Meta Monday: Your Favorite Fic Author Is Probably Over 30.

Now more than ever we need to make Tumblr unmarketable, do NOT invite the government into this space.

It’s the end of the week maybe you need to see a bitty otter bowl. x

animation being treated like a genre instead of a medium is something that actually makes me go insane. beauty and the beast is a romance. the emperor's new groove is a buddy comedy. big hero 6 is a superhero movie. moana is an adventure film. the lion king is a drama. treasure planet is sci-fi. if i was talking to someone who hadn't seen these movies before, and they weren't specifically interested in animation as a medium, then i wouldn't necessarily assume they'd enjoy all of these. and that's just disney movies! try telling an anime fan that fruits basket and fullmetal alchemist are the same genre and see how they react!

Stop Making Psychosis A Villainous Trait Challenge

If you're feeling anxious or depressed about the climate and want to do something to help right now, from your bed, for free...

Start helping with citizen science projects

The Conversation

Explainer: what is citizen science?

Public participation in science is increasing, and citizen science has a central part in this. It is a contribution by the public to researc

What's a citizen science project? Basically, it's crowdsourced science. In this case, crowdsourced climate science, that you can help with!

You don't need qualifications or any training besides the slideshow at the start of a project. There are a lot of things that humans can do way better than machines can, even with only minimal training, that are vital to science - especially digitizing records and building searchable databases

Like labeling trees in aerial photos so that scientists have better datasets to use for restoration.

Or counting cells in fossilized plants to track the impacts of climate change.

Or digitizing old atmospheric data to help scientists track the warming effects of El Niño.

Or counting penguins to help scientists better protect them.

Those are all on one of the most prominent citizen science platforms, called Zooniverse, but there are a ton of others, too.

Oh, and btw, you don't have to worry about messing up, because several people see each image. Studies show that if you pool the opinions of however many regular people (different by field), it matches the accuracy rate of a trained scientist in the field.

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I spent a lot of time doing this when I was really badly injured and housebound, and it was so good for me to be able to HELP and DO SOMETHING, even when I was in too much pain to leave my bed. So if you are chronically ill/disabled/for whatever reason can't participate or volunteer for things in person, I highly highly recommend.

Next time you wish you could do something - anything - to help

Remember that actually, you can. And help with some science.

When you realize Inktober starts in like 3 days and haven’t mentally prepared

Pass this along to cleanse your blog.

And don’t forget to cleanse yourself.

Worlds of Ursula K. Le Guin (2018), dir. Arwen Curry

hey I have some advice for people that wish they could do more to support artists but maybe can’t do as much financially!!!

leave really positive comments on things you like, and make them as specific as possible.

Literally, nothing makes my day more than a comment that’s really taken the time to analyze my art and describe WHAT about it they liked. this is really helpful for artists for a couple reasons:

many artists have adhd, anxiety, or some other flavor of Brain Stuff, and either respond VERY VERY STRONGLY to praise or (unfortunately) maybe just have a hard time believing their art deserves praise (IT DOES!!)

when comments are specific, that’s sooooooo much more helpful to grow! It’s a lot easier to figure out what you’re doing successfully when people tell you what their favorite part of your art is. But it can also help when you notice your joke doesn’t seem to be landing or if people are reacting a lot differently than you were expecting, and then you can better gauge how to course correct for next time. What stood out to you? Was it visual, aka lines, color, stylization, or composition? Or was it more emotional, aka dialogue, expressions, or poses? How did you feel looking at it?

it feels nice HDHSHJFJD but it does! Plus it works out your art analysis brain a little bit, and you’ll get more precise the more you do it. I love being a little cheerleader in the tags of my friends’ art. Gas em up and give em kisses on the cheek.

Don’t get me wrong, I love all comments. I love people who I can tell make an effort to comment something, even if it’s just a keysmash or incoherent wailing or a simple “I really like this op!” I also LOVE comments that are funny “op you are feeding me like a baby bird” (I have a little folder for screenshots of my favorites heehee).

But, again, it is really appreciated when people give specific, analytic comments. those are comments that turn me into a weeping little puddle. And this is not a “if you never ever comment you’re evil” post, it’s just saying if you do, we notice and thank you for it!