my mother, so they had to induce her extremely prematurely to save our lives. there was a very high chance of me dying because they took me outside of the womb before they knew if i could survive on my own, but the chances of me and my mother dying if i stayed inside her were 100%.

the procedure to remove me is medically and legally a late term abortion. i was aborted, and it saved my life. if they hadn’t aborted me, my mother and i would both be dead, my siblings would have been left with a dead mother, and i would have never even gotten a chance to live a single day. and now, people are being denied this procedure and dying because it’s literally an abortion!! mothers and their babies are being killed because their doctors are not allowed to perform life-saving abortions.

on the same note, my sister was recently denied an abortion. which is to say, cleaning out the already dead fetus after she had a miscarriage from a wanted pregnancy. they refused treatment unless the DEAD fetus was actively killing her, because the procedure to remove it is medically and legally an abortion. they basically said to her “come back when you’re dying of an infection or sepsis or something, until then you just have to bleed out.” my sister could have died from this, people HAVE died from being denied abortions after having a miscarriage. if she was one of these people, my sister would have been dead, my mother would have to live the rest of her life without her daughter, and my nephew would have had to live the rest of his life without a mother.

sick and tired of people saying to me “yeah, but that’s different. you can’t really call those procedures an abortion, they’re not really an abortion.” yes it is. it’s an abortion. any procedure that entails unnaturally removing a fetus and/or baby from the womb before they’re sure it can survive outside of it is an abortion. if it wasn’t, people wouldn’t be being told that, sorry! we can’t do that! you’ll have to come back when you’re already dead. i was aborted, my mother had an abortion when she was pregnant with me, my sister needed an abortion after she had a miscarriage. all of these things are ABORTIONS! and now mothers and babies are being killed, murdered by these anti-abortionist fuckers and the laws they put in place to “save and protect poor, innocent lives!”

[motherfucker-somewhat-limited]

[deepspacepirate]

One of my favorite tropes is post apocalyptic towns being named after dilapidated signs with missing letters, like Novac (no vacancy) and Eaden (dead end). There’s something inexplicable about it

[togepipi]

catch me in the city of fre shavaca do

[niggazinmoscow]

THIS RIGHT HERE

[afronerdism]

You guys are dangerously close to realizing specifically what kinds of people they keep from voting and why.

[molothoo]

I want to drill this into everybody’s head:

The United States of America has the highest prison population in the world

Black Americans and Latin people make up the majority of this population (many of whom are non-violent offenders)

Federal Prisons in America require that their state keeps their prisons at a maximum occupancy at all times.

The 13th amendment did not entirely abolish slavery…just one form of it. It remains legal through industrial prison system

[scretladyspider]

Oh and we have privatized prisons which allow companies to actually make money off of keeping people incarcerated 

[dantalaois]

[odinsblog]

Here’s what’s really perverse: prisoners, who cannot vote, still get counted in the U.S. Census. The more prisoners a county has, the more representation it gets, even though the prisoners cannot vote. See how that works? The more black and brown people they lock up, the more government resources and political representation they get. Even though those prisoners have no say and cannot vote.

If county-A has a population of 50 voters but no prisons, and county-B has a population of 50 voters and 50 prisoners, the county with the prisoners gets more government funding and more political represention. This is sometimes called “prison gerrymandering” and it is used in redistrictring.

Not so fun Fact: Southern states that reliably vote for Republicans also have the highest prison population in the United States. (source). So mass incarceration is a double whammy. It’s both a form of voter suppression and a tool to strengthen white people’s political power.

[imsopopfly]

As someone who has interned at a courthouse and seen all the folks who got arrested go through probable cause court - it doesn’t really hit you just how disproportionate that shit is until you see that. Most of the people going through that court were POC, and most of them were there for piddly little shit like getting caught smoking weed. Never saw a white person go through there for smoking weed, and I know a lot of white people who smoke weed. They’ll find any excuse to lock up minorities.