Somewhere, there is something.

[landsccape]

[tamarrud]

It enrages me everytime it dawns on me that there is no graduating class in Gaza this year.

How maddening it is to think that just last summer I watched as Al-Shaima Akram celebrated received the news that she got the highest score in all of Palestine in her high school examination, not knowing that come October, Israel will kill her and her family and all the joy that was left.

No tawjihi celebration videos will come out of Gaza this year and that is devastating.

Since October, Israel had destroyed every university in Gaza and destroyed 80% of schools, killing hundreds of teachers and professor and thousands of students in its deliberate attempt to destroy Gaza's education system along with everything else.

In the words of Gazan poet Khaled Juma "the school year that never started in Gaza has come to an end". No last day of school bells, no kids celebrating the last day of school. All these joyful sounds have been drowned out by the sounds of bombs. No deadline extension requests for final projects, missiles had their final say.

No graduation ceremonies when parents are instead burying their children. No plans are made for the summer either, when everyone is busy counting the days and the dead.

[suiheisen]

MONKEY MAN (2024)

[knightofleo]

...he is weaving the chocolate. Do you copy, this bitch is WEAVING CHOCOLATE

[beaniebaneenie]

We are so damn lucky Chocolate Guy has a passion for chocolate and crafting beautiful, lifelike desserts.... because if he chose to put this level of work, dedication, and sheer determination into anything even slightly nefarious (instead of nearly breaking the laws of physics in order to create culinary masterpieces) we would be so epically fucked.

[shamebats]

[clairenatural]

there's a cherry blossom tree in DC that keeps blooming every year even though it shouldn't and the park service keeps thinking it's dead and then it keeps blooming! well they're removing a lot of trees to rehabilitate the area and they've said it's finally time for stumpy to go and they're going to mulch it and use the mulch to enrich all the other trees so it can help everything else keep going. and they're also going to plant spliced little pieces of it all over so that stumpy can live forever and this is genuinely sending me into a spiral

[clairenatural]

someone brought it flowers today

[watertightvines]

STUMPY MY BELOVED!!!!

For added context on what rehabilitating the area means: there are structural issues with the Tidal Basin seawall that cause flooding like this independent of rainfall. Big portions of the sidewalk in Stumpy’s section are regularly submerged, which is bad for the land and the trees themselves, not to mention an accessibility issue for visitors.

It’s sad that Stumpy and many other trees in the area will need to be cut down, but it will ensure the continued survival of the other trees in the area, and Stumpy himself will live on in his cuttings!

[the-fisher-queen]

I believe Stumpy will be taken to the national arboretum and his clones will return to the tidal basin after the rebuilding.

Someone left him a bottle of bourbon as an offering.

The Japanese Embassy came to pay him honor this week.

Stumpy and his cohort are part of the original gift from Japan more than 100 years ago, and many have lived this long bc the National Parks takes care of them. Normally the trees live about 40-50 years.

[motiya]

the earth didn’t have to give us meadows of poppies, but she did!!

[screamingvikings]

Silly idea for a novel: the maintenance guys for ancient temple traps.

They’re a team of travelling engineers and quality assurance experts, who have to stay a step ahead of the assorted adventurers and archaeologists. The job is to make all the puzzles and traps authentic to original design, difficult to solve (but not too difficult. They want a staggered fatality rate so the final traps and puzzles get a chance to shine as well), and to stay ahead of schedule.

They’re all members of the reportedly long lost people who built the ruins. How or why this might be is never addressed. They carry themselves like regular tradesmen, all ‘well there’s you’re problem’ while dangling on a harness over a spike trap to fix the giant swinging axe. They have a water traps guy but he’s sick so the mechanical engineer is filling in. The spring loaded traps are all sticking this year due to humidity. The spinning clockwork puzzles are waiting for a part. The guy who replaces the tiles on collapsing floor traps thinks that’s bullshit. The stone worker who fixes the facades after the repairs has a UST-drenched rivalry with the botanist who arranges the moss and vines over hidden entrances and faded murals. The poison darts guy and the snake handler are siblings trying to fill their dad’s shoes. The final assessor is the grizzled old expert who’s seen it all and everyone respects. He has final say on whether or not the work is up to scratch and they can move onto the next temple. He gets injured/falls into a bottomless pit at the end of act one and they have to do the big job without him. The pressure is on to do him proud.

The archaeologists/adventurers have no clue about any of this. They’re constantly traipsing through the jungles, trying to decode clues, and loudly dying in the background. This is treated like a standard inconvenience.

Occasionally they run into vengeful spirits or surviving priests, who treat them the same way you treat a plumber who is fixing your sink: and tentatively offer them a sandwich and a cup of tea and try not to complain about them wearing work boots in the house.

[elodieunderglass]

This also outlines the idea of a greater objective among the trap-builders, a higher mission that drives the maintenance crew to their difficult job and inspires their adherence to quality standards.

[body-knows-best]

I’m having a meltdown. When I was 9 years old I read an article in a magazine called Backyard Adventures about how this antelope, the saiga, was on the verge of extinction. I enlisted the help of my best friend and launched a fundraising campaign called Save the Saigas. We sold lemonade, had bake sales, sold belongings, yelled at strangers as they passed in their cars. Our parents were able to match the money we made. Our school helped. It wasn’t much, it didn’t save them, but it helped the organization at least a little bit.

Y’all. The saigas have been saved. A little piece of my passionate child heart that has seemed hopelessly lost and endlessly disappointed for a long time feels so soothed. Maybe it’s not all hopeless. Maybe our efforts aren’t a complete waste. Maybe we keep trying and actually hope for the best.

[prideandprejudice]

Pride and Prejudice (2005) + facts

[filmgifs]

ELF (2003) Dir. Jon Favreau

[cloverthirteen]

creatives at pixar will be tasked with developing a straight couple and be like yes sir one girlboss and malewife coming right up

[shiverandqueeef]

if you aren't best friends with your lover and a little bit in love with all your friends than what's the fucking point

[sometiktoksarevalid]

[transxfiles]

cant talk rn obsessed over the design concept of this 2017 production of pinocchio as a stage play where pinocchio is the only character played by a human actor and the rest of the cast are portrayed as puppets ,,,

[transxfiles]

like. how insanely poetic is this . you are a boy and you are made of wood but you know so entirely that you are more than wood, you are as human as anyone made of flesh and bone and it's not your fault that you came into the world with sap running through your veins instead of blood. and your entire life you are searching the world for what it means to be human but the dramatic irony of it all is that none of them know how to be human either. you keep reaching out for humanity and they seem so big and powerful but they are just puppets of a greater design too performing for an audience you cannot see. and whether you know it or not you are more human than any of them even if they are convinced you are just wood and paint and magic. im on the floor .im losing my mind over here. gimme a second guys hold on. wait a minute guys wait a goddamn minute like. wahta a good fucking design concept. head in hands !

[theconcealedweapon]

[rubytactician]

How dare you leave this in the tags

[getluckylana]

Surrealist Edward James, was so besotted with his wife, the dancer Tilly Losch, that when he saw the trail of wet footprints she left up the stairs after her bath at Monkton House, he had them woven into the carpet.