Screenshot of the exact moment i knew i was going to be obsessed with jeremy knox

Haha yesss. Tiernan and any of his sisters 😂

video credit: Rob Harcourt

Not only can you see the MOMENT this Weddell seal decided to prank the Crabeater seal, BUT HE LAUGHS AT HIM AFTER HE DOES IT! Ah Weddells <3

Today's Seal Is: Unlimited Scraggliness

also i havent seen anyone say this yet but when jean goes to neils dorm room he assumes the fourth bed is for aaron. jean moreau canonically doesnt know who nicky is

one thing about jean that fucks me up sooo bad is that he is just a kid. he's so young. he's scared of getting lost in airports. he closes his eyes on the back of a motorcycle so he doesn't have to see traffic. his favorite magnet is a little bear with a red barret.

The King's Men - Chapter Seventeen (19)

Day: Friday, April 26th / 27th* Time: 3:48 AM EST

Andrew pushes him up against the wall with heavy hands and hard kisses. "Junkie." "I've been waiting for that since June," Neil says. "You've been waiting longer." Andrew doesn't bother denying it.

Art used with permission by Rainbowd00dles. Thank you @rainbowd00dles!

*Due to the Leap Year, I have opted to highlight the day rather than the date to keep the events in occurrence to the 2007 year. I will continue to mark both days accordingly.

It’s strange to see Andrew in extreme-minor-character mode after three books of Neil obsessing over his every move.

time to read that little fairy series with the angry girl who can’t properly process her emotions and her little bitch emo hype man who also can’t process his emotions for the third time

Trying out a new-ish style and its so fun <3

What I was taught growing up: Wild edible plants and animals were just so naturally abundant that the indigenous people of my area, namely western Washington state, didn't have to develop agriculture and could just easily forage/hunt for all their needs.

The first pebble in what would become a landslide: Native peoples practiced intentional fire, which kept the trees from growing over the camas praire.

The next: PNW native peoples intentionally planted and cultivated forest gardens, and we can still see the increase in biodiversity where these gardens were today.

The next: We have an oak prairie savanna ecosystem that was intentionally maintained via intentional fire (which they were banned from doing for like, 100 years and we're just now starting to do again), and this ecosystem is disappearing as Douglas firs spread, invasive species take over, and land is turned into European-style agricultural systems.

The Land Slide: Actually, the native peoples had a complex agricultural and food processing system that allowed them to meet all their needs throughout the year, including storing food for the long, wet, dark winter. They collected a wide variety of plant foods (along with the salmon, deer, and other animals they hunted), from seaweeds to roots to berries, and they also managed these food systems via not only burning, but pruning, weeding, planting, digging/tilling, selectively harvesting root crops so that smaller ones were left behind to grow and the biggest were left to reseed, and careful harvesting at particular times for each species that both ensured their perennial (!) crops would continue thriving and that harvest occurred at the best time for the best quality food. American settlers were willfully ignorant of the complex agricultural system, because being thus allowed them to claim the land wasn't being used. Native peoples were actively managing the ecosystem to produce their food, in a sustainable manner that increased biodiversity, thus benefiting not only themselves but other species as well.

So that's cool. If you want to read more, I suggest "Ancient Pathways, Ancestral Knowledge: Ethnobotany and Ecological Wisdom of Indigenous Peoples of Northwestern North America" by Nancy J. Turner

Listen if the study of ancient humans doesn’t make you at least a little bit emotional idk what to say.

I started crying today at the museum because they had reconstructed the shoes of Otzi the iceman.

Either he or someone he knew who cared about him made these shoes out of grass and bear skin and twine and he was wearing them when he died over five thousand years ago.

And a Czech researcher and his students did reconstructions of these shoes and wore them to the same place where he died to test them out and they were like yep! These shoes are really cozy and comfy and didn’t give us blisters while hiking!

Is that not just the coolest shit ever????

Omg not a snelkie 😂

I'm a big fan of Elephant Trunk Snakes they look like a seal was turned into a snake as a punishment by a genie

Fuck marry kill:

Between Ryan Gosling Ken and Benoit Blanc I'm starting to think that it's some sort of animal abuse to keep casting big name actors in stoic macho manly man rolls instead of giving them goofy little guys to play. Like look at them their coats are shiny, they seem so much more lively and energetic. We need to make sure all actors have enough goofy little guys to play before peta gets involved.

why are french people rude?

Ah well, the safest explanation when an entire country’s people are stereotyped as rude is that they have their own culture with different criteria for politeness than the ones you are used to. It’s probably easier for Americans to forget this than for the rest of the world, because they consume less foreign media than the rest of us (from literature in translation to foreign films) and are less exposed to aspects of foreign cultures that could inform them about different norms of politeness (online interactions happen in their own language and follow their own (anglo) social codes.) With this insular worldview it’s easy to take it for granted that American good manners are universal. They are not!

A very common gripe against American tourists in Paris is that they talk so loudly in public spaces, which is definitely rude here but I assume that in the US, people just have a different threshold for what constitutes ‘loud’ (I wonder if it is due to being used to having more space than Europeans). I also remember a discussion I had with one of my translation professors about the American concept of ‘active listening’ and how negatively it is perceived in France. It may be that in the US it is polite to make ‘listening noises’ at regular intervals while someone is speaking to you, ‘uh huh’, ‘right’, ‘yeah’, ‘really?’, and that you would perceive someone who just stands there silently as disinterested or thinking about something else. In France it is more polite to shut up and listen (with the occasional nod or ‘mmh’) and it’s rather seen as annoying and rude to make a bunch of useless noise while someone is speaking.

There are of course countless examples like that. The infamous rude waiters in Parisian cafés probably seem a lot more rude and cold to people who have a different food culture… People from other cultures might consider a waiter terrible at his job if he doesn’t frequently check on them to make sure they don’t wait for anything, but the idea that a meal is a pleasant experience rather than just a way to feed yourself (esp when eating out) means we like having time to chat and just enjoy our table for a while, so we don’t mind as much waiting to order or for the next course. French people would typically hate if an overzealous waiter took the initiative to bring the note once we’re done with our meal so we don’t have to wait for it, as it would be interpreted as “you’re done, now get out of my restaurant.”

The level of formality required to be seen as polite is quite high in France, which might contribute to French people being seen as rude by people with a more casual culture. To continue with waiters, even in casual cafés they will address clients with the formal you and conversely, and won’t pretend to be your friend (the fact that we don’t have the American tip culture also means they don’t feel the need to ingratiate themselves to you.) I remember being alarmed when a waitress in New York introduced herself and asked how I was doing. “She’s giving me her first name? What… am I supposed to with it? Use it?” It gave me some insight on why Americans might consider French waiters rude or sullen! It might also be more accepted outside of France to customise your dish—my brother worked as a waiter and often had to say “That won’t be possible” about alterations to a dish that he knew wouldn’t fly with the chef, to foreign tourists who were stunned and angry to hear that, and probably brought home a negative opinion of French waiters. In France where the sentiment in most restaurants is more “respect the chef’s skill” than “the customer is king”, people are more likely to be apologetic if they ask for alterations (beyond basic stuff) as you can quickly be seen as rude, even by the people you are eating with. 

And I remember reading on a website for learning English that the polite answer to “How are you?” is “I’m fine, thank you!” because it’s rude to burden someone you aren’t close to with your problems. In my corner of the French countryside the polite thing to do is to complain about some minor trouble, because saying everything is going great is perceived negatively, as boasting, and also as a standoffish reply that kind of shuts down the conversation, while grumbling about some problem everyone can relate to will keep it going. (French people love grumbling as a positive bonding activity!)

Basically, before you settle on the conclusion that people from a different place are collectively rude, consider that if you travel there and scrupulously follow your own culture’s social code of good manners, you might be completely unaware that you are being perceived as obnoxious, rude or unfriendly yourself simply because your behaviour clashes with what is expected by locals.

“I will give you the power you seek,” the Fae lady said, “but in exchange, I will take your firstborn child.” “Alright, so when do you want to meet my parents?” “Wait, what?” “When do you want to get married?” “Hold on, now…”