Get REAL- Question everything!

The skull of a two-toed sloth.

Sharp fangs are not exclusive to predators. These animals, like their armored relatives (Cingulata), have teeth that grow continuously and lack enamel; by grinding against each other, they become pointed. The tannins in the leaves they feed on make them turn almost black.

Oh, and they also have impressive claws…

three exercises - you put your arm on the edge of a table so your hand is off the edge, holding a light weight

(mine is like 3lbs but i worked up from 1)

(you could probably start with a loose fist or a bunched washcloth or smth if you dont have a weight or theyre all too heavy)

one of them you have your thumb up, one of them you have back of your hand up, and one palm up

you just sort of lift your hand up and towards your arm - do NOT go as far as you can, stop before it feels at all close to that

-in general, avoid 'stretching' all together and focus on small isometric (opposing muscle groups) movements that activate the supporting muscles.

-ALWAYS avoid big loose 'opening' motions, especially in the neck and shoulders. Like big swinging arm circles, but also those 'rotate around your spine' twits.

-keep your motions small and controlled.

𖦹 first half of the fractal done, these coloursssss

Connor Storrie Is An Emmy Nominee 🔥

So this is a good thing to know about for future reference. I don't think that is a good thing to do.

But I am begging y'all to realize I do not know jack shit about the majority of people I reblog from. I do not know these people, I am not picking them on purpose. Most of the posts I reblog come across my dash and that is how I find them. "Uncritically reblogging from" a stranger! You clearly know who this person is in detail but I do not because I have literally never heard of her. I did not find her posts or her blog to post about isff, I barely ever post about isff, I saw the post from someone I follow. I do not keep up with niche tumblr personality drama! I do not know these people!

I had a very prudent TdF plan. Spin through my backlog of fiber and finish preparing the raw fleeces I have. No more buying fleeces until I had done so. Sensible. Responsible.

But then! A package arrived

This is just the top layer.

A while ago I helped a friend with some work things. She offered to pay me, and i said just buy me a little wool. She is not a spinner and didn't know what to get, so she bought 2 oz (~55ish g) of every undied sheep wool they had. 52 bags of 2oz of a wide range of sheep.

Let me explain:

Grotesque fascist grifter, Nigel Farage, is the leader of Reform, the racist far right party he created because UKIP got what it wanted (Brexit) and it sucked.

Having tried and failed to be an MP many times (but somehow getting more screentime than any Liberal Democrat or Green politician), he finally succeeded in the last election because people were so overwhelmingly pissed off with the Conservatives, and many right-wing people saw Reform as the new Conservative Party; partly because it's full of rejects from the Conservative Party.

Speculation: he doesn't really want to be an MP, he wants to be a fascist grifter. He's annoyed by suggestions he do things like Be In His Constituency and Serve His Constituents.

He's recently been caught having accepted a VERY large amount of money from some unsavory people that he insists was a totally legitimate 'donation' and not breaking any rules.

Only it did break the rules and it's very clear that it did and things are in motion to hold him to account.

To avoid this, he has resigned as an MP, saying this is a protest at his treatment by the 'establisment' (he is a rich fascist grifter, but he likes to cosplay as a Man of the People). This has triggered a by-election, in which he is standing, with the hope that the people of his constituency will either elect him in a resounding win, indicating they don't care that he's corrupt (having not heard everything the investigation is uncovering), or someone from Labour or the Conservatives will win and he can swan off to America, free to grift again because of what the 'establishment' did to him.

Only, all the major political parties have agreed not to stand, stating openly that this is an obvious stunt and they won't legitimise it. So if he doesn't win, he can't say it was because he was too much of a rebel and the Establishment went against him, he'll just be a loser, which doesn't play too well with the right-wingers he wants to grift. And if he does get back in the investigation will go forward without any kind of 'mandate' from his constituency buoying him up.

But. There is another option.

COUNT BINFACE IS RUNNING.

Count Binface is part of the grand British tradition of joke candidates who stand as a protest option. They usually don't get enough votes to get their deposit back (which is supposed to deter unserious people) but they don't care, because DEMOCRACY.

Of course, Count Binface has never won, but it is hilarious to see a completely serious pathetic fascist concede defeat while standing next to a man with a bin on his head to whom they are democratically equal.

But if nobody else is standing. And if enough people in Clacton-on-Sea are finally cheesed off enough with Farage not doing anything for them, there is just a chance that one of the funniest things to ever happen in politics will happen.

Imagine. Imagine for just a moment that the Grotesque Fascist not only loses, but loses to Count Binface.

That seems to matter more than my thoughts or actions, so I'm mentioning it. Let's get on with the conversation that shouldn't be controversial but is for some reason.

The oppression of people with uteruses has existed pretty much since the dawn of agriculture, when having a greater population gave you an advantage over the others. Controlling people with uteruses and forcing them to give birth meant you had more people to work the fields and fight wars. This is also when slavery was probably invented. Farming, especially when you don't even have copper tools, is very hard. (I'm not justifying it at all.)

It should also be noted that successful pregnancies and childhoods went down when humans started relying on agriculture. They didn't have the resources we have today, so many had nutritional deficiencies. At risk people- babies, children, pregnant people, disabled people, elderly people- often die from malnutrition. This even more so pressured people with uteruses to have tons of babies.

There's also something to be said for the instinctual belief that children of your blood are better, which led to polygamy and a strict control over how much a person with a uterus was allowed to interact with their fellow humans. People with penises were even subjected to mutilation to prevent them from reproducing. Visibly intersex or disabled babies were often left to die.

We don't know a lot about attitudes towards queer people, (particularly because white people and Christians in specific liked to erase us from society and the historical records), but we know that minorities tend to have a bad time.

And before you say that this is all in the past, I want to remind you that not everyone gets to grow up in an ultra privileged bubble. Not even in the imperial core.

"Oh but TERFs believe in sex based oppression!"

They do. They believe that sex based oppression is the primary and the worst oppression. False. They believe that anyone who has a penis is privileged. False. They believe in harming trans and intersex people. Wrong. They believe that trans women are predatory invaders and trans men are traitors or damaged girls, and their opinions on intersex and nonbinary people fluctuates but usually they treat them like they're evil or damaged. Wrong and false.

Those beliefs are not based on reality. There is no historical or modern evidence of these claims. There's no scientific basis, because a person cannot be born evil.

No trans or intersex person is damaged, or brainwashed, or evil, just for being trans or intersex. As I keep saying, your identity doesn't tell anyone anything about your thoughts or politics. Your actions do.

TERFs also tend to be bigots in other ways, like racism. They are very nasty towards women of color.

"But if TERFs talk about sex based oppression, it must be false!"

The thing you have to realize is, bigotry that is rooted in a little bit of truth is often more effective. For example, you may have seen that study on Fox News's reports. They constantly talk about crimes committed by people of color, particularly immigrants and Black people. They talk less often about crimes committed by white people. The reports are generally factual, but they're not proportionate to reality.

Fox News makes it seem like crime is always committed by people of color. They make it seem like people of color are the enemy. That POC are violent and dangerous. They tend to ignore crimes by white people because it doesn't help their racism. If they do talk about white crime, the white people are usually called mentally ill, liberal, queer, or some other marginalized group.

TERFs do the same thing. They constantly talk about that one evil trans woman they heard about, and how she represents all of us. Any attempt to fight against their transmisogyny is taken as defense of her bad actions. They put bait out, by talking about "males," and pretend they aren't dog whistling. They hijack conversations about misogyny to turn it into a rant about how "men" are all evil, and it's baked into the DNA. [It's impossible for a trans woman to be safe or understanding or compassionate, doncha know. We just think we're the victims when we're really the villains. \sarcasm]

TERFs especially like facts that they can distort. For example, researchers asked trans people if we detransitioned. Some of us did. The TERFs then used this to say, "see? The regret rate is high! Ban transitions!"

What they did not say, is that the researchers asked why people detransitioned. Most people said it was because of how they were treated or that they couldn't afford it and such. Very few people stopped because of their own choice.

And like most bigots, TERFs don't usually help anyone. They are more focused on harming people. Feeling righteous and harming people is easier than helping people. TERFs use sex based oppression as a weapon. A justification to be as abusive as they want. They see it as the primary or only oppression, so they reject intersectionality and oust people who could be allies.

When I talk about sex based oppression, I talk about how we need to push medical research into studying all bodies, and I don't exclude trans and intersex and disabled bodies. I put out the alarm that research is finding that pain medication may not even be effective in non cis perisex men. I talk about how everyone should have bodily autonomy, including reproductive freedom and freedom from forced procedures, like sterilization and mutilation, and the right to raise your children even if you're poor or disabled. (It's seriously messed up that the USA will take children from loving homes, and give money to strangers to raise them.) I'm very insistent on everyone's right to withdraw consent, especially men and children who get excluded from the PSAs. I push for the right for people to present how they want, for the right for people to look obviously queer or disabled or indigenous. For the right to wear what they want, whether that's a burkini or a bikini or a scuba suit or swim briefs. I criticize body shaming, for fat or skinny or disabled or trans people. I could go on.

A few weeks ago I admired tiny spindles and @ofchaosgoddess offered to send me one... but she sneakily sent me TWO and also a gorgeous squishy batt!!!!! The batt is romeldale + rambouillet + silk; unbeknownst to her (I assume), romeldale is possibly my favourite wool and also difficult or impossible to find here in England. The spindles are 8 grams each and I've never used a cross-arm spindle before so I really need to look up how to wind the cop. They are gorgeous and perfect and fun to use and I feel they will fly away if I breathe on them.

How tiny are they? THIS TINY:

I was also wondering if you have ever done an online tutorial. I find myself puzzling at how you could achieve such texture in your paintings and what tools you use. I often wonder if I, a hobby artist who only makes paintings for myself/my loved ones, could ever achieve something like that. Any time I see a painting that I think could be another one similar to your techniques, it always turns out to be yours because it's such a unique and interesting style!

Even if you never post a tutorial, your art is incredible to me. If I had more at my disposal, I'd buy your originals instead of just the occasional print. Thank you for painting the world with such beauty!

Thank you so much for this message. I honestly had to read it twice because it touched me so deeply ❤️ Knowing that someone looks at my paintings this closely , zooming in and out, noticing the tiny textures, color relationships and little contrasts , means more to me than I can really express. Thank you for seeing my work with such attention.

And yes, I do share my process! I have a YouTube channel where you can find slower, longer videos and really watch how I work. On Instagram everything is usually much faster, but I often share slower fragments in my Stories, close-ups, textures, tools, layers, mistakes, experiments… honestly, pretty much everything . I also have a book where I explain and show much more about my process and techniques. The only thing is that I’m currently away with my children for the whole of July, so the next shipping date for physical orders will be in August.

And please don’t think that being a hobby artist means you can’t achieve this kind of texture. You absolutely can. Experiment, use too much paint, scrape it off, layer again, try strange tools, ruin parts and rebuild them , that’s often where the most interesting things begin

this is a huge disability rights injustice, and it's not just about disability rights and they're counting on people not caring