2/2 so I was wondering if large birds just hate human
transportation or something haha. Thanks for your post, very
interesting.
(In reference to a comment I made about kayaks being incredibly rude in Swan Culture)
I’ve been looking at my inbox like “I am not some kind of ECCENTRIC BIRD WHISPERER,” but I actually know the answer to this one, and it’s hilarious.
Large birds don’t have a particular hateboner for human transportation, but wild turkeys have two unique properties that make them behave ridiculously when they collide with human populations. For those who aren’t familiar with them, wild turkeys are large, boisterous birds that tend to interact with humans most frequently around the autumn which is convenient for Thanksgiving and mating season in early spring. Most of the time, they live peaceable lives in the woods, but around November they run around in flocks bothering innocent citizens and picking fights with vending machines, and then they usually go away again.
The toms, or dominant males, can stand up to 4 feet tall and weigh up to 24 pounds. They’re the ones that do the fancy displays:
The First Unique Turkey Property: Now, wild turkeys are a little bit like betta fish, in that they perceive any shiny/reflective surface that shows them a reflection as actually containing Another Turkey, and they react accordingly. When they react to the Other Turkey – usually by posturing aggressively and flaring their fins feathers majestically – the Other Turkey ESCALATES THE SITUATION by posturing as well. At some point the real turkey loses its temper and attacks, pecking and scratching and trying to take the fucker apart, only to find that the Other Turkey has protected itself with some kind of force field.
So to a wild turkey that has encountered enough autumnal car-related psychic battles, the completely logical conclusion to take away from them is that cars contain demonic spiritsthat must be subdued. Other examples of things that wild turkeys are compelled to vanquish include… well, other reflective things.
To address this, cover reflective things (you can rub soap on your car to make it less reflective) and frighten off the turkey if it’s keeping you from leaving your car.
The Second Unique Turkey Property: This is a little bit embarrassing for all concerned, but you have to think about it like a turkey would. You see, humans are oddly compelling creatures to a hormonal turkey. We have bare faces with interestingly positioned lumps of flesh, we gobble our speech in a way that almost sounds like Turkey, we strut about on two feet showing off our long sexy legs, we strut about in family groups, we often have access to really good food, our clothing is big and bright and colorful. Turkey faces change color with their mood; human faces are all kinds of fascinating colors, plus additional fantastic decorations. To wild turkeys, humans are a type of turkey, and further: many humans are either Intimidating Sexual Threats, or Exciting Sexual Beings.
Now, I am very sorry about this, but not only can wild turkeys be kind of reverse furries, they also have unexpected ideas about gender and sexuality. So to some female turkeys, “male” humans are excitingly sexy and they will follow one around for embarrassingly long periods of time, cooing attractively – meanwhile, the tom turkey and the subordinate males will be OUTRAGED by the COMPETITION presented by the interloper, and will attempt to subdue “him.” And “female” humans are likewise at risk of being passionately seduced by the dominant toms, or quietly propositioned by subordinate males – or the females may attempt to recruit you into their existing social system – as a junior member, of course. They have a strict pecking order.
Unfortunately for humans, your preferred gender may not necessarily actually
translate to the gender that turkeys decide you are. And some turkeys
may decide you’re “male” while others will decide that you’re “female,” so that will be confusing, and some dominant female turkeys have “male” sexual traits – like beards and tail fans – anyway. They recognize and remember humans, so if you had a particularly exciting encounter with a specific turkey, it will probably remember you.
Also unfortunately for humans, the fine distinctions between Turkey Seduction, Turkey Competition, and Turkey Networking are usually a little bit lost, and all of this behavior seems to be the same thing – it mostly consists of a large dinosaur-like bird trotting at you, possibly screaming and pecking and flapping, and can be worrying. If you are in the car and the turkey can see you, and it wishes to
continue a previous encounter, it may well insist upon this in a
frightening way.
Turkeys don’t give a shit about human “gender” and “authority,” as the many available videos on the internet of turkeys attacking police officers, reporters and mailmen will assure you. They just make logical decisions that are perfectly natural and reasonable to turkeys, and humans react by running away.
So what do you do about this? Well, DO NOT RUN AWAY, this means you that you are a Submissive Turkey and their behavior will escalate. Turkeys can learn the meaning of “no,” and you don’t have to be bullied by them.
And the Massachusetts Fish and Game website has a huge resource explaining all the subtleties of wild turkey behavior and how to combat the nuisances. Essentially, you must not attempt to make friends with them or attract them; once they arrive, you must “be bold” and establish Dominance, and encourage everyone to do the same.
If the turkeys are aggressive around children and the elderly, all sources agree that if they become a danger, you can contact the relevant authorities and have the turkeys removed or destroyed.
Anyway, that’s why turkeys attack cars. The take-home message is: the cars are too shiny and you are possibly a sexy turkey.
I don’t know what you want to make of that
And to think, this could have been the national symbol of America.
b – already answered but another would be Blagden, George c- cats d- Darlingside (my favorite band who everyone should listen to!) (“hey Kate what do I like that starts with d?” “dick” “no, Kate” “Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives” “no”) f- Fantastic Beasts g- Galavant h- Healy, Laurel j- ??? k- Kate wants me to say Kate but that’s too easy so Kara Danvers l- Les Miserables!!! m- my middle name n- Nursey p- puns q- quoiromantic Grantaire (I’m going to make this a thing if it kills me) r- rabbits s- stars (both the things in the sky and the les mis song) t- tea v- Valjean? I guess w- William J. Poindexter x- I just googled words that start with x because I could only think of xylophone which I am not passionate about and apparently there’s a kind of lizard called a xenosaurus and I think that’s fantastic z- me but also zebras
My coworker sent me this insane Gwyneth Paltrow jewelry ad this morning and it FUCKING H A U N T S me. SPOILERS, but I have so many questions. Is the husband just in space or is he dead? I mean, he’s dead. If you took away that jaunty French music it would be obvious that he is definitely super dead. How many of those CASSETTES are there? Putting aside how spooky it is, just visually (Does Alice ever have people over? Do they just pretend to ignore that she has this CRAZY PERSON BOOKSHELF full of HAND-LABELED CASSETTE TAPES like some Martha’s-Vineyard Fox Mulder??), that must have taken literal days of his life. Locked in the bathroom for an entire week like “DON’T COME IN HERE, ALICE, I’M BUSY.” How long ago did he go to space if CASSETTE TAPES were considered an acceptable way to record audio when he went up? He has been in space for 20 years. He is dead. What is Alice’s life now? She just wanders around her giant, spotless 900 million dollar house, imprisoned by her own privilege and the ghost of her former life. Drawing the same three drawings over and over like the kid from “The Ring.” Drinking juice from a carafe with an EMPTY GLASS on the other side of the table, presumably so she can imagine her dead space husband is there. “Drink up, darling,” Alice says lovingly, reaching into the empty air to cup an imaginary bristled cheek. “You haven’t touched this delicious guava-lavender balancing tea I brewed for you, and you must get your vitamins before you go to space.” Also, she has a picture of HERSELF next to her picture OF HIM, instead of a picture OF THEM, together, which makes me wonder: is Gwyneth Paltrow’s character “Alice” at all?? Is this like that astronaut love triangle where the one astronaut attacked the other one???? Did Gwyneth murder Alice while her husband was in space, and now she pretends to live Alice’s life???? “Alice has been such a recluse since Roderick went to space in 1996,” Alice’s friends say, not realizing that Alice has been mummifying in the charming 18th century icebox in the servants’ kitchen since 1996 and Gwyneth is the new Alice. “We’re so happy together, aren’t we, Roderick,” Gwyneth croons to her tape player, wrapping her arms around her own torso, swaying dreamily before the full length mirror, wearing nothing but Alice’s special 20-year-old surprise necklace and a wig made of of Alice’s hair. I love this commercial so much.
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No joke, I am laughing out loud over this and *cannot* stop.
The triumvirate didn’t realize they were basically dating until they all began relationships
Grantaire laughing himself to tears when Enjolras tells him date nights will have to be scheduled around the second of every month
“It’s Courfeyrac and my Yell at Sexist Movies night it’s improtant, R.. Grantaire get off the floor it’s not that funny”
Once Combeferre and Courfeyrac start dating, for real this time, there are times they go on dates and end up texting Enjolras for his opinion on the discussion
“Wait this is our date we are not fact checking Enjolras’ speech, we have so many other, sexier options”
Enjolras and Combeferre are the same size and essentially share a wardrobe, divided into t-shirts with revolutionary slogans, and button downs.
Grantaire assumed that if a hoodie smells like his boyfriend it would belong to his boyfriend. After Combeferre walked home in only a t-shirt five meetings in a row, he was proven wrong.
The amis are occasionally inducted as a fourth partner if they happen to be having a bad day
Feuilly didn’t get the promotion that would have doubled his salary? The three pull him aside after a meeting for dinner, a movie he and been wanting to see, then home for a giant ‘sleepover’ with him in the middle.
Bahorel calls it the real gay agenda
Courfeyrac is a firm believer that you absorb more knowledge if you are warm and in bed with someone. (don’t question it)
When he gets a new bed he brings E and Ferre to the store to ensure they can all comfortably lay on it together.
Jehan sends photos of all three of them wrapped together that night, caption, ‘my roommate with his 5th and 6th appendages.’
A friendship between a time traveler and an immortal. Wherever the time traveler ends up, the immortal is there to catch him up to speed.
when we meet, i’m older but born after her, which is confusing. she was immortal somewhere after the 3rd century, we’re not sure. something about an ancient ritual. a sacrifice. she was twenty. if she ages, it’s nowhere i can see. the cut on her ribs from the ritual never heals. she is constantly annoyed by it.
we met in a meadow, by chance, when i got lost after woodstock. she looked at me with these odd eyes as i stumbled out of the loop, still smelling of sweat and other things. for a long time we stared at each other, she in her peasant clothes, me in tattered peace signs. and then she laughed.
she meets me in london during jack the ripper’s reign. we get tea. i tell her about the future where women are rulers and she snorts. i tell her about medicine. she tells me about witchcraft. i tell her about spaceships. she tells me about books that will die before i get to read them. when she laughs my heart feels funny. i think it’s the death on the wind.
she meets me by the berlin wall. we break it down together. she dances her bare feet in the dust. when she laughs something very small breaks in me. i miss my twenty-third birthday by accidentally going back to the dinosaurs. when i find her in the twenty-second century she’s holding a cake for me, telling me she’d found the signs of my travels somewhere back in twenty fifty-three. we sit on a rooftop and look at the stars and eat cake. i save her a slice. when i go back in time, i find her crying. i don’t tell her how i knew. there is something really beautiful in watching someone break into a smile when they’ve been sobbing.
i don’t know what happens. i stop jumping so much. we’re not supposed to. we’re not meant for long stays, we’ll change fate. just in and out. but hours turn into days. we spend a week in paris in her apartment over the city and i’m silly drunk when she leans over to me.
kissing her stops time. kissing her stops everything.
she waits for the future where we are legally allowed to be together. in the meantime i find her in dark corners. she laughs when i get tangled in my own skirts. she shows me a different world. a place where i stay. she knows i have to go. but i can’t help wish i could stay.
time isn’t real. that’s the thing. we experience it only based on our own perception of events. i only realize what’s happening because i stay too long. we are skinny dipping in a cold ocean the first time i notice it. she says something wrong. it’s not a bad mistake. but she doesn’t seem to remember how we got here for a moment. and then, in a flash, it’s gone. we are hiking through the amazon the first time she starts screaming. it’s been a long history. there’s just too much. she has periods of lucidity followed by eons of confusion. everything for her flashes by in an instant. she can’t remember what’s already been invented or what are stories i’ve told. her language is slipping.
i hold her in a future where she is shaking. i kiss her neck. she smells like summer. “i’m losing myself in it,” she whispers. her skin is still bleeding. “i’m losing it.” i don’t know what to say. infinity is a long time to wait. she experiences time in flashes, sees a hundred years at a glance. and me? i show up and evaporate before she even recognizes me.
if she is mad, i am just as bad. i travel too much to find how to stop this. into parallel universes. outside of the ages. i don’t sleep and i don’t eat and the whole time i hear her screaming.
it comes to me while i am sitting in the library of alexandria. time isn’t real. if i break the law, time could unravel. i think of her. if it’s worth it. what happens if i’m caught. we aren’t supposed to do things like this. even if we’re in love.
but i am in love. i am in love.
i open the loop. i could ruin everything. but there she is, crying on the night she will be taken. and my heart breaks. it’s simple. the only way to undo it without leading to ruin is to make sure it never happens in the first place. i take her hand and i give her my loop. she has all of time to explore now. i’ve already seen it. i take her place.
it is many years later. we meet in a meadow and she laughs.
people who are not watching supergirl because they’re afraid after t100, the two shows couldn’t be on more opposite ends of the spectrum? even the executive producer of supergirl said at comic con that they want the show to be happier than what we see in real life because real life is awful enough, whereas jroth made it his mission to make t100 ten times darker each week. just because it’s a superhero show, doesn’t mean it has to be horrible and twisted all the time. sure, things could change now that they’re at the cw but the writers and producers still know what they want the show to be.
plus, there are more reasons to watch than just alex and maggie as a couple, and that’s so important to note. the kara/alex relationship is the heart of the show. if you skip season one, i think you’re making a mistake. the whole development of kara and alex’s relationship in s1 is what made me continue watching, even though i already knew maggie was coming. i get that people are starved for wlw representation, and so am i, but supergirl is so much more than just that. there is an entire cast of strong badass women, the platonic and familial relationships between female characters are a+, and there is a literal female superhero kicking ass each week. and the best part, supergirl as a hero doesn’t take away from the badassery of the other characters.
idk i just think supergirl’s ratings are suffering when they don’t need to be. there are a bunch of people out there who aren’t watching because they’re afraid of t100 2.0 but to not give the show a chance would be a huge mistake tbh. i don’t even care for superhero related things usually and i love it because it’s so much more than just one thing.
tldr: if supergirl gets cancelled you will never hear the end of it from me so you might as well watch it lmao
Also Kara is infinitely more interesting than Superman just for the reason that she remembers Krypton and feels that loss and it adds do many layers and even a bit of darkness to her character that makes her an even more outstanding hero. Like after all she’s been through, she’s still so GOOD.
Not to mention the two heads of the Alex/Maggie storyline are a gay man and a lesbian
I think a lot about who I am to other people in the world–particular who I am to strangers as a mere concept in their lives.
Today this woman called our information desk and said, “my son’s band is playing tonight. I want to come see him, but he never answers his phone…..I want to be there. Have you heard anything about his band?”
And I felt so bad for this lady but I’m not in the music scene around here so I had to tell her no, sorry.
Five hours later, I’m hiking and run into a group of guys setting up for some outdoor performance, and as I watch them unload the drums it hits me.
“Hey,” I said, “are y’all in a band?”
They said yeah and smiled and I told them “one of your moms called today. She wants to watch you play, but she can’t get a hold of you. Call your mom.”
And they all pulled out their phones and started discussing whose mom it probably was as they presumably dialed their own.
And now, unless we meet again and recognize each other, that’s who I’ll be forever to those guys–some mysterious courier for mom-messages who came out of the woods and told them their mom called.
I didn’t even tell them why their mom called me. Who am I to their mom?? Nobody even asked. They just took my word for it and called their mothers.
Sure Kara. Use your GLOWING LASER EYES in a crowded open floor plan office.
So I headcanon that everyone in the office knows Kara is Supergirl. And there has just been this unspoken agreement to keep her secret. Because Kara is always so nice to everyone, knows all their names, and the names of their children and/or pets, and genuinely want to know how they’re going. She cheers them up when Cat is too demanding, or talks to Cat on their behalf when they’re too scared of how she will react. Kara has always been their office hero and if keeping her identity as Supergirl a secret is important then dammit they’re gonna do their part.
They’re going to look the other way when they find a pile of Kara’s discarded clothes, or pretend they didn’t overhear her too loud conversations with Winn and James, oh and the fact the girl they see every day looks just like Supergirl and warms Cat’s coffee by firing FRICKEN LASERS OUT OF HER EYES.
I accept and love this headcanon that everyone knows Kara is Supergirl but keeps it secret because they love her so much 😀
I need a comic of everyone feigning surprise when they “find out”
“This is new and totally shocking information”
– The staff at Catco when Kara “Reveals” that she is Supergirl…
Did she just use heat vision through her glasses instead of lowering them first?
I fully endorse this entire thing, especially since it’s been my headcanon for Superman for EVER. Because really, glasses??? C’mon now. I feel like tons of people have figured out that Clark Kent is Superman, but he’s just such a darn nice guy… if he wants to be a reporter, why shouldn’t he go for his dreams? You do you, Su– er. Clark. >.>
Grantaire who never really understood what people meant when they talked about romance or love, who felt parts of the descriptions resonate with him but was utterly baffled by others.
Grantaire who doesn’t think he has ever been in love or had a crush because he thinks he would probably know if he had, but sometimes has doubts.
Grantaire who remains unattached, and people assume it is because of his ugliness, or his drinking, or his skepticism, but really it is because he just doesn’t know what people are supposed to feel before entering a relationship.
Grantaire who views the people he meets as friends, or as potential partners for sex, or as people to paint, but doesn’t know whether he should consider them in a romantic light. Grantaire who is drawn to some people more than others and doesn’t understand why; who sometimes wants to take a relationship to some other level but doesn’t know in what way.
Grantaire who is drawn to Enjolras as he always is.
He “admires, loves, and venerates” Enjolras. He is intrigued by and in awe of his passion, his light, his ideals, his strength, his personality. He comes to all the Amis meetings to watch him. He comes to realize that he needs him, loves him.
But he doesn’t know what kind of love that is.
Hugo says Enjolras “charmed him, without his being clearly aware of it, and without the idea of explaining it to himself having occurred to him.” Everyone loves to write about Grantaire knowing he loves Enjolras, and loves him romantically, and pines over him. But what about a Grantaire who doesn’t know? Grantaire who has gotten so used to not knowing whether he’s romantically attracted to people that it’s made him cynical about love itself in addition to everything else to the point that he tries not to think about it too hard.
Grantaire who might be romantically attracted to Enjolras but might not be and will probably never be sure.
Canon Grantaire who takes his place by Enjolras when it matters most.
Modern AU Grantaire who has more time and terminology on his side, and maybe is able to make a queerplatonic relationship with Enjolras work.
Just. Quoiromantic Grantaire whose love – whether for Enjolras or for his other friends – is undefinable and confusing as hell, but also deep and unwavering, and it’s all okay.
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