some of my favorite black cat motivationals :3

Visiting family for the weekend, including my seven year old niece, who is obviously the most special and incredible child on the planet

Anyway, she really, really loves it when I tell her stories. She loves stories anyway, and at first this manifested as "stories about Tad-Cu Bryn", aka my father (her grandfather) who died before she was born. This has been a lovely way to keep his memory alive, and she adores every story - she has her favourites, which she will request.

Then it became apparent that she specifically loves me telling her stories. She'll happily ask others for them too, but from me she just wants any anecdote at all; which of course is wonderful and demonstrates that she is a child of impeccable taste and wisdom and brilliance, but also she has ADHD and the energy reserves of a seven year old and so this gets Tiring very quickly

Yesterday, in the car on the way back from the wildlife centre, she asked for one of my longer stories, and I was like hey, how about we try something different?

And she was like, no, tell me a story about Tad-Cu Bryn

And I was like, this will be a brand new story and you get to play it and help me tell it

And she was like, explain

So I gave her three characters to choose from. The first was a warrior with a sword she could name, who was nonetheless dyspraxic. The second was a gymnastic elf who could commune with trees but was afraid of heights. The third was a dyslexic witch whose spells sometimes go wrong when she spells the words wrong.

She picked the witch. I pulled up an online d20 on my phone. I went to start, and she insisted my mother had to play as the elf.

So I told them that the new queen of the kingdom had called for them, because their palace treasury had been robbed - specifically, a single enchanted coin that brings luck and wealth to a ruler's reign had been stolen. And tales of enchanted coins were suddenly emanating from across the land, so each one needed investigating until the right coin was found.

It turns out kids who like stories will absolutely lap this shit up. She was enthralled. It was the simplest story - they had to get into a bank, revive some unconscious gnomes, then enter the vault, find the coin that had been deposited into it, then get back to the queen. Enough to fill a half hour car ride, basically, but she managed to fill it with all the wacky hijinks you get from a ttrpg, particularly when she tried to smash a door down with a hammer but rolled a 1.

We finished with the queen saying it wasn't the right coin, and then my niece demanded we go again, this time with her playing as a sapient reticulated python. That time we made it all the way to the final boss fight, which was a sorcerer who created a big coin monster out of loads of coins; I asked my niece what she wanted to do, and she described graphically how she wanted to constrict and eat the sorcerer and immediately rolled a 19. So, sure! Okay. The sorcerer is now very dead. The coin monster, though, was still there, and as my niece tried to say she would do the same thing, I was like, no, you're a snake and you just ate. You're now immobile.

At this point, my sister advised her to regurgitate the sorcerer.

Great! said my niece. I'm going to do it at the coin monster.

And rolled a 20.

So she projectile vomited a dead sorcerer into the coin monster, and won the day.

Anyway, today she immediately demanded we play "the game with the story where we choose", and my brother in law is now asking me how he can do this with her ("Are you making it all up as you go along??"). But yeah, turns out, this is a fantastic way to entertain a seven year old. Vague ongoing quest, then three steps: get into (place), resolve (minor puzzle), boss fight to finish. Boom. Easy.

So far I've done a bank, a tavern, and an art gallery (it featured an exhibit that was just a room full of slippery banana skins). I'm going to do a pirate ship next

in happier pride news i actually found this deeply heartwarming

that's solidarity baybeeee

Further context: Durham city council (Reform UK) cut funding and support for Pride. The Durham Miner's Association and other trade unions raised enough money for Durham Pride 2026 to go ahead - a direct call back to when Lesbian and Gays Support the Miners (LGSM) raised money for mining communities when Margaret Thatcher seized union funding during the miner strikes of 1984-85.

At the 1985 Labour party meet, the motion to support LGBT rights as a party was passed due to a block vote from mining unions.

Stephen Guy, the chair of the Durham Miners’ Association, said that when it became apparent Durham Pride was under threat, he took it upon himself to “encourage the trade union movement to step up and do the right thing, and stand shoulder to shoulder with the LGBT+ community […] They not only raised funds for us, but came to our communities, uplifted our spirits when they were down, and showed their solidarity.”

OH MY GOD?????😭🥹

#better than any disney movies

Feeling so normal about this

Sometimes I see article headlines where it’s like “wholesome: people crowdfund lifesaving treatment for patient” and it’s like. “:/ i wish lifesaving treatment was affordable” but this is just. So good and pure and wonderful??? The kids get to see their pebbles picked and the penguins get fun pebbles??? I’m crying, there is still good in the world

This is just cute

I love when people have fun 💖

This is one of those stories you talk about twenty years later

They don’t even know how cute they are 🥹

Obviously I want you to take care of your pets and make sure they get food and fresh water on a regular basis, but cats being huge drama queens and screaming hysterically at you and acting like they’re tragic famine victims who haven’t eaten in weeks and are about to drop dead from starvation right mcfuckin now, because you’re 10 minutes late feeding them is always going to be one of the funniest things to me

the cat who lives at the vet clinic i volunteer at was mad yesterday because his dinner was half an hour late due to a busy day. he proceeded to go to all the (empty dw) garbage cans and tried to knock them over and started desperately scavenging for scraps of food because obviously no one loves him or cares about him and if he must eat garbage to survive then so be it

not food related, but one time my cat cried at me for 20 minutes before i worked out that the reason why she was upset was because there was a coat hanger on her favourite cushion

This is absolutely beautiful and changed my life, thank you so much. Please protect her from hangers at all costs

wow. am STORVING and humaines here making joke laugh at cate honger ?!

My cat is a social eater who is not food motivated at all, so I was baffled when I first got him because he didn’t seem to care about food but he would SCREAM at me for hours when I knew his bowl was full. Any time I went to double check that he did indeed have food, he’d book it to the bowl and snarf like his life depended on it, but as soon as I walked away he’d follow me screaming again.

Eventually I figured out that he just wanted a dining companion and was screaming about how we’re a family and families eat together, god damnit! I moved his food bowl under my computer desk and it fixed the problem. But if I’m ever out for more than 12 hours I’ll come home to find him in a passive-aggressive kitty huff because dinner has been ready for hours but he’s been trying to be considerate (unlike some humans) and waiting for me to eat it. 

My cats are indoor cats. Being indoor cats, they can’t go outside to hunt for food (mice, rats, birds, etc) to gift to my sister and I.

But they know that the kitchen has food. They know where the easily accessible cat food is. And obviously my sister and I are just Really Big Stupid Hairless cats.

So if my sister and I go without leaving our rooms for too long? My cats will sit outside our doors and scream for our attention, lead us to their food bowls, and then only stop the screaming and leading once they see us sit down at the table and eat something. Because they think we’re hungry.

Your cats are the sweetest beings on the Earth, it makes my heart warm knowing that they exist. They love you very much and they care so much, they want you healthy and happy and will make sure you don’t neglect yourself and oh god they are so perfect. Real pure love exists, I am happy to be alive today.

Millions of Years of Immutable Evolutionary Law: “Cats shall have litters of many offspring at one time. Some will be weak or stricken with disease--they will perish to allow the stronger siblings to escape, and to satiate other predators in order to reduce competition and encourage the existence of more capable adults.”

Human Beings:

important note: this cat's full name is breakfast sandwich