[all-0f-the-above]

Welcome! I'm Laurance. This is my main.

Most original posts here will be about comics, ecology, and science education. Book reviews/recommendations are under the LauranceReadsThings tag.

Detective comics (mostly Martian Manhunter, Batman, Justice League) reblogs and comic reviews will pop up; I'm catching up on my ACD Holmes, too. * Big ATLA fan- haven't watched the movie yet since its only release has been unofficial.

I'm catching up with the new Black Butler seasons under the "laurance watches black butler 2024" tag. Not planning to make a kuroshitsuji sideblog so it's here now.

* Some context for notes/posts where I talk about racism is that I'm mixed race and Chinese. No bigotry is tolerated here. Yes, this includes transmisogyny and antiblackness. Also fuck the CCP.

sideblogs: Gravity Falls @gravitytripped (some fiddauthor) Ninjago @mx-julien (glacier, samuraishipping) Art/photo reblogs @dumb-sock Torchwood @neverbeentocardiff (janto) Max Steel (2013) @unhelpful-ultralink Sparks Nevada, Marshal on Mars @deputyonmars

Ao3 main profile All_0f_The_Above Sparks Nevada pseud DeputyOnMars (mostly Ninjago, will add GF to that list soon I swear)

*edited as of Jun. 1, 2026

[todaysbird]

I wanted to use what ‘reach’ I may have here to share the Carolina Wildlife Center’s urgent plea for donations. If they are unable to raise $75,000 to cover ongoing and future care of their wildlife patients, the center will have to close July 20th, 2026. The services provided by CWC to the community are incredibly valuable, and without them, many wild animals will suffer without the care they need.

Original post

Link to donate

[todaysbird]

CWC has officially surpassed their goal in one day and can remain open!! Thank you to everyone who pitched in, shared, offered commissions for donations or otherwise gave your time & energy to support this organization.

Original post

[all-0f-the-above]

wildlife centers are always grateful for donations! CWC may be fully funded now but your local wildlife center is always looking for help

even if your local shelter is not actively campaigning, know that donations outside of crises are just as greatly appreciated. personally, I recommend donating in memory of someone if your issue is nerves or indecisiveness.

my CWC donation was in memory of my grandmother, who lovingly mailed clipped magazine and newspaper articles to a certain grandkid who harbored dreams of becoming a veterinarian. she also used a supersoaker we got her to discourage the squirrels from eating the bird seed by blasting (gently) them with water. good times. love you, grandmom

[delinquentbookworm]

one time I went over to a friend's house and their housemate was making paper in the living room, and we saw this big tub full of water they were using to dissolve old scrap paper into a slurry, and everyone was immediately like "oh, you need scrap paper?" and started turning out their jacket pockets and producing expired coupons and bus tickets and crumpled receipts and old shopping lists and whatever else they'd been carrying round with them for no good reason, and passing it all to the paper-making housemate to make sure it was suitable before it got torn up and dropped into the tub, while people took turns stirring the slurry with a big wooden stick. it was strangely ritualistic, like presenting an offering to some kind of temple elder for inspection before placing it in a watery shrine to be devoured and reformed. pulp for the pulp god.

[all-0f-the-above]

hey hey there is a virtual conference on historical and ancient clothing from Jul 19-20 (that's free to attend!) that'll be streamed in Arabic, English, and Spanish. image IDs under the cut.

below is the announcement from the Penn Museum's Dr. Brad Hafford on his youtube channel and the link to the conference - importantly, the public is welcome to ask questions!

Virtual Conference 2026 | Save Ancient Studies

Learn about Ancient Studies at this free, public virtual conference!

[Image 1 ID: To the left is lineart of the roman statue Venus de Milo overtop a light pink background. Text reads "Opening the ancient world, a free virtual conference. Join us as we uncover ancient fashions and implications. July 19th-20th, 2026. English, Spanish, Arabic." In the top right corner there is an icon of a ceramic vase presented by two open hands. In the bottom left corner there is the logo for SASA, Save Ancient Studies Alliance, which is all three of the roman column types (doric, ionic, and corinthian) over pink, yellow, and blue squares, respectively. /END ID]

[Image 2 ID: A Youtube channel community post from the user Artifactually Speaking, whose icon is a sans serif lowercase "a" with three parentheses of increasing size to its right, mimicking a telecommunications or radio signal icon. It was posted seven days ago. The post reads:

"The Save Ancient Studies Alliance (SASA) will be hosting an online conference on July 19& 20, 2026. The topic is ancient fashion and anyone can attend by watching the streaming feed:

(the link to the SASA website page for the conference)

There will be presentations about cultures spanning the ancient world, such as Persians, Chinese, Egyptians, Greeks, Vikings, and Mesopotamians.

The term fashion originates from the Latin word facere, which means "to make", and describes the manufacturing, mixing, and wearing of outfits adorned with specific cultural aesthetics, patterns, motifs, shapes, and cuts, allowing people to showcase their group belongings, values, meanings, beliefs, and ways of life.

How did different civilizations dress? What did this symbolize about their culture? How did clothing indicate the social status of members in society? Was clothing just for fashion or did it represent deeper symbolisms about a culture?

The virtual conference will tackle these questions and many others." / END ID]

[crtscreen]

throughout the late 2000s and early 2010s, our generation was inundated with aave. it eclipsed lolcat as the "funny way to talk." ain't nobody got time fo dat turns into dat boi o shit waddup. this is blatantly not an "aracial" or "gen z" way to talk. it IS black english. not to mention the amount of black reaction images!!

WHY, specifically, is it black peoples' facial expressions that are seen as just so comical or exaggerated? analyze the history of this nation's comedy and tell me why you might be predisposed to thinking of black peoples' faces as just, "more emotive" or exaggeratedly funny than a white or nonblack person's

and throughout those years, 00s-10s, many black bloggers -- victims of the mass staff-led purge (under the cover of them being 'russian' while reichblr still exists) -- they DID tell us it was a problem, DID try to educate people who freak out at the insinuation of 'being racist,' DID argue, DID point out the duplicity and the appropriation and the gross equivalence of african american slang with unintelligence, goofiness, etc. and they were ignored, abused, cancelled, chased off, until being eventually mass deleted by our racist transmisogynistic staff.

we didn't do enough, and the generation after us gen z "kids" didn't stop the trend. using the '-ahh' suffix. rizz. no cap. ate. delulu. it's giving. it's serving. crash out. lock in. aura. tea. main character. bruh. slay. real. keep it 100.

all of the following images are or were popular reaction images! what do they all have in common?

it feels like the effort to categorize slang as AAVE and not 'gen z' or 'gen alpha' slang has really petered out. it feels like we stopped talking about digital blackface in an era where the administration is posting ai-generated videos of black women who speak and act like exaggerated stereotypes and it frustrates me because we all have a responsibility to understand our generation's role in normalizing this type of racist shit for kids today. this needs to be addressed!

[hawlucha]

With a heavy heart, I come to you all with the news announced by close friends of Cat Frazier that she had passed away on Monday, June 29.

She had been running @animatedtext since 2012, with her impact on the internet SHAPING tumblr. If you have a years long history on this site, you’ve seen her art.

She ran a venue in Oakland called Oakland Secret, a punk venue where I’d vend at regularly as an artist. She made a safe space for queer artists, artists of color, and local furs too. I am forever grateful for her work both in the Bay Area creative scene and online, and am forever changed by the totality of her impact.

I’ll be linking some articles from the 2010’s about her impact online: The Fader | Action | Jezebel | ObviouslySocial

I invite you to take a visit through her archive, and if you have a long history with this site like I do, it’s like walking down memory lane. (open link in browser)

[quasi-normalcy]

So what I think is that there's this default belief in patriarchy that men are superior to women and therefore the "masculine" sphere is superior to the "feminine" sphere. And so, as feminists have fought to expand the number of allowable female activities, men (on the aggregate over generations) have retreated from those activities because they're now seen as "feminine", and so partaking in them is incommensurate with their belief in their own superiority. And, unfortunately, as this has progressed, this has resulted in a lot of men sectioning themselves off from, frankly, everything that actually makes being alive worthwhile. It's a misery spiral, and the only way out is to abandon male supremacy.

[quasi-normalcy]

#men gave up deep friendships and reading and poetry and colourful fashion#all things that used to be considered manly in the 19th century#they're currently giving up on studying law and medecine#it's so stupid and sad

(I mean, the colourful fashion was more of an eighteenth century thing, but yeah)

[quasi-normalcy]

#more women in higher education meaning fewer men is incredibly depressing to me. funny in a sad way#what happens when women will finally get into trades? will they just stop working

[sherryzade]

spectacular tags from @luesmainblog

[natequarter]

not only are most people completely unaware of the devastation of indigenous languages in the americas, most people are completely unaware of the devastation of indigenous languages in europe. never mind occitan, they don't know about basque! it's wild! bleak! existentially horrifying!!!

[natequarter]

the last few centuries of french history involved, amongst other things, a concerted effort to establish "french" as a legitimate country and cultural identity, and crucially as a language, which sounds like an absurd statement if you know nothing about the languages of france. french is a language, yes; it exists and existed in the late eighteenth century. but it was limited primarily to the north of france and was certainly not spoken or even understood across the country. other languages within france were banned and french was enforced following the french revolution and even to this day other languages indigenous to france have very little legal protection and are not recognised as official languages.

that's just one country in europe. one. and many people straight up have no idea about any of this!

[natequarter]

did you know france has celtic languages? breton is the only celtic language spoken outside of the british isles. did you know france has germanic languages? alsatian, for example, is spoken in the east of france, unsurprisingly in alsace. it's not even the only french germanic language. did you know france has a number of languages and dialects known as langues d'oïl closely related to french? norman and picard, for example, are spoken in the north of france. did you know that france has gallo-romance languages? franco-provençal (which has a number of dialects) is spoken in the east of france, as well as parts of switzerland and italy. did you know that france has a language most closely related to catalan, the langues d'oc? occitan is spoken in the south of france and has a rich literary history. did you know france is home to basque, or rather euskara, a language isolate which predates indo-european languages? romani dialects! corsican! so much more than just french! there are even extinct jewish dialects of occitan! extinct langues d'oïl like angevin! so much linguistic diversity and all anyone talks about is french.

[all-0f-the-above]

op is absolutely right, and I don't want to derail this post, only adding that I can absolutely sympathize given that there is a similar issue happening across the Chinese-speaking part of East Asia.

mainland China is particularly bad about this shit, having complete control over which groups get counted as a legitimate minority group. the whole "Han people are all alike" is an absolutely insane notion they dreamed up to try and unite people under them. in some people's view- even I'm Han, but our ancestral language is not Mandarian, it's Hakka.

they work very hard so that the only languages people outside of mainland come across are standardized Mandarin and Cantonese. and any and all other langugaes are called "dialets" or "accents" to delegitimize them. there are many indigenous people and languages within mainland China (recognized and unrecognized), but I also need you to know that Taiwan's indigenous community was really fucked over by the sudden migration after Mao won. they have a language. Hong Kong has an indigenous population as well! they have a language. it's not just Cantonese. Tibet is home to languages you've probably never heard of.

given the current state of ethnic minority group rights in mainland...

these languages are at even higher risk than they were previously.

extra fun fact about an indigenous group in Southern China (also in Vietnam): their English name "Boat People" is accurate, as they traditionally live on boats and not in permanent settlements on land! they are likely descended from an older lineage of Yue people. really fucking cool.

[yandere-angela]

this is the funniest phono-semantic loanword ive seen

filibuster -> feilibashituo "spending energy to drag things out"

[wyrm-in-a-closet]

i looked up more examples of this, and these have to be my favorite. the power of the phrase "myriad dimensional net" is immense

[all-0f-the-above]

honorary mention to the translation of "Pepsi" which is 百事可樂 (simplified: 百事可乐) [bǎi shì(r) kě lè]

可樂 (simp. 可乐) [kě lè] means soda, a phonetic translation of "cola"

百事 [bǎi shì(r)] means 100 things

however, put together, it roughly translates to "may there be 100 things that make you happy” or “may you find joy in all things” (this localization is from this Reddit post, which I felt did a better job at the translation than me lol), which is also a phrase traditionally used to wish luck for others. emulating auspicious (aka 'lucky') phrases like this is a really impressive marketing move imo.

[kira-7]

This is a spot from an italian estate agency (we are governed by the right-wing party)

The woman says "Ridiculous..."

If you want to spread it elsewhere, here's the official link

[arctic-hands]

[Video Description: An ad with piano music over it all, showing an elderly woman in her home, knitting, when two younger men walk by her window, which catches her attention. She stares out her window at them as they kiss each other while walking, the old lady staring in disbelief. Cut to the old woman approaching a residence with a broom in hand, staring up at the second floor window where a small rainbow Pride flag is hanging. The old woman stares up at it and mutters "Ridiculo", before getting up on a ladder with her broom to remove the flag. Focus on the flag fluttering to the ground as church bells chime. The scene then cuts to the couple from before, approaching their home with grocery bags in hand before one stops and stares at the second floor, stopping his partner who then drops the groceries as he too stares up. It's then revealed that the small pride flag had been replaced with a gigantic, hand-knit pride flag. It then cuts back to the old woman's home, where a tin of rainbow-colored yarn sits on her table. The hands of the old woman are holding and fondly touching an old black and white photo of two young smiling women, leaning against each other. Cut to the old woman's face as she stares out with a look of happy pride on her face. At the end of the video, the name "Idealista" appears on screen, followed by "buon pride" along with a rainbow. End VD.]

[spaceofentropy]

One correction:

The old lady is not in her home. She is at work. She's meant to be what in Italian is called "la portinaia", aka a cross between a doorwoman and cleaner of a residential building. She's in her small "office" space, at the entrance of the building, from where she can survey the coming and goings of the inhabitants. It's a job that has mostly disappeared, but is culturally very clear to us as having the connotation of "potentially gossipy, one-million-percent judgmental woman who sees everything that goes on in the apartment complex, knows everyone and their secrets, and has Strong Opinions™️".

In this case, thankfully, the Strong Opinion™️ is that those two men are ridiculous with their teeny tiny flag for ants.

[hollis-art]

regular hero: clark kent! this guy can't help but help people

+ some close-ups of my favorite panels!

i love him...

[herpsandbirds]

Back Bay National Wildlife Refuge, Virginia, USA Summer, 2000

Loggerhead Sea Turtle Monitoring Internship

Fresh out of college, and my first time doing real field work away from home. My first real time away from home, as well. This was 1 of the 3 U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service - National Wildlife Refuges that I interned at.

The pay was nothing, and there weren't that many nesting sea turtles that season, but I loved getting paid to drive a 4-wheeler up and down the beach.

My primary job was to look for nests in the morning or nesting sea turtles at night. The coast of Virginia is the northernmost area of the Atlantic Coast where sea turtles nest (specifically Loggerheads). Once nests were located, we built predator exclusion cages around them (or dug them up if we were unable to do that in certain areas... to be incubated at a local marine science center and later released). We got to satellite tag one mother turtle that year, and it was an amazing experience.

The refuge staff gave us all projects to work on, as well, besides sea turtles. I got to help with bird point counts, osprey nest monitoring (and banding - pictured here), prothonotary nestbox surveys, and insect surveys.

I wish I had been better about taking photos. This is the only one I could find.

[apas-95]

[sraithpics]

David Cleary!

[all-0f-the-above]

From the Bogside to Brexit – The Long Shadow of Bloody Sunday

50 years on from the British army massacre, Northern Irish Catholics and Protestants are still both pawns in the imperial game

David Cleary Archives - Village Magazine

David Cleary Archives - Village Magazine

[all-0f-the-above]

i love you, one specific newcastle librarian

the only two copies of these books that were in a library were: in the Newcastle Library system in England. i sent them an email, not really expecting a response, but they came through in less than 12 hours with scanned pages of the referenced material. genuinely one of the magical things about libraries and the people who work there

if you want to know what the hell i could be working on, keep an eye out for the July edition of The Some Times from @somethingusefulfromflorida

[green-is-gay]

i dont WANT pride months to be over,

on the other hand...

[all-0f-the-above]

HAPPY DISABILITY PRIDE MONTH 🎉🎉🎉

my disabled ass is currently celebrating by lying down bc my medication causes heat sensitivity and it's our hottest day yet this summer 🫠

[darkelfchicksick]

big news for people who are me

1,000-year-old Viking textile production center uncovered near Aarhus in Denmark | Archaeology News Online Magazine

Archaeologists uncovered a 1,000-year-old Viking textile production center near Aarhus, revealing large-scale cloth making and trade.

The site sits near Søften in eastern Jutland, about 10 kilometers north of modern Aarhus. Excavations by the Moesgaard Museum show a planned production area instead of a normal farming village. The settlement covered at least 100,000 square meters. Most of the work focused on making textiles, though other forms of handwork also took place there.

Researchers found an area where flax was prepared before workers turned the plant into linen. They also uncovered 82 pit houses, small sunken buildings linked with Viking workshops. Many held spindle whorls and loom weights, showing cloth production took place on a large scale.

[ninanation]

Come to think of it, it really is insane that my entire country is burning alive and literally no one in the rest of the world cares. Thousands of Indians are dying every day from the heat, it's 45+ degrees in multiple areas, the government couldn't give two fucks, we're getting severe warnings and red alerts, and not a soul outside of South Asia is speaking about it because why would you ever care about brown people

[ninanation]

please keep talking about how Becky from Maryland doesn't like the rising gas prices. It's clearly the more pressing issue.

[creacher-art]

USA folks, that is a consistent temperature range hitting 113°. Death Valley temperatures. In Banda, it hovered between 116°-118° (47°-48° C) for a week straight.

This has been happening all month with little to no international media attention. Here are a few organizations you can check out for resources or to support:

ActionAid India

SEEDS India

GlobalGiving <- No longer taking donations

Raise India (Project Tapan)