Firestar's nine lives.
almost home
Sade Olutola

Kiana Khansmith
One Nice Bug Per Day
Peter Solarz
DEAR READER
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No title available
Aqua Utopia|海の底で記憶を紡ぐ
Monterey Bay Aquarium

oozey mess
d e v o n
will byers stan first human second
wallacepolsom

Discoholic 🪩
NASA
Three Goblin Art

titsay
Lint Roller? I Barely Know Her
PUT YOUR BEARD IN MY MOUTH
seen from T1
seen from Ireland
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seen from China
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seen from United States
seen from Nicaragua
seen from Jamaica
seen from Jamaica

seen from Germany
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@wind--borne
Firestar's nine lives.
original by clairetablizo
Vi and Jinx in ARCANE: LEAGUE OF LEGENDS (2021-2024) ↳ “Are we still sisters?” "Nothing is ever going to change that."
why is this post completely broken in every way imaginable
Broken notes… deactivated account… removed image….
Finally, we have them all.
In addition: OP’s name is just… gone. No “[insert username]-deactivated[insert a bunch of numbers]” as is the standard for deactivated blogs.
Just the world “deactivated.” Look upon their post, ye mighty, and despair.
It’ll be almost impossible to find this post unless it wanders across your dash.
The Exotic Animal Photo Reference Repository is live!
You can find it at: https://www.animal-photo-references.com!
Here's how this repository works: all photos were taken by me, a human, at zoos, aquariums, sanctuaries, and other facilities with animals in human care. There is no AI involved in the photo editing or creation and there never will be. Right now there's 56 species on the site; my catalog has over 300 and I will be uploading the rest of them as fast as I can.
Artists creating derivative or transformative works (without AI) have blanket permission to use these references. Yes, even for work you're going to sell.
All other usage/reproduction requires permission, but assume I'm friendly and please do ask! That's educators, researchers, the media, people who need images for a school presentation, etc. This is just to retain copyright/control in case they're scraped/reused unethically - it doesn't meant I don't want folk to have access! So please do reach out via the contact form on the repository website, I don't bite and I'm most likely going to say yes.
Please don't repost the repository photos to your own blogs: I've created @animalphotorefs as a dedicated blog to share photos from the site, and of course I'll reblog a lot of it here! That again just helps with retaining copyright and sourcing of the images. If you really want to repost some for a specific purpose, please just ask me first!
Also, folks, this project has no funding. It's just me and my camera.
There will never be a paywall on the site - I believe resources like this absolutely must be free for everyone to access. So please, please, please support the repository if you use it. Want sneak peeks at photos, cute videos I take, or to help choose what I photograph and what gets posted first? You can do that through Patreon (and there's a free trial on the most interactive tier!) If you'd like to just drop a tip, I've also set up a Ko-Fi.
I can't wait to hear what everyone thinks of the repository.
To whet your thirst for cute photos, here's an Indian rhinoceros contemplating a goose.
Blue’s Feathers and Wings Compendium: Standard Wing Shapes
Wings Part 1 [Standard ]| Wings Part 2 [Atypical] | Feather Markings | Tail Feathers [Part 1] | Tail Feathers [Part2]
I have expanded the traditional 4 types; Highspeed, Elliptical, Low Aspect and High Aspect ratio, because they were very narrow and vague categories for the most part, adding High Energy, Thermal Soaring, Night Glider, and Passerine wings. I feel that these extra types make it easier to understand and visualize the differences and similarities between wing shapes.
I’ve renamed Low Aspect to Powered Soaring, and High Aspect to Dynamic Soaring for the purposes of the fact that names made it hard to understand purpose and were easily confusable.
A lot of these wing types are also affected by tailfeather shape and size, and that will change their agility and energy expenditure as the tail also generates lift.
Disclaimer: This is in no way intended to be an academic dissertation or proposal, do not treat it as such. It is purely for art and writing references for others, to aid description and inspiration.
If so, can I marry you?
What was your result?
0-9%
10-19%
20-29%
30-39%
40-49%
50-59%
60-69%
70-79%
80-89%
90-100%
Please reblog for further reach!
If you liked this uquiz, please check this out.
Women Self Defense in 1947
I’m not sure what’s the best part of this video: the fact that she’s in heels, the fact that she does the whole thing looking like she don’t give a fuck, that chick in the back just exercising and enjoying the show, or the fact that both men and women are observing this and the girls are laughing and the guys look concerned/pensive as fuck as they watch all their tactics get shut down like nothing is even happening.
… msties is it just me or is this familiar?
Some of these are moves I haven’t seen before.
Some of this looks similar to the self defense I learned in a course three or four years ago. It’s definitely got some judo in it (arm bars, throws, fighting to and from the ground). I love this lady. She is rad. I feel like she, much like the rad lady I had as my self defense teacher, would also warn the women that if they don’t think they can gouge out someone’s eyes, don’t start trying because you’ll attack better with something you can follow through on.
crimelords I’m sorry I couldn’t not reblog this for you
The cheerful music makes it even better
Snowkit: You’ve opened your eyes! Now we can go out of the nursery!
Moonflower: I suppose you have to leave the nursery sometime. Straighten your whiskers, I want you to look perfect when you meet the clan.
Bluekit:
Oh damn the Catholics have joined in on the war against AI "art".
fugking love it here!!!!!!!!!
This is why she’s my favorite author.
Check out “Barry Lyndon”, a film whose period interiors were famously shot by period lamp-and-candle lighting (director Stanley Kubrick had to source special lenses with which to do it).
More recently, some scenes in “Wolf Hall” were also shot with period live-flame lighting and IIRC until they got used to it, actors had to be careful how they moved across the sets. However, it’s very atmospheric: there’s one scene where Cromwell is sitting by the fire, brooding about his association with Henry VIII while the candles in the room are put out around him. The effect is more than just visual.
As someone (I think it was Terry Pratchett) once said: “You always need enough light to see how dark it is.”
A demonstration of getting that out of balance happened in later seasons of “Game of Thrones”, most infamously in the complaint-heavy “Battle of Winterfell” episode, whose cinematographer claimed the poor visibility was because “a lot of people don’t know how to tune their TVs properly”.
So it was nothing to do with him at all, oh dear me no. Wottapillock. Needing to retune a TV to watch one programme but not others shows where the fault lies, and it’s not in the TV.
*****
We live in rural West Wicklow, Ireland, and it’s 80% certain that when we have a storm, a branch or even an entire tree will fall onto a power line and our lights will go out.
Usually the engineers have things fixed in an hour or two, but that can be a long dark time in the evenings or nights of October through February, so we always know where the candles and matches are and the oil lamp is always full.
We also know from experience how much reading can be done by candle-light, and it’s more than you’d think, once there’s a candle right behind you with its light falling on the pages.
You get more light than you’d expect from both candles and lamps, because for one thing, eyes adapt to dim light. @dduane says she can sometimes hear my irises dilating. Yeah, sure…
For another thing lamps can have accessories. Here’s an example: reflectors to direct light out from the wall into the room. I’ve tried this with a shiny foil pie-dish behind our own Very Modern Swedish Design oil lamp, and it works.
Smooth or parabolic reflectors concentrate their light (for a given value of concentrate, which is a pretty low value at that) while flatter fluted ones like these scatter the light over a wider area, though it’s less bright as a result:
This candle-holder has both a reflector and a magnifying lens, almost certainly to illuminate close or even medical work of some sort rather than light a room.
And then there’s this, which a lot of people saw and didn’t recognise, because it’s often described in tones of librarian horror as a beverage in the rare documents collection.
There IS a beverage, that’s in the beaker, but the spherical bottle is a light magnifier, and Gandalf would arrange a candle behind it for close study.
Here’s one being used - with a lightbulb - by a woodblock carver.
And here’s the effect it produces.
Here’s a four-sphere version used with a candle (all the fittings can be screwed up and down to get the candle and magnifiers properly lined up) and another one in use by a lacemaker.
Finally, here’s something I tried last night in our own kitchen, using a water-filled decanter. It’s not perfectly spherical so didn’t create the full effect, but it certainly impressed me, especially since I’d locked the camera so its automatic settings didn’t change to match light levels.
This is the effect with candles placed “normally”.
But when one candle is behind the sphere, this happens.
It also threw a long teardrop of concentrated light across the worktop; the photos of the woodcarver show that much better.
Poor-people lighting involved things like rushlights or tallow dips. They were awkward things, because they didn’t last long, needed constant adjustment, didn’t give much light and were smelly. But they were cheap, and that’s what mattered most.
They’re often mentioned in historical and fantasy fiction but seldom explained: a rushlight is a length of spongy pith from inside a rush plant, dried then dipped in tallow (or lard, or mutton-fat), hence both its names.
Here’s Jason Kingsley making one.
@lurkinglurkerwholurks look it’s Cherryh of the Cuckoo’s Egg!
@spell-cleaver
aerarius_metalworks
@eldriwolf sent me this, and I immediately thought of the Indian bagh nakh “tiger-claw” weapon, which isn’t usually articulated or as realistic - for a given value of realism - but was a very nasty piece of kit.
The basic version was a steel bar with two rings for index and pinkie fingers, and four steel claws for ripping into an enemy’s soft parts - probably neck and stomach, where there were no awkward bones and the result would be more effective.
These simple versions had an extra advantage of being easy to conceal…
…and sometimes the finger-rings would be gilded and decorated with gems as if they were just jewellery.
Okay, maybe quite a lot of jewellery.
I bet that if timing and location were organised properly, political assassination could be passed off - in honest belief or for convenience - as the victim having encountered a real tiger.
“But where are the marks of the tiger’s teeth?” That too could be arranged:
These double daggers have proper flattened-diamond blade profiles, and their points are too close for a full-grown tiger or leopard - but (fiction-writer imagination at work) there’s no reason why a special-purpose one couldn’t have been made with realistic separation and correct tooth-spike shape.
The modern era has seen plenty of convenient “accidents” and “suicides”(what writer Len Deighton calls XPD or Expedient Demise) so how good was Mughal-era CSI?
Or more correctly, when required by Certain Circumstances, how bad did it need to be?
If an Important Person announced: “Clearly a tiger did it. How sad. Too bad. Long live the new maharajah, my Dear Little Nephew”, the best way for doubters to maintain good health would be agreement…
*****
There was another version which - if the “attacked by a wild beast” excuse was still used - came with a suggestion that tigers in that particular region were getting disturbingly smart. (Though pointing this out may not have been wise, see above…) :->
These are bichuwa bagh nakh, “scorpion-sting tiger claws”, the dagger name deriving from its recurved blade shape resembling the business end of a scorpion’s tail.
They were sometimes carried in combat, bichuwa bagh nakh in the left hand and a talwar (curved) or khanda (straight) sword in the right.
During close-quarter grappling the claws could rake and the dagger stab, while the finger-rings meant less risk of dropping it.
In the same way that many Indian weapons had “tacticool” add-ons - miniature pistols, axe-gun combinations, concealed daggers and so on - there were bagh nakh with more than just one extra blade…
…bagh nakh with extra folding blades and a knuckle-guard…
…and this articulated contraption which (IMO anyway) was for defence as well as attack.
*****
It was, like the much simpler two-ring-no-blades version, a lot less obvious than the first photo suggests…
…and since many Indian helmets were open-faced while others had face-protection only of mail…
…a surprise slap across the face might spoil any warrior’s day.
The reason I think it also had a defensive purpose is the fairly thick metal palm and that little spur low down on it, almost certainly meant to stop a palm-blocked blade from sliding any further.
I’m not sure there’s enough articulation for such a blade to be actually gripped tightly, but once trapped between spur and claws it could be twisted aside for long enough that a weapon in the other hand could attend to its wielder.
*****
Yet again: when creating a fantasy weapon for writing or RPG, do a search for whatever you have in mind, because it may well have been made for real a couple of centuries ago by an Indian weaponsmith demonstrating what he could do to advertise his skill, or just making some oddity in steel to see if it was possible… :->
(reminding self to ask @petermorwood if he’s sharpened the kitchen knives this week)
Hi, did you know I stream over at twitch.tv/heartofpack?
Well I do! These two were drawn live on stream (VODs for the Ace Secretary Bird are still available right now).
Streaming more art in 30 mins (2pm AEST) if you want to hang out, lurk, and cowork. (Although I'm sorry in advance for my ADHD energy)
Archery information for writers that no one asked for but probably some of you need and I like talking about archery, so here it is.
when you put an arrow on the string, the verb is called “nocking” i.e. eyes glued on the target, he nocked the arrow
also the part of the arrow that gets put onto the string is called the nock. depending on the type of arrow this can be a piece of plastic glued into the arrow, or with wood or bamboo arrows it can be carved into the shaft of the arrow itself
you do not close an eye when aiming or shooting; you see better with both eyes open.
everyone has a dominant eye that more naturally your brain focuses with. that determines whether you are right or left handed when shooting, and doesn’t necessarily correlate to whether the person is right or left handed in anything else
so if you’re writing a character who has difficulty seeing out of one eye, take that into account when they are shooting
if they are right eye dominant, they hold the bow with their left hand and draw the string with their right. if they are left eye dominant, they hold the bow with their right hand and draw the string with their left
if they shoot left, the quiver sits on their left side/hip/thigh. shoot right - right side quiver.
there are several different ways to draw, if you are writing something historical or in a specific region, then do research on that style of archery. but for a generic place to start that is a more universal way of drawing a bow, here are some things to include
the chin stays down. raising your chin will fuck up your aim
the pointer finger on your draw hand rests on the side of your chin/jaw, and the string of the bow will touch the tip of the archer’s nose
weight is on the balls of your feet, leaning slightly forward off your heels
if it is an older bow/barebow, there is not usually a place for the arrow to rest on the bow. this means the arrow rests on the archer’s hand. if they are not wearing a glove on that hand, the fletchings (that’s the feathers on the arrow) will more than likely slice their hand when firing. this scars.
so if you’re wanting to describe someone observing and archer’s hands (hands are hot, don’t @ me) they would see a silver scar about halfway between the pointer finger knuckle and palm of the person’s hand. (turn your hand vertical and trace down the length of your pointer toward your thumb and stop next to the knuckle. that spot there.)
most archers wear something to protect their fingers on the hand that draws the bow. even with that, they have callouses. without it, a lot of callouses, scars, and blisters.
most common draw uses three fingers on the string: pointer, middle, ring. the arrow sits between the pointer and middle. just like where the draw point is, this is not universal and do research if you’re doing something culturally important.
barebow means that the bow is bare of any instruments. no sight, no weights, etc. the most basic/traditional form of bow
a recurve bow is anything where the tips of the bow curve back around forward, away from the archer
a compound is what you think of as a modern hunting bow, and is recognisable by having wheels at the ends and three strings
arrows have three fletchings that form a triangle, the point faces the archer so that the flat of the arrow will pass the flat of the bow on release. the arrow sits on the side of the bow facing the archer
archers with a larger/raised chest will sometimes where a chest protect so that the string does not catch when firing (this is regardless of gender, i know several cis-men who need it as well)
string can also catch on the forearm that is holding the bow and creates bruises and welts if you don’t wear a protector. modern ones are small plastic and cover just the spot, with elastic holding it in place. traditional ones are leather and wrap all the way around, lacing up on the back of your arm like a corset.
there is literally so much more, but i feel like this is plenty to get you started, and as always, feel free to drop an ask in my box if you need something more!
This is SUPER helpful! Thank you!
Ok I randomly needed this for a WIP!! Thank you op!
people today with access to more raw information than any other period: the earth is flat
german artilleryman in 1916, who barely washes his own ass: I need to account for the curvature and rotation of the earth when plotting my firing plans
Eratosthenes, an Egyptian, in 3750 BC when fucking mammoths hadn’t even gone extinct yet: Oh hey I can use these two obelisks to calculate the earth’s entire circumference based on the length of their shadows and the Earth’s curvature. Neat.
Erastothenes was born in 276 BCE.
The last mammoth died on in island off the northeast coast of Siberia in ~1650BCE.
And as I’ve pointed out previously, the Coriolis effect was known even earlier than that, although it may not have become important to gunnery.
I find it utterly bizarre that humans saw these megafauna.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/02/science/woolly-mammoth-extinct-genetics.html “ In fact, the Wrangel mammoth’s genome carried so many detrimental mutations that the population had suffered a “genomic meltdown,” according to Rebekah Rogers and Montgomery Slatkin of the University of California, Berkeley. Analyzing the Swedish team’s mammoth data at the gene level, they found that many genes had accumulated mutations that would have halted synthesis of proteins before they were complete, making the proteins useless, they report Thursday in PLOS Genetics. “ That “genomic meltdown” is one of the reasons feminism is so potentially lethal, because they keep pushing for asexual reproduction, or trying to combine ovaries, when the most likely outcome is a population running about - unable to reproduce sexually since the whole “male genocide” bit - with incredibly damaged chromosomes. Sex exists for a reason, and no, “because it’s fun” is not the answer, sorry. It works better than reproduction otherwise. Which is why every complex species uses it. Intelligence requires a lot of things to be working correctly, and if you have an all female species that is over the tipping point of idiocy, then there won’t be enough people to maintain the technology to continue to reproduce. And humans will go the way of the Wrangel beasties. Fortunately, feminists are horribly lazy bastards, so i doubt they’ll continue to get their way, but it does made for a decent plot for a dystopian fiction…
What …the fuck?
That went off the rails so suddenly like I thought I was just gonna learn something cool about mammoths and then WHOA.
I scrolled past this thinking “the earth is round, yes, something, something, mammoths…’
But the second time it came past I saw
That “genomic meltdown” is one of the reasons feminism is so potentially lethal
And I think I got whiplash from that pivot. I also laughed so hard that I couldn’t breathe.
I’m????
Point and laugh at the MRA, kids.
How … does he think … mammoths reproduced …
Never mind, not sure I want to know.
reblog to support Mammoth Feminism,
ignore for G E N O M I C M E L T D O W N
I here af for my Feminist Mammoth ladies, bring the species back!
DOWN WITH GENOMIC MELTDOWN
I… what exactly is combining ovaries supposed to achieve? 400 lazy feminist babies at the same time?
Shhhh…you weren’t supposed to tell anyone.
FEMINISM KILLED THE MAMMOTHS
I feel like we’re getting away from the main point here, which is that the world is flat
the world is only flat because it was trampled by feminist mammoths
reblog if you support your army of genetically-melted feminist mammoths that trampled the earth flat
Don’t anybody tell this guy about that species of lizard where there are only females it might break him
My head hurts after reading that.
I’m sending this post to @wehuntedthemammoth
Why would you hurt me like this?
That “genomic meltdown” is one of the reasons feminism is so potentially lethal, because they keep pushing for asexual reproduction, or trying to combine ovaries, when the most likely outcome is a population running about - unable to reproduce sexually since the whole “male genocide” bit - with incredibly damaged chromosomes.
I teach genetics, I don’t deserve to have to explain why this is so wrong and yet. Oh my god.
Mueller’s Ratchet–which is what this chucklefuck is talking about, the reason that purely asexual lineages don’t last well in evolutionary time–does not apply to feminism. The hypothetical scenario of merging two eggs to create a baby? Yeah, uh, that’s fucking sex in this context, whether or not it involves a male.
There are zero feminists pushing for parthenogenesis for humans, mostly because the whole thing is basically impossible for mammals as a result of mammalian investment in genomic imprinting. Among other things. It’s the sort of thing that only works okay in species that don’t control their embryonic development anywhere near as closely as your basic placental mammal does, because it relies on a certain amount of flexibility about sex determination and placental mammals are kind of weird about that.
Even if there were, Mueller’s Ratchet only applies if you never ever sexually reproduce and reshuffle alleles, like the parthenogenetic whiptail lizards mentioned upthread. If we have the technology to induce parthenogenesis in a human woman, we have the technology to reshuffle some alleles now and again. Mueller’s Ratchet kind of presupposes that going in and manually editing a genome isn’t a fucking option, shitwad!
Furthermore, Mueller’s Ratchet is specifically a population genetics phenomenon that refers to the accumulation of deleterious mutations within an asexually/clonally reproducing lineage. It has dick fuck all to do with chromosomes.
Mueller’s Ratchet exists in order to explain why asexually reproducing lineages haven’t overrun the world, because frankly in the short term these lineages usually do way better than their conspecific, obligate sexually reproducing partners do. Furthermore, it’s really fucking common to see species that reproduce sexually at some times and asexually at other times, depending on context and who’s available, and that’s in and of itself a complex fucking phenotype you species-centric cortically starved ignorant dillweed
all of this is completely fucking irrelevant to the mammoth example that @brett-caton there chose to bring up, by the way, because mammoths don’t fucking reproduce asexually either
as you would know if you’d bothered to read the paper, you self-satisfied jellyfish fellator
or even the pop science article you cited yourself
which clearly and cogently explains that the fucking mammoths died of being inbred as all shit, much like yourself
the laziness inherent in jumbling all this pig-ignorant, overconfident and understudied bullshit together and claiming it’s a solidly built house rather than a crumbling, confused pile of enraged starfish is the final straw
you can’t even be arsed to read an article that you dug up and cited yourself, you shithugger
how are feminists supposed to be the lazy ones?
you obviate your own thesis with your own intellectual failure, you pathetic snailsucking weed in the garden of knowledge
I reblogged this before but I have to do so again because of the above takedown with its glorious insults. Also, it’s always fun to point and laugh at MRAs.
I am in awe.
“Mueller’s Ratchet kind of presupposes that going in and manually editing a genome isn’t a fucking option, shitwad!” and “you pathetic snailsucking weed in the garden of knowledge” are honestly awe-inspiring and I’m fucking blessed I read them today
This is beautiful
It’s been long enough since I last saw this post that I’d nearly forgotten and it still fucking hit me like a goddamn freight train.
You self-satisfied jellyfish fellator, you pathetic snailsucking weed in the garden of knowledge
Fucking poetry there, Shakespeare would be hard pressed to improve upon these lines.
@shitpostsampler The snailsucking jellyfish fellator quote is golden.
Are we just going to ignore “a crumbling, confused pile of enraged starfish”?
‘oh hey that’s funny :D man, flat-earth sure is one of the stranger conspiracy theories isn’t it. ooh who was Eratosthenes? i should look him up! and now we’re talking about mammoths, cool , i love mam
“genomic meltdown” is one of the reasons feminism is so potentially lethal, because they keep pushing for asexual reproduction, or trying to combine ovaries
“a crumbling, confused pile of enraged starfish”
now this… this is a post on tumblr dot com
i’m still sad Eratosthenes missed out on the mammoths by like >< much
Okay I have definitely seen this post on other social media sites, but holy shit, I didn’t see the MRA turn? Was this always there, or did I just stop reading after the flat earthers part?
The MRA turn made me think I’d forgotten how to read.
It appears that boredom lies behind the most creative ideas. That's why quarantine has produced some of the most entertaining activities. One of them is the Getty Museum challenge, that so many of you have already seen in our previous article here.
Narcissus taking a selfie is the ACTUAL best.
These are REALLY cool
These are art in themselves, in a some of them point out what lockdown was like for us, they’re expressed themselves in a really cool way. But I think these are going to be talked about in the future.