it is once again... binturong appreciation hour

i want something however i will not be elaborating on that

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

...he is weaving the chocolate. Do you copy, this bitch is WEAVING CHOCOLATE

More random tropes that I fucking love: Becoming the mask you wore.

Like oh shit, this character who was sent to spy somewhere under a false identity suddenly realises they've started to genuinely become the person they claimed to be? Someone who's been telling the same lies about who they are for so long that they're actually forgetting that the story isn't true? Finding themselves genuinely doing the things they pretend to do in front of people, when they're alone and nobody's watching? Answering to a name that wasn't supposed to be theirs without thinking?

Ooohh-hoh-hoh, you lost track of yourself in pretending to be someone else? You were only supposed to impersonate somebody, a plausible background and a name you came up with on the spot, and now that the people you were supposed to infiltrate have become your true companions? You lost yourself in the game you played, and no you no longer know who you truly are, and where your true loyalties lie? And both sides would mark you a traitor if you came out with the truth. On a scale of one to ten, how bad did you fuck up.

Fuck that is a good trope. Never seen it done badly. Pour that shit on a table and I'll chop it into lines and snort it.

sorry i know i've complained about this a lot but if there was One thing i wish people on here would grasp wrt roman approaches to mythology. is the centuries and centuries of italian mythic tradition & transmission that existed here. like a lot of these myths were being told & transformed & developed local version before rome even existed. these guys were trading materials & traditions with the greeks since like the bronze age. a person in rome might of have heard a lot of these stories as a kid from their grandmother who heart it from her grandmother, who heard it from hers etc etc. they were living changing myths in italy! with their own variations even! so a roman author, while they DO extensively use greek literature, is nevertheless working off something that is a deeply embedded part of their culture too. to act like these ideas were just transplanted directly from 5th century athens to 1st century rome, and especially as if greece had the oral tradition while rome was purely literary, is silly

to this day i cannot BELIEVE aang called up and blew off like nine avatars just because they didnt offer any vegan options to ending the war

You could ask him. Hey, I could ask him.

DANNY OCEAN and RUSTY RYAN in OCEAN’S 11, 12 & 13 2001-2007 | dir. Steven Soderbergh

once there were four children, by Liridi.

For the last time: Mary Shelley and Lord Byron were friends. She didn't hate him. His death was a very painful loss to her. She didn't write Frankenstein because she was stuck in a house with him and he was an unbearable person. For God's sake, just read her journals and letters.

speechless. the pose. the expression. this should be a painting.

forever fascinated by the many machinations of brennan's mind. image description in alt text, below, or at this reblog, originally from @arctic-hands

[Image Description: tweet by Brennan Lee Mulligan, @ BrennanLM. It says "While the statement 'Even educated fleas can do it' may at first seem inclusive, it actually suggests an insect society sharply divided by class, where access to institutions of higher learning is seen as prerequisite to the full range of natural emotions. In this TED talk I will–". In response, Sam Reich, @ SamReich, tweets "for the love of god brennan it's valentine's day", to which Brennan responds "Not for the working class fleas it's not! #Solidarity ["solidarity" in allcaps]" End I.D.]

the "god DAMNIT" kills me Every Time

I feel like somebody accused sam of having it out for brennan and he decided to prove that he doesn't by stanford prison experiment-ing literally everyone including the audience

hand to god there is no better litmus test for “sure they can look at words on a page but can they READ?” than john green books

People are like, "He's not very active on here," but do y'all know how many unsent drafts I have clapping back at the haters who still think Paper Towns is a Manic Pixie Dream Girl novel?

Here is a Draft I Wrote on August 24th, 2023

Hello. Today is my 46th birthday. I am really happy to be here. I am especially happy to be here because my previous selves did so much work--including when they did not want to be here--to make sure that I would have a chance to walk in the woods on a very hot August day and marvel in gratitude.