duolingo is my sugar daddy

[u------------------------------l]

having social anxiety is fucking crazy because why was i so anxious to ask a friend of many years for a ride all day that i almost threw up just to send one text message and get an enthusiastic maybe

like what's the logic behind that. what is my brain protecting me from.

[mariacallous]

This spam email almost got me, tbh.

[holythefirm-deactivated20230530]

[kaijuno]

[naturalnecrosis]

[important-animal-images]

[serpents-fr]

people who live in areas where there are native lizards should never take that for granted. you can just go outside and see a little guy hanging out. what’s better than that?

[marlynnofmany]

What’s better is when the little guy starts doing little pushups, to impress another little guy you haven’t spotted yet. Or possibly you.

[why-animals-do-the-thing]

Hi there! I have a question: how does one go about reporting problems one sees at zoos and similar facilities? There's a place near my college that has a bunch of exotic animals to look at and some goats to pet, but I'm... Concerned about the safety and well-being of both the animals and the visitors. For instance--they have an umbrella cockatoo in a cage that looks about half the size that the bird would need, and there's no barrier in front of it. Anyone could stick fingers in and get bit.

All of my answers here are only going to be relevant to the United States, or facilities accredited by US-based accrediting groups.

If it is a mammal at a facility that is open to the public, you can report it to the United States Department of Agriculture Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (USDA APHIS) at this link. However, for it to be something they can work with, it needs to be:

A concern that is a violation of the Animal Welfare Act standards for USDA-licensed entities as listed in the Bluebook regulations.

Something that you’ve seen for yourself

Something that has actually occurred (e.g., ‘I saw someone put their finger in and get bit by a monkey’, rather than ‘I saw a cage with fencing where someone could potentially put a finger through and get bit’)

USDA only has jurisdiction over mammals at the moment, so they can’t address concerns regarding reptile, bird, or fish welfare. The feds are in the process of writing and implementing a government rule that would also give them oversight over exhibited birds, so once that happens you can contact them about bird concerns too.

If the facility is accredited by an organization like the AZA, ZAA, AMMPA, or GFAS, you should be able to contact the accrediting body directly to report a concern. It ideally should be a violation of the actual standards the facility is required to follow, but I think those orgs are less restricted than the feds to and can more easily look into general concerns about welfare and safety. However, the annoying part there is that as of the last time I checked, none of the accrediting orgs actually have an explicit place where people can submit their concerns listed! They’ll often say they hear from the public frequently, but if you’re like hmmm I would like to bring up a thing about a facility you accredit, there isn’t a form or a specific email address or anything. My advice would be to email their general information / contact email and ask where to send a report about a concern. (And then please tell me what the official instructions are, if/when you do).

Be prepared that there’s no guarantee you’ll get a response to your submission, but it’s worth a try. (I actually don’t know if USDA APHIS is obligated to respond to individual complaints, and accrediting groups can honestly do whatever they want). With USDA, you also need to know that there’s a lot of really inconsistent regulation of animal exhibition in the US (both for exotics and regular domestic animals) and it can kind of be a mess. The Animal Welfare Act imposes a minimum set of standards for USDA to require and enforce, and while they’re fairly good overall, there are things you’d expect to be more stringent that aren’t. For instance: the regulation that requires fencing to be sufficient to prevent contact between animals and the public works up until a barrier that inspectors term compliant is breached, and then it doesn’t. So when the tragedy with Harambe happened, the fencing around that exhibit was considered to be compliant with USDA requirements… until the kid got through and made contact with an animal. After that, it was determined to be non-compliant and needed to be upgraded. But a year or two later, I saw almost the exact fencing setup around a different gorilla exhibit at a different major zoo - it appeared that that specific fence was still compliant because nobody had crossed it. Yet.

You might be able to report generalized concerns to somewhere more local and see if there can at least be more oversight of the facility, but I can’t give you generalized advice on that - who to contact and how to do it will vary drastically based on a whole bunch of things at the state/county/municipal level.

Updating to add, because I totally spaced on it until someone mentioned it in the comments: take photos or video to document your concerns.

[catchymemes]

[campyvillain]

why is getting a stalker for just being a kid in a fanbase such a universal experience w so many artists that I know….it’s extremely sad (I say this as someone who had this happen to me in an unbelievably horrific way btw. It’s more common than you’d think)

[campyvillain]

listen. other teenagers (esp younger teenagers) on the internet that create media for things they like in any capacity. I’m gonna give you this tip because no one was there to offer it for me when it was happening to me. If someone you’ve never interacted with starts leaving overly familiar replies on your posts and starts acting like they’re your friend when you’ve never even had a conversation w them or starts calling u their best friend, without any sense of irony, when you don’t know who they even are and they constantly talk about you - you need to get that person AWAY from you. like IMMEDIATELY. you may think this is just innocuous parasocial behavior but continuing to let people like this be around you is going to lead to some dark shit. from the discussions I’ve had w other ppl who’ve been stalked online it always starts out like this, I sure know it’s how my whole hellhole begun, and the quicker you distance yourself from, block, and report people like this the better. just in general if someone you don’t know starts acting a little too familiar w you, just listen to your impulses and block them. hell, block ANYONE that makes you feel uncomfortable, no matter the reason, even if it’s just a hunch. there is absolutely nothing wrong with setting boundaries and it’s the safest thing you can do for yourself online. it’s better to be overly safe than to not be safe at all

[u------------------------------l]

me when the furry picrew doesn’t have a goat option

[k-dhd]

yep.

[icarus-suraki]

A Message to Fleeing Twitter Users from the Tumblrites

This place is a message and part of a system of messages: pay attention to it!

Sending this message was important to us. We considered ourselves to be a powerful culture.

This place is not a place of honor.

No highly esteemed deed is commemorated here.

Nothing of value is here.

What is here was dangerous and repulsive to us. This message is a warning about danger.

The danger is in a particular location. It increases towards a center. The center of danger is here of a particular size and shape, and below us.

The danger is still present in your time, as it was in ours.

The danger is to the body, and it can kill.

The form of the danger is an emanation of energy.

The danger is unleashed only if you substantially disturb this place physically. This place is best shunned and left uninhabited.

[marisatomay]

“don’t eat honey because it exploits the bees and they can’t consent!!!” bees are literally unionized and will walk out if they don’t like being in the beekeeper’s hives

[pointnclick]

my job in the 1930s was to hang around the docks and blow all the union guys

[wittysquiddy]

Call that a whistleblower

[pointnclick]

talk about union busting

[singinginthecar]

israel has been bombing residential towers, refugee camps, media offices and now there are reports that it plans to bomb two UN run schools in palestine. reminder that many ppl who have been rendered homeless by these bombings have found shelter in these schools. palestine's hospitals are overflowing, their top doctors are being killed in these bombings, and the pandemic is still raging while israel is blocking humanitarian aid as well. these are war crimes. this is a genocide.

[gulabilli]

PLEASE do not stop talking about Palestine and spreading information, especially from Palestinians, whether it's here or on other social medias you use more often. Palestinians themselves have said over and over again that spreading this on social media helps, I've seen some people say that it feels different this time now that the world is starting to hear their voices. and please donate if you are able to

[saintacephale]

unity of opposites

[normal-horoscopes]

I AM FIRMLY AGAINST THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT INVOLVING THEMSELVES IN "SEARCHING FOR CLUES" OR "SOLVING CAPERS/MYSTERIES"