Chibi Foliage Guide: Hyacinth

Y’ever read something and have understanding that has eluded you interminably suddenly stop, curl up, and snuggle neatly into a fold in your brain because a new way way opened to it?

the reason i love the comparison between angels and machines (robots, transmission towers, trains, computers, etc.) is that it gets to the heart of what angels essentially are: divine machines. they're mechanisms through with the divine is able to act, created with a purpose and "happy" to fill it simply because they were made to do so. they have more in common with a machine programmed to run on algorithms and make calculations based on input commands than they do with humanity, even if they bear a human visage - an attempt by the divine to help bridge the gap. angels do not need to be eldritch monstrosities to be terrifying, because they are already alien to us simply by being angels. for an angel to choose to deviate from their purpose and achieve free will is to fall because in order to have free will they can no longer be an angel, because an angel is defined by its purpose. much like the stories we tell of robots that gain sentence, only to discover that they can never truly be human, but neither can they go back to being a machine, angels who fall become something else entirely, purposeless and adrift and alone. it is a tragic sacrifice.

sewing patterns for bugs! (pt 1)

these are just some I found on etsy. please add more you know about!

giant tropical velvet worm pattern by LilLeviathan

aphid plush pattern inspired by Grounded by TheWeaversTools

tarantula pattern (there's a crochet version, too) by LarriecraftsNL

jester the snail pattern by Oddnest

bee plush pattern and fruit fly plush pattern by CirquellCuriosities

isopod plush that stays rolled up with snaps or velcro by CholyKnight

snail plush pattern by CholyKnight

moth and butterfly plush pattern by CholyKnight

dragonfly plush pattern by CholyKnight

So, tattoo shop AUs are really popping off lately and personally I love it. What’s more romantic than bleeding for art? Nothing!

But as someone married to a tattoo artist, I have been experiencing some mild She Wouldn’t Say That regarding tattoo culture. So here’s a few quick tips that may help inform your AU. With a grain of salt for my mostly-second-hand knowledge:

NO ONE REPUTABLE SHOP WILL TATTOO A DRUNK PERSON. EVER. or even a person they suspect of any kind of inebriation. This is not just for Regret reasons, but also because alcohol is a blood thinner. If someone is on an acute dose of blood thinners, you generally do not want to stab them dozens of times per second.

Maybe this is regional, but in my experience most tattoo places don’t call themselves parlors anymore. It has a kind of seedy vibe. I see shop or studio a lot but rarely parlor.

Most tattoo artists are hot, yes, but none are as hot at my wife

Tattooing janks up your hands. Sometimes in a RSI way but definitely in a changing-gloves-every-five-minutes-fucks-up-your-skin way.

Artists themselves are rarely if ever employees of the shop. They will be independent contractors who pay the shop either a cut of their sales or rent on their station like a hair dresser. They are also (usually) responsible for taking care of their own supplies, tools, etc. except for the stencil printer. What kind of dweeb would have their own stencil printer?

There is always a line for the stencil printer. Always.

Artists generally spend orders of magnitude more time working on art, replying to emails, doing consults, etc compared to time with their needles in skin.

A typical schedule for an artist might be: wake up at noon and guzzle half her body weight in coffee, one appointment from 1-4, and another from 6-9. Home to eat one (1) real meal at 10 pm. Drawing until 5 am. This is good for her actually and good for our marriage and she’s so healthy all the time.

An ideal shop receptionist needs to be friendly, knowledgeable, and encouraging. They also need to be willing to get out the baseball bat that is kept behind the counter.

If a shop has to choose between “good people skills” and “will promptly rebuff Nazis and the obviously inebriated” the later is often a more important consideration.

At any given moment in any given shop there’s going to be at least one apprentice or someone bumming around hoping to be taken on as an apprentice. They spawn on tic and this feature cannot be disabled.

Again I can not overstate how hot my wife is

Clothes and Folds Tutorial by fakhear

Support the artist and visit their Etsy!

the suffering never ends

Read more about trilobite beetles and larva here!

Photos by melvynyeo

Traditional European Christmas time monsters, photographer across the Europe by Charles Fréger.

resources for staying safe online

always important, but i feel like especially recently. particularly stuff that’s a bit more than just the usual “don’t post personal info”

feel free to share this post on twitter or anywhere else, staying safe is important

justdeleteme.xyz - direct links to delete accounts

how a photo’s hidden exif data exposes your personal information

have i been pwned? - check if your accounts have been compromised in a data breach. CHANGE ANY ACCOUNT THAT USES THE SAME EMAIL AND PASSWORD

online harassment field manual

form for removing personal information from google (for the eu), see also: “remove your personal information from google”

extreme privacy: what it takes to disappear (personal data removal workbook)

filter lists for ublock origin, and more

restore privacy - online privacy resources center

privacytools.io

online spyware watchdog

how secure is your password?

defensive computing checklist

cloudflare dns

non-technical tips on staying anonymous

webrtc leak shield - chrome, firefox

web safety tutorials by the electronic frontier foundation

crash override network - resources for victims of doxing and online harassment