Mellepell

22. girl. animal enthusiast. outdoors adventurer. weaver of stories.

[dogpantry]

cancel culture really be like “10 years ago this actor made a joke about bisexuals and now they should be a pariah and also we should attack them on every social media they own until they apologize and we should continue to bully them even after they apologize bc human beings are either black or white and i only judge people within that strictly defined dichotomy and clearly a grown adult making a tasteless joke at 14 means they’re a bad person incapable of change or emotional growth”

[gustavowasright-deactivated2022]

Man, the average pet owner just has an empathy problem. There are so many instances of dog behavior that spring from fear, that frustrate the average owner because they can’t see WHY their dog is balking at passing through a doorway or whatever. Even if they DO recognize that their dog is acting out of alarm, from their human perspective it still seems like totally random, out-of-the-blue, irrational behavior. Meanwhile, the dogs are having a similar experience - they recognize the frustration, but it seems like totally random irrational behavior. It’s a vicious cycle! The human’s frustration is sparking off the dog’s fear, which in turn feeds off the frustration.

I 1000% understand how hard it can be to control frustration, especially in a public setting where your dog freaking out inexplicably feels humiliating, but what the dog NEEDS is a little understanding and compassion. Not frustration, not gentle mockery for their fear while nothing is done to mitigate it. Better handling of the issue in general, too - turning and facing your dog while keeping full leash opposition is not going to encourage them to come TOWARDS you - but fundamentally, what is needed is a little empathy. Some recognition of how differently dogs experience and process the world and that consequently their perspective will often differ from ours!

Broadly speaking, the pet industry in America is a contradiction. People lavish their dogs with all sorts of goodies, and brag about how obsessed they are with their dogs, and react with empathy to the horror stories of neglect and mistreatment we hear all too frequently, but then don’t extend that empathy to their dogs in day-to-day life. They disregard their pets’ expressions of emotion, and do little to nothing to accommodate them and mitigate stress and uncertainty as much as possible.

I DON’T think this is from a lack of empathy in general, but a disconnect regarding how dogs process the world. We as primates are so sight-oriented, it’s easy to anthropomorphize and forget (in general or in specific instances of behavior) that dogs primarily experience the world through their noses, and that their senses in general work very differently from ours. But I think an equally large portion of the issue springs from oversimplification of animals as intelligent, emotional beings.

This sounds counter-intuitive, because these people are attributing their animals’ behavior to all sorts of complex human emotions (“he’s angry because I gave him a bath three and a half months ago!!”). But they don’t lend the actual, observable emotions on display the same gravitas. Their dog is flipping out in terror, but their primary concern isn’t the dog’s terror - it’s the inconvenience that their dog won’t go through the door. I think people are accustomed to viewing animals as a sort of living cartoon - they’re cute, they’re capable of all sorts of crazy emotions, but at the end of the day those emotions don’t have all that much weight. They’re two-dimensional, because people haven’t bothered to consider them in 3D.

[theweirdwideweb]

[quadraxic-expression-deactivate]

“A dead parrot from the hot weather.. :(” “Ah, no. It’s a corn.”

[wheremyscalesslither]

Avoid the facebook group: Ball Python Enthusiasts

At all costs, ignore that group. They're one of the biggest sources of horrible misinformation about ball python care and their admins are tools.

Their admin are horribly entitled. I got a message from one saying she blocked me for not responding to a tag about a question she had. Like I OWED her my response. The question was apparently about whether I condone bad mouthing BPE in my groups.

My answer is yes, I condone and promote making it absolutely clear that BPE is garbage on any social media platform in anyway possible.

You will have 1000 years of good husbandry if you leave the group, never join, or reblog this.

[c3rvida3]

You all really need to learn to accept that the fact that you don't like someone or something doesn't mean it's secretly evil somehow.

[c3rvida3]

Like, annoyance and disinterest and anger are normal human emotions, but we've created this weird culture where you're only allowed to have bad feelings about things if it's for some righteous cause.

And instead of taking that (deeply flawed and unhealthy, mind you) notion and maybe... I don't know, learning to manage negative feelings that aren't productive, people have just decided that it means that any time they don't like something, they have to find some grand, noble justification for their dislike.

But you really, really don't. Someone can be kind and good and still annoy the fuck out of you. You're allowed to think a show sucks even if it isn't problematic. It's literally fine.

[distinguishedbaloney]

[beyonslayed]

Not to continually be that girl but the whole of social justice (primarily being done in online spaces) needs to be redone. We have to move away social justice (morally) motivated by vengeance and separatism towards one guided by love and solidarity that’s just my raw onion tho

[bloodsisters-deactivated2023013]

is there context for this

[gnetophyte]

i didnt make the post so obviously i wouldn’t know much but i think a lot of ppl nowadays tend to see social justice as based on accusation and holding everyone to a standard of moral perfection rather than understanding that no one is raised free of social biases and that criticism should come from a place “i want you and the world we share to be better” and not “you made a mistake so now ill pounce on it and weight it with the same equivalence as really horrible acts of oppression”

[beyonslayed]

$$$$

[mellepell]

YES

[drinksss]

[sheepsbian]

a big problem with animal rights activists/vegans is that most of them just… want to plug their ears and pretend their diets aren’t equally reliant on animal agriculture as nonvegans.

yes, we all know you aren’t eating dead animal flesh on your plate. but crop agriculture is HEAVILY reliant on animal agriculture. what do you think fertilizes the soil for all the produce you eat? here’s a hint: animal poop.

“but vegan fertilizers exist!” sure, but exactly how likely do you think it is that your produce was raised with vegan fertilizer? probably extremely unlikely. why would a farmer go out of their way to go buy fertilizer when their dairy farmer neighbor probably has plenty of manure? why would a farmer with crops and animals just ignore his own source of fertilizer? they usually don’t! it makes more sense for a farmer to use manure from their own farm or neighboring farms than to go out and get huge quantities of artificial fertilizer (and it’s much more sustainable to compost and fertilize, so long as it isn’t overapplied).

organic standards, which are considerably strict, allow organic farms to use manure from non-organic farms, because they need manure THAT badly. which means it’s pretty possible your organic kale or spinach was grown using manure from a CAFO or otherwise just non-organic animal farm.

“i don’t eat honey because it exploits the work of bees!” what do you think is pollinating those crops you eat? it’s bees, and more likely than not, they were kept by humans. and yeah, they probably had some of their honey taken. so what? how is refusing to eat honey but still eating crops pollinated by bee work any less exploitative? you won’t eat the thing removed from their hives (which keeps them from swarming and dying off), but you’ll eat the crops that they spent days pollinating? how is that any different? the fruits they pollinated might not be an “animal product” like honey, but it’s a result of animal ‘work’ just as much as honey is.

“it’s about doing the least harm possible, not being perfect!” so what? I would argue raising my own animals for meat and providing them with comfortable lives up until slaughter instead of buying products coming from god-knows-where is “doing the least harm possible”, but most ARAs will continue to demonize me and everyone else who cares about where our meat comes from. I would argue that intentionally supporting farmers using good environmental and animal welfare practices instead of doing nothing at all (and buying crops reliant on these Poor Exploited Animals) under the guise of caring about animals is “doing the least harm possible”, but all farmers are evil, right?

this whole “vegan fertilizer exists” and “i won’t eat honey because that’s exploitation” shit only exists to make yourselves feel better. your diets would not exist without animal manure and without beekeeping. accept that and acknowledge it. be vegan if you want, but stop pretending you are free or “as free as possible” from reaping the benefits of animal agriculture. just because you don’t see the animal on your plate doesn’t mean you aren’t eating something it contributed to. (or possibly died for in the form of tractor kills)

[scoutsmoocrew]

“Vegan” fertilizer is a huge source of GHG as well so lmao

[sebbysheepie]

Potash is expensive! Plus! You save what? Mining for “ vegan” fertizer does terrible environmental damange.

Here’s your potash. Nice eh? Creates sink holes sometimes when it’s underground. Hence why they perfer open pit mining. But the open pits create deforestation and they need run off streams. And all this is better then animal fertizer?

[pipistrellus]

i keep seeing like “farm sanctuaries” and “this cow/pig was rescued from a livestock auction awww” shit and it’s so… … … idk no one knows how farming works

you can “rescue” a cow or pig from a livestock auction and keep it but you’re just, like, purchasing the animal from the people who are selling it

during calving/kidding/etc season baby farm animals are e v e r y w h e r e and especially pigs you can get them for SO CHEAP you could buy up every really cheaply sold meat animal off your local craigslist site and still not be “rescuing” anything, particularly. like. if people want to spend their money keeping livestock that’s…. fine…. obviously i do that… but its fucking absurd to act like buying livestock FROM A LIVESTOCK AUCTION is “rescuing” it rather than… um. participating in a livestock auction

there are too many livestock animals for ANYBODY to just keep and care for even if they’re millionaires and live on 50 acres of land. it’s just not feasible. you can’t even BEGIN to host enough animals at your ~farm sanctuary~ to even slightly make a dent in… … any…thing… i mean… it’s fine! i think its great that ppl want to like, you know. care for animals. it’s nice. to give them a home. but meat livestock is bred to get big fast and use a lot of resources. 

[princekarkat]

ive heard tales of chickens being rescued from battery cages to live the rest of their lives on pasture, and that sounds nice, really! its great for those chickens! i wish all chickens lived that way!

but… as far as animal activism goes

that wouldnt stop the factory farm from keeping their chickens in cages like that? like they just had a bunch of low-production hens that were slated to be turned into dog-food and you paid them money to give them to you instead

the cages they vacated would be filled again instantly and nothing would change about the way eggs are produced in this country. there will always be more battery cages than there are square feet of pasture to put those hens on

idk. i guess its like that story of the man throwing beached oysters into the ocean. or whatever animal it was in that parable idr

[kingpiss]

Exactly Its not ?? Addressing the source of the problem its just kindof doing your own thing and expecting a pat on the back Idk idk I guess its one of the major reasons veaganism pisses me off?? Like I was a pescetarian most of my life bc we just felt bad for animals but its not??? Changing the living conditions of those animals?????

[howtohavegaysubtext]

Lord, farm sanctuaries are honestly like one of the most absurdist things I’ve seen. They don’t do any real rescuing, they usually have no long term plans, and as everyone has already pointed out, they don’t do anything to address the actually issues of factory farming. 

Like there was this small AR group in my town years back that would rescue buy steers (young castrated bulls) with the intention of rehoming them as pets but like… the entire purpose of a steer is to be butchered for meat so you’re immediately limiting the scope of people who are going be willing to take in one of these cattle. I think that group only ever actually rehomed like one of these fuckers and there was soft news story published in the paper about it but it was such a wildly futile endeavor. In the end, they kind of just faded out of activity and like, they still kept all the cattle who they weren’t able to find homes for (I drive past their “sanctuary” sometimes) so that’s good I supposed but lord, just what were those people thinking. 

And it like, wasn’t even like most of the animals that get put up for auction around hear are even from or destined for factory farms? Like most of the farmers in my area are like family businesses and shit. 

[bluecheeseisnotahappycheese]

How I feel when people say they rescue bettas. It’s not the same scale as large livestock animals but you’re purchasing an animal from a store that benefits from your purchase and they’ll put more out on the shelves the next week.

[osointricate]

How about we vote in a law that puts a cap on how long a government shut down can happen… say 20 days… before the president has to agree to a budget solution or else the 21st day congress begins the process of impreachment because civilian jobs and salaries and livelihoods are not a bargaining tool for the president to abuse is order to get their way

If you aren’t serving the people then you aren’t doing the job of the presidency and you need to be replaced

[i-find-the-beauty-in-chaos]

AMEN

[mellepell]

Anyone else with generalized anxiety struggle with both the fears of the unknowns of dying someday, but also fearing what will happen to the world in our lifetime?

I can't even exaggerate, this week has been a constant panic attack. Feeling like I'm not getting enough done while simultaneously feeling like everything I do is just another step closer to the permanent loss of my consciousness. It's literally ruining me.

[mellepell]

Tumblr is so stupid they literally just flagged two pictures of my ball python and corn snake, and a time progression of my rats from babies to adults, as adult content.

[mellepell]

I'm seriously debating on obtaining a pair of pet Hissing Cockroaches. I may or may not name one Eveline.

[glorianas]

this is why god allows him to be that hot

[cephalotodd-deactivated20190310]

we should make fun of americans more. why dont their shops include tax in the price tag. like how much does this item cost? its a surprise :)

[moomoobooboo-deactivated2020102]

Honestly, tea. I’ve lived here my whole life and I have never once known what my total is gonna be at the register. Total fucking mystery.

[2-face]

im an ex-american living in new zealand for the past two years and it still never fails to blow my mind that i can take a $2 coin, walk up to a counter with two $1 items, and perform the expected transaction

[greekedtext]

this callout is completely deserved

[imfeelinghappiness]

Apps To Kill Time On

Keep seeing some posts circulating about popular websites and wanted to make a version for apps.

These are apps I’m way too addicted to. Am I missing any?

P.S. I’m on an iPhone so these are iPhone apps, but probably have an Android version too.

Edit: Sorry for all the time I’ve taken away from your life

Commaful - popular fanfiction, story, and poetry community 👑

Bettr - the reason my friends are jealous of my Insta

Sweatcoin - get paid to walk

Spellbound - addictive horror 👻 and romance stories

Helix Jump - legit the most addicting game on my phone

Calm - Award-winning app for meditation and sleeping better

Tenkyu - tilt your phone and watch the relaxing magic happen

Slime Road - bet you can’t hit the bullseye ⚾️

Hempire - become a plant mogul

Dune! - Ride the sand dunes like a baller!! so much fun

Go Fish - win trophies by catching hella fish

Hotspot Shield - free proxy/VPN to bypass school filters

Terrarium - build the ultimate garden empire

Golf Orbit - ever played golf on mars?

Ball Blast - Just shoot the balls. Simple right? ;)

Sling Drift - beep beep - level 70 is insane 🚗

1Q - get paid to answer simple questions

Crowd City - Become the popular kid in town by running around 

Bee Factory - become a honey tycoon

Wind Rider - fly through a city in a wing suit

Spill it - drop balls and break glass

Fire Balls - shoot balls at obstacles. gets pretty hard

Paper - can you conquer all the territory and win?

Two Dots - a fun puzzle game. easy time killer

Planet Bomber - let’s nuke some planets

Ice Racing - race down a mountain at record speeds

Splashy - bounce the ball accurately to survive. requires focus

Snakes Vs. Blocks - even more fun than the original snake hehe

Twenty48 Solitaire - best toilet game

Knock Balls - shoot down blocks with a canon - surprisingly relaxing

Wishbone - fun game for comparing stuff like hair, celebs, sports

Hole - fuck up a city muahaha

Dosh - get paid to shop

Sweatcoin - get paid to walk

Yarn - stories that are seriously creepy af

You’re welcome 😉