Dandelions Are Magic. Literally Tiny Suns In The Grass That Turn Into The Moon And Then The Stars When

dandelions are magic. literally tiny suns in the grass that turn into the moon and then the stars when you blow on them. fucking insane.

Because the whole incredible vertical gloriousness of this needs to be seen to be appreciated!

Another bird in the Maniculum Bestiaryposting Challenge: The Raggfong (which I think is one of the coolest-sounding names so far)!

From the entry, I assumed it was some kind of seabird. Being also described as condemning its children "not in a harsh manner but with the honesty of a judge", I decided on an albatros. Mainly because they have the "regal" bearing described in the entry, but also because their eyes seem a bit judgy. This specimen is in the process of testing its chick (if you haven't seen albatros chicks before, look them up. They do look Like That), but I did depict the entire life cycle of the raggfong under the cut:

Do you love the color of this guy? (I had to. Not sorry)

I originally wanted to upload this as a full picture, but tumblr wouldn't let me do it without scaling it down too much. If anyone has tips on how to get around that, please let me know! I hope this shows up more or less the way I intended for now. You can see the fully grown raggfong flying up to the sun to fry itself, the judgement of the chick, the fried raggfong flying towards a spring, the fallen chick that could not maintain a fearless gaze into the sun, the rejuvenation of the grown raggfong in the spring, and the place where all the forsaken bird chicks go.

A Paldea Christmas Carol

From my Spotify 'Your Top Songs 2023';

#27 - Because of You, by Gustaph (Belgium)

#36 - Cha Cha Cha, by Käärijä (Finland)

(I'm surprised that Luke Black isn't in there, since Samo mi se spava made it onto multiple of my playlists this year)

Bonus: #47 Gladiator, by Jann (does this count? :) )

As for my choice;

Cha Cha Cha, by Käärijä (Finland)

2. Samo mi se spava , by Luke Black (Serbia)

3. Because of You, by Gustaph (Belgium)

4. EAEA, by Blanca Palomo (Spain)

5. Mama ŠČ! by Let 3 (Croatia)

Obviously the exact order varies depending on the day of the week...

Closely followed by Marco Mengoli, TEYA & SALINA, Voyager, Lord of the Lost, & Diljá...

Eurovision 2023 Spotify Wrapped edition: which were your top 5 songs?

BEST BIRBS

Helmeted guineafowl By: G. V. Adkin From: The Complete Encyclopedia of the Animal World 1980

Y'all ever get so excited about a scientific paper you're reading that you get chills???

So I thought to myself

Huh, a lot of our invasive species come from China and Japan

And then I thought, huh, I should look up what Kudzu is like in its natural habitat

And I found this article by a team of scientists investigating the history of Kudzu in China

And ohhhhh my goddddd. I'm vibrating with excitement over how cool this is.

The first bombshell that turned my brain inside out:

KUDZU IS NOT WILD. IT IS SEMI-DOMESTICATED.

In China, Kudzu has been a fundamentally important plant for food and textiles throughout history. We have Kudzu cloth that is 6,000 years old!

THIS PLANT CLOTHED AND FED ONE OF THE MOST POPULOUS AND MOST ENDURING HUMAN CULTURES ON EARTH

and in turn

HUMANS SHAPED AND SELECTED FOR ITS TRAITS

*AND*

in its natural range, humans are the main "predator" of kudzu

"Harvest by humans appears to be the major control mechanism in its native areas."

Kudzu is like that because it co-evolved with humans.

WHAT