The ability to turn the post above you into the speech bubble of a character of your choice is an essential weapon of tumblr pvp.

once when i was ten, so seventeen years ago, i was on one of the neopets forums that was in 2006 frequented mostly by edgy teenagers with pete wentz urls who wanted to get around the ban on romance and gay talk to discuss mcr members making out. and it was well past midnight and i was secretly on an extremely clunky laptop the size of a modern desktop, sitting on my top bunk in the tiny room i shared with my sister. and i do not remember the forum topic at all but at some point one of the participants politely asked me, "hey, how old are you, anyway? twelve?" and when i honestly replied "ten," he responded:

"WOAH. Kid, you'd better get off the boards. Wandering the Neoboards at 2 AM is like walking nekkid through the Bronx with your wallet dangling from your nipplz."

and this frightened me so much i slammed the computer shut and went to bed immediately. seventeen years later i still remember this message word for word. including the filter-avoidance misspellings. i need everyone to know about this formative childhood memory. bronx wallet nipplz guy if you're out there hmu and tell me what ur deal was

several what

Him innocent

aren't gorillas gentle giants or something. i stay out of his way, he doesn't maul me, we have a nice time picking out clothes together in opposite sides of the mall

Male gorillas are super aggressive and territorial. Also they interpret nearly every human mannerism as a sign of aggression or a challenge. Smiling and eye contact are both things that zookeepers have to be taught to suppress when they’re in the vicinity of gorillas.

Well unless the mall is his native territory I think I'm fine, I wasn't planning on smiling at him

This is all irrelevant because the obvious answer is five black mambas. I mean, that’s not actually very many snakes, and malls are fucking huge. And unlike a gorilla you can definitely outrun a snake if it does show up. Find an open space in the mall where you can see any snake coming and just hangout out there. Fucking easy.

Misguided! I would much rather have a mallmate I can easily see and hear coming. I'm confident I can stay out of the gorilla's way, but if I step on a snake or one otherwise gets the jump on me, it's all over.

It's not just about the physical danger either, it's about my mental health. One gorilla, unless he's actively mad at me, I just keep a healthy distance between us and make sure I never get trapped. With the snakes, it requires a lot more constant vigilance

They should substitute "chimpanzee" for "gorilla" in this hypothetical.

if it was a chimp i'm taking the fucking snakes

Black mambas have a reputation build on being very venomous and very fast. I'm not sure why you would think you could outrun one (or five) in an enclosed space like a mall.

Malls usually have pretty slick floors, and escalators. I’d choose the gorilla simply because I think that would make an more interesting story (and a better-selling autobiography, I Survived the Mall Gorilla) but I think I’d stand a pretty good chance at avoiding the mamba. They’re fast and aggressive and will chase you but unless we started immediately beside each other I think my sneakers would have the terrain advantage over scutes.

this is too good to leave hidden in the replies

fucking enamored with the implication that this gorilla is fully intelligent but is trying to manufacture plausible deniability like the movie barnyard