turn and face the strange

Jess, Melbourne, early 30's. This blog is currently >75% pictures of plants at any one time, ~10% Dunnett rants and falling, (but this may rise again at any time! avoid Lymond spoilers by blocking my tag). Things I like may be found here (portraits, costume details, science, interiors and exteriors, quotes, recipes, occasional bouts of demented fangirlism).

[krasnoarmeyets]

i bet it feels good as fuck to intend to do something and then actually do it

[frightfullytreeish]

no nuance you have to decide

would jeeves have succumbed to the one ring?

no, he would diminish and go into the west and remain a valet

yes, he can't resist such power (burn bertie's ugliest trousers)

the ring has no effect on him, tom bombadil style

Voting ended onApr 5

[frightfullytreeish]

4 days left in the most important 'thoughts had just before going to sleep' poll I've ever made

[foxofninetales]

"Well, Jeeves," I said, "That seems to be that."

"A consummation greatly desired," Jeeves agreed.

"The forces of darkness vanquished, the rightful king upon his throne, and all that. And, even more importantly, Tuppy Glossop disengaged from that horsy female and returned to the bosom of my cousin Angela."

"Indeed, sir."

"Rather a shock running into the Reverend Aubry Upjohn riding that fell beast, what?"

"I though you displayed great alacrity in relocating to that ditch in the nick of time, sir."

Far below us, the molten lava did a rather spirited impersonation of boiling soup. I mopped the p. off the b. with a handkerchief I'd improvised from an orc loincloth. I had been to some deuced uncomfortable country estates in my time, don't you know, but at least there one had been able to toddle downstairs and pour oneself a quick W. and S. as needed to stiffen the sinews. Galadriel's Buck-U-Uppo was excellent at vitalizing the limbs to forge on the last dreadful mile and all that, but it lacked the comfort that speaks to the soul.

I contemplated the glowing river. "Redirecting the army of Aunts to that Isengard place was a stroke of brilliance, I thought."

"You are too kind, sir."

"Still, all things must end, as they say. Travel is broadening to the mind and all, but it is past time to attend the call of heart and home. Among other considerations, I think something took residence inside this mithril shirt somewhere around the Morgul Vale and has been wandering about biting hither and thither ever since, and I am filled with the desire to strip it off and do battle with the blighted thing."

"Understandable, sir."

"I heard rather a good one the other day: Sing hey! for the bath at close of day that washes the weary mud away! -and by Jove if I don't think they were on to something, Jeeves."

"It is undeniably felicitous to be surrounded by the comforts of home," he assented, and yet I couldn't escape a certain sense of firmness about his gaze.

I sighed, for I knew what he wanted. Well, I mean, I'm all for taking a firm stance and not being trodden on in one's own home and all, but as far as rallying around to save the young master goes, none could have rallied more greatly than Jeeves. If a little firmness was the price I had to pay, well, so be it.

Slowly I undid the old school tie from around my neck. It was harder work than one would have thought; as if it could hear what was rattling around in the old brain, the ring that was threaded on it put in a last surge of effort in the gleaming and enticement department, filling my mind with heady visions: Freddie Widgeon gnashing his teeth as I sank yet another dart into the bullseye, Aunt Agatha wreathed in tears and begging my forgiveness for ever having misjudged me, Jeeves gazing admiringly as I displayed my newest waistcoat for his edification…

It was the last that broke the spell. Cursed objects of all-consuming power were all well and good in their sphere, but there were limits, don't you know? And yet I hesitated. "You don't think I could slip it on and just have a quick total domination of the world before I toddle around to the Drones for a stiff one?"

Jeeves gave a gentle cough of reproof. "I think you will find it for the best, sir."

It was a wrench, but one could not deny the man had earned it. With a heavy hand, I held the ring out to him. "Take it, then. You will know what do with it, I'm sure."

He took it from me with the sort of shimmer that showed he was exceptionally gratified. "Thank you, sir."

I watched as the ring fell from his hand into the depths below. It hit the lava and rested there for a moment before slowly sinking beneath the glowing surface, and as they caught fire I almost felt that the Old Etonian colors glowed brighter in approval. That Wooster, they seemed to say: not much in the brains department, but he gets the job done.

Outside, there came a hideous wailing as of something ages old abruptly losing the power which bound it to this mortal plain and all that, which I took as our signal to leg it down the nearest drainpipe before things got sticky. The road goes ever on and on, what? Yet I paused there, at the end of all things, because some things have to be said.

"No, thank you, Jeeves."

[nellachronism]

THANK YOU for understanding the assignment, bally good work, this.

[lucyfishwife]

All of this is the cheffest of kiss

[daddyfuckedme]

[dharmagun]

Higgledy-piggledy unparliamentary green parrots quarrel outside in the trees

Squawking out epithets uncomplimentary Squads of unmannerly Oversized peas.

[roach-works]

i loved this poem so much that i memorized it and to this day i sometimes mutter it under my breath to keep my welding tempo even

[tinylongwing]

Half hour environment sketch, Tasmania, late Cretaceous. Leaellynasaura mid-molt out of summer browns and into winter whites scans the landscape in the weak fading Antarctic sunlight.

[dama-puma-vs-jaguar-lady]

[thekimonogallery]

Wafrica« by Serge Mouangue, a Cameroonian designer based in Japan.  Wafrica creates African patterns on Japanese traditIonal kimonos

[historical-fashion-polls]

which costume would you rather wear? (1893)

left 💙⚓️

right 🤍🩵

Remaining time: 2 days 15 hours

requested by: anon

request: 19th century womenswear inspired by naval themes such as ships, sailing, and the seas (either more with a uniform appearance or more costume-y)

commentary from the curator: I ended up combining the two options and going for theatre costumes that take inspiration from uniforms (and also sailing more generally). these are both from a production of HMS Pinafore, and I hope they fit what you were looking for! if not, please feel free to send in another request! ☺️

[thesanityclause]

Over 10 years ago I drew this mother naga with her kid and a bowl of gulab jamun, and I was blown away to see people still reblogging it and saying kind things here. I decided to draw a sequel, the PTA (People That are Anacondas) meeting is over, and she finally gets to have some gulab jamun. c: I really hope this cheers you up some.

[animatedamerican]

My first reaction: she finally gets to have some!!

My second reaction: oh gosh they're holding tails in the second picture okay I need to reblog this.

[helicalsymmetry]

the other big takeaway of the hagfish sex mystery (outside of all the information on hagfish) is always always always check the sources of a claim, even if you feel it's from a credible institution or individual. this all started because i saw a post ( x ) from the monterey bay aquarium claiming that hagfish are serial bidirectional sex-changers, looked up the mechanisms by which fish change sex, saw that people who wrote on that subject weren't counting hagfish as vertebrates known to change sex, and then started trying to track down what specific claims were being made by whom based on what evidence. you do not have to hit the 'doing background research on embryology as preparation to email a specific highly accomplished evodevo scientist about his lab observations' stage for every single thing (you can hit it sometimes. it's fun. let's be dilettante scientists together.) but you should be aware of the fact that anyone can say anything (and they might even believe it's true). you benefit from investigating things for yourself.

let's explore how this sort of thing can create issues. hagfish are an important part of benthic ecosystems and the carbon cycle due to being scavengers who are often among the first to arrive to corpses (sometimes before they're technically corpses. i'm warning you ahead of time so if you look into hagfish scavenging and predation you're aware) and whose feeding behaviors influence the behaviors of other benthic scavengers. they do this primarily through competition with other scavengers who eat soft tissues and through making different parts of the carcass more accessible by stripping those soft tissues. (sources: x, x) they also influence their environment by stirring up sediment when burrowing, which oxygenates the sediment (a big deal in the deep sea where oxygen is scarce) and loosens the substrate for use by other animals. (sources: x, x ) for this reason some scientists recognize hagfish as 'ecosystem engineers,' animals whose presence and actions have a significant effect on the ecology of the area they live in. (source: x)

this is not directly relevant to my questions about the reproductive biology of hagfish but it is very much connected, as not knowing how they reproduce impacts our ability to assess hagfish population stability. and it is very important that hagfish be able to maintain population stability. as of right now, policy decisions regarding deliberate fishing of hagfish and hagfish as bycatch are being made on limited, incomplete information about their life cycles that people may not be aware is limited and incomplete. after all, at this point i've found multiple sources that say 'hagfish reproduction works like this' and then when i dig deeper, the full statement is 'hagfish reproduction works like this (we think) (we're guessing) (no one actually knows for sure).' that's two different statements! those are VERY different levels of knowledge! it's irresponsible to present an unproven hypothesis as solid fact. but it's also socially rewarded to make confident-sounding statements and bury the uncertainties, and the majority of people just accept the surface and skim over the revealing details.

trust, but verify. double-check the reasons people give for saying what they're saying and make sure they're sound. if you're making the choice to deliberately share information with an audience, take the time to make sure that information is what it appears to be. if it's good, great. if it's not, you may have found a new research rabbithole to go down.

[okjohnrich]

Dear Readers,

The good news is that I've completed the full manuscript for John Rich & The Big Picture, formatted it and killed some darlings, and have sent it to my agent. What started out as a practice novel has become, truly, A Regular Novel. That practice worked—I learned so much! You guys taught me so much. With your gasps, groans, and laughter, you showed me what hit and what didn't. Thank you.

The inconvenient news—I will be closing this Tumblr in the next few days. This is, yes, for #publishing reasons. You will only be able to read John Rich & The Big Picture at the dedicated website for the foreseeable future.

Tumblr is where I got my start sharing stories. I love how I can, like, post 400 words of smut and have that up for 48 hours. I can type up a random thought on the current chapter I'm working on. I can rant. Or drop a poll about whether or not you think John is inspired by John Mulaney. (For legal reasons, he's not. Why would you even think that?) Tumblr is a great place to build community, but not the ideal place potential publishers wants certain stories to exist. (That gay hockey comic is an anomaly.)

Chapter 19 and all subsequent chapters will be up on okjohnrich.site. You'll read the ending there. That site, too, will have to be taken down at some point, but I'll let the finale breathe before putting it under lock and key. This means your friends should start reading now before they have to buy the eBook for the price of two Manhattan lattes.

Thank you for reading, Ngozi

[parakeet]

just found out about this cute little birdy and i am in love

[crowcryptid]

[awheckery]

from the above-linked ebird.org:

Anis are bizarre, coal-black cuckoos with long floppy tails and unique, curiously tall, flattened bills. Groove-billed occurs in a variety of open and semi-open habitats in tropical lowlands and foothills, typically staying low in shrubs and grasses. Gregarious and not particularly graceful; usually seen crashing around awkwardly in small groups.

oh my god

[roach-works]

groove billed anis are a hilarious cuckoo situation where they ended up laying their eggs in one another’s nests instead of anyone else’s. they hang out together in groups of up to five pairs until a nest gets built (sometimes by committee, sometimes they just hang around hopefully until someone does it all on their own) then they start sneaking over and laying an egg in at a time. the females who lay for the first time will sometimes flip prior eggs out of the nest like ‘oh i KNOW this one isn’t mine! away it goes’ but eventually everyone’s laid a couple eggs in there and is stuck with the mutual hostage situation. then they take turns incubating until all the kids hatch and everyone pitches in on feeding them, because no one knows which of the kids are theirs so they all might as well.

they also like to do a team handshake where they clump up and mutually make a low bubbling noise together, to signal group affiliation. go team!

[keeskiwi]

Also their eggs are incredibly beautiful. They’re a very pretty blue color, but covered by a white chalky outer layer that is easily scratched off, so they end up in various stages of in-between.

(Photo © Henrique_Anizio, shared under CC BY-NC).

[maryfitzroy]

What Movement Would You Have Joined in Early Modern Europe? A Typology Quiz — theodramatist

A typology quiz for the years 1500 to 1789. Thirty-four questions, thirty-four types—humanist, Puritan, philosophe, magus, salonnière, merce

babe wake up new quiz dropped

[shredsandpatches]

honestly yeah

[sarahsoph]

Please reblog and add in the tags your most recently read non fiction book - or currently reading if applicable.

[saxifraga-x-urbium]

another one of the pansies i dumped at random is flowering, and the nasturtiums which i planted all over the place again at random are coming up at random all over the place

[thevagueredhead]

FUCHSIA SIGHTED please tell me any tips and/or tricks you might have for not killing those things instantly? Every single time it’s either too much sun or not enough sun and the wretched things seem to curl up and die at the LEAST provocation

[saxifraga-x-urbium]

so far it's 'stick in partial shade, water regularly' as far as i can tell. they're melodramatic wilters / indicator plants but bounce back. the spot i've got 'em in gets about 1-2 hours direct sunlight max and the rest of the time is in shade if that helps?

[thevagueredhead]

Ah, I might’ve been under-watering them then! Good to know - I’ve got two cuttings struck (out of six) so the pressure is ON to see if I can coddle them through the winter. Do you have a saucer under your pot? Or do they do better free-draining?

[saxifraga-x-urbium]

this one's free draining iirc

[thevagueredhead]

*thumbs up* on it boss

[kilncreatures]

teacup goose horse small size suitable for apartment living

[necromancelena]

Die temu ad die

[necromancelena]

Hmm. Accidentally looks like latin.

[chef-boy-ar-girl]

It accidentally is latin

[saanah]

Accidental latin is my new favourite thing.

[santapau]

Found this in the margins of a medieval manuscript.

[qqueenofhades]

This is a very charming illustration and I do approve of Accidental Latin, but unfortunately, that is not what this (Fake) Accidental Latin actually says. Google Translate seems to think "temu" is identical to "timor" (infinitive, "to fear"), which would then be conjugated in first-person singular as "timeo" ("I fear"). "Temu" is not a word in Latin. So that is a very weird leap on Google Translate's part to turn gibberish into... something vaguely etymologically similar sounding? Hmm.

Next, "die" does mean "day," though nominative singular is "dies," i.e. "dies irae." It could be conjugated "die" if it was in ablative or locative case, but "die ad die" would mean something more like "day to day." "Ad" is in a "to" direction and "ab" is from, i.e. "ab urbis," and ablative case is used to indicate the movement of a thing. In short, "by" is not really a way to translate "ad"; we might want "per" here? (Through, by means of, etc.)

Not to mention, it would be weird to put one "die" at the start and another at the end The verb also usually goes at the end in Latin sentences, just for that extra bit of fun. So yes, in short, this is not actually Latin, and Google Translate is very bad at Latin in particular. Nonetheless, still charming.

[nudistcat]

@theshitpostcalligrapher

[sekkitsune]

Agree, @qqueenofhades, except on the matter of breaking “die ad die” apart. It’s a common structure in poetic and oratorical Latin to jam one phrase in the middle of another. I can’t think of an example exactly parallel to this construction, but I could believe a Roman poet would write it!

[qqueenofhades]

Ah, that is true. My Latin is of the reading-medieval-documents (particularly charters and/or chronicles) variety, where the sentence and usage structures are often more formulaic and there is less poetic license to move words around. There is obviously far less fixity for word order in Latin, since the conjugations explain how they grammatically relate to each other rather than placement in the sentence. (Coincidentally, this is why I used to say that the best feeling in the world was walking past a Latin classroom and not having to go inside it. Ahem.)

So yes: true that poetical Latin might be more at liberty to split the "die"-s up that far, though "timeo" (verb) is still more likely in most cases to go at the end, which would place them together anyway ("die ad die timeo," "day to day I fear" if translated in strict word order, which would make sense to an English speaker and sound more poetic anyway). Keep in mind, however, that my Latin is a) fairly rusty and b) mostly used for said formulaic legal document reading rather than freeform verse, so don't super-hard quote me on this.

[sekkitsune]

I saw that ablative “die” and that final -u on “temu” and thought of the ablative supine (as in “mirabile dictu”) but as you observe, there isn’t a verb that “temu” could be, and then also, the ablative supine requires an adjective, as far as I know.

But perhaps “temu” is a hapax legomenon (in which case we would need the rest of the text to gloss it) or a scribal error for temeratu, from temero, “I defile or disgrace”. In that case, and in true Tumblr form, I might translate it as “daily I disgrace, in the manner of the day”, with some errors attributable to the scribe.

[qqueenofhades]

....oh my god. You might be a genius. Because what else does Tumblr do but daily disgrace [itself, oneself, and/or numerous others] in the manner of the day, and make numerous scribal errors.

[laurenthemself]

how dare you say we error on the scribes

[jtimu]

this is what happens when you buy your latin on temu

[invisible-goats]

Potato Bracket Round 1!

Ok, those who made it through the qualifiers have been seeded, so it's time for the 32 top contenders to go head to head! Commiserations to those whose nominations didn't make it through the group stages (especially farls, my best beloved), which are below the cut

Pair 1

Pierogi

Fries

Voting ended onJun 13

Pommes anna 

Tortilla 

Potato soup 

Farls - mashed potato pancakes 

Fried potato 

Potato smiles 

Stovie 

Colcannon - mashed potato with cabbage 

Deep fried korean potato sausage stick

Potato bread

Champ - mashed potato with spring onion

Duchesse potato - mash piped and browned

Boiled potatoes

Potato curry

Kuldony - hash brown ball with a meatball in the middle

Potato doughnuts

Mash on a tortilla then pan fried