Life/helpful Stuf - Tumblr Posts
internet search tips on how i sift through junk or mischaracterizing content when looking up visual animal references:
Use the scientific name instead of common name for less false ID (especially if you want to see real wolverines or jaguars instead of the x-men or car maker)
Instead of “baby“, try “juvenile” or a more species specific term (bird=chick, bovid=calf, carnivoran=cub, etc..)
If it’s a rarer animal without many results try searching its name in a native language, it’s usually on wikipedia
Search the scientific name in inaturalist for multiple party verified ID sightings with locations
Searching “skeletal” in place of “skeleton” gives different results and usually less products
try adding “zoo” to your search if you want to look at over-exploited viral species like otters, foxes, primates, or exotic cats. there can still be shady zoos but it weeds out videos of animals in people’s living rooms
Add “vet” if you’re searching for reference on how large/small an animal looks next to a human instead of exotic pet vids. vets and zoos can be very fond of sharing educational pics of an anesthetized animal’s cool features or a huge paw/teeth besides a human hand. vet visits for beloved zoo animals also tend to draw the media so there’s many articles written for them and in general i just love learning about weird vet procedures on exotic animals, 10/10 rabbit hole.
“Morph” or “mutation” tends to give you more legit resources on animal variations instead of photoshop edits.
Even though i know there’s a difference I also find that searching “leucistic” just gives you less fake stuff than the more commonly known albino or “white___” unless its a very common mutation. same with “dilute” instead of blue and such.
We need like “unclench your jaw” posts but for eye strain. Like
Go look at something 20ft away for 20 seconds.
fucked up how colors look different depending on what screen you’re looking at them on. that should be illegal I think
Something I realized was worth keeping in mind lately: your body doesn’t just keep the score on trauma, you know.
Like we’re starting to give some lipservice to the idea that trauma, that stress and harm and damage, live in our “bodies” even if we don’t consciously/cognitively acknowledge them, but there’s two small problems with this idea.
One is the idea that there is a brain-body split, because there isn’t. Your brain, the place where your cognition occurs, is just another part of your body. Your conscious memory is also part of your body keeping the score. I could go on about this for a while, but I’ll refrain for now.
Because almost more important to this issue is that your body also keeps all the other scores.
The smell that calms you down. The fact that you feel better after a big hug. The way your favourite kind of tea helps ground you. The sudden joy at a particular song.
All of these things also live in your body. Your comfort food being comfort food is a score your body is keeping. How to read. The comfort of a warm bed. All of that knowledge lives in your body, in its memory too.
Nurture your passions, not just your obligations. You’re not here to just pay bills.
I just want to remind everyone how affordable buying food from indigenous tribes is. I live in a major city and I was able to purchase and ship (15) pounds of fish from back home to myself for cheaper than I could buy it from a grocery store here in the city. Yeah, shipping has its own environmental factors but I was able to support an indigenous owned business while also getting my groceries at a lesser cost. (Buying in bulk is always a good idea if you’re planning on having something shipped to you)
Some tribal owned grocers that ship:
Bow and Arrow (Ute Mountain)
Native Harvest (White Earth)
Red Lake Fishery (Red Lake)
Wozupi (Mdewakanton Dakota)
Ramona Farms (Gila River)
Tanka Bars (Oglala)
Indian Pueblo Store (Pueblos)
Twisted Cedar Wine (Cedar Paiutes)
Ute Bison (Ute)
Seka Hills Olive Oil and Vinegars (Yocha Dehe Wintun)
She Nah Nam Seafood (Nisqually)
Sakari Botanicals (Inupiaq)
Honor the Earth (? Anishinaabe)
Nett Lake Wild Rice (Boise Forte Anishinaabe)
Passamaquoddy maple (Passamaquoddy)
BONUS: coffee :)
Yeego Coffee (Navajo)
Spirit Mountain Roasting (Yuma Quechan)
Birchbark Coffee (Anishinaabe)
Thunder Island Coffee (Shinnecock)
In the future, children will think our ways are strange. "Why do old people always grow so much milkweed in their gardens?" they'll say. "Why do old people always write down when the first bees and butterflies show up? Why do old people hate lawn grass so much? Why do old people like to sit outside and watch bees?"
We will try to explain to them that when we were young, most people's yards were almost entirely short grass with barely any flowers at all, and it was so commonplace to spray poisons to kill insects and weeds that it was feared monarch butterflies and American bumblebees would soon go extinct. We will show them pictures of sidewalks, shops, and houses surrounded by empty grass without any flowers or vegetables and they will stare at them like we stared at pictures of grimy children working in coal mines
It’s okay to not want to have sex ever. It’s okay to never even try it.
take figures out of their boxes btw. sew patches on your favorite jacket. go to bed with your favorite plushes. wear the pants you usually save for special occasions. draw something cool on your wall. put a sticker on your laptop. dye your hair and pierce your lips. glass is meant to break, metal is meant to rust. items are meant to be used. that's how the world knows that somebody loved them.
[covered in blood, with tears in my eyes] I AM VERY YOUNG AND I AM LEARNING HOW TO LIVE
Good news, fellow artists! Nightshade has finally been released by the UChicago team! If you aren't aware of what Nightshade is, it's a tool that helps poison AI datasets so that the model "sees" something different from what an image actually depicts. It's the same team that released Glaze, which helps protect art against style mimicry (aka those finetuned models that try to rip off a specific artist). As they show in their paper, even a hundred poisoned concepts make a huge difference.
(Reminder that glazing your art is more important than nighshading it, as they mention in their tweets above, so when you're uploading your art, try to glaze it at the very least.)
Look. There's a creek near where I live that has its own volunteer non-profit organization.
It's just one creek. One trickle of water among millions. But people decided to care about that creek. A bunch of people, volunteers, got together and they cleaned several tons of trash out of the creek.
They got to work removing non-native plants from the creek banks and planting native trees.
They got a nearby water treatment plant to upgrade and stop polluting the creek.
They educate people and tell them about the fish and invertebrates that live in creeks and why they should care.
I think that it matters. I think that making sure your community has clean water matters. I think making sure one specific old lady's house doesn't flood matters. I think one stream where fish can live again matters. I think one patch of green space in a downtown area matters. If nothing else, it makes people's lives less shitty, and that's worthwhile in itself.
Stop asking "how do I save the world?" Start asking "can I get together several people to clean up that creek downtown?"
i went to get my t-shot yesterday and it took me an hour and a half to get to the clinic and as soon as i got on the bed the nurse dropped my t-shot and it broke and now they're trying to make me pay for the replacement. i think the fuck not lmao
how do draw good
fill 14 sketch book
bad stuff is good stuff bc you made stuff
do you like sparkle???? draw sparkle
draw what make your heart do the smiley emote
member to drink lotsa agua or else bad time
d ont stress friend all is well
your art is hot like potato crisps
don’t let anyone piss on your good mood amigo
if they do
eat
them
Bro, you ok? Bro, humans aren’t separate from the ecosystems around us. We’re a part of them, bro. Bro, we’re never going to have absolutely zero effect on ecosystems, because we live here, bro. Bro, I never said it had to be a bad effect. We don’t have to immediately be perfect either, bro, sometimes doing what you can is what you can, and its way better than nothing. Bro what do you mean humans are a plague. You’re starting to sound a bit like an ecofascist, bro… Bro?