At Halloween last year, the tiniest little girl dressed as one of the Folk came to my door. There's an increasingly magnificent native beautyberry to one side of my stoop, with its marvelous electric purple berries served up in great tumbles, and she was transfixed by it. She got her candy, I complimented her costume, she started down the stairs, and then stopped, and turned back around. Her: "Are those for-eating berries?" Me: "Oh, you are so smart and clever for asking first! That is such a good idea, I'm so impressed! These are Callicarpa, called beautyberry, and they are edible. Usually they are for cooking, though, to make syrup or jam, and they're not very nice right off the bush. But they are a food berry, and you're so smart to ask!" Her: "Can I...try one?" Me: "If your mother says you may." Her mother, from the walk: "Are you SURE, like, 100% sure. That those are food." Me: "A hundred percent sure, ma'am. I could show you a couple of websites on them, if you want." The Girl: *waits for her mother's nod, then gently reaches out and takes three very small berries and puts them into her mouth* The Girl: *makes an inquisitive face as she chews, walking down the path toward her mother* Me, turning back inside: "Husband, you should have seen this very smart little girl just now!"

I always assumed when ancient people were figuring out what was edible and what wasn’t, it was a really scary thing people were forced to do to survive. I didn’t realize this was a service that some people just feel instinctively driven to provide, even when there’s literally no reason to do it and almost every reason not to

But also back on the topic of the yew. On my second week of being a biology student our plant taxonomy teacher walked us out to the botanic garden to show us some trees and stuff, and when we got to the yews he just popped a berry into his mouth to freak us out. Wikipedia is right, the flesh *is* edible but he also really emphasised that you need to throw out the seed. The word "toxin" comes directly fron the latin name of this tree.

ive never played baldurs gate 3 in my life but i just woke up from a dream where astarion had a little brother named bimbles but players fucking hated bimbles bc in the game astarion would care more about bimbles than the player so ppl started uploading videos where theyd kill bimbles and a video called “900 ways to KILL bimbles in baldurs gate 3” got like 10 million views and then bc of the backlash larian studios released a patch where astarion would kill bimbles early in the game if the player asked him too but he’d do it while shaking and sobbing in total anguish and ppl started posting videos of the scene where astarion kills bimbles with titles like “baldurs gate 3’s BEST patch”

white ppl will steal every aesthetic from black culture and then call it something so stupid like bo derek braids instead of box braids or hasbin hotel core instead of black southern dandism. yall will bend over backwards to call my culture barbaric/scary just to drool over the aesthetic the moment no actual black people are involved (21 pilots vs actual reggae). And if ur white/nonblack reading this just reblog. I dont need any comments talking about how not racist you are + speaking up over actual black people.

why do US patriots think they own "red white and blue" there's a lotta red white and blue flags out there. "i stand for the red white and blue" yass me too let's go costa rica 🇨🇷🇨🇷🇨🇷🇨🇷 let's go laos 🇱🇦🇱🇦🇱🇦🇱🇦 fuck it up liberia 🇱🇷🇱🇷🇱🇷 nepal get triangular with it 🇳🇵🇳🇵🇳🇵

unhappy side effect of "morally ambiguous" being treated as the pinnacle of writing is that you will often be made to experience what a not so talented writer with big aspirations thinks is morally ambiguous

Does anyone know what to do about the temperature and also the prices