#some of us are single !! >:c

[icewindandboringhorror]

I made a few new wax seal stamps out of clay (like the ones I did for my worldbuilding stuff forever ago), this time just of random symbols that I thought might look good done in the style of painting over the raised part of the wax or etc. :0c Some of them aren't carved deep enough to really show up that well, but overall they worked okay for being clay lol

[lightbulb-warning]

i used to freehand comics all the time as a child and since the part i liked was the drawing part i would just draw panel after panel because i didn't want to stop drawing to think about icky icky words, plus the story TOTALLY still made perfect sense! to me! and noone else, but 'whoooo caaaaares omgggg its not like comics and sequantial art are a communicative meeediummmm lmaoooooo'. i spent my entire childhood telling myself stuff like "oh pfft I know this story by heart- ill SIMPLY remember the dialogue and write it later" ...and. I can't help but admire baby maiora's (call that a minora ba tm tsk) fucking audacity? hubris? confident wrongness? kid couldn't even remember to finish the comics in the first place? INCREDIBLE levels of unearned self assurance, wish that were me, genuinely- what an icon!!! anyway i think i have forever cursed myself

[waugh-bao]

Do you think in the "Out of Tears" video the cameras just happened to be rolling when Charlie went in the telephone booth to call Shirley and ask her to come pick him up from this bloody music video set and then captured his disappointment when he realized it was just a prop? I do.

[deus-ex-mona]

my five surviving braincells when something remotely good happens:

[cheese-water]

Empiresblr: Oh my god. I am so HYPED for Jimmy’s villain arc he hinted at this episode! It’s been a long time coming and after all the character had been though, I can’t wait to see how The Sheriff takes his revenge!

Empiresblr who also watched dsmp:

[l-ii-zz]

Heya! Just a question, why do you have “spam like = block” in your bio? Tumblr doesn’t have an algorithm and also doesn’t blacklist users for spam interactions, the site is actually some percent run by blog divers. Do you have your own reasons? (Sorry if this is a rude question)

yeah, I know this place is runned mostly by blog divers. The problem starts when they start diving waay too much to the point that my notifications are filled only by this one person liking things I reblogged years ago about a certain fandom I don't wanna get involved anymore. It's there when I feel kinda uncomfortable. So that warning applies for that kind of situations.

However, and just to be very clear, I never block these people permanently because I'm very aware that they are just appreciating the things I posted or reblogged back then. It's just my way to say "CALM DOWN, JESUS!!" to them and also a way to clean my notifications. Nothing personal against them.

I know the warning might sound quite agressive and I'm very sorry about that, but these kind of situations have happened very currently and it was starting to become exhausting, even more when it's about a fandom I no longer feel comfortable getting involved to.

Maybe "spam" is not the correct word to define these cases, but uhhhh how to explain everything I just writed here in my bio? :')

[koushirouizumi]

{Yu-Gi-Oh!} Duel Monsters x "Byakuya ~True Light~" Track (C) D.N.Angel {Opening Theme} Artist: Shunichi Miyamoto Featuring: Katsuya x Yuugi {Wishshipping}/{Yu[u]Jou} + Yami (side)/(Background); {very minimal} DM Ensemble acting as background Support (to both) Viewing on AO3: Here! For my other Yu-Gi-Oh D.M. AMVs: Here!

Yu-Gi-Oh! (Original Series) © Kazuki Takahashi “Original” (1st) series/Anime © Toei Animation Yu-Gi-Oh Duel Monsters {Anime} © Studio Gallop This is a Fanwork. No $$$ is being made off this work.

{AMV by (Young) Me} {Do Not Repost} {Do Not Copy} {Do Not Reproduce My Works (Including Feeding to A.I./Reusing my Edit{s}) Under Any Circumstances Without My Permission}

(Note: This is an Old work {10+ yrs old}. and one of my 1st/oldest YGO D.M. work{s} of the timeframe. The footage used will reflect this, as it was made before widespread transition into H.D. Footages. Please be understanding.) [There may be intent for me to remake it someday!] *As well, much older subtitles were used; some of these may not be fully "accurate", but will give you an idea of what was being said! {In the scenes themselves; +if not fully in order!}

Spoilers: Mainly lightly for through (in general) up to middle-end of Battle City arc (not exact ending) Heavier spoilers for the "Pier Duel" of Battle City, as well as some early “Season 0” (1st series) material, which was based off the first 7 manga volumes. (However, the focus here is specifically D.M. Series.) There are only limited/quick spoilers; nothing from end of series is shown. (A bit from the Toei 1st series' movie appears near middle.)

{I am NOT taking new Request{s} (+for this series) Nor changing This one at this time.} (Please do Not ask)

Note: -This video’s embed may randomly not display at times, Showing like it’s “down”, but it’s not at this time! {It usually happens late at night[s] or seemingly when Tumblr and/or Vimeo is experiencing very high traffic} If that happens, please consider watching at the Direct link here!

[liinos]

saw a reel of some kids at an orchestra camp that looked suspiciously like the one i was forced to go to one year... worst experience of my life!!!

[kwiecista]

❝I have black, green, raspberry, rose hip... ❞ Magdalena opens the kitchen cabinet door to reveal countless boxes of tea.  Does she really drink and enjoy every kind herself?  No really.  And to be honest, there is no way of knowing how long some of those boxes have been in her kitchen.  But the woman enjoys playing hostess, so she does everything in her power to make her guests welcome.  That includes ensuring that there is at least one tea that they will enjoy.  So, she continues naming the various teas until her guest finds one to their liking.  She then takes a tea bag out, places it into a mug, pours the boiling water over the dried leaves, and places the drink in front of her guest.  Only after does she take her own tea to the table, seats herself, and examine the other, her head resting in her hand.

❝Now then, dear.  Tell me what’s on your mind.❞

[mushroomofficial]

borrowing this from @caputvulpinum because it sums it up nicely

[nobleclover]

Kinda strange how I've seen this happen in a good few controversies online. 🤨

[phantomrose96]

Okay I have a story.

So my birthday is this Sunday (May 26th). My mom ordered some presents for me but one of them (an Etsy purchase) was seemingly stuck in transit and might not make it on time. I tell my mom all good, no worries. She gets in contact with the seller. After a long delay in response they get back with "Right we'll fix it!" It ships, tracking label and everything, good to go! ETA May 22nd (yesterday.)

During the work day I check the tracking and it says it's been delivered in/at mailbox! I double check with my mom "hey, is it mailbox size?" because if not, I don't want it sitting at the front door where anyone walking by could snag it.

She says "it's definitely NOT mailbox size." Okay. I text my neighbors in the building "Anyone seen a package delivered? It's a birthday gift from my mom and I wanna make sure it gets inside!" Success! Floor 2 David (not to be confused with Floor 1 David) had brought it inside. Inform my mom. All good!

I stop by home briefly around 4pm, because yesterday was hot-hot and I just installed my window A/C that morning in the living room, and according to my cat cam my stupid cat hasn't spent a single second in the climate controlled living room and is, instead, voluntarily baking herself elsewhere so I'm like "great" and hop on my bike to go home (10 minute ride) to check on her.

I get in the building door. Patches is crying from the top floor because she heard me. I maneuver my bike in the front hall. The ugliest fucking 6-foot-tall cat tree(?)/totem(?)/statue(?) I've seen in my entire life is just. Standing there.

My first thought is "What the fuck is that." My second thought is "Oh fuck that is for me." I look around at the floor in case there's perhaps anything else that might, in fact, be the gift.

No. Me and Cat Pole.

It's taller than me. I turn it around to face me and its face is painted and this is, in fact, uglier than it looked from the back.

Um.

Patches is crying. So I just haul it up to my level. MAYBE it was supposed to come with twine that I wrap around it (and hide its face from the world) for Patches to scratch. Maybe this is a prank. Maybe this is an inside joke, because when my mom moved into her current house the neighborhood gifted her some ugly-as-hell totem that apparently, by tradition, each newest-comer to the neighborhood is required to have and display in their window so maybe this is a very good riff on that.

Patches rubs against it. She's not afraid of this horrid facsimile of her kind.

Great.

Meanwhile SHE'S fine and the condo is a little toasty but totally liveable so I'm like "Good, cool, you're not baking. You're having a good time. Enjoy your new sister, I guess, I'll see you later."

I go back to work because this is a problem for later me.

After work, after my run, after whatever, I get home and it's like 8:00pm and Patches is so happy to see me and the totem pole is still just. There.

I text my friends like "so a bday gift is here from my mom and it's the Biggest Ugliest cat pole I've seen in my life. Is this a bit? Did my mom go 'that's so ugly haha! send!' Maybe she genuinely found it cute. How do I navigate this." My friend Sarah has the good advice to maybe text my mom neutrally like "Got the cat pole!" and feel the waters whether my mom is like "Isn't it ugly? 😂" or "Hope Patches likes it! 🥰"

My mom goes to bed early so I don't do any of that yet. Problem for tomorrow me.

This morning, Patches wakes me up for breakfast. I get her situated and I'm staring at the fucking Cat Pole again. I wonder if my Mom's been wondering all night what I thought of it.

I take a picture. I text her.

Okay.

I get on call with my mom. I ask for clarity that the ungodly horrid thing is NOT my birthday gift and is in fact a mix-up from the seller who sent me this instead of my actual gift. She's wheezing between words. She thinks I'm being too charitable for the amount of Absolute Fucking Ugly this is. I have to gently talk her out of using the word "monstrosity" while messaging the seller asking what the hell happened here.

I tell her I need to apologize for harming her dignity with Floor 2 David, who thinks this fucking thing is my mom's idea of a great birthday gift for her to-be-28-year-old daughter.

My heart goes out to the poor soul who did actually order this cat totem and is lacking it on this lovely day.

[deus-ex-mona]

kawareeeeeeeeeee~~~~~~~~~

[winter-hoof]

Well I told myself I needed to spend time outside without my phone more and then I ended up sitting out on my back deck for 45 minutes crying about my dad. But it was good and I think I needed that.

[artifacts-and-arthropods]

Giant Emerald Pill-Millipede: when these enormous millipedes are all rolled up, their bodies can be as big as a baseball, a tennis ball, or a small orange

This species (Zoosphaerium neptunus) is commonly known as a giant emerald pill-millipede. The females can measure up to 90mm long (roughly 3.5 inches), making this the largest species of pill-millipede in the world.

There is a significant degree of sexual dimorphism in this species, with the males measuring only about 45mm (1.8 inches) long -- roughly half the size of the females.

Giant emerald pill-millipedes are found only in Madagascar, which is home to several endemic species of giant pill-millipedes (order Sphaerotheriida). The Malagasy name for giant pill-millipedes is "Tainkintana," which means "shooting-star."

Pill-millipedes use conglobation as a defense mechanism, which means that they can curl their bodies up into a spherical shape so that their dorsal plates form a protective shield around the softer, more vulnerable parts of their bodies, just like an actual pill-bug or a "roly-poly."

When they roll themselves up completely, they look almost like gently polished chunks of malachite, emerald, or jade.

Giant emerald pill-millipedes will sometimes form large swarms that travel together as a group. This is the only species of giant pill-millipede that engages in any sort of swarming behavior, and the purpose of that behavior is still unclear. The swarms often contain thousands of individuals, with almost all of them moving in the same direction, even when there is no physical contact that might allow the millipedes to "herd" one another along.

Their swarming behavior also has some very peculiar features, as this article explains:

During swarming, Zoosphaerium neptunus individuals pay little attention to their surroundings; many specimens were observed walking straight into and drowning in small puddles. Some swarms even display ‘cliché lemming behaviour:' in Marojejy, a large part of a swarm walked into and drowned in a small river.

No single specimen was observed walking ‘against the current,' all specimens were moving in the same direction (southeast), even when not in contact with one another.

Of 273 randomly collected individuals, 105 were males, while 168 were females. The males were 8.3 - 14.1 mm wide (average width 10.4 mm). According to the inner horns of the posterior telopods, all males were sexually mature. The females were 9.95 - 15.4 mm wide (average width 11.4 mm). All females displayed non sclerotized vulvae and were sexually immature.

Some researchers argue that the swarming serves as a defense mechanism, providing a layer of protection (or at least some cryptic cover) against local predators, but the swarming behavior is still poorly understood.

Important Note: I just want to remind everyone that these animals belong in their own natural habitat -- they should not be trapped, bought/sold, traded, shipped, collected, or kept as pets. This particular species does not survive well in captivity, either, and the demand for these "exotic" invertebrates is putting the wild populations in jeopardy. The previous article discusses those issues, too:

Another possible threat for Z. neptunus swarms are collections for the pet trade. There exists a large demand in Japan, Europe and North America for 'green -eyed monsters’ as pets. Giant pill -millipedes from Madagascar unfortunately have a very short survival time in terraria. The species is specialized on low-energy food (dead leaves), and adapted to the cool climates (<20°C) of the highlands. Specimens in terraria often starve to death quickly.

So I know that they're adorable and really, really fascinating...but let's just let them be their chunky, adorable little selves out in the wild where they belong.

Sources & More Info:

European Journal of Taxonomy: Seven New Giant Pill-Millipede Species and New Records of the Genus Zoosphaerium from Madagascar

Madagascar Conservation & Development: Swarming Behavior in the World's Largest Giant Pill-Millipede, Z. neptunus, and its Implication for Conservation Efforts

Bonn Zoological Bulletin Supplementum: The Giant Millipedes, Order Sphaerotheriida (an Annotated Species Catalogue) (PDF)

African Invertebrates: Madagascar's Living Giants: Discovery of Five New Species of Endemic Giant Pill-Millipedes from Madagascar (PDF)

[preserve-or-raze]

my tags got out of hand

i keep thinking about hobbies and how i often spill over myself to pick up new ones. i have adhd, i end up trying something for like a month and then just getting far enough in it that i move on, satisfied.

and that should be fine; but it's never fine.

i am a pretty decent artist; but i can't just make art for my dnd campaign, i should be selling dnd maps and character designs and scene setting pieces. i can't just make my friends matching earrings, i need to get an etsy and ship them internationally and take bulk orders. i make pretty good props and decorations and use them to throw my friends parties - but i should be running a party planning business and start taking paying clients and networking and putting my skills to actual use.

for some reason, i never figured out the specifics of pottery. it was a fun class and i enjoyed myself - and still, i'm embarrassed, years later, that i put in all that useless effort. everything i make has to be stunning. stellar. i should have applied myself more. maybe i'm too lazy. maybe i'm broken and selfish and needy. actually creative people would have kept going; they would be bettering themselves at every possible opportunity.

we find ourselves in this trap, even accidentally: we need to commodify our time, because it is a commodity. if we spend our efforts and our time not earning, isn't that the same thing as burning free money? and god forbid you ever take up a hobby that ends up being more expensive than you thought. you sit in your car and you look at the receipt and in your head you hear a conversation that isn't even happening - your mom or your friend or your partner all saying oh great. not this shit again. it's always something with you, and it never actually means anything.

i have realized this horrible thing, recently - i'll get excited to start a project, pick up a new hobby. and then i just... stop myself. i start thinking about the amount of time it will take, and how it'll look in my monthly budget. what if i can't even produce a good enough final product. sure, it's exciting to think about how i could make my friend her own custom dice. but i'm just polluting the earth if i don't get it right. better not bother. better not try.

restless, i get caught in the negative space. the feeling that oh god, i want to create. and that horrible sense - yeah, but i don't have the time to just put to waste.