you deserve love. your crush does not owe you a date.
you deserve success. your coworkers do not owe you extra hours.
you deserve emotional support. your friends do not owe you free therapy.
what ‘you deserve this’ means is that it’s ok to want it and hope for it and try to achieve it, not that you have the authority to demand that a person provide it. it’s good to ask for it, but you have to be willing to take no for an answer.
Yes, well put. I wish all those lonely, resentful misogynist types on Reddit and 4chan understood this.
Yeah, this.
This is actually what I was trying to get at with the manipulation post.
A lot of the posts that go around saying “severely mentally ill kids don’t deserve to be lonely uwu” are actually very similar in internal logic to “no guy deserves the friend zone.”
No, no one deserves to be lonely! But it is no particular individual’s responsibility to solve this problem.
Which is why I personally think having a multiple-person support system is absolutely vital.
Because it enables you to go “Kishona is busy right now, or terribly sad herself. But I really can’t be alone right now! I know, I’ll text Dave and see if he can help.”
Just doing that has saved my ass so many times from so much misery, and also meant not heavily burdening one person.
Yes, absolutely, all of this!
I think this is also really helpful in cutting through the false dichotomy people sometimes fall into: the idea that, “Either I am Bad and don’t actually deserve love/happiness/etc., or I do deserve it and therefore the people around me are Bad (shallow, mean, whatever) for not providing it.”
You deserve good things, and no one owes them to you.
Hummingbirds are incredible acrobatic fliers, capable of hovering for more than 30 seconds at a time, even in windy conditions. Their feeding habits are equally impressive. Many species of hummingbirds have a forked tongue, each half of which curls over like a partial straw. As the bird extends its tongue, its beak compresses the space inside the tongue’s curls. Once in the nectar, both halves of the tongue re-expand, pulling liquid in along the full length of the tongue. For the birds, this is a much faster technique than simply sucking the nectar up like a straw. Hummingbirds can lick nectar more than ten times a second this way. For more gorgeous imagery of hummingbirds, be sure to check out National Geographic’s full feature. (Image credit: A. Varma, source; via Aarthi S.)
Dude. Anand Varma, the man who filmed this, presented it at the National Geographic photographers’ gathering in January, and I have never seen a group of individuals at that caliber all grow so quiet and so mesmerized before. By the end, people were in tears and giving standing ovation. This took Anand years to master and create. It is a literal masterpiece. I’ve been trying to find the video since then, I think about it at least once a week. And finally Nat Geo just released it online. It is magnificent. Watch the video here.
“Don’t call Trump supporters nazis, it hurts their feelings.”
Yes, this is real (link to tweet). Yes, Tucker Carlson is literally repeating Nazi propaganda that aided the genocide of the Romani during the Holocaust. Yes, I am furious.
(Also, although there is a large population of Romani in Romania, they aren’t indigenous to Romania. They’re a diasporic group originally from northern India.)
Romani and Jewish have been screaming at the top of their lungs for years about neo-fascism in Europe, and Americans were totally aloof.
Then neo-fascism reared its head in America, but Roma and Jews were left out of the conversation in terms of people being impacted, because our oppression was “over.”
Now Tucker Carlson is on live TV using slurs and Nazi propaganda about Romani people, and I’m 90% most people on the left are just going to ignore it.
George Eli went on w him to try and defend our people and he just spewed more of the same shit. I’m honestly afraid now. I’m afraid to exist.
This is fucking terrifying..
We’ve been in Pennsylvania for generations! My family settled there in 1917 for fuck’s sake!
Most of us live in the fucking country! We kill chickens because WE RAISE THEM FOR MEAT! My aunts also have “mysterious” stakes in the ground for training their fucking peas! We leave you people alone, what more do you want!
I’m so sick of this shit. White people take our names to put on their shitty homemade bathbombs and candles, they steal our art for their aesthetic, they take the clothes off or backs to be ~bohemian gypsy chic~ but the still fucking hate us!
I’m crying about this and I pass! What about my aunts and uncles and my mother who still dress traditionally, who still raise animals, who still migrate for work, who are still brown?! Fuck
A note on the topic of trauma that I personally found helpful in accepting the idea that I am a trauma victim is that one of the most widely accepted facts in the field of trauma research is that abuse is often not the common factor in whether somebody will develop ptsd.
Many people can go through awful things without developing trauma based disorders as long as they receive compassion and support in processing those events as they happen. The most common factor in developing something like ptsd is emotional neglect. And emotional neglect on it’s own can be enough.
Whatever you went through was enough I promise, you’re not overreacting. Abuse and neglect are traumatic at any level, you don’t need to have gone through the worst possible experience you can think of to develop ptsd. If it hurt you then it hurt you.
…..oh.
And to support that, the number one determining factor on how badly something affects a person is how they’re treated afterward, not how objectively bad the event was. They’re called resiliency factors.
It looks like this:
Horrible brutal traumatic event + Family and community support + legal amelioration + closure and therapy and help
ONE MILLION TIMES MORE LIKELY TO RECOVER THAN
Event that the sufferer may think “seems minor” compared to what others have been through + Family neglect and abuse (you deserved it, name calling, support the abuser) + no legal means + denial and stifling and no therapeutic support
I have been raped, I have been abused by someone who was supposed to be family to me, and I have recovered and gotten my life back together. I have psychiatrists, psychologists, best friends, lovers, and family who support me. I did not get legal justice, but I got the person(s) out of my life.
My friend was repeatedly verbally abused by his step-parent, and when he was abused and hurt by others he was blamed for it by that parent. He had no support and no one to talk to about it for over 10 years.
He still feels guilty for even being affected by it and I’ve had long talks with him about how it isn’t “nothing compared to” what I went through.
You are not wrong to be upset. You are not wrong to feel the effects of trauma. Your hurt cannot be measured against anyone else’s. Your resiliency is your own and your situation is valid to you. Perception is everything. The worst thing that ever happened to you might ostensibly be less bad than the worst thing that ever happened to me – but it still is what happened to YOU.
Trauma is so predictable that we can make tidy little equations out of it. The ones above are good, but the ones I’ve seen are a little simpler. Something like:
You probably thought you knew what not giving a fuck looked like.
Well I’m here to tell you you’re wrong.
This is the ideal Zero Fucks Given. You may not like it, but this is what PEAK FUCKLESS looks like:
That is a hippo getting in the way of a crocodile killing a wildebeest.
On purpose.
Hippos aren’t just not afraid of one of the largest and deadliest subspecies of crocodiles on Earth. They ACTIVELY fuck with them, WHILE they’re eating. They will harass crocodiles as they hunt, interrupt them while trying to feed, and just outright annoy them for fun. They’ll chase crocodiles until they become exhausted (crocodiles have very limited stamina due to lactic acid buildup in their muscles and after short periods of intense activity they become nearly paralyzed with their need for rest), then after the crocodiles have dragged themselves onto the banks to rest in the sun, they’ll just keep on messing with them. Nudge them, push them around, bite them to clean their teeth.
Hippos basically treat crocodiles like mobile toothbrushes that need to be harassed into submission first. They will also outright kill crocodiles if they present a significant threat to their young, or when bull hippos need an outlet for their own toxic masculinity. (Testosterone: Not Even Once.)
Or when they just hate crocodiles, because they really hate crocodiles.
Which is why it’s such a big deal when the near-mythical legendary crocodile from Burundi, Gustave, has reportedly been witnessed killing and eating a bull hippo. A hippo is NOT an easy animal for a crocodile to kill, even an extraordinarily large crocodile.
But Gustave is the definition of an extraordinarily large crocodile:
That’s an adult female next to him, probably anywhere from 9-12 feet long. She’s half his length. His exact size is something that will probably never be determined because Nile Crocodiles are extremely difficult to capture alive (especially ones this big, experienced, and clever) and their remains are virtually impossible to recover if they die in the water. But it’s likely Gustave’s size is comparable to the standing Guinness World Record holder, Lolong:
Except maybe bulkier due to the dietary differences in Nile and Saltwater crocs. There’s some skepticism about Gustave’s size and probably healthy speculation about the accuracy of some of the things attributed to him (like that he has killed over 300 people and survived being shot with a rocket launcher; although he DOES have a few distinct scars from bullet wounds and his migratory patterns line up with dozens of human casualties). And it’s possible that he is already dead, because it’s been a few years since there was a reliable sighting.
It IS within the realm of possibility for a Nile Crocodile to reach Gustave’s reported size, though – especially one who has spent so many years successfully avoiding humans. I’ve linked a clone of this video before but mistakenly presented it as a Saltwater crocodile when the footage was in fact taken in the Okavango Delta in Botswana, in southern Africa:
The (Nile) crocodile in this video appears to be about twice the length of its distance from the camera, which looks to me like about 10-12 feet based on the apparent depth of the water and how far the camera is from where it crossed under the boat. This is a HUGE crocodile. I’d be more surprised if it wasn’t 20 feet long. At least.
But basically, that’s about how big a crocodile needs to be for claims of it killing a bull hippo to be believable. Crocodiles get big:
But it’s really not a small feat to take down Mother Nature’s Two Ton Staple Remover™ that thinks murder is fun:
So while crocodiles do like to eat hippos when they can (young hippos if they can isolate them from the protective mother/herd, adult hippos usually only when they are killed by other hippos, most often males in territorial disputes), hippos don’t have as much reason to be afraid of them as, say, any other living thing within ten feet of the water. (There are videos of crocodiles attacking ELEPHANTS, which I will not link here because I’m already way off topic.)
Anyway, to the original point, one of the things hippos are besides fearless is brown. Hippo skin is shades of brown. Not pink.
The lightest and pinkest coloration is around the sensitive areas where the skin is thinner, especially around the eyes and ears, and parts of their jawline.
But sometimes, they do LOOK a lot more pink, especially when they are OUT OF THE WATER or when the sun is really intense:
(this particular image looks like it might have had some saturation boosting)
This is because hippos are very sensitive to DRY SKIN. What makes their skin pink is not exactly sweat, it’s a reddish substance that basically acts as a natural moisturizer that protects their skin from drying out in the intense sun or when they come out of the water. Sometimes people say, incorrectly, that they sweat blood (the second night picture just above is a good depiction of this because you can see it actually running down the side of its belly) because of this, but it’s just a substance that their skin produces to stay hydrated. So they don’t TECHNICALLY sweat pink because it isn’t sweat, meant to regulate heat by cooling the body as it evaporates, but their skin does secrete a substance that does make them look more pink, but isn’t really sweat. So yes and no.
In contrast, here’s a(n adorable) picture of a hippo fully submerged:
And okay, a few more for good measure:
What a bizarre combination of adorable and terrifying.
Also they’re the deadliest animal in Africa, which is saying something, so you should not fuck with them, probably.
Extroverts must swim constantly: if they stop, they will suffocate.
Introverts never have to drink water. They can get all the water they need from reading books.
According to the principles of aerodynamics, extroverts should be incapable of flight. However, no one ever told extroverts this. Well actually they tried, but the extroverts didn’t listen.
What is commonly referred to as the introvert’s “second brain” is actually a walnut-sized cluster of neurons at the base of the spine. It exchanges information with the introvert’s true brain, but the neural impulses travel slowly. If you step on an introvert’s tail, it can take as long as half an hour before the introvert complains on Tumblr.
A group of extroverts is called a “parliament.”
No two introverts have the same markings.
Despite their reputation, extroverts will generally only bite if provoked.
As their teeth never stop growing, introverts must gnaw constantly to wear their dentition down to a functional length.
There are about 25 million extroverts for each introvert. Or at least it seems like it.
Introverts don’t really change color in order to blend in with the background. Their color changes actually relate more to their moods and their activities, as when fighting, fleeing, or attempting to mate.
Despite the urban legend, eating uncooked rice does not cause an extrovert’s stomach to explode.
Slowly closing your eyes and then opening them again means “I love you” in Introvert.
An extrovert’s quack does not echo.
Introvert hair is made of keratin, the same proteinaceous material that makes up your horn if you’re a rhino.
Extroverts can keep talking for as long as two hours after their heads are chopped off.
The common introvert can see in near-complete darkness if he or she can find the light switch.
An extrovert placed into a pot of boiling water will jump out immediately. However, if you place an extrovert in a pot of lukewarm water and slowly turn up the temperature until the water reaches the boiling point, he or she will just keep texting.
Reclusicanthropus giganticus, the largest known fossil introvert, had a couch 22 feet long.
Extroverts are native to all continents except Antarctica, but they’re starting to show up there too.
Introverts can slam their heads into solid wood at rates up to 20 times per second, but are protected from impact trauma by a sponge-filled, shock-absorbing sinus cavity… no wait, that’s woodpeckers.
Urocyon's Jaunts 2.0 
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