Choccochocco - Chocco

Alligator Bites Might Never Heal, But Doechii Is Good At Holding Alligators

Doechii won the Grammy for Best Rap Album for Alligator Bites Never Heal, but she also should have won the coveted and definitely not fictitious "Best Alligator Handling" award for the way she held Coconut on the cover!

(Yes, it's this Coconut.)

And the best part? She released a BTS video showing how they shot the cover, meaning that we can see more than just the still image! If a picture's worth a thousand words, video's worth... a lot more. (Sorry if it autoplays I don't think I have any control over that either way)

So, using the photoshoot images and video as evidence, let's take a look at how Doechii handled this alligator very well! I'm going to go into excruciating detail here because I think it's important to know why something is good just as much as it is important to know why something is bad. It's hard to understand alligator body language a lot of the time, so in this writeup, I will address how Doechii's holding the gator and what she's doing right, as well as point out how you can tell from Coconut's reactions that she is not distressed.

Body Support

In the album cover image, Doechii is seated, which is good, because even though she's a small alligator, Coconut is a very strong and powerful creature. That tail is pure muscle! But even in the standing images, you can see that Doechii is giving Coconut great body support and holding her correctly- close to the body, but without grabbing too tightly or being restrained uncomfortably. I think for a gator of this size I would have recommended pinning the back foreleg against her body for a little additional support and movement restriction- but I don't think she had to restrict movement because Coconut seems quite relaxed!

In the seated image, Doechii has one hand under Coconut's chest, supporting her sternum and head. The other hand is on top of her tail, and her knee is under the pelvic girdle. This type of hold lets the alligator feel safe; remember that these are aquatic and terrestrial creatures. An insecure hold that risks dropping them is going to stress them out and make them uncomfortable. By holding the alligator gently against her body and not squeezing, she's avoiding any uncomfortable pressure.

Head and Throat Support

In all of the images, Doechii is bringing her hand under Coconut's neck, creating a cradle with her hand so that the alligator can rest her head. But what she's not doing is she is not squeezing or grabbing the throat. The throat is one of the soft bits of an alligator, and squeezing it too tightly is very uncomfortable for them. But the way Doechii is supporting her gives her several degrees of freedom to move her head if she so chooses.

Body Language

Another indication of good handling is that it's clear that Coconut is not uncomfortably stressed. Alligators express displeasure with being held in a lot of ways, including struggling to get away, hissing, and holding their mouths open. (If you want to know more and see my sources, you can read my post on alligator body language. LOTS of info there, including peer-reviewed ethology sources that explain what alligators do and why they do it! Go get your data-driven answers!)

But Coconut isn't doing that; she's calm and alert. You can see in the BTS video that she's active on set. She's not shut down, and when she wants to walk around, she's not restrained. Obviously the video is an edited timelapse, and it's not the whole story- but when people show alligators in media, they usually don't know enough about them to edit out any uncomfortable body language. So I think that if she had been upset, we would have seen that.

We can also see in the video that Coconut is unbanded, meaning her mouth was not held shut. I thought they might have banded her and then edited the band out for the cover, but no, there was nothing restricting any distress cues. Banding is usually done for public safety, but the facility Coconut's from... doesn't do that, so I'm not surprised she's unbanded. At least it gives more evidence that she's not trying to gape!

One more good indicator that Coconut was comfortable is that she's got her eyes open, which you can even kinda see in the video if you zoom in. Reptiles will often squinch their eyes shut to avoid distressing stimuli or signal distress, and albino alligators have even more reasons to do this. They're much more sensitive to light than their pigmented counterparts. But it looks like her on-set work was completed quickly, meaning that she didn't have to be around bright lights for long.

In conclusion:

Doechii's album cover is an example of good alligator handling. Yay!

That said, please note that this is only about handling and is divorced from any other issues surrounding this particular alligator. (Read the body language post if you want more on that.) These are not issues I'm touching in this post, because that's not the point! I simply want to point out an instance of good handling and how you can identify relaxed body language in an animal that is notoriously hard to read when posted on social media.

dinosquad art dump. (offical characters only in this one) if you've seen these on my alt account shhh

the year ive made these is a bit annoying, probs around 2020-2023?

DPxDC Prompt

Danny doesn't have the best spatial awareness, you'd think he would given his bout as a vigilante, but his rogues all had the convenient ability of setting off his ghost sense and letting him know when to turn on his awareness.

So when he was taken in by Bruce Wayne in Gotham, far away from any ghosts or portals, he just didn't have any reason to be on guard. It worked well for him since his vigilante days were over and he could put all his focus on school again.

But you see, when he was first taken in, it was just him and his foster brother Tim staying at the manor.

Fast forward to now, Danny gets home from school to find not only Bruce waiting at the table for dinner, but a kid who looks surprisingly like Bruce??? The kid is small, rude and trying to be threatening in a way Danny doesn't really see as such, like the kid is like 8 how much could they really do???

Turns out a lot.

After Danny and Tim sat down and the introductions were made, Bruce filled them in on the situation that was Damian. Tim seemed to take it as a new puzzle, looking to Damian and Bruce periodically as if he could get answers simply by staring. Danny took it in stride, it isn't that unusually for a rich guy to have secret flings that result in children down the line.

Dinner was in full swing when it happened, there had been some bantering the entire time and many threats of bodily harm coming from Damian which weren't met with as many reprimands as Danny assumed it should. A distinct thunk sound was heard after a particularly harsh threat and Danny looked over to see a knife now embedded in Tim's chair where his head once was.

Before he could react, Bruce was standing with a sharp reprimand and Danny collided harshly with his chair as a new knife embedded itself in his shoulder. He cried out in shock, it has been over a year since his last ghost fight and honestly he forgot how much that hurts!

Aka, Bruce and Dick are forced to take Damian's threats more seriously when the civilian Danny is in the crossfire instead of just the trained vigilante Tim.

some fucking resources for all ur writing fuckin needs

* body language masterlist

* a translator that doesn’t eat ass like google translate does

* a reverse dictionary for when ur brain freezes

* 550 words to say instead of fuckin said

* 638 character traits for when ur brain freezes again

* some more body language help

(hope this helps some ppl)

the74million.org

America’s Most Popular Autism Therapy May Not Work — and May Seriously Harm Patients’ Mental Health

Applied behavior analysis has long been considered the gold standard. Now, people who have been through it are pushing back.

"Based on data gleaned from the nearly 10 million military dependents it insures, the U.S. Department of Defense has repeatedly called the evidence supporting ABA “weak,” noting there is no research to determine whether the small number of participants who show improvement — 15% — do so because of treatment or simply because a child has matured. After a year of the therapy, the department reported to Congress in 2019, 76% of 16,000 participating autistic children saw no change, and 9% worsened."

Bulldog bunny monster thingy?

Sick of the very obvious pattern on this website where people will rb nebulous “free Palestine!!” posts then proceed to ignore fundraisers, start discourse about the fundraisers being scams, pretend like seeing fundraisers on their dash is the most inconvenient thing to have ever happened to them. Like . Not that it shouldn’t be obvious, but it’s extremely suspect when you’re all for the concept of Palestinian liberation but then act like it’s an impossible request when you’re asked to apply that into tangible effort to help struggling Palestinian families evacuate and afford literal basics you take for granted

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