Ronald K. Siegel has studied the precursors of religious faith in African elephants and concludes that “elephants are aware of natural cycles, as they practice “moon worship,” waving branches at the waxing moon and engaging in ritual bathing when the moon is full.“[7] Observations by Pliny the elder also note supposed elephant reverence for the celestial bodies.[8]
fucking cool
forgot Jesus, I wanna convert to an elephant religion
are we just citing Pliny’s Natural History on elephant behavior like that’s fine? the guy who said elephants frequently died in fights with dragons? is that what’s happening?
“
In the course of his testimony in the Blake trial, Siegel disclosed that in one study, he had taught monkeys to smoke crack cocaine”
Hey this dude seems totally normal and a fine person to listen to when it comes to animal behavior
The thing about Persuasion that just kills me is that the central premise— “I hope the person who broke my heart has a miserable life and I get to watch them be humiliated while I get everything I ever wanted” is so universal.
But Wentworth is only able to fully enjoy it for like A DAY before he starts realizing how terrible it is. He watches Anne suffer in silence and he hates it. He watches her being treated like an inconvenience and a joke and a piece of furniture and he hates it. He hears sneering comments at her expense and he hates it. He spends evening after evening in her company, where he is celebrated as a handsome, dashing hero while she is shoved to the side and ignored and he hates it.
He probably spent a lot of heartbroken hours out on the sea wishing revenge on her (like ten years’ worth), but then he gets to see it happening and revenge turns out not to be that sweet after all. He probably thought “I hope she never gets married to anyone else and she has to spend the rest of her miserable life with her miserable family, listening to them talk about nothing and regretting ever letting me go.” But then he has to watch her live through it, and it is just excruciating. Watching her bite her tongue. Watching her keep her eyes down on her clasped hands. Watching her silently accept everything as if she deserves it.
He’s like, “YES, it’s all HAPPENING! She’s all ALONE and PALE and OLD and…sad. And her family treats her terribly, and she’s— no one is talking to her. No one even knows that she’s funny and smart, they just— they just make her sit in the corner. She’s hardly eating anything. And she really isn’t that old, but they are acting like she’s dead? Her family is even worse than they used to be, how is that even possible? Why isn’t anyone helping her? Why is she the only person taking care of anyone? Why isn’t anyone taking care of her?”
And his nasty “she’s so altered I should not have known her again” comment that he KNOWS got back to her starts ringing in his ears. And his cocky “yeah I’m just here to find a YOUNG, HOT girl to marry now that I’m SUCH A CATCH, whatevs” approach starts to make him feel queasy, because she’s HELPING, she’s trying to stay out of his way and help him pick a young wife, and she hardly ever smiles anymore, not really. He watches her slip out of rooms when he enters them and he hears her laughing with her nephew sometimes but then go quiet when anyone else approaches, and he doesn’t know what to do.
Anyway, every fandom has a bunch of Pride and Prejudice AUs, but I WANT PERSUASION AUS. I NEED THEM. I NEED THEM.
I have yet to see a single goddamn person who was active in fandom 10 years ago jump on this “AO3 is evil and should ban some content” train. (I’m sure some exist – probably the same people who felt Strikethrough was a good thing and waxed morally superior about how their communities didn’t get hit with it, so clearly it was just people being mad that their Gross Pedophile Porn was deleted.)
“ban child porn”? cool – they started in 2006/7 with deleting all of the hogwarts-era explicit fic, want to start there? maybe enlist the help of an anti-pedophilia activist organization? don’t worry about whether they have conservative Christian rhetoric on their site, I’m sure they won’t go after gay content either. let’s just hire some more moderators – no way that different people could ever make different judgement calls about a piece of fiction.
this has all. happened. before. AO3’s creed didn’t come from nothing, created by people who were too naive to know what fandom would create given freedom or without half a million other ideas being tried first. we had sites which moderated all entries (a nightmare which ended up being cliquey and highly dependent on moderator tastes), sites that only allowed Unproblematic pairings (which inevitably fell into vicious ship wars with rival sites), sites which banned NSFW content altogether (and ESPECIALLY none of that Gay Shit, what will we tell the children). We had sites get bought out by investors or pressured by advertisers, sites run by for-profit companies, sites get shut down CONSTANTLY by media companies which didn’t like those Dirty Things that fans were doing with their precious IP.
AO3’s a safe space for creators because there never was one before. We had safe spaces for readers, and they fell to goddamn pieces. And sure enough, readers used tools to make their own spaces. AO3 took off because its model works, and the people who want to change it don’t know why the alternatives didn’t.
My stomach hurts and I can barely breathe, because I haven’t laughed this hard in a very, very long time. I only learned about this prank less than fifteen minutes ago, but I’m already dead from how ridiculous it is.
Context: Paul Rudd has a history of going on Conan O’Brien’s shows (first Late Night, then Conan) and, when asked to show a clip from his newest movie, shows this snippet of a 1988 movie called Mac and Me (an ET ripoff) that people refer to as “the runaway wheelchair scene.” And Conan falls for it… every time. The exasperation through the years just kills me. Every time Conan thinks that he’s maybe caught a break, it happens again.
He thought that Paul Rudd might have laid off the joke for Ant-Man, in hopes of not pissing off Marvel.
Look at that face. Look at that expression. Look at how resigned and dead he is. This was his chance to get Paul Rudd to actually show a proper clip. Who would piss off Marvel? Who would waste a chance to promo their new movie for a prank they’d already been doing for fifteen years?
“i want a word for the almost-home. that point where the highway’s monotony becomes familiar
that subway stop whose name will always wake you from day’s-end dozing
that first glimpse of the skyline that you never loved until you left it behind. what do you call the exit sign you see even in your dreams?
is there a name for the airport terminal you come back to,
comfortably exhausted? i need a word for rounding your corner onto your street,
for seeing your city on the horizon,
for flying homewards down your highway. give me a word for the boundary
between the world you went to see
and the small one you call your own. i want a word for the moment you know you’re almost home.”
i'll apple your turnover 