Beautiful red hen made out of chicken wire by Helen Godfrey Wire Sculpture i have seen this shared around chicken pages on facebook.

I really liked this hen so i went to the artists page and I am floored at the skill and beauty of these sculptures. Anyone who has built anything with the help of chicken wire knows that it is not an easy material to work with but this artist is able to make very realistic organic shapes with it. I love the softness, i love the wire people and how the wild birds use them as perches.

Mother duck with duckling

Runner beans, they are so funny and whimsical

Sculptures about to go to their new home, the hare and owl are amazing and the guineas look just like the real thing lol

A beautiful barn owl

A cute little wren

The wire women. I love how soft their curves are

Im so thankful that i got to see this artists work its so sweet.

Here is her store page but i dont think she has any new sculptures up yet.

attention all cosplayers!!!! humble bundle is currently selling a collection of over 40 cosplay resource books, guides, patterns etc for under $20!!!!

it's so extensive that i literally can't even begin to list everything it covers, but there's resources for making armour, horns, weapons, tails(!!!), guides for wigstyling, makeup, LED lights, hotglue, and so much more

like seriously just click through it's honestly gobsmacking how much stuff there is for under $20 (plus there's a scaling pay-what-you-want rate too if you want to pay less!)

plus the proceeds will partially go to a charity of your choice & support independent queer creators (in this case me 😇)

this is seriously a good deal, so don't miss it while it's here! it's only available until May 9th!!! signal boost to your cosplayer followers so they don't miss it

the thing about gay bdsm dynamics is they will make explicit what is implicit in normative cisheterosexual dynamics and then those complicit in cisheterosexuality will act all scandalized about seeing themselves in the funhouse mirror

in kink as in gender, a choice instead of an invisible pressure is reprehensible. If you put on the big clanky chain, you necessarily have the big shiny key to it, and you show it to be merely a thing, not a natural force.

I think the thing that's even scarier about kink, to the wrong sort of person, is that... it's a game. It's meant to be fun. You are not meant to take it too seriously, and if you start taking it too seriously, you will have to stop.

The kind of person who thinks that the big clanky chain is a natural force is also the kind of person who thinks that you should take that force SERIOUSLY AS DEATH. you shouldn't treat it like, say, the weather, like a nuisance to be planned around- no, you should let it rule everything that goes into and out of you. (Pun fully intended.) Every thought, every word, every relationship dynamic, even the food you eat is supposed to be constrained by Your Social Role As An Hetero Man/Woman. You're supposed to CONSTANTLY project dominance or submission with everything you do.

....And then kinksters, gay OR straight, come in with the big clanky chain and big shiny key and fluffy pink handcuffs and goofy-ass Saturday Morning Cartoon Villain outfits and say, "actually, social roles are a costume you can put on or take off, and we're having a costume party." It's not just that they're showing the natural force isn't all that natural- it's that they're making it into a big, campy joke.

And for someone who's spent their entire life abusing themself in the name of patriarchy? Turning that constant coercion into a thing you can laugh at and put away when you're done? It's unthinkable.

Finally my crocodile dragon sculpture is finished. This has taken 30-40 hours and its made out of super sculpy. The next step will be to bake and paint.

@sadmagecentral​

Hey, you are not an embarrassment for not knowing how to do certain household chores/basic self-care. They do not come naturally to us. A lot of it takes practice! Maybe you had a neglectful guardian. Maybe you had one that was very coddling and never thought to teach you. Maybe you haven't lived in a place where these things were available to you or needed. Doesn't matter. It's okay to not know and far more common than you might realise.

That said, this website provides very simple instructions on how to do everyday tasks such as making your bed, using a washing machine, cooking different foods, washing dishes, taking a shower, etc. All you have to do is use the search bar to find the task you're struggling with, and it'll come up with what you need + other related how-to's:)

If you're having trouble navigating it, let me provide you with some examples:

It's also perfectly okay if these don't help or aren't appealing to you. Unfortunately, nothing helps everyone.

Also if the reason you don't know is developmental , intelectual or learning disabilities making you struggle even if you've been taught a bunch of times , you are so cool and awesome too :^) [smiley face ]

PSA: the guardian is not working on a hit piece on diy hrt, and claims they are are misinformation

on the 18th, this post appeared on 4chan's /lgbt/ (slurs in thread: link). a screenshot was posted to reddit, then to tumblr. you've probably seen it:

today, the 23rd, another screenshot popped up on various discord servers, then was reposted variously to twitter. it shows a supposed email from guardian journalist and notorious TERF Susanna Rustin, claiming as the original 4chan post does.

it's now been shared around, and it's with good intentions. the message is useful: don't share your personal information or medical data with journalists, especially ones that happen to be TERFs.

but the post does this through misinformation and fearmongering. i'm still waiting on my response by email from Rustin, but she's reiterated twice (once, twice) that she did not write the email and is not working on such a story. on the 19th, i talked to other guardian newsroom journalists, who said they also did not know of a story's existence.

the moral of the story: this is misinformation, and it's dangerous. it spreads a fine message here, but it does it through spreading anxiety and terror.

you can follow along with this post on my parallel thread on twitter. also calling on @wakewithgiggli to delete their original post!

this is a weird one, it seems like someone did a good job of faking credentials somewhere along the line but nobody yet seems to have figured out where that happened. it's an odd rumour to spread, because as the post above notes, the only CTA is very standard intracommunity advice (don't share medical info with journalists, especially not the guardian). Looking at the original discord message, it's possible this was a case of crossed wires (i.e. someone with a connection to the guardian asked someone else what the deal is with DIY, they mentioned this to a trans friend, the friend got nervous and warned their community) - but at some point somebody still knowingly fabricated the details. I wonder what happened here.

a lot of it just boils down to "as you move through the world sometimes you will see ugly people, and that's not a problem that needs solving"

you will see people who are old. you will see people who are fat. you will see people who are disabled. you will see people who are not making an effort to keep up with their hygiene or their hair or their clothes. you will see people wearing clothes and makeup and jewelry of a subculture you find disturbing and offputting. this is all fine. this does not need to be solved.

the offered solution has often been to say "oh no, don't say ugly, they're all beautiful in their way!" but that's not the point. nobody has to be beautiful just to exist, to be in public, to be in your view. that road leads to dudebros saying that women they don't consider sufficiently fuckable should wear bags over their heads. to HOAs urging residents to call the cops on homeless encampments being an 'eyesore' on their beautiful streets. to people pushing for institutionalization so that they don't have to share a public with neurodivergent people. to people demanding that physically divergent people trigger tag photos of themselves.

"everyone is beautiful" works up until you find someone you can't see the beauty in. but it doesn't matter. nobody is entitled to a world populated exclusively by beautiful people. no matter what tv and the internet may have led you to believe.

kitten keeps walking across the keyboard i think it’s time to let her speak her truth

6 [editor’s note: she manages to unpause and then repause spotify at this point before sitting down completely still for a stretch of several seconds] m;gl,,n

[ed note: she leaves to chew on my mouse before returning midway through my typing the previous note] [[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[4rfiu d

-midna the kitten

^the little beast in question

this post just suddenly got a surge of notes for reasons I cannot discern so here is a compilation of midna being an absolute cartoon Creature for your enjoyment

this image spoke to me

newbie fic authors, shooting themselves in the foot: This fic is bad haha I suck at writing lol I am being mean to myself in the hopes that you will be nice to me but actually am dissuading anyone from even clicking on my fic because all I have done to advertise it is tell you why you shouldn't read it

me: I am King Big Dick of Fanfic Mountain and I have arrived in your fandom with the Express Intention of writing my Very Favorite Fics, which I will generously allow you to read. You're welcome.

Em Hoover in our WORK issue.

The Nib is shutting down after 10 years of publishing. I’m forever thankful I got to publish this piece with them. 💖 You can still get physical copies of the magazine it was in online and enjoy their whole backlog.

Antoine Kareh

Hey you know what's super funny about the idea of "good bi rep"?

For a character to be canonically bi you have to make sure and establish that they're attracted to multiple genders. Not all mediums allow you to get inside every character's head or show what they're thinking. Flirting can be read ambiguously, and god forbid they flirt with a character who's not into them and be read as pushy or predatory. So it can be super handy to just mention an ex or two! But you better not mention too many exes because that would make them a slutty bisexual which is (checks notes) bad, and you definitely better be careful about making them poly, because that might make them, uh... greedy. Oh, and those exes? They better be perfectly amiable breakups with no conflict or drama, because it's bad to represent queer people in toxic or abusive relationships (especially queer women! very bad), and you definitely can't have them have lost a partner if the partner was queer because that's "bury your gays..." You should probably also eliminate all trauma from their backstory, just to be safe. You should probably also make sure they're not involved in crime, deception, or anything of the sort, because that would make them "deviant" and a stereotype.

But don't worry! Once you've carefully crafted your nice, monogamous, experienced-but-not-too-experienced Lawful Good bi character, you will be rewarded with your audience deeming them "boring" and quickly passing them over for other characters. :)

#"establish bisexuality in 1 sentance by having the character say they banged your mom and dad

bisexual representation solved by @go4ino everyone go home.

have them say they're bi

Setting aside that this post is about the stifling effects a narrow concept of Good Representation has on the creation of interesting and compelling characters--yes. That's sometimes a good option. Having a character say "I'm bi!" can be great. As a bisexual myself (if it wasn't obvious from my passionate investment in this topic, lmao) it is nice to see writers embrace the word and not shy away from using it where appropriate.

Can we also acknowledge, though, that sometimes there's no good place in a story to have the character just outright state their sexuality without it seeming awkward? Or that the word "bisexual" fits just fine into contemporary stories but can feel out of place or anachronistic in fantasy or historical fiction, given that the term didn't come into common usage as it's currently used until the 1970s, that prior to the 20th century it had a different meaning altogether?

As an audience member I absolutely understand why people say, "Just say bi!" but as a writer I also feel like sometimes that's oversimplifying the question. Sometimes it does in fact work better to show and not tell. Sometimes just telling feels out of character or awkward. How to effectively establish a queer character's queer identity beyond doubt for the audience in a way that feels true to the character and the setting is not, in fact, always as simple as "Just say it," and I think sometimes that minimizes the genuine challenges we face as queer creators, some of which I tried to express humorously in the original post.

Two things came to my mind: first is a YouTube video I found that talks about Schrodinger's Sexuality, or basically player-centric sexuality, specifically using Stardew Valley as an example. The most you get from the romanceable characters is a line like "I didn't know I could feel this way about another [gender of speaker]." Leah, however, is an exaggerated case of this in that she has an ex-partner whose gender always matches the player's.

The other is a manga I had recommended to me, Sex Ed 120% (which is an inreresting manga, not sexy but about sex education and how it could be so much better), where, near the end, the main teacher character says, "yeah, I'm bi, but I've only ever dated women." She outright says she's still attracted to men, she just never actually dated any for various reasons.

people will try sooooo hard to apply their own personal tastes to who you, personally, find attractive and it’s so bizarre. “i can’t believe you’d fuck him” Well Elizabeth someone has to. and for me it’s a privilege and an honor

“he’s not hot to me” damn that’s so crazy. Who asked

the circus was in town that day 🤡

happy lesbian visibility week to them

Made the worst brownies ever created just now

Chat where did I go wrong

the reviews are in

Shrinkflation

So, I found out a fun fact this last weekend!

Every state has a Department of Weights and Measures. One of their jobs is to make sure that companies are actually selling you the quantities they claim they're selling. For example, this is the department which tests gas pumps and makes sure they're really pumping out a gallon of gas when they charge you for a gallon of gas.

So....

If you happen to, just as an example, notice that your 1lb (16 ounce) box of San Giorgio spaghetti actually only has 10oz of noodles, and you weigh your other boxes of spaghetti to discover they run from 10 to 14 ounces but never the full pound they're supposed to have, and that's why you never seem to have enough pasta for leftovers the next day, then you can report that to the Department of Weights and Measures.

They will want to know where you bought the item, and then will investigate whether the store or the manufacturer is routinely shorting customers. If they do, they will issue a fine to the offending party, you will be eligible for a refund, and under some circumstances lawsuits may follow.

Now, I don't know the outcome of the complaint I just initiated, but they did not want to know specific receipts or times of purchase. Which is good for me as I didn't keep any of those things, at the time I just said "Wow, fuck San Giorgio" and switched brands. But this is still enough to get an inspector out.