I love this blog so much for basically being an enormous library of interior background references but MAN. There is something Vile and Poetic about that saying being painted on the wall of one of the bleakest-looking school hallways I've seen in a long time. It's like that poem about the stars being painted over in landlord white. Incredible.

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.

They 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.

This all makes me very happy to know.

not to sound like a christian facebook mom but some of yall need to have grace in your hearts for the people in your lives or the people you pass once on the road and never see again like you literally need to stop assuming the worst of everyone and their intentions it is poisoning your brain. you can be careful and responsible without being a miserable person. it is possible i promise

you are a tar pit and you live this way because you choose to.

Bro you sound like a cartoon villain giving their ‘I’m about to destroy the world’ speech just go to therapy. People are probably usually assholes to you because you’re mean. Try being nice and people might just be nice back.

this diva

I will not let the far right take away my god given right to hate London

They hate London because black and brown people live there

I hate London because they hoard all the countries wealth

there might be a lot of wealth in london, but there's also a huge wealth disparity. there's poor, disabled, homeless people in london. im from a solidly working class family from south london and the social divide between north and south is not as huge as you'd think.

idk what you think of when you think of london, maybe the financial centre, or maybe parliament itself. but when i think of london i think of council flats i spent my childhood in, post-war knocked together terraces, and croydon before.

i get what you're saying but there's people who get just as fucked by the government as anyone else in london and i cant believe you've made me want to defend being southern 😂

The north south divide is so bad that literally affects life expectancy if you live in the north you have 10 years off your life

People who study the economy for a living are even saying that the north south divide is getting to the point where it’s worse than the gap between east and west Germany after the fall of the Soviet union

Acknowledgeding there’s a north south dive does not under any circumstances remove the struggling of working class Londoner

But until workering class Londoners acknowledge they have an inherent privilege living in the capital city there will be no class solidarity in the uk

that's interesting! i'd like to look into some of those studies, if you have anything to rec i'd appreciate it.

there's 15 million people in london, though. the vast majority are doing the same things as people are in the north day in, day out.

i think your major grievance is probably with those fucks in westminster being paid too much out of our taxes to make decisions that are nowhere near our best interests.

id be interested to know what you think about cornwall and wales, bc they are technically south. cornwall has been colonised out of it's native language and wales get fuck all representation in parliament. personally i support independent wales.

but if the north get independence how small can we really cut up the country? it's pretty small to begin with, and i think there would be a lot of issues with taxation of imports from or just moving through the south.

I’m not pro northern independence anymore I’m more for full devolution a federal system

Also when conversations about the north south divide happen it’s about the east not the south west and wales is a different country

No one is out here blaming working class southern we know the issue is Westminster however when southern refuse to acknowledge the north south divide it makes it harder

The north south divide has existed since William the Conqueror granted the south isn’t literally commiting genocide in the north like he did but the money hording make life difficult for the north

Last bit of the ramble the south east working class can be an amazing ally to the north look at when the gays and lesbians in London raised money and sent food and supplies up to striker miners in the north so they could look after there families

puffer jacket for a horse

cara/insta/bluesky/ store

さりげなく添い寝

Best part of being a trans woman is getting to know other trans women

How should trans people organise

Hey everyone I've made a video and it's going to be up on my patreon tonight. It's about how trans people in the UK need to organise and my specific recommendations based on my own experiences organising plus about half a decade of movement journalism interviewing activists and organisers around the world.

I sincerely hope people will see it and take what it says to heart because we need robust community structures urgently in order to save trans lives. If you want to see it early click the link below to go watch and otherwise it'll be out later in the week

I think ICE is endgame for the Trump Administration. I mean that with full sincerity and all that it implies. Every Proud Boy, every January 6er, every useful idiot or wannabe toughguy loser you can think of getting paid 30 bucks an hour to play Race Inspector. Just a tarball gaining in size as social media feeds outrage back into a disillusioned Trump supporters, drawing out the stochastic terrorists.

Someone talk me off this ledge.

Okay, panic attack over.

If that *is* the course we're on, then facing it directly is kind of our only option. We've learned a lot in the past decade, but I think the most important thing we've learned is that the billionaires are fucking terrified. We're hurtling towards a brick wall. 1.5°, 2°, 2.5° They know that it's coming, and that we know it's their fault.

I can point to Occupy as a good touchstone for the shape of online organizing as it would grow from 2011 to now. Everywhere people can talk freely, they can organize. We've seen an explosion of activist and mutual aid networks since then. It's easy to look back at the past and see a series of bad events falling like dominoes, but that's a constructed narrative. Occupy turned into Gamergate, which turned into Trump, which turned into Trump on steroids. But at the same time Occupy turned into the Social Justice movement, which turned into the Black Lives Matter Uprisings, which is currently turning into an Anti-ICE Revolt.

It's terrifying, I get it. Dark times are here, darker times are coming, but its important to not lose hope. We can build the momentum. Take what you know, and use it.

So turns out the US are setting babies up for a lifetime of illness and increased likelihood of liver cancer in Guinea Bissau in the name of “research”

7000 newborns will be denied the neoneatal HepB vaccine until 6 weeks to ‘prove’ that the HepB vaccine is linked to neurodevelopmental disability on the directions of the Department of Health vis RFK Jr and in collaboration with researchers in Denmark, despite the fact that the vaccine’s efficacy rate and best protection is when administered to newborns, and the total lack of correlation between vaccination and neurodevelopmental disabilities.

Guinea Bissau has some of the highest rates of HepB on the continent, and infants are the group at the highest risk of contracting HepB, leading to chronic hepatitis & long term hepatic diseases like cirrhosis and liver failure as well as increased chance of liver cancer.

The study can’t be carried out in the US or Denmark because it fails almost every benchmark for medical ethics — surprising absolutely nobody, it is in fact heinously unethical to expose babies to preventable disease that causes liver failure and liver cancer, but the “study” has been green lit in Guinea.

Fuck the US imperial project in Africa, fuck RFK Jr and the US Department of Health, and fuck every single collaborative researcher in Denmark. This is some nightmare Tuskegee Study shit and every single individual involved deserves to be in The Hague.

my dear friend coldbrewpup got banned today. I have. many strong words. But mostly im just sad. I met her here on tumblr. I met her partner(who also got termed recently), another one of my closest friends in the world, on tumblr. Ive met nearly all my social group on tumblr, on discord, on other online places besides, or through people who met them on those places. I always feel, whenever someone i love gets banned, a little silly mourning the account. It feels like a weird thing to care a lot about these days. It feels, much to my chagrin, chronically online. However, I don’t think that feeling stands up to scrutiny. As queer people, as trans people, and especially as trans women, we often only have online spaces. Either because we live in the middlest of nowheres, or because the places we live arent accepting, or because there are so few other people in our safe group that theres just. Not any who we can be friends with. Not even touching on the facts its much easier to be comfortable behind and through a screen, and all that comes along with that. So, we go online. And we as trans women contribute a lot. We admin wikipedia, we create much of the internet’s sense of humor, we make music, we moderate servers, we create communities. But we, largely, aren’t wanted in the spaces that want what we contribute. Other queer people want to take advantage of our hard work making community, making spaces where we can be ourselves, and then kick us out. The general public want nothing to do with us at all.

 So, even in this one realm we are able to reliably be social, reliably have community, we are driven off, we aren’t ever able to really put roots down comfortably, aren’t able to let our guards down. Because we are so often mass reported, and harassed, and pedojacked, and driven to the edge of sanity and beyond. All over nothing. Over supporting the right to privacy, sanity, and life of an unpopular transfem. Over not rolling over and being driven out. It’s not safe for us, not anywhere the general public can access. 

Humans need socialization, it’s non optional, it’s a core part of our psychology and needs. And we are, even in this place, denied it at every turn. It's unacceptable, it's inhumane, and it's terrifying. Love every trans woman you meet before it’s too late, and then act like you fucking love her. 

Chimera

this account is run by a tiny paper horseshoe crab btw

in the United Kingdom, people eat a street food known as the ‘tesco meal deal’, often made up of a sandwich, a side, and a beverage. it is renowned for being a cheap and easy option for many. however the more adventurous palate can opt for the ‘greggs sausage roll’ for a truly local flavour…

How should trans people organise

Hey everyone I've made a video and it's going to be up on my patreon tonight. It's about how trans people in the UK need to organise and my specific recommendations based on my own experiences organising plus about half a decade of movement journalism interviewing activists and organisers around the world.

I sincerely hope people will see it and take what it says to heart because we need robust community structures urgently in order to save trans lives. If you want to see it early click the link below to go watch and otherwise it'll be out later in the week