the-lemon-is-in-play

[the-lemon-is-in-play]

That thing about how cats think humans are big kittens is a myth, y’know.

It’s basically born of false assumptions; folks were trying to explain how a naturally solitary animal could form such complex social bonds with humans, and the explanation they settled on is “it’s a displaced parent/child bond”.

The trouble is, cats aren’t naturally solitary. We just assumed they were based on observations of European wildcats - but housecats aren’t descended from European wildcats. They’re descended from African wildcats, which are known to hunt in bonded pairs and family groupings, and that social tendency is even stronger in their domesticated relatives. The natural social unit of the housecat is a colony: a loose affiliation of cats centred around a shared territory held by alliance of dominant females, who raise all of the colony’s kittens communally.

It’s often remarked that dogs understand that humans are different, while cats just think humans are big, clumsy cats, and that’s totally true - but they regard us as adult colonymates, not as kittens, and all of their social behaviour toward us makes a lot more sense through that lens.

The like to cuddle because communal grooming is how cats bond with colonymates - it establishes a shared scent-identity for the colony and helps clean spots that they can’t easily reach on their own.

They bring us dead animals because cats transport surplus kills back to the colony’s shared territory for consumption by pregnant, nursing, or sick colonymates who can’t easily hunt on their own. Indeed, that’s why they kill so much more than they individually need - it’s not for fun, but to generate enough surplus kills to sustain the colony’s non-hunting members.

They’re okay with us messing with their kittens because communal parenting is the norm in a colony setting, and us being colonymates in their minds automatically makes us co-parents.

It’s even why many cats are so much more tolerant toward very small children, as long as those children are related to one of their regular humans: they can tell the difference between human adults and human “kittens”, and your kittens are their kittens.

Basically, you’re going to have a much easier time getting a handle on why your cat does why your cat does if you remember that the natural mode of social organisation for cats is not as isolated solitary hunters, but as a big communal catpile - and for that purpose, you count as a cat.

[the-lemon-is-in-play]

Controversial take if I've ever heard one

[the-lemon-is-in-play]

[the-lemon-is-in-play]

hey here's a website for downloading any video or image from any website.

works w/ youtube, soundcloud, twitch, twitter (gifs and videos), tumblr (video and audio), and most other websites you're probably lookin to download stuff off of.

#reference

[the-lemon-is-in-play]

the way you win at DnD is making your friends laugh

[the-lemon-is-in-play]

oh fuck this is a really good hill i gotta die on this

[the-lemon-is-in-play]

GTKTM: FAVORITE TV SHOW/FILM PER MEMBER ↳ 10 Things I Hate About You — by Allie (@djo)

I hate the way I don’t hate you. Not even close, not even a little bit, not even at all.

[the-lemon-is-in-play]

one of the most unexpected things acofaf has given me is an incredible awareness of the concept of a room going so quiet you could hear a pin drop, which is a phrase i fully comprehended the implications of, but never truly believed a genuine occurrence until this very season.

[the-lemon-is-in-play]

Mountain goat mom teaches her baby how to climb

[the-lemon-is-in-play]

[the-lemon-is-in-play]

You know what really fucking Annoys Me about internet censorship is stuff like swear words being heavily censored because that's entirely an American cultural hangup being forced on the rest of us. I don't know a single country where swearing is as taboo as it is in America. In fact most languages have swear words that would have the same effect on an American as giving a Victorian chimney sweep a pepsi max cherry.

[the-lemon-is-in-play]

Welcome to Korea

ive been working on a buncha MASH stickers to sell and i was gonna wait to post any of the designs until i had the first 5 done but i couldnt wait to post this one!! please lmk if youd be interested in buying this design as a sticker!

i have a BUNCH of sticker ideas for MASH but i wanna make sure people are interested before i invest a ton of time and money into making these so if you genuinely wanna buy some let me know! :D! ill post the rest of the designs im working on in a few days, and i think ill post some concepts for stickers after that if people would wanna see!

[the-lemon-is-in-play]

Thank god they brought back An Amount Of Daylight That Makes You Want To Live. It was getting a bit scary for a minute there.

[the-lemon-is-in-play]

#me interacting with my coworkers

[the-lemon-is-in-play]

its so brave that you have such a 2012-coded url in this 2024 world

would you call a bear brave for standing in a new construction suburb or would you recognize the unfamiliar world they built around him

[the-lemon-is-in-play]

Typed "IKEA" into google maps and for some reason it decided to show me pretty much every single IKEA location in the nordic countries combined instead of just the one closest to me and ngl I'm kinda obsessed with this review in Sweden

#funny #ikea

[the-lemon-is-in-play]

True isolation is when everyone else is talking about their vibrant teenage experience and you’re like. I was just trying to survive

#oh big mood