#very interesting plant

[queruloustea]

they are going for a walk

[hedgehog-moss]

In my neverending quest to keep Pampérigouste from achieving her dreams, I have launched a formal investigation into her last escape, which I had no explanations for at the time.

I figured it out! At the far far end of her pasture, near the road, a few fence posts have become more or less horizontal (the ground is quite wet / muddy there so they've never been very stable, especially with Pirlouit using them to scratch his forehead)—so instead of a high jump + long jump combo to get to the road, Pampe just had to clear the long jump over the ditch. Which is still impressive.

I also suspect that she chose to escape from this place near the road on a snowy morning as a deliberate strategy, knowing the snow plough would erase any traces of her jump, thus preventing me from discovering where the weak spot in the fence was. Well done.

You need 2 people to fix these fence posts so in the meantime I decided to kill two birds with one stone: cut all the broom and thorny bushes in this corner of the pasture and use them to form a discouraging barrier. I set to work earlier this week, and here's the same place as above, mid-process:

When I texted my mum to tell her about my new thorn-based anti-Pampe plan of action, she said "Like the Maasai who make fences with thorny acacia branches to keep out lions!" and it made me feel even more confident. I mean, I have neither acacia nor Maasai fencing techniques but my thorny shrubs are pretty aggressive, they pricked my fingers even through my thick work gloves—which felt satisfying in an anticipatory way. Excellent! prick Pampe's nose exactly like this. How could a llama not be deterred by a fence material that deters apex predators?

Vexingly enough, she seemed quite supportive of my efforts. At one point she breathed some warm air against my shoulder in a gentle, patronising way.

We were engaged in psychological warfare all afternoon—every time I stepped away from my vegetal fence, feeling like it was now good enough, Pampe would immediately come to inspect it, cheerful and impatient, which sapped my confidence so I would go and add a few more shrubs. (Note that I sort of plaited the first / biggest shrubs with the pre-existing fence so they don't go flying on the road, and so Pampe can't just push them aside.)

On the right: Poldine, looking for little fresh leaves to eat amidst the chaos. On the left: Pampérigouste, thinking.

(At this point the barrier was only 20% thorns, and 80% broom—the fact that she waded through it without a care and didn't prick her belly made me go and add more thorny shrubs, and pack them more densely)

It's kind of fun watching Pampe think, honestly. Can I jump over this? Do I have enough visibility? Can I eat my way to freedom (again)? But these shrubs are disgusting. Am I above exploiting my daughter's lack of culinary discernment to achieve my goals? Maybe I should go back to my calculations re: probability of wild boar destruction. I may have pincushions for hands after handling prickly bushes for two hours but I'm helping stimulate my llama's intellect and creativity and that's so important.

I tried to alternate broom and thorny branches so that the non-thorny broom became tangled up with thorns and brambles to form an impenetrable and incomprehensible wall. I will call it this method the salmagundi-fence.

Poldine is in awe of my vegetal installation.

Can I just say, compared to Pampérigouste who constantly has a devilish glint in her eye, Pampelune's face exudes wholesome politeness and moral goodness. It's still hard to believe they're mother and daughter.

I went home once my fence started looking like Maleficent's forest of thorns and Pampe had long stopped trying to wade through it, but I still felt antsy and ended up coming back one hour later to have my apéritif with the llamas so I could keep an eye on Pampe until nightfall.

... where is Pampe?

Oh. Here. No worries!

Still staring at the road. Still thinking.

...

With all that said, please admire my beautifully delirious Forest of Thorns-fence and let me know what you think.

[cherubchoirs]

rotting in bed (not so bad edition)

[maulfucker]

I feel like everyone who has a jedi + clone commander oc combo has them having a gay thing going on, which is why I am having Dji and his clone second in command be specifically NOT into each other

[mispelled]

Should probably stop drawing the background last but hey. what can you do

[sparkling12]

I'm curious, in general do we prefer Poison Ivy with Green Skin or Nah?

oh reblog for more responses please lol

[angelwingtrap]

Mild hot take: Asha’s words to Stannis were not said out of cruelty or callousness. Asha has reflected on how Theon’s crimes will inevitably have to be paid for and she’s exhausted her efforts to make amends with the north thus far. Requesting an Ironborn be given to a heart tree, putting respect on the name of the man who took three of her brothers and drove her mother to madness, goes against everything Asha’s ever known. But the old gods answered Theon’s prayers, he belongs to them and she has no place to deny that if he believes so. This is the only thing she can do for Theon. She can’t save Theon from death and she won’t make amends with the north without paying an iron price.

If she has to see her brother die, be it in a way that would mean something for all of them.

[adhd-languages]

I often wonder how English distinguishing between “sentient pronouns” (he/she/they) and “inanimate pronouns” (it/its) affects our perception of the world.

I wonder if languages without this distinction foster more care towards the environment.

Animals and plants are usually referred to as “it”. Would we care for them more if we thought of them as sentient?

[doctorbunny]

Mahiru's birthday flower tweet

(Tweet Links)

I'm terribly sorry for being a few days late again, there were several project updates coming out around the same time...

Happy Birthday to everyone born on the 17th of January. Today is also the birthday of Mahiru Shiina from #MILGRAM. Her birthday flower is Capsella bursa-pastoris (Shepard's Purse/Nazuna). It is one of the seven spring herbs. For aeons, Shepard's Purse has been an invaluble source of food and medicine to humans, because it is able to flower and fruit in all sorts of inhospitable environments, as long as there is sunlight. It's hanakotoba is "I will devote everything to you."

色んな更新で漏れてしまって。数日遅れで大変申し訳ないですが改めて… 1月17日お誕生日の方おめでとうございます。 #ミルグラム では椎奈真昼の誕生日でもあります。 誕生花はナズナ。春の七草のひとつ。陽当たりさえあれば、どんな荒地にも花と果実をつけ、冬の貴重な食糧としても生薬としても古くから人々に重用されてきました。花言葉は『あなたにすべてを捧げます』。

[Yay the task I put off for months was completed in one evening! Between me and Maristelina, I think this is all the birthday tweets translated, I'll try to compile a masterpost of links some time]

[lesbians4armand]

On Armand + Atropa belladonna

To begin this post, I'm sure I've mentioned somewhere my ongoing belief that the poison that killed Armand was Atropa belladonna, colloquially known as Deadly Nightshade. Where I posted this exactly I'm not sure, It could have been here or on either my main or private Twitter accounts. Either way, it needed more elaboration, so I'll write about it here.

For those unfamiliar with this infamous poison, Atropa belladonna, more often called Deadly Nightshade, Belladonna, or Devil's Cherries, is a flowering plant native to Europe and Western Asia, and naturalised in many parts of North America. They are well known for their light purple bell-shaped flowers, their pointed green leaves, and their highly toxic pitch-black berries.

My interest in these plants has been a long-standing one, and I even plan on having the plant tattooed on me, but another interest arose recently when I was thinking about the history and usage of these plants.

It's well established in the Vampire Chronicles that Armand died from poisoning, mirroring his own fledgling Daniel's death to alcohol poisoning centuries later. Of course, what truly caused their deaths and turnings was being made into a vampire, that's what ceased their mortality, but it does not change that they were both still already dying of poison, and although we know Daniel's poison was alcohol, Armand's remains a mystery.

What begins my theory of Armand's poison being belladonna, is the name itself. While belladonna has had many medicinal uses throughout history and even in the modern day, the most famous use remains its namesake- "Beautiful Lady" in Italian. During the Renaissance, the time in which Armand lived, died, and was made a vampire, this plant was hugely popular among noble women of Italy, particularly in Venetian courts, where these ladies would drop the juice into their eyes, as the toxins in the berries cause the pupils to dilate and the eyes look larger, which was considered a beauty standard at the time. (Interestingly,one of the tropane alkaloids found in belladonna and other plants in the Solanaceae family (Atropine) is still used in modern optometry for the dilation of the pupils.)

Immediately, there is a direct link to Armand's death. With belladonna being such a known and widely used poison in Rennaisance Venice, It is by no means unlikely that it was the poison that eventually caused his mortal death.

But other details in the Chronicles point to this as well. Belladonna was widely used by upper-class Venetian women during this period, but it was not a Venetian woman who killed Armand, it was an English Lord. But who was it that was a noblewoman, who had intimate knowledge and use of poisons, and the host of this very Lord? Bianca.

It's almost guaranteed that Bianca had access to and used belladonna, both as a poison and as a cosmetic at this time. This lord could have easily acquired this poison from Bianca through theft, asking for it, or having been given it freely. Bianca at this time was both a murderer and a courtesan, and with belladonna's widespread use as a cosmetic, it may not have seemed unusual to her to be requested the poison by a guest.

One setback to the theory is that Belladonna is primarily deadly when ingested, and Armand's poisoning was not caused by ingestion of the plant. However, it can still be absorbed through the skin, and if the essences such as the juice of the plant were coated onto a blade that was then used to cut someone as Lord Harlech cut Armand, it would enter the bloodstream anyway and likely be fatal-as it was.

It's described in TVA how the cuts where Harlech's blade had caught Armand began to swell, a side effect of topical belladonna not often seen in poisonings vis ingestion, yet no less real, as belladonna exposure on the skin can cause severe contact dermatitis, as well as its other more known symptoms also found in ingestion poisonings; dizziness, blurred vision, hot flushes, vomiting, fever, delirium, etc. All are also described within the book.

Overall, the time, place, symptoms and associations all line up to make Armand's death read as belladonna poisoning, regardless of what poison may have been Anne Rice's intent, if any specific poison at all. There is also of course the poetic irony of the associations between belladonna and beauty, and Armand's own beauty being somewhat of a curse to him. How perfect it would seem if his death was caused by beauty too, not just his own and how his murderer desired him, but the very poison that was the weapon being a symbol of beauty too?

(Another detail that could be interesting to AMC show fans is that another of the tropane alkaloids found in plants in the Nightshade family such as Atropa belladonna is hyoscyamine, which is used in medicine to reduce spasms in patients with Parkinson's disease, which Daniel suffers with in the show. This is a lot more minor, but interesting nonetheless that the association with nightshades is found in other places in TVC and adaptations)

[hiswitchcraft]

do you know of any sort of herb/spice masterlist with the properties? id love it as a resource <3

A Few Guides Regarding Herb Safety

A Modern Herbal

The Extremely Large Herbal Grimoire

The Complete Herbal by Nicholas Culpeper

83 Herbs & Their Magical Properties

Herbs by Correspondences

Herbal Lore

If you are going to burn an herb, ingest it, add it to a bath or have pets PLEASE be very careful with the herbs you pick. Also Libby is an app that lets you access books from your local library digitally! You might easily find some information on plants and such there. If you don't have a library card go get one 🔪

[sadrockandwaltzes]

Just some crappy Mikage drawings based on images from the show cause I need practice... I feel like I'm really getting the devianart experience tryna draw him😅😭

He looks much better in the show I assure you...

[writing on top left says 'Mikage Death Pose' since it looks very simpson death esque; writing for glasses (he looks so cool in his prof outfit) says 'stylish professor turned stylish librarian after pick-up attempt' (cause I accidentally gave him lipstick😅); middle left writing says 'shading fail' and 'dude being shady- not blushy; and bottom writing says 'Gah... She kept me waiting again!']

Favorite's definitely the bottom one

[the-ellia-west]

Interrupting my Self-imposed Hiatus to say:

I will be back occasionally to check in (Definitely back for Thanksgiving, and I will update you on my status then)

And Also I think I finally figured out what I want my slice of life comic to be >:]

Read on if you Dare

The Epic Saga of Ruby & Florian ~ This is a fantasy joke story my sister and I made up about our Fish if they were Characters, and I cannot stop thinking about how funny it is, because with every new fish we get, there is more lore

Current Characters:

King/Emperor Ruby - He was gifted the secret to immortality (this is an inside joke) and is very regal and level-headed

Prince Florian - Ruby's younger brother (Also Immortal) but is cursed with a decaying body and a sassy reflection

Jasper - An Ambassador who is Extremely Feisty and quite Angry

D'ivoire - The Little Servant boy running around the castle trying to clean everything

Mr. Slug - The Creepy Butler who's been around since Florian was little and somehow hasn't died yet (they think he got into the immortality juice) - He's also always trying to kill Jasper for no Reason

Midnight - The Murderous Noblewoman sent to kill Florian

Mari - A kitchen Maid who Ruby has a special kindness for

I must now design them based off their fish counterparts...

Should I make this a mermaid thing because all of these characters are technically fish?

Hm......

I don't think I should, because this comic is practice, and I need to learn to draw legs...

(BTW We're not talking about Mr. Slug, I named him, and his full name is Mr. Margarine Slug West - He has tried to eat Jasper SEVERAL times and Jasper is not having his BS) - We're talking about the fish here just to be clear

[third-king-of-salmonids]

The soda cans—? Are you talking about the prescription bottles on the Grizzco Weapons or like… tacticooler?

LIKE THE BLASTER, THAT SAID YOU SHOULD TOTALLY START BRINGING TACTICOOLERS I COULD USE SOME CAFFEINE

[paintingspaceghosts]

re-listening to all of wolf 359 but i'll be normal about it this time (lying)

[mosswolf]

"For species like ocelots and Florida panthers and tiger salamanders, roadkill is a true existential threat," he says. "Roadkill is not only eliminating animals, it's in many cases eliminating those healthy animals that populations need to remain strong." Beyond the issue of roadkill, highways are cutting off animals from their sources of food and their migration paths, while traffic noise drowns out their ability to communicate with each other. Amid these challenges, Goldfarb says, certain species have made remarkable adaptations. He notes that Chicago's coyotes allegedly look both ways before crossing the street and use crosswalks at red lights.

Cars are a major predator for wildlife. How is nature adapting to our roads?