Tales of Insanity

she/her I am an art peddler.

[thefernhands]

If you're fifteen or older an still sleep with a stuffed animal please reblog this.

[sailorcuba]

the purest form of serotonin is when a cat looks at u and u go like “what?” and it meows at u

[arborealgargoyle]

like, that is a very unspecific response I still have no idea what you want but I applaud how adorably you meowed all the same, well done

[arborealgargoyle]

This post led me to reminisce on the nature of cat’s meowing, and I have a funny story

I befriended a feral cat once who had spent her life in the forest without human interaction. I was worried about her because she had a paw damaged from an old injury and was emaciated but obviously nursing kittens that were hidden away somewhere. It took me weeks of putting out food and sitting across the yard every evening for her to trust me even a little and when she decided we were friends and she expected dinner every night she started coming to my door and trying to call for me in the evening, but she didn’t meow. Why would she? Cats only meow naturally as kittens when their vocal chords/ears aren’t fully developed, adult cats communicate with vocalizations that aren’t audible to humans. She probably tried making noises I couldn’t hear to call me but ended up sticking to the one I always responded to- a horrible yowling growl that she had made at me when we first encountered each other in the forest. Except once we were friends she would make this noise while purring and rubbing affectionately against a nearby tree or the porch railing (because she didn’t want to touch me yet). This understandably freaked my family members out but I was touched that she had taken the time to find a way to basically yell FUCK OFF in an affectionate way.

Fast forward to when she finally trusts me enough to bring her hidden kittens out of the forest to me, long story short I gained their trust and put them in this big pen, that I had previously used to keep chickens in, so they’d be safe and to keep her from having another litter. Except she was already secretly pregnant again! (Fix your pets, guys, they make SO many babies) and ended up having her new babies in this pen. I kept my distance, sitting on the outside once they were born until she seemed comfortable enough to let me come inside. The kittens were a bit wild, hissing viscously at me as soon as they opened their eyes, but they warmed up to me. There were four of them and soon they all wanted to be the center of attention during the twice daily play sessions. I’d be playing with one and another would meow insistently behind me and I’d immediately answer them and give them love, teaching them that humans could be friends that answer their needs- making them adoptable once they were weaned. Mama cat (Artie) would just watch me play with them, and I guess she was doing some thinking because one day when they were about a month old I was playing with them and one meowed behind me. I was confused because I hadn’t realized there was a kitten behind me and when I turned, there wasn’t. The only cat there was Artie looking at me really intensely. I turned back around to the kittens and I heard the meow again, I turned back to Artie and responded in the way I always did with the kittens “yes baby?” And she meowed again in an exact imitation of her kittens! After that she would.not.shut.up. It was like she had cracked some kind of code, meowing for attention and snacks and just to say hi. Her two older kittens, the ones she’d had in the forest, had never meowed at me either but started to once they saw how I responded to their mom. and I find it endlessly fascinating because before that it had never occurred to me that cats only meow at humans because they were taught by other cats to keep meowing past kittenhood because that’s the best way to get a human’s attention.

Imagine befriending some weird giant with the wrong number of legs that you met in the forest who seems nice enough but doesn’t seem to be able to hear you, until your friend explains that all they can understand is fuck off! And I’m a baby give me love!

[ohlooh]

I love the headcannon that ghosts fight as a social activity, but I had an idea.

Attacking a baby ghost is one of the biggest taboos a ghost can do. Baby ghosts don't know the rules yet, they can't control their powers. Baby ghosts need a ghost parent to show them the ropes. And once they are ready, they are allowed to explore and set up a lair or a haunt on their own.

This will take place after Pariah's defeat, whether Danny is a Ghost King is up to you. I just imagine some ghost coming up to Danny and asking him who taught him, who was his parent because they obviously did a great job teaching him.

And Danny is just super confused and tells them he has no ghost parent. And then it comes out that all his rogues found a baby ghost and just assumed he was already fully grown and in the know.

Imagine the sweet sweet angst of them realising they commited the greatest crime a ghost can do. They attacked a baby, they never stopped to think about why he had such poor control in the beginning.

[impyssadobsessions]

LMAO YES Oh my. Imagine this quickly turns into rogues fighting to BECOME his ghost parents. Just becomes a competition at this point. Danny is very much still confused. Like was this because he defeated the ghost king or what? Like obviously he doesnt need one right? LOL imagine Young Blood tries to kidnap him too like >:U YAR YE RIGHT! No ADULTS! Young Blood older than most of them in ghost terms XD Even butting in while he's in class, and he's sweating like oh gawd. Not now- realizes its not for a fight but to baby him- Danny sweats even harder like THIS IS WORSE! They'll find out! Pfft then Vlad hears of this and tries to become his "parent" only for ghosts to find out that he also never had a ghost parent.. though now he has passed the point of needing one- Ghosts become more protective over Danny like ... NOPE we are not letting our kid become that. Vlad: what do you mean by that?! Skulker: You're emotionally stunted and Socially awkward. Danny: HA! Ember: You're not doing so hot either, babybop. Danny: What? e A e Just imagine Danny getting complete 180 as the ghosts coddle him, because they feel so guilty about hitting a baby. Danny prefers fighting. Fighting was easier. (All his ghost "parents" are so proud to hear him say that. )

[healthysharkshealthyocean]

Not to mention: now the baby is the ghost king

[fishtrouts]

Watch me get progressively lazier with the backgrounds on this one 🙈

Read “How to be a Dragon” on Webtoon!

[mf-dooom]

[yetanothergreyjedi]

that is the face of a man worried he will be next

[ashtraythief]

Good news, he was not next! In fact, she accepted him as her mate, he learned the crane mating dance and now every year, he artificially inseminates her with crane semen to expand the very endangered crane population. True story.

[luulapants]

Sorry, he WHAT? Imagine being this man's boss and having to sit him down like. Listen. Brian. We need you to fuck the bird. You have to act like you're excited about it.

[whetstonefires]

crane husband.....

[roach-works]

this is the diametric opposite of all those awful swan wife stories and i love it.

[alex51324]

(WalWaPo makes you jump through like three separate hoops before you can read the article, so I will share some of the highlights:

Walnut was born in a species-recovery breeding program in the 1980′s.  The program had crane chicks hand-raised by human volunteers, and at that time they did not fully understand the measures necessary make sure that the chicks do not imprint on humans and retain their identity as cranes.  

As a result, her keepers believe, Walnut does not recognize other cranes as members of her own species.  

It has not been proven that Walnut killed her previous suitors; however, there is a persistent rumor in the white-naped-crane-conservation community that she did.  

Because this species is highly endangered, and the gene pool of the captive population is small, it’s pretty important for the survival of her species that Walnut A) mate, and B) not kill a bunch of other cranes.  

The actual name of the keeper is Chris Crowe.

They both arrived at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute in 2004.   

Walnut immediately began paying special attention to Chris--and ignoring the eligible male crane in a nearby enclosure.  

Walnut initiated their courtship, performing the opening moves of a mating dance.  

Chris realized that if he reciprocated the mating dance, it might be possible to artificially inseminate Walnut with her participation and consent.  (The process normally involves restraining the bird.)  

It worked!  

Chris and Walnut have had five children, who were raised by other crane couples at the facility--sometimes the biological dad and his mate--both because it’s unclear whether Walnut would accept the chicks as her own, and because Chris is not equipped to be a Crane Dad.  

However, the Institute provides her with artificial eggs to sit on, and Chris takes his turn looking after them.  (This would not work with real eggs because he can’t sit on them properly, but Walnut seems to feel that he is on the job if he just stands over them.)

Chris accepts that he is pretty much married to this bird.  White-naped cranes live to be about 60, and they mate for life, so he knows he can’t retire while Walnut is alive.  (At the time of the article, Walnut was 36, and Chris 42.)  

[thesylverlining]

Legit cannot pick the funniest part of this

she has not been PROVEN to have killed her exes, but there is a PERSISTENT RUMOR (really officers she's simply DEVASTATED, she sobs, wearing a new feather boa unfortunately resembling her most recent deceased husband)

His name is Chris CROWE. (Mrs. Walnut Crane-Crowe?)

the mental images of a whole human man learning and performing the crane mating dance, and "sitting" on artificial eggs so she thinks he's performing his duties as a husband and father (and apparently OBJECTS if he does not?)

"chris, buddy, you gotta marry the possibly-murderous crane lady for the GOOD OF THE SPECIES." (alternately: "chris, my man! good news! we found you a very interested lady! She's 36, she's very spirited and independent, she holds a very important and rare status in her society! ...Is there a downside? WELL...")

chris sits any potential human partners down, like "my love, you must understand before we wed,,, i am already... Attached" (camera drifts wistfully to the above photo) "Lady Walnut and I have an,, Understanding... the relationship is open, but very committed"

[anais-ninja-bitch]

just had to explain this post to my father bc he thought my stifled laughter was a signal of illness.

well done, everyone, good game. hit the showers.

[largishcat]

[eshlimoriarty]

[lazorsandparadox]

Not only is he 'married' to walnut, this has apparently happened SEVERAL times, so he has MULTIPLE crane wives, none of which know about any of his other crane wives. This man is, for some unknown reason, irresistible to cranes

[ailurinae]

Uh oh looks like tumblr's video/image blocking software is on the move again

[nudityandnerdery]

Multiple crane wives? Apparently the crane internet is just pictures of this guy in "This is the ideal male body" memes.

[shower-thoughts-last-responder]

Oh my god! What if his crane wices find out about each other and have a two black cadilacs moment????

[awolfcalled-afoxanswered]

My mother has come full circle. Background: she hates fanfiction. With a fiery passion and will tell anyone who brings up the topic that it's a waste of time. As she's gotten older she has become more "conservative Christian" than she ever was when I was a child. Lastly, she has always wanted to be a writer but for the longest time it just wasn't in the cards. Flash forward to two days ago. She calls me up at "why are you even awake o'clock" to tell me that she has finally found her perfect book idea. She says she loves it so much. She can't wait to start. She tells me about it and it's literally a fanfiction of the bible. I'm not even kidding. I won't ruin the plot for her, but it's literally fanfiction. I want so badly to tell her that the part of my "autistic obsessions", that she hated so much that she made a point to ban them from the house, is literally her dream book idea. But I also love her enough that I am contemplating not telling her at all. I feel bad, but watching that joy turn to horrified realization would make every disparaging comment much less painful for a single glorious moment.

[aridante]

“After learning my flight was detained 4 hours, I heard the announcement: if anyone in the vicinity of gate 4-A understands any Arabic, please come to the gate immediately. Well—one pauses these days. Gate 4-A was my own gate. I went there. An older woman in full traditional Palestinian dress, just like my grandma wore, was crumpled to the floor, wailing loudly. Help, said the flight service person. Talk to her. What is her problem? We told her the flight was going to be four hours late and she did this. I put my arm around her and spoke to her haltingly. Shu dow-a, shu-biduck habibti, stani stani schway, min fadlick, sho bit se-wee? The minute she heard any words she knew—however poorly used—she stopped crying. She thought our flight had been canceled entirely. She needed to be in El Paso for some major medical treatment the following day. I said no, no, we’re fine, you’ll get there, just late. Who is picking you up? Let’s call him and tell him. We called her son and I spoke with him in English. I told him I would stay with his mother until we got on the plane and would ride next to her—Southwest. She talked to him. Then we called her other sons just for the fun of it. Then we called my dad and he and she spoke for a while in Arabic and found out, of course, they had ten shared friends. Then I thought just for the heck of it why not call some Palestinian poets I know and let them chat with her. This all took up about 2 hours. She was laughing a lot by then. Telling about her life. Answering questions. She had pulled a sack of homemade mamool cookies—little powdered sugar crumbly mounds stuffed with dates and nuts—out of her bag—and was offering them to all the women at the gate. To my amazement, not a single woman declined one. It was like a sacrament. The traveler from Argentina, the traveler from California, the lovely woman from Laredo—we were all covered with the same powdered sugar. And smiling. There are no better cookies. And then the airline broke out the free beverages from huge coolers—non-alcoholic—and the two little girls from our flight, one African American, one Mexican American—ran around serving us all apple juice and lemonade, and they were covered with powdered sugar, too. And I noticed my new best friend—by now we were holding hands—had a potted plant poking out of her bag, some medicinal thing with green furry leaves. Such an old country traveling tradition. Always carry a plant. Always stay rooted to somewhere. And I looked around that gate of late and weary ones and thought, this is the world I want to live in. The shared world. Not a single person in this gate—once the crying of confusion stopped—has seemed apprehensive about any other person. They took the cookies. I wanted to hug all those other women, too. This can still happen anywhere. Not everything is lost.”

— Naomi Shihab Nye (b. 1952), “Wandering Around an Albuquerque Airport Terminal.”

[ves-ljubi-junij]

x

[andejoe]

“Scans show that the winds are blowing completely sideways at forces strong enough to force all vegetation to grow along the ground.”

The human shrugged and continued putting on their atmospheric suit.

“It’s cold enough that the water is entirely frozen, even when underground.”

“You’re not talking me out of this, so stop trying,” the human insisted.

“But, the debris alone will kill you! The wind will throw you around like your pet does the cloth toy! The frozen surface will make it so you cannot grip the surface!”

The human grabbed their helmet. “I appreciate you’re trying to keep me safe, but that planet might hold the greatest discovery humans have ever seen. I’m going.”

“You’ll never make it underground. The surface conditions-”

“Are no worse than Antarctica, and my great grandfather traversed that. Besides, I can’t expect you to understand.”

“It’s an underground ice cave. There’s nothing of importance!”

The human finished securing their suit. “There’s a patch of flowers by that underground lake, with a suspiciously human looking skeleton next to it. I’m going down there to figure out who’s there, why, and what happened. Now you can either help me or leave me alone.”

“Fine, but I want it known that if you die, I will NOT be retrieving your body.”

[andejoe]

“How long has Damon been gone?” Ega asked.

Yalko looked up from the scans, knowing perfectly well what the answer was but still hesitant to share. “Damon’s scans show he is still alive, but he hasn’t moved in hours.”

Ega sat in quiet contemplation for a minute. Damon was the only human on the ship, but Ega was doubtful any of the crew onboard could survive long enough to retrieve him.

“Send drones to check if he’s alright,” Ega commanded.

Yalko looked confused. “What drones Captain?”

Ega looked towards the head engineer, and responded when she didn’t. “Damon has been working with engineering in secret to make drones out of spare parts.”

Owia turned to face the Captain. “I take full responsibility for the missing parts Captain Ega. He said he was bored. The human guide warned against a bored human. I decided it was better to sacrifice some parts to keep an eye on him than it was to let him figure out something on his own.”

Ega ignored the admission of guilt. “Are the drones flight ready?”

Owia relaxed. “Yes Captain. I’ll send them right away.”

The bridge watched the screen as Owia and several other engineers piloted the drones down to the planet. Two drones carried signal boosters and were staged, one right inside the storm, one further in, so the others could relay a strong vid feed back to the ship.

For several minutes, the only thing that could be seen was white. And then they finally broke through to the cave Damon had traveled to explore.

The cave appeared as plain as Yalko had tried to convince Damon it was. The drone was carefully piloted towards Damon’s tracker.

Damon himself came into view. He was kneeling on the ground, odd flowers sprouted in front of him. The skeleton the scans picked up did appear semi human, but not human.

“Can we establish contact?” Ega asked.

“No Captain. We have audio but no way to speak to him. He knows we’re here though. He must. These drones are not quiet,” Owia answered.

“What is he doing?” Ega asked.

“If I had to guess, sir, I’d say he’s performing a human funeral rite. Although I’m not overly familiar with any myself,” Yalko offered.

The bridge watched quietly for another hour as Damon knelt before the body, unmoving. He finally shifted.

“Oh my knees.” Damon slowly stood, stretching his body as he did. He turned to the drone. “Don’t worry guys, I’ll be back in just a bit.”

The drone accompanied Damon back to his ship. The vid cut out as the storms took out the two boosters.

“We’ve lost the drones,” Owia stated.

Yalko stayed watching Damon’s scan until he safely docked with the ship. As soon as medical was done checking up on him, he was brought to the bridge to explain.

“The skeleton was a chimp, a primate from earth. It was surrounded by snowdrops, or a variation of snowdrops at least. I brought back his tag.” Damon held up a scrap of cloth. A white flower sat next to it. “His name was Hamlet. I guess he was sent up back when humans were first trying for space travel. I don’t know how the hell he made it out this far, or survived the wreckage of his own crash, but anyone who fights to live that hard deserves a funeral. He deserves to be remembered.”

“Why did you spend so long with the skeleton? Surely human rites aren’t that long,” Ega asked.

“I wanted him to know what his sacrifice allowed us to accomplish, and how sorry I was that he died alone and scared. I wanted to spend some time with him so he wasn’t alone, and I left him a friend so he wouldn’t have to be lonely anymore.”

“What did you leave?” Ega asked.

Yalko studied the quiet human.

“Marceline,” Damon answered.

Yalko couldn’t help but blurt out in surprise. “You gave up your trinket? You don’t go anywhere without your trinket.”

Damon nodded. “Yeah, but she always did like the snow better anyway.”

Ega chose not to disagree with the human’s anthropomorphisms of dead animals and toys. “We shall send these findings off to the historians and alert the human council of this site. With luck, Marceline and Hamlet will not be alone for long.”

[thickness-protection-program]

We just caught our second ever real life image of a black hole and this one is in our own galactic neighborhood and the internet isn't memeing it into oblivion or even talking about it. Tragic, truly. Sad, even.

They're in love y'know. Not that you care

[thickness-protection-program]

The fact that I just posted hole and you still don't care

[awolfcalled-afoxanswered]

Rooftop Sunset by me!

[awolfcalled-afoxanswered]

Kari the Fox must Screm

[mugges]

[rivendellrose]

Anthropology major answer: “There absolutely was such a time! Modern humans and our ancestors shared territory numerous times over prehistory with cousin species like homo neanderthalensis, homo floresiensis, and many, many others!” 

Folklore student answer: “Also, almost all cultures have something like djinn, faeries, hulder, fox spirits, and other similar creatures who can appear at least human and are very, very dangerous to humans!” 

Both of these things are true, and may be connected both to the above and to each other. :D

[et-regina]

Biology majors: it’s dead bodies guys. Corpses.

[luidilovins]

Listen I hate this take on the uncanny valley so fucking much because many subpsecies of homonids lived in the same areas but some of them got along well enough to coexist and neandertals had enough desirable genetic traits to the point where human women (see here for a blanket on female vs male choosiness) would often pass up incel homosepian for the chad neandertal.

Genetics aside, various hominid species didn’t start visually looking all that different until 50,000 years ago, while under the skin changes began as early as 89,000 years ago (ie the development of the Y chromosome but I might be oversimplifying at this point) Point being, even our non-human cousins didn’t. look. that. different. from. us. Especially comparing the diversifying of humans themselves crossing trans continental as it was. And even then neandertals still had advantagious traits for living in the Eurasian hemisphere.

Also I digress, regardless of it being intentional, and with few perserved records from that chapter in our species’ history, I don’t like the implication that the uncanny valley effect stems from humans being inherently racist (for lack of a word for hatred of non-human intelligences). I know that sounds off the wall but prejudice and sense of superiority by birthright is vastly different than othering by means of the sucess of social groups and the need to compete for territory or resources. Racism is entirely a Eurpean fabrication and it’s been proven time and time again to be a cultural outlier and purposfully designed to further the agenda of corroded theocratical religious divinity (here, here, here) and the financial benifits of the exploitation of colonism that otherwise has not been replicated by other cultures to the same degree. (this is the only example off the top of my head but I’m know there’s more.)

You know what’s older than racism?

You know what’s more flesh crawling than neandertals?

fucking rabies

You know what LOOKS like a human but doesn’t ACT human ENOUGH? Do you know what might bite you and get you sick or turn you into something that also moves about in a non human way? Brain parasites that give you painful headaches and intensifies agression and confusion.

Say you’re a monkey and one member of your troop gets bitten by something. Later he starts twitching and swaying about. He keeps stumbling out of trees but barely feels anything when he hits the ground. He won’t eat sleep or drink. He makes guttural noises that keep alerting predators and he’s in obvious writhing agony. Suddenly he’s not your friend anymore. He doesn’t recognize you and he attempts to bite and claw at anything that moves.

Up until preventitive oral medications and vaccines were developed in the 1970s there was NOTHING stopping rabies and it still prevails today and kills hundreds of thousands of people in third world countries with limited medical resources a year. There’s no cure for rabies once youve got it and the only reliable diagnostic is a brain autopsy.

Rabies. TB. Leoprosy. Syphilis. Meningitis. Toxoplasmosis. Anthrax. Mercury Poisoning. Prion disease. These are all bad and in different varying degrees can cause limps, sores, agression, confusion or dazed trances, ambled pacing, convulsions or uncharacteristic behavior in humans.

Basically everything that people are terrified of when it comes to zombies. Vampires bite. Werewolves rip people apart. Demonic possesion? Easy. Changlings take the place of your loved ones.

Also I don’t think that it’s a conicidence that the things we find uncomfortable with the uncanny valley also just happen to line up with predatory behavior, smiling too wide or staring you down, blinking too slowly or moving towards you with a slow steady speed. It’s just a danger signal to keep other monkeys in a troop from getting bitten by an infected monkey. Simple as that.

After all what’s scarier? A dead body, or moving body that will MAKE you dead?

I’m not going to be a hypocrite by pointing out racism being excused as a stemmed human behavior without claiming that the deep seated primal fear of disease doesn’t make a good excuse for ableism as well. I mean we use othering to discern friend from foe, and then at some point decided that was a good enough excuse for racism. Theres legitimate proof that ancient homonids could and would be hospitible to the disabled out of compassion. The point of having these initial fears is to guage saftey measures first, but once someone or something is proven to be harmless that normally should be the end of it. I mean if an adult wild silverback gorrilla can look at a spycam and decide it’s chill after a moment of inspection then there’s really no excuse for any of us.

Healthy othering =/= newly invented racism.

healthy fear of infectious diseases =/= excuse to hate disabled people.

But yeah rabies is more likely the reason for the uncanny valley effect thanks for coming to my goddamn ted talk.

[quasisnipr1048]

Reblogging this version bc of sources and I personally think this makes for much more interesting (and terrifying) lore than any other post in this thread.

[sinfulnoodle]

Holy shit. I never thought of the “zombie virus” to be this take. It makes total fuckin sense. Shit

[writing-prompt-s]

Science fiction is full of first contact stories, but is there a such thing as LAST contact?  Decide exactly what that means, and write about it.

[elidyce]

It was too late, when the humans came. They were a young species, still exploring outwards, vital and thriving. 

We… were not. 

War had ravaged us, and sickness, and war once again, until our population dwindled beyond the point of recovery. We struggled against that, of course… we used genetic manipulation, and cloning, and even more desperate measures. None succeeded. When the humans came, we were sinking into apathy, only a few tens of us left. We had begun to discuss whether we should commit a mass suicide, or simply wait to fade away. 

And then the young species came, in their clumsy ships, and they asked us why we were so few. 

“We are becoming extinct,” we told them. “We have passed the point of recovery.” 

It is custom to avoid the races that are dying – once a species reaches the point of inevitable extinction, even war is suspended, and the fiercest enemy pulls back. The custom was born of plagues and poisons that could be carried forth from a dying world to afflict a healthy one, but it has the implacable weight of tradition now. After we are gone, after they have waited for the prescribed period of quarantine, there will be a fight for our world. Habitable worlds are few, and this is a good one, with plenty of free groundwater and thriving vegetation. It is a bitter thing to be grateful for the custom that allows us to die in peace, but we are grateful.

But the humans don’t know that custom, and they do not leave. They seem distraught, when we tell them we are dying, and try to offer their aid - but their technology is behind ours, and it is too late. When they realize that they can’t save us, though, they do something that bewilders us. 

Keep reading

[awolfcalled-afoxanswered]

I love this

[awolfcalled-afoxanswered]

My husbands weird dream

OMG I just woke up James from what I thought was a nightmare... the words that came out of his mouth as he woke are as follows: "I was fighting Jackie Chan to protect Rome... I was losing...cocky bastard... don't laugh, you couldn't beat him either"

he's now snoring once more

I'm still dying

literally laughing so hard I'm in tears

[awolfcalled-afoxanswered]

A promise. From me to you. Whoever you are. If you are my patient, I will always do my best. No matter what.

[awolfcalled-afoxanswered]

HAPPY HALLOWEEN FROM FEMINA AND BEARDFRIEND!!