Pinned
those do exist. or exist as a thing some blogs will do on certain days.
but if I don't know you and you're tagging me for Exposure assuming I have a giant follower count or something,
I will be blocking you.
this is my blog and my hangout spot, not your springboard. I cannot verify the reality of total strangers' posts.
although if we ARE talking about passive aggression my technique is generally (and I have had a LOT OF PRACTICE developing it lmao) is to interpret what I think they're implying and then say "are you asking me to (x)?" in a very polite tone with a friendly (sincere! not mocking!) smile. I find that this often 1. ceases the tiresome cycle of ignoring passive aggressive behavior -> behavior escalates -> ignore it -> it escalates, and on and on that you get if you simply ignore it, 2. lets the person know that in the future they can just fucking ask you directly for god's sake, and very importantly 3. although I strive not to sound condescending when I do this, it is inescapably and obviously something that I learned to say when talking to toddlers. the people I use this with the most (mostly older female relatives but not infrequently on men as well) will often catch a hint of that and sort of realize that their method of approaching me was childish, not in a derogatory sense, but in the sense that they don't need to try to get me to do stuff in the way they got used to working in the past. they can do it differently.
obviously how effective this is varies wildly based on the relationship, or lack thereof, that you have with the other person. but I find it effective with people who are In Your Life but don't meaningfully have any control over you. quite often it DOES result in increased directness in the future, especially if it's something I end up doing fairly often. and it's not rude; I'm just politely seeking clarification about what is being communicated. it makes the person have to think about what effect they were expecting their behavior to have on my behavior, and then just... tell me straightforwardly. but without escalating the situation or making the person feel 'called out' most of the time.
its very simple but I so much more often see people say "always ignore passive aggressive communication" and while I think that's absolutely a good approach much of the time, especially especially from strangers. it is not especially EFFECTIVE at helping them change how they're approaching communicating with you in the future. in my experience. so. I prefer to use my method when I determine that it might be effective.
I use this technique on my grandmother a lot.
She frequently makes requests by telling me what I want, eg "oh wouldn't you like to.." "don't you think it's be nice if..."
It used to drive me up the wall, but now as an adult with better understanding of what's happening I say "Actually I'm fine with x, but I'd be happy to do y if that's what you want?"
One day she actually asked me, "Why is it so important to you that I say that y is what I want?"
and i got to say "Well I don't like being told what I want. I have enough life experience to know my own desires and limitations, and I can advocate for them when I need to. However your opinions do matter to me and I want to take them into account. It's much less stressful for me to do so when I'm not guessing what's in your mind."
And folks, she Actually Listened.
Later that day she wanted something that ended up not being possible, but because she said so directly I was able to help her find a different way to achieve the same goal!
She still slips up, of course, but it was so good to see her Understand.
I love thissssss. yes I have had similar experiences modeling this behavior for older female relatives. I think a lot of them got real used to having to be indirect to get their needs met and it becomes maladaptive but they get stuck.
I made a thing. Happy pride 🏳️🌈
hgtv show hosts: we made this dark disgusting house into a nice bright warm cozy masterpiece
the house:
needs a pop of color . . . I think some red accents would really give it that homey feel :)
tips to write college papers
I remember seeing this post when it was new, when I had a different tumblr account that I mostly used to vent about the shitty job i was working in between grad-school programs, and it stuck in my brain a little bit.
Seeing it cross my dash again years later, when teaching college students how to write papers is my full-time job, i think it apropos to put on my Authority Hat for a moment and tell y’all, in my role as an instructor of college English courses, where I think this post gets it wrong:
those do exist. or exist as a thing some blogs will do on certain days.
but if I don't know you and you're tagging me for Exposure assuming I have a giant follower count or something,
I will be blocking you.
this is my blog and my hangout spot, not your springboard. I cannot verify the reality of total strangers' posts.
Had to block TWO today (June 5 2026).
Cute little rainbow heart for pride month tumblr but how about you stop disproportionally banning trans women and marking sfw queer posts as mature
From the Nashville Zoo’s fb page! Here’s the petition, please please please take a moment to add your name (even if you’re not from Nashville!). If you are from Tennessee, contact your representatives and make it clear that the people do not want this data center. This is an AZA accredited zoo which is home to several species of critically endangered animals, we NEED to protect it. Make your voice heard!
Because people will pay attention to cute animals, here are some of the critically endangered/endangered species housed at the Nashville Zoo!
The Amur Leopard and Clouded Leopard (which recently celebrated its 50th cub born at the zoo!)
The Sumatran Tiger
The Red Ruffed Lemur and Ring-Tailed Lemur
The Cotton-Top Tamarin and White-Cheeked Gibbon
The Colobus Monkey and De Brazza’s Monkey
And the Mexican Spider Monkey!
Look at them!!!! Look at them and fight like hell to save them!!!!
Adding my own images of Nashville Zoo to this. It’s super important to stand, fight, and continue to spread awareness on this.
There’s so many other great animals at this zoo, and it's done so much in teaching people about animals and conservation.
Other animals includes bats, btw.
Developer claiming they'll follow government regs when the EPA is openly rolling back regulations.....
um so quick question you do know that the world isn’t divided into People Blindly Accepting Of Gender Roles and Smart Trans Ppl. the world isn’t divided into People In Romantic Relationships and Single Aros. the world isn’t divided into People Who Socialize Easily and Oppressed Autistics. the world isn’t divided into Enlightened Queer People and Stupid Misogynists. like you are aware of this ? i hope you are aware of this
i know the way people talk about their pets now is probably how we’ve been doing it for all of history. a cat owner in ancient rome saw their cat lounging on the dining pillows and commented “he thinks himself to be the senator claudius 🤣”
Vengeance. Forty new Limited Edition Prints are now available of her, each one hand-signed and numbered, while supplies last - only in my shop. 🤘
I hate you. I hate orca captivity. Why are you not ashamed Keeping orcas in captivity is animal cruelty because these highly intelligent apex predators swim up to 100 miles a day in the wild making any concrete tank a tiny "bathtub" that causes extreme psychological distress and "zoochosis “ You can see the damage in their collapsed dorsal fins which happens to 100% of captive males but less than 1% in the wild and their broken teeth from biting metal bars out of pure frustration In these tanks their sensitive sonar constantly bounces off the walls creating an acoustic hell while they are forced to perform "tricks" for dead fish because they are kept hungry until they obey Separating them from their families with whom they stay for life in nature is traumatizing and leads to unnatural aggression and early death This isn't education or conservation it is exploitation for profit and forcing an emotional social being into a chlorinated cage for entertainment is the definition of abuse.
Oooh damn we got big feelings today. Interesting because I've discussed most of these issues and concerns on my blog before but clearly you haven't bothered to look. Or you did and that's what's upset you because it's uncomfortable to be wrong?
I don't expect you to change your mind but just for my followers and people who are interested in learning, let me break down the things you've said:
"Keeping orcas in captivity is animal cruelty because these highly intelligent apex predators swim up to 100 miles a day in the wild"
Orcas are socially intelligent, sure. Sometimes they swim up to 100 miles a day, but if they have all their needs met, they often won't swim such long distances. Travel is energetically expensive and it requires specific motivations to do so eg. finding food, avoiding stressors.
"Any concrete tank a tiny "bathtub" that causes extreme psychological distress and "zoochosis “"
I wouldn't call over 7 million gallons of water a bathtub. You can't dive and jump and swim fast in a bathtub - so it's an invalid comparison.
Is the "extreme psychological distress" in the room with us right now? Because I work in behaviour rehabilitation of animals experiencing chronic stress. Animals experiencing significant chronic stress won't eat very well, won't participate in learning/problem solving as their mental resources are taken up, they will regularly be unwell due to their immune systems being compromised and they may display behavioural shutdown as well. These are not behaviours that are baseline in captive orca populations.
Sánchez–Hernández P, Krasheninnikova A, Almunia J, Molina–Borja M. Social interaction analysis in captive orcas (Orcinus orca). Zoo Biology. 2019;38:323–333. https://doi.org/10.1002/zoo.21502
Santa, A., Kanda, K., Kako, T., Miyajima, M., & Adachi, I. (2024). Matching-to-Sample Task Training of a Killer Whale (Orcinus orca). Animals, 14(6), 821. https://doi.org/10.3390/ani14060821
Almunia J, Lüke JP and Rosa F (2025) Vocal activity as a welfare indicator in killer whales in managed care. Front. Mar. Sci. 12:1595113. doi: 10.3389/fmars.2025.1595113
"Zoochosis" is a linguistically and scientifically invalid word that was made up by "Born Free" - an anti zoo organisation that is good at marketing without actually improving welfare outcomes for animals in zoos. It does not address the nuances of zoological management and basically chalks up all potential issues as inherent to the zoo environment. This is deeply counter productive to addressing welfare concerns.
"You can see the damage in their collapsed dorsal fins which happens to 100% of captive males but less than 1% in the wild"
But the females don't have dorsal fin collapse - so are only the males "suffering" then? Or could it be due to the simple fact that the male orca dorsal fin is very tall and heavy and orcas in human care are spending more time at the surface, therefore having less support of the water column?
Interestingly, it's not 100% of male orcas. Panghu, wild captured from Russian waters and now living in Shanghai Haichang Ocean Park, is 20 years old and still has an upright dorsal fin. Yet the facility is a lot smaller than SeaWorld's so perhaps it's also genetics related.
"Their broken teeth from biting metal bars out of pure frustration."
Biting at metal bars/gates is pretty rare but mouthing is also how all cetaceans explore their environment. Mouthing or ramming gates may happen from social frustration - like fencing fighting in dogs. They have very soft teeth enamel, so if they do mouth at anything hard, it'll affect their teeth. I've written up a post on teeth that you can find in my "cetacean welfare" tag.
"In these tanks their sensitive sonar constantly bounces off the walls creating an acoustic hell"
Incorrect. Cetaceans are perfectly capable of controlling their echolocation abilities and are not just firing off click trains at random. See below a spectrogram of recordings of dolphin echolocation in a tank vs a lagoon
(Source)
You can see that both animals are echolocating regularly and there was no major difference between dolphins in lagoons vs tanks, besides the snapping shrimp recorded in the lagoons.
Since we know that cetaceans are capable of modulating their click frequency and intensity, we'd see lower frequency and intensity in the tank if echolocation was causing any sort of distress to the animals.
Fun fact: Echolocation and signature whistles were both concepts that were discovered and studied in dolphins living in tanks.
AN EXPERIMENTAL DEMONSTRATION OF ECHOLOCATION BEHAVIOR IN THE PORPOISE, TURSIOPS TRUNCATUS (MONTAGU)
And those discoveries were able to be applied to wild dolphins. And we now know how acoustically sensitive these animals are to boat traffic, navy submarines and offshore oil drilling, which DOES actually cause significant impairments and communication issues in wild populations.
Stevens, P. E., Hill, H. M., & Bruck, J. N. (2021). Cetacean Acoustic Welfare in Wild and Managed-Care Settings: Gaps and Opportunities. Animals, 11(11), 3312. https://doi.org/10.3390/ani11113312
Stevens, P. E., Allen, V., & Bruck, J. N. (2023). A Quieter Ocean: Experimentally Derived Differences in Attentive Responses of Tursiops truncatus to Anthropogenic Noise Playbacks before and during the COVID-19-Related Anthropause. Animals, 13(7), 1269. https://doi.org/10.3390/ani13071269
"while they are forced to perform "tricks" for dead fish because they are kept hungry until they obey"
Just another blatantly incorrect assumption straight from the Blackfish playbook. While this WAS a technique used 40-50 years ago, it has not been implemented in facilities like SeaWorld in decades because it created dangerous and frustrated animals.
Animals are provided with their entire dietary intake regardless of "performance". You can see multiple times when orcas simply refuse to participate and trainers step back and cancel a show. They are still given all their food. They also don't always care to work for food because its so readily available - so trainers have to be creative and use other reinforcers like rubdowns, ice and gelatin.
"Separating them from their families with whom they stay for life in nature is traumatizing and leads to unnatural aggression and early death"
While the initial wild captures were undoubtedly traumatic - the orcas you see today are all part of matrilineal family groups, with some exceptions. But they have shown a lot of adaptability in their social groups and certainly not "unnatural aggression".
A good example of this is the Loro Parque orca group, which is by far the most unnatural hodgepodge of loosely and unrelated orca. Yet a study in 2019 revealed that agonistic ("aggressive) behaviours were between 1-2%
"This isn't education or conservation it is exploitation for profit and forcing an emotional social being into a chlorinated cage for entertainment is the definition of abuse."
That's your opinion and you're entitled to that. I don't believe it is a factually informed opinion, as you don't seem to know that the chlorine levels in the orca pools are less than what is in our drinking water. It is mostly just filtered salt water.
I would also say that while we still don't have enough data to conclusively 100% support this, there is more research coming out now that is showing positive welfare states in cetacean species such as orcas and bottlenose dolphins. And if people are entertained by animals doing learned behaviours as part of their usual enrichment of the day and can be educated by that, I don't see that as a bad thing. Provided that the welfare of the animals is prioritised.
Unfortunately the rhetoric anon is applying here is not helpful to actually improving animal welfare. I noticed pretty much the entirety of this message is cut and paste talking points from the organisations that rely on you being convinced that orcas in human care are suffering so they can obtain financial and legal support.
So I would encourage anyone curious about cetacean welfare to diversify their sources and watch out for any social media post that gives you a strong feeling/reaction.
You can also check out this collection of papers based on data collected in one of the largest multi-instiution studies ever undertaken on cetaceans:
This might be one of my favorite posts on all of Tumblr
Not only does it have some awesome papers and articles to read, it's also genuinely educational!
Y'all give it a read please. It's nice to see actual facts being shared
So happy to see my post helping to inform more people about cetaceans in human care!
@bjornlanen after the Rick Owens SS26 fashion show in Paris, France June 2025.
