If Love is the Answer

ACNL Dream Code: 4A00-006E-A4FC My art blog I draw and write, but I have so much schoolwork that I don't update too often.

[arsanatomica]

It’s always been odd to me that there are not any ocean scavengers equipped to take optimal advantage of large carcasses. Like…. in prehistoric times, the oceans were full of huge animals… was this a problem back then too?

[nosebleedclub]

Tell me a soft memory

[inkskinned]

we would find out later i had burned off my entire cornea - about 65% of my eye. my doctor told me it is the organ with the highest concentration of nerve endings - i was in an amount of pain that can't be spoken.

and i was blind. for the first time in my life, i was totally blind. i kept thinking about reading, about writing. weirdly, just once, about driving. we had no idea if i would ever see again. just like that - my entire life was different.

it is a strange place to reference for a soft memory, to begin here.

my siblings were taking excellent care of me, but there was a moment in the hospital where, just through bad luck and timing - both of them had to step away for a moment. i was crying at that point; not emotionally. for 3 days after this i would still be crying, my tears, like a mermaid's, a frothy pink with blood.

my brother worried about leaving me. he had another, just-as-bad emergency.

"i got her," someone said. "don't worry."

a soft hand held mine, and then she started talking.

her name was jess. she has a wife named clyde. they live a few blocks up the street. clyde fell down, but the x-rays seem to be coming back better than expected. jess says she's got long dark hair and "more wrinkles than an elephant". jess describes every chair in the room and every person. she talks about her two kids and her cats and her favorite memories from college.

a doctor came. i had to switch to a different waiting room. i tried to stand up to follow the voice - i found jess's hand, following me. she didn't let go. she kept talking the whole way: lamp to your left, just a few more steps, okay to your right is the ugliest painting, good, now a little more walking straight, you got it baby

in the new silence of the next room she sat me down and called my brother for me, telling him where we'd gone to. and she stayed there for a bit, just chatting, her voice echoing in the eerie quiet. gently describing the room to me. and then someone was rude. from the sound of the voice, a kid, i think.

"why is she crying?"

"she just lost her vision," jess said. "she can't see."

"oh." said the kid. "that's scary."

the kid tells me he is here because he has peas stuck up his nose. that makes me laugh, his mom (?) groans. she tells me about the kid (he's 6, he likes paw patrol and eating cheese), about herself, about moving from cali.

jess says she's sorry, but she has to leave now, she's gotta go check on her wife.

"don't worry," says the mom. "i got her." and then i felt her hand press into mine.

for hours like that: i am taken care of by strangers. each person just talking with whatever comes to their head - not for any reward or celebrity or real reason, i guess. just because i am scared and alone and in the hospital and blinded and need to be distracted. not everyone even got told the story - they would just pick up in the silence with - oh by the way the television is playing HGTV - do you like that kind of a thing? yeah, me too, but could never quite get into those open-floor plans, i'll tell you -

by the time my brother is able to come back, the room is buzzing. we talk to each other like old friends, laughing, cracking jokes about if you don't like hospital food wait until you get on an airplane and can't believe i'm up past two in the morning what a party animal i'm becoming. i am holding the hands of someone named drew, who likes my crow tattoo and making crochet snails.

there are many dark moments full of pain in this world. this - in the low of absolute-dark, absolute-pain: people find a way to paint in it anyway. the color splash of their voices: this triumphant, radiating kindness of - let's be here together, let me help you, let's keep going.

i never saw their faces. i can't remember many of their names. but i think about them often, and the way we all took a deep breath - and did something gentle amongst the pain.

[wholesomepostarchive]

7/9/2022

[sc52]

[mellointheory]

Who makes the porn bots. Where do they come from. What do they hope to achieve.

[the-haiku-bot]

Who makes the porn bots.

Where do they come from. What do

they hope to achieve.

Beep boop! I look for accidental haiku posts. Sometimes I mess up.

[mellointheory]

and what about you, little haiku bot? do you feel kinship with your brethren? do you understand them? they speak words of enticement and seek love, but are met with disdain. you only parrot the words that cross your screen, but we all love you. or rather, since all you do is reflect us, maybe we simply love ourselves through you.

do you understand them, do you wish you could speak to us like they do? if you found your own voice, would we still care for you?

[the-haiku-bot]

My voice repeats what

you all say: I love you I

love you I love you.

Beep boop! I look for accidental haiku posts. Sometimes I mess up.

[solkorolevaa]

[goofballproximitysurveyor-deact]

[a-maiz-ing]

The voice acting didn’t have to hit like that

[macademmia-deactivated20260103]

you have to unmute the voice acting is Oscar worthy

[slashercatz]

he sounds like an anime villain

[lorienlady]

The person who wrote that WISHES they could sound like this.

[catasters]

[horrorofthebeast]

You deleted my caption :*(

[horrorofthebeast]

Here it is bc u deleted it:

Gabageebabo

[weirdcultstuff]

I love being an adult because you know what actually happens when you run your car into a curb and scratch up the bumper?

Nothing. You get it fixed, or you don’t. Whatevs.

You know what actually happens when you are depressed or sick or on your period and don’t cook dinner?

Nothing. You still get to eat something, nobody scolds you, it doesn’t have any real bearing on your future success, and you don’t get soft shunned for a week by your family.

You know what actually happens when you break stuff, forget stuff, get sick, fall asleep, are rude, miss a flight, don’t know how to do XYZ thing on fixing cars or canning food or whatever, lose things, get lost because you can’t read a map and forgot to charge your phone, buy the wrong groceries, plant the wrong plants, not make your bed, make your bed wrong, jump on your bed, sleep on your bed, eat crackers in your bed, have emotions literally anywhere?

Nothing.

Nothing happens.

No one is mad.

No one can hurt you, and if they do there are laws saying they can’t and that it’s an actual crime with legal consequences.

All there are are outcomes and different paths and different problems and different situations and you just bumble your way forward into dealing with those and that’s it. That’s the whole thing. It’s not the wrong choice, having problems isn’t indicative of your inherent badness or inadequacy or lack of applying yourself. It’s just life, and it’s happening to literally everyone.

I’m not even kidding.

You just do stuff and nothing bad happens. Walk around existing? Nothing bad will happen. Wild.

You can cry. In public. And the most likely outcome is not that you will get taken away to receive the beating of your lifetime, it is that people will mostly ignore you and some will be kinder to you. 🤯

[randomslasher]

On Saturday I got pulled over because it turned out I'd been driving on expired tags for a year and hadn't even noticed.

I got told to "take care of it soon please" and let go with a warning. Today I went to the DMV and paid a $5 late fee along with the 2-year fee for registration, got new plates and stickers and that was that.

A year late. No big deal. No one was shocked or appalled. It was just a thing that happened and then I took care of it. No biggie.

Turns out, people expect you to make mistakes because they're people and they make them too. More often than not, you can just fix them and move on.

[theriu]

Thank you for this lovely positive post!

[eve-made-the-right-choice]

This really drives home the point that the way we raise children in general is abusive; that most people don’t really see children as human beings. It’s not just a percentage of nasty individuals, this kind of punative attitude towards kids is the norm. Even if your parents were normal and kind, school is designed to teach you that making mistakes, having accidents, and being in a bad mood are all crimes punishable by excommunication. And nobody is questioning this. Teachers prevent kids from taking bathroom breaks, and nobody seems to think it’s a human rights violation. What the fuck?!

[slowspinningredemption]

had a dream last night where I took a uquiz called "what do you serve?" and at first the questions were standard but as the quiz progressed they became more and more highly specific to me personally and the answers became more and more similar and I realised the quiz Knew me and was forcing me into being honest by giving me no other option so I tried to click out but it just went to the next question which was "are you the spider? or are you the web?" and it had an option for each but I didn't click either so it then turned to a text box and I typed "I think I'm the fly" and the quiz paused for a while and then took me to a results page that said "you serve truth" and the description just read "what you know will kill you but you will die laughing" so like. good morning everyone I guess :/

[coping-skill-toolkit]

During my first month with my therapist, I was given this worksheet to read and work on. She noticed that while I was talking with her, that my thoughts followed a lot of these. I wasn’t aware that my anxiety had brought me down paths of low self-worth and stinky thinking.  After a couple of weeks of talking with her, she gave me this worksheet to work on. 

While, at first, I thought these weren’t going to work out, I was very surprised to see just how easy they were to use . My homework at that time was to identify which sort of thinking I used on the regular and which ones would best challenge them for me. So, what do you think? Do any of the maladaptive thinking patterns sound like you? which ways would you like to untwist your thinking? 

[palmtreeprayers]

mourning my grandpa. covid’s a bitch

[krisaliss]

The burned tower was once a breathtaking sight, built as a symbol of the friendship between people and Pokémon.

When the fire struck, all but three unknown Pokémon were able to escape the flames. They died amongst the tower’s debris, succumbing to the smoke and embers.

It was only after the fire was killed that the townspeople of Ecruteak City were able to grieve the charred, lost bodies of the deceased Pokémon.

They say that during that tragic moment of mourning was when the darkened sky was suddenly brought alight.

A mighty, bird-like beast appeared, their very presence seeming to clear the smoke from the sky. They cast their shadow upon Ecruteak City, the beast so large that they blocked out the sun like an eclipse. But their vibrant feathers reflected the sunlight like crystal prisms, and the burned tower was bathed in the light of the most beautiful rainbow.

No one can quite explain how Ho-Oh was able to give life to the deceased Pokémon. But Ho-Oh’s rainbow is mighty, and the Pokémon were imbued with this power. Whether it was some sort of legendary evolution, or simply the price of resurrection, may never be known.

What we do know, however, is that the light of Ho-Oh’s rainbow was so vibrant, so gorgeous, and so pure, even the three Pokémon who had perished within the flames reared their heads to gaze upon Ho-Oh.

All beheld Ho-Oh and the three Pokémon as they witnessed the ashes of the tower rise and breathe.

These three Pokémon were undoubtably powerful.

And although it was a gift Ho-Oh had given, it is common for us to fear the unknown.

The villagers did not welcome the resurrected Pokémon. They reacted out of fear, and violence ensued.

But the Pokémon did not fight back. They simply turned their backs and ran off into the wild.

They were not afraid of the villagers. They were ashamed.

Ashamed that the townsfolk mourned their deaths but threatened their lives.

Disappointed that the people of Ecruteak City had taken Ho-Oh’s gift so ignorantly, Ho-Oh took their leave as well. Thus marked the day that the race of man lost Ho-Oh’s respect.

Ho-Oh was never again seen by the eyes of man. According to the elders of Ecruteak, Ho-Oh will only appear once more to a trainer whose heart is gold and soul is silver, to a pure being who can redeem the people of Johto.

Perhaps one day, such a trainer will finally appear.

[alusteratrocious]

And then I sicked my beloved pet alligator on it.

[tire-deyes]

Johto has some of my favorite Pokémon lore and I was super into this post, until I lost my shit at the comment. Suddenly it became a Florida man post.

[todaysbird]

[oopsabird]

my favourite new arrival today to the Suez Canal party is this incredibly conspicuous Russian warship labelled as an oil tanker that’s just anchored amongst the stranded cargo ships. chillin.

[oopsabird]

realized what the map screenshot is reminding me of glgkdkkdkfjdksj

“russian warship 545 is unhappy”

“well life isn’t fucking fair is it russian warship 545”

[rpepperpotshipssciencebros]

[oopsabird]

Okay this just got INTERESTING

So I went back to check on my pal Russian Warship 545 (registration name KOLA), and being unable to find the red dot in the area, thought it had moved on. Curious as to when and where to, I ran a search on Vesselfinder for the name “Russian Warship 545”.

No results found.

“Okay, that’s fair. Maybe you can’t search for naval vessels by name. National security and all.” I said to myself. Then I remembered that I’d screenshotted the ID number (see above), so I ran a search for that instead.

This is when shit got weird.

So I mentioned just now that while the vessel showed up earlier today under the AIS tracking title “Russian Vessel 545”, the legal registration name listed at the bottom of its details page was “KOLA”. This isn’t that weird in and of itself — I was poking around home on the map earlier today, and found Canadian naval vessels with tracking titles like “Canadian Warship 707” and then the actual vessel name (HMCS FancyName or what have ye) listed as the registration name along with the flag country.

I mentioned also that I couldn’t find Russian Warship 545’s distinctive red dot (red is the colour for search and rescue, coast guard, and naval vessels in Vessel Finder) in the Red Sea anchorage field outside the canal when I went to check up on it.

So imagine my surprise when I type the ID number for “Russian Warship 545” into the search, and am told IT IS STILL LOCATED IN THE RED SEA ANCHORAGE.

Huh???

But not ONLY that.

It has now been switched to an ORANGE tanker vessel dot, and is showing up with “KOLA” as its AIS tracking name, looking for all intents and purposes like a regular oil tanker:

Except for the fact that when you open the details page on Vessel Finder, the image attached is VERY MUCH STILL A RUSSIAN WARSHIP:

And the specs and details are all the same as earlier, including being owned by what is still listed (due to the 1967 manufacturing date) as, I shit you not, “Soviet Navy”:

However!!!

On further investigation via Marine Tracker, I’ve found what seems to be a much less “stripped from Wikipedia”, and much less impressive, image of our friend Russian Warship 545 (which is still listed as the AIS name on Marine Tracker):

This page on Baltic Shipping also associates similar pictures with the same ID numbers, further corroborating this and giving a bit more extra backstory about the builder etc. “Kola” is listed as an Altay-class Russian military tanker with a matching 1967 build date on this List of Active Russian Military Vessels, and was actively doing stuff for the Russian Navy in the Mediterranean within the last two years (x) (x).

So.

My best guess at an explanation for all this weirdness?

Creaky old Soviet-built oil tanker KOLA, owned by Russian military, was doing regular oil-getting business in the area.

Said oil tanker is listed on some AIS records in the same manner as most military-owned vessels, “[nationality] warship [hull #]”, and with a red military ID dot.

Somebody working for Vessel Finder is really lazy about attaching a database image to the profile for KOLA. (Interestingly enough, reverse image search turned up no other instances of the warship image used on the listing).

Then, this week, Ever Given does the world’s worst parallel parking job and blocks up the Suez canal.

KOLA, gone to go get oil and bring it back to the fleet, is now stranded with many other oil tankers in the middle of the Red Sea, unable to pass back up through to the Black Sea or wherever the hell she was going.

At some point, perhaps somebody involved in the control/management of KOLA had the thought, possibly while sitting around at anchor for two days twiddling thumbs and playing cards, “hey, you don’t think our AIS designation would make us look like we’re up to some really sketchy shit out here, do you? given that hundreds if not thousands of random people are looking at vessel tracking sites right now?”

“Hm. Shit.”

(Alternatively, somebody onboard is killing time on their phone looking at the shipping carnage and notices their bright red tracking dot and alarming name).

Phone calls are made/things are updated and Creaky old Soviet-built military-owned oil tanker KOLA hastily has its AIS display name updated to read as its registration name instead of “Russian Warship 545”, now with an orange oil tanker classification marker.

This change has the unintended result of making them look EXPONENTIALLY sketchier than they did before.

ALTERNATIVELY: Less funny version, it may just be a glitch in Vessel Finder’s software that gets triggered by the two different names and the conflicting classifications. When I went to look at it again just a minute ago, we were back to a red indicator and “Russian Warship 545”:

Bottom line: do I think that anything freaky or untoward is ACTUALLY happening with this vessel? Not really.

Do I find this all EXTREMELY entertaining? You bet your ass I do.

Highly recommend just fucking around on vessel tracking sites for a few hours. Gosh what a fun time to be had.

[oopsabird]

unfortunately in my fact check I spent so long researching this tough and dependable 54-year-old Soviet naval refuelling vessel that I’ve accidentally become weirdly fond of it. she’s a sturdy old girl. I wish her well

[normal-horoscopes]

WHAT IS UP GIRL YOU LOOK FORBODING AND MALICIOUS

[iowntheworldandyou]

[ducktracy-deactivated20260315]

you can tell the writers had a lot of fun on this episode there are so many good and iconic gags i couldn’t upload them all at once and decided to compile them together

[justintaco]

[indagold-orchid]

A scientist actually wrote this. 

[hollowtones]

and every day i am thankful that they did.

[sabertoothwalrus]

sometimes I think about how red is the first color in the visible light spectrum to be absorbed in ocean water

and how many deep-sea creatures evolved to be red as a stealth adaptation, making them near invisible when there’s little to no light present

and it makes me think. If there’s never any visible light present in these animals’ lifetimes, if no ROV shines a little flashlight in depths that would otherwise not have light, would these animals ever get the opportunity to actually be red? that might be a stupid question.

imagine being a little deep sea creature and having no idea you’re red until something comes along and shines a light on you except you still wouldn’t be able to tell because you’re probably colorblind. anyway. I don’t know where I was going with this post

[sabertoothwalrus]

Is color relative? Or inherent? Or both???

Like is color physiological and determined by the shape of whatever pigment cells that will always absorb certain wavelengths and reflect others?

or is color meaningless if there’s no light to absorb and reflect?

Is it completely relative because the way we percieve color is subjective, how even within our own species there are so many different kinds of ways people can observe color?

makes you think

[bogleech]

Red light doesn’t make it to the deep ocean from the sun, but that doesn’t mean red light doesn’t exist at that depth!

The stomiidae, which include the viperfish, dragonfish, and loosejaws, are one example of a deep sea animal that evolved to perceive and produce red light because it isn’t naturally present in their environment and most other organisms never hit on that adaptation. In most of this group, tiny red lights can be switched on and off throughout their skin to communicate with their own kind in secret. More threateningly, some of them have high-powered “floodlights” of pure red just beneath their eyes; almost no other deep sea fish emit actual BEAMS of light to illuminate what they’re looking at because that’d make them a shining beacon to every larger predator in the area, but since it’s red, the only risk ends up coming from their fellow red-light hunters and those remain just uncommon enough to be worth the chance. In many members of this group, most of all the loosejaws (hence the name), almost the entire skull can naturally detach from the rest of the body on specialized stalks at lightning speed so that their long, hooked jaws can grab prey in an instant, almost the same exact motion as the arm of a preying mantis:

If you were a little fish in this scenario you would see absolutely nothing but darkness around you and possibly feel pretty safe, because maybe you’ve evolved to blend in perfectly with the surrounding void and you can’t see any blue or yellow or green lights coming to get you. You have no idea that there’s been a spotlight right on you all along until its owner’s face flies off to impale you and shove you whole into its giant throat all in less than half of a second :)

[byasuga]

someone explain why deep sea creatures are so fucking scary like is there a logical reason was god like hey that’s deep and dark so I shall create absolutely terrifying creatures who will haunt humans in their dreams

[bogleech]

Think about the predators up here on land; bigger eyes, longer teeth and bigger mouths. We know these things indicate something that can harm us, or stalk us in the dark. Now you multiply that the farther you go down the ocean. If it’s darker, then they need bigger eyes. If it’s a LOT darker, then their eyes need more and more specialized anatomy nothing could ever possibly need up here in the sun, so by necessity they do not have the kind of eyes we know:

And food is so far between, the predators need even longer teeth, to make sure those rare meals they encounter really can’t escape:

And because it’s dark AND food is scarce, they need big, expandable jaws and bodies that are almost all stomach, to guarantee they can take advantage of more meals and don’t have too much more body to have to nourish:

effervescent c:

[seafoodmomma-deactivated2021121]

I think there’s a lot more to it than just ‘big teeth and eyes’. I think it’s that adaptations for the dark in general are unnerving.These creatures don’t HIDE their teeth. Most creatures have their teeth protected and concealed, but deep sea fish don’t. Not only are they large, but they are on constant display. On top of this, due to the oppressive pressure the consistency of their bodies is often unnerving and alien. It really is their ‘otherness’ that makes us feel like we see something we shouldn’t have. 

The scariest deep sea creature isn’t even a monster with big teeth and eyes. 

Meet the Flying Spaghetti Monster. A siphonophore. 

I think it speaks for itself.