elodieunderglass:

elodieunderglass:

penguinattie:

pyjamazombie:

chaoticallyprecise:

SO in Britain all the swans may belong to the Queen, but lemme tell you about Hamburg:

Hamburg is built around a river, so there’s many many many canals (the 2400+ bridges put Venice and Amsterdam to shame), as well as a fairly sizeable lake (here the smaller section, innit precious):

This means a shittonne of swans

(stay away from the swans) (seriously don’t go sailing on the lake because they WILL chase you). Obvs swans aren’t made for cold weather (p sure they’re all Australian immigrants actually) so Hamburg has an official job position to take care of the issue.

This dude’s name is Olaf Nieß (trying to spell his name on non-German keyboards must be fun):

This guy’s job title is “Schwanenvater”, aka “swan father”, and his job literally consists of getting swans to safety before the winter chill sets in. How does he do this, you wonder? Easy: he goes up to EVERY SINGLE FUCKING SWAN in the city and sticks them in barges. I’m serious:

Look at this dude and his swans

Swans are like Satan’s personal pet and he paddles around with barges full of them like it’s nbd.

I fucking love this guy he’s braver than all of us and deserves some recognition for his absurd line of work.

I always learn new thing about my city….. this job must be tough!

This sounds like something for @elodieunderglass and her series of important birb facts.

Aaaah oh my goodness! THIS IS SO UP MY ALLEY, HOLY COW.

I was a little confused because mute swans (pictured)* are native to Northern Europe and are generally happy with cold weather (they’re quite significant in the folklore of, say, Northern Russia). In fact,my friend Dru posted a lovely video of some of my Swan Friends breaking ice here: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxDXURNuDNk

The cob, or daddy swan, is breaking the ice with his chest to make clear water for his family to feed in. Later the ducks (shown standing on the ice) will hop into the cleared water and enjoy the free foraging. 

But then I remembered that wild Mute Swans tend to fuck off from the big rivers when it gets really cold and go somewhere warmer (such as a nice shallow pond) cos swans ain’t fools and they don’t actually like icebreaking. So why wouldn’t they want the swans in Hamburg to fuck off from the big rivers? Why are they putting them into small warm ponds for winter? Wouldn’t the swans just… do that themselves if they got cold enough?? Why do you need to have a guy go out and grab them before they do anything? THIS IS IMPLYING THAT THESE ARE NOT WILD SWANS, BUT MUNICIPAL SWANS. 

 AND APPARENTLY, I researched this 5 minutes ago, APPARENTLY there is a prophecy about these swans that is similar to the prophecy of the Ravens of the Tower of London : “As long as the proud swans draw circles on the Alster, Hamburg will be a free and prosperous Hanseatic City.”  The swans also served the practical purpose of demonstrating that Hamburg was a free and independent city, because previously, only royal Europeans had swans.

So they are not exactly wild swans! The Swanfather cares for the swans year-round – they’re municipal animals – and in the winter he brings the swans to a place where they can “draw circles on the Alster” without fucking off entirely, and show off to everyone that Hamburg is a strong independent city that don’t need no king. 

SO the Ravenmaster of London is a position that exists because if the ravens leave the tower, a prophecy says that England will fall. And the Swanfather of Hamburg exists because if the swans leave the Alster, Hamburg will stop prospering. The Swanfather role has existed since 1674, about the same time as when the Ravenmaster job was set up. I guess there was a lucrative trade in bird-related political prophecies at the time. CLEARLY I HAVE MISSED MY CALLING???

* OP is confused – the swans that are immigrants from Australia are Black Swans, and the swans on the river in Hamburg are Mute Swans. 

Also, ALSO, I need to insert my standard disclaimer here:

SWANS ARE NOT EVIL. THEY ARE NOT ASSHOLES. THEY ARE LARGE ANIMALS THAT LIVE IN CLOSE CONTACT WITH HUMANS BUT ARE NOT SUBMISSIVE TOWARDS HUMANS.

A huge amount of people’s fear/anxiety/outrage about swans and geese is because these large wild animals have the AUDACITY to live near humans, and to interact with humans, but not in a fearful and submissive way. Swans aren’t afraid of humans – why should they be? – and that makes us escalate our own behavior, because we expect animals to be either loving or afraid. So we often do silly things to swans, such as poking our hands at them, provoking them, threatening their young, using incredibly aggressive body language when we see them, approaching them with kayaks (kayaks are Incredibly Rude for swans) and allowing our companion animals to behave threateningly towards them while we giggle.

Then the swan indicates (fairly politely) that we are being rude and need to give them more space… and we complain that swans are disrespectful, mean and scary. Most of swan politeness is about giving them space, not making direct eye contact, and not pointing at them, or flailing your hands around, or waving a paddle at them, or looking directly at their babies, or letting a dog approach them. BUT PEOPLE ARE INCAPABLE OF DOING THAT, so they complain that swans are Satan. 

In reality, they are just large wild animals that are often quite happy to be “nice” to humans, and will recognize ones that are trustworthy.

Look how nicely they’re sitting in their little boats to go to their winter pond.

lackofcooperation:

howellaboutphil:

yourbiass:

wendycorduroy:

when i was 5 years old my best friend was a boy named kyle who didn’t know how to knock on doors so he made dinosaur noises outside my window to wake me up in the summer until i demonstrated how to ball his fists and slam them against my doors.  we collected caterpillars in my trailer park and built them houses while we traded pokemon cards.  he wasn’t the only one.  there was ben, and mitch, and noah—but kyle’s the only one who hurt me, because when he tried to kiss me and i asked him why, he told me “because you’re a girl and i’m a boy, shouldn’t we like each other?”

i missed him so much and i wondered why he couldn’t just be my friend like he always was

in the first grade there was rich and joseph and i got sent to detention with them almost every day with a smile on my face.  we built block towers and sang to my teacher’s lion king soundtracks when she’d
turn the lights off during lunch time.  one day they got in a fist fight
over me at recess, and i wondered why they felt they needed to share my
friendship, like it was something they owned.

in the second grade zach and i played yu gi oh under our desks during
free time and i got moved for talking to him constantly.  everyone in
the class would tease him and i for talking, asking when we were going
to date already, asking him if he’d kissed me, and he stopped being my
friend.

when i was 11 i met a chubby boy with the name of a colour who wore
puffy vests and unwashed t-shirts, with greasy hair and bright blue eyes
and a smile that hid hurt behind it.  people didn’t like him because he
was silly, but i liked him, because i was also silly.  he became my
friend the day he bought me 5 giant roses and asked me to be his
girlfriend, and i politely declined but promised him i’d be his best
friend because i’d always wanted a best guy friend that stuck around.
we burnt our feet on the concrete during the summer and walked home
with the sunset silhouetting us.  he talked often about how he loved me,
but never blamed me for being me, even though he refused to move on.
that boy dyed his hair jet black and sat on the end of my bed playing
songs to me on guitar, and all that pent up rage from before didn’t show
until the first time he slapped me across the face and called me a dumb
cunt.

in the 7th grade there was a boy named ryan who sat next to me on the
bus and talked to me about manga.  he’d ask me personal invasive
questions but i didn’t mind because it was attention and i liked
attention.  i was dating another guitarist with curly brown hair, one
who was much more kind-tempered than the other, and ryan mentioned how
much of an asshole he was every day.  i wondered, why, why does he think
the love of my life is an asshole?  but whenever i asked him, he just
told me, “girls only date assholes.  there’s no room for nice guys like
me.”

i wondered, if he was so nice, why did he say such mean things?

he never stopped with me, taking me to movies, hanging out with me,
you know.  being friendly.  i thought we were friends.  but then, how
many times had i thought that before?

how many times had i bonded with a boy, thought they got me, only for them to ask me if i wanted to make out?

how come when i told ryan i was coming out as a lesbian, he stopped
being my friend, and said “damnit, the one girl i really want to pound
into a mattress, and she’s only interested in chicks!”

there was a boy my junior year who stayed up all night with me until
the sun rose, talking about life, past loves, hopes, dreams.  beneath a
million twinkling stars spanning forever, he brushed long brown hair out
of his eyes and listened to me talk about the history that made me.
then he asked me if i’d ever consider dating a guy, and complained
about how he’d never get laid.

when i told him no a couple hundred times, he found new girls to listen to.

i would sit on the couch and play zelda with dakota, and he’d talk
about all my favourite games with me.  he was the closest thing to
support i had, and the letters and poems he wrote me were always so kind
and friendly.  but he’d put his arms around me on the couch, and no
matter how many times i told him i was uncomfortable, he’d still come
over every day and do it.

“don’t you know how it feels to love someone and not have them love
you back?  don’t you know what it feels like to be friendzoned?”

when i meet guys who talk about the friendzone, who talk about the
girls who don’t give “nice guys” like them i chance, i always want to
just say

when i was 10 years old i met a girl whose brown hair fell across her
shoulders and whos eyes sparkled when the sunlight hit them, whose
voice was like velvet and whose scent was like mountain smoke, who made
me dizzier than a fly climbing a sugar hill.  and i’m 18 years old, and i
still love her, and she knows, and she doesn’t love me.

but my first thoughts upon hearing her rejection were not “what a
bitch,” were not “she just wants a douchebag and not a nice girl like
me!” were not “im going to keep pushing her until she dates me,”

they were

“she is the best friend i have ever had, and i am the best she’s ever had, and i would hate to take that away from her.”

so before you play the victim, mr. Nice Guy, before you angrily throw
your fedora on the ground and blame the girl you claim to adore so
much:

put yourself in the shoes of a girl who thought she made a wonderful
friend, only to find out that he just wanted her for sex.  that he just
wanted her for a relationship.  a girl who was just an object to win, a
prize.  a girl who’s trust you’ve just shattered.

maybe she friendzoned you.  but you girlfriendzoned her, first.

I am clapping for this, you just can’t see it.

okay honestly wow I’m oh my god just

YES GOD BLESS