Grodyngel @grodyngel - Tumblr Blog

Friendships as a teenager: we used to talk 5 hours every night now it’s down to 3… are we still friends 🤔? I wonder if they don’t like me anymore

Friendships as an adult: omg I’ve finally cleared up 20 minutes of my schedule to talk to my friend I haven’t spoken to in 4 months #bffs #we will find eachother in every life

junglejim4322

I’m still so taken aback by people in the notes who claimed you need to be talking to people weekly or even daily to consider them your friend. how many people do you know? As an adult I feel like talking every day is sustainable with one person maybe 2 or 3 if your circumstances somehow are really conveniently aligned. yeah there’s people I talk to often there’s also people I don’t talk to for 6 months because there’s no way we’ll be able to coordinate time and energy and I still consider them my friends because this is real life and there isn’t a stardew valley esque hearts system based off of how many interactions we had this month

3liza

just fyi by the time youre in your 30s, most of the people you would call to help you cover up a murder are the people you text about twice a year. it's specifically because you can maintain the relationship on two texts a year that they are your closest friends. the reason everyone's interpersonal relationships are so unstable in your teens is because everyone's "best friends" are almost entirely circumstantial. you won't actually know which of those people are in for the long haul until the relationships have been stress tested by distance, conflict and silence.

teaboot

Yeah Mr. Darcy’s proposal was a complete turd and a half but you gotta understand. You got your life together. A good career, stable income, retirement plan, all that shit together. And you meet this girl. And she’s everything. Clever, outspoken, funny, calls you on your bullshit. Grade A cutie, right? And she doesn’t go out of her way to spend time with you but she’s nice, and sometimes you catch her looking your way in a way that makes you think you might have a shot.

But her family. Holy shit.

First off, it’s p much ALL women, and mostly UNMARRIED women, which at this time means of something happens to her dad then you’re financially responsible for like. Four grown ass adults, potentially forever

Because mom in law is DEFINITELY gonna need someone to take care of her when dad in law kicks it, and they have like. NO money. So already you’re accepting that if all goes well, you’re gonna be one random old bag’s retirement home. That’s expensive and exhausting, yeah? Imagine asking someone on a first date knowing that if they say yes and things go good her high-strung chihuahua mother is gonna move in with you. IMAGINE.

And girly’s other sisters. Well, one is a sweetheart, yeah, so she probably won’t be an issue, but that still leaves three more, and two of those ones are INSUFFERABLE. Never went to school, dumb as rocks, spend cash like it’s toilet paper

And while one of the two is young still and might grow out of it the OTHER one is actively torpedo’ing her entire family’s reputation by wandering off with random dudes and chasing ass. She’s never gonna work, she can’t build connections, she’s a fucking sinkhole, and she’s being led on by the same goddamn con man ass leeching tit who’s been bleeding you dry while telling anyone who’ll listen that your family is full of ratty thieving bastards.

And if he dumps her after a week- WHICH YOU KNOW HIS BITCH ASS IS GONNA- you’ve got a SECOND UNMARRIABLE GROWN ASS ADULT TO PROVIDE FOR. And you KNOW she’s gonna be a tantrum-throwing little shit about it, and it’s not like you can lock her in the basement or something, you’re gonna have to bring her fucking. Everywhere. And give her an allowance and shit while she contributes zero, because again, she NEVER GOT EDUCATED AND HAS NO MARKETABLE SKILLS. She’s not even good to TALK to. FUCK

And you’re looking at this girl’s father like “please for the love of fuck get your spawn under control, marry them off, get them working on their résumé, learning to sew or be nursemaids or manage staff or SOMETHING, yall got no money and one foot in the grave” and that old man just laughs like “haha yeah, what can you do. lol”

So you’re looking to the mom and finally it’s making sense how she got that twitch in her eye and as MUCH as she is you’re starting to realize she’s the SMART one, desperately throwing her armloads of girls at random men like they’re a bunch of fucking lifeboats bobbing around a sinking ship, like yes Jesus Christ sweetly that life boat IS old and ugly and kind of boring but for FUCKS SAKE PICK ONE

And you look back at this girl who is ALSO REFUSING THE LIFE BOATS BY THE WAY and god damn it she’s still the most radiant thing you’ve ever seen so fine, fuck it, Christ alive, you’ll do it. You’ll shoot your shot. She’s everything you’ve ever wanted in anybody abut it’s not even just about that anymore, it’s about being her best fucking shot at a future, and even if she doesn’t like you all that much she’s still gonna say yes and that might break your heart a bit knowing it’s about the money but who knows, maybe it will at least be civil, or companionable, and even if she doesn’t LOVE you at least you’ll know she’s well and cared for

And so you’ll do it. You’ll take on the neurotic stress mess mother in law, the absent father, the broke ass wingnut no brain no money no future airhead sisters, the bad mannered relatives and the embarrassing behaviour and the impending future of sharing your entire shit with a clown parade of freeloaders, you’ll risk it all and accept the absolute certainty of financial ruin and emotional exhaustion for the rest of your whole ass life and you’ll make your own family deal with it too, you’ll do it, you’ll fucking DO IT, you stupid lovesick motherfucker

And so you go to this chick like “look. Your whole family’s a shitshow. You’ve got fucking nothing and you’re gonna die on the street. But for some reason- and I don’t get it either- I’ve fallen in love with you, and I wish I didn’t, but I did, so I’m telling you that whether you like me or not, I’ll give you everything. I’ll give you everything even if it’s the dumbest shit I ever done. Fuck my stupid Baka ass, I’ll marry you.”

And she looks at you- having heard or considered absolutely none of your months-long internal debate and monologue- and goes “The fuck did you just say about my family, you son of a bitch?”

And the shock of that is enough to jolt you back into a reality where you are able to actually hear and process what just came out of your damn mouth And yeah

Yeah, I think I kinda get it

tugoslavija-deactivated20161215

Goethe-Institut did a web series a while back aimed at new arrivals in Germany and I like how it make sure to teach people that a lot of Germans are rude af

like, this is a genuine scene from an ep:

involverad

#Ok but for a second there I was like #this is a bit exaggerated #it’s not that rude to say hi to strangers #just a bit weird #but then I realised #the rude person is probably meant to be the one ignoring the ‘hi'

langernameohnebedeutung

Well she’s obviously doing it wrong. You got to mumble “Guten Tag” in no one’s actual direction upon entering the waiting room. Then you don’t speak a word (you gotta grab a magazine though, because if you’re on your mobile people will find that asocial) until the doctor calls you and when you get back to retrieve your jacket you mumble “Auf Wiedersehen”.

If you say “Guten Tag” while sitting down it’s either because you’re passive-aggressively shaming the person you’re talking to for not saying “Guten Tag” (which is of course highly respectable, but weird if they did say it) or worse:

You’re trying to make small-talk.

relyabittooheavily

See also: when entering a crowded bus, tram, subway or train, you do not say a single word. You look for an empty bench. If there are none, you will have a neighbour. You stop at an empty spot and mumble something like “tschulli-ng” or “s-nch-frei?” to the person occupying the other spot on the bench. You nod in an upward direction. They reply a mumbled “türlich” while vaguely looking somewhere near your face and moving their bag if neccessary. You sit down, nod gratefully, and keep your mouth shut for the rest of the ride. Neither of you wanted this. You wanted freedom. Don’t bother each other.

If an entire bench in front of you becomes available at the next stop, though, it is not the polite thing to free your neighbour and yourself up. No, you stay right where you are. The silent stranger next to you is your silent stranger now.

Welcome to Germany. This is how we express love.

rohamburger

None of these people are joking.

ilikesallydonovan

And if you’re the one sitting at the window and you want to get off at the next stop, you begin to loudly rustle with your bag whatever, because that way you can signal the other person that you need them to get up without having to speak to them.

hesaidsidhesaid

Like man I get scared of interacting with people but this just takes it to a whole new level.

sasskarian-archive

and today i learn that i socialize in public like a german

anhamirak

It’s nice to be reminded sometimes that Dutch culture and German culture were one and the same for a really long time and in many ways they still are XD

Though here the other person probably wouldn’t actually shove a literal magazine in front of their face. They’d probably say “hello” back in a super confused voice while doing their level best to nonverbally express their confusion that you tried to interact with them in the first place and please don’t do that again.

thecheshirecass-deactivated2018

I’m having trouble deciding between moving to Germany immediately or never going there ever.

anhamirak

Visit Sweden, spend at least 30 minutes in public there, then move to Germany and soak up the friendly social atmosphere.

(seriously. I’m Dutch, autistic, and an introvert and I sighed with relief when I returned from a trip to Sweden because thank fuck, here there are actual people engaging in verbal communication in public spaces. The constant quiet in Sweden freaked me out. Me. Who normally has to fight urges not to commit bloody murder on public transport because why do people have to make noise all the time. I was relieved to be overhearing 3 conversations and 2 phone calls at once because at least it was better than deadly silence. In Sweden the above image series would’ve ended not with a single raised magazine but with an entire waiting room full of people staring at the person who spoke in public like they’d personally kicked open the gates of hell and unleashed the armies of chaos.)

Anyway my point is Germans are actually quite friendly, they just don’t like small talk. Same mostly goes for Dutch people. And if anyone tries to convince you that we’re standoffish, visit our northern neighbors and bear witness.

grodyngel

I was at a concert in Stockholm with around 30-40k people. No one talked to people outside of their friend group. We were all there to see the same band we all love that had came back for a reunion week or something. After the concert on the train back from the arena into the city, I sit down next to 3 people who are talking about their favourite songs. I did the biggest sin you can do in this country, I joined their conversation and said, "That is a great song!" They looked at me like I had grown tentacles out of my head and I was speaking a demonic language! I sat silently for 20 minutes until my stop, giggling silently about how we sang our hearts out together 40 minutes earlier, and now we can't even look at each other.

#Sweden

radishnt

which one of u was going to tell me that tea tastes different if u put it in hot water?

mothman-misato

y- you were putting it in cold water?????

boimgfrog

Radish. Answer the question radish.

radishnt

yeah??? i thought for like. 5 years that ppl just put it in hot water 2 speed up the tea-ification process didn’t realize there was an actual reason

boimgfrog

You dont have the patience to microwave water for 3 minutes???

catsnraincoats

[ID: Tags reading “u think i have the patience to boil water wtf ?????” /End ID]

why are you. putting it in the microwave to boil it

boimgfrog

Do you think I have the patience to boil water on the stove

catsnraincoats

Its takes less than a minute

boimgfrog

Bestie is ur stovetop powered by the fucking sun

catsnraincoats

How long does it take you to boil a cup of water on the stove

boimgfrog

Like seven minutes

catsnraincoats

Just stick the mug on top of the stove on medium heat n it boils in like two minutes… less than that is u use a saucepan…

boimgfrog

Crying you’re putting the whole mug on the stove ???? On medium heat???? Ur stove is enchanted

pidoop

Every single person in this post is a fucking lunatic

silverjirachi

Yet another post that reads like four shakespeare characters who come out in the middle of the play to talk about something completely unrelated for comic relief

wizardlyghost

(Enter RADISHN’T, MOTHMAN MISATO, BOIMG FROG and CATS'N RAINCOATS, stage left. They are having a HEATED DISCUSSION.)

RADISHN’T: Prithee, which one of you had planned to tell

Of diff'rent flavours gained by simple act

Of brewing tea with water hot, not cold?

MOTHMAN: Egad! you poured the water cold? Wherefore?!

FROG: An answer from you, Radish, I must beg.

RADISHN’T: Indeed I did, dear friends - why does this shock?

Without the guide of others I assumed

That heat was merely added for the sake

Of expediting this solution’s brewing!

Half a decade I have spent, or more,

Not questioning this worldview I had made.

In fact, I am myself a bit surprised

That you might think that I, your dearest friend,

Might have a patience of sufficient stock

To wait until a pot of water boils.

FROG: Three minutes overtaxes patience so?

The microwave will beep when it is done!

CATS'N: My friend, this answer vexes me the more!

Can it be true that thou dost boil by nuke?!

FROG: Are you in turn, my friend, so shocked to know

That I have not the patience, like our Root,

To boil upon the stove our favour’d drink?

CATS'N: It takes less than a minute!

FROG: On what plate?

Perhaps your dinner cooks atop the sun?

CATS'N: How long can take your stove to fill the task

Of boiling but a single cup alone?

FROG: In minutes?

CATS'N: Yes!

FROG: I counted seven, once.

CATS'N: Perhaps you ought to have your timepiece checked!

If on a middle heat you place the cup

You soon will have the scalding drink you crave.

Two minutes, in a mug upon the plate

Or even less, if you should have a pot.

FROG: You cause me tears - is this how thou dost live?

You place upon the iron stove a mug?

A mug, ceramic, filled with water cold?

How do these flames, though medium in height,

Not shatter like a glass this fragile thing?

Surely, then, your kitchen is bewitched

With magicks far beyond the mortal ken!

(The FOUR realise they have wandered into the THRONE ROOM. The ROYAL COURT watches with fascination.)

KING: Ev'ry single person in this group must be a fucking lunatic, it seems.

elodieunderglass

dustyxoverture

I’m sorry but the THOUGHT that has been put into this, I actually CAN’T—

The fact that nearly every line is so metrically considered- near perfect iambic pentameter witb the occasional trochee for emphasis, but usually retaining a strong sense of rhythm nonetheless. And then the king comes in at the end, so wound in his disbelief that his response is reduced to prose.

And the even better thing about this is how easy it would have been to structure the king’s line into iambic pentameter: it is effectively already said as such because of the way wizardlyghost has phrased it, yet they haven’t!! They did not break the line, rendering what, by all typically of both Shakespearean canon and other periods context should be the character with the most command and authority in the whole play. If there was ever a more effective way to convey a genuine “what the fuck??”, I know of it not.

But it gets better!! Shakespeare regularly uses meter in order to represent class divide; the nobility usually speak in iambic pentameter, save for a few particularly chosen moments (e.g. Lady Macbeth’s descent into madness, Othello’s realisation of Desdemona’s “betrayal”) or just lines where Shakespeare needs to suggest high emotion or when a character is lost in thought. Supernatural characters like the fairies in A Midsummer Night’s Dream and the Witches in Macbeth usually speak in trochaic tetrameter, an inversion of iambic pentameter. Lower class characters, particularly those used for comic relief (usually under the influence of alcohol), speak with no structure at all: their language is plain prose. Therefore, if this is a conversation between these types of characters, as the prompt from silvergirachi suggests, why the hell are the characters speaking so eloquently???

Now, this is Tumblr. It is subsequently logical to assume that this may have merely been a humorous recreation (and a very good one at that) of the Shakespearean style in a way that is widely recognisable to an audience that may or may not have read a great deal of Shakespeare, which is understandable. However, logic is boring so I’m going to probe further into this to the point where future historians will look to this as an example of overanalysing.

The inherent eloquence of the characters here suggests an unusual subversion of the roles typically assumed in Shakespearean comedy. This could be interpreted along two major avenues: firstly, that the rhetoric displayed by the speakers is fundamentally representative of how truth can be expected even from the most seemingly pointless or ludicrous discussions. Furthermore, it could suggest that it matters not how well constructed your speeches are: if you talk bullshit, it’s going to sound that way despite your attempts to hide it.

This is similar but not identical to the second avenue of interpretation: there is the implication that the noblemen in the play are in fact the comic relief characters, therefore implying that the “common people” of the play are the ones whose influence, though not expressed in such a highly spoken manner, makes a lot more sense than whatever the hell this is. If this was a real Shakespeare play, I would call it a subtle exploration into the innate corruption of the rich and powerful. Well done, op.

Now, I doubt any of this is actually grounded analysis in any way, shape or form, but if someone else can take this to the extremes of writing a Shakespearean scene, why can I not analyse it as such? And where else to do so than Tumblr?

wizardlyghost

im in tears i didnt think anyone would put this much analysis into this‚ thank you so much

whetstonefires

i also like that everyone else gets a version of their handle and then tumblr user pidoop is promoted to king

writethebirds

petermorwood

And now I want a cuppa tea…

inbabylontheywept

I used to do cross country in high school, and there was this guy on the team that was wonderful. Great guy. But his advice to everyone that asked how to get good was to run 20k a day.

If you don't run, I'll just tell you, most people's bodies cannot take that kind of abuse. No matter how much you train, you will not be able to run 20k a day. It's like how you can't train to make your cuts heal faster. You recover as fast as you recover. So while a big part of what made this guy so succesful was the dedication and mental toughness needed to actually run 20k a day, an equally big part was that he healed like fucking Wolverine. And that's fine, but it would've been nice if he knew that and stopped telling new guys to commit suicide by jogging.

Different guy on the team ran like, 5-6k a day, which actually isn't all that much. His problem when he gave advice was that he didn't really get that 5-6k a day doesn't generally produce elite results for most people. He was lucky in the sense that he didn't have to work all that hard to get great results, and unlucky in the sense that if he pushed himself much further than that, he fell apart.

I think about those two whenever I get advice from succesful people. The very things that make them outliers also make their advice useless to most people. Worse, they're often outliers on totally separate ends of the same spectrum, so their advice will be contradictory.

inbabylontheywept

@creamsoda-slut no, this was a thing on our team too. The 20k guy had a cast iron stomach and he loved hotdogs. I eat hotdogs as a like, a nostalgia thing, but he just truly genuinely loved them. So some runs, he'd duck into a gas station and buy some. Pair it with the fact that this guy also had a major league pot belly, and it was a sort of accidental psychological warfare tactic. I'd be running along, panting, sweating, dying of heastroke by the AZ canals, and then Mr. 20k would blitz past, potbelly jutting 3 inches past his nose, a greasy gas station hotdog in both hands, and then he'd yell HEY BABS YER DOINGF FERFIFIC and I'd realize in the kind of sluggish way you realize everything when it's over 100 degrees that he had a third hotdog in his mouth and wasn't even out of breath. And then he'd slap my ass and chortle through his hotdog in this sort of huffy HEUHEUHEUHEUHEU and just rocket over the horizon. It was incredible. Like running with Dionysus.

Another time, we had a girl who wore a tankini on a run to the pool. Some of the other girls were Scandalized, so the coach made a thing about it and she was super embarrassed to be called out and then for the next pool run he showed up in a yellow speedo, gave himself a wedgie up to his nips and just slow jogged in front of the complainers the whole way to the pool. There was nothing they could do. If they tried to go fast, he could just pick up speed indefinitely, he was impossibly fast, and if they went slow, he, he had no issue just taking a mozy with his buns out.

Nobody complained about the tankini after that.

At another race, him and a few other varsity were having a contest to see who could pee up a tree the highest. He won when he ran up to the tree, still pissing, and did a sort of half-backflip that resulted in him falling straight on his head while also whipping piss like 12 feet up the tree. Everyone cheered him on so fucking hard, and he was ecstatic, I distinctly remember doing one of thus chest bump things with him and getting pushed back like 8 feet, but immediately afterwards he had his race and he kept getting lost because it turned out that the whole landing directly on his head thing gave him a concussion. And despite going on like, 3 wrong turns, he still won that race.

I was never friends with him personally, I just kind of watched him in awe from a distance. An incredible human being. One of my favorite people of all time. Only flaw that he had is that he casually would tell new guys to join him for workouts, and then the rest of us poor saps who had actually tried it once would go over and have to tell the new guy to Actually Please Don't Do That.

conkreetmonkey

Dude, that was fucking Wario. You met Wario.

inbabylontheywept

lanadelreyquasa

WHAT IS THE FUCKING POINT

kaibas-paragraphical-mind

YOU COULD BE A FUCKING BADASS DRAGON THAT’S THE POINT

who-the-f-ck

“I AM A CREATURE OF DARKNESS” “oh hey sabrina.”

shitsuren-chama

I guess the point is that you could shapeshift into the body you always thought you’d grow into when you were a kid

taller, shorter, slimmer, more muscular, purple hair, tattoos everywhere, tattoos nowhere,

every single shoe would fit you every single time you tried it on, every single article of clothing would fit your perfectly, all you have to do is transform slightly, you’d never run out of ‘your size’ again

and you wouldn’t have to work for it at all, and you’d never be limitted by your bone structure or something. You could just transform at will.

elvenrainbow

bogleech

I don’t see how this is much of a downside

When you turn into a sixty story tentacle demon and terrorize a city you want to get the credit you deserve

revereche-deactivated20140508

Oh man that would be so sweet. I could be an annoying fuck as an insect or something but you couldn’t kill me because everyone would know

perpetualcombustioninstruct-blog

That’s great but have you considered

~cosplay

~Halloween costumes

~acting

~cosplay

~stretching to reach stuff and shrinking to fit through spaces

~cosplay

~COSPLAY

solsolecito

imagine being at work minding your business and then suddenly you look out the window and see like a 50ft tall flamingo and then someone just says “oh, yeah, that’s just pete, he does this sometimes, don’t worry”

brightlotusmoon

“BRB, gonna be a cat-sized dragon for a few hours. Might come home a foot taller with mood tattoos.”

“Don’t antagonize the fae.”

“I AM the fae, Susan.”

aqueerkettleofish

Also, consider— people will know it’s you, but it doesn’t say they’ll know what you are. “So is Pete a 50 foot flamingo who changes into a man, or the other way around?” “We.. we don’t know. Barbara asked him once, but he just grinned. She said they weren’t the teeth of a human OR flamingo and she didn’t want to talk about it.”

frolicking-cat

Iconic post

themoss-deactivated20210919

LEMME BE A DRAGON I DONT CARE IF YOU KNOW ITS ME

I’ve seriously only seen screenshots of this post before though

godspeedyoublackemperor

This is legendary

ghalind

“I AM HERE FOR YOUR SOULS”

“George, did you forget your coffee?”

hyrude

is the world really such a terrible place? yesterday i asked if oat milk was extra and the barista said yes so i said ok just regular milk then and when she gave me my chai latte she whispered “i used oat milk ;)” doesnt that make u want to live another day?

hyrude

here is my life philosophy: next week there might be someone ahead of you in line at the store who’s short a quarter and you have a quarter and you can give it to them. if you weren’t there, they’d have to put something back. the week after that you could be getting lunch and the waiter might ask if you want some pancakes someone else ordered and never picked up. you could find someone’s lost cat. you could watch someone’s bag while they go to the restroom. there are so many ways you are going to touch other people’s lives and they are going to touch yours and there’s no way to know when it’s going to happen. so you have to keep living!!! i wouldn’t want to die knowing that tomorrow the barista will give me free oat milk just to be nice.

elaninrecovery

When I was 11 years old - we went to Sea World for my birthday. This was to avoid the realization I had no friends, and no one to come to a birthday party and probably because someone gave my mother free tickets at work. It was kinda a shitty day despite being at a theme park full of cute animals. There was a new roller coaster there that had just opened so we decided to go on. I was nervous. I’d never been on a roller coaster.

A group of 6 college kids were ahead of us in line and started chatting with me. Full on just having a fun conversation with someone literally going through the beginning of a very awkward middle school period. I was so shocked they wanted to talk to me. I think my mom mentioned it was my birthday. They were very nice about it. When we got on the ride they told us to go ahead of them so we could sit at the front of the car since it held 8 people.

Now the ride (called Journey to Atlantis - I believe it is sadly no longer there) started with a slow ride of beautiful visuals of dolphins and oceans and computerized images of this imaginary Atlantis before going up the hill to the beginning of the coaster, where it paused for about 30 seconds, and then the ride started. The college kids must have known there would be a pause. Maybe they’d ridden it before I’m not sure.

But as we sat there on that peak, 6 people I’ve never known, and will never know again, sang a very very lonely 11 year old happy birthday. Loudly. And with gusto. They were happy and laughing and joyful. And it made me feel less alone in the world.

I am 29 years old this year, and I still remember them. I still remember that kindness. It is so important. It doesn’t go into a vacuum. It exists beside me in my daily life. And I love the idea that I have been that person to someone else too.

It’s stunningly lovely to be human when we’re kind to each other.

lymmea

OH THIS CAN’T BE LEFT IN THE NOTES

medusaceratops-deactivated20210

Hey while you're loving elephants: Denver Zoo has two teenage boy elephants and one Old Man Elephant named Groucho, and lately they've had the lads housed with him so he can teach them Proper Elephant Manners like how bulls raise teenage boy elephants in the wild. Bull elephants are apparently very into being parents but due to the matriarichal nature of most herds, they really only get to raise calves after they've hit puberty. My point is, one of the boys was being annoying and chasing rabbits so Groucho came up and jabbed him in the ass with a tusk, the lad ran around the enclosure crying then came back and did a lot of "I'm sorry I'll be good now dad" fawning and it was adorable.

OH MAN SEE SEE SEE i wish we knew so much more about how bull elephants interact with herds and families - we've documented bull elephants traveling to matriarchal herds and fake wrestling with male calves, and we've documented bulls protecting orphaned calves, but in god's name i want every in and out about it. everything we know about elephant social interaction is not enough. it's a Thing that introducing old bulls to a population lowers the amount of younger bulls in musth, also known as the state in which bull elephants desire nothing but murder and possibly sex, but - i want to know the precise mechanisms. old bull elephants teaching younger bulls manners renders me VERKLEMPT. i just wanna know every secret elephants have.

this is incredible though. peak teenage boy. groucho has his hands full and i fucking love him for that. get their asses, groucho.

gallusrostromegalus

So from what I understand, as remembered from nature programs and the zookeeper lecture, is that Old Bulls reduce the violence i young bulls by putting them through Elephant Finishing School.

This is better documented in African Elephants than asian ones because they're easier for elephant biologists to observe by the means of 'sitting on top of a jeep and taking notes' but the general scope goes like this:

Elephant herds are largely matriarichal as both a means of protection- elephants have a long childhood and it's easier to protect calves in a group, AND as a socio-political means of sexual choice.

An African elephant is pregnant for nearly two years, then she spends at least 3-5 years with that calf completely dependent on her, so she only gets a few opportunities to have babies before she hits menopause, and it's a lot of damn work so she is naturally EXTREMELY picky about who she mates with. And if she's younger, her mom, sisters and grandmothers will also be real picky about who she mates with and WHEN too- can't go around risking a teenage pregnancy, especially not with asubstandard male. Elephants also have a pretty clear idea of what they want out of a Male too: they have a marked preference for Large, Old, Socially Adept Males. Large males are HEALTHY males with all thier bones in place and functioning digestive tracts. OLD males are healthy, have good intelligence to stay alive, and have good teeth. Socally Adept Males can make friends, get along with her whole family, won't engage in dangerous behaviors like trying to kill her calves or grandmothers. It's a good system that produces robust, intelligent and helpful calves.

This means however, that most female elephants are into Dilfs, or even Gilfs. Which is extremely frustrating when you are a horny teenage boy elephant, so they go a bit nuts with hormones and social isolation and get involved in teenage elephant gangs and do things like murder rhinos out of sexual and social frustration.

BUT! If there are Large, Old, Socially Adept males about, they like being parents too, but are largely pushed out of the role by the matriarichal herds and their strict group politics that exist to prevent unsuitable mating. So They turn thier attention to these violent orphans and like your beloved Batman go "I'm gonna parent the shit outta that."

They mostly do this by herding the Lads around, pointedly demonstrating Behaviors like "How to dig for roots so you don't starve" or "How to knock over a tree" or "Greeting a Matriach Properly so she doesn't sic her descendants on you", and disciplinary behaviors like "Jabbing naughty Lads in the ass with a tusk" and "Hitting you in the face with a branch until you STOP THAT" . This is WILDLY beneficial for the young males under thier tutelage, who are less likely to die of accidents, and start mating earlier because they've had a Suitable Gentleman make introductions for them, like they are fancy men at a regency-era ball being intoduced to the debutantes.

Imagine some Fine and Respectable DILF wandering around adopting teenage delinquents and spraying them in the face with a windex bottle full of vinegar until they learn how to be proper upstanding gentlemen and you're getting close.

alan713ch

So you're telling me that Elephants have Schools for Wayward Boys and their journey into Gentleman?

copepods

i like working at plant store. sometimes you ring up someone and there's a slug on their plant and so you're like "Oh haha you've got a friend there let me get that for you" and you put the slug on your hand for safekeeping but then its really busy and you dont have time to take the slug outside before the next customer in line so you just have a slug chilling on your hand for 15 minutes. really makes you feel at peace with nature. also it means sometimes i get to say my favorite line which is "would you like this free slug with your purchase"

copepods

@holyknuckled you get it. lterally what are we here on earth for if not to occasionally impose gastropods upon unsuspecting customers. this story is delightful

lintubintu

@holyknuckled like that?

holyknuckled

oh? my god???

yeah, Exactly like that

kateammann

Happy International Asexuality Day!!! 🖤🩶🤍💜

thelatestkate

September 2021 Illustrations ヽ(• ‿ •)ノ

ace-culture-is

Ace culture is thinking that "slipping into something more comfortable" meant getting into pajamas/comfy clothes

ace-culture-is

BEHOLD

Ace confusion.

ampervadasz

wheel-deal-stitches

When the whole gang shares 1 brain cell

jooshthepunished-deactivated202

Magpie Hivemind

g1sunstreaker

hang on honey I gotta go push the magpies up the fence again

jaubaius

LOL

funnytwittertweets

feyre-cursebreaker

@bookofmirth ACOTAR and book club lol

bookofmirth

everythingfox

Baby otter first time in the water

blackpyrefly

kity

mite75

unashamedly-enthusiastic

Lainey Molnar

sophiaforevs

My favorite thing about this is that the “traditional” woman isn’t always on the left. By switching it up the artist is really committing to the idea that the right way for a woman to be is however she wants.