#: there is no way a bee

[le-gay-potato]

ive bern up for 40 hours more or less where the fu l am i

[maramarabum]

I really want to post for the mitsukou week but I'm in a hot car being squeezed and I'm gonna be for like 3 more hours. Also it just came to me how all the art that came out for it today is so pretty and I can't draw digitally and I'm weeping. So yeah I was waiting for this for a long time but maybe I'll join tomorrow idk.

[trammellesstangent]

There’s something that’s just a bit funny about freight trains. They’ll be a kilometre long hauling eight and a half kilotonnes of metal and wheat and rock and whatever else, but it’s all being towed by one or two locomotives with electric motors. It’s the engineering equivalent of “According to all known laws of aviation, there is no way that a bee should be able to fly.”

[ohposhers]

i think as a society we do not appreciate how epic vector is enough

[maybeitsasine]

[yujateaandpi]

Thought Fiddlestan was a purely comedic ship for a while but now I get it, I see the light. It’s about a man who nurtures and cares for others to the point of heartbreak meeting a man who doesn’t remember what it’s like for anyone to care about him. It’s about them being warm together around the absence of someone they both love. It’s about Fiddleford’s innate domesticity comforting a man whose deepest desire was to come home. It’s about falling in love with the same face again but in a new context that heals your past trauma. It’s about Stan’s unbridled affection finally validating someone who desperately needed the recognition. It’s also about very funny old man yaoi.

[sunclown]

“If you want to be saved, a strong but gentle lady sailor is best!” 🍊🌸

[floccinaucinihilipilificationa]

[headspace-hotel]

How people in the USA loved nature and knew the ways of the plants in the past vs. nowadays

I have been in the stacks at the library, reading a lot of magazine and journal articles, selecting those that are from over fifty years ago.

I do this because I want to see how people thought and the tools they had to come up with their ideas, and see if I can get perspective on the thoughts and ideas of nowadays

I've been looking at the journals and magazines about nature, gardening, plants, and wildlife, focusing on those from 1950-1970 or thereabouts. These are some unstructured observations.

The discourse about spraying poisons on everything in your garden/lawn has been virtually unchanged for the past 70 years; the main thing that's changed is the specific chemicals used, which in the past were chemicals now known to be horribly dangerous and toxic. In many cases, just as today, the people who opposed the poisons were considered as whackos overreacting to something mostly safe with a few risks that could be easily minimized. In short, history is not on the pesticides' side.

Compared with 50-70 years ago, today the "wilderness" areas of the USA are doing much better nowadays, but it actually appears that the areas with lots of human habitation are doing much worse nowadays.

I am especially stricken by references to wildflowers. There has definitely been a MASSIVE disappearance of flowers in the Eastern United States. I can tell this because of what flowers the old magazines reference as common or familiar wildflowers. Many of them are flowers that seem rare to me, which I have only seen in designated preserves.

There are a lot more lepidopterans (butterflies and moths) presumed to be familiar to the reader. And birds.

Yes, land ownership in the USA originated with colonization, but it appears that the preoccupation with who owns every little piece of land on a very nitpicking level has emerged more recently? In the magazines there is a sense of natural places as an unacknowledged commons. It is assumed that a person has access to "The creek," "The woods," "The field," "The pond" for simple rambling or enjoyment without personally owning property or directly asking permission to go onto another person's property.

There is very little talk of hiking and backpacking. I don't think I saw anything in the magazines about hiking or going on hikes, which is strange because nowadays hiking is the main outdoor activity people think of. Nature lovers 50-70 years ago described many more activities that were not very physically active, simply watching the birds or tending to one's garden or going on a nice walk. I feel this HAS to do with the immediately above point.

Gardening seems like it was more common, like in general. The discussion is about gardening without poisons or unsustainable practices, instead of trying to convince people to garden at all.

Overall, the range of animals and plants culturally considered to be common or familiar "backyard" creatures has narrowed significantly, even as the overall conservation status of animals and plants has improved.

This, to me, suggests two things that each may be possible: first, that the soils and environments of our suburbs and houses have sustained such a high level of cumulative damage that the life forms they once supported are no longer able to live, or second, that our way of managing our yards and inhabited areas has become steadily more destructive. Perhaps it may be the case that the minimum "acceptable" standard of lawn management has become more fastidious.

In conclusion, I feel that our relationship with nature has become more distant, even as the number of people who abstractly support the preservation of "wilderness" has increased. In the past, these wilderness preservation initiatives were a harder sell, but somehow, more people were in more direct contact with the more mundane parts of nature like flowers and birds, and had a personal relationship with those things.

And somehow, even with all the DDT and arsenic, the everyday outdoor spaces surrounding people's homes were not as broadly hostile to life even though the people might have FELT more hostile towards life. In 1960, a person hates woodpeckers, snakes and moths and his yard is constantly plagued by them: in 2024, a person enjoys the concept of woodpeckers, snakes and moths but rarely sees them, and is more likely to think of parks and preserves as the place they live and need to be protected. Large animals are mostly doing better in 2024, but the littlest ones, the wildflowers and bugs and birds, have declined steeply. It's not because "wilderness" is less; it seems more because non-wilderness has declined in quality.

[puppyeared]

horrible truth bomb dropped on my head 20 min ago

[mawklee]

incredible

[ricky-mortis]

Ted’s TED talk

[strayconstellation]

"i need someone who can match my freak"

my freak:

[theminecraftbee]

Scar does Grian the favor of waiting until he's alone. They aren't teamed this season, after all, and it sounds like Grian's been in and out of hot water with Mumbo already. Really, just really typical of Grian, Scar has to say. The general apparent disregard for his teammates--

--The fact that the session ended just before Scar could die again. The fact Scar's heard through the grapevine that Grian bent the rules of being unable to tell anyone the wild card because Mumbo had been about to die. Annoyingly, frustratingly typical. Honestly, Scar can't say he's sorry they aren't teamed, but when he'd seen Grian at the end of the session, something almost shell-shocked beneath the glee at the chaos the snails had caused, well.

Scar waits until they're alone, Grian with his knees against his chest, staring at the sky, and says: "I know what you're doing, Grian."

"Huh? Oh, hey Scar. Doing? Me? I mean, sure, I thought the evil snails were funny, but I'm hardly doing anything once I make a twist, right?"

Scar gives Grian a look.

Grian sighs. "I mean, it solves the problem Secret Life had. The twists are really impactful now. They're the main thing this whole game is about."

"Yeah, they are! We basically haven't had to kill each other at all, have we?" Scar says. "I mean, we've barely had any time to get paranoid, to start to mistrust each other, to decide there's nothing else to be done... In fact, there's really only one person anyone would mistrust for this one."

Grian falls silent.

"I'm just saying, I know what you're doing. It's a good try," Scar says.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Grian says. "I just think snails that kill people are funny. So funny I'm willing to kill my friends about it. Everyone knows, right? That's just the kind of guy I am."

"You weren't willing to kill--"

"It was time," Grian says, and before Scar can try to point out the ways that making the world want to kill them is so, so much kinder than waiting for them to kill each other, Grian leaves.

Typical.

What an infuriating man.

Scar shakes his head and starts the walk back to his base. He feels for Mumbo and Skizz, he really does.

[homoquartz]

when everything is at its worst, they light the way for each other ✨

couldn't decide between heart or no heart so here's both

(ko-fi)

[hello-sweetheart]

You know that trope where Person A thinks Person B is just being nice but they’re actually flirting. What about the opposite? Person A misreading their behavior and being the only one falling impossibly in love.

Clumsy in Love part 1

Eddie really is just that nice and friendly, but Steve is convinced that Eddie is flirting with him. He’s flirting back, less confident and more subtle than he usually would, but he’s never liked a guy that way.

Not in a way that made him really want to spend every waking moment just hearing them ramble. Not in way that made Steve want to keep him the way he wants to keep Eddie. Everything is so new. It feels, delicate. Precious.

His heartbeat quickens each time Eddie leans into his space and it’s been happening all the time now that Steve worries he’ll develop a heart condition if he doesn’t deal with it soon. When Eddie laughs and leans his face closer to his own, looks into Steve’s eyes through those lashes in a way that Steve can’t help but take a quick glance at those lips curled is mischief.

He’s always so happy to see Steve, wasting no time in bouncing his way to greet him and pull him into the conversation with an arm slung around his shoulder. Then there’s the moments of shared glances when someone says something particularly astounding. And how Eddie will make his way into Steve’s space when they sit together, throwing his feet in his lap or leaning into his side.

Sure, Eddie is friendly but not to this extent. Not with everyone else. Steve feels it. Knows it. That electricity between them that makes this thing between them different. Special.

But one day (another that Steve spends trying to work up the courage to do something), they’re in the city shopping for music in an alternative store that’s tucked away. Steve is talking to Eddie, giddy and happy because it just them today, and Eddie is nodding along while he browses through the tapes and then,

Eddie looks up and stills, eyes widening just a bit. And Steve is still rambling along, but he can tell his words are just going through one ear and out the other. He trails of caught in the middle of his story because he’s never seen this look on Eddie face.

Eddie’s mouth is slightly agape, eyes alight caught in wonder and soft as he looks at something across the room and when Steve turns to see what caught his eye—

A guy stands a couple tables away looking at some vinyl and shyly smiling at Eddie in small glances. He’s a bit taller than them, dressed in black with a couple of piercings decorating his face, the sides of his head shaved short. Attractive, dementor coy and kind.

His heart skips a beat again, but it feels different this time.

Steve looks back at Eddie whose cheeks are slightly dusted in pink.

“Eddie-“

Eddie takes his lower lip between his teeth before smiling back at the guy and continuing without casting a second glance at Steve, “yeah, uh, give me a second, okay?” And he’s crossing the room without waiting for a response.

His chest. It feels…

Like those few seconds before plummeting down a rollercoaster… when your way up high, at the very top, the moment still with the anticipation of the fall, and there’s nowhere else to look but down.

You finally plummet and caught in the whiplash thinking you must have left your heart back at the top.

There’s static there on the bottoms of his feet and at the palm of his hands. The world goes a bit distant as he watches them.

Eddie’s leaning against the wall with a sultry smile adorning whatever sweet words he’s speaking.

Steve’s drowning in the honey, it’s palpable. doesn’t know if it’s better or worse that he can’t hear the words.

Eddie’s fiddling with a curl that’s draped over his shoulder, pulling it slightly over his face like a young school girl.

Steve doesn’t think he’s ever seen Eddie appear anything but confident and loud; the image of the person in front of him is foreign, strange.

Eddie’s speaking to him but his eyes are locked on the guy’s lips that are wet from the tongue that peaks to briefly lick them as he listens.

Eddie’s shoe is nudging the guys own, as he talks, playful.

Oh.

Oh.

Mouth dry, Steve’s throat clicks.

It’s hard to swallow.

Part 2