#it’s wild as shit sometimes

[botanyshitposts]

ok INCREDIBLY old content originally meant for this blog but in 2018 when i was just a wee lad with a little spinner propeller hat and big rainbow lollipop i went to a carnivorous plant convention in california and met a bunch of people who breed/collect/study these guys. one person was this collector who was slowly working on leaving the hobby or at least no longer growing plants, and he had a bunch of carnivorous plant related files he was charging like 50 cents for or something, and so i came into possession of these, which are examples of the kind of paperwork you have to have done to legally ship/trade endangered species of both plants and animals. functionally very boring paperwork, but something i found like, incredibly fascinating. i blacked out the personal id of the person and then immediately forgot to ever upload them, lmao.

these plants were bred and raised in a greenhouse and sold abroad, not taken from the wild, but because the species are endangered and often protected in their native countries (most of these are nepenthes, asian pitcher plants, a huge family spread throughout oceania and southeast asia), there's a lot more documentation that needs to be done regardless of their origin, both on the end of the seller and on the end of the buyer.

the rabbit hole on carnivorous plant trade is deep and kind of wild. there's plenty of common, non-threatened, greenhouse-grown pitcher plants on the market that people buy all the time, even non-collectors, but there's a whole debate to be had on if it's morally okay to be collecting the more endangered/rare of these plants in the first place. the big argument for breeding is that breeding them in captivity means there's more supply that's not poached from the wild, meaning poachers have less of an incentive to take the risk of taking adult plants from their habitats; from what i've heard, sometimes countries will issue permits for breeders to collect some wild seeds just to create a non-wild breeding pool to drive down the price. predictably, however, you also get people who are very much willing to pay a lot of money to get as rare of a plant as possible.

anyone familiar with the allure valuable plants have had over people throughout history can imagine the rest, but here's an article about a guy who started buying poached plants to enrich his private nepenthes collection, who then got busted by a fish and wildlife service agent embedded in his carvirorous plant circle. the plants this guy was buying were being sold to him without any CITES paperwork or declarations like the ones above; it was literally just a guy in indonesia taking rare plants from the woods around where he lived, selling them over facebook marketplace and ebay, and mailing them overseas as an undeclared 'gift' to get around customs. frighteningly small steps to take on all sides, to be honest.

(also, fun fact: another example of carnivorous plants that get poached are wild venus fly traps, which are only native to north and south carolina in the US. from what i understand it's a mix of people who genuinely did not know it's a native species and people who really are just going out into the woods and digging up plants to sell online. sometimes poaching is closer to home than you'd think!)

anyway. wild and interesting times in the land of plants recovered from a hard drive lmao

[littlecrittereli]

Grocery run!

just a silly doodle of how I think they would dress casually.... why is it the most on-model I've ever drawn them.... why do my doodles always turn out this way.... please send help....

[jeeaark]

If Greygold was a companion, what would be the best way to initiate a romance with them? Would they go for the “L” word early or an Act or two later?

The "L" word was lube, right? Right? Else showering Durge/Tav with kisses Gomez-Addams-Style is the alternative.

Maybe the Nat 20 romance isn't the best way for Tav/Durge, but it sure is for Greygold. You just know Greygold scared that Dream Guardian away the first time and has been low-key obsessed with that armor since

[larrylimericks]

6Oct23

With hues blue and green, Lou was tinged, Sang ‘7’ in Barça, then grinned Cos sharing is caring And H still likes wearing Lou’s jumper — Um, bro, they’re unhinged.

[natjennie]

my mom and dad being like "this episode could've been 3 minutes of sad lesbian and 1 minute stitching joel up" JUST SAY YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND FILMOGRAPHY AND MOVE ON. there are reasons for drawing things out if you didn't get attached to riley it wouldn't matter if you didn't understand ellie's fedra backstory her immunity and all that comes with it wouldn't mean anything if you didn't get the perspective on the fedra and firefly situation none of the second game would mean anything. if you didn't get this characterization of ellie and her interests and her being happy you wouldn't be invested in her story. ellie's "everybody fucking except for you!" wouldn't have context without riley's death. you don't GET IT.

[cryptvokeeper]

don’t get me wrong I think the general interpretation of Leo being like “I put up a cocky front but deep down I don’t actually think I’m that great and that’s why I have something to prove” is good. It’s cool, plenty of drama/angst potential and probably what the creators were going for, I’m here for it.

But there is a distinct appeal to me of the slightly-to-the-left interpretation of Leo being like “it’s not a front, I know I’m that good/smart/skilled, but I also know I’m seen by others as just the goofball face man and that’s why I have something to prove.”

[elialys]

for real though, i find it so funny that helen and dale are an actual rarepair when literally half this show are scenes featuring the two of them usually being a couple

[jurassic-cunt]

an important part of erik's character is that he has zero chill. intense as fuck. that's why i love when erik body worships charles in fics. because yes, magneto is feral and down to kill but charles gets to see a side of him no one else can because it's charles

[legendofzeldasilentprincess]

after knowing the whole story of Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, I still can't believe Nintendo really went for the Princess and the Knight trope

[aaandbackstabbed]

Louie: Looks like we can’t mansplain manipulate or male wife our way out of this one

Huey(mansplain):

Louie(manipulate):

Dewey(male wife):

Webby holding a dangerous weapon: manslaughter it is.

[dead-core]

craving validation from exactly the wrong person. slay

[cinamun]

[glorious-spoon]

sometimes i see a fandom take that makes me want to gently sit the op down and tell them, 'that person talking about a fictional character you relate to is not talking about you, and their headcanons that conflict with yours are not an invalidation of your identity, because, again, they are not fucking talking about you.'

[quuerbee]

Just saw a picture of divine dragon chung myung before he got that title and it really hit me how small Cho Sam's body was when chung myung came back. This little thought has spoilers for chapter 400+ (I think anyway) and vague spoilers for everything past ch 400 until like. Ch 800

GOD OK so we as the reader understand chung myungs situation very very intimately. WE understand that he is an 80+ year old man mentally. WE understand that he is not in fact 15, then 17, then 19, 20, etc. Everyone around him, however, truly believe that he is those ages.

It's brushed upon multiple times throughout the novel, especially whenever chung myung is down for the count/recovering after a fight. The facade he makes around himself, the strong reliable leader, fades away and the "truth" of who he is reinstates itself to those close to him in this second life. His back, every time he wavers, is described as small. This is always through the perspective of anyone but himself. This is even more apparent whenever he is unconscious after a serious fight. I don't know exactly chapters, but i KNOW that baek cheon (and the rest of the 5 swords plus soso and hye yeon), at least once, has had the reality of Chung myungs apparent age dawn upon them. That they're youngest sajae (sahyung in soso's case) is constantly spilling his own blood to protect them. (This fact is straight up said by yu iseol after the particularly bad fight with Jang ilso, spitting her frustration with only getting in chung myungs way instead of protecting him).

This phenomenon is hardly limited to the main group of disciples. After the first myriad men siege on Mount hua (while The Gang is in Xian), everyone subconsciously gains courage with the thought that soon enough chung myung will come, that he'll protect them. The disciples (soso being the most prevalent since she's one of the main disciples focused on in the novel) of course correct this thought, realizing that they cannot rely on chung myung forever. Anyways moving on from just describing this arc. What I mainly want to focus on is Hyun jong and chung myungs interaction AFTER the siege is finished, after un gum is fresh off of his amputation, after chung myung has barely gotten treatment for his own (quite serious) injuries.

What do you think when through Hyun jong's mind, seeing his youngest disciple, the one who brought back the hope that had almost died out with his sect, ruthlessly kill the enemy, return heavily wounded, and then try to sneak out almost immediately to go back to smite those who have harmed his home? To us, Chung myung is more than capable. He's the plum blossom sword Saint, the one who (even with all the regret he holds over this) severed the head of the heavenly demon. He's an 80+ year old man trying to protect the only thing besides bloodshed that is familiar in this second life. We understand the guilt he has over not being able to protect his home the first time. We understand that he would rather die than allow Mount Hua to fall again.

Hyun jong does not know this. He does not understand chung myungs rage (and guilt and grief and longing and-). He looks at chung myung and sees an 18 or 19 (I don't remember) year old boy, covered in wounds, trying to sneak out of his home on a suicide mission of revenge. He sees a boy. He knows that if he let's this boy go, he will never see him alive again. So he uses chung myungs borderline (who are we kidding, it is way past borderline) unhealthy loyalty with mount hua to dissuade him from walking to his death.

ANYWAYS long story not so short, I need need need more analysis over what everyone but chung myung thinks about him. Everyone sees this young teen, then young adult, bend over backwards to the point where he has almost died so so so many times just so mount hua can flourish. They've seen him kill ruthlessly, they've seen him sob over the skeleton of an ancestor (one of his brothers, a reminder of what he has lost, what he will never get back), they've seen him silly and carefree, they've seen him almost mad with bloodlust.

To us, he is chung myung, the old plum blossom sword Saint, slayer of the heavenly demon. To them, he is chung myung, the scrawny 15 year old that changed their lives, that faces unknown traumas, that has had a life so, so unkind to him.

Sometimes I look at chung myung pre time skip, how small he is, how he looks like a child, how he acts nothing like one, and remember that only we, the readers, get the full context behind his actions.

[raytorosaurus]

i've been so curious about this 'unofficial therapist' that thursday had???? which member is he? how did they find him?? could he always play an instrument or did they ask him to learn so they could keep him around? did he actually help that much? how did it change thursday's writing? i don't expect you to have the answer to all of these things but you seem to know a lot about them and if nothing else i need to know who their therapist is and what 'unofficial' means in this case if you can help at all!

oh lol haha unofficial in the very literal sense so my guy andrew everding of the "no one ever expects it" chest hair fame from my chemical romance in the studio 2002 (@3:10) is like...the y/n of thursday.

he's just a nice dude who hangs around and everyone likes, good friend of the guys in thursday, and then his house burns down and he has nowhere to stay so thursday were like yo just come tour with us and he did. because he's also a very talented (multi?-)instrumentalist and, as it turns out, a great composer too. also at some stage he lived with geoff's mom? it is unclear if this is before or after the fire and/or joining thursday as a touring member. he also photographed their first west coast tour in 2002?

so like anyway by 2003 he's playing keys for the watt tour which is like.....I'd say the darkest point of thursday's history but that would be a fucking lie lol. let's say the darkest point of thursday's history so far. the guys are super stressed, super overworked, super depressed, and under loads of pressure from their label who's saying they're underperforming the expectations they had for them. geoff in particular is copping a lottt of criticism for his singing which he really internalised, and basically everyone in the band is miserable. they were also. not fucking talking to each other. like at all. they would just all constantly bitch about each other behind everyone's back and never say shit to their face. andrew, as a touring member but not official member, and as a Nice Guy, ends up becoming like...the intermediary to whom everyone in the band went to vent. so he's like trying to fix their shit and be positive and he puts his foot down and is like guys you NEED to learn to COMMUNICATE. (spoilers they didn't) but anyway the band after a particularly nasty and conflict-laden tour of australia in 2004 are like fuck this we're breaking up! but then as soon as they agreed to breaking up they were like wait. so much of the pressure is gone now. actually we're good we just need a break :) but media has kind of already picked up on the story of them breakup up so it was all dreadfully will they/won't they. this is also right as three cheers is blowing the fuck up btw 😭😭 #we'retwosidesofthesamecoin #he'smyvillain.

oh shit and then they go on warped 04 as what would have been kinda their last thing but they're like hey look at this we're sorta starting to work on our problems! oh and then at the vegas date 24yo geoff gets shotgun married to a woman he'd been dating for two years with mcr, tbs, and the bouncing souls as the wedding party 😭😭😭😭😭.

ANYWAY. they end up not breaking up but take a break from touring and then all move in together for a while? i think bc they were a little scattered at that point and geoff might have been living in sydney (his wife was australian) at the time idk so when he came over to do thursday shit they just like lived together apparently. and they write city by the light divided (so titled bc the band, naturally, was totally divided on how they wanted the album to sound lol). anyway the main difference now is this time round they've invited andrew to join as an official member!! :DDD

...unfortunately for andrew, this is also the time thursday stops being even slightly commercially viable lol so he's like technically im earning less money now than i had been on a tour salary lolz. anyway he becomes a big part of the writing process, especially for that album and no devolucion, the instrumentals if which were apparently driven pretty heavily by him!

then in 2008 onwards thursday were all broke as fuck and needed to get day jobs to pay rent. most of them went into like...food service or painting houses, but tucker drummed for mcr for a bit and andrew worked as.....a guitar tech? for patd????? (also after the break up, tucker was in boy band the wanted for a while as their touring drummer. he loved it lol <3)

anyway tragically, andrew hasn't appeared at any of the reunion shows 😔. he's private so no details but he was dealing with some health issues towards the end of thursday that contributed to the band deciding to break up and has a baby and shit now. but he did continue touring as a musician a bit, like with neil finn in 2014!!!!!! playing some wacky fancy midi/synth electronic instrument iirc? epic collision of my childhood fave and new-adulthood fave.

anyway lol this is all typed out in bed on my phone off the top of my head so there might be some chronology errors in there, but a lot of this is from their documentary, kill the house lights! it's a comedy. dark comedy.

#andrewnation <3

[grison-in-space]

What did the UK have to do with the Rwandan genocide? AFAIK it was under German control, then handed over to Belgium after WWI, and then wound up as part of the French sphere of influence post-independence. I can imagine the UK was involved in the broader geopolitical decisionmaking around it, since it was the leading imperial power for much of that time, but was there something obvious I'm missing?

You know what, you're totally right--I mashed up Rwanda in my head with Idi Amin's regime in Uganda, which was down to the British Empire. Consequences of talking off the dome! Rwanda was, as you point out, a German and then Belgian job, with more of the formalization of the racism and divides between Hutu and Tutsi people happening under Belgian direct rule and the formation of that division under the earlier German aegis.

Sigh. Let that be a lesson to everyone that brain farts happen to us all, which is why you should always cross-check anything that matters no matter how much you trust the source.