dry land

do not interact with me.

[owlservice]

Most pertinent fact about Asia

[saritazoo]

Happy International Vulture Awareness Day!

It’s about time I got the chance to draw my favorite animal for this account! This is the Bearded Vulture (Gypaetus barbatus), a scavenger of scavengers, the only known vertebrate whose diet consists of 70–90% bone! In order to digest bone, the Bearded Vulture’s stomach acid has a pH concentration of 1, about as acidic as battery acid! The Bearded Vulture can swallow bones up to the size of a lamb’s femur whole, or, it will break them into smaller, more manageable pieces. It does this by flying them to a height of 50–150 m (160–490 ft) above rocks and then dropping them so that they fall at a precise angle. They may need to repeat the drop multiple times if the bone does not break sufficiently. This learned skill requires extensive practice, and can take up to 7 years for the bird to master. They can fly with bones up to 10 cm (3.9 in) in diameter and weighing over 4 kg (8.8 lb), nearly equal to their own weight!

Bearded Vultures are also one of the few animals known to use cosmetics. While their head, chest, and leg feathers are naturally a cream color, they will bathe in iron-rich dust or mud to dye them red, orange, rust, or pink! They will also transfer this coloration to their eggs.

The Bearded Vulture has been declining severely in Europe over the past several decades, and has also seen declines in Asia and Africa. Threats include loss of habitat, collisions with powerlines, poisoning (intentional and unintentional), and trophy hunting.

Bearded Vultures are one of the more charismatic species of vulture, but on this Vulture Awareness Day let us remember how important all vultures are. As highly effective scavengers with strong stomachs, vultures help clean the earth and stop the spread of diseases such as rabies and anthrax. They return nutrients that other organisms would miss into the cycle of life, and they do not need to hunt and kill to eat. This is one of the most imperiled group of birds, and without them, ecosystems around the world would collapse.

[pointnclick]

Someone is eating a fresh orange in this McDonald's. I smelled it and my head snapped up like a hunting dog. That smell doesn't belong in this wicked place

[grumfy]

yeah actually we removed the big bad wolf from the little red riding hood story because portraying violence against minors is really messed up. yeah. yeah also the wolf narrative was really predatory and had had some icky grooming vibes and a fable meant for literal children shouldn’t have implied p*do shit and grape so now little red riding hood goes into the woods and nothing happens and she goes to grandma’s house. don’t worry our kids will still stick to the path and know not to follow to wolves implicitly because we told them to and children should always do as their told. just like little red riding hood does now.

[cadaverkeys]

the semantic drift of the term "liminal" genuinely pisses me off and i know its petty. LIMINAL IS A TRANSITIONAL STAGE BETWEEN TWO STATES- OR. IF WE WANT TO WIDEN THE BOUNDARY HERE. IT COULD BE ON THE VERY EDGE OF BECOMING SOMETHING ELSE. just because something is abandoned doesn't mean its liminal. in fact, that shopping mall was MORE liminal when it was dying off and shutting down outlets every month than it is 5 years later when the space is fully abandoned.

[antidisneyinc]

Guillermo del Toro Says “We Have to Rescue” Studio Animation From “Emoji-Style Behavior”

While Guillermo del Toro continues prep work on his forthcoming live-action feature Frankenstein for Netflix, with Andrew Garfield, Oscar Is

finally a descriptor for whatever the fuck american animation studios have been doing for years

[radio-charlie]

[whereserpentswalk]

He summed up so much so well.

[lakevida]

i am a heron. i haev a long neck and i pick fish out of the water w/ my beak. if you dont repost this comment on 10 other pages i will fly into your kitchen tonight and make a mess of your pots and pans

wouldnt even notice with the roommate situation i got going on

[reallyreallyreallytrying]

a sense of calm pervades the shelf stable aisles of the supermarket, quite different to the desperate urgency of perishables

[adventure-waffles]

So Practical!

[rudeteens]

Everything needs to be glass, if it can’t be glass it needs to be ceramic, if it can’t be ceramic it needs to be wood, if it can’t be wood it needs to be stainless steel, if it can’t be stainless steel it needs to be stone, if it can’t be stone it needs to be glass

[wabbledab]

@alagaisia's tags are too true to leave out

[fuzzyinthehead]

Absolutely, do not, EVER feel bad about needing to use plastic medical supplies. Your safety is paramount - sterility of anything that breaks your skin or touches wounds is non-negotiable.

[bjurnberg]

Kneading bread dough is the most grounding thing for me. So I decided to make some rolls to relieve some stress and make something nice.

@stealingyourbones has made some delightful food abominations, which taught me I can replace the water in bread with almost any liquid.

So I tried Miso.

The yeast loved it and frothed up super fast. Mixing miso broth with the egg and oil smelled funky. The dough didn’t rise any fluffier than usual but the texture feels good. Then I decided to roll in some black garlic and green onion. I’d add nori crumbled up but I ran out.

Now we let it bake.

[bjurnberg]

Holyshitumaioishiiii

This is amazing. It tastes like if miso soup was solid. The flavor is immaculate. It’s just missing the nori flavor. I can add that next time because I am 100% making this again.

[bjurnberg]

WAIT I HAD FURIKAKE IN THE CUPBOARD!!!!

This is what perfection tastes like.

[bjurnberg]

Yes! I love sharing recipes! @lady-jeleania

Here’s my Gma Vesta’s hamburger bun recipe:

1 Tbsp yeast

1/2 cup warm water (miso broth)

- mix together and let it froth up

1 1/2 cup warm water (miso broth)

1/2 cup sugar

1 1/2 tsp salt

1 egg

1/4 cup olive oil

- mix all together, then add frothy yeast

5 1/2 - 6ish cups flour

- mix in slowly with a fork until it’s hard to stir with the fork, then stir together with hands until it stops sticking to your skin when you rub your hands together.

- knead the dough about 10min until it starts pushing back (it gets springy)

Let the dough rest for 30min.

(I make a redneck proof box by microwaving a cup of water and quickly replacing the water with the dough bowl and shutting the door to give it a warm place to nap. Do not microwave the dough itself by reflex.)

Roll out the dough and add any flavors you like. For the miso soup bread I chopped up a couple black garlics, and a handful of green onion. Roll it up like cinnamon rolls, cut into 12, and roll each into a ball shape.

Stick in a greased 9x13 casserole dish and let the dough rise to double size. (About 40min-1hr depending on how warm your kitchen is.) (the redneck proof box won’t fit my casserole dish so I stick the rolls on top of the oven while it preheats with a dish towel over it.)

Preheat the oven to 350 and when the dough looks nice and squishy bake it for 20min.

You can brush butter on top if you want. That would look pretty and help a sprinkling of furikake stick after you pull it out of the oven. If you wanna up the miso taste you can also spread a very thin layer of miso paste in before you roll it up with the other fillings. I’m gonna try that next time.

Bake! Eat! Enjoy! Knead all your frustrations into the bread then cleanse it with fire! Lemme know how yours turn out 💕🍀✨🥖

[redlipstickresurrected]

Stephen Vollo (American) - Strainer, Paintings: Oil on Canvas on Panel

[alex51324]

I used to have that exact strainer. It was in a box of hand-me-down kitchen things from my grandmother when I got my first apartment in 1996. It broke last year.

Anyway, this is a painting.

[sexshopshenanigans]

This is the best strainer in the world and i check the housewares aisle in every thrift store I visit hoping to find another one. No strainer has ever been able to live up to this icon, this superstar, this vision of grace and elegance.

It’s the two-quart Tupperware colander. The handle is large and sturdy but still comfortable to hold in your hand. The ridge on the end helps it fit on any size pot you need to rest it over. The little feet at the bottom let you drain directly into the sink without leaving the contents sitting in a puddle. It’s got a spout on both sides so you can pour comfortably from the left or right hand, towards or away from yourself as needed. The holes are at the bottom so you can control where strained liquids flow, large enough to drain quickly, small enough to keep from losing bits of food through them. The bright yellow colour is easy to spot in the back of a cupboard or dishwasher.

I am passionate about this specific strainer in a way that I am not passionate about anything else in my life. I would run back into a burning building to rescue this strainer. This strainer is my go-to wedding or housewarming gift. This strainer is my beloved family member. I have shared more meals with this strainer than I have with anyone else in my life. This strainer has never, ever let me down. It is the most perfectly designed item I have ever seen or handled in my life. Every aspect of this strainer is made to maximize convenience and functionality. It is flawless, a form of complete and total perfection. If you told me this strainer was the face of God, recreated on Earth in Their image, I would believe you.

Anyway, this is the best painting I’ve ever seen and they should take down the Mona Lisa so there’s an appropriate space to hang it in the Louvre.

[marlynnofmany]

Thank you for that eloquent review to go along with this impressive painting!

If anyone else is inspired to look up the two-quart Tupperware colander, I'll save you a few keystrokes. Amazon has in stock (in several colors, no less). I imagine some other stores do as well.

Anyways, I already have two metal colanders that make a horrible mess every time they're used, and I'm gonna buy myself a blue one of these. Thanks!

[miamaimania]

“Controlled Memory Loss” (2010) by Eva Koťátková ☀ Three people wearing their prisons like awkward clothing.

[biglawbear]

I finished reading The Lord of the Rings for the first time in my life. With all of *vague gesture at everything* this going on.

I Am Not Okay

[biglawbear]

You have to understand. I watched the movies maybe once as a kid when they came out twenty years ago. I've somehow avoided learning like anything about these books my entire life. Literally everything about these books was a complete unknown and surprise to me. Totally blank slate going on. I barely even knew how it ended.

Holy shit.

[biglawbear]

Frodo didn't complete his task. Sam literally carried him up Mount Doom. And when he got to the end, he couldn't throw the Ring away.

But for Gollum biting it off with his finger, it wouldn't have been destroyed.

So Frodo's journey saved the world nonetheless.

And it broke him.

It was too much for him to bear. He could no longer live in the Shire or live in Middle-Earth. He wasn't of the world anymore. He had to go to the Undying Lands.

He took on the task that no one else would. He saved the world. Everyone got a happy ending. Aragorn became King, Sam rebuilt the Shire, Merry and Pippin became heroes. They all lived in renown.

But Frodo had the hardest task of all. No one else would do it. A simple hobbit who came by the Ring by chance. Not a King, not an immortal. Not a wizard. No power save his will and his friends. And he did it and saved everyone.

And he never got to rest. He never got to remain in peace. The task destroyed him. It was too much.

But there was no other way. Nobody but a simple hobbit could bear the ring all the way to Mount Doom and resist its power so long. Not a man, not an elf, not a wizard; they would have succumbed. Gandalf knew this, which was why he chose the hobbits in all his designs.

It's amazing that one of the precedent setting works in the fantasy genre holds up so well because it subverts what ultimately became the genre's core tropes. The hero was not the King, or a chosen one. In fact, the hero not being the King was a key point that allowed Aragorn to distract Sauron and allow the task in the first place. The hero was someone unassuming but courageous, who did the thing because no one else would, even though it was just by chance he came upon it.

But Frodo couldn't resist the Ring completely. He wasn't superior to anyone else in that way. And in the end it left him broken. The burden crushed him. No one else could do it, and in the end, he couldn't either. He wasn't so special that he was invulnerable.

I'm not okay. Holy fuck you guys.

[biglawbear]

It's been a week and I'm still not over this, I'll never get over this.

Something that I've been thinking about, as I struggle with depression and anxiety and *another vague gesture at everything* is that LOTR does not criticize Frodo for being broken. It does not shame him or deny him what he needs.

The task was too much and it broke him and that's okay. His friends nonetheless take care of him and let him go with understanding. The book doesn't treat it as a bad thing.

This seems to be a theme throughout the books. The characters rest and heal. They spend time recovering in Rivendell, Fangorn, Lorien, Ithilien. It's treated as good and necessary. They don't heroically endure endless torment from the second they set out until they're done.

And in Gondor's march from Minas Tirith to Mordor, Aragorn recognizes that some of the very few men he's taking with him don't have the heart to go to battle against the Enemy. And he says that's okay. He gives them other tasks the they can do. They hold other strategic points. They aren't shamed for not going all the way, or kicked out, or told that they aren't manly or whatever. Their limitations are recognized and respected. The task was too big and it was okay that they couldn't do it.

I don't know man. I've held on through some absolutely crazy shit. White knuckled through mental health crises when my doctors were begging me to take a break, to go to the hospital before I hurt myself. My therapist has tried to slow me down and tell me that I've been going through it and it's understandable that I am feeling some kind of way. Even one of my colleagues remarked that I've had an absolutely fucking wild career and that I've seen more as a lawyer of seven years than she has as a lawyer of forty. But I've gotten it into my head that I have to be strong, I have to be independent.

Fuck me, man, I'm currently white knuckling through life and hanging on by a fucking thread. A few weeks ago I was about an hour away from checking myself in to a mental health facility until my best friends swooped in to help me. And then I went right back to work.

And then I read this book. This fucking brilliant and beautiful book written by a man who had seen the horrors of war and spilled it all over the page. And I read it for the first time as an adult with full understanding and experience of what it all means. And it hits me like a fucking truck.

And it says that you can't endure everything. That at some point you need to rest and heal. That if you take on too much you will break. And that all of that is okay.

How am I supposed to move on with my life after reading this?

[gengario]

whoops lost myself for about eight years there

[bettedavisgf]

[nebulations]

[ID: A Tiktok with the caption "reading a fic by someone who's actually in the profession they're witing about so you're witnessing jargon unike anything you've ever seen before" and a comment that says, "I think abt the fic where Sasuke Uchiha works for the Ottawa housing board every single day". End ID]

[bettedavisgf]

this is frying me so bad