Fragmented Records

One time this man approached me in a bar talking in Spanish. So I assumed he was Spanish and we started speaking, we had a whole ass conversation and at some point he was like. So what part of Spain are you from? And I said well I’m Italian actually. What part of Spain are you from? And he was like. I’m Greek.

One time I was in Argentina and I was so tired of trying to speak Spanish because I’m not very good at it lmao so I broke into exasperated English and the retail seller girl quickly understood me and engaged me in conversation. We talked for a while, she introduced me to a makeup brand, and then I decided to buy it. While she was packaging the purchase, she asked me if I were from the US or perhaps the UK and I just said “oh no I’m Brazilian hahah” and she looked me straight in the eyes and said, in clear Portuguese, “I’m Brazilian too”

When my dad went to China on a work trip, his Mandarin speaking wasn’t great but his listening was fine (his first language is Cantonese) and he encountered a German guy who had moved to China to work. My dad knew how to speak German because he studied it in university (but wasn’t great when it came to listening to new vocab he hadn’t studied before), and the German guy knew Mandarin because he lived and worked in China, so they had a conversation where my dad spoke to the German guy in German and the guy responded in Mandarin. I’m sure it confused a lot of their coworkers who just saw the Asian guy speaking German and the white guy speaking Mandarin.

Some years ago, I worked for a manufacturing company that had a service depot in China.  One of the engineers from the main office here in the US spent most of his time at the depot.  The problem was that he didn’t speak *any* of the various Chinese languages, and no one at the depot spoke any English. They all, however, spoke Spanish.

I love the world

I was working at a fast food restaurant and a very lost Sikh man showed up in a turban. He was a bit overwhelmed by the food choices.

One of the ladies from the kitchen nudged me away from the cash “I got this”, and another lady quickly took over at the grill. Lady at the cash was… Tamil? Maybe? The lady at the grill was Nepalese. They chatted with the Sikh man, told him what food options met his dietary/religious constraints, and reassured him that the food was made properly. He left feeling happy and welcome in my city.

After he left they told me that they were all speaking Hindi, which was a second/third language for all of them.

We should have this everywhere forever

Jason has reverse plot armor, his writers hate him so much they can't wait for a opportunity to beat him up despite him having every stat necessary for winning

Night Vale had some of the BEST one off quotes that would just suckerpunch you in the chest leave you breathless

Like the one that stuck with me was this one:

"when a person dies and no one will miss them, the mourning is assigned to a random human. This is why sometimes you just feel sad."

It's been almost 11 years... It haunts me in a good way

Know what? Tell me YOUR favorite WTNV quote. I wanna know what lingers in people's minds after all this time

“Are we living a life that is safe from harm? Of course not. We never are. But that’s not the right question. The question is are we living a life that is worth the harm?”

“The past is gone, and cannot harm you anymore. And while the future is fast coming for you, it always flinches first and settles in as the gentle present.”

“Death is only the end of you assume the story is about you”

"There is a thin semantic line separating weird and beautiful, and that line is covered in jellyfish"

"Whisper a dangerous secret to someone you care about. Now they have the power to destroy you, but they won't. That's what love is."

from one of the books:

"Nothing there but a distant airplane crawling across the sky, red blinking lights, vulnerable in the vast empty, faint red beacons flashing the message HELLO. A SMALL ISLAND OF LIFE UP HERE, VERY CLOSE TO SPACE. PRAY FOR US. PRAY FOR US."

Be proud of your place in the cosmos. It is small, and yet it is.

Don’t let your parents win at Knowing Things. Demonstrate that you can make butter from something that is not butter, like Jesus did with the wine. He did that to show his dad that he was a big boy now. And so are you.

"The desert seems vast, even endless. And yet scientists tell us that somewhere, even now, there is snow."

i loved this one so much that i put it on my battle vest

Arm in arm into a future that might be a little better than the past. Who knows, good could happen.

Frank Paton - Witness my Act and Deed (1882)

Absolutely fucking dying over the name of this painting. We've had cats figured out since day fucking one

Also dying because the cat is indeed witnessing (i.e., signing) the act and deed (the document getting ink spilled on it).

my blood looks more beautiful than yours it's a more luscious red

edward cullens not gon a fuck you babe

you've picked the right target you're just a decade late this would've ruined me at sixteen

nasa: we're going to shoot three rockets directly at the sun during the total eclipse. for study and research purposes.

me: oh cool

nasa: we have named the rockets apep. this stands for atmospheric perturbations [in the] eclipse path.

me: oh cool

nasa: apep is also the ancient egyptian deity of chaos and darkness, who ceaselessly seeks to extinguish the sun. we launch these rockets directly at the sun in the name of apep.

me: oh... cool?

The post about angel wings not needing to be purely white to be beautiful reminded me of a picture I LOVE

This pigeon is an angel

Love how tumblr has its own folk stories. Yeah the God of Arepo we’ve all heard the story and we all still cry about it. Yeah that one about the woman locked up for centuries finally getting free. That one about the witch who would marry anyone who could get her house key from her cat and it’s revealed she IS the cat after the narrator befriends the cat.

Might I add:

The defeat of the wizard who made people choose how they’d be to be executed

The woman who raised the changeling alongside her biological child

The human who died of radiation poisoning after repairing the spaceship

The adventures of a space roomba

Cinderella finding Araura (and falling in love)

I don’t know a snappy description but the my nemesis cynthia story certainly lives in my head

hilariously, these are almost all in my fic tag. so, a compiled list from the notes (and some extras):

I am in love with you /p

What about the one with the princess locked in a tower learning to become a wizard? That’s lived in my mind for years and I haven’t seen it in a long time

Oh, love that story, adding it to the list: 20. Princess Talia and adding a few more contenders 21. Thyme 22. The Monster under the Bed 23. A Meaningful Death 24. Humans are unstoppable…until they aren’t 25. The Monster under the Fridge 26. Antler Guy 27. Cleric slamming healing spells

Adding a few more I remembered:  28. The Frog and the Scorpion 29. HSTHETE 30. The First Witch in the World 31. Imagine that Oceans were replaced by Forests  32. A Faerie taking a Name  33. The Dragon on the Farm  34. Synovus & Menace  35. Raising the Anti-Christ  36. Aliens vs. Flora & Fauna of Earth (pretty sure there are even more additions to the original post but I had this one saved)  37. Doctors without Borders…in Space!  38. The Villain-Wrangler  39. The Last Contact  40. The 100 Parent-Point Children  41. And the Heavens Wept  42. The Night Gentleman  43. The Serpent God and their Priestess 

44. No One Showed Up for the Last Storytime

Wow! @writing-prompt-s contributing to like half of these!

I can hardly take any credit for these stories! But I love sharing them. Unfortunately I cannot read all the prompt responses so please tag me if you want me to reblog a story that resonated with you so I can give it a little boost :)

I think it’s funny to think that whenever Jason shows up to ANYTHING with a duffle bag the batfamily and co think there could be decapitated heads inside:

Dick: whatcha got there Jason?

Jason: my luggage for the mission??

Dick:

Jason:

Dick:

Jason: HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO TELL YOU GUYS THERE AREN’T HEADS IN HERE

Dick: THERES ALWAYS THE POSSIBILITY

Jason: I HAVEN’T KILLED ANYONE IN MONTHS

Dick: THAT WE KNOW OF

I imagine that then the Justice League becomes weary of Jason with duffle bags due to the bats. So the outlaws could be helping with a mission and:

Superman: Hood if it’s alright we’d like to search your bag?

Red Hood: there’s just my gear inside

Superman: we just want to double check it is your gear…

Red Hood:

Red Hood: not you guys too

Red Hood: THERE AREN’T ANY DECAPITATED HEADS INSIDE

Arsenal: at this point you should just put heads in there.

Red Hood: I’m not trying to get back on the Justice Leagues Wanted list Roy

I'm golden-child!Jason and not-even-a-silver-egg!Dick truther for life, and that's so funny.

Bruce is used to the chaos he calls his son, so when Jason actually behave, Bruce is soooo confused.

Like, what do you mean Bruce can tell him to not do something and Jason will??? Obey??? The order??? Dick would never.

Bruce, fully prepared for scandal: You are not allowed to jump from one wardrobe to another, it's dangerous for you.

Little Jason, who has no idea why he should: Ok? I wasn't planning to anyway.

Confused Bruce: You wasn't?

Little Jason who are scared to touch anything here, because it probably costs more than his life: I don't want to ruin the mansion...

More Confused Bruce: You don't?!

Or 

Bruce: so, you are saying that if I tell you to sit in your room and read books, you will really sit in your room and read books?

Little Jason, who has no idea why he shouldn't: Yeah?

Bruce, whispering to Alfred: I didn't know they could do that.

Dick: "I want a refund"

Dick: *gets a refund*

Dick: no no wait not like that

Let’s amp up the “Jason says ow and the batfam thinks he must be gravely injured” headcanon.

Jason calls Bruce or Dick for fun and says nothing but “goodbye” before hanging up (maybe it’s a dare by Roy who TOTALLY suspects the reaction Jay is gonna get).

Ten minutes late the entire Justice League is scouring Gotham, on the hunt for Jason.

the tags are way too good

I think it would be even funnier if he did that and then got ready to go out on patrol, just to see what they all do (cause he’s messy like that) and sees multiple Green Lanterns flying over the city and is just like -ohhhhhh

Roy cannot stop laughing cause he’s got 38 missed calls from Arrow and Canary and Kory has been called back to the Titans by a level 100 pissed Nightwing and Robin.

Jay considers his options and decides it would be so funny if they discovered him just going about his life as normal so he heads out on patrol and just says hey to the heroes as he goes. They are just like ‘hey hood how’s it- WAIT’

Jason is already gone. He wants to get in the batcave before anyone notices to really piss them all off.

y'all ever reach the end of google

I'm starting to gain insight into why people turn into conspiracy theorists. Some topics are so totally neglected that it looks like they were intentionally and maliciously erased, instead of falling victim to arbitrary lack of interest.

I think it's a vicious cycle; when people don't know something exists, they're not curious about it. Also, people use conceptual categories to think about things, and when a topic falls between or outside of conceptual categories, it can end up totally omitted from our awareness even though it very much exists and is important.

This post is about native bamboo in the United States and the fact that miles-wide tracts of the American Southeast used to be covered in bamboo forests

@icannotgetoverbirds It already is a maddening, bizarre research hole that I have been down for the past few weeks.

Basically, I learned that we have native bamboo, that it once formed an ecosystem called the canebrake that is now critically endangered. The Southeastern USA used to be full of these bamboo thickets that could stretch for miles, but now the bamboo only exists in isolated patches

And THEN.

I realized that there is a little fragment of a canebrake literally in my neighborhood.

HI I AM NOW OBSESSED WITH THIS.

I did not realize the significance until I showed a picture to the ecologist where i work and his reaction was "Whoa! That is BIG."

Apparently extant stands of river cane are mostly just...little sparse thickety patches in forest undergrowth. This patch is about a quarter acre monotypic stand, and about ten years old.

I dive down the Research Hole(tm). Everything new I learn is wilder. Giant river cane mainly reproduces asexually. It only flowers every few decades and the entire clonal colony often dies after it flowers. Seeds often aren't viable.

It's barely been studied enough to determine its ecological significance, but there are five butterfly species and SEVEN moth species dependent on river cane. Many of these should probably be listed as endangered but there's not enough research

There's a species of CRITICALLY ENDANGERED PITCHER PLANT found in canebrakes that only still remains in TWO SPECIFIC COUNTIES IN ALABAMA

Some gardening websites list its height as "over 6 feet" "Over 10 feet" There are living stands that are 30+ feet tall, historical records of it being over 40 feet tall or taller. COLONIAL WRITINGS TALK ABOUT CANES "AS THICK AS A MAN'S THIGH."

The interval between flowering is anyone's guess, and WHY it happens when it does is also anyone's guess. Some say 40-50 years, but there are records of it blooming in as little time as 3-15 years.

It is a miracle plant for filtering pollution. It absorbs 99% of groundwater nitrate contaminants. NINETY NINE PERCENT. It is also so ridiculously useful that it was a staple of Native American material culture everywhere it grew. Baskets! Fishing poles! Beds! Flutes! Mats! Blowguns! Arrows! You name it! You can even eat the young shoots and the seeds.

I took these pictures myself. This stuff in the bottom photo is ten feet tall if it's an inch.

Arundinaria itself is not currently listed as endangered, but I'm growing more and more convinced that it should be. The reports of seeds being usually unviable could suggest very low genetic diversity. You see, it grows in clonal colonies; every cane you see in that photo is probably a clone. The Southern Illinois University research project on it identified 140 individual sites in the surrounding region where it grows.

The question is, are those sites clonal colonies? If so, that's 140 individual PLANTS.

Also, the consistent low estimates of the size Arundinaria gigantea attains (6 feet?? really??) suggests that colonies either aren't living long enough to reach mature size or aren't healthy enough to grow as big as they are supposed to. I doubt we have any clue whatsoever about how its flowers are pollinated. We need to do some research IMMEDIATELY about how much genetic diversity remains in existing populations.

@motherfucking-dragons

it's called the Alabama Canebrake Pitcher Plant and there are, in total, 11 known sites where it still grows.

in general i'm feral over the carnivorous plant variety of the Southeastern USA. we have SO many super-rare carnivorous plants!!!

Protect the wetlands. Protect the canebrakes because the canebrakes protect the wetlands.

Many years ago I did some (non-academic) research on native canes in the USA because I thought I remembered seeing a bamboo-like something in the wild that I'd been told was native, and I thought it might make a nice landscaping accent. But the sources I found said something like "unlike Asian bamboos, the American equivilant barely reaches the height of a man", and I went "nah, that is exactly the wrong height for anything." But if it gets 10 feet and up, I think there are a lot of people who would be VERY happy to use it as a sight barrier in public and private landscaping, and if it means putting in a bit of a wetland/rain garden, all the better. The lack of a good native equivelant to bamboo is something I have heard numerous people bemoan. Obviously it's very important to protect wild sites and expand those, but if it'd be helpful, I bet it wouldn't be hard to convince landscapers to start new patches too.

For instance, a lot of housing developments, malls, etc. seem to set aside a percentage of their land for semi-wild artificial wetlands (drainage maybe?) planted with natives, and then block the messy view with walls of arbovitae or clump bamboo from asia - perhaps it would be a better option there?

Good Lord. Arundinaria isn't just a better option, it's perfect.

I was in the canebrake near my house again this morning, and river cane is extraordinarily good at completely blocking the view of anything beyond it. It is bushier and leafier than Asian bamboos, and birds like to build nests in it. It would make a fantastic privacy barrier.

The cane near my house is around 10-12 feet tall. This species can reach 30 feet or more, but I think it needs ideal conditions or to be part of a large colony with a robust system of rhizomes or something.

It grows slowly compared to Asian bamboos, and seems to need some shade to establish, so it would take time to become a good barrier, but no worse than those stupid arborvitae.

plants like this were often intentionally cultivated in planter boxes as a form of water filtration and civil engineering by a bunch of indigenous nations.

There's a reason why Native Americans cultivated canebrakes.

Well, several reasons. As y'all may know, bamboo is stronger than any wood, and therefore it makes a fantastic building material.

The Cherokee used, and still use, river cane to make fishing poles, fish traps, arrows, frames for structures, musical instruments, mats, pipes, and absolutely gorgeous double-woven baskets that can even hold water.

This stuff is, no joke, a viable alternative to plastic for a lot of things. The seeds and shoots are also edible.

Uh I know this is out of left field but I work in plant cloning - it's a lot easier than you'd think to do for plants and it's honestly a really important conservation tool, and good for making a TON of seedlings in a short amount of time. I can look into this genus for like, cloning viability?

I know about reproducing plants from cuttings, rhizome cuttings have proven doable with this species.

Hi y'all, reblogging the Canebrake Post again. It's been over a year since I fell in love with the coolest plant ever. I'm trying to bring it back but I am very small so if any of y'all have a Canebrake nearby you might wanna talk to the owners and contact some local parks and nature preserves yeah?

I love that people are finally realizing that the Mobile-Tensaw Delta really is the American Amazon. After years of research and hard work, I’m glad the public is getting a semblance of it’s importance. We just got a $15m donation from an anonymous person to preserve the area and it really REALLY needs it. It’s sad how little the state puts into taking care of it. My college did more than the state ever will. We even found the last slave ship, The Clotilda, when we were doing eco-cultural research. The politics might be grimey, but Alabama coast is the most beautiful place full of rare and multitudinous arrays of unique plants and animals. The manatees. The fly traps. The giant oaks. The thousands of frogs and birds that flock here. We have a sister city in Japan where we each have a garden dedicated to the other because we are the only two to have Jubilee, where tens of thousands of fish beach themselves and lose oxygen and provide a smorgasbord of food for the people of the coast. Two places in the world. Wild. I just wish the people within could appreciate it the way the few of us do. But I guess football and conservatism take priority, sadly.

TIL a 30-year-old elephant named Ben sought help at a safari lodge after being shot by poachers. The elephant waited patiently near the lodge for the 6 hours it took for a vet to fly in and dress his 3 bullet wounds.

via ift.tt

The fact he’s named kinda brushes over the fact this is a wild elephant. Born in the wild, raised in the wild, the only human interaction is watching the safaris. And after mean humans shot him, he decided the best course of action was to go visit the nice humans who just take pictures in hopes they’d help him. And then, even though they didn’t help him right away, he trusted that because they continued to be nice, he was safe, and they would help him.

also the people saw an elephant and were like “that’s a ben”

i hope he tells the other elephants where they can get help

@brunhiddensmusings

Actually, they do!

https://www.thedodo.com/elephants-travel-humans-help-1353631970.html

Orphans who were rescued, raised, and released by the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust in Kenya have communicated that it is a place of safety to other elephants who’ve never even been there.

Injured animals will show up there when they have been harmed by poachers because they know it is a place where they can get help!

i am very glad elephants have a functioning yelp system

“Took a little while to get served the quality of service made up for it. 4/5 stars. Would reccomend”

-Ben the Elephant

“Just visit your local apex predator and they’ll help you for no reason”

Jason being a "tall" guy even in the universes where he didn't get dunked in the pit, the difference is that a Jason who got Lazarus's skin care treatment is usually 6'6, the versions of him who don't are usually 5'6 to 6'0.

Batman, who accidentally entered a alternate dimension, seeing a version of Jason who's not towering over him and not as large as a Kardashian's fridge: You're not my baby.

he’s probably trying to get them all to come snuggle…he doesn’t care if he can’t fit them all under his wings

what is this from

the titanic

I FUCKING FORGOT I QUEUED THIS

For all who celebrate man’s hubris!

You’re laughing. Robin’s r symbol is too big to wear and you’re laughing.