Latest Posts by j-drawings - Page 4
Far too many people have short memories when it comes to the shit their side did.
Some romantic subplots do not need conflict, per-say.
What do I mean?
I mean if you have a bigger story with a ton of stuff going on, a romance could be a place of rest to the character. A nice, stable relationship. That is only threatened when the big bad lobs a grenade at them and they need to fight over who jumps on it.
kirby has eaten trees meta
Curious Zelda
https://twitter.com/curiouszelda
https://www.instagram.com/curiouszelda/
Cheat Sheets for Writing Body Language
We are always told to use body language in our writing. Sometimes, it’s easier said than written. I decided to create these cheat sheets to help you show a character’s state of mind. Obviously, a character may exhibit a number of these behaviours. For example, he may be shocked and angry, or shocked and happy. Use these combinations as needed.
by Amanda Patterson
R.I.P. The 2976 American people that lost their lives on 9/11 and R.I.P. the 48,644 Afghan and 1,690,903 Iraqi and 35000 Pakistani people that paid the ultimate price for a crime they did not commit
If you genuinely enjoy being alone, do you ever wonder if it is an inherent part of your character or if it stems from feeling inescapably lonely in the first place until you taught yourself to enjoy the peace and happiness one can find in solitude? what if the reason you now prefer & choose solitude at every turn is because you were a very lonely child, or teenager, not by your own choice, and that’s how you learnt to thrive and grow, so you no longer know if you can do that around people? There might also be an element of personal pride, an unconscious “you can’t fire me I quit” point when your brain decided to switch your feelings about solitude from distress to relief. I often find myself defending my love of being alone, to people who worry that I can’t possibly be happy to live in an isolated house in the woods; I insist that I do! I really do specifically enjoy the isolated factor and chose to live here because of it, but then I wonder how to differentiate an ingrained love of solitude from an acquired ability to thrive off unchosen loneliness, to learn from it and be nourished by it; to what extent it might be a form of contentment built on a bedrock of resignation.
Watching my neighbors across the street having a block party during a literal time of pandemic makes me wonder if several hundred years ago there was another person looking out their window watching their neighbors congregate during the black death like verily forsooth, thou art truly ass-headed knaves.
So one of my neighbors has a lawn Roomba or whatever they're called, and this thing trundles around looking like a background robot in the background of the original trilogy, and ABSOLUTELY BAFFLING THE DOGS.
They have concluded, I think, that it's some kind of prey animal because right after this video ended they decided to crouch down and stalk it, which means I'm 90% sure I'm going to have to stop Arwen from eating it at some point.
CNN Live coverage when Trump was walking towards the church
[ID: A tweet by @karaokecomputer reading “I’m sensing a trend here” with three attached screenshots of other tweets.
The first screenshot shows a tweet by @AndrewSolender reading “BREAKING: NYPD have taken a knee in solidarity with protestors. #nycprotests.” This tweet is quoted by @diabliitax who adds “They beat the living shit out of us an hour after this.”
The second screenshot shows a tweet by @OrlandoPolice reading, “@OrlandoPDChief Rolon and @SheriffMina knelt down to pray with demonstrators for #GeorgeFloyd, and everyone hurting right now. Just as @orlandomayor says, Orlando is united in love, compassion, and understanding.” This tweet is quoted by @NeeNeinNyetNo who adds, “Literally 45 minutes later they maced us in the face for the crime of standing in their vicinity.”
The third screenshot is a tweet by @starrydanni reading, “PORTLAND PD AGREED TO TAKE A KNEE WITH PROTESTORS. THE MEDIA GOT THEIR PHOTOS IN. IMMEDIATELY GAS MASKS WERE PUT ON AND GASSED AN ENTIRE PARK”
End ID]
What just happened on CNN? Im at work and so wasn’t somewhere I could watch
Sure I’ll sum up.
So there was a very good peaceful protest by…. Lafayette Park? Right outside the White House. They were chanting, they had multiple reporters in the crowd, it was fucking CHILL, people were waiting for Trump to do a speech in the Rose Garden.
Then, out of nowhere, truly NOWHERE, the cops closed in from three directions and threw gas into the crowd. They used rubber bullets on the crowd IMMEDIATELY. One dude told the reporter “They don’t care about new, move.” They drove out the totally fucking peaceful, pre-curfew protestors.
They moved them all out, and Trump started speaking, and you could hear the fucking gas going off over his speech. CNN fucking did a splitscreen to show the peopple being shoved back as the motherfucker stood up there and said he would protect our rights and would mobilize the military against people.
Then back to the reporters, and everyone was forced further and further away. One woman on a bike told the reporter “They are getting the water cannons ready, you wanna move.”
TURNS OUT.
ALL OF THIS.
WAS BECAUSE TRUMP WANTED A PHOTO OP AT THE CHURCH ACROSS THE STREET. HE WANTED THEM OUT OF THE WAY SO HE COULD STAND WITH A BIBLE IN FRONT OF A CHURCH.
Even CNN is calling him a dictator, at 7PM.
Then the Illinois governor came out and called him a racist, xenophobic, misogynistic failure.
I really like fictional couples that actually enjoy spending time with each other. It seems like such a simple, mundane thing. But, often, I see fictional couples who are completely enamored and dramatic and willing to die for each other, which is fine. But like… do they enjoy hanging out? Do they have private jokes and would they be friends even if they weren’t in love? It feels like such a basic thing, but it’s something that I actually don’t see that often. And it feels so refreshing and honest compared to these over-dramatic romeo and juliet-esque romances. Just two people who become good friends and because they enjoy each other’s presence so much it grows into a strong attraction. It feels more real and tangible than two attractive people meeting and “falling in love at first sight” - like, of course, you fell in love at first sight! You’re both supermodels! Sorry, can’t relate.
my brother has been criticizing me all day and he told me if i wasn’t happy i could go somewhere else so i wouldn’t ruin everyone else’s dinner so i took the massive bowl of pasta + special sauce i spent the last 2 hours making from scratch for the whole family and i left
kinda funny when english teachers say stuff like “i can tell if you didnt read the book” or “i can tell when people bs their paper”
no you cant. you can tell when people are bad at bs-ing their paper. i didnt even read the sparknotes and i barely skimmed the wikipedia and you gave me an A. you kneel before my throne unaware that it was born of lies
next transformers continuity i want the autobots to accidentally out themselves to earth when they realize the probe they just shook the dust off of has cameras and one day NASA wakes up to find that opportunity rover's back online and the first thing it recorded was a giant robot saying "well, fuck"
Not nearly enough “Sirius Black makes himself at home in Privet Drive because there’s nothing the Dursleys can do to get him to leave” fic out there, and it’s a crying shame.
I wanted to download We Will Rock You, but…
Prosecutor Edgeworth… I know him. He’s a feared prosecutor. He doesn’t feel pain. He doesn’t feel remorse. He won’t stop until he gets his “guilty” verdict…
SILENT NIGHT
you are a mouse.
and right now, you’re scuttling around the forest floor going about your mousey business. you have many adorable mouse children to feed, after all.
distantly, you hear a faint shriek like the sound of failing anti-lock breaks.
you pause for a moment, then resume your foraging. it was probably nothing! you are a mouse and lack creative prediction abilities. you are just thinking that maybe later you’ll engage in some traditional mouse activities and pee in a sleeping bag or two, when
BAM
suddenly, you are now a mousey corpse being borne skyward at upwards of thirty miles per hour. you would probably marvel at this, if you weren’t just a mouse and now also dead. your sad little corpse will be swallowed whole and your children will be eaten by, I dunno, frogs or something. nature is a real bitch sometimes.
congrats, you’ve just made the brutal acquaintance of the Grim Reaper of the rodent world:
HOLY NIGHT, YIKES.
but enough dramatic bullshit! you aren’t a mouse anymore, you’re a person reading a very informative and interesting article about Barn Owls which was written by a very handsome and modest genius. ahem. anyway. compared to some of the birds I’ve featured in Weird Biology before, Barn Owls may seem pretty normal! at least on the surface. (spoiler alert: Barn Owls Are Not Normal. at all.)
Barn Owls are mediumish owls that look kind of like a toasty loaf of bread, if that loaf had a pair of pitch-black nightmare eyeballs revealing a door into eternal darkness. (IF YOU LOOK INTO A BARN OWL’S EYES, THE ABYSS DOES INDEED GAZE BACK.) they reach a little over a foot long, with a three-foot wingspan. and like all owls, Barn Owls are stupidly light, tipping the scales at a whole pound and a half at the absolute most. this might not seem that big, but if that pound and a half is strafing towards you at 60+ mph talons first, it puts a whole new perspective on the situation.
so where do Barn Owls live, anyway? well. a better question to ask would be, “where do Barn Owls NOT live, Jesus Christ.”
Antarctica. the answer is Antarctica.
Barn Owls are what we call a “cosmopolitan species”, meaning they live fucking everywhere. they can be found in farmlands, woodlands, and grasslands across EVERY MAJOR CONTINENT and MOST LARGE ISLANDS worldwide! (except Antarctica, for obvious reasons.) this, if you couldn’t tell, is completely fucking ridiculous. especially for a species of owl, which tend to be mediocre fliers and grouchy homebodies.
in fact, Barn Owls have the widest distribution of any non-seabird avian in the entire world! these stubby birds of prey may look like toasted mashmallows, but they’re tenacious fliers and extremely adaptable predators who can be active day or night and will eat anything up to and including a slice of cheese pizza. these fluffy bastards even turn up regularly in New Zealand, and god only knows how they even got over there. (there’s now a stable breeding population there, to the regret of the rats.)
maybe they just called an Uber.
but aside from their adaptable tenacity, Barn Owls are pretty standard as owls go. by which I mean they’re a shambling heap of bizarro traits barely even recognizable as a bird! where should we start?
EYEBALLS. let’s start with eyeballs.
like all owls, Barn Owls have eyeballs that are modified for UNIMAGINABLE low-light vision. they don’t see color very well, but that’s a hell of a trade of for having basically a set of night-vision goggles for eyeballs! and to cap it all off, these lucky bastards see just fine in daylight, too.
but this amazing vision comes with a price.
it’s a really weird price, too. not like the standard “first-born child” bullshit or anything.
having excellent night and day vision is fairly rare in nature, and Barn Owls had to pull some biological strings to get it- their eyeballs are more of a modified tube than the traditional Orb. yes, that’s insane. and also yes, this means the Barn Owl can’t actually move its eyes to look around like you and I can. so what do they do instead?
why, they’ve developed loose tendons and ligaments in their neck that allow them nearly 270 degrees of rotation, that’s what they did! a perfectly logical and sane response that give NO ONE the screaming meemies OR the heebie jeebies! for sure!
…yeah okay, that’s actually pretty adorable.
but these two biological hat tricks pale in comparison to the Barn Owls’ true source of strength, the reason for their hunting prowess! which is… the ability to hear real good. REAL GOOD. Barn Owls have hearing keen enough to pick up a mouse fart in a windstorm, but they can also peg the GPS location of that poor embarrassed mouse down to within a couple inches! impressive, right? this is because their ears are sideways.
kind of, anyway. Barn Owl ears are two holes under the feathers at the edge of their attractive facial disc, and one of them is a few centimeters higher than the other. like maybe god stuck a pencil into one of them and just yanked it off kilter, or something. but there’s a method to this madness- having off-centered ears gives the Barn Owl a true reckoning of where a sound is happening in 3d space by tracking which ear receives a sound first. they’re basically a biological sonar receiver.
but I’ve saved the last for least! let’s get into the ability that really puts the cherry on this creeptacular Barn Owl cake.
all is calm! all is bright!
Barn Owls are utterly and completely silent fliers. (when they aren’t making noises like a demon caught in a paper shredder, anyway.) one could flap three inches in front of your face in a dark room and you would never know. this is because every feather on their wings and body is edged in soft fringes that absorb sound, basically turning Barn Owls into flying private screenings of The Quiet Place.
and this absolute silence gives them a MASSIVE edge in hunting! Barn Owls hunt by flying just above the ground at absolutely insane speeds and just kind of picking up whatever smaller creature tickles their dinnertime fancies. usually this dinner is small rodents and rabbits, but Barn Owls can and will eat anything they can get the drop on up to and including SLEEPING HAWKS. smaller owl dinners like mice get swallowed whole (aaaaaaa), and their bones and fur are regurgitated later (AAAAAAAAA).
a normal bird!
so with everything they have going for them, how are Barn Owls doing on the global stage in these difficult times? pretty fucking great, actually! Barn Owls are decreasing in some areas but increasing rapidly in others, and overall they’re ranked as Least Concern. this is likely because Barn Owls really don’t have a problem coexisting with humans!
Barn Owls love to hang out in human structures (like barns! wild, right? WHO WOULD HAVE GUESSED.) and eat a lot of species that humans consider to be pests, like rats and mice. it’s a win-win for both owls and humans, and it definitely helps that Barn Owls are routinely misidentified as cryptids (*coughcoughmothmancough*) or the tortured souls of the damned! (it’s because they scream at night and kind of look like the accursed shades of the dead, doomed to forever walk the earth in torment.) here’s hoping that this silent avian predator sticks around for a long, long time to come.
SLEEP IN HEAVENLY PEACE.
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thanks for reading! you can find the rest of the Weird Biology series on my tumblr here, or check out the official archive at weirdbiology.com!
if you enjoy my work, maybe buy me a coffee and support Weird Biology!
and if you’d like to see exclusive Weird Biology content, check out my Patreon today!
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IMAGE SOURCES
img1- Birds in Backyards img2- All About Birds img3- Birders Store img4- Mother Nature Network img5- Lisa L. Kee img6- Norfolk Wildlife Trust img7- Roy Rimmer img8- Steven Boyce
Anon Hate IS Illegal.
Guys, I’m not kidding.
Suicide-baiting, cyberharassmemt, cyberstalking, death/rape threats, and hate speech are illegal in all 50 states as well as Australia and the UK.
Some places include school suspension or expels. Some even include jail time for multiple years.
And yes, they can find someone by username or IP alone.
Also, yes. There are methods of catching someone’s IP. Even under a VPN.
So.
Next time you get hit with anon hate?
Casually remind them you can very easily take this to the next level. And they can earn jail time while you lay back in your chair, having saved yourself and everyone else from a violent criminal.
Your online actions have real life consequences.
Make sure they learn that.
(Just in case there’s a “the police wouldn’t do that” - Yes. They absolutely would.
Or a “I can handle it.” No. That person will continue to harass others as well. And one of them may not be as strong as you. So do it for them and everyone else.
Or a “It’s not that severe.” Yes. It is. People have died because of this. It really is that severe.)
Take action. And make sure the lives of these bullies are truly wrecked.
A comma splice walks into a bar, it has a drink and then leaves.
A question mark walks into a bar?
Two quotation marks “Walk into” a bar.
A gerund and an infinitive walk into a bar, drinking to drink.
The bar was walked into by a passive voice.
Three intransitive verbs walk into a bar. They sit. They drink. They leave.