But why, though?

My God, English has so many words to describe physical intimacy, I'm in love

I wanted to meme before the big day.

anti-viruses, vpns, ad-blockers- none of these are going to help you here.

the first thing you're going to need is a good solid boat (preferably oak wood). you will also want some cannons and a plank depending on the sort of shenanigans you plan on getting into.

Also! Not once have i seen any of you talking about the importance of citrus fruits and vitamin C. antivirus doesn't prevent scurvy. come on you should know this by now.

The World Of Becca Blake

And I think this is true in general but now I'm talking about it in the context of AI.

If you don't enjoy making art and only care about the end piece and how it'll look and how much traction it"lol get online then making art is not something for you, find something you enjoy from start to finish.

Same goes for writing: if you do not enjoy writing and rewriting and then some more and instead want AI to write for you, being a writer is not something you should pursue.

Sure, not every part of creative process is going to be equally enjoyable but you should get satisfaction from solving the problems along the way and you should get a sense of accomplishment on your way of "making the piece yours" and you should have a sense of ownership once you are done.

So, first thing you need to know is that is a very visibly healthy adult green iguana. Every part of the iguana is sharp. The claws evolved to haul a ten pound lizard up a tree. The spines are like tiny icepicks. The tail is a bullwhip. The teeth evolved to shred leaves, but they'll just as easily shred your flesh. Good luck making a healthy adult iguana do anything they don't wanna. That puts us on our first thing to look at- is the animal capable of defense and getting away, physically? Yes, definitely.

Next thing to know is what does a threatened or scared iguana look like? When an iguana is threatened, it doesn't stand on its hind legs like that; it stands on all fours and puffs itself up to look bigger, aggressively bobs its head (note: head bobbing is a behavior used for a LOT of things, it does need context- for example, they also head bob as part of mating displays), there is hissing, there is tail whipping- iguanas are not subtle creatures. None of this is the behavior of an iguana that feels threatened or is being a threat!

So what does standing like that mean? That's just simple reaching. The iguana sees something they want and is attempting to reach it, and what they want appears to be uppies, because they settle into the human's grip immediately.

Then, we see some GREAT handling from the human. There's really great communication happening between the two of them! The person picks up the iguana very securely- pelvis and pectoral girdles are well supported, and he doesn't grab. (Iguanas typically do NOT like being grabbed around the sides; many of their predators are birds and coming at them from above or gripping the sides is scary!)

As he goes in for the pet, he lets the iguana support their back half on his knee. The hold is secure but not tight; at any point, if the iggy was distressed, they could leave. But they don't- instead, you see them leaning into the pets, actively participating in the behavior. They're not even closing their eyes to block stimulus. They want this to happen.

This is the kind of bond that's possible when you can prove to a big lizard that you're trustworthy, and easily the best iguana video I've seen in a long time. Thank you for tagging me in!

Some green iguana body language resources under the jump!

These are *peak athletes*. All of them.

Literally. These are Olympic athletes.

Literally peak performance. Human bodies at peak performance. Love it.

I want to add that both women's gymnastics and women's track have gotten far more muscular since these photos were taken. And if you want to say that decreases performance, I DEFY you to watch Simone Biles or Sha'carri Richardson perform.

They literally only compete with themselves. They are on that level.

Or watch Ilona Maher absolutely dominate at rugby. Again, peak performance.

So I understand having a reaction like that on a gut level (I'm guessing the book was To Train Up a Child, as I've read several news articles about abuse cases in which it was mentioned), but here's the crucial thing that we learn in our very first semester of library school:

You do not know why somebody wants to read a particular book.

Is it possible they wanted to read it for terrible fundamentalist Christian parenting advice? Sure. But it's also possible they read the same news articles about the abuse cases that I did and were simply intrigued about what the book actually said. It's possible they were doing research on fundamentalism or abuse and thought it was an important piece of material to include. It's possible they suspected their own parents used were inspired by the book and wanted to have a better understanding about what happened to them as a child. It's possible they actually wanted How to Train Your Dragon and got the titles confused. You just don't know!

Like, I can't tell you how many times I've had somebody ask for materials on topics that I find unsavoury, only to learn later that said person was doing research on extremism, denial, etc. and very much didn't agree with the materials in question. Hell, sometimes I have students coming in saying "I need help finding scholarly articles on why vaccines are bad/gay marriage shouldn't be legal/Women don't deserve equal pay/etc," only to have it turn out the student is actually making the opposite argument in their paper, but were told by the instructor they need to have one credible opposing source.

The reasons people have for reading things are not cut and dry, and even if somebody is more inclined to have a certain viewpoint, you still can't know with any certainty what they'll actually think of the book once they've read it. They could agree with the premise. They could disagree with it. They could find it boring and not absorb much of the content. They could forget to read the book before it's due back and return it without even cracking the spine.