my brain works like the spirit box from buzzfeed unsolved

mostly static, sometimes disembodied words like “pastry” and “crime”, leaves you guessing

The drama. The injustice. Free him

Every time I see a video of a cat that’s just meowing constantly, I think about how they developed meowing exclusively as a way to communicate with humans.

Past kittenhood, I mean. Kittens meow for the same reason human babies cry; to tell their mom “I have needs and wants and I’m so so small and I hardly even know it!” But adult cats have other ways to communicate with each other. They only continue to meow because they realize it’s the only part of their language that gets have anything close to the correct response from humans.

Anyway. Whenever I see videos like this where a human and cat are doing that sort of call-and-response routine, like-

-so on and so forth, like I dunno, it just hits different somehow. Like it’s not the same as dogs barking at humans, dogs barking is a “natural” dog instinct (to my knowledge), but adult meowing is a specifically domestic behavior. They developed it for us. They know we can’t really understand them, the same way the mom in this video knows the cat can’t understand her, but they meow at us anyway. And this cat’s plaintive meows are it begging to be set free of the grooming torture, obviously, but sometimes it seems like it’s just a call and response.

Like you’ll see a video of a human talking at a cat, and the cat meows back between sentences, and the cat is like lying with its eyes half closed or sitting with its back turned to the human and it’s meowing back anyway and you stop and think about it and realize that they’re doing the same thing.

The cat and the human talking at each other when they don’t need anything from each other, that’s- that’s just conversation. It’s literally cross-species small talk, because both the cat and the human are engaging in it just for the sake of hearing a response back.

They can’t understand each other at all, but they continue to communicate purely for the sake of communication. For the pleasure of each other’s company. For the sake of socializing with each other. We don’t even understand each other, and it’s still small talk.

And you think about that and you remember again that adult cats without humans don’t meow and it’s just their human company comfort language and you cry.

Oh fuck I’m so sorry I didn’t realize I reblogged this from you lmao

No worries, I’m still happy you thought of me!

Jesus came back and said inflation is illegal

both kinds?

…there’s two?

hang on let me google something real quick

we should all implode and die forever actually

I am an old person and tumblr is the porch

@ mutuals this is how i see us

me and my mutuals

Literally anyone on still on here from 2012 or earlier

me and the mutuals watching staff at work

I feel like this would be a slippery slope towards making it illegal for people to choose to not vote.

that’s already how it is in australia

That’s just so fucked up. :( Do certain medical conditions exempt you?

?????? why is it be fucked up to have compulsory voting? that’s the way it is in most democratic countries? it’s a part of being a citizen, like paying taxes and obeying speed limits? the fine for not voting is only like $50 and because of the compulsory voting law, our country bends over backwards to make it accessible: it’s always on a weekend, lasts most of the day, and is set up at schools and community centers so there’s one within easy reach of almost everybody. you can also mail your ballot or vote early if you’ll be out of the country on the day. like, IT’S EASY TO VOTE, and the penalty isn’t even that ridiculous. i don’t understand why the usa doesn’t have this, except obviously it would make it harder to literally stop minorities from voting.

I think we Americans tend to forget that a lot of other countries don’t actively work to make it harder to vote.

Adding to this here, in Australia you don’t have to vote. Or, more precisely, there’s no way they can tell if you ruined your ballot. You have to turn up, get your name marked off, but you can put a line through the ballot if you don’t think any of the candidates are worth voting for. Or do this: 

Or this: 

Or this: 

You have get your name crossed off (if you don’t want to wear the fine), but you don’t have to make your vote counted if you’re opposed to it. 

And it is so, so easy to vote. Stuck at work or on holidays? That’s fine. Do a postal vote.  Stuck in hospital? That’s fine. They’ll go to you. Stuck in an old people’s home and can’t get around? Again, they’ll go to you. It’s amazing to me that it’s so hard for so many Americans to actually vote. If you make it compulsory, than at least the government is obligated to provide you with the means to vote. 

And look, I get it. Sometimes I don’t want to vote either. But I suck it up, I walk three minutes down the street, and I hope that this year they’re selling lamingtons again. Oh, and I buy a democracy sausage, which, even if all the candidates suck, makes the effort of turning up pretty worthwhile. 

ALSO, you can see even on the fucked up ballots that you NUMBER CANDIDATES IN ORDER OF PREFERENCE. There’s no need to calculate whether I would be throwing away my vote on the candidate that I most agree with if they’re not from a major party. I can say, I want that independent person to get in, but if not them, give me Big Party A, and if not them, that minor party person is still better that Big Party B, and I’m not giving any preference to the Lunatic Fringe Party.

Our system certainly has some issues still, but I can show up to somewhere nearby, line up for a few minutes (if at all), vote exactly in line with my values (on paper, leaving a paper trail that can be recounted), and then buy a sausage and some home made cupcakes on my way out.

A country’s voting system matters a hell of a lot and every citizen deserves one that makes it easy to vote and results in a government that is representational and accountable.

And by the way, one time I had a bad asthma flare-up on Election Day and didn’t make it to my polling station. I got my fine in the mail, I filled out the form explaining why I couldn’t vote, no more fine. I would rather have, you know, expressed my preference for who should run my country, but they were cool with the fact that I couldn’t do it that day.

“oh no, what if people actually have to participate in picking the government officials who will impact their lives” jesus christ

For the last time, for everyone who still doesn’t understand: not voting is not a tool of resistance, it’s a tool of surrender.

this emerged in my head when I was trying to drive

May I propose the fill ins?

#i am undiagnosing myself with 'adhd' and rediagnosing myself with 'cursed by wizard'

Trust me, speaking as someone adjacent to the center of this diagram, you can be both.

type of animals in mud and Enjoying It Too

Who else #GoopedUp tonight!

take a second to imagine if this had happened in 2013. stop scrolling and please just sit with that for a moment, i urge you

tumblr would have been rendered uninhabitable to human life

I could fix him *leaves him overnight in a tupperware full of dry white rice*

I do feel really bad for like, gif makers and such who are just outside of the current tumblr zeitgeist and therefore not seeing the evolution of the unhinged way the rest of us are talking about men. Like I bet their activity feeds are so baffling and concerning rn.

Imagine being a normalish sort of person on here and some guy like me reblogs your Varric Tethras gifset from 2016 with #puts him in the rice.

"if they hating let them hate and watch the money pile up" - spongebob

TOMORROW IS HALLOWEEN!!!

WHAT THE FUCK IT’S CHRISTMAS EVE WHY DID SOMEONE REBLOG THIS

TOMORROW IS HALLOWEEN!!!

TOMORROW IS HALLOWEEN!!!

🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃

TOMORROW IS HALLOWEEN!!!

🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃🎃

TOMORROW IS HALLOWEEN

ya being kafkaesque isn’t about turning into a bug it’s about how if you turned into a bug your boss would still be like “ok but we’re short staffed can u still come in”

A ballerina and a witch

your mentality is literally a result of intestinal bacteria but you wouldnt get it tho. yuor bacteria wouldnt get it

Just so everyone is aware this is barely a joke. Your stomach bacteria have a huge impact on your brain chemistry.

That’s cool. Why are they making me sad

Call that a microaggression

i encourage you to do whatever you want until someone kills you. this has worked out spectacularly for me

If u want to write a story about a character that's just you but hotter with a dark twisted backstory and magical powers and a pet falcon or something, I think u should just go ahead and do that. Who's gonna stop you? The government?? Fuck the police.

What if someone barges in, points at said character and scream, “Mary Sue!”

Tell them to come back with a warrant

Everytime I lay on my bed I feel like that one emo boy laying on his bed

me when I lay on my bed