#sort of. not really.

[thesugarhole]

my glittering gold, trinkets and baubles. and yes, they were paid for in blood.

all pngs from @snailspng ; i wanted to join on the trend earlier but couldnt find the time until now

[couch-house]

do you know for how long and how many times i have tried to draw sonic and kintobor hug. im obsessed. anyway read my old fanfiction it's still good bc Sonic and Kintobor Hug

[rainintheevening]

J.

Walking behind my brother

Following him from his shop to the barn

We're working on my truck

But I am following him

Unconsciously in his footsteps

Matching my strides to his

Watching his boots and back ahead of me

And in that moment nothing has changed

I could be 5

I could be 12

I could be 20

I am 27

But I've been doing this my whole life

Following my brother

And I wonder suddenly if he remembers

If he remembers what life without me was like

He's two years older

So I never knew

He's always been there

And suddenly I don't know how I'll do it all

If I don't have a big brother to follow

He's gonna blaze a trail off somewhere else

And me?

I don't know

I just know I can't follow him forever

[hylianengineer]

The key thing I'm learning as I try to teach myself plant identification is that plant identification is fucking difficult. And unlike birds or bugs or reptiles, there is no one book that will tell you about all the plants in one geographic area. There isn't even one set of books.

I have a tree book, a grass book, a wildflower book, and a 'wildflowers and weeds' book. This does not beging to cover all the types of plants I encounter. Namely it excludes all herbaceous plants which are not grass or wildflowers or 'weeds', which is MOST OF THE PLANTS I ENCOUNTER! It also excludes most shrubs, and rushes, and sedges. I have looked for books on these missing plants and I cannot find any. They don't make books about herbaceous plants in my area. Or wetland plants, because everyone who doesnt live here is convinced we don't have wetlands. The weed book covers some herbaceous plants but nowhere near all of them.

Also, weed is a stupid plant category that no one can agree on a definition for anyways.

[rohirric-hunter]

One of the funny things about LotR is that almost every people in it professes to disbelieve in the supernatural, but because they live in a fantasy world their baseline for "natural" is so jacked up. The Rohirrim are like, yeah, there's a wizard in this tower and ancient tradition that we have no reason to doubt says this mountain is full of ghosts, but walking trees? Short people? I don't think so. Galadriel is like, "Listen I heard you describe what I do as magic and look I just gotta clear some things up, okay." Gondorians are like, yeah, of course the Enemy has spectres of men who lived long ago and never died and can now fly above us and incapacitate us with just their voices. This is just a fact of life, okay? But shut up about this magic weed that makes comatose people better. That's an old wives' tale. Royalty? Press X to doubt.

The people group in Tolkien's work who seem most receptive to magic and least restricted by their own notions of what it can do actually seem to be the hobbits. And they use it to avoid meeting people they don't want to talk to

[mummer]

not that i am against the concept of international trade nor do i think tariffs are based or whatever but what is interesting is seeing how much of the american reaction comes down to “but *i* dont want to work in a factory for pennies and *i* dont want my currency to be worthless and to have to pay one billion dollars for iphone” without even acknowledging your comfort depends on a global population who is forced to live under those exact conditions. right. like it or not, for the world to exist as it does, someone’s got to do it. someone’s got to mine the precious metals, someone’s got to forge the machine parts. someone’s got to ruin their body for slave wages, somewhere. the fact that you and i don’t is a result of winning a total genetic lottery and it is the exception not the norm and do what you want with that information but at least dont be callous

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

The Wizard Cowboy War (Wizboys VS Cowards) continues on.

[smoosie]

A different tomorrow

[bbq-potato-chip]

exactly what you think it means

[psipaka]

(Not failing) marriage

[nibbelraz]

OG Shang Qinghua loves his brother even if he says nonsense most of the time

[cripplerage]

If you have a real life person as your pfp, I don't care if it's Taylor Swift or something, my subconscious will assume you look like that irl. Sometimes my subconscious even assumes that I look like my pfp irl. And if your pfp is not a real life person... Tbh my subconscious still assumes you look like that irl.

You know what, tag yourself... How close in appearance do you think you are to your pfp? Interpret how you will

[fairsweetlonging]

truth serum / system reveal au where shen qingqiu gets hit with an uncloaking spell that reveals the system in the reflection of his eyes every time it pops up.

during one of his missions, in the treasure hoard of some dragon-like creature, he finds a golden, oval shaped hand mirror, its gaudy style more victorian based than anything (airplane you hack!), that doesn't seem to do anything when he looks into it. but when he does, it reveals the system's screen in his eyes.

he doesn't notice this, of course, because he can't see it, and the system, surprisingly, stays quiet.

the peak lords think he's cursed.

maybe mu qingfang is the first to notice, during the mandatory post mission check-up, when shen qingqiu is scrolling through his most recently accumulated points and mu qingfang can see the strange vividly-blue lines reflected in his pupils. it's gone when shen qingqiu blinks, like it was nothing but a trick of the light.

it comes out when yue qingyuan is visiting and, just as he's done laying out the plans for a new mission, shen qingqiu's eyes glaze over and a bright blue box takes over the whole of his iris. shen qingqiu goes quiet; the thing in his eyes moves, shifts, pulses for a second, like static worms crawling all over his pupils. then he blinks, and it's gone, and shen qingqiu accepts the mission that yue qingyuan was almost sure he would decline.

maybe there is an intervention, when the peak lords corner shen qingqiu at qian cao peak and try to figure out what's wrong, subjecting him to all kinds of treatments and curse-finding spells that turn up empty, they can't find anything.

of course, the silencing threat is still very much up and running. at first shen qingqiu was kind of confused by the whole ordeal, but when the peak lords start describing a "strange blue box", he realizes, with sickening suddenty, that they're describing the system. and he can't say anything.

this only makes everything worse, because their fellow peak lord now keeps evading every question and acts like he doesn't understand. liu qingge points right at his face and asks, "that blue box, what is it?" and shen qingqiu laughs nervously and starts talking about how bright the weather is and surely it's the sky and nothing to worry about!

even worse, during the intervention the system thought it was a good idea to start talking to him, so now even the peak lords who hadn't seen it and who might have been persuaded by light tricks and reflections, get a first row view that no, that definitely isn't a trick of the light.

they try to do the whole thing of "are you in danger, blink twice" but shen qingqiu can't even do that because it's still a direct admittance!

maybe eventually he starts saying vague confirmations that don't actually confirm anything, like "this master hears what you're saying", or maybe he goes with a classic "this master can neither confirm nor deny that." but the system starts warning him for that too and eventually he stops saying anything, which worries the others more.

luckily mu qingfang catches on that every time they ask a direct question about the box or shen qingqiu says anything vaguely confirming, it appears. it doesn't appear when they ask about curses or demons, so it must not see that as a threat.

for a little extra angst: maybe the peak lords keep pressuring him for answers, and at some point shen qingqiu gets fed up and snaps out something like, "why don't you understand that i'm not allowed to answer that!" the system counts this as a direct admittance, threatening it's existence. so it punishes. shen qingqiu has a qi deviation so bad it lasts two weeks and takes two people every day to cleanse his meridians. the system doesn't appear in that time. it doesn't appear for a long while after that, either. the peak lords stop asking, mainly because shen qingqiu will instantly leave the room if they do. they don't stop searching for a cure, though.

shang qinghua returns from a business trip and catches on the second someone mentions a blue box and forced silencing.

[sparrowlucero]

Psittacosaurus

[scarlet--wiccan]

On related note, a few years ago, the Entomological Society of America officially discontinued the use of "gypsy moth" and "gyspy ant" as common names for Lymantria dispar and Aphaenogaster araneoides. L. Dispar is now known as the "spongy moth," so named for the appearance of their eggs, but I don't think a new common name has caught on for the ant species yet.

These changes we brought about, in large part, by the advocacy of Romani people in academia. You might not think that bug names are a very serious issue, but I believe that language matters. These species became known as "gypsies" because their attributes were likened to certain stereotypes and negative perceptions of actual Roma, so the continued use of those names reaffirmed those negative associations in the public consciousness. Slurs and pejoratives can never be truly decontexualized.

In my mind, one of the biggest obstacles that Romani people face when we are trying to advocate for ourselves is a lack of recognition as a marginalized group that deserves the necessary consideration. Even for seemingly trivial matters, like bugs or comic book characters, the way that people talk about us-- and talk down to us, when we get involved-- is telling. So, I always think that changes like this are a win, because it means that people are willing to learn and grant us the dignity we deserve. And there's nothing wrong with wanting to effect change in your own field, even arts and science.