always

i could give you my rant on how being raised in a world dominated by orthodox (i.e. morality is based on thinking the right things rather than doing the right things) religions fucks with your head, but i’ll keep it short

- if you have a dark thought that you find actively distressing, how can that thought be reflective of your basic morality? intrusive thoughts are distressing precicely because they go against your moral core. everyone has them sometimes and some mental illnesses come with a lot more of them, and they suck but they don’t make you a bad person

- if you have a dark thought that you don’t find distressing, but you choose not to act on it because you know it would hurt yourself or others, how can that thought be reflective of your basic morality when you’re making the moral choice not to act on it? that choice is what defines you, not the thought

- if you have a dark thought that you choose to act on, but realise later that it hurt someone and you don’t want to be someone who hurts people, how can that thought be reflective of your basic morality? you know you fucked up and you’re trying to do better, and that’s what defines you; not the thought, and not your past

everyone has dark impulses sometimes, both concious and unconcious, if that’s our rubrick for what makes a good person we might as well throw out the entire human race. what defines a person is what they choose to do with those impulses, and, and this is the big one, whether they’re trying to be better today than they were yesterday.

Remember, NSFW is not an abbreviation for nude that somehow has more syllables. It's shorthand for "If my boss happened to look over my shoulder when this was on my screen, would there be consequences?"

This is subjective, and depends on the boss and the job, of course. But many, many images that contain zero nudity are still very much NSFW (and sometimes, images with nudity aren't!) Consider this.

It’s Calvinism.

I keep telling people this, but SO much of American culture and particularly the ‘Protestant work ethic’ is derived from Calvin’s view that everything in life is predestined by God - that winners and losers are already chosen.

Those Puritan pilgrims who came here seeking ‘religious liberty?’ Hardcore Calvinists who were so obnoxious they were kicked out of their home countries.

And they use this belief to excuse the worst behaviors in American history: Racism, colonialism, genocide, segregation, patriarchy, prejudice against minorities, slavery, economic disparity, low wages, no public healthcare, systems that punish the poor and disabled while rewarding the already wealthy; attempts to impose theocracy and infiltrate democratic institutions to wreck them from within; the constant stream of made-up moral panics; the parochialism and fear of outsiders.

The belief, common among many conservatives, that humans are inherently evil, is why they distrust anything from government that advances the common good and instead praise church-based charity.

I could go on, but just read this.

i was literally about to say this. this shit isn’t new by any means

G: Like a Gameboy?

J: Like a Gameboy!

G: But Jerry, Gameboys are plastic! Waffle irons, they-they heat! They’ve gotta be made of metal. The plastic would melt!

J: I don’t know, George. Technology these days! They got them space-age polymers. They could make a waffle iron outta polymers-

G: Polymers, polymers! What do you know about polymers?

J: I know things!

G: You wouldn’t know a polymer from an amorphous metal!

J: What are you talking about?

G: I don’t know, I read an article.

J: Of course. An article.

(KRAMER enters. Audience cheers.)

K: You talking ‘bout that new NASA article? It’s disgraceful the things they’ve been doing with carbon these days. Disgraceful!

G: Jerry thinks waffle irons should be see-through.

K: Why?

J: They seem unsupervised! I wanna know what’s going on in there!

K: Well why should you get to know? See I think they deserve some privacy. We live in a police state, Jerry! Constant surveillance! The government, first they’ll be wanting to see the waffles cook, next they’re trying to find out how the air fryer fries! Before you know it you’ve got the CIA barging in on your slow-cooker without a warrant! A watched pot never boils, Jerry!

🐭⚗️🧫🧪🐁🐀

Did someone say mousegirl in a lab coat!?

so far we’ve got

• senshi stock
  
• croquis cafe
• line-of-action.com
• quickposes.com
• posemaniacs
• clip studio paint models
• pexels.com
• sketchdaily
• eggazyoutatsu atarichan drawer
• designdoll

if you have any more please reply!

• Unsplash: All photos published on Unsplash can be used for free. You can use them for commercial and noncommercial purposes. You do not need to ask permission from or provide credit to the photographer or Unsplash, although it is appreciated when possible. More precisely, Unsplash grants you an irrevocable, nonexclusive copyright license to download, copy, modify, distribute, perform, and use photos from Unsplash for free, including for commercial purposes, without permission from or attributing the photographer or Unsplash. This license does not include the right to compile photos from Unsplash to replicate a similar or competing service.

• Freeimages: You can use the images in digital format on websites, blog posts, social media, advertisements, film and television productions, web and mobile applications. In printed materials such as magazines, newspapers, books, brochures, flyers, product packaging for decorative use in your home, office or any public place or personal use. The rights granted to you by FreeImages.com are: Perpetual, meaning there is no expiration or end date on your rights to use the content. Non-exclusive, meaning that you do not have exclusive rights to use the content. FreeImages.com can license the same content to other customers. Unlimited, meaning you can use the content in an unlimited number of projects and in any media. For purposes of this agreement, “use” means to copy, reproduce, modify, edit, synchronize, perform, display, broadcast, publish, or otherwise make use of.

• Stocksnap: Every single image on StockSnap are governed exclusively by the generous terms of the Creative Commons CC0 license. Specifically, that license means you can do any and all of the following: Download the image file.Publish, revise, copy, alter, and share that image. Use the image (as-is or as you’ve altered it), in both personal and commercial contexts. Moreover, you can put StockSnap CC0 images to any of these usages without buying the right to do it, acquiring written permission from the image’s creator, or attributing the work to the image creator. In other words, there’s no fee to download or use these StockSnap images in accordance with the CC0 license. They’re free to download, free to edit, and free to use - even in a commercial project! You don’t even need to attribute the image to the creator, the way you do with other CC or traditional copyright licensing schemes. (However, even though it’s not required, we here at StockSnap do encourage you to include an appropriate attribution. It’s a nice thing to do.)

• Burst.Shopify: Burst is a free stock photo platform that is powered by Shopify. Their image library includes thousands of high-resolution, royalty-free images that were shot by their global community of photographers. You can use their pictures for just about anything — your website, blog or online store, school projects, Instagram ads, facebook posts, desktop backgrounds, client work and more. All of their photos are free for commercial use with no attribution required.

• Pixabay: Images and Videos on Pixabay are released under Creative Commons CC0. To the extent possible under law, uploaders of Pixabay have waived their copyright and related or neighboring rights to these Images and Videos. You are free to adapt and use them for commercial purposes without attributing the original author or source. Although not required, a link back to Pixabay is appreciated.

• Viintage: All images hosted by Viintage.com are considered to be public domain images, each image is presumed to be in the public domain. It may be distributed or copied as permitted by applicable law. Viintage.com assumes no ownership of the images and they may be downloaded and can be used free of charge for any purpose. They may be downloaded and used for commercial and personal use. Understand “public domain” as the permission to freely use an image without asking permission from the photographer or the illustrator. Thus, the creator of the work will not sue you for violating his/her copyrights. It is your responsibility to make sure, displaying the image does not violate any other law. Viintage.com assumes no responsibility for how or where you use the images found on the site.

• Gratisography: You may use Gratisography pictures as you please for both personal and commercial projects. You can adapt and modify the images and get paid for work that incorporates the pictures. This includes advertising campaigns, adding your logo or text to an image, printed in any size print runs (e.g., book covers, magazines, posters, etc.), on your website, blog, or other digital mediums, and on merchandise as long as the picture itself is not the merchandise.

As someone who draws a lot of faeries, Faestock is godlike.

A wonderful addition to the list!

• Unsplash. Another whopping huge free images site like pixabay: free for commercial and noncommercial use and remixing; just don’t sell the photos unmodified or add them to other photo-sharing sites.
• Morguefile. Big old free photo archive from the dawn of the web. “We are a community-based free photo site, and all photos found in the Morguefile archive are free for you to download and re-use in your work, be it commercial or not. The photos have been contributed by a wide range of creatives from around the world, ranging from amateur photo hobbyists to professionals.”
• Open Access at the Met. The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York: “Whether you’re an artist or a designer, an educator or a student, a professional or a hobbyist, you now have more than 406,000 images of artworks from The Met collection to use, share, and remix—without restriction.”
• Smithsonian Open Access. Download, share, and reuse millions of the Smithsonian’s images […] from across the Smithsonian’s 19 museums, nine research centers, libraries, archives, and the National Zoo.
• Limited use, if you’re doing a Science and need control panels/rockets/futuristic an image search with qualifier site: nasa.gov You have to double-check a photo’s caption it’s really a NASA photo, but photos which were taken by NASA spacecraft and astronauts are public domain, since they’re funded by taxpayer dollars. (This also goes for images of animals archived at the USFWS Digital Library, i.e the US Fish and Wildlife Service, or rocks and landscapes on USGS websites.

Okay updating and consolidating lots of info here; as well as adding links for ease of access. Adding a brief description for some too; as is the case that not all of them have descriptions above.
(Warning that some of these links contain nude refs, I will try to mark where possible which ones have more prominent ones.)

Posing Sites and Apps:

• Adorkastock. Stock photos for pose refs. DeviantArt gallery started in 2007.
• FreePhotoMuscle.com. (translated page link click here) Japanese stock photo pose site that includes buff people, but in funny poses and costumes.
• CroquoisCafe. (NSFW, nude model poses warning) A stock photo pose site. You should be aware this org has been linked as pro-Trump. I leave it to y’all to decide if you want to use the resources or not. I highly encourage not financially supporting them and trying to support the individual models if you can.
• Line of Action. Fantastic site that includes posing refs, community discussions from other artists, figure study, anatomy, etc. So much stuff in here.
• PoseSpace. Extensive library of poses. Some free resources others are paid. I’ve not fully evaluated both, but you should be able to use this all mostly free and get great use out of it.
• SketchDaily. This one is one of the better ones out there. You can time yourself, search by pose, clothing options, body type, perspective, etc. All real models.
• JustSketch.me. A pose app for any device. Has apps for most devices and a webapp. Customize and pose models/props/scenes.
• Quickposes. Pose site that gives you timed challenges to become more proficient at poses.
• POSEMANIACS. Ref site with anatomical poses. All the ref pics are of 3D models with only the bones and muscles. Can be helpful for seeing how muscles behave in certain poses. limited to two body types tho.
• MagicPoser. A wonderful app that’s great on mobile. Lets you choose size of models, number of them, style, etc. Significant features are use of snap point with the physics engine, adjustable lighting, multiple perspective, 360 angle, articulated hand posing.
• Clip Studio Paint Modeler. Free 3d tool that works with Clip Studio Paint. You can import your own data or other models you find online. Not quite an alternative to Blender, but the integration with CSP is very nice.
• Egg a Zyoutatsu Atarichan Drawer. (requires enabling flash player or downloading and using standalone flashplayer) Drawing tool for pose practice. The developer is working on an html5 version.
• DesignDoll. One of the best pose tool apps out there. You can customize so many things. They also have an extensive collection of ready made poses here. You can use the free or pay once for life and have the poses integrated into the client as well as the ability to export your obj to other programs like blender or smt.

Stock Photo Sites:

• Unsplash. Giant free stock image site.
  

• freeimages.com. Another stock photo site, less features than some others.

• StockSnap.io. Stock photos with a creative commons CC0 license, which essentially means you can use the photos however you want and don’t have to attribute to them. (though its nice if you do attribute)

• Burst.Shopify. Tons of royalty free high quality images. Similar licensing to StockSnap.

• pixabay. I feel like most people know about this one, but it features entirely free CC0 licensed Photos, Videos, and Music. No attribution required, but still nice to support a giant site with all this content.

• Viintage. Big collection of public domain vintage photos.

• Gratisography. For commercial or personal use. They specialize in odd, quirky, wild stock photos.

• pexels. Great free stock photos and videos. Only a few stipulations of what they don’t allow, but their license info can be found here.

• Faestock. An artist and model with a huge amount of fantasy and fae and other types of photos available. Their terms for use are here.

• MorgueFile. Old stock photo archive that’s been around a long time.

Museum and Institution Open Access sites:

• USA National Gallery of Art. Over 50k works available for download.

• New York Metropolitan Museum open access. 490k works to browse. Even codes for Animal Crossing New Horizons patterns.

• The Smithsonian Institution open access. Probably one of the largest open access collections available online. Around 3.9 million items available to view.

• Many More. This article from Apollo magazine has an extensive list of open access museums and institutions from around the world. A brief list of places includes: Art Institute of Chicago,  Belvedere, Vienna ,  Birmingham Museums Trust , Cleveland Art Museum , Harvard Art Museums , J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles , Kunstmuseum Basel , Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.,  Los Angeles County Museum of Art , Mauritshuis, The Hague , Minneapolis Institute of Art , Munch Museet, Norway , Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa, Wellington , Národní galerie Praha , Nationalmuseet Danmark , Nationalmuseum, Stockholm  , New York Public Library , Paris Musées ,  Pinakotheken, Munich,  Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam,  Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus, Munich,  Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen ,  Wellcome Collection, London ,  Yale University .
  

wow its been a while since ive seen this post, im so glad more useful info has been added!