occasionally subtle
Cosmic Funnies

JBB: An Artblog!
d e v o n
cherry valley forever
trying on a metaphor
$LAYYYTER

if i look back, i am lost

titsay
Alisa U Zemlji Chuda
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Kiana Khansmith

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Not today Justin
NASA

izzy's playlists!
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he wasn't even looking at me and he found me

blake kathryn
Sweet Seals For You, Always
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@that-venitu
Cameron
I recently visited the house in Jakarta that I grew up in until I was 14. It had been twenty years since I left it. My mother left my things exactly how I had them. It was like opening a time capsule. I had these precious toys, books and other personal effects, but how I remember them vivid with colours, they are now the complete opposite; stained, yellowed and moldy. Due to the humid and hot climate of Jakarta, not one thing survived. It was kind of sad finding them like that. I wonder if one day after I am gone, this doll that I once really liked would become stained, yellowed and moldy too. So i am taking his photos, hopefully whoever ends up with him would find these photos and can see how he once looked.
Sculpt: Rihael Dollmaker: Leekeworld Faceup: http://ruggedrealism.wordpress.com
Sculpt: Mihael Dollmaker: Leekeworld Faceup: http://ruggedrealism.wordpress.com
Ellya was the golden child. He was smart, popular, loved by all, most of all by his younger brother Wren. It was hard living alongside someone so perfect, but nobody knew just what sort of pressure Ellya had to keep under control. Nobody knew how hard he worked to achieve all that he had, nobody ever saw his ugly side, never seen him snap… That is, until the zombies got to him and turned him into an undead. And then he was nothing but a blackened mass of rotting limbs and regrets.
They captured Ellya and turned him into a circus attraction, down at The Arena where he was made to fight other undead creatures. Due to his smallish stature and fast reactions, they dubbed him The Monkey.
Sculpt: Rihael Dollmaker: Leekeworld Faceup: http://ruggedrealism.wordpress.com
Little Bird
Part 1: It wasn’t just the undead that were kept in The Arena. Sometimes unfortunate and unwanted humans made their way to the lower labyrinths too. For all their gladitorial business, it’s funny how no one talked about how they kept their zombie fighters ‘alive’ and it was common knowledge that the zombies performed best when fed human flesh.
Part 2: The last time Wren saw his older brother Ellya they were hurling hurtful words to each other. It has been two years since then and Wren couldn’t even remember exactly what it was they were arguing about but it made Ellya storm off the night the zombie outbreak hit their town. Wren escaped the worst of the carnage but Ellya was missing ever since. Just as he was about to give up searching, Wren caught word of The Monkey-one of The Arena’s favourite undead slave fighters. The creature was missing its tongue but people say when it cried it seemed to howl the word ‘Wren’.
Part 3: Wren made it just in time to see them haul The Monkey out onto The Arena. Its skin had completely blackened, all its limbs rotted and half its skull was missing. But it was jerking and snapping incessantly like a wild animal in its chains. It was torture seeing Ellya like that. Somebody in the crowd was saying too bad that it’ll be The Monkey’s last day on The Arena because it’s up against Pretty Boy and that thing apparently killed anything in its way. Time was running out and Wren had to act fast.
Sculpt: Mihael Dollmaker: Leekeworld Faceup: http://ruggedrealism.wordpress.com So I have this Leekeworld Mihael head that I’ve kept for ages. I had it up for sale before but nobody wanted it so I’ve just given it a new faceup today. Previously he looked mean and haughty, thought I’d try and give him a bit of a submissive look this time. I like my subs… I wish I had a more realistic wig, something with a neatly combed side part like boys used to wear back in the Victorian era.
I didn't draw this of course! It's a real photo of my #venitu that was processed via #Arteffect, but i just like how his hair looks here and that pissed off face is starting to explain everything. I suppose if you grew up in the sort of tough neighbourhood he had you'd have a hard expression too. Kitson is largely a solitary person, who couldn't care less if he fades into the background. He wouldn't throw the first punch if he could help it. If he does get bloodied it's always in the defence of someone in need of protection, though he gets blamed for it all the same. There's not a single romantic bone in him and diplomacy is not really his strongest suit. He realises this and how it could hurt others, so before that happens he usually takes himself out of the equation. A lonely albeit effective existence.
the Mechanic
If Ma wasn’t so sick and the money constantly drained for her medical bills, Kitson would have loved to finish high school and maybe go on an apprenticeship to become a mechanic. He was better with machines than with people. With machines, they either work or they don’t, and if they don’t work you can always fix them or if they are beyond repair, salvage what you can and the rest heads out to the tip. It was simple.
With people, there’s just no telling how deep something is broken or where to even begin to repair.
Here he reminds me of Mafuyu from that manga “Given” by Kizu Natsuki, lol. Cameron’s not the best paintjob, but i dunno, i like this expression. I think I would be very sad if i accidentally ding’d this faceup. I didn’t want a pretty Venitu, I didn’t want a handsome or cool looking one. I want one that looks just unassuming and ordinary actually. I want a face that I can look into and not be daunted or awed, but just quietly tells me his story.
NO PROBLEM. WE’LL GET THERE EVEN IF WE ARE STONE BROKE AF, EVEN IF UR DICK IS BROKEN, EVEN IF YVONNE STOPS GIVING US ALCOHOL, EVEN IF YOUR ROOM IS MOLDY, EVEN IF YOUR BED CREAKS A LOT WHEN THERE ARE TWO BODIES AND A FAT CAT ON IT, EVEN WHEN IT RAINS OR HAILS OR GETS LAVA BOMBED, EVEN IF WE HAVE TO REPEAT A YEAR…
I guess it’s chicken nugget for dinner...?
Which do I prefer...
The sweet Jerrah or the pervie Jerrah?
Pets not Pests: Foxes Deserve Better.
Pets not Pests: Foxes Deserve Better.
When I took on a single, three-week-old, orphaned fox kit for family friends I had no idea what I was signing up for. This is my first fox Robin [pictured below]. Like any puppy he chewed my shoelaces; peed on my bed and tried to eat my breakfast cereal. Ultimately however, he did something no puppy could have, he catapulted me into a daily battle to save one of Australia’s most hated animals.
Imagine for a moment waking up before work one day to be greeted by the following email:
You people are sick. Fucking clueless idiots. Hunting is humane. Kill ‘em all.
This is just one of the many hundreds of emails I read each year in my role as Sydney Fox Rescue president. I have been called many things over the past two years ranging from: “a short sighted greenie” to the less kind: “absolute nutter”. Photographs of dead, mutilated animals accompany many of the emails. The same animals I have taken into my heart and home, posthumously posed, bleeding and broken, beside guns and spotlights.
Let’s start at the beginning. Sydney Fox Rescue was foundered in 2012 on the principle of neutrality. That is to say we do not run political campaigns. We take foxes from veterinary clinics and we take foxes from hunters (more than you’d think). No questions asked. We respect that we are not the only solution to foxes in Australia or even necessarily the best solution. But what we can do is provide an option for foxes, as individuals, on a case-by-case basis. We desex, socialize and rehome these foxes and no fox is ever released. With this in mind I don’t think any of us quite anticipated the sheer volume of opposition our program would be met with from hunters, farmers and environmentalists alike across Australia.
The first time I encountered opposition to foxes from a friend was in 2012. At the time, my first fox Robin was racing around my home, a five-week-old bundle of teeth and claws busy stealing the hearts of everyone he met. When I informed friends that I had been unable to place him with a wildlife park and was going to try and keep him myself one particular friend went out of their way to rebuke me and shame me for my decision.
We meet two primary forms of opposition at our rescue. I call them “pro-fox” and “anti-fox”. This friend’s argument was distinctly “pro-fox”. Pro-fox-ers believe that foxes cannot possibly adapt to life in captivity. Indeed, this is a concern we have to consider on a day-to-day basis, and not one we take lightly. However I firmly believe that most foxes, socialized with humans from a young age can live long; contented lives in captivity. I imagine most fox owners will tell you the same. In no way am I suggesting that foxes will ever become your house-hold moggy, however with no possibility of release [Illegal in New South Wales], socializing these animals to live with humans is their best option. We often wish everyone could spend just 5 minutes in our shoes and see the side to these animals we see as their carers and their friends. There’s nothing that compares with a fox wagging its tail and squealing in sheer joy just at the site of you.
But it is rarely the pro-fox-ers who present the most vicious opposition. They are not the type of people to call at 2am and tell you about the fox they have just killed. There’s nothing like gun nuts that know your phone number to keep you awake at night. With this in mind let’s talk about the anti-fox-ers. Anti-fox-ers lay claim to a whole host of justifications for the resentment they bare for our program. Some of these reasons include:
Foxes will escape
Foxes kill: natives; chickens; sheep; pocket pets… etc.
Foxes are inherently: cruel; ruthless; vicious… etc.
In terms of escaping foxes, this is an easy one. We have very stringent procedures to reduce the potential of this happening and to manage such a situation should it arise. Potential owners are screened and install secure custom enclosures, all foxes are desexed, fitted with ID tags and many owners have double gates, GPS or radio trackers and even cameras. Newsflash: home means food, family and comfort for rescue foxes, many of them have lived their whole lives in captivity and have neither the desire nor the skills to return to the wild.
The initial point seems irrelevant, our foxes live in captivity… they are not killing anything right? However there is a bigger picture here, which relates to the second point. Foxes have been so demonized by the media and popular culture in Australia that to the anti-fox-ers the possibility of allowing them into our homes seems impossible, deviant and abhorrent. Furthermore they cannot both see these animals as pets in domestic homes and continue to kill their wild counterparts. It is this type of cognitive dissonance that I believe under-pins many anti-fox-ers actions and beliefs.
By bringing foxes into our homes and showing people photographs like these [see below] we are visibly changing the culture around foxes in Australia. The foxes we show, cuddled up on the couch or playing at local dog parks are creating a stark contrast to the skulking animals in popular culture that sneak into chicken coops in the night or maim new born lambs. Does this mean these things don’t happen? Of course not, foxes are first and foremost wild animals. They are an introduced species that has adapted (remarkably well) to the Australian landscape. Foxes are undoubtedly a threat to both natives and livestock but so to some extent are cats, dogs, dingoes and heavy industry. Eating and hunting to survive, to feed your family, does not make you into the soulless, coldblooded killer popular culture would have us believe.
The type of killing reserved for foxes in Australia is unique. I grew up rural Victoria, where there has been a bounty on foxes for as long as I can remember. The effectiveness of hunting as a form of pest management is debatable. But that’s not what I’m here to talk about. What I am here to talk about is the cruelty, torture and prolonged suffering I’ve seen inflicted on foxes. I’m here to talk about the first ever animal to die in my arms. I’m here to speak out.
Whether there is anyway to humanely kill an animal is debatable, but certainly a bullet at blank point range could be considered a more humane method than most. This is not however the only method, legal or in wide spread use, for the control and eradication of foxes.
The first foxes I ever remember seeing as a child were on the route to my primary school. Tailless (for the bounty), they hung lifeless from fences and trees, nailed up and riddled with flies. To this day I struggle to grasp the human need to display something we have killed. I have been told it is to deter other foxes, however as intelligent as foxes might be, my time with them tells me this this is simply not true. These bodies are trophies. Because there is nothing that says “I’m a man” like killing a 5kg animal, caught in a spot light, with a firearm, from 100 feet away… Except perhaps doing so with a crossbow. Unlike a firearm, when an animal is shot with a bow (legal in all but a handful of states), it may take several minutes to die, suffering severe pain from shock, tissue and organ damage. Non-fatal wounds are common and may result in a prolonged death over days and weeks from blood poisoning and infection. This is hardly the worst of it… It was not uncommon for people to swerve to hit foxes on the road where I grew up; before cutting the tails from the stunned (and sometimes still breathing) animals, again for the bounty. Tell me is this humane pest control?
Perhaps one of the worst ways to die as a fox is by dog hunting. Torn apart, piece-by-piece by crushing jaws and tearing teeth. This is how Swiper died.
We received a call early one morning about a fox that had been attacked by a litter of pig-dog puppies. The fox was alive but had severe injuries. When we arrived we found Swiper. Barely 2kg in weight, Swiper lay motionless in a small cage in the back of a Holden Utility. He had a cluster of flies around him and at first his breathing was too shallow to be noticeable. I thought he must be dead. Unfortunately he was not. As I lifted him from the cage the first thing I noticed was the smell. His wound was at least a day old and had begun to fester. There is no eloquent way to describe it: he had been ring barked. There was no skin from his shoulder to his hindquarters; instead dark red, raw muscle was exposed. His gums were white. His tongue was blue. I bundled him in fleece and dribbled water down his throat, but try as I might on the journey to the vet, Swiper died in my arms. I remember pounding my fists on the dashboard, pressing my lips to his and trying to breath air into his tiny, lifeless lungs. But he was gone.
What I haven’t told you is that Swiper was not a wild fox when he sustained his injuries. Swiper was trapped on a property and kept for weeks in a laundry. Eventually his captor’s own dogs broke into the small cage he lived in and tore him apart. They left him, cold and alone till morning before phoning us. However, because Swiper was a fox no amount of phone calls to the RSPCA will ever see anyone prosecuted for his death. He died because of his species and his death has gone unpunished for the same reason.
Every day foxes like Swiper are killed and forgotten because some 200 years ago our ancestors brought them here to hunt and they adapted. Swiper has a name and that makes him standout. Just like our rescue foxes stand out. But really he is just one fox, one story, among a 1000… Among a 100,000. He is just another casualty in a senseless war. But by telling you his story I hope I’ve made you think about the injustice of it all. The injustice that one species should be stood apart and demonized in the way that foxes are in this country. If my work at Sydney Fox Rescue has taught me anything in the past two years it is this: foxes are not soulless, ruthless, killers. People are. Foxes are just animals like any other animals. They are the under-dogs in this country and I will fight for them till the day I die.
Foxes deserve better.