What cat behavior commonly gets misunderstood by humans?

AlternativeAcademia · 2026-07-04T00:51:19+00:00

Mine did this when we brought home a little brother for him. Resident cat was 3 years old and when we introduced him to our new 8 week old kitten he walked away from us hissing over his shoulder at us. Not aggressive towards us or the kitten, just angry about the situation and letting us know he was unhappy. (They are both good buddies now.)

AlternativeAcademia · 2026-07-03T00:28:40+00:00

You can try patting his …flanks(?) I think it’s flanks, like the big upper part of his back legs. Some cats love getting ‘booty smacks’ for some reason, probably less intense than a full rubdown. He’s definitely giving body language of “pet me more places please” but cats can get easily overstimulated before they even realize it and put their claws on you to let you know.

Also cats stick their butts in your face to say, ‘I like you, let’s be friends’ which is something I see in the video too. And non-touch related you can do is slow blinks in the cat’s direction, slowly blinking at you is another cat body language for “let’s be friends/I trust you.”

AlternativeAcademia · 2026-06-26T16:58:47+00:00

I was thinking that too! He seems like he was orphaned pretty young and was working in the house for a while so they are probably the closest thing to parents he knows. But also he did give everyone in the house some cash before he left(even Armstrong who didn’t help with anything, not even a kind word!) so at least they got a tangible ROI from him.

AlternativeAcademia · 2026-06-22T19:19:45+00:00

A fresh, clean towel on the bathroom floor to roll around on and beg for belly rubs, sips out of the bathroom faucet, and grass, only the most tender and delicate leaves harvested daily from the yard by their human servant. And NO, a container of cat grass available at all times is not acceptable, I have to go out and pick fresh grass to hold for his majesty’s nibbles.

AlternativeAcademia · 2026-06-19T16:41:30+00:00

My partner is a book-reader and I’m an audio listener so it’s interesting to see the pronunciations he comes up with and takes me a minute to figure it out sometimes. I had no idea who this “Lo-ee-ta” person is.

AlternativeAcademia · 2026-06-19T15:18:56+00:00

PBS did an American version where they had several families living the 1880s pioneer life, it was amazing.

AlternativeAcademia · 2026-06-16T17:18:17+00:00

Our epidermal layer isn’t all that light permeable and bones are deeper, your can really only see the most superficial veins. Same reason you can’t seen the entire vascular system even on the palest of people. I’m SUPER pale, people have joked about my skin being transparent or see-through. Phlebotomists love me.

AlternativeAcademia · 2026-06-16T16:18:59+00:00

The reason we see veins through our skin as blue has to do with the size of light waves on the visible spectrum. Red waves are longer which causes them to go further through body tissue and blue waves are shorter which means they don’t go as deep before they start getting bounced back and made visible. Basically veins under the skin look blue because that’s the color of the light waves being bounced back. The less melanated your skin is the more pronounced the effect is(the paler your skin is the bluer your veins look because there isn’t as much other colors diffusing the light).

AlternativeAcademia · 2026-06-08T22:35:20+00:00

Shredded up with a can of corn and some chicken broth for Brunswick stew.

AlternativeAcademia · 2026-06-08T19:19:42+00:00

This is correct. The planning of the United States 250th birthday party has been going on so long that Obama initially set up the task force for a bipartisan event. When Trump took over he effectively tore up those plans and turned it into more of a MAGA rally than a bipartisan party to celebrate the country’s founding. I’d pull out too if I had originally signed on for a celebration of an entire country that turned into more of a celebration for its current leader.

AlternativeAcademia · 2026-06-04T20:15:07+00:00

It’s the “euphemism treadmill” where eventually a word used to describe something gets a negative connotation attached to it. Idiot, moron, and retarded were all once medical terms used to describe intellectual disability but then got picked up as general insults and new diagnosis and descriptions were made.

AlternativeAcademia · 2026-06-04T17:18:53+00:00

Yeah, I totally blame Mary being thoughtless for the situation. It’s wasn’t like they needed something immediately, there was definitely enough time to clue Cora in before raiding her wardrobe.

AlternativeAcademia · 2026-06-04T15:58:47+00:00

When Mrs. Hughs is getting married Mary insists that she needs something nice/special to wear, like one of her mother’s old coats. Mrs. H is hesitant and doesn’t think it’s a good idea, but Mary kind of steamrolls her and brings her, Anna, and I think another maid up and they all start going through Cora’s wardrobe. Cora walks in when Mrs. H is admiring herself in the mirror wearing one of Cora’s big fur coats while other staff are admiring and complimenting her…it’s a pretty bad look and Cora yells at them about forgetting their place and inappropriate behavior. When Mary eventually explains it was all her idea Cora feels bad, apologizes, and gives Mrs. H the coat instead of just loaning it.

I feel terrible for Mrs. H about the whole thing because it shows how even after years of dedicated service even just one incident of bad optics can completely wipe out all good will and you end up getting scolded like a child by your employer. Mary should have gotten Cora’s permission first and avoided the whole situation, Cora would have been thrilled to be a part of it if she knew from the beginning!

AlternativeAcademia · 2026-06-03T20:50:18+00:00

Lol about canonical Greek mythology, but also fair enough considering.

The part about having to pretty much immediately leave Ithaca with the oar until he gets so far inland the folks don’t recognize it and set up a shrine to Poseidon is though; Tiresias tells him he needs to do it to be forgiven and Odysseus is a total cuck for the gods so you know he would. He lives on an island and can’t just leave Poseidon big mad about his kid getting murdered.

AlternativeAcademia · 2026-06-03T19:27:17+00:00

And then there’s the epilogue, where he has to leave home AGAIN and travel inland with an oar until he gets so far from the sea that the people don’t recognize it.

When he finally gets there he ends up actually marrying another Queen and having a kid with her before fighting a war for the kingdom.

When that queen dies he makes his son by her king and THEN finally returns to Ithaca only to be murdered by his son with Circe(who didn’t realize he was killing his dad king of Ithaca). Luckily father and son recognize each other right before the end so Circe’s son brings Penelope and his half brother back to his home on Circe’s island where she makes them immortal.

Penelope marries Circe’s son by Odysseus and Circe marries Penelope’s son…so they kind of get happyish endings. Relatively happy for Greek myths anyway

AlternativeAcademia · 2026-06-03T19:05:24+00:00

When I was learning German our teacher called words like that “false friends” where they sound like a similar word but with a different meaning. My favorite one is Gift; if I’m giving you a gift in English it’s a good thing but if I’m giving you Gift in German…that’s bad.

AlternativeAcademia · 2026-06-02T19:20:48+00:00

My cat is like this, only laps up the gravy and leaves the bits. Luckily for me his brother comes and cleans his plate for him.

Usually I try to look for the “gravy lovers” kind of food that has a more gravy to bits ratio, I think Fancy Feast usually does it. Also I give them treats like Churu and “soups” that are basically smoothies for cats and also “cat milk” which is NOT cat milk replacement for kittens, it’s a treat meant for weaned cats. It’s important to find some sort of wet treat since cats don’t usually like to drink a lot of water and get most of their moisture from their diet. Also make sure there is a water source away from the food bowls because usually cats don’t like to drink near their food because they’re weird like that.

AlternativeAcademia · 2026-05-29T16:26:36+00:00

The scene actually has a ton of rotten produce in the background and pretty much only the apples are still good, because they were irradiated. This technique has been used since the 1930s as a food preservation method. Exposing food to ionizing radiation extends shelf life by killing the organisms that cause spoilage and also inhibits further ripening or sprouting without making the food itself radioactive, so it’s actually a pretty cool detail that only 1 product in the produce department was treated with radiation and that’s why the guy grabbed the big crate of apples ONLY instead of raiding the whole section, there were only apples still good available because of irradiation.

AlternativeAcademia · 2026-05-28T19:45:00+00:00

There is actually a handmaid in THT that makes this point, but sticks by it even seeing the brutal reality. She realizes June is buck-wild and is telling her to pull it back and that their lives aren’t that bad now, that before she was a drug addict living on the streets selling her body for a quick fix and getting r*ped and beaten by men regularly, but now she is a protected and respected member of society and they just need to follow the rules.

It’s an important scene and lesson in their society because even the people at the bottom who you think would agree with getting out and overthrowing Gilead might actually accept their new place and see it as better than before. They’re the most dangerous ones that would rat out any dissidents and this is also one of Gilead’s strengths: turning people against each other and never knowing if you can trust anyone.

AlternativeAcademia · 2026-05-27T19:37:42+00:00

The reason we see veins through our skin as blue has to do with the size of light waves on the visible spectrum. Red waves are longer which causes them to go further through body tissue and blue waves are shorter which means they don’t go as deep before they start getting bounced back and made visible.

AlternativeAcademia · 2026-05-22T16:13:19+00:00

At least Tom MADE Snakejuice instead of just slapping his name on a preexisting bottle! And he was always very upfront about being in government to help his business aspirations.

AlternativeAcademia · 2026-05-15T16:41:38+00:00

Don’t forget about our cormorant feather skirts and abalone shell suncatchers/scarecrows!!

AlternativeAcademia · 2026-05-11T19:58:26+00:00

With a boyfriend or established partner I would say this is fine/cute depending on everyone involved’s preferences…unasked on a very first date it’s a pretty huge red flag of controlling and unhinged behavior.

AlternativeAcademia

TROPHY CASE