ibelieveinturtles

[ibelieveinturtles]

there is something to be said for going to zoos and aquariums on weekdays to avoid school-aged crowds but going to the aviary on a weekend is fun because going into big greenhouses and watching toddlers who just learned to walk encounter loose tropical animals taller than they are is part of the overall experience for me.

to me a three year old is just as much an entertaining and strange beast as an egret. and here they can interact directly. incredible.

[ibelieveinturtles]

[ibelieveinturtles]

anyway the actual point of fandom is to inspire each other. reading each other's fics and admiring each other's art and saying wow i love this and i feel something and i want to invoke this in other people, i want to write a sentence that feels like a meteor shower, i want to paint a kiss with such tenderness it makes you ache, i want to create something that someone else somewhere will see it and think oh, i need to do that too, right now. i am embracing being a corny cunt on main to say inspiring each other is one of the things humanity is best at and one of the things fandom is built for and i think that's beautiful

[ibelieveinturtles]

[ibelieveinturtles]

Happiness Will Come To You.

[ibelieveinturtles]

[ibelieveinturtles]

A punk stops during a gay pride parade to allow a mesmerized child to touch his jacket spikes.

[ibelieveinturtles]

[ibelieveinturtles]

[ibelieveinturtles]

Something that I get chills about is the fact that the oldest story told made by the oldest civilization opens with "In those days, in those distant days, in those ancient nights."

This confirms that there is a civilization older than the Sumerians that we have yet to find

Some people get existential dread from this

Me? I think it's fucking awesome it shows just how much of this world we have yet to discover and that is just fascinating

[ibelieveinturtles]

[ibelieveinturtles]

i want to attend a terry pratchett book club that includes at least one gen x or older british person because i feel like there must be so much brilliant stuff that is going right over my young american head

[ibelieveinturtles]

lmfaooooooo

that is soooooooooo fuckin funny. this ytbr is trying to discuss the themes and story structure of Night Watch, but it so CLEARLY resonates with everything that's been going on for the past few months, that he had to pause to state to the camera that this was NOT a commentary on current events, that it was NOT him discussing allegories, that he is ONLY trying to discuss the book

🤣🤣🤣🤣

that being said, if you're curious about why that is because you haven't read Night Watch by Terry Pratchett, I HIGHLY suggest you read it because man it is on the fucking nose (just sayin')

[ibelieveinturtles]

Sauron: Aha, who is now in possession of the One Ring? A common soldier? Perfect; they will be tempted by dreams of conquest, wealth and power! But... wait, what is happening? Why is the tempation not affecting them? What sort of lowly human could possibly resist my power?

Sam Vimes, chucking the One Ring into the fires of Mount Doom before striding off to get home before 6pm: Bloody stupid piece of jewelery-

[ibelieveinturtles]

when people pop off with some ass take like "why should I have to put my pronouns in my profile or signature or whatever, my name is Tom and I have short hair and am wearing an oxford shirt in my profile pic, figure it out" I always think

so do you just not talk to people from other countries for your job, ever?

like, some people don't, and you can follow the flowchart to a different part of the argument about why pushing back about pronouns is stupid, but I e-mail people in Singapore and Dubai and Japan and India every day. A lot of those people have names that are probably their local equivalent of "Tom," but I have never seen them before and I have no idea if that's a girl's name or a boy's name. They usually have profile pics too. I don't know how common short hair is for women or long hair is for men in their country. I don't know if that style of shirt is more common for men or more common for women. I'm not writing this from some homogenous whitebread oasis, either, I live in New York City, it's just simply not possible for me to know the common names in every language of every country where the people I need to work with, live.

just put your stupid pronouns in your signature, some exasperated project manager in Mumbai will one day appreciate it

[ibelieveinturtles]

So, I saw this image on Facebook, and it was supposedly showing what Queen Nefertiti would have looked like in real life:

Now, I thought this AI generated garbage was just truly terrible on a number of levels; first off, she looks wayyyyyy too modern - her makeup is very “Hollywood glamour”, she looks airbrushed and de-aged, and as far as I’m aware, Ancient Egyptians didn’t have mascara, glitter-based eyeshadows and lip gloss. Secondly, her features are exceptionally whitewashed in every sense - this is pretty standard for AI as racial bias is prevalent in feeding AI algorithms, but I genuinely thought a depiction of such a known individual would not exhibit such euro-centric features. Thirdly, the outfit was massively desaturated and didn’t take pigment loss into consideration, and while I *do* like the look of the neck attire, it's not at all accurate (plus, again, AI confusion on the detailing is evident).

So, this inspired me to alter the image on the left to be more accurate based off the sculpture’s features. I looked into Ancient Egyptian makeup and looked at references for kohl eyeliner and clay-based facial pigment (rouge was used on cheeks, charcoal-based powder/paste was used to darken and elongate eyebrows), and I looked at pre-existing images of Nefertiti, both her mummy and other reconstructions. While doing this, I found photos of a 3D scanned sculpture made by scientists at the University of Bristol and chose to collage the neck jewellery over the painting (and edited the lighting and shadows as best as I could).

Something I see a lot of in facial recreations of mummies is maintaining the elongated and skinny facial features as seen on preserved bodies - however, fat, muscle and cartilage shrink/disappear post mortem, regardless of preservation quality; Queen Nefertiti had art created of her in life, and these pieces are invaluable to developing an accurate portrayal of her, whether stylistic or realistic in nature.

And hey, while I don't think my adjustments are perfect (especially the neck area), I *do* believe it is a huge improvement to the original image I chose to work on top of.

I really liked working on this project for the last few days, and I think I may continue to work on it further to perfect it. But, until then, I hope you enjoy!

Remember, likes don't help artists but reblogs do!

[ibelieveinturtles]

I love. Unofficial lyrics. The parts of the song that’s never on any official recording but everyone knows that the listener is supposed to sing.

Where you’re supposed to answer “Sweet Caroline,” with “BA BA BA,” and “Good times never seemed so good,” with “SO GOOD! SO GOOD! SO GOOD!” There’s an Australian song called Living Next Door to Alice, and apparently it’s traditional to sing “ALICE! WHO THE FUCK IS ALICE?” in every pause of the chorus.

My mom grew up in the ‘80s and swears that when Mony Mony is playing you have to sing “HEY EVERYBODY GET LAID GET FUCKED” after every line of the verses that aren’t the chorus and I love that so much