lady-zephyrine

[lady-zephyrine]

Welp, guess whose gijinka is getting a leather jacket like Big Brother Richard?

[lady-zephyrine]

Continuing my train of thought: He's not canon to my gijinka AU, but Escargoon counts as seafolk too despite being terrestrial (he's a mollusk like chuchu).

[lady-zephyrine]

Miracle Matter from Kirby 64. It has a banger theme despite it being a remix of the usual boss theme, (02 also has an awesome theme.) It always interested me that of all things to represent this dark matter adjacent being, they chose an icosahedron.

[lady-zephyrine]

Speaking of Kirby gijinoa AUs, I was wondering how I would distinguish between whale merfolk and fish merfolk (since Acro and Fatty whale aren't fish of course).

Then it dawned on me that some whales use sound in order to navigate. What if they were sirens?

[lady-zephyrine]

Thinking about DL2 bosses and I'm debating on if I want to gijinkafy Nruff (probably an orc lady) or Sweet Stuff (deep-sea mermaid).

[lady-zephyrine]

Kirby popsicle gumball eyes. I know y'all have seen this one before on twitter or IG or somewhere else. But I’m re-uploading stuff so I can re-activate this account that I left rotting since 2018.

After I’ve done these popsicles, I went and did some Popsicle commisions from which I was very happy that people wanted their characters being popsicle-fied (? Said popsicle commisions is now on hold. but in a week or 2 I might come back for more, so HMU if you’re interested on commissioning me in the future ;)

you can check said results on my twitter if you’re interested in seeing the final results of other people’s characters

[lady-zephyrine]

Blorbo projecting stage 1: your traumas

Blorbo projecting stage 100+: they can’t close ziplock bags for the life of them

[lady-zephyrine]

absolute fucking king weird al encouraging proper means of watching his new biopic

[lady-zephyrine]

There are a number of students in my GCSE class that have behavioural issues and if they feel uncomfortable they can do anything from storm out of the classroom to throwing chairs and punching their tables. They’re great kids, they just dont always see the light at the end of the tunnel and when they are in stressful situations they dont know what to do other than lash out sometimes. They are 10 months away from their final exams and the pressure is being mounted on them in every aspect of their school lives.

Last week one of the students saw me making little origami stars. Its something I do when I’m feeling anxious to help me focus on something else. He asked if I could show him how to make them. He had been clenching his fists all lesson, which I’ve noticed is a tell that he is struggling to retain composure. I gave him a strip of paper and talked it through with him. Soon half of the class were asking me to show them. They all picked it up really quickly.

After about five minutes and about 8 stars later, the student sat back down and was in a much calmer and motivated mood for the rest of the lesson. Our next lesson I placed a box of paper strips on my desk and when I saw anyone getting worked up about their work I silently placed a strip in front of them and let them get on with it. The lesson after I was amazed to see that students would go up to the box of their own accord, pick up a few strips and head back to their desks to continue working after calming down.

Yesterday I brought a large jar into the classroom and placed my anxiety stars in there. The boys put their strsss stars in there too. When they fill the jar I’m going to bring sweets into the lesson to celebrate them working hard and working through their problems in a positive manner. I know I’m not the teacher they deserve just yet but I feel like I’ve made a big breakthrough with them.

[lady-zephyrine]

alright gamers tell me: what’s the game that’s the equivalent of a weighted blanket for you. it’s not necessarily a good game or a fun game but a game that gives you a sense of peace and warmth

[lady-zephyrine]

iDigBio chatbot zoom webinar

A few weeks ago iNaturalist, a major online biodiversity social network/forum and database, announced it had received money from Google to create a generative AI tool for the purpose of adding "natural language" explanations to user-submitted content. No one asked for this, almost no one wanted this, people were already happily doing this sort of thing for free, and backlash was immediate: https://www.reddit.com/r/iNaturalist/comments/1l85g47/inaturalist_is_partnering_with_google_generative/

iDigBio is (was?) an NSF-funded online database, which brings together museum collection material from around the world for easy viewing in one place.

iDigBio is introducing a new "agentic" LLM chatbot called "iChatBio" to their website (which already has a search bar) in order to allow for "integrated searches across several databases simultaneously" with "a single, customized plain-language query". This is something entirely possible with the current state of the website right now, and something I do for my research almost every day. Again, the website has a search bar, and by definition it is already linking multiple sources of information together, because that's what a database is. AT BEST, assuming it works with 100% accuracy, they have re-invented the search bar but made it cost more energy. It is truly that lame.

Hopefully I can go on without explaining why generative AI should not be ANYWHERE near biology. Even if these tools did not plagiarize from real people and occasionally just make things up, they are more environmentally costly than existing alternatives, which undermines the supposed goal of these sites in the first place: to document and protect biodiversity. It's hard enough already.

I suspect iDigBio higher-ups already know how people feel about iNaturalist's recent announcement, as many people use both websites, and so they are keeping quiet about this to avoid extra scrutiny. I have received two separate iDigBio zoom webinar invitations in separate listservs within the past few days - one with just the chatbot webinar, and one with a totally different set (with some more generic stuff like "looking forward to the future!"). If the new iChatBio agentic LLM is so wonderful, then I think as many people as possible should know about it, so I am distributing the link to the chatbot webinar.

The webinar is on Monday, August 18th, from 1pm to 2pm. Here is the link to register:

It asks for your name, email, and organization. If you don't have an official affiliation and you would still like to participate, I see nothing wrong with listing yourself as "independent organization" and "citizen scientist". The website says ET in one place and CT in another place, and I'm not sure which is true, so I will be there at 1pm ET (maybe they had the chatbot write the announcement, too).

I encourage anyone interested in biodiversity, museum collections, databases, living things, information flow, or the planet Earth in general to take a look at this if you are able, and to perhaps prepare some questions. Feel free to share this link with other biology or data listservs, or with anyone you know who may be interested.

I can't imagine what people at iDigBio are thinking. If I had to guess, I truly think they want this announcement over and buried quickly, so they can pretend everyone is fine with it and collect the money. I am not fine with it.

[lady-zephyrine]

If you have a friend that wants to vent to you but doesn't want solutions but you are a solutions-oriented person, may I suggest Silly Solutions (TM)? For instance, whenever my friend complains about the people at her job being dumb, I remind her that if only one of us had studied engineering, we could create a giant hippo robot with laser eyes to destroy them. It fulfills my need to offer a solution, doesn't violate her boundary of not wanting to problem solve, AND it cheers us both up!

[lady-zephyrine]

Rules of fandom

(1) have a good time

(2) also suffer

[lady-zephyrine]

Happiness after trauma can feel… suspicious.

Like you’re waiting for the other shoe to drop.

But here’s the truth. You’re allowed to feel good. You don’t need to earn it. You get to live, not just survive.

[lady-zephyrine]

So I just got to the hotel for this'a video game presentation and they'a completely forgo- hold on someone's at the door

[lady-zephyrine]

If Gooey DOES show up in Air Riders I'll draw him wielding a bat so that he can bash people's knees in.

[lady-zephyrine]