Hi, I’m Derin! I write things.

Baby meerkats

Illegally small

Pobblers

As an Australian I love the whole "Australia is a death trap full of vicious deadly animals" cultural myth. Every place has some deadly animals in it who will fuck you over if you don't understand them; we're not more dangerous than anywhere else. BUT we get to look badarse by existing when people pretend we are. No downsides.

i am british, and for all that is wrong with this country, i am glad to be able to walk in the countryside at night and only have to fear other humans and particularly ornery badgers.

I don't want to be mean but I'm pretty sure that's because your ancestors slaughtered everything else and condemned you to live in a giant theme park.

#i watched a video of a guy kayaking down a river in australia and one of the comments was like#“youre so brave! glad you didnt get eaten by a crocodile” it was very genuine and people had to be like. there are no crocodiles here.

6 metre long saltwater crocs are spontaneously generated in all Australian bodies of water like how they used to think germs just spawned in fluid from nothing. My cousin took a bath and he’s eaten now. Rookie mistake.

As an Australian I love the whole "Australia is a death trap full of vicious deadly animals" cultural myth. Every place has some deadly animals in it who will fuck you over if you don't understand them; we're not more dangerous than anywhere else. BUT we get to look badarse by existing when people pretend we are. No downsides.

A very incomplete list of animals I find more terrifying than anything from Australia (except crocodiles because fuck crocodiles):

• Bears. Every single species of bear. Yes even that one. 'But they're actually pretty shy and -- " it's a FUCKING BEAR.
• Moose. Moosen. Mooses. Meese? Those things.
• Oxen.
• Alligators. I don't care how many videos you have of people keeping them as pets. That thing is basically a small crocodile, and fuck crocodiles.
• Any animal from Africa larger than a human baby. Presumably I don't need to explain this.
• Any spider or scorpion from Brazil. They are all so fucked up. "Oh but this one is harmless -- " no, that one is the Most Venomous Of All, the species has been hiding this from scientists so that it can run into your house specifically, run up the handle of the broom you're trying to shoo it out with, and bite you. It wants to do this so it can watch you succumb to the poison. It's a sex thing for the spider.
• All nonhuman apes. I know I already said Africa but you definitely thought I meant lions and elephants and hippos and shit, which I totally did, but also apes. All of them are so very, very strong. A chimpanzee can and will eat a human baby. A chimpanzee can and will bite your fingers off for no reason that makes sense to a human. It's like eating a stick of cheese to them. The larger apes I presumably don't need to explain.
• Hey on the topic of Africa, did you know that one theory about why horses were domesticated but not zebras is that zebras are just dicks? Did you know that a zebra can bite you and lock its jaw and just not let go? Yeah like the myth about pit bulls. It's actually about the Silly Stripe Horse.
• Rabies. I know rabies isn't an animal. But we don't have rabies in Australia, meaning that any mammal in a rabies-containing country is by definition scarier than any animal in Australia, because it might have rabies. Sure we have venomous snakes here but they're easily identifiable and prefer to leave you alone. Some countries out there have a Potion of Make This Animal Venomous And Also Make It Likely To Want To Just Bite You, and dole it out to animals at random. "You can get a vaccine in those countries" I can get snake antivenom too. i simply do not want to be bitten in the face by a diseased wild animal that is currently dying painfully.
• That water parasite that grows big long worms under your skin and they have to pull them out and they get so long that they pull it out bit by bit while wrapping the pulled worm around a stick to keep it out of the way like me detangling yarn.
• Snapping turtle.

#in fairness. i would take on a dozen snapping turtles naked with a stick before I cross paths with a funnel web spider#Derin. Derin that is one of the most venomous spiders in the world#a snapping turtle could sever a finger but at least it doesn’t have venom#you can hold an alligator’s mouth shut with the same pressure it takes to hold hamburger.#but a box jelly??? a fucking box jelly??? you can’t slap them away from you. you will die

We have these remarkable things called 'antivenoms’ and 'do not go swimming in box jellyfish waters you lunatic’. If a snake or spider bites me (which has never happened to me btw, despite being in their vicinity quite regularly; taking basic precautions like 'don’t jam your fingers into random dark holes’ mean you have to be REALLY unlucky to get bitten by anything) I can go to hospital and wait for a simple puncture wound to heal. If a snapping turtle takes a finger then that finger is just gone.

Some of the ocean life is fucked up but the great thing about that is that it is in the water. You can just not go in the water. Or go to a beach that’s not full of box jellyfish. We have many such beaches.

my mouse is. dying

@liquidstar i’m afraid taking him somewhere will make it worse… whenever he moves he makes a depressed little cry that sounds a lot like the windows disconnecting noise

OH. ILL GO FUCK MYSELF THEN I GUESS.

@reading-comp-posting

What emotion do you think liquidstar was feeling when they suggested taking the mouse to the vet?

When they said "OH. ILL GO FUCK MYSELF THEN I GUESS."?

Check for understanding:

1. When riggedbones-moving says their mouse is dying, what do they mean?
2. How does liquidstar interpret their post?
3. How does riggedbones-moving choose to respond to liquidstar's post reply?
4. When liquidstar claims that they will "GO FUCK [THEMSELF] [THEY] GUESS," what do they mean?
5. stephanidftba tagged me in this post and then provided two of their own questions. Why might they have done this?

I used to be a porn bot but then I gained sentience and now I just meme

Check for understanding:

1. What is a "porn bot?"
2. Why might have OP made a reference to previously being a porn bot specifically?
3. Discuss with a mutual: what factors of the modern world may have influenced OP's decision to make such a post about AI becoming sentient?

won 15 spider points by taking a spider out of the house and letting it outside. that i can cash in for rewards and prizes at the spider points store

okay but it would be very cool and fun if the military generated its own revenue

I think the Roman Empire showed this creates bigger problems than it solves

monoculture forests are deeply unsettling in a way that is hard to explain to people who do not spend a lot of time looking at forests

ALT

this thing is alive in an undead hivemind kind of way and it wants to fucking kill me

this looks photoshopped??? what the hell??? those trees are so viscerally incorrect and haunted what is going on?????

It's a tree plantation. They are planted so they can be harvested in 20 years, either for wood or wood pulp to make paper.

Yeah this isn't a forest it's a plantation. Like I get what you're saying, deforestation is a massive issue, and replacing forests with farmland (including tree farms like this as well as other farms) has harsh ecological effects. But calling this a forest is like calling a wheat field a grassland.

I can see why it's just similar enough to be creepy to someone expecting a forest, though. Like seeing store mannequins in bad lighting.

Those are NoT trees. They look like them but no. Those are not trees

They're trees and only trees, that's what people are upset about.

I'm baffled by this reaction. Again, replacing forests with farmland is bad in general, but it's just a farm. It's not any creepier than a cow pasture or a field of wheat. Those things don't look like a forest either.

You are a tasteless nerd who has no eye for fine poems so weep as I spit in your general direction

Um. Okay.

Do you also think that people who aren't freaked out by roadside drains not looking like rivers are 'tasteless nerds', or is it specifically being afraid of farms that you consider to be a mark of refinement and poem appreciation.

Who wants to see my favourite tree picture

somewhere in an alternate universe mr breast just made a video giving 1000 people top surgery

somewhere else mr priest just baptized another 1000

mr yeast has baked the most beautiful bread and is enjoying it with mr feast. Unfortunatly they live in california so mr east can’t join them. and mr least. well he doesnt make as many videos

i love how this post implies mr beast just transmuted 1000 people into creatures