Many-bugs - Just A Random Fangirl

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.

Welcome to Build-a-Frog!

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If I could have your attention for one minute I want to talk about an upcoming game I’m REALLY excited about

It’s called Draconia and it’s an open-world survival sandbox RPG game where you play as a dragon.

If you’re like me you probably love video games and such that feature dragons BUT get frustrated that often the focus is on slaying dragons, or on human political intrigue, or some other non-dragon nonsense.  Have no fear.  Draconia is going to give us everything we crave.

It looks SUPER pretty 

Choose one of several dragons, hunt to feed yourself, find water sources to drink from and develop your character through various tasks and events.

Draconia features: 

Character Customization: Give your character a custom name, change its pattern, colors and body parts, such as horns or tail tips or choose from pre-made textures.

Character Leveling: Complete tasks, quests and events to level your character and make it stronger. Spend talent points to increase your dragon’s traits.​

Optional PvP: Play on servers without being afraid of being attacked by other players. Simply disable PvP in your character profile and enable it if you want to have a battle with someone else. 

Group and Clan System: Go on your journey and bring your friends with you by inviting them to your group or creating your own clan, which allows you to announce events and keep track of your members progress. 

Create useful items:  Build a hoard to hide all your treasures in, create objects which improve your dragons stats or add temporary buffs.

Nesting: Build and defend a nest and raise your own dragon hatchling.

Questing: Find and complete several one-time and repeatable quests.

​Interactive Environment:  Interact with several objects in your environment to gain useful buffs or uncover more parts of the story.

Dragon Dens: Earn yourself a place you can call home. Unlock and upgrade your own den to live a more comfortable dragon life.

It will have a single-player offline mode and an online mode where you can interact with others, either with or without PVP.

Your character is customizeable and if they meet their stretch goals, new players could even start out as hatchlings.  If you pledge enough money on their crowdfunding campaign, you can get custom decorations, items, even another species!

You will be able to play as many different species, 6 species of dragon and various smaller wildlife.  Another stretch goal is to build a humanoid species that has mechanics for farming and dragon breeding and riding.

Draconia is currently trying to fund its project through Indiegogo. (Link)   They are not offering exclusive content as a play-to-win system and nothing will be behind a paywall.

This game looks extremely beautiful, well thought out, and fun to play.  The creators clearly care a lot about this and have put their heart and souls into it.  I want to see this happen.  It will be released on Steam.  If this seems like something you would like to play or exist, please consider contributing to their Indiegogo or Patreon, or reblogging this to get the word out!  Thanks :)

Link to Indiegogo (the main campaign)

Link to their Patreon

Link to their website

Link to their Discord Server

Link to their Reddit page

Link to their Twitter

@eddsworldweek They cosplayed as pokemon to win a prize…. After drawing straws, Tom unfortunately has to cosplay as meganium. While Edd and Matt get to cosplay their previous evolutions.

“Moooom! …can you get my toy for me?” (via qoolove520)