ok this sounds insane but in 2018 i went to a few carnivorous plant talks at the botany conference in minnesota. i got caught up in conversation with one of the guys there who was a huge nepenthes guy who told me a story about another collector in the pacific northwest who'd been buying poached plants, like a huge amount, and eventually got staked out by the fish and wildlife service and arrested and had all his plants seized and went to prison for it. idk if i ever talked about this on this blog before-- i know i liveblogged a lot from that conference but cant remember what all i posted-- but ive avoided talking about it since then because i was never able to find like, news articles or anything covering it, but behold.... we now have proof it was real, and im like 80% sure this was this guy he was talking about. the raid happened in 2016 and they'd been staking them out since 2013. he had nearly 400 plants and had been sourcing many of them from poachers in indonesia and borneo.

remember folks: poaching happens with plants too! it's a huge problem not only in carnvirous plants (nepenthes especially, which this piece is dedicated to talking about) but also in native plant populations in the US, including native carnivorous plant populations (north and south carolina's venus fly traps, california's darlingtonia, and sarracenia from the east coast), native orchids (historically one of the most poached categories), desert plants/cacti/succulents, and slow-growing woody ornamentals (cycads, for example). never buy bare-root plants off ebay or facebook! your best bet is local nurseries (which usually purchase farm-raised plants that do well in a wide range of conditions, and as a result have a healthy population in the wild) or specialty greenhouses (more expensive, but at least in the case of carnivorous plants offer young plants bred from established adult plants in-house, raised in captivity).

Thinking abt body horror as romantic. Body horror as intimate recognition of the self and the other and the other as the self. Body horror as an encounter with the divine.

sleepovers save money on hotel rooms while on missions 👍

my au where theyre open season because i thought about it and liked it

Fernando Alonso × Unconventional Drinking Implements

my betty & simon playlists in the same post 👍

thinking about it, i can't relate to the experience of people who HAVE to have their subtextual ship become canon to feel validated, who campaign at showrunners and the actors and get into ship wars with competing ships that theirs is The Most Endgame, can ONLY watch a show if they know it's canon, I just can't relate at all. i'm built different, i'm sorry. i'm built like jane austen character - two people glance at each other in a knowing way and i'm weak at the knees. they touch hands i'm grabbing the smelling salts. standing together with no personal space? i'm on the ground. the tension! the what-ifs! the what-could-bes! do i appreciate the few canon queer ships out there? sure. i have eyes. i am not immune to girls kissing. representation's pretty nice. but i'd rather watch a movie or series with real, palpable, lived-in chemistry between two "just friends" and explore all the possibilities and potential in the margins and have it never become a textual Thing than be beholden to whatever sexless, de-fanged version of queerness is deemed acceptable by a bunch of executives. it carves out all the pulp and leaves us with the husk instead of letting us forage for ourselves. that's SO boring to me, sorry. but not really.

bad chose the four perfect people to give the books to. there's baghera, mom of his kids and his closest confidant. pierre, his partner in crime with whom he hangs out on the daily. bagi, his best friend, who only knows him as hes dying. and foolish, who wants to study him like a little bug.

deep in the kingdom hearts trenches..

idk if anyone else experiences this, but im SO bad at like picturing a characters voice when im reading something, like i guess some people can just automatically hear character voices of what theyre reading but it doesnt happen naturally for me at all so i always end up reading everything in my own voice.. but if im reading fanfiction or a book with a show/movie adaptation, i like to look up clips and try to listen to the characters voice while reading it so i can picture it better, and suddenly the text has SOOOO much more impact with the right voice.. i feel like this is gonna sound stupid or like common sense but i swear i just feel like im missing out because it doesnt have the same effect when i read it how i normally do..

very specifically talking about saiki, because he has such a specific tone and i just can't replicate it in my head no matter how hard i try, so whenever im reading the manga or a fic, i gotta listen to clips of him talking because the experience is so. much. better.

i think about how log 11 is kaycee being sad she will never get to show off her mod and having daydreams about being praised and recognized for her work, but in the end her one and only witness to her pride and joy was leshy, and the memory of what she has done and contributed to the game died with him

that feeling when you get advice from someone who you know is well-meaning and has good intentions....but it's just the most allistic, neurotypical, and/or abled advice you have ever heard and completely invalidates the point you're trying to make about why you struggle to do the thing in the first place.

they're telling you to "do it in this specific way that is completely opposite of how you physically/mentally work" for example, make eye contact/read people's facial expressions and intentions! but you're autistic. initiate verbal conversation and don't be shy! but you're nonverbal or semispeaking. get out of the house more and participate in these physical activities! but you're physically disabled. Just Be Yourself! but you have DID/OSDD/other personality disorder. etc.

i'm sorry. I know you're just trying to help. I appreciate it, really. but it's all things i've heard before and none of it helps me specifically. I have tried (maybe even still try out of habit) and learned I can't just do those things. they don't work for me or cause more issues. practice isn't the issue. not everyone can simply willpower through everything. but thanks for trying 😔✊️

making a collection

making another collection with a threatening aura

Does anyone else see red when a dude (usually cishet) says "oh I won't fight girls" as if it's some moral high horse when it's really just misogyny and the implication that anyone with an estrogen based endocrine system is inherently weaker... like if you wanna say "i won't fight someone unless it's fair" that's a perfectly good moral to have, but don't fucking bring biological essentialism into it.

honestly been feeling pretty whack lately, on the final dregs of food poisoning, feeling insecure, frustrated, pained. paranoia setting in due to aforementioned pain and sickness. like i fully was on the verge of tears for 2 hours for arguably no reason. and then i had to cover the lot for 2 hours at work due to missing 2 people on an already slim crew. but then it started raining. and i was like fuck dude i still gotta do this. so i got carts out in the rain and got drenched and listened to the lightning crack in the distance and man, it was so goofy but literally the best i felt all fucking day. all my worries faded away. maybe natasha beddingfield was right….