#the-essence-of-time

[thepersonalwords]

Even at 80, I shall say that I am yet to start, Yes! I shall say that I am yet to start, for that shall give me the real reason never ever to look back and see what I have done but, to look ahead and see the marvelous things I shall be able to do and the distinctive footprints I shall be able live and leave with the very seconds that shall be ahead of me! Life must never be over until all is over!

Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

[quotelr]

Think of something, Oh yes! Think of something. Your life must not be in retardation so think of something! Think of growth for that is the whole essence of life!

Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

[bigfatbreak]

Birds of a Feather Previous / Next

[1alchemistart]

dont got much to offer for The Holiday but have these sillies!

happy valentines day :D

[honehonn3honey]

Kid Ruggie to try some new brushes

[Alt under the cut]

After being on the street, a little Ruggie returns home and is blessed with some homemade doughnuts/donuts :)

[grave-ng]

they dont know i drunk cried over you for hours while finishing the dark brotherhood questline on 4 glasses of wine Lucien Lachance

[cologona]

Chuckling to myself imagining Jason coming off as a snarky New Jersey bad-boy in English, but sounding like some prim and proper little prince in Tibetan because he learned the language from Talia, and she only speaks with perfect formal Lhasa diction.

It’s to the point that when they first met, Essence and Ducra assumed that Jason was Talia’s rumored son. The first time Essence hears Jason use English and he calls someone a ‘brain donor’ she gets whiplash.

[asgardian--angels]

**URGENT** HELP SAVE THE USGS BEE LAB!

PLEASE circulate this as widely as possible, as soon as possible.

Hi all, you may not know me but I am a native bee researcher in the eastern US. People like me work to study and protect the 3600 species of native bees in North America, many of which are in severe decline.

We just received devastating news, that unfortunately was not surprising. The Trump administration's proposed 2026 budget is set to defund most of the ecological research happening at the USGS, and that includes zeroing out the budget for the USGS Native Bee Inventory & Monitoring Lab.

Don't know them? Maybe you've seen stunning photos like this:

These gorgeous and evocative focus-stacked photos of native bees on black backgrounds - all of which are public domain - come from the USGS Bee Lab (here's their Flickr). Through these, they've helped bring the beauty and importance of native bees to the public's attention. Hundreds if not thousands of news articles, videos, and publications use these photos.

But that is just one tiny slice of what the USGS Bee Lab does for pollinator conservation. Its primary role is much bigger; they provide technical support, research collaborations, and financial & grant partnerships to federal and state agencies, academic institutions and researchers, and much more, so we can study, manage, and protect North America's wild pollinators. They conduct research of their own that has led to species rediscoveries, and produce invaluable resources that have greatly advanced our understanding of wild bees and our approaches to studying and conserving them. They also provide the essential and irreplaceable service of bee identification. For those who don't know, identifying bees is hard. Sometimes Really Hard. And this lab is one of just a handful of places in the entire country who can identify some of the toughest groups of bees, and who sit on the forefront of breakthroughs on taxonomy and identification that the rest of us in this field rely on. Without this service, agencies and researchers trying to survey and monitor bees in order to track population declines, manage land, and get policy changed are stuck with a lot of nameless bees, severely limiting the usefulness of that data.

Tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of bee specimens pass through this lab annually, plus the thousands in permanent storage, from long-term monitoring efforts by state and federal agencies, and researchers like myself. They operate at a greater capacity than basically any other institution doing this kind of work. Few if any bee researchers in the eastern US, or even the country, have not benefitted from this lab's work, and those benefits are passed on to you through being able to protect pollinators and the services they provide both in agriculture and ecosystems.

This lab is headed up by scientist Sam Droege, who has dedicated decades of his life to this cause, and whom I consider not just a research partner but, humbly, a friend. I am utterly indebted to him for helping me get my start in this field, and for the support and kindness he has shown me and every other young professional who is passionate about pollinators. The Lab operates with an insanely small budget already, and a very limited staff, yet the impact they have is exponentially outsized. Losing the USGS Bee Lab would be a devastating blow to pollinator conservation in this country, at a time when native bee species are sitting on the precipice, and sustainable agriculture is non-negotiable for our future.

You can read more about the Bee Lab here. The Lab is not well-publicized, but it's a lifeline for the many dedicated people who work to try and protect pollinators and the environment at large.

SO WHAT CAN YOU DO?

Sam Droege has sent out a request for help, and has encouraged us to post on social media. This is what he wants you to do to help us save the Bee Lab.

This is verbatim:

What is Happening: ·       The USGS Bee Lab is at risk of being permanently closed due to cuts in the 2026 Federal Budget and looming federal RIF’s ·       Specifically, the Ecosystem Mission Area (EMA) budget, which funds the USGS Bee Lab and the Eastern Ecological Science center has been zeroed out ·       Thousands of layoffs to hit Interior, National Parks imminently - Government Executive What you can do ·       Write to your representatives, the White House, and the Department of the Interior that they should restore the funding for the USGS Bee Lab ·       Send digital or physical letters, write emails, post to social media What you should be highlighting: ·       Personal anecdotes about how the Bee Lab has impacted you or your organization ·       How important the research the Bee Lab is conducting is to your state Contact Information: 1.      Representatives: Find Your Representative | house.gov 2.      Senators: U.S. Senate: Contacting U.S. Senators 3.      White House: Contact Us – The White House 4.      Interior: feedback@ios.doi.gov Send a copy of the letter to droegesam@gmail.com Pass this email around.  Post your response to social media

IT'S OK if you are not a scientist and have not directly interacted with the Bee Lab. Have you seen the lab's photos? Are you concerned about native pollinator declines? Are you aware of any pollinator conservation initiatives or policies in your own state - those almost certainly have drawn, directly or indirectly, from work the Lab has done. Speak about American food production and agriculture, how the Lab's research and collaborations are essential to safeguarding pollination services (this might help reach across the aisle).

Sam urges that these letters, emails, phone calls, etc, must happen quickly - within the next couple days. This information went out on May 8th and that is the day I am posting this. So please, don't wait.

If 'save the bees' has ever meant anything to you, this is the agency that is playing one of the biggest roles in this country in making that happen. Please, contact your representatives, and pass this call to action along however you can. Thank you.

[hinamie]

domain expansion

[claraoswalds]

This is a brand new science for me, and I love it. The language of luck. 'Cause what is a coincidence but a form of accident? Two things bumping together unexpectedly. Like you and me.

[xxplastic-cubexx]

cherik as that one pink nightgown and blue pajamas holding a candle picture

this is so rushed but like. but like i see the vision and i needed to share it with all of you ok. pov you got caught raiding the fridge at 3AM

[housemdork]

6x11: when a reductive gay joke plotline is still queer-coded (or more metatextual queerness in house md)

in its later seasons, house md keeps doing this really funny thing where they play into house and wilson with increasingly low-hanging fruit gay jokes (dw i still laugh lol). but they manage this without sacrificing the 6 seasons' worth of cultivated subtext that permits genuine queer coding above queerbait/2000s gay jokes/etc. 6x11 is one of the best examples of this so far.

so i'm not a musical junkie, and i'm sure this has already been written about to hell and back, but 6x11 prompted me to look more into the song that wilson was singing at the end of the episode.

"one" from the musical a chorus line (also the poster house bought):

"One singular sensation Every little step she takes One thrilling combination Every move that she makes One smile and suddenly nobody else will do You know you'll never be lonely with you-know-who!"

according to genius lyrics, "Despite the lyrics which praise a singular star, the star at whom it’s directed is never shown. The “One” is absent...The star is not even named – only referred to as ‘she’ or ‘You Know Who.’"

there is a "one" in 6x11 - nora, whom both house and wilson stake their claims for dating (which is exceptionally gross & misogynistic of them). but the song/musical choice implies that she was never important enough to be The One in question.

this frame seems self-aware of the potential absence of "The One." the shot gives the impression of symmetry, but it's very uneven. house is reclined back, warping the straight line of the couch, and the boxes on wilson's side are neat and tidied, whereas those on house's side are sparse and thrown about. more importantly, there's that arm rest between house and wilson's seats. if The One (nora) was to sit anywhere, this frame seems to imply that it would be there.

thus, this frame isn't straight.

house seems to be aware of this pseudo-absence, as well. he looks at wilson with a thoughtful, revelatory look on his face:

superficially, he's probably just astounded that wilson is singing the song from a musical he hates so much, but he lets the song continue, nonetheless. here, the episode remembers the genre of the song that wilson is singing - a showtune! and what happens in showtunes/musicals? the singers are spot-lit! the audience watches them perform!

here i'm gonna posit that wilson is a (non-self aware) paul, a chorus line's man character whose revelation that he's gay is both tragic but also drives the plot. house can see this. meta-textually, we see this THROUGH house seeing this.

taken together, this scene's asymmetry, implied spotlight, and awkward arm rest divide offer wilson as the performer in this musical-adjacent exchange, with house as the in-text audience, and us, the real audience, as the outer-textual audience. what a long winded way of saying that wilson is performing comphet here!

and there's another note i want to make on the subject of performance/performativity...

this is from the golden globes official article, "'A Chorus Line' Brought Visibility to Queer Stories in the 70s and 80s'":

"The audience gets to see [Paul, the main character's] valor, which may be an inspiration to those in the audience who face similar challenges."

wilson's proposal to house is complete performance. the entire precedent for the scene is just gay joke after gay joke and wilson's anxiety that this false impression of him will negatively impact his dating life.

when he makes this performance of homosexuality, he's lauded for it. the restaurant urges house to say yes, and everybody claps even before house has given an answer.

also from the article: " The character of Paul delivers a touching monologue about how performing revealed his identity as a gay man."

6x11 inverts this dynamic. the performance in question is that of homosexuality, and wilson is not rewarded for it in the end. he loses The One, as does house, and they go home and watch a hockey game together in yet another intricate ritual (as stated above).

i also think there's something to be said about house enlisting nora's help in bringing the poster for a chorus line up to his apartment.

i'm genuinely hesitant to applaud this show - or any show, really - for subtextual intentionality like this. i have a hard time believing that there was, long ago, a time where tv didn't just capitalize off fandom's tendency to pair up its characters in our internet fanbase/fanfiction age but deliberately queer-coded things. but even silly episodes like this one remind me of that one robert sean leonard quote about house and wilson, that they are the only relationship in the show based completely on choice - the choice to always come back to each other.

all that is to say that i sincerely think these 2 are written in a subversion of gender norms and binary platonic/romantic relationships. for 2000s tv, that's just like lightning in a bottle.

oh and apparently there's a gay character named greg in the musical, too. someone who's more qualified to talk about a chorus line should hijack this post. what the hell are we doing, david shore.

[lynnetendo]

some sifs I drew from memory into my sketchpad while I was at a family meetup... i thought it'd be fun to digitalize the more original style ones with a pixel brush and the ones that were more my own artstyle with my usual brush (initial pencil sketch under the cut)

unironically, any notable change you see between the traditional sketch and the digital version only stems from the fact that i had no space on the real paper e.g. the sketches being repositioned or sif's hat not being curled downwards everywhere was because i could actually use the space better digitally lmao

[squiggl-it]

AAAHHGGHGG HAPPY BIRTHDAY KOREKIYO MY BELOVED!!!! I wish I had more time to work on a birthday pic for him, but I still like how this turned out! <3

[butchfaith]

ok we've been discussing this in our archaeology groupchat and i'm curious

there's no right or wrong answer and obviously this is a very culturally sensitive question- the history (and present state) of displaying human remains is closely tied up with colonialism and (dis)respect for religious and cultural practices, which is why i'm really curious about how many people WOULD be ok with their body being displayed- and why/why not- so if u wanna expand on your answer in the tags please do!!

[time-woods]

this situationship getting a bit craaay-zaaay

this is literally just glorified shotgunning of smoke and i feel deranged this man wouldnt mind being destroyed by this bug and i find that interesting