Juniper Jones

writer & writer encourager

[wildjuniperjones]

Writeblr Re-Introduction: NaNo Edition

Wild Juniper Jones

Writeblr & Writeblr Encourager

This NaNo season, I'll be focusing on the main WIP that has consumed my brain for the past year - now titled Bonds of Trust.

My Works

I write primarily fantasy, with dips into historical fiction, alternate history, sci-fi, romance, and erotica. Themes include friendship, solidarity, trust, healing from trauma, and explorations of identity.

Bonds of Trust (formerly Starcrossed) - modern fantasy, romance, erotica

When a succubus grad student/dominatrix meets a hurokin martial arts instructor/former MMA star, an unlikely friendship forms. Can they overcome their past traumas and learn to trust one another? And what happens when their past comes back to haunt them?

Features: non-binary, intersex character, PoC main characters, positive depictions of sex work and kinks, two POV

Warnings: explicit sex scenes, alcohol use/abuse, historical dissonance

Amongst the Goblins & the Fishes - steampunk fantasy, adventure

A soldier returns from war, forever changed, forever wounded, forever burdened with the secrets best left on the battlefield. Can he evade his government's agents to get the information to the Azure Knight? And more importantly, can he heal from his wounds, both inside and out?

Features: transmasculine, disabled MC

Warnings: violence, PTSD, trauma

The Silver Hand - fantasy, alternate history, mystery, adventure

A group of monster hunters only known as The Silver Hand scour the forests of Scandinavia in search of prey. But when one among them is killed, what had been a safe haven now feels like a prison. Can they discover the killer before it's too late? [Very tentative plot]

Features: diverse cast

Warnings: violence, trauma, PTSD

Anarchy Ink - historical fiction, mystery

When a poor, shrewish printer is courted by an uptown gentleman, she can't believe her luck - until their first date ends abruptly upon discovery of a murdered reporter. Now they're under investigation, and escape seems like the only sensible option. But where in Chicago can they find safe harbor? And can they find the killer before he strikes again?

Features: platonic relationship, disabled character, anarchists, communists, ACAB

Warnings: violence, trauma, PTSD, alcohol use/abuse, corruption

The Delta - sci-fi, mystery

A generation ship has journeyed for more than a hundred years in search of a new earth to call home. Now they think they've found the right place, but the rule they hold sacrosanct comes into question - they cannot colonize a planet occupied by sentient creatures. Does this new world hold promise? Or ruin?

Features: non-binary MC, queer & poly relationships, experimental social structures

Warnings: angst, mostly

Another Lost Cause: The Life & Times of William Clark - alternate history, mystery, solarpunk

Larger than life. A legend. William Clark was a genius entrepreneur turned philanthropist, turned statesman, rising to the presidency faster than any before him. He revolutionized the energy sector, communications, manufacturing, all with an eye towards creating his utopia. But as his biographer discovers, the man may not have been all he seemed, and something darker was at play...

Features: non-binary PoC MC, queer & poly relationships, solarpunk vibes

Warnings: historical dissonance (may cause a feeling of loss for a world that never existed, retelling of most of 20th - 21st century history)

Writeblr-Specific Info

I am open to and excited for any and all ask/tag games! You can always tag me or ask me anything, especially if you're needing encouragement this NaNo season (and anytime). I try to keep politics off this blog, and keep it to @juniperjones-else. Occasionally I'll slip up, but I do try to tag everything (usually with #capitalism bad), so filter if you need to.

Witchblr-Specific Info

I originally made this blog for witchblr reasons, so you might see that kind of content crop up now and then, but my main focus is writing. I'm interested in astrology, tarot, sigils, and chaos magic. I consider myself to be a hedgewitch, incorporating neo-shamanism (yes I know, but I don't have a better word for it), herbalism, and cosmic witchcraft (paying attention to the astrological makeup of times and dates with regard to workings). I'm not terribly active, but it's still very important to me, and it shows up in my writing with some regularity. I primarily work with genius loci, or location spirits, on land stolen from the Cowlitz tribe and the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians & Grand Ronde.

A Note on Appropriation

I'm white. I'm so white I'm see-through. The only claim I can make to an ethnicity is Lithuanian.

I acknowledge my privilege to be able to have the leisure to post and write freely, even if I am disabled. Not everyone has that luxury. I write about cultures and people who are not my own, experiences that are not my own, and though I do my research, I am bound to get something wrong. It is not anyone's job to correct me or educate me, but I certainly appreciate it when folks do so, because the last thing I want to do is hurt anyone with my words. I am doing what work I can to uplift POC authors, and would welcome anyone who wants a signal boost to tag me, DM me, or send me an ask. I realize that it's the bare minimum I can do, but it's what I can do without seeming overly performative. I know I can do better, but I can't do so without knowing what I'm doing wrong in the first place.

Thank you for your patience, your grace, and your time.

[ace-trainer-alice]

Ok so like a few years ago, I got really into giving good compliments as a sadism thing. If your observational skills are good enough and you're half decent at writing and delivery, you can cause someone to shed tears, to struggle to even parse what you're saying and repeat it back over and over, and force them to engage with differences between negative aspects of their identity and reality. Most people just aren't very good at giving compliments, so a lot of people have a really low tolerance for it. I mean in large part I just really like making cute girls cry. But also this is probably not what you mean by having a praise kink?

[pipis-took]

I got permission to draw @eedlitamm’s wonderful idea of Lord of the rings characters as Disney style animals, which are listed and described in this post, please go and check it out it’s amazing✨✨✨

Thanks again @eedlitamm for letting me draw your wonderful idea! I might do all characters in a different post later on! This was so so fun!!!

[dragonflavoredcake]

Rejection sensitivity dysphoria is the weirdest ADHD symptom ever. Like hello yes my weird brain chemistry manifests as Whiny Crybaby Disorder

[eroscestlavie]

btw this is not a universally agreed upon "symptom" of ADHD and I think many people would benefit from treating it as part & parcel of ADHD's broad, foundational trait: inability to do emotional regulation. A feeling of total rejection and terror at failure is a treatable and manageable issue. For me, I found it easier to manage once recognized that the reason I was having these reactions is that like many other emotional states, I couldn't "exit" an emotional state related to feelings of rejection once I was in it.

imo way too many people are going through life thinking they're just going to be sensitive to rejection for life because of how some people (not OP, but definitely plenty of ADHD influencers) talk about this "symptom." I don't think it's terribly productive that it gets constantly cordoned off as its own thing. like a lot of ADHD, while it sucks to have it shape your life up to the point you realize what it is, it is indeed possible to exposure therapy & DBT your way out of it.

signed: someone with ADHD who used to not be able to take critical feedback from anyone every and is now a freelancer and gets critical feedback three times before breakfast. still workin on it but it's very possible to go from "whiny crybaby disorder" to "mostly functional, if slightly sensitive ADHD adult"

[grison-in-space]

I also think it's worth noting that rejection sensitive dysphoria is most parsimoniously interpreted as a trauma reaction—a learned response to a potential signals of social relationship deteriorating for reasons the ADHD person can't necessarily control. Social relationships are incredibly important to humans, and ADHD (especially undiagnosed and undisclosed) really sets us up to fail. This is especially true given that perceived social blame for stressful situations is a massive factor in transmuting stressful experiences into lasting trauma, and ADHDers are typically judged to be personally responsible for the failures that happen as a result of attentional, time awareness, or memory failures.

What conceptualizing RSD as a category of trauma response to social triggers does is allow us to treat it like any other trauma response. It pulls RSD out of the bioessentialist framework and into the realm of injuries that can be treated, learned associations that can be unlearned. It turns out that the same techniques that help with PTSD triggers, including the same damn meds (hi, clonidine), are effective for helping reduce RSD. (It also explains why RSD is also common in autistic people, who often have a similar history of social error and narratives of self blame, without requiring inherent neurological differences.)

It's a common kind of stress injury, basically. It's not Whiny Crybaby Disorder; it's more like shin splints. Getting better shoes for running, being careful about the ground you run on, and letting the splints heal properly can all help make shin splints go away when you've been running barefoot on concrete roads your whole life.

[jupiterswasphouse]

I'm always curious what bug non-bug-nerds think they would be, but I know 99% of the time the answer is going to be the same few answers. There's nothing wrong with that of course, picking the "boring" option is ok (There is a strong argument to be made about how we only view a select few bugs as "the good ones" because we decided they look cute, but that's not the fault of the subject of this post), but there are so many more interesting options if people just knew a little more about bugs.

So, here's a bit of homework: Gimme what bug you think you would be, BUT it cannot be a bee of the family Apidae (honey bee, bumble bee, carpenter bee, etc.), a Lepidopteran (moths, including butterflies) of any kind, a jumping spider (Salticidae), or a ladybug (Coccinnellidae). That should leave y'all with a good amount of more vague options, but bonus points if it's a particular species and double bonus points if it's an especially uncommon one (but remember, this is what bug you think you would be, so don't feel pressured to pick an extremely uncommon pick if you know for sure you would be, for example, a hercules beetle).

For sources of inspiration, there are plenty of places to go looking, but if you want to go with something you might be able to spot IRL then you can go to iNaturalist and check species observations around your region!

Oh, and my answer is Sphex ichneumoneus, the great golden digger wasp :]

[jupiterswasphouse]

For clarification, I'm using the "terrestrial arthropod" umbrella definition of 'bug' here, but aquatic or semi-aquatic arthropods could be allowed if you want (if I cut aquatic and semi-aquatic crustaceans I would probably need to cut several semi-aquatic insects as well for the sake of consistency, so I'm not doing that)

[cipheramnesia]

I think woodlouse spiders and house centipedes are incredible and fascinating but I think I would be a very basic black widow of some type, mostly because I also have a very tangled and disorienting process, I like dark hidden places, and the dangers myself and others like me pose to the world at large have been wildly exaggerated by media panic, and resulting in myself and others like me being disproportionately hated.

[wildjuniperjones]

I would like to be some kind of weevil, I think.

[iridescentdepths]

I also would like to note that not every instance of transandrophobia is a chronically online thing, even tho people are less likely to be as violently nasty or 4chan about it in meatspace.

I have met queer and trans people irl who held a lot of anti-transmasculinity. Real life transandrophobia shapes a lot of my experiences, especially while I was in college trying to navigate queer spaces there.

I lived in the gender inclusive housing when I went to college the first time, but my roommate was a cis guy because he was the most chill person with living with me (sending lots of love to Brad wherever you are). I felt a lot of jokes at my expense while I was there, and trying to interact with the LGBTQ club on campus. A lot of malgendering. A lot of misgendering even, from other queer folks who would use they/them on me exclusively when I'd mentioned repeatedly I only used he/him.

It honestly put me off from a lot of queer spaces in real life. Even now, I'm hesitant to be more active in queer spaces (I'm active in an activist sense but not in a party and going to karaoke sense) because I just don't wanna deal with being the group punching bag for being a dude, or to have people shit on me for finding men hot.

Anyway, my point is even tho it is majorly online, there is casual transandrophobia that people do experience being normalized in many spaces (and not even just queer spaces either) and labelling it as an exclusively online thing to sow division I think erases the real life experiences a lot of guys and mascs go through.

[that-grassbro]

watching westerners talk about how all transmascs will one day reach a stage* where 'misogyny will no longer affect them' really makes me understand why theres such a big 'feminism is no longer needed' sentiment within western countries. You really think the main body of oppression is just 'are there people who dislike you'. Which is a part of it yes, but thats not like IT?

Misogyny permanently alters your life path.

There are binary trans men who pass today who still suffer from after-effects of fgm which a lot of the time cannot be cured.

There are binary trans men who pass today who do not have the basic education needed to advance in the modern world.

There are binary trans men who pass today who cannot walk/are permanently disabled by misogynistic practices in their youth.

There are binary trans men who pass today who will live in poverty forever because they were forced into marriages young

There are binary trans men who pass today who will never achieve their dreams because they were not allowed to play instruments or sport or early life skills that cannot be 'caught up' later in life

There are binary trans men who pass today who cannot have children because of reproductive violence

There are binary trans men who pass today who missed out on critical promotion years because they were forced to be wives/mothers

And this is not a #sadcore #never transition post, because all this stuff does not mean that you cannot live a happy and fufilling life, it does not mean that there isn't joy in transitioning or that the world is hopeless.

This idea that in order to be a happy man you must deny the role of misogyny in your life is such an insidious lie because it forces trans activists to either shove every single one of these men (plus all the ones who dont even pass/transition/know they're trans now) under the bus, or discourage young boys from transitioning.

Hint: Pretty much everyone chooses the 'lets throw these trans men under the bus and blot their brains out to the reality of transmasculinity' option.

Literally. Some of you heard this quote 'How many Einstein’s have spent their lives washing dishes, how many Mozart’s bent over stoves instead of pianos, because they had the misfortune of being born a woman?' and said: But the moment you find out you're a man it can all go away!

Anyway this is getting long and disjointed but my point is basically summed up with: misogyny permanently alters your life path and there is not such thing as 'graduating' from the affects of systematic oppression

*the idea that half, let alone ALL transmascs have access to transition let alone transition to the point of 'passing', let alone all the complexities of stealthing is absurd in and of itself, but thats for another post.

[snivy]

literally everything is unisex if u stop giving a fuck

[kyrianne]

When I worked at Target, it was during the winter, and this guy comes up to my register with a neutral-colored beanie with a fake fur pompom on top. All embarrassed and cringing, asking me if it was a woman’s hat and if it would be weird for him to get it.

I was like, “It’s just a hat. If you like it and you wear it, it’s not a woman’s hat, it’s just your hat. You don’t need to follow what the tag says if you don’t want to.” And it was like I gave him some kind of awe-inspiring wisdom he’d never considered, and he left with that hat on his head.

More cishets need to hear and internalize this message because so many of them are avoiding things that would make them happy just because of it having a label on it for whatever gender.

[canadianwheatpirates]

In the spirit of that old post that was like "when someone says 'if you don't respect me, I won't respect you', sometimes they mean 'if you don't treat me like an authority, I won't treat you like a person'. And they think they're being fair, but they aren't":

When someone tells a trans man "if you want to be a man, then I'll treat you like a man", sometimes they mean "if you want to express your gender, then I'll treat you with all the worst stereotypes of men and masculinity". And they think they're being gender affirming, but they aren't.

[hope-for-the-planet]

First-of-its-kind study definitively shows that conservation actions are effective at halting and reversing biodiversity loss

A new study published online today, April 25, in the scientific journal Science provides the strongest evidence to date that not only is nat

From the article:

“If you look only at the trend of species declines, it would be easy to think that we’re failing to protect biodiversity, but you would not be looking at the full picture,” said Penny Langhammer, lead author of the study and Executive Vice President of Re:wild. “What we show with this paper is that conservation is, in fact, working to halt and reverse biodiversity loss. It is clear that conservation must be prioritized and receive significant additional resources and political support globally, while we simultaneously address the systemic drivers of biodiversity loss, such as unsustainable consumption and production.”

This massive meta analysis (for those not familiar, a study analyzing the results of many studies on similar topics) found that the vast majority of conservation efforts show much much better results than doing nothing. In many cases, biodiversity loss was not only stopped but reversed.

This shows that conservation efforts really work and money invested is put to very good use. Legally protecting endangered species really works, restoring habitat really works, removing invasive species really works, returning land to Indigenous communities works. All of the blood, sweat, and tears being poured into protecting the natural world has been making a real, big, tangible, difference on a global scale.

[periodicallypurple]

Thought this might help others who struggle when writing. I know I get in my head too much.

[lailah-tov]

Nobody tells people who are beginners, and I really wish somebody had told this to me, is that all of us who do creative work, like, you know, we get into it. And we get into it because we have good taste. But it's like there's a gap that for the first couple years that you're making stuff. What you're making isn't so good. Okay. It's not that great. It's trying to be good. It has ambition to good, but it's not quite that good. But your taste—the thing that got you into the game—your taste is still killer and your taste is good enough that you can tell that what you're making is kind of a disappointment to you. You know what I mean? A lot of people never get past that phase. A lot of people at that point, they quit. And the thing I would just like say to you with all my heart is that most everybody I know who does interesting creative work, they went through a phase of years where they had really good taste. They could tell what they were making wasn't as good as they wanted it to be. They knew it fell short. It didn't have this special thing that we wanted it to have. And the thing I would say to you is, everybody goes through that and for you to go through it, if you're going through it right now, if you're just getting outta that phase, you gotta know it's totally normal. And the most important possible thing you could do is do a lot of work. Do a huge volume of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week or every month you know you're gonna finish one story. 'Cause it's only by actually going through a volume of work that you're actually going to catch up and close that gap, and the work you're making will be as good as your ambitions. In my case, I took longer to figure out how to do this than anybody I've ever met. It takes a while. It's gonna take you a while. It's normal to take a while, and you just have to fight your way through that. Okay? — Ira Glass

[homunculus-argument]

"Your love language is what you were deprived of as a child" actually no you're allowed to want, prefer and like things without everything tracing back to some dormant unprocessed trauma. You can just say you want to bounce on it without having to explain how as a child you always wanted - but never got - a trampoline.

[lailah-tov]

When I started writing a lot about characters who were kinky and also traumatized, I knew I'd have to deal with this, so I wrote this:

Hans looked down at Michael, who looked up at him, open and hiding nothing. "No," Hans said at last. "Michael does want it. I'm no longer sure he wants it for the right reasons, but he wants it." "Is there a right reason to want you to humiliate me until I cry? A right reason to want Owen to cane me until I'm bruised and bleeding?" Michael shrugged. "For that matter, is there a right reason for the two of you to want to do those things to me? This is what I mean about scene politics—you'll just have to trust me that this has been discussed to death by a lot of people for a long time. Sometime, if you like, I'll walk you through my own thoughts on my own kinks and traumas, but I'd rather not do that now, please."

I have no doubt that they do have conversations about that, but none of those conversations will happen on the page, because I want Michael's questions, and his shrug, to stand and not be eclipsed by personal specifics. There are no right or wrong reasons to want things. There are only human reasons, which are generally rooted in both inherent traits and developed traits. I personally think Michael would be a deeply kinky person no matter what had happened in his life. At the same time, the things that have happened in his life influence his approach to kink. It's not either/or. Once you accept this, you can accept yourself for who you are and your desires for what they are.

Like Michael and the OP, I've seen people talk through and around this many many times, and it always comes down to "We want the thing because we want it." You can chew on it endlessly, or you can realize it's more fun to just go jump on the trampoline.

[novelconcepts]

Hey, man, c'mere. Listen. Get in real close, this is important.

You're gonna make stuff again. You're gonna make stuff you're proud of. You're gonna make stuff you're excited to share. You're going to feel that overwhelming drive to create, not just the frantic I want to want to you're stuck in now. You're going to have awesome ideas, and you're going to make them into reality. You're going to create again. You're still an artist. You're still a writer. You're still home to the same passion you had before. You'll find it again. It's not gone. It's just resting. Let it rest. You're going to make stuff again. I promise.

[cryptidize]

Fuck It, Internet Guide

Hey there! As social media becomes more and more inhospitible for the local user, I wanted to post some useful/fun links to just about anything I can think of! Enjoy! Also, if you'd like an invite to the P!rated Games discord, lmk! ^_^

I AM CURRENTLY STILL UPDATING THIS POST AND I WILL REBLOG IT WHEN I ADD TO IT! Feel free to comment things I've missed, I'm sure there's way more than this came from!

WEB CENTRIC

CURLIE: THE COLLECTOR OF URLs (Curlie strives to be the largest human-edited directory of the Web. You can save sites and create your own mini webring!)

Internet Archive (A collection of over 818 Billion websites, books, movies, music, and more. Hosts the Wayback Machine, which can be used to access a multitude of sites, given they were indexed in time.)

Wiby (Human submission search engine for older webrings, as well as a how-to guide on how to develop your own search engine)

Unicode Text Converter (Easy way to make your text illegible to Google but be warned, it will make screen readers malfuction)

Embed Responsively (Easily convert links and embeds to work responsively within your site - perfect for neocities!)

Generator Land (Generate a list or prompt for just about anything!)

GifCities (Part of the Internet Archive, a special project done as part of the 20th anniversary in an effort to save data from GeoCities. Find a gif for just about anything!)

Animated Images (Another gif repository, though this one is easier to search and includes small animations.)

Gifs-Paradise (Another gif repository. I swear I collect these. Searchable and categorized.)

ASCII Art Archive (Database of ASCII Art, also known as text art)

Christopher Johnson's ASCII Art Collection (Another, arguably larger, ASCII Art database)

MelonLand (A web project and online arts community that celebrates homepages, virtual worlds, the world-wide-web and the digital lives that all netizins share, here at the dawn of the digital age. See their thoughts and the WEB REVIVAL they're starting.)

Sadgrl Webrings (Webrings brought to us by Sadgrl.Online - 60+ different ones to be exact) and Sadgrl Links (70+ links just like the ones in this post)

Districts at Neocities (Remember neighborhoods on Geocities? Imagine that but for Neocities!)

Neocities Banners (Banners from all across neocities. Blinkies, banners and more leading all over the web. Mostly 88x31, though there are bigger ones too. Technically counts as a webring.)

Blinkies.cafe (Site for blinkies where you can even make your own! I get most of my blinkies here and off DeviantArt.)

88x31 Collection (Possibly the largest collection I've seen for 88x31 buttons)

90's Cursor Effects (Want a funky cursor for your blog or website? Wanna be able to realtime preview what cursors would look like? Come get some code!)

The Malware Museum (Interact with malware and viruses from the 80s and 90s through emulation! No nasty virus interactions needed :D )

KNOWLEDGE BASES

Library Genesis - LIBGEN (Scientific journals - dedicated to archiving every science journal and their articles in existence.)

Information Mesh (A web platform celebrating the 30th anniversary of the World Wide Web that explores social, technical, cultural and legal facts throughout different interactive timelines.)

Web Design Museum (Over 2,000 sorted websites showing web design trends from '96 to '06.)

The History of the Web (A twice monthly newsletter about web history, and the incredible people that built it. Goes from 1989 to present.)

Field Guide to Web Accessibility (Principles and applications to every day web scenarios in order to make the web a more friendly place!)

CARI - Consumer Aesthetics Research Institute (an online community and collective association of researchers and designers dedicated to carrying on the important work of categorizing "consumer aesthetics" from the late midcentury, when work on the subject somewhat trailed off, through today.)

The Eye (Archive consisting of 140TB of books, websites, games, software, or anything else you can really think of.)

The Uncensored Library (A project from Reporters without Borders, where they use a loophole using Minecraft to distribute information.)

National Gallery of Art Public Domain (The National Gallery of Art has an open access policy for images of works of art in their permanent collection which the Gallery believes to be in the public domain. Images of these works are available for download free of charge for any use, whether commercial or non-commercial.)

Library of Congress Public Domain (Features items from the Library's digital collections that are free to use and reuse. The Library believes that this content is either in the public domain, has no known copyright, or has been cleared by the copyright owner for public use.)

Public Domain Review (an online journal and not-for-profit project dedicated to the exploration of curious and compelling works from the history of art, literature, and ideas.)

New York Public Library Public Domain (Our digitized collections are available as machine-readable data: over one million records for you to search, crawl and compute.)

Official articles from NASA (PubSpace is NASA's designated public access repository. It is a collection of NASA-funded scholarly publications within the STI Repository, aiming to increase access to federally funded research in accordance with NASA Public Access Policy.)

Universal Hint System (Wanna get some vague help for an older video game without getting spoiled? Check out these awesome hints!)

Smithsonian Open Access (Download, share, and reuse millions of 2D and 3D digital items from their 21 museums, 9 research centers, libraries, archives, and the National Zoo.)

Instructables (Wanna know how to make just about anything? Check here!)

QZAP Zine Archive (Archive of LGBT+ Zines, began in 2003 with zines dating back all the way to the 1970s. NSFW AT TIMES, BROWSE AT YOUR OWN RISK.)

P!racy Masterpost (Tumblr-based masterpost of game piracy, last updated 2021. A bit old but some of the stuff there is still good. If this link breaks, please contact me.)

P!rated Games Megathread (masterpost created by r/P!ratedGames includes required components as well as anything else you need. NOTE: PLEASE HAVE SOME SORT OF PROTECTION WHEN NAVIGATING THIS SITE)

Geocities Gallery (A website hosting a working archive for many abandoned Geocities Sites.)

Snipplr (Code Snippet repository. Great for coding issues.)

GeoCities (Archived) (Great for searching ancient webrings for gifs and website ideas. Not so great for downloads.)

Freeware Guide (Archived) (The Freeware-Guide died sometime in 2021 [we think March] but it's still full of VERY valuable information. Links are broken pretty much all the way through, but the names of software as well as what they do can be useful in finding them elsewhere thru some google searching)

Peelopaalu (Where I got a good handful of these links - AND THERE'S MORE!!!)

The Simple Site (More links to so much more cool stuff!)

ART TOOLS

Untitled - Paint (An in-browser version of classic Microsoft Paint!)

KidPix (In-browser version of classic KidPix for the public domain!)

Pixel Logic - A Guide to Pixel Art (Comprehensive guide to making cool art for $10 USD, updated semi-frequently and you get all new versions for free)

SAI - Bootlegged (A version of SAI with a multitude of brushes and textures pre-installed. Quite literally the only thing I use to draw aside from Clip Studio Paint.)

Stripe Generator (Need some easy stripes for an art piece? Can't be bothered to try and space stripes evenly? This is for you!)

Photopea (Free online photo editor supporting files for Adobe Photoshop, XCF, Sketch App, Adobe XD, and CorelDRAW, as well as many more!)

blender (A FOREVER free and Open Source software for 3D Modeling, full of tutorials and assets. I feel like most people don't know it's completely free to play with)

Vertex Meadow (A web-browser tool that renders 2D images as explorable 3D terrain. With it you can create detailed and unusual 3D environments to explore using a 2D paint-program-like interface.)

OpenGameArt (Need art for your game but you're not an artist? Consider checking here first [or just hire a real artist looking for work on here!])

MUSIC TOOLS AND DISCOVERY

BandLab (Social music platform that enables creators to make music and share their creative process with musicians and fans. Completely free with an option to set up stripe where you get 100% OF PROFITS. Available for apple/android/desktop)

JummBox (Free online beat-maker with a very simple interface that runs on your browser)

Mydora (Mydora is a continuous streaming player that gives you a deep dive into the lost archives of Myspace Music, based on some recovered data called the Dragon Hoard, with some additional metadata (most notably the locations and genres) from a different scan of Myspace conducted back in 2009. Contains 490,000+ songs, only a fraction of what was wiped out.)

Radiooooo (A place where people are able to play hit songs from the decade of their choosing from whatever country they wish.)

WFMU (Independent freeform radio broadcasting. Currently ongoing.)

Gnoosic (A sort-of music search engine that finds you songs/bands based off of your music taste.)

Khinsider (3.1 TB worth of video game soundtracks)

Radio.garden (Listen to thousands of radio stations all around the world.)

FUN STUFF

FrogLand (The purpose of Frogland is to show that the Internet can indeed provide a wealth of useful information and still be fun. Mainly, this site is dedicated to the many teachers out there who are finding new uses for the Internet as a tool for educating youngsters. Hopefully, it will inspire some young minds to find new interest in herpetology, biology, and environmental issues...not to mention providing some inspiration for young future computer "wizzes"! No longer active but still useful.)

Windows 98 icon Viewer (Want clear jpgs of all the Windows 98 symbols and icons? They're all here!)

GifyPet (Create your own embeded pet that people can play with and feed when they visit your page! See my version HERE [only works on desktop tho])

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[twistcmyk]

It's Whine Time !!!

[twistcmyk]

DRINK UP !!!

[hms-no-fun]

in light of today's events, i want to share a story i was told during a study abroad summer in italy, where i took a class on the rise of fascism.

the picture below is the site of a mass grave. captive partisans were brought here by nazis, forced to dig, and then executed on the spot.

our tour guide, who was delighted by our group because tourists never ask about fascism, walked us forty minutes to this vineyard in the middle of nowhere. there were no signs on the road. us americans were worried about trespassing, since no one on the property was around.

he took us to this grove and explained that the partisans were young communists from the nearby town of arezzo. local land & business owners, even their parents and friends, had eagerly ratted them out because they saw nazi occupation as bringing order back to the region.

we learned that many in central italy still to this day see nazis as heroes and americans as villains, because the nazis got rid of those troublesome punks while the americans brought bombs and tanks.

then our tour guide informed us that his own grandfather was one of the partisans executed here.

he told us that the nazis lined them up one by one and shot each in the head, and more times in the chest. but human beings are hard to kill, and it was known that even this kind of brutality was survivable.

so they threw grenades into the grave, just to be sure.

this was standard practice.

nestled in the bushes nearby with zero fanfare stands a single solitary monument. there are monuments just like it all across italy.

what stuck with me was not just the cruelty of the nazis. it was the callousness of the turncoats, who never stopped believing that they had done the right thing.

whether by nature or nurture, there is a class of people who will always prefer death and destruction over a reduction in profits. they cannot be reasoned with. they cannot be taught empathy. they will watch young people shot, dismembered, and buried alive, and they will say that god is good.

there is no reform. there is no compromise.

believe what your eyes see. listen to what your heart tells you. we are surrounded by systems that exist to launder guilt and naturalize structures of oppression, so that we side against our senses.

but you know exactly what is happening. you do.

we are waking up from a dream of peace in the interregnum of a war that never went away. the fruits of our nation's conduct, a largely bipartisan project from the start, have arrived by the truck-full. it did not come out of nowhere. it's not new, or unprecedented, or even particularly surprising.

what it IS, however, is the present. it's not a history book. it's not a mass grave. it is happening right now.

and right now, this moment and each moment after, is the *only* moment you will ever own.

stories will be told about this era for years to come. but only we are its authors.

only you.

only us.

[snapscube]

fuck okay a point i meant to add to that last answer but completely forgot cause i got in the weeds with the whole Being Scared thing:

not that i think im doing something particularly special or heroic by littleposting on main and being a weirdo in public, but right now more than ever it's actually imperative to be unlearning shame and actively fighting back against the standards of how much of a freak you're allowed to be while also having a space to exist, share your art, support yourself financially, and a baseline level of respect for your humanity. shit's getting dire and i am genuinely so scared of how much people and corporations who have legitimate power over us are continuously driving full force into puritanism. it feels like in my position i don't know what to do except at bare minimum go out kicking and screaming. i grew up pentacostal in the american south, i've seen and lived a version of life where everyone is deathly afraid of their own flesh to the point of renouncing it daily. i got out of that life on purpose and at my bravest it's easy to say i'd sooner lose everything than let some fucking suits tell me i have to go back.