#i have learned so much!!!!

[balkanradfem]

Since I've been gone and computer-free for a while, it's only right that I make a life and plant update! I've been having the worst start with this year's plants, and I've been neglecting them for a while because it was making me a bit sour to see them all doing so bad; let's get into what happened.

So, since it's my fourth year of gardening, I felt super confident that I have leveled up so much that my plants will now grow however I please and that there will be no troubles whatsoever, which is just, a great mindset to start making mistakes in. So, I figured I'd wait until it's not freezing outside, and then, I would put all of the plants on my balcony, and they would have a lot of sun there, and that would make it easier for me to care for them. Before that, I've been keeping them in the kitchen during the night and morning, balcony in the afternoon. It's less work for me if they're on the balcony.

Well, it turns out, tiny baby plants do not do well on the balcony, even if it's not freezing outside! The temperatures were from 2-5 celsius during the night (that's 36 fahrenheit), and even if my plants didn't die, they started shriveling up, the backs of their leaves turning purple and dark. Seeing them turn dark and purple made me feel they were nitrogen deficient, because that has happened before, so I fertilized them all, thinking it would fix the issue - only it made the issue worse. Tiny plants cannot handle a lot of fertilization, they need to grow a bit before they're ready to be properly fed. So the result of this was that my most tiny and vulnerable plants burned out and died, most of just-transplanted tomatoes wilted, and basil died almost completely.

So, I finally realized that they actually disliked the cold of being outside, and brought them back in, and left them in the kitchen, where they had less light, but very warm, stable temperature. And, they all got better. It was almost like a weird mocking game from nature - if I had left them all in the kitchen, without ever taking them outside, they would have been growing consistently, and gotten twice the size already. I have been fooled by my arrogance. So why did all of the plants got sick and purple on my balcony?

Because the temperature of the soil affects what nutrients they're able to draw out. If it's too hot, or too cold, they won't be able to pull nitrogen out of the soil, even if there is plenty of nitrogen in! Same works with calcium, they need proper temperature and moisture in order to feed on it. Tiny plants do not take well to quick changes in temperature, they need to be bigger, and introduced gradually to colder nights. A month old plant can easily survive what a week old plant cannot. Only plants that are twice as big as their pot can easily bear thru cold nights outside without getting sick.

So, after this happened, I had a few happy accidents that I didn't count on, that cheered me up. There are 2 balcony windows that don't get a lot of light, but they're very warm (radiator underneath). I have left a few houseplants there, few lemons, and one cabbage, and forgot them completely. I didn't water them except maybe once every week. And somehow, without me noticing, tomatoes have started growing out of the pots with lemons, because apparently there were some seeds left in the soil there, and they quickly out-grew all of my carefully cared for tomato plants. Also that cabbage I forgot? It was the biggest most successful plant I had. I was in disbelief when I saw that, because, excuse me, I thought, you guys needed light to grow. Apparently, they cared more for the heat, and were happy to just get 2 hours of direct sunlight to grow. This went against everything I knew, but maybe I just needed to learn a new thing: sometimes warmth matters more. Next time I can just neglect bunch of plants on those windows and get successful plants with zero effort.

Encouraged by this, I was very careful this time to introduce my now bigger plants to the cold and bright balcony light, and this time I was listening to the rules carefully: First day only 1 hour in the direct sun, next day 3 hours, third day 5. Then they can stay overnight, and I only do it with plants that are big enough to survive minor damage. And it worked out perfectly. All plants held up well, and the last week of April, I've already started transplanting my tomatoes in the garden.

Another fun bit about me not being able to access laptop or my data, was that I could not check my own garden plan, that I made for this year. Planting the garden, I just had to figure out a whole new garden plan on the fly, which was absolutely hilarious. Me frantically typing on my phone 'can beans and strawberries grow together' while already holding a bag of beans in my hand, trying to decide where to dig the holes. Turns out, beans and strawberries DO grow well together, and since I have 3,5 garden beds of strawberries, I decided to plant beans in every one of them, just to see what happens. I have also stabbed large sticks in those gardens, and to an unknowing individual, who does not know about the beans, it might look as if I'm expecting my strawberries to climb up, which would be charming, and something to work towards in the future.

The strawberries are in full bloom and I want to spend hours just lying on the grass and looking at bees fertilize them. I felt so much yearning for the garden, so much of just wanting to be there all day and just watch life develop and grow.

After planting beans, I had a nagging feeling that I was supposed to plant something else and was forgetting about it, while I was ignoring all the plants due to feeling sulky, and I went to my box of seeds and took everything out to see what was not yet planted - to be immediately hit with a wall of shame: I had forgot to plant cucumbers and cantaloupes completely. And my poor mystery squash was also still in seed form. Now, these plants can grow very fast, and I started them right away and by now they're already developing their first leaves, so nothing is lost! This will depend on the climate. If we have a crazy hot summer with heat waves, my cantaloupes will not fare well, and I will have fewer cucumbers. If, by some chance, we have a bit more rain, some milder weather, maybe a storm every few weeks, then I might be looking at a good harvest anyway.

I had to starts all of my plants and plant my garden early, I planted everything about a month earlier than everyone else, because I know I will not be able to water my garden, and I'm counting on plants getting big and strong before the heat waves hit, and by then, they'll be mulched, covered, casting shade one over another in order to survive the heat. Last two years this worked brilliantly, and my garden was big and strong. I'm having high hopes this year as well, even as I started on rocky grounds, everything recovered so nicely, I even have a few basil plants looking good, brought back from the brink of death.

I've definitely spent more time outside, more time reading, writing, cooking, foraging and processing food, without access to computer. I've gathered so much bear's garlic, and found it's excellent in a pasta salad. I've eaten a full bowl of wood sorrel and came out just fine. I've tried to cook a soup with wild carrots - I would advise against using the roots, makes it taste very wrong. Almost got poisoned again because I confused young 'forget-me-not' plants with spinach and ate them in a sandwich; luckily I was fine. Laughed at myself a lot for that one. I saw lots of lizards, a frog, several deer, ducks, and a lot of birds in the forest, some very cool bugs as well. I sometimes run into other women in the forest and I feel like we're exactly where we're supposed to be, and we're ruling this land by protecting what's ours.

[rameiixo]

another animation exercise, with okarun !

[egophiliac]

don't think I'm not still obsessing over 7-12

[astearisms]

catalysts, protectors

[velvetwyrme]

aHhh okay so the discussions of Titan!Megatron on @callsign-relic's blog have fully. FULLY taken over my brain and ive been drawing stuff for it for like the last few days nonstop

the tl;dr of this is AU is pretty much "what if Megatron got turned into a titan/cityformer as a form of penance/imprisonment and now roams the empty wasteland of Cybertron forever" plus "IDW Megatron has really fucked up internals so... what if that, but as a City?"

and of course since he's a Titan, that also means he has a cityspeaker... or three. One per sub-AU thing. Theres 3 options. 3 flavours of AU.

i have so much art to make. but in the meantime, for more info! check out the #titan au tag on Relic's blog :]!! (also uhh potential ns//fw warning for the link shfjbdkd)

Hi. My battery is running out once again so design and art notes get chucked here instead of an image.

The cuffs and collar are hardwired into Megatron, so I made the lights the same colour as his biolights!

I imagine that on the tops of his shoulders there are solar panels, even if you can't see them here lol.

I really wanted to keep the swirly bits on Megatron's chest from IDW

Other art notes:

The second picture with the seekers is (loosely) inspired by a discussion about whether or not Megatron gets visitors or not. I thought about who would visit him and well... I think this is as close as Starscream realistically gets to visiting him.

Extra detail about that piece is that Thundercracker and Skywarp are keeping watch from above! Also drawing Megatron took me like 8 hours because I was struggling with his legs really badly kshffkbfkdsbdk,, the background went much faster, funnily enough.

Optimus specifically isn't wearing his Autobot badge any more.

This isn't relevant in this series of images, but Ultra Magnus's eye markings are only on the Magnus armour. His other two forms do not have them :] (... until he begins to discard the armour, that is.)

Megatron is roughly 3200m/2 miles tall. Technically he could have clouds around his knees, but I thought this looked a little bit cooler lol.

Also, height chart! Him big. I didn't even attempt to put a human for scale because that'd be. near impossible with this scale.

[somewhereincairparavel]

"jason is a knockoff watered down percy" NO hear me out, jason actually parallels annabeth immensely, sharing SO many similarities with her personality, not percy, in this essay I will-

edit: my full analysis is out now! here

[chloesimaginationthings]

I love Michael Afton's story in FNAF..

[isawken]

was recently having talks about saving up for a several-week vacation with my partner and he said something that i seriously cannot stop thinking about and i need to Ask The Audience

this is not cumulative, you must have spent over 14 calendar days outside of your hometown in one stretch to be able to hit Yes

i’ve never asked for this before but if you could rb for reach that’d be cool, this is a straight up potential worldview-shattering revelation right here and i need data if im gonna shatter my dang worldview

[batsyheere]

"So, handling your archnemesis," Danny starts. The room falls quiet, heads slowly turning to look at the man as he writes the words on the chalkboard. When finished, the characters somehow both messy and neat at once, Danny places the chalk back down and claps his hands.

"I typically call them fruitloops. Often they're in a better position than you are- older, richer, more powerful. They may have some sort of status that protects them when facing the public."

Tim wondered where Dick was right now, and if he was laughing. His brain was lagging like a computer as he tried to process what Danny was saying, and how seriously a few of his fellow teen vigilantes were taking this.

"Some of their more common tactics are-" the chalk was picked back up, and Danny writes as he speaks.

"Manipulation, isolation, conditioning, and empathy."

MICE.

Tim stares at the board, and quietly slips put his phone.

-What have I done to deserve this.

Enjoy your lessons Tim-

His head thumps against the desk. Conner leans over, gives him a pat on the shoulder but returns to taking notes as Danny goes on to explain the conditioning tactic.

[umblrspectrum]

3 years of this godforsaken show

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Just your average male living space.

[First] Prev <–-> Next

[bizarrelittlemew]

i can't wait to be 30+ and still in fandom and i can't wait to be 40+ and still in fandom and i can't wait to be 50+ and still in fandom and i can't wait to be 60+ and still in fandom and i can't wait to be 70+ and still in fandom and i can't wait to be 80+ and still in fandom and i can't wait to be 90+ and still in fandom and i can't wait to look back on my life and know that i loved things deeply and passionately and was inspired to create and was part of communities with incredible people from all over the world brought together by the stories that touched us

[bluegiragi]

group huddle!

early access + nsfw on patreon monster!AU masterpost

[oobbbear]

I want to post this here too because I’ve seen it happen a few times

Please understand that there are cultural differences and language differences, if you see this happening let the person clarify what they meant, that person might just not be familiar with words the western side of the internet use

[timelessbian]

actually that ao3 post about calculating kudos-to-hits ratios to decide if a fic is worth reading has me so pissed off. someone put real time and energy into something they are SHARING WITH YOU FOR FREE on a site where you can quite literally filter and search by anything you want and you're STILL trying to find a foolproof method to find stuff that's "good enough to read"???

YOU ARE NOT THE TARGET AUDIENCE FOR EVERYTHING

you don't have to like or read everything in a given fandom or tag, but you also don't have to be a cunt about it and imply that it's not worth reading. this is the kind of shit that moves people to stop creating altogether, and to see people agreeing in the tags is so disheartening. absolutely unserious behavior.

[cozylittleartblog]

Columbo and the Knight (1984)

put me in the universe where Columbo ran through the 1980s and had a crossover episode with Knight Rider. I think they deserved it, and I am not just saying that because they're my two favorite Old Shows. @telebeast wrote a little fanfic blurb about it and I HAD to visualize it into a comic (which is also the longest comic I have finished thus far at five pages...), so writing credit goes to them.

Autism W!