#thinking it would be just like a housecat. But a house cat would also eat your face advantageously. A bobcat wont wait for you to die

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

Hello Stranger. Whom I have never met.

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[albatris]

Tell me about grub! I love grub!

grub!!!!

here she is, courtesy of the lovely @polyacerine :3c

Grub is Nat's rescue kitty from a local shelter! she was a..... gift? surprise? I guess?? from Quinn, although not without ulterior motives >:3

basically Quinn and Alex are attempting to win Nat’s trust and get him to depend on them or even just to LIKE them to start with, but they don’t really. know. an awful lot of useful information about him because he’s sorta paranoid and cagey. two facts they do know are that 1. he likes animals, especially cats and 2. he’s excruciatingly pathetically lonely

Quinn wants to integrate Nat into some of their own social circles and help him make some friends, but for the first week or so after turning he’s too nervous to leave his apartment except for work. he’s super fucking intimidated by other vampires, Alex included, and he doesn’t want anything to do with humans because of his newfound tendency to want to eat them

so Quinn eventually gives up trying to coax this anxious trainwreck of a vampire into getting out of the house and starting to be a person again n is just like. fuck it. maybe I’ll just throw a cat at him?? he’s just spiraling into a crisis all on his own, he’s barely willing to talk to us, and this will maybe be a foot in the door in terms of getting him comfortable being around other living creatures again??

so they get him a cat. Nat is home one day when a delivery of pet supplies arrives and he's like "nononono this must be a mistake I didn't order this and I don't have a pet" and the delivery person is just like. well it's addressed to you so! good luck!

and Nat is busy going hhuhhh???? about this when Quinn arrives and asks to be buzzed up to the apartment, and convince him by going “hey I brought you some blood for snacks <3” but then when they get up there they’re like “AND ALSO HERE’S A PET CAT TOO”

anyway, he’s initially super nervous about having a cat living with him although he LOVES her. because he doesn’t want to accidentally hurt her if he gets stressed out or hungry ;-; Quinn talks him into it by insisting that she is the least appetising creature on the planet because she is Genuinely Just That Ugly and also smells real weird. like literally what vampire would want to eat this. Nat is like hmmm yeah ok

so he acquires a cat!

she was a stray before she got to the shelter n has obviously been through some rough times, though has clearly been a housecat in the past, she loves people :3 she’s old! she’s got elevator music in her brain! she’s blind in one eye and near deaf in both ears! she’s got scars! she’s missing half her tail! she’s fluffy! she likes to murder shoelaces and make beeping noises!

she’s a bit skittish at first, but doesn’t take long to warm up to Nat c: she’s very VERY needy and affectionate, she cries whenever he’s not home, and will snuggle right up next to him on the pillow when he’s asleep. they’re both very glad to have a friend I think c:

vampires are creatures who are instinctively drawn to being warm and cosy and cuddly, so vampires and cats pair well together hehe

he can’t go anywhere in his apartment without her trailing after him and yelling for attention and love. Quinn finds this vaguely annoying. Nat loves it and it makes his heart melt n this weird little cat is responsible for like 90% of his emotional wellbeing. Grub stops him from spiraling too badly.... like, Nat just likes to feel needed and useful and loved, and he enjoys having something to look after and be responsible for :3 plus it's a friendship that's a little easier to manage with his schizotypal anxiety and paranoia, not that Quinn put THAT much thought into it

man idk if Nat actually genuinely doesn’t believe Grub is ugly or whether he just refuses to narrate as such. either way, he’s horrified when other people insult her, but like. yeah. he’s well aware most people find her somewhat bad to look at, and he takes great joy in showing people the EXTENSIVE collection of Grub pictures on his phone and going “isn’t she cute?? isn’t she the most beautiful cat you’ve ever seen?? she’s perfect and adorable right?? right??” in a cheerful-but-increasingly-threatening voice. and watching people squirm and lie through their teeth. because he’s a bastard and he finds it very funny

he does this to some random guy Quinn’s kidnapped and handcuffed to a chair for him to eat at one point and this poor guy is like. fucking sweating bullets and internally screaming just sort of like……. what kind of sick power play is this…. is this normal vampire behaviour….. is this guy going to rip my throat out if I don’t say his cat is cute convincingly enough….. what the fuck is happening

whereas Nat’s thought process is just “I have zero interest in actually eating this guy but he is handcuffed to a chair with no means of escape which means I can ramble to him as long as I want. of course I am going to take advantage of this for a while lmao”

hmmmmm and one wholesome fact is that Nat often makes Grub extremely fancy little homecooked meals when he feeds her. like. healthy safe meals for cats! but still just. yep. he lovingly cooks for her frequently. this is also funny because Nat is a vegetarian and refuses to cook meat for any of his friends (except Lloyd occasionally), but WILL cook meat specially for his cat

he will also make up little nonsense songs about how cute and special she is and he will sing these to her while dancing with her around the apartment. it is incredibly silly and incredibly cute. I cannot emphasise enough how much he adores her

aaaaand this has been Grub Facts with monday!!! have an excellent day :D

[charliemwrites]

I never pass up an opportunity to show off my two stinkers. This is Rowdy. He’s just a little man. His only passion in life is getting comfy and eating corn on the cob. I taught him how to sit and shake hands in one evening because he’s so easily food motivated but it back fired because now anytime he see you with any food in your hands he’ll come sit right in front of you and keep raising his paw to shake higher and higher the longer you don’t let him have the thing. 10/10 the most innocent being to ever live. We’re convinced he only understands Swedish. Everyone who sees him always says he’s so handsome and elegant looking but he’s actually composed of 90% just weird gurgly noises and he will walk right up to you and sneeze in your face…

And this is Ridley. She’s a rat. Got her from West Virginia. Former street cat turned professional housecat bully. Her favorite activities include chasing Rowdy into a corner and then rolly pollying in front of his cowering frame to taunt him, and walking around the house with her little green mouse while yelling at the top of her lungs. She’s half the size of Rowdy and has remained kitten sized her whole life to the point where, combined with her sewer rat tendencies, makes us think the people at the shelter may have duped us into taking home vermin. A real Stuart little situation going on. Has mastered the look of judgement. (Also was a pregnant mom cat when they trapped her so please enjoy this photo of her with her babies)

Bonus cat: Biscuit. She’s the feral cat in our new house who’s in love with Rowdy and will not leave our back deck. Stares into our house 24/7 and leaves the glass all smuggled from pressing her noses up against it every time she sees Rowdy. Refuses to come inside the house. Just wants to sit on the deck and look longing into the house. Has been seen sitting side by side with the raccoons who live under our deck. An old lady who I want to put into a nice cat retirement community (aka our home lol)

Excuse me I adore them!!! Rowdy is indeed very handsome and distinguished. He would look so good in a lil bow tie. I’m sobbing at that picture of him in a sweater.

And Ridley’s eyes!!! Absolutely gorgeous. She’s like a rude little dumpling! Her pink collar is also everything to me, matches her fur perfectly.

And poor biscuit. She’s just a girl in love!!! And she’s so little and sad looking?? Agh my heart, I can’t take it!!

[deathmetalunicorn1]

Hi there, I love your writing and I was wondering if it’s alright if I request a Morticia Reader with Yandere Jack (My Baby Boy), Odin, Poseidon, Chen Gon (He screams Gomez), Hades, Loki, Beelzebub, Buddha, Hajin and Zerofuku (Platonic, she basically adopted Zero and cares for him like he’s her son)

She’s known to be elegant, aloof, poised, deadpan, well-mannered, finds beauty in the macabre, though polite she’s unafraid to state her opinion and sees no reason to apologize for her loved ones’ lifestyle

She’s also fiercely loyal and protective of her family and is in a deep romantic relationship with (Love), and only had eyes for him, she has a unique outlook on life and has a personal green house for all the carnivorous and poisonous plants she grows and cares fondly for

-Beautiful, dark, deadly, passionate, loving, unique, all were words used to describe you and all of them were true.

-You were like the moon against the dark night sky, surrounded by pitch black darkness, bright but eerie and quiet.

-You found enjoyment in the dark and macabre, but to you, they were normal, beautiful things, skulls, poisonous flowers, dangerous plants, death, how lovely.

-Many thought you were odd by the way you dressed and carried yourself, always wearing elegant black gowns paired with matching jewelry with spider or coffin motifs. However, sometimes you would wear different colors when it was warmer out, just a slightly lighter shade of black with an umbrella, you didn’t need any unwanted color in your complexion.

-Your tone was always even and deadpan, never showing emotions the way others do, so nobody could ever tell if you were joking or not about feeding someone to your kitty-cat, an actual lion that you kept around who was like a housecat with you and those he knew, but vicious and violent with strangers.

-Many made comments that you would be attractive if you were ‘normal’ but where’s the fun in that? It’s much more fun to keep others guessing- keeping them on your toes.

-Speaking of keeping others on their toes, if anyone was to visit your private greenhouse, they would need to watch where they step or risk losing a few.

-Your garden was notorious for being filled with poisonous and carnivorous plants, and not just little things like little Venus Fly Traps, no you had a giant 4 ½ foot one that would eat people if they got close enough if you hadn’t fed them yet!!

-However, due to their healthy fear of your garden, you didn’t have many visitors, which you liked, less of a risk of your babies getting trampled or damaged.

-Your lover liked you the way you were, you were unapologetically unique, and he loved it, you were so different from other women and that’s what drew him to you.

-At first he did think you were a little odd, intimidating was a word he liked to use, as you weren’t afraid to speak your mind and there was always an air around you, a silent warning, but as time went on, he fell hard for you.

-Jack- He adores everything about you, from the way you dress and carry yourself, to your hobbies, to your passion, he had never met someone so bright but also so dark before. You were brutally honest and so full of life; your colors were stunning to him, and he loved to just gaze at you. Your wit and charm never failed to bring a smile to his face, and he knows that he could tell you anything and you would give your honest opinion, but you would always support him. You would bond over Shakespeare and tea, him reading to you while you knitted quietly, a soft, content smile on your lips. Fiercely protective of you, would not hesitate to throw words or hands with others if they would dare insult you, and you found it refreshing that he would defend your honor, even going as far as challenging them to a duel.

-Odin- You adored your darling lover, from his darling ravens, his rugged looks, seemingly endless knowledge, and his unfaltering loyalty to those he cares about. He loved your passion, he could tell when you were happy, tending to your plants or talking long moonlit walks, and while others would only see you with a neutral face, he could tell you were beaming. Odin preferred the quiet, so you were a perfect match, he could sit with you in your greenhouse, minding your plants that could be nippy with him, and ‘read’, holding an open book while looking at you, watching your fluid movements flittering about. You were the only one, besides Odin, that Muninn and Huginn would perch on, sitting on your shoulders, enjoying your attention and affections. When Odin wanted attention he would just wrap his arms around you from behind and just hold you, which you thought was cute, but you enjoy it as well.

-Poseidon- You didn’t bother Poseidon with loud squeals and fawning eyes, like other women who would eye him, you were calm, mature, and so elegant, while being dangerous at the same time. You would hesitate to threaten to poke out another woman’s eyes if she didn’t keep them to herself, and due to your even tone she couldn’t tell if you were serious or not, until you held up your hand, nails pointed out at her. You actually made Poseidon laugh that day, and that was also the day you made him blush when you stepped into his arms, telling him how good he looked smiling. You didn’t force Poseidon to do anything, only asking him, like if he wanted to go on a moonlit walk with you, and he appreciated that, as previous women were always demanding him to do things with them. You would never force your lover to do anything he didn’t want to as you respected him and he respected you for that.

-Chen Gong- At first he was intimidated by you, you were so beautiful and so confident, he felt like he wasn’t worthy to stand in your presence. However, once he found out more and got brave enough to ask you out, he was instantly head over heels in love. He would gaze at you like you hung the stars in the night sky, lighting up his life. He was the opposite of you, cheerful and warm, he was like sunshine while you were moonlight, but he adored everything about you, how you dressed, what you did on a normal day, tending to your garden, you were stunning. If you were in the same area, he couldn’t look away from you, his eyes were always on you if you were around. He never failed to flatter you, bringing you flowers and jewelry, thinking that you would like them, “These roses made me think of you, so I brought you some!” and you always appreciated his gifts, pressing kisses to his face, leaving lipstick marks all over his face, which always makes him melt.

-Hades- You were enamored when you learned that your lover was the king of the underworld, ruling over the land of the dead, and Hades loved that you didn’t mind. His kingdom was beautiful, dark and mysterious, but also so homey and cozy feeling. Hades adored your elegance, your even tone and voice, you were perfection in his eyes, everything and anything you did, he was watching with hearts in his eyes. As he loves you, you are the same for him, he’s regal, calm, a true leader, but also passionate about the things he enjoys. So protective of you, will not hesitate to come to defend your honor, should someone dare to insult it, especially in his presence, it was those rare moments that you would see that Hades was indeed a king. Once he was done dealing with the offending party, however, he was right back to you, kissing the palm of your hand, inquiring if you were alright, which you would always appreciate, giving him a kiss on his cheek, leaving a kiss mark that he would refuse to remove for at least an hour.

-Loki- The first time he saw you his eyes shot out of his head in the shape of pulsating hearts, ogling you and when you flicked them away as if they were a pest, Loki fell hard and fast for you. You find him to be mildly annoying, at first, but when he gave you a bouquet of rose stems, the flowers at the top gone, your favorite flowers, you couldn’t help but open your heart. Definitely a prankster, but never to you, he will pull pranks for you, to make you smile or laugh, and when you smile, he’s immediately in your arms, grinning up at you with a goofy look on his face, adoring the vision. He was very passionate about you, he loved everything about you and was so territorial over you it was almost amusing, Odin liked it because you were able to keep him distracted and out of trouble.

-Beelzebub- Two peas in a pod, both of you were dark, quiet, stoic, and serious, but also loyal and so in love with each other. You didn’t bother him while he was researching, other than bringing him some tea, and he didn’t like your plants, having been bitten by one too many, but supported your love for them, not telling you to get rid of them, like other men tried to tell you to do before. Your passion for what you loved, the macabre, let him relax, as he too enjoyed it, but was less open about advertising it. That’s another thing he loves about you, you weren’t afraid to be you, he did his best to not get close to others, not wanting to hurt and lose anyone else, but you seemed to soothe his inner demons, literally, Satan liked your vibe so he did nothing against you, as he could sense you would be able to hurt him, but he wasn’t completely sure how. This let Beelzebub get close to you and you opened your arms to his love and would gladly drown in your affections.

-Buddha- Complete opposites, as far as vibes go, but at the same time, you both looked so good with each other, balancing each other out. Buddha was very physically affectionate with you, something you didn’t really mind, as he liked to hold you, while you were more words of love, telling him what you loved about him, and covering his face in lipstick marks from your kisses, which would always make him melt. Buddha helped you explore more treats and you taught him about your plants, which he would always hide behind you, not wanting to get bitten again, until you taught him how to feed your babies, which he did have to admit he was fun. You were happy with your lifestyle, something Buddha knew and appreciated, which is why he never tried to make you change, and he was happy just being with you.

-Hajun- Very territorial and easily jealous about you, you didn’t care what he looked like or that he was a demon, you loved him the way he was, and due to that, he adored you, worshipping everything about you. He didn’t find you weird or strange, he found you soothing and calm, to him, you were just Y/N, his love. Hajun was almost like a giant cat with you, he would sit on the floor in front of you and lay his head in your lap, minding his horns and he could just bask there for hours if you let him, because you have in the past. Returning to being jealous and territorial, if another man was to catcall you, or worse, insult you, all he could see is red and would fly into a frenzy, threatening to maim and kill those who would dare approach you in such a way. However, all you need to do is put one hand on his arm and he will be instantly calm, you were the only person able to calm him down, as he would never forgive himself if he hurt you, but you trust him not to, something he adores.

-Zerofuku- Your darling son, you found him peeking into your greenhouse one day and seeing his curiosity while you were feeding your larger Venus Fly Traps, you invited him in. Many told him that you were a scary woman, evil and wouldn’t hesitate to feed him to your plants, but he quickly learned they were wrong. You were so doting and gentle with the child god, treating him like you were his mother, giving him head pats, teaching him new things, and showering him with affection and love, in your own way and Zerofuku loved it! He loved being with you, even though he was the opposite of you, being a ray of sunshine, and you adored him, humoring him when you held his hand while he walked you around the gardens, you shielding yourself with your umbrella and you taught him the beauty of moonlit walks, seeing fireflies and looking at the stars together. You weren’t scary, you were like a mother, one that he loved dearly, and you loved him.

[bonefall]

re: the last Warriors Bites, is there any advantage to cooking meat? /gen

ik for humans we can’t process a lot of raw meat w/o infections, but cats are pure carnivores

Several!

Human evolutionary history is actually fascinating in that we HAVE to eat cooked meat, it marked a moment in our evolutionary history where our brains were able to get bigger because we needed less space on the skull for a massive chewing muscle

So for a Warrior Cat, which is clearly a species capable of advanced social dynamics, it could be likely that something is biologically going on in that skull of theirs for which cooking is an advantage.

But even for a normal cat living out in the woods? There's still benefits.

Preservation

Drying food can store it for weeks or months. In the books we've seen prey going bad after only a day; there's definitely a lot of food waste that can be avoided if the excess prey is cooked and stored by the assigned "kitchen patrol" after dinner.

(On that note; @hey-its-quill requested an entry on "Who cooks and prepares food?" so this question, including what a 'kitchen patrol' is, is on the official Warrior Bites to-do list.)

Nutrition

Some forms of cooking would cause nutrition loss, but it's easily countered by collecting the juices and serving them as a gravy. For the most part, cooking is just an easy way to break down connective tissue, which would actually make it easier to digest.

ESPECIALLY for kits and elders, who aren't able to chew their food very well.

One thing I will be mentioning when I get to a bird entry, though, is that large birds are rarely roasted. This is because cats eat bones as part of their diet, but when bird bones are cooked, they can splinter and cause internal damage.

(Which is why you should never let your cat eat cooked chicken bones. Raw are fine though.)

Sanitization

And this is the primary reason. Avoiding food poisoning and infection is more important than you think; being an obligate carnivore does not make all food safe.

(CW: Past here, I talk about foodbourne illness, parasites, and animal death. If these topics upset you, I've summed up everything already!)

It's actually a misconception that cats can't get salmonella, e. coli, or listeria poisoning. They're just better at not getting it because food spends less time digesting in their shorter, carnivorous intestines. A lot of people actually switch to a raw food pet diet thinking it's healthier (and in some ways it is, afaik) but then improperly handle the pet food for this reason. Always freeze raw pet food and wash your hands please.

Salmonella poisoning in cats is sometimes called "Songbird Fever" because a house cat gets it by killing and eating a native songbird. In fact I'm going to use my little soapbox for a moment to please ask, if you don't keep your cat inside (which is the only way to completely prevent the death of songbirds), please, at the very least, only let them outside with a birds-be-safe collar cover.

(Salmonella poisoning is also why I've decided that ShadowClan would logically be the Clan that cooks the most. As Marsh and Pine hunters, well over 75% of their diet is birds and reptiles, which naturally contain salmonella)

So that's JUST farm animals and wild birds. Hantavirus, leptospirosis, toxoplasmosis, even the goddamn bubonic plague can be caught from wild rodents.

That's not even to mention tapeworms, roundworm, and other digestive parasites specifically evolved to live in an animal's stomach!

I remember someone made a joke about how these wild cats are eating random mice and walking away fine while their housecat throws up from getting the wrong brand of cat food. And... well... truth is, the wild cats are not fine. They're getting sick constantly.

Warrior Cats is just, ultimately, a young adult fantasy series about romance and political drama that chooses not to accurately portray feral cats dying horribly of preventable foodbourne illness.

SO TL;DR COOKING WILL HELP A LOT.

[whomst-art-thou-whomst-whomst]

Manifesto for Season 2 of Oh No! Here Comes Trouble: Five possible future events via headcanons

And by manifesto I mean I’m manifesting it asap

1.) Guangyan the feral housecat. I read his character as the kind of fussy housecat that slaps its human/fellow animals on a regular basis but refuses to step on wet grass or eat generic cat food.

Post season 1, I also headcanon that housecat energy as developing into a slightly more feral version. We’ve discussed Chuying and Guangyan would likely be more protective of Yiyong and I’m wondering what that would look like in the show.

Honestly, the mental picture that came up was those viral videos people take where there’s a bear outside their house, trying to go through the bins, only to be chased off by the family’s sassy calico who genuinely believes a cat is as much of a baddie as a bear, if not more. That is the Guangyan I imagine post-evil baker guy. On his own, he’s still timid and polite, but we have seen he’s gone from yelling insults at Yiyong to trying to protect his feelings and soothe him, so I’m curious whether he’d become physically protective too—often it’s the quietest ones who are the most ferocious when loved ones are threatened. And whatever the nature of their bond, there was no question for me in that last episode that Guangyan has come to love Yiyong. Plus, there is nothing as territorial and petty as a housecat, which fits Guangyan beautifully.

2.) Chuying as a detective. OnePer but promoted. We already see the change she’s undergone in terms of empathy, and I think this process would keep evolving. Think about Chuying when we first meet her; there is a visibly injured guy trying to make a statement—something big and important—and she is daydreaming about being more important in her role as a cop.

Now fast forward to the end of the first season. Chuying has gotten her excitement, her promotion, the danger and duty to help, and it isn't the dream she figured. Because she has finally learned to empathize and care for people who she’s meant to be protecting, and because she can’t protect one of the people she’s come to care about—Yiyong. I see her becoming more responsible, more focused on the job and not the praise. Because it’s like Sneaky McBaker points out—she probably did get a commendation for taking him down and doing her best to help a victim. But that is worth absolutely nothing anymore.

3.) Yiyong the passionate calligrapher. Because honestly? He’s had his injury and coma visions, and he knows he is helping people. It’s the opposite of what everyone always told him he’ll end up doing, it’s something that brings in zero cash so far (I just know Guangyan and Chuying are out there adding to a private account to help Yiyong’s mom and help him get back on his feet or just not work until he wants to).

I think Yiyong, who started off so reluctant, will be more driven to get back into the ghostie business before his friends want him to. It’s not just a return to normal after MORE lost years, it’s a purpose. He’s missed so many moments, and despite his mom’s comforting words that the years don’t count, he can pick up where he left off, I think he’ll be feeling behind, maybe worried his detective and student friends are spending too much time helping him and not enough time on their own lives.

4.) I hope we will get more backstory on minor characters. Ye Baosheng is one of the best characters in this story, and we know so little about her. I want her to have more scenes, I want her to feel involved in her son’s life. Like Melissa McCall for her son Scott in Teen Wolf, except for the whole thing where Scott's character gets increasingly sidelined. I appreciate so much that Chuying and Guangyan have clearly become an extra daughter and a son in law. I hope she starts her own salon. I think she’ll be very much the same person as she was after the first coma, not because she’s fine but because she needs Yiyong to think she’s fine. The show does an amazing job of showing without telling that this is a mother trying to be as strong and normal as she can for her baby.

5.) Guangyan and Yiyong. Listen, I know they aren’t canon, I know it’s a bromance, SO FAR. Here are my thoughts on this: too many shows try to speedrun the enemies to lovers plot at the cost of story, character development, and basic common sense. ONHCT has shown it’s willing to play the long game on things before. To me, it could easily be a natural progression. Here’s how I see it playing out: after Yiyong wakes up, he’s trying to get back into cases, but he starts drawing his comic again, too. One of his high school friends “accidentally” mentions to him that Guangyan is the only real fan of that comic, and reminisces about “back when we used to come visit and your weird nerd friend would be curled up next to your bed talking to you.” I want Yiyong to be simultaneously smug and scared shitless, and Guangyan considering maybe living at the morgue forever.

(After they kiss at the bus stop for the first time, Chuying, who wasn't spying, texts the family and friends group chat to let everyone know Granny Zeng Jiang has won the betting pool for when/where it would happen).

[t00thpasteface]

i know the concept of "what if catfish but literal" is NOT original, but catcatfish were something i first designed in the middle of a lecture on the evolutionary history of vertebrate life, then continued drawing into my ichthyology lecture right afterwards. they're a DEEPLY personal project to me and have so much more depth to them beyond mere aesthetics:

catcatfish are meant to hold up a mirror to the popular concept of pets. i'm not just referring to common pets like housecats and small freshwater fish, but also to exotic wild animals that are captured and traded even when it harms the animal and the environment they are inevitably released into as an invasive species. i designed catcatfish from the ground up to be the most difficult, hard-to-accommodate parts of both a cat and a catfish: they have poor eyesight, voracious appetites, massive bodies, venomous nonretractable spines, and a need for both terrestrial and aquatic enrichment. they even have an uncharismatic method of eating, i.e. swallowing small animals (including other pets) whole without chewing. my catcatfish are not domesticated; they are wild animals that people try to house and pay serious prices for.

as an extension of this, that's why all the catcatfish variants i've designed, and will continue to design, are based on wild catfish species. i am deeply, deeply opposed to "cosmetic" pet breeds that hinder the animal's quality of life. i'm a lifelong cat owner, and all of my cats have been rescued ferals with unclear genetic histories. for this reason, you will NEVER see me drawing catcatfish based on persian, hairless/sphinx, munchkin, or scottish fold cats, along with many other breeds or inbred mutations, nor will i draw a catcatfish with long fur that would harm its ability to thermoregulate as an aquatic animal.

catcatfish are also commentary on how those outside of biological sciences talk about animals, especially wild animals that interact with humans, like possums and raccoons. i don't think an animal should be cute, safe, clean, or "cool" to be worthy of our appreciation and conservation. i wanted to make an animal that will NEVER be cooperative. catcatfish will always prioritize eating as much and as quickly as they can over anything else, and they will gladly envenomate any human trying to keep them from their next meal without a moment's hesitation. i am deeply repulsed by popular activism for animals on the basis of promoting how "badass" or "beautiful" they are, because ultimately not every animal that needs protections is going to be badass or beautiful. catcatfish are incapable of being trained or tamed. they are carnivores that will absolutely devour a screaming crying human baby if you let them. so would a coyote. so would a goblin shark. this is a deliberate statement on the popcultural concept of animal conservation. i want people to be repulsed by these facets of the animal instead of sanding them down to make them cute and friendly.

again, i'm keenly aware that the aesthetics are not original. a million other people have made cat-fish before, as well as shark puppies and other walking fish. even the biology of catcatfish is largely based on real cat and catfish biology at every level of their anatomy, from integument to metabolism. what makes a catcatfish a catcatfish is the reason i draw them, not the way i draw them. i'd rather you just make your own thing if you don't want to meet me where i'm at.

hi just letting you know that i identify so strongly with the catcatfish that i now have a fursona (scalesona?) of catcatfish. ok thats it have an epic day

ok but by being an anthro it's no longer the same animal at all! i would ask that you please call it something else. my catcatfish are a speculative biology experiment with a big emphasis on actual anatomy and physiology (i'm working on a huge guide to this with cross-section diagrams and everything) so to make them an anthro goes against the spirit of the creation :(

[gavin-plz-call-me]

The Brothers + Dateables & Luke react to MC owning a cat named lucifer

A/N- To attempt to avoid confusion, the demon Lucifer’s name will always be capitalized, while the cat lucifer’s name will never be capitalized.

~

“Now,” Diavolo said, obviously nearing the end of his speech, “Do you have any more questions, MC?”

You nod, “Is my cat up there all by himself?” you ask, “I don’t want him to get lonely, and without me he wont have anyone to feed him.”

The men, no, the demons in front of you stared, all obviously dumbstruck. You had been ripped out of your home, brought to a strange place, and told you were to live here for a year, and your first thought was of your cat? What a strange human you were.

“We can arrange someone to take care of your cat,” Diavolo said, smiling wide, but your face fell at his words. Diavolo seemed to sense your discontent as he spoke again, “Or we can arrange for your cat to be brought here?”

“Yes, please,” you spoke almost immediately.

Diavolo called for a demon named Barbatos, telling him to go to the human world to retrieve your cat. He disappeared then reappeared in a matter of seconds, your cat laying comfortably in his arms.

“Oh, lucifer,” You cooed, taking your cat away from Barbatos, kissing the cat’s forehead.

The hall went silent once again, before someone, the demon they introduced as Asmodeus, spoke up, “Honey, that’s Barbatos.” He said, a slight chuckle laced within the words.

Confused, you glance back up at the hall of demons, you point to your cat, “No? His name is lucifer.”

Lucifer

Can't decide if he's confused or insulted.

He's confused because, who the hell would someone name a cat of all things after a demon

and he's insulted because WHO THE HELL WOULD NAME A CAT AFTER HIM?

He's one of the strongest Demons in the Devildom, much stronger than a mere housecat, the insinuation that he, Lucifer, avatar of pride, shares anything in common with a cat has him fuming.

Of course, he shows none of these emotions outwardly, keeping his face stoic as always.

And any one of his brothers who dare joke about this cat's name will be hanged from the ceiling in a matter of seconds.

Is fairly annoyed with their shared name in day-to-day life, and not just because it's insulting.

But, many times a day, Lucifer'll hear his name called through the halls and, when he goes to investigate, one of his brothers is cooing over the damned pun intended cat.

Will eventually get used to lucifer and will definitely be seen cuddling with him.

Is like the dad who insists he doesn't want a cat, but as soon as he gets one they're inseparable.

At the end of the day, he loves that damn cat.

Mammon

Laughs out loud at the revelation that the cat's name is lucifer.

Until he realizes now he has to look after the human and the cat.

Will complain about it in typical Mammon fashion, but he warms up to lucifer about as quickly as he warms up to you.

Buys him a bunch of cat toys when he has the grimm, and loves to play with him

especially with a laser pointer.

Also loves to cuddle, but always acts very tsundere about it.

"What is it lucifer? Oh, of course, you want to cuddle with the Great Mammon."

Will either steal lucifer from your room at night, or sleep in your room to cuddle with him and totally not you, of course, but you should be honored he's even sleeping in your room.

Leviathan

Thinks it's hilarious as well.

Though he prefers anime, Levi is well versed in other human media, especially classic Disney films, so, because of Cinderella, he's well aware that lucifer is a popular cat name in the human realm.

That doesn't make it any less funny, though.

WILL NOT allow lucifer into his room.

He has too many expensive figurines to risk it

Plus, he doesn't want to risk Henry 2.0 getting hurt.

Will only play with, pet, or cuddle with lucifer if he initiates it.

"He probably doesn't want to be pet by a gross otaku like me," as if cats know what otakus are.

Will, at some point, sew lucifer a costume that looks suspiciously like what his older brother tends to wear.

He may or may not have been hanged for that one, but it was totally worth it.

Satan

Like Lucifer, Satan is conflicted.

On one hand, cat! He loves cats, he wants to pet this cat all day, and give him kisses and cuddles and love.

On the other hand, Satan would rather his soul be ripped apart than give love to something named after Lucifer.

Will try his hardest to completely ignore the cat's existence.

Has to leave the room if lucifer comes in because he can't trust himself to not pet him.

Is like this with lucifer until he sees him respond to the name luci as well.

After that, you cannot separate Satan from lucifer even if you tried.

Spoils him rotten.

The two are often found reading together in the library, Satan leisurely petting lucifer.

Fights with Mammon at least once a day for lucifer and always wins.

Goes on long rants about how cat lucifer is much better in every way than demon Lucifer.

Asmodeus

Another one who thinks it's hilarious.

Definitely thinks lucifer is cute but hates all the shedding, so he usually keeps his distance.

Like Levi, Asmo doesn't allow lucifer in his room.

Will constantly complain about fur getting all over his clothes.

Has had to buy more lint rollers in the first year you spent in the Devildom than he had bought in the last century.

Constantly posts pictures of lucifer on his Devilgram because, despite being a furry monster, he is just the cutest little kitten around.

Beelzebub

Thinks the name is a bit weird but accepts it pretty quickly.

It's just a name, after all, lots of people who are very different share names.

lucifer's food has to be hidden from Beel because he can, and will, eat it.

"It just smelled so good, and I was so hungry."

Apologizes by buying him some luxury cat treats that took all of Bee's willpower not to eat on the way home.

At first, he won't interact with lucifer unless lucifer approaches him.

Beel is so big, and lucifer is so small, he doesn't want to crush the little cat.

But with enough time and reinforcement, Beel will pick lucifer up himself for some much-needed cuddles.

Before Belphie comes down from the attic, Beel'll bring lucifer up to their room at night when he's feeling a bit more lonely than usual.

Beel will invite you up to his room as well.

Belphegor

Finds out about lucifer after everyone else, due to the whole, being locked in the attic, thing.

Hears Asmo trying to coax lucifer into a good pose from down the hall.

"Oh lucifer, cutie pie, you gotta look at the camera."

Is surprised that Asmo is still alive talking to Lucifer like that.

Is even more surprised when he turns the corner to find Asmo talking to a cat, not his eldest brother.

Thinks it's hilarious, but Lucifer is already over it so teasing him about it doesn't do much.

Won't actively seek out lucifer's attention, but will gladly nap with him.

Beel continues his habit of bringing lucifer up to their room for cuddles when Belphie returns, so the three of them usually end up in a big cuddle pile.

Bonus points if he brings you up too.

Diavolo

Thinks it's very amusing.

Laughs about it, probably for a bit too long.

He can't help it, especially because he knows Lucifer is most definitely a bit upset about it.

Will tease Lucifer once or twice about it, but will ultimately leave it alone.

When he visits the House of Lamentation, he'll give lucifer a nice pat, hello, but won't go very far beyond that.

Barbatos

Read lucifer's name tag while he was collecting him from the human realm.

Wasn't surprised in the slightest because nothing ever surprises him

Is definitely excited to see everyone's reactions to his name, and is not disappointed.

If given the chance, he will spend hours brushing lucifer's fur and pampering him

but doesn't get the chance to do so often, if ever.

Solomon

Has had a cat named lucifer in the past.

I mean, he's lived hundreds of years, it's not out of the realm of possibilities.

Named his own cat lucifer because he thought it was funny, and the humor hasn't faded since.

So he's very amused by this new lucifer in his life.

Will unabashedly cuddle and play with lucifer whenever he's given the chance.

I mean, this lucifer reminds him of his own cat, so he becomes pretty attached pretty quickly.

Whenever he visits the House of Lamentation, he'll hold lucifer until the very last minute he possibly can, and will be pretty sad when he has to leave.

Will joke about stealing lucifer, may actually try to steal him.

Simeon

Like Levi, Simeon is pretty well versed in human media, so the concept of cats named lucifer isn't new to him.

Still finds it a bit funny nonetheless.

Tells Michael right away.

Likes cats well enough, and, when he's in the House of Lamentation, will seek out a few pets from the kitten

but he doesn't venture to the House of Lamentation too often, so he never grows too close to lucifer.

Luke

WHY? WOULD YOU NAME A CAT? AFTER A DEMON?

There are so many better names for a cat!

Like whiskers, or oreo, or simba.

Is genuinely confused, and maybe even a bit concerned.

He's afraid you were consorting with demons before coming to the Devildom and that's why you named him lucifer.

After his brief stay in the House of Lamentation, Luke is absolutely in love with lucifer.

Plays with him constantly.

Wants to pick him up, but doesn't know how to.

Luke will end up getting scratched eventually, but Luke forgives him.

Bakes lucifer special cat treats and hopes you'll let him feed lucifer one.

[theimpossiblescheme]

Another shorter piece inspired by @the-cat-at-the-theatre-door for Jelly’s day--I’ve had this idea kicking around in my head for a while, and I hope everyone likes it!

Her writer was still clicking away on that typewriter of his.  Day in and day out, always by the same window overlooking the rose garden… he always seemed to get stuck on the same page, too, pulling out the paper and crumpling it up and starting again.  Just like humans, wasn’t it, to insist on the silliest things?  Any cat could do it better in a few hours, simply by walking across the keys just so, but her writer never seemed to think of the obvious things.  He just spent a few more hours clicking away.

Of course, he wasn’t really her writer.  But he’d almost been.  Once upon a time.

Jellylorum had tried to be a proper housecat, she really had.  She knew how to use a litter box and eat out of a ceramic dish and play without using her claws too much.  And she hadn’t been much fuss, or at least she’d tried not to be.  All she needed was a patch of sunlight and a few scraps of fish when she could get them, and she was happy.  It was a lovely house, too—all blue with painted flowers and animals and bright curtains adorning every window.  Apparently, he’d tried to be an artist first, but there hadn’t been any money in it, which never made any sense to Jelly.  Why on earth would anyone pay money for art?  Did humans pay money to sing, too, or dance or have any fun at all?  Why put something so beautiful, so essential, behind a way of nonsense papers and numbers? Then again, she’d never pretended to understand why humans did anything, so why start now?  She only watched curiously as he took up writing instead, making a corner of his bedroom into a little office space and filling notebooks with ideas every night.  Before he went to bed, her writer would tell her about his future creations, every story and character he wanted to share with the world, and she listened raptly. Even if she couldn’t quite follow every word he said, she still hung on them—he was excited, so she was excited, and it brought to mind every fairy tale and adventure epic her parents had told her as a kitten.  When he turned out the light, Jelly curled up at the end of his bedspread and went to sleep, content as she’d ever been.  For a time.

She’d tried to stay there. Tried to tell herself she would never want for more.  But every cat’s feet start to itch if they can’t find enough roads and pathways, and that was how she found the Junkyard again.  She’d been several times as a kitten, and it was astounding how little it had changed.  There was the same broken-down old car, the same tire propped up on cinder blocks, the same stringy clothesline stretching high above the wall… it felt like a time capsule. Except the inhabitants had changed. Her father was still there and her brother and sister, and so was dearest Jenny from across the way who always smelled like kitchens and tap shoe polish.  And there were so many kittens.  She couldn’t turn a corner without hearing a little voice, making her heart swell every time.  One kitten in particular, a silvery tom with black stripes and the most serious eyes she had seen in anyone so young, liked nothing more than to sit with her and Asparagus whenever he couldn’t find anyone to play with.  Eventually Jenny, Hathor, and Skimble would join them, and they became a little council of six.  Demeter and Bombalurina also needed someone to play with, so Jelly and Jenny would take her off for an explore, mostly to spare Asparagus’s poor nerves.  Occasionally, kittens would just turn up as well, and they would need to be assigned a den to sleep in… Jelly had shared a blanket in an old rusty pram with so many shivering little ones.  She had lullabies for all of them, and some of them learned the words well enough to sing along, even if she had to explain what they meant. And every moment she was away, she worried about them.  Were they getting enough to eat, were they getting along with the other kittens, were Demeter’s ankles any better after she’d twisted them dancing…?

The longer she was away, the guiltier she felt.  Of course, she loved her home with her writer… but the Junkyard was home, too.  Every time she approached the gates, it was as if that entire corner of the street sang out to her.  I’ve been waiting for you—did you not hear me calling?

She was needed there. Too many cats relied on her, not just her blood family, for her to stay away too long.

Her writer… could get along just fine.  He was an adult, perfectly independent and devoted to his work.  If anything… if anything, she would be one less thing for him to worry about.

If she’d been a little more heartless, she would have just disappeared one day and never come back. But even if her writer could get along just fine, Jelly just wanted to make sure.  So she made a tradition of sitting between the bushes of his garden and sitting, peacefully lulled by the clacking of typewriter keys.  Every Saturday, when she knew he would be home.  She still wore his collar around her neck as well, a very simple band of braided leather.  Even after years and years, it still smelled like ink stains and rose petals, and she kept breathing in the scent… it was hard to explain, but it comforted her.  As long as the scent remained, his roses still grew tall and lovely, and his typewriter kept clacking away.  Never letting up for a moment.  All was well.

There had once been a little yellow charm hanging from the collar.  She’d worn that for many years, too, even if the name on it wasn’t quite right.  But shortly before her son was born, Jelly knew she wouldn’t be able to visit her writer for some time.  This next visit—the last one until Jenny was through nursing and Mungojerrie could walk by himself and eat solid food—would have to be special. So before she left that final time, she dug a small hole beside the biggest rosebush and buried her charm, patting the dirt carefully over it when she was finished.  Above her, her writer never stopped for a second.  The keys tapped to the beat of an imaginary song, one only he could hear.  The struggle of the old torn-out page was gone now, and she could tell from the steady rhythm across this new page that he’d hit upon something brilliant.

He wouldn’t even notice Jelly had been there.  But she had left him something to remember her by.

[jeanjauthor]

I was reading about mediveal horses in fantasy and how they’re unrealistic. And usually the horses were avarge. But isn’t a shire horse origin in 1066-Ish? Could that be used in a mediveal fantasy?

It could be, but you might want to do some research to know what those shire horses were actually used for, and what they weren’t.  Horses were not owned by everyone, and were not put to the plow for a long time.  Why not?  Because horses were more expensive than oxen.

An ox is nothing more than a castrated bull that’s been trained to pull a plow, a wagon, etc, and if you have cows for milk and dairy and beef, you’d want to keep most of the females, but not keep most of the males--not as bulls, because your cattle would be goring each other.  So any male cattle born would be assessed for qualities, and either kept for stud (only 1-2 on a farm, IF you have the room to keep a bull separate from the cows), slaughtered for beef, or castrated and trained to be a work animal.

Cows will drop a fairly equal ratio of the genders, but female cattle produce milk, making them valuable to keep around and keep fed.  Horses...well, Mongols might milk mares, but that really wasn’t an European thing, which is what a lot of fantasy (talking about the stuff written in English, here) is based upon.  And mares don’t produce nearly as much milk as cows do.  So economically, it makes more sense to keep cattle around and put them to work in the earlier medieval periods.

Shire horses are huge because they are meant for pulling plows and wagons (their solid hooves don’t break up the rows and the soil nearly as much as the split hooves of cattle).  They’re not usually trained to carry armored warriors into battle, etc.  Medievally, there were horses trained for specific tasks, like the smooth-gaited riding palfrey.  It was not a specific breed of horse, instead being picked for its temperament and trained in its movements.  While certain knights did have big destriers to ride...the majority of mounted warriors actually rode smaller horses, like rounceys and coursers.

And of course, the mule is often overlooked.  This hybrid between a donkey and a mare was the “workhorse” of medieval life, if it wasn’t oxen.  They could carry a lot more weight, were more intelligent, and ate less (or at least didn’t have to eat as much quality food in winter), making them inexpensive to keep.  There might have been mules trained for warfare, for scouting, and certainly for “blending in” when spying on a neighboring region.  Just go in as a trader or traveler with your packs on your mule, and people won’t think twice.

Additionally, you might want to research when stirrups were invented and used--Roman cavalry did not have stirrups, because while they were invented in BCE Asia, they didn’t reach Europe until some time after the collapse of the Roman Empire.

...As you can see, using a shire horse for something in your story in a way that your equestrian-knowledgeable readers won’t go “...wtf??” over can require a bit of educational effort.  Presuming this is a fantasy set in a created world and not an historical real-world setting, you can get away with many things...but if there’s one thing to take away from all of this, understand that shire horses are BIG, and will need to EAT.  Lotta pounds on that thar horse!

And they’re not a bicycle.  Your character cannot just get off their steed and go inside a house for the night.  That horse must be given water, and a rubdown, the saddle needs to be removed to prevent galling and sores and scarring from those saddle sores, they need to have adequate food of the right quality--shire horses are big, so they need a lot of calories, but you cannot give a horse nothing but grain, however high-calorie that feed may be.  They need fiber from grasses and hay--they do not eat straw, which is calorically and nutritionally deficient!--they may even need tree browse (yes, horses and cattle will eat leaves, not just grasses), and sometimes you’ll want to feed them fruit, but not always.

Also, sugar cubes are very much an Industrial Revolution thing, because the cubes are made via complex machinery.  Sugar lumps are what you’d serve medievally...but you’d probably not give pure sugar to a horse, because sugar is expensive in a medieval setting.  Honey drizzled over dried fruit slices would be a more likely treat, and you’d certainly feed your horse (or donkey, mule, etc) the core from your apple or your pear.

Additionally, horses are herd animals.  They need companions around them or they become distressed from anxiety and nervousness, not having other sets of eyes and ears to help watch out for danger.  This doesn’t have to be another horse...though it should be, on a farm.  There are companion animals that are goats and mules and donkeys, and I’ve even heard of dogs and cats--yes, housecats, or more properly, barncats--being companion animals to horses.

Consider your characters’ socio-economic backgrounds before assigning them a shire horse, make sure they treat that horse as a living being in need of care and not like a bicycle that can be easily set aside and forgotten about, and decide if what you need is a really big horse (because sometimes you do!) or if something smaller or faster or whatever might serve your story better.

And lastly, horses cannot gallop for more than a few minutes.  Galloping is sprinting.  Not even Usain Bolt can sprint for more than a few minutes!  Cantering is also not something that can be maintained 24/7, or even for an entire hour.  Horses need to be ridden at the walk, the amble, and/or the trot as much or more often as at the canter, especially when burdened with armor, gear, rider, etc.

Humans can out-distance horses over the long run.

We are pursuit predators.  While horses and dogs can outrun us in a sprint, we can literally walk other animals to death.  Wolves can almost keep up with a reasonably fit human who is used to walking everywhere (which is your basic medieval traveler)...but even though wolves are pros at long-distance travel, they still have to stop and rest more frequently, and horses far more frequently still.  Horses give us the advantage of short bursts of higher speed, and the ability to carry or (even better yet) pull far more weight in supplies, etc, than we can haul ourselves...but they cannot run forever.

If your human has enough of a head start that can negate the sprinting capacity of a horse, and if there is enough underbrush to just barely admit a human to pass through it, but not a horse, a human on foot can escape from mounted people pursuing them.

...All of this is just scratching the surface of writing realistic horses in fantasy, and I am not an expert by any means.  (I have, however, listened to many, and done my own research.)  So...go chat with equestrians, ask them questions, look up resources online, and ask yourself some questions. 

How would this character have/afford a shire horse?  How would they train this horse?  What uses would they have for this horse? How do they take care of the horse?  What equipment do they carry for taking care of the horse, riding, etc?  What companion animals does the horse get to have? What are their plans for recovering the horse if it spooks and runs off?  How much does the horse consider the character a friend and/or herd-member?

Yes, you could ignore all these questions and just have the horse around when it’s convenient and vanish it when it’s inconvenient...but unless it’s like an enchanted bridle or a brooch, a ring, a summoning statuette, whatever, imbued with the spirit of a faithful steed (fantasy writing is great for this stuff)...you’re going to need to thing about these sorts of things if you want to have your horses in your fantasy setting be realistic enough that the equestrian community won’t *facepalm heavysigh* any time they read a scene in your story with an equine.

The “enchanted bridle” thing is how I pretend my characters in World of Warcraft don’t have to worry about actually housing, feeding, etc, their steeds, and it’s how they can ride or fly all day without tiring because it’s not a living being, it’s an enchantment full of magic.  BUT, if you’re going to go this route because it’s easier...you’ll still need to consider, how did your character acquire this enchanted object?  How could they afford it? Did they make it themselves? Or did they find it, or steal it?  How is it powered?  Does it have a limit to how much it can be used in a day, or summoned and dismissed and resummoned?  Does it require a set period of waiting time between being dismissed and being resummoned? 

Is there a chance of this enchanted item breaking?  Remember, it doesn’t have to break at the worst moment in the story; it could break earlier, when they have time to fix or replace it...but do they have the resources to fix or replace it?  Not just in terms of buying or craft, but, are enchanted bridles or horse statuettes common in that region?  For that matter, if they’re not common, is it going to cause confusion to people when they go around or into a building for a few moments, only to come back to see absolutely zero horse anywhere, because while they were gone you dismounted and dismissed the enchantment?

...Okay, okay, I’ve gone on long enough!  You can see how this one topic can quickly get out of hand.  And again, I am not an expert on equestrians in stories.  But if you do a bit of research and keep some realism in mind...you can write realistic scenes involving horses, shire style or otherwise.

[digimonfag]

So I’ve got a possible Vento Aureo AU that i started thinking about a lot last night and i just kinda wanna post it here to have it all in one place.

—

Gionro - Vampire (for obvious reasons)

Fugo - Werewolf cuz i love him

Abbacchio - Probably a fallen angel, similar to how he was thrown out of the police force he was thrown out of heaven

Bruno - Probably human too, just a man in the cryptid woods who fell in love with an angel

Narancia - im tempted to just say catboy cuz im out of ideas

Mista - Satyr. Hairy.

Trish - cross between demon and human, has some demon features but otherwise can pass human

Diavolo - probably a demon

—

Background: Pannacotta Fugo

one of fugo’s grandparents (grandma) are definitely a werewolf that married into a wealthy family at some point therefore making Fugo a decendant. the werewolf genes skipped his parents’ generation and of his siblings, only Fugo got the werewolf genes. Fugos grandmother is the og werewolf i bet. Which is why Panni loves her so much and feels he can confide in her cuz he keeps his werewolfness to himself otherwise. idk how it managed to avoid his parents as he was young so lets say the genes kick in around like puberty age or something, as in he cant fully transform till later. so following VA lore he goes to college n shit right? and following phf lore he gets mad at his professor waving away his grandmas recent passing as she was the only one he was close to and goes feral in a literal sense. he calms himself down before anyone can come in and be like “wtf” so when hes found back in human appearance, holding a big school book, thats what people think happened and blamed it on that. After that, Fugo runs away into the woods and later would find Bruno in his cabin in the woods. Bruno’s a social outcast who used to be a fisher but after his dads passing he moved into the more wooded areas and settled there. Became a farmer maybe cuz he has to make money somehow. Because brunos lived in the woods for a few years he's befriended many supernatural creatures that live there in part just to get buy, he even has a sign that says "supernatural friendly" or something. So With fugo having run out into the woods, Bruno finds Fugo while on a walk probably and takes Fugo in after Fugo explains he has nowhere else to go. So Fugo becomes a farmhand basically and Bruno has some werewolf acquaintances explain sorta how being a werewolf works cuz fugo's only werewolf relative he knows of is dead.

Background: Leone Abbacchio

Leone WAS a guardia angel for a man of which goes unnamed. At one point, Leone took a bribe of sorts from a demon. The bribe was to keep the demon business in the area unnoticed by Angels. Later, said same demon and Leone’s human get involved on some way, and it ends up in the death of Leone’s human. Because of Leone’s neglectfulness and possible corruptness, he is cast out from above and thrown down below to earth. Abba probably breaks a tree nearby on impact when being struck down from the literal sky. Bruno goes to investigate and finds abbacchio in what looks like a meteor crash sight of his own making, theres also probably the imprint of angel wings its like a really cinematic shot probably. So bruno takes him back to his cabin and nurses him back to health. Abba was probably someones guardian angel and took a bribe from a demon that eventually got his human killed. Bruno, being all wise with supernatural shit, feels bad for him as Abba has nowhere to go. He teaches Abbacchio how to be a human and function in society that way theyre both earning something. Though, abbacchio is still an angel by blood and being and does not require stuff like food or water and therefore doesnt take up too much valuable supplies.

Background: Narancia and Mista

Narancia probably likes to absentmindedly stroll through the woods and sometimes isnt seen for a few days as he is a cat and can hunt for himself. Nara was probably abandoned and became an ally cat at some point and was bullied for being a catboy, people called him a freak and for him to go eat out of the trash and stuff like that. Fugo found him in an alley when in town, and when he looked at the cat in the dumpster, he saw intelegent purple eyes instead of feral cat eyes and new that this malnourished, injured cat was probably supernatural in some way and took him with him to bruno's cabin, later, nara just kinda becomes a housecat thats also a helpful energetic boy And on one of nara's long day long strolls, he encounters Mista, who is a satyr therefore he's pantsless (furry goat legs) and shirtless (cuz why not) narancia kinda keeps his distance for a while and comes across Mista a few times over the course of maybe a few weeks to a month, but eventually Mista gets into trouble and uses a pan flute to use some epic firest magic to kill off some harmful spirits. After witnessing that, narancia, now catboy and not cat, jumps out of the bush he was watching from to exclaim how "totally sick!" That was. They kinda talk and become friends after a while, narancia becoming less and less afraid to approach him and talk to him. They later become really good bros and nara invites Mista over to play games but since Mista has no clue wtf those are as he's a satyr that lives shirtless in the woods, Narancia teaches him how to play and thats when mista realizes he's catching feelings :) Also as a lil hc of mine im bringing in the possum i draw narancia with called Tutti Frutti Juul Pod (aka Tutti/Tutti Frutti) and theyre Nara’s friend basically and occasionally he brings Tutti home but Tutti remains wild for the most part 👀

Background: Giorno

Giorno grew up in the city with his shitty mom and step dad. No gangster saving this time. Eventually, lets say, Giorno's parents decide they dont wanna deal with him anymore and put him in an orphanage and so giorno just kinda lives a sad life for a while. Eventually, he gets adopted by Jonathan and Erina, (his ov dad still being dio but hes dead because its my au and i said so) so Jonerina adopt Giorno and stuff starts getting a lot better for him. After vampire puberty or whatever, giorno isnt going to be killed by the sun or anything it just kinda stings his skin and he'll get burned bad if he stays exposed to the sun longer than an hour or so. So he starts taking night walks. Eventually, on a night of the full moon while giorno's out on his walks (cuz hes gotta do something it gets boring in the house at night after a while) and giorno comes across fugo like, as he's transforming into a full on wolf. Fugo's kinda embarassed by the fact giorno caught him and upon seeing giorno watch him transform, he sprints away. Giorno thought fugo and his big ol white fur coat were really pretty and doesnt chase after him, but thinks about it. A month later, the next full moon and he sees him again, transforming. Giorno just kinda ponders who this pretty stranger is and this time stays more hidded and approaches him slowly. Fugo growls at him at first, but giorno's opener is "Hello, your fur is very pretty. I'm Giorno, Giorno Giovanna" and fugo gets all flustered at being called "pretty" so he decides to approach him, carefully circlin him and gathering his scent to familiarize himself with it. He decides giorno is not a threat, and decides to shift back to his more human complexion, though his wolf ears and tail are still very present, as well as sharp claws and teeth. Fugo gets all nervous and eventually introduces himself and they kinda continue walking at night. Gionro also explains hes a vampire and prefers to thrive at night. Fugo asks to meet up another night and giorno agrees. They continue like that for a few weeks till fugo eventually gives giorno his number, that way they domt have to just walk and talk at night, and their relationship grows from there.

Its such a long Post omg 💀 but thats what i have!

[no-longer-an-alley-cat]

A myth (or collection of myths) for a goddess of a particular pantheon heavily inspired by @thestalkerbunny’s “Grandmother Beetroot” comic.

Tabha is the goddess of familial ties and volcanoes. Within the pantheon she is associated more with the sun god, which means that she does not abide outright lies and does not kill.

Also worth noting: Rozia is the goddess of privacy, medicine, and magic, and the River Zed is domain of Zayla, an aromantic, asexual goddess whose preisthood serves a legitimate way for people to escape the obligations of marriage in this setting. ‘Jadda’ is an anglicisation of the Modern Standard Arabic for grandmother.

Jadda Tabha

Jadda Tabha lives high up on the slopes of the mountain, growing her crops in the rich volcanic soil. She does not live alone; the hunting cats and soaring eagles keep her company and she keeps many hives. When people ask her about what sort of company such wild companions can provide, she laughs and tells them that the creatures help her keep an eye on things. She never specifies what things.

Jadda Tabha has a mane of grey hair that glimmers with gold when the sun hits it. It frames her face like an old lion’s mane, making her stone-grey eyes seem fiercer and her olive-brown skin more weathered. This is merely an appearance, however, she is always pleasantly warm whatever the weather and gives the best hugs. 

Like many old people, Jadda Tabha moves slowly. She makes her way down the mountainside at the same steady pace in torrential rain as she does in the blistering sun. Travellers who have accompanied her up or down say that the paths she knows are less steep than the ones they can find on their own. Children who take it into their heads to attempt to climb to the peak are guided back down in less time than it takes to organise a search party with their scrapes tended to and their fears soothed by a piece of honey candy.

If you make the journey up to Jadda Tabha’s hut, you can hear the magma inside the mountain bubbling away in the crater further up the track and it sounds almost like a huge cauldron. She smiles when people tell her this and says that she has no need for a cauldron that big, she is only cooking for herself. Much of the food she grows she gives to the village people — she says she plants so much to give the bees something to do.

It is easy to talk to Jadda Tabha. She is a solid presence.

Dependable.

Once she overheard a young man boasting that he would marry only the ugliest eligible person because they were sure to be grateful and not ask him to do work around the house. Jadda Tabha gave him a cream to rub on his face before bed that would surely make even the prettiest person grateful to marry him.

He did so but noticed no change, so he when he next saw Jadda Tabha in town, he accosted her. “The cream did not work,” he told her. “I haven’t received any proposals since I used it.”

“Ah,” she said in her slow and steady way, “what did you do in the waking hours before you used the cream?” The man spluttered that he didn’t see how it mattered, but under her inexorable stare he admitted that he had spent the days lying around his parents’ house and drinking with his friends. Jadda Tabha clucked her tongue. “The cream requires the sweat of a day’s labour to work,” she explained. “Do you have a patch of land to clear, perhaps?”

“Why?” the young man demanded, brash like young men often are. “What sort of medicine are you giving me that requires me to help it?”

“Would you rather I give you someone else’s sweat to rub on your face?” Jadda Tabha asked, and the man admitted that he would not. 

And so he went to work, tilling the plot of land his ageing parents struggled with and applying the cream to his face each night. Each day he needed to do slightly more work to work up a sweat, and before the tub was half done he was tending to the farm all by himself and attracting many admiring glances from those that valued a committed partner who knew how to moisturise. 

One time a pair of feuding siblings came to her, a frosty silence hanging between the two broken only by pointed remarks made to a third party. It was difficult to tease out the reasons for the broken relationship, but Jadda Tabha was patient and while the siblings broke their silence to scream at each other she pieced together that a new baby sister was at the centre of the current storm. The elder sibling, having moved out before the arrival of the sister, accused the younger of trying to keep her away from the baby while the younger accused her sibling of trying to ‘steal’ her little sister from her.

“A baby is not a toy,” Jadda Tabha said, easily making her voice heard over the warring siblings. “Just because she can’t talk yet doesn’t mean that she’s an object to be stolen.”

“Yes, Jadda Tabha,” the siblings chorused, showing that they had been taught their manners, at least. But Jadda Tabha discerned that these were just words, and the sentiments here would not be so easily changed.

“Perhaps there is a way to test which of you is best equipped to play with this child,” she said carefully. “There are a few kittens I have been nursing after their mother tragically died. You will each take one and look after it for three nights; when you return them they will tell me which of you did the better job.”

The siblings agreed eagerly, enthusiasm waning slightly when Jadda Tabha presented them with a pair of fuzzy cheetah cubs rather than the housecats they had expected. After listening intently to Jadda Tabha’s instructions, they took the cubs home, each determined to procure the very best toys for the small creatures.

They spent their respective evenings keeping the cubs entertained with feathers and balls, but when night fell, they did not grow less active. They squeaked constantly and wriggled out of blankets, no matter how cosily they were arranged. They refused to eat, seeming to prefer instead to stand at the window and cry piteously at the moon. For such small creatures, they seemed capable of shockingly piercing cries. Finally, the younger sibling bundled her cub up and rushed to her other sibling, finding her in a similar sleepless predicament. 

No sooner had she entered the home of her eldest sibling than the cheetah cub had wriggled itself free, flung itself on the other, and soon the pair of them lay in a purring heap. The eldest sibling silently made up a bed for her younger sibling and the two of them went to sleep as quietly as possible.

The very next day, they returned the cubs to Jadda Tabha.

“We see what you were teaching us,” the elder sibling said respectfully. “When we force each other away, we bring suffering.”

“And that something small and cute can be insufferable,” the younger added.

“I’m glad to see you are such fast learners,” Jadda Tabha said, lifting a cub into her lap. “Though I half hoped I could spend another two nights without little claws tearing up my floors.”

The siblings accepted the compliment and beat a hasty retreat before Jadda Tabha could think of more lessons that could be learnt by fostering cheetah cubs.

Once a young woman climbed the mountain to knock on Jadda Tabha’s door. She accepted the cup of honeyed tea that she was offered, but almost before the proper observances had been made she requested a healing balm. Her excuses about being clumsy and prone to accidents shattered on Jadda Tabha’s stony stare and before she knew it she was detailing her husband’s rages, how he told neighbours that she was crazy and made her half believe it herself, how he never hit her where it showed. Jadda Tabha clucked her tongue. 

“Ah, child,” she said, “this is more hurt than one of my balms can heal. Why don’t you head east, where a temple of Rozia sits on the banks of the River Zed? They will be able to help you more there.”

“Oh, but my husband!” the woman cried. “He will be angry that I’ve been away as long as I already have been.”

“Don’t fret, child,” Jadda Tabha said, getting to her feet in her slow and steady way. “I will explain to your husband.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” the woman said. But Jadda Tabha would hear none of it, providing her with provisions and sending her on her way before she made her own journey to the village. The young woman and her abuser lived on the outskirts of the village, so it was not as long a walk as it might have been. Jadda Tabha did not hurry, however, and arrived just as night began to fall.

As soon as the man heard footsteps on the porch he started shouting, only to stop and stare in disbelief when the door opened to reveal Jadda Tabha. “Where is my wife!” he demanded, scowling.

“Away,” Jadda Tabha said calmly. “I’ve come to tell you that she will not return for some time. Possibly ever.”

“Where did she go? What did she say to you? The dumb bitch is always lying,” the man sneered. 

“I know a lie when I’m told it,” Jadda Tabha said, her grey eyes sharpening to something more like steel. “You should worry less about what she has told me and more about what you are telling me now.”

“Insolent old woman!” the man proclaimed and he moved to hit her, as he had learned that this was a way to escape truths that he’d rather not hear. This is not true.

And, particularly in the case of Jadda Tabha, a mistake.

The man screamed as his hand broke across the old woman’s cheek. “You would be better off beating the mountain,” Jadda Tabha said as the moon rose in the east and the air rang with the cries of night hunters. She sighed, looking down at him as he sat crying in his own doorstep. “Ah, what am I to do with you, child? The priests of the sun would have you do penance, the priests of the moon would have you hunted. Either way, you would end up dead.”

“Mercy,” the man begged and Jadda Tabha raised an eyebrow.

“You ask for mercy? You, who hurt those you think can’t or won’t hurt you back? Who spread lies to hide your misdeeds? You ask me for mercy? Very well.” Jadda Tabha stepped back, holding the man in place with her steely gaze. “Perhaps you will be redeemed, after all. But if you harm another living being, it will be the end of you.”

And with that, Jadda Tabha turned him into a bee; another worker for her hives.

It is said that if a person is being abused by their family or lover and can not make the trek up to Jadda Tabha’s hut, it is enough to tell the bees. Even if uttering the words is too much, it can be worthwhile setting up a hive. The bees are eager to earn Jadda Tabha’s forgiveness. They help her keep an eye on things.

[justgottafinishthischapter]

An Example in World Building

Not long ago, I put out a post on The Five Visitors, a guide of tricks and tips on world building. However, something I see a lot of writing blogs do that I don’t understand is that they give advice without giving a proper example and showing you how to use the steps they showed you. So, I’m going to take my own advice. I’m going to come up with a loose concept and workshop it into a functioning world using my system.

So the first step is creating an interesting world. I like the Warriors Cats series and I happen to be a cat person, so I think I’d like to try to work with this idea. I want to make a fantasy world inhabited by sentient cats that live together in a society. And a way of making it more interesting, big cats like lions, tigers, and leopards are considered to be the nobility and upper class, while housecats are the common people.

Okay, so now my world has a loose concept. I have sentient cats. The first visitor I’d be welcoming on my fantasy land is The Biologist. He’ll come to me with questions like: Do the cats walk on four legs or two? Do they have opposable thumbs? Where do they fall in terms of anthropomorphism? I think for my setting, I’d like them to be able to walk upright but also on all fours, they have something akin to an opposable thumb, and they’re basically just cats with higher thought and the ability to speak. They still have night vision, are able to squeeze through small openings, use their whiskers to balance, and still have claws. And with cats as sentient animals, are other animals anthropomorphized? I’d say yes. There’s no such thing as “a mindless animal” in my world except possibly humans. But I haven’t decided if they’re included in my world.

Okay, so I just brought in one of the extra people that’s not formally a part of the main Five, but it was relevant to an aspect of the story, understanding the biology of my non-human species. So next I’ll move on to History. The Lions have always been the ruling species of the cat culture from Leonidas the Undaunted to Aleser the Relentless. In the past, they used the cruel act of declawing to mark a cat as property, and many housecats had their claws removed and forced into slavery for the nobility. The practice has since then largely fallen out of style after the housecats revolted in the Kitten’s War of 483 when a battalion of housecat kittens, hidden to be spared the pain of declawing, banded together to revolt against their oppressors. These days, declawing is only used on prisoners whose crimes were violent or heinous in nature.

Next, I’ll evaluate economy. Because cats have a tendency to live in societies that share resources, it can be assumed that they’d live in something similar to but maybe not exactly a socialist society. I have a feeling cats would live in sort of a bartering type of society where they perform services rather than exchange money. If you want some mice that another cat caught, you might fix their fence, mow their lawn, or trade them something of equivalent value which is controlled by a formal bartering system in place that has clearly laid out the value of equivalent exchange for any two things, thus ensuring that no two people can ask for different amounts of birds as payment for rabbits. Within this society, due to the divide in upper and lower class, food typically eaten by big cats is equivalent to fancy foods in our own world, so for a housecat to eat antelope, wildebeest, or zebra is a high class luxury, while eating mice, squirrels, birds, and rabbits is considered “lower class” food, though rabbits are the best of these lower class meals.

After economics, it’s time to discuss culture. If there were to be a religious figure in their society, it’s not hard to assume that it’d be a lion. However, while cats can be affectionate and care deeply for community and social bonding, cats are also far more independent than dogs. Thus, their faith may more closely resemble Buddhism where the faith is directed inward on making the self better rather than venerating the external outside of the self. Due to the many times the news has covered stories of cats taking in animals of other species, it’s not hard to imagine that within this society, it’s considered the right thing to do to house, shelter, and nurse any child no matter the species for as long as it needs a home regardless of blood relation. Although some cats do, it’s not commonplace for cats to have a single mate for life, and as such, inheritence laws would be nearly non-existent. Due to cats being more focused on the community than the self or the family, when a cat dies, their belongings might not necessarily go to their offspring, but instead to those in the community who may be in need, and these items may or may not be bartered off by the surviving relatives. However, due to big cats being more wealthy than housecats, most housecats cannot afford to barter for more luxurious items when big cats die, making it harder, but not impossible, to gain pricey items. Even something as important as the throne is not passed from father to son necessarily so much as passed from strongest to strongest, placing the best warrior on the throne, rather than the nearest of kin. Big cats are stronger than housecats, and as such, they are more gifted as soldiers, athletes, and builders in general. It’s not common to see a housecat playing at big cat levels on a professional team. Lions tend to dominate sports like football, baseball, and basketball, while Cheetahs dominate in soccer, lacrosse, and track and field. Housecats however are rather equal in terms of intelligence with big cats, and job fields such as teachers, lawyers, and doctors sees a fairly regular mix of the two. Especially in more hostile and eat-or-be-eaten types of work environments like law, it’s very common for race tensions to escalate among co-workers.

If humans came to their world, they would be utterly ineffective as diplomats. Due to cat languages being highly complicated uses of sounds and non-verbal body language, humans would need to be spoken to in the most basic and dumbed down form of communication: meowing. Effectively baby talk, this form of communication is so simple and watered down that it’s the equivalent of speaking pigeon English.

Finally terrain, and since housecats don’t really tend to live in the wild and when they do run away then still tend to live within cities, it can be hard to really peg what type of environment housecats would want to live in. However, given that most big cats have evolved to live in just about every climate, it’s safe to assume that the geography of the world could be as vast and diverse as our own and have cat settlements all over. Still, it’s safe to assume most cities would be well off in a savanna type environment, or something otherwise temperate as that seems to be one of the preferred climate types for cats. Maine Coon cats and other subspecies with equally thick coats get excellent barters for the fur they shed as jackets for shorter haired cats living in cold environments.

While this is in no way a fully finalized draft or fully realized concept, as it didn’t build a plot or story, I do hope that it gave people a good idea of how to take a simple idea and expand upon it to create something. Hopefully this demonstration showed you something useful, and will be helpful as you explore the ideas of your own world.

[pinkalexlive]

“I think you and Ellie have demonstrated you aren’t worth the effort,” Uncle Paul said, his voice low.  He’d approached Paige, reaching out to put a hand on her shoulder. 

She stepped away, instead.  She was crying, now.  “I thought you’d at least play fair, Peter.  Maybe you have to be loyal to Ellie because you grew up with her, but I thought you’d be fair, with me.  We’re supposed to have a connection.”

“You hear about twins eating one another in the womb,” Peter said.  “Maybe I got some of your brains, huh?  Because that’s fucking stupid.”

Paul no!

Peter no!

Paige stared at him, incredulous.  Then she slapped him, hard.

It was the catalyst for this entire thing to become a full-on fight.  Not sniping one another, not lacing casual statements with words meant to cut.  Shouting, Aunt Steph trying to grab Paige, and Paige ducking out of reach, running instead.

Damnit Peter! Minus cousin points for all this!

“Molly,” the man at the door said.  “She’s asking for you next.”

Wait, is the grandma still alive? I thought she was already dead.

“It’s my turn,” I said.  “I’m Blake Thorburn.  Go after Paige, Molly.  I don’t think I’ll be long.”

“Cutting in, Blake?”  Callan asked.  “I think you were lying, about not wanting any of this.”

I gave him the finger.  When I looked, Molly gave me a nod, before breaking into a run to chase Paige.

Callan loses a point, and Molly gets a point!

Grandmother doesn’t look like someone who’s about to die.   The room smelled of flowers and fresh air, from the windows that opened just above the garden.

Oh shit she’s alive!

She had been propped up in a sitting position in her bed, leaning against an arrangement of pillows.  She was dressed in an old fashioned nightgown that extended to her broomstick-thin wrists, her hair tied back in a tight bun.  Her eyes were sharp as they studied me, and her hands were steady as they raised a teacup to her lips.  Her nurse stood to her left in his scrubs, her lawyer to her right was an Indian man in an immaculate suit.  Her cat, maybe the largest housecat I’d ever seen, gray and well groomed, lay with its head in her lap.

If the creepy house and hag-ness wasn’t a sign she was a witch, the cat is.

“Well, this is refreshing,” she finally said.  Her voice was clear.  Not an old person’s voice.  Certainly not a ninety-year old’s.  “It feels like all the rest of them are dressed like they can’t wait for my funeral.  Or maybe they’re too cheap to buy two outfits for the occasion.”

“With all due respect,” I said, picking my words carefully, “I don’t give a flying fuck, you disgusting, evil, rancid cunt.”

Blake damnit don’t piss the hag off

“I think that’s crude,” she said.  “A more civilized person would use words to attack me.”

Lemme guess. We’re gonna have magic spells with verbal components?

“What words are going to matter?  What am I going to say that’s going to make an impact on you?  Honestly, what am I going to do that’s going to make you recognize even an iota of the pain you’ve caused everyone out there?”

“And the pain I’ve caused you?” she asked.  “You’re most likely right, I suppose.  There’s very little that someone could say that would shake me.”

I’m probably not supposed to like the hag, but I like the hag.

“You’re scum, and you’re the one thing at the root of everything that’s going on out there.”

I wonder what she did to cause that. Bad parenting? Magical side effects? Or is Blake just being pessimistic?

“You took advantage of those things, making all of this one big fucked up game.  Laying down the rule, that only one person gets the property and the millions from selling it.  Then you say it has to be a grandchild-“

“My children are useless,” she said.  She was so dismissive and casual about it.

“-And then you drop the bomb that it has to be a girl.  You broke up this family, you did it strategically.  You set us tooth and nail against one another, and now you’re enjoying tearing the others down, ruining their hopes.”

Is she looking for an heir to her witchiness? I’d bet the property doesn’t just include the house. If Paige gets it for some reason, it’d explain why she’s involved in magic. But then how does Blake get dragged in?

��Rich’ turned my way.  “I can offer you a cup as well, if you promise not to throw it at her.”

“Don’t offer me anything, then, thank you,” I said.  I looked at my grandmother.  “I don’t want anything she has to offer.  Not tea, not the inheritance-“

“To clarify,” she said, “I’ve stressed repeatedly that it’s a female grandchild that will get the inheritance.”

I like Rich and the grandma. They’re very sassy...

“I’m not about to rule out the fact that you’re messing with us, grandmother.  I could see you handing something over to Callan just to see our reactions.  Not to mention the trouble I’m having with the ‘I’m dying’ bit, which you’re doing a really bad job of selling.”

If anything I’d said had an impact, it was that.  I could see the faint amusement drop away from her.  “Are you accusing me of being a liar, Master Blake?”

Since I sorta know about the whole no lying thing, I’d wager being called a liar is a higher insult than Blake understands.

“I consider myself honest, if nothing else.”

See?

She sipped her tea, winced at the heat, licking her thin lips with her tongue, and then leaned back against the arrangement of pillows.

“You remind me of my father,” she said.  “He had passion, and an interest in justice.”

“He also fucked his cousin, if I remember right.”

She smiled a little.  “You heard of that?  Yes.  That would be him.”

This goddamn family.

“Not an option,” she said.  She stroked the cat, scratching him at the lowest part of his back, just in front of his tail.  “The house stands.  I’m picking the young lady who I feel can look after it.”

The house has some kind of spell. Maybe a seal keeping demons or other magical baddies away? Maybe the “neighbors” are baddies that can’t hurt the family because of the house’s hypothetical seal. Calling it.

“Look me in the eye, then, if you’re so honest, and tell me you don’t.  That you don’t get some measure of glee or satisfaction out of this.”

She looked me square in the eye.

Yet she didn’t say a word.

Yep, she can’t lie. I don’t know if it’s can’t lie as in literally can’t or if she has to consciously be honest, but yeah.

“Blake,” she said.

I stopped, my hand on the doorknob.  I regretted it the moment I paused.

“When you first spoke to me, you said, ‘All due respect’.  Did you mean it?”

I didn’t look at her.  “All due respect, you’re a festering old cunt?  One hundred percent.”

Wideboat and his foreshadowing. I know there’s some hidden message there I don’t quite get. Maybe that’s what makes the grandma choose Blake or something? Calling it.

But I dozed, my eyes half-open, a bit of a burden lifted from my shoulders.

Welp. There’s a chapter break here, so I’m gonna leave it here and pick it up either later today or tomorrow. I’m gonna have to find a way to make this faster, because we’ll never finish this story at this rate.

[365daysofsasuhina]

[ 365 Days of SasuHina || Day One Hundred Fifty-Five: Twelve Babies ] [ Uchiha Sasuke, Hyūga Hinata, Inuzuka Hana ] [ SasuHina, pregnancy ] [ Verse: Best Years of Your Life ] [ AO3 Link ]

It starts when she’s coming in with an armful of groceries. Juggling the bag and her keys, Hinata pauses as she hears a soft sound. A few glances around the front porch, however, reveal nothing...and she doesn’t hear it again. Listening a moment longer, she then mentally shrugs and heads in. There’s still several more bags to pack in, after all. And for the moment, she’s all alone with Sasuke at work. Which leaves all the grocery-carrying to her.

Once everything is put away, she changes into a pair of worn shorts and a tank top, hair pulled into a tail behind her head and a visor snug over her brow to shade her face. Gloves pulled onto her hands, she heads back out through the front door to do a bit of yard work. The flowerbeds in the front are getting a bit overrun with weeds. It’s time yet again to go to war with the unwanted flora!

Ten minutes in, she stills. There’s that noise again! Sitting back on her haunches, Hinata looks over the yard. Funny...she doesn’t see anything. The houses on either side are quiet. What on earth…?

There! Again! Head turning, she pinpoints it somewhere to her left. Is there...something under the front porch? Hesitating - what if it’s a racoon? They carry rabies! - she sidles over to the lattice that goes all the way around the underside of the porch.

Or...well, most of it. As it so happens, there’s a piece broken off along the house. Great...there is something under there, isn’t there?

Nibbling her lip, she heads in for a moment to grab a flashlight, reemerging and kneeling by the hole. A button is pressed, and the light cuts through the dark under the porch.

A few random bits of junk - must be from the previous owners - are scattered about. Old broken flower pots, some spare lattice...and a cardboard box…? Heaving a small, curt sigh, Hinata moves around to a better angle to see into said box. Peering through a hole of the lattice, she aims her light...and gasps softly.

Staring with round eyes, giving a quiet growl...is a cat.

“Aww...hey, kitty,” Hinata greets softly. “What are you doing under there…?”

Still the feline growls, Hinata angling the beam to keep from blinding them.

“It’s okay! I’m not gonna hurt you. Gosh, I thought you were a trash panda…” Shifting her weight, she tries to think of what to do. “...hold on!”

Back in she goes, fetching a can of tuna fish. Cracking it open, she forks some into a tupperware bowl...and then gets a second for some water. Placing both near the hole by the house, she calls, “Here kitty kitty! Are you hungry?”

It takes a minute, but the smell of tuna coaxes them to peer around the edge of the box, sniffing with soft snorts. Creeping along as Hinata settles herself back a ways, the cat - a little black one with a splotch of white on their chest - slowly emerges just enough to scarf down several chunks of tuna.

And it’s then Hinata notices, this is a fat cat! But...fat in a sort of...odd way. Almost like…

...oh no.

“...you’re pregnant, aren’t you?” she notes quietly. What is she supposed to do with a wild, pregnant cat?

Sasuke is going to be thrilled.

Not.

Watching her eat (and then get a long drink), Hinata nibbles her thumbnail, sat on the grass. Should she...call the pound? But surely that would be a lot of stress for a kitty that’s so clearly close to popping…

...oh! Duh!

Taking her phone out of her pocket, Hinata sends a quick text. Thankfully it only takes Kiba a few minutes to reply.

Yeah, I can see if my sis has some spare time - she helps with rescues a lot. And she can make sure the cat’s healthy. I’ll text you when I hear back.

Hinata breathes a sigh of relief. Thank you - I just want to make sure mama and babies will be okay!

Having little else to do but wait, Hinata wraps arms around her bent knees, watching her new feline friend eat her meal. “I wish you weren’t scared of me, kitty...I promise I don’t want to hurt you…!” But alas, cats can’t understand something so easily - she’ll have to earn her trust, first. Hopefully Hana will know some tips and tricks for that.

All the while, her guest keeps one wary eye on the human. It doesn’t take long to clean up every scrap of tuna.

“Gosh, you must be really hungry…! Do you...want some more?” She also just got some chicken...maybe that would be better on an empty stomach. Ever so slowly, Hinata moves to get to her feet.

In a flash, the cat disappears back under the porch.

“Oh -!” Trying to gesture, Hinata wilts. Well...she should have expected that. Setting her jaw, she picks up the dish and heads back inside.

One cut up piece of chicken later, she returns, setting it back in the same spot...and this time, sitting a little closer. As before, the kitty approaches slowly, watching Hinata with a heaping amount of suspicion.

“You’re okay,” she murmurs, trying to calm her. “I’m not gonna hurt you...it’s just m-me and you. You’re safe, pretty little kitty.”

On she goes, mostly just talking nonsense to try to adjust the cat to her voice. Reaching the dish, the soon-to-be mother heads right on in to eating.

As tempted as she is to try and pet her, Hinata refrains. Mostly because she knows that won’t work, but also because she can’t know what trouble this kitty’s gotten into: parasites, illnesses...she might not be safe to touch.

And then Sasuke’s car pulls into the driveway. Tensing, the cat - surprisingly - doesn’t flee, eyes round again and clearly scared.

“Easy! Easy…” Hinata urges. “It’s just Sasuke. He’s my husband. He loves kitties!”

“Hinata? Who are you talking to?”

She just points, Sasuke coming around and then stopping in surprise. “...oh! Is that cat...pregnant?”

“I think so. Poor thing is so hungry...I’ve been trying to make friends!”

Just as curious, Sasuke takes a seat beside her.

Torn between her appetite and her fear, the cat lingers in inaction for a while before taking another bite.

Feeling her phone vibrate, Hinata gets a text from Hana. Can be there in twenty minutes - be careful not to approach, get scratched / bit

True to her word, the vet soon arrives, a carrier and a catch pole in hand. “So, she’s under the porch?”

“Mhm...we had her out to eat, but she got nervous at your car.”

The couple stand aside as the vet gets to work, laying on her belly and fishing around for the feline. Soon there’s a startled howl as she gets ahold of her, and Hinata can’t help a flinch. Fishing her out, Hana carefully gets her into the crate.

Immediately, the cat shrinks into a corner, hair on end and pupils like dinner plates.

“...well, I’ll have to do a lot of tests, make sure she doesn’t have any mites, fleas, diseases...but if she checks out, I’ll let you know.”

“Will...will she need a foster home?”

Hana perks a brow. “...are you offering?”

Hinata looks to Sasuke, who deadpans. “...Hinata…”

“We can help find the babies homes! Haven’t you always w-wanted a cat since we moved in?”

“Yeah, one. Not a whole...troupe.”

“Kittens are pretty easy to get adopted,” Hana offers. “Everyone loves baby animals.”

“Pleaaase?”

The Uchiha sighs. “...oh, all right. But we have to make sure she’s safe and healthy first.”

“Mhm!”

A week passes as Hana does tests and cleans the cat up, doing her best to socialize her. “I think she was someone’s housecat,” she reports over the phone. “She doesn’t have a chip, but she’s actually gotten a little friendly. Still very scared, though.”

“Aww…”

“You sure you want her in your house? She didn’t have fleas, and seems clean besides some ear mites I treated her for...but who knows if she’s housebroken, or won’t go nuts and jump on everything.”

“I’m sure!”

Thankfully, the couple have a spare room in their little house: what was going to be an office, but has mostly just been storage as the project keeps getting pushed back. Hinata does her best to clean it up, investing in a large dog crate filled with second hand store blankets, water and food, and a small litter box.

Hana brings the kitty back a few days later, helping move the very round cat from one crate to another. Curling up in a corner, she stares with wary eyes.

“Hey there,” Hinata greets with a smile.

“Got a name picked out yet?”

“Hm...no, not yet.”

“She seems nice, just...very shy of people. She hasn’t bitten or scratched - very well-behaved. I’m willing to bet she’s a housecat that got pregnant, and the owner just...tossed her out rather than deal with the kittens.”

“Oh, how horrible…”

“But, she’s got a good home now. Once the kittens are born and old enough, I’ll help you find homes. Shouldn’t take much.”

“Thank you!”

Kittens, as it turns out, aren’t far off.

As a matter of fact, they only wait about a day before arriving.

Going in to check her the following morning, Hinata freezes at the sounds of soft, tiny mews. “...oh my g-gosh!”

Very carefully checking the cat’s nest of blankets, Hinata counts a whopping twelve babies. Twelve little kittens!

“Holy smokes, mama! No wonder you were so hungry, having all those little ones in there!”

Sasuke doesn’t believe her until he gets home to check himself. “...well I’ll be darned.”

Most of the kittens are shades of black or grey, but a few are tabby colored. “Well, I guess we know what the dad looked like…”

“Freeloader, not even sticking around to raise the kids.”

Hinata giggles. “I guess that falls to us, huh?”

Hana comes to check them, also amazed. “You don’t see litters this size very often! But they all look healthy...what a good mama.”

Hinata starts her new home hunt early. Everyone she knows gets a call advertising the little kitties.

Kiba’s girlfriend agrees to take one. Naruto and Sakura too, if they can get a pet deposit in their apartment. Shino politely declines, citing an allergy. Kurenai, Hinata’s favorite high school teacher, agrees to one. Ino goes in for two. Sasuke’s brother lets his wife talk him into one. Shisui agrees to one, as does his mother. Even Hanabi manages to convince Hiashi to let her have one. That leaves three unaccounted for, which Hana assures them won’t take long.

Sasuke, however...quickly becomes attached. He’s told her before of his family’s love for cats, as evident by their percentage of participation. But more than once, Hinata catches him in the spare room, letting himself be overrun by kittens.

As time goes, the mama cat quickly warms up to them both.

“How about Oreo?”

“You have any idea how overused that name is for black and white animals?”

“Cuz it fits!”

“...how about...Shadow?”

“...what was that about overused?”

Staring at her, Sasuke then brightens. “...Bowtie.”

“What?”

“Her white mark on her chest! It looks like a bowtie!”

Hinata stares...and then laughs. “It does!”

Once the kittens are old enough, they get one last checkup by Hana, and then get dispersed to their new homes.

And Bowtie gets spayed.

“I think one batch of twelve babies was enough for the poor thing,” Hinata agrees.

“Yeah...one cat is plenty. For now.”

“...for now.”

                                                         .oOo.

     Me: I should keep my dailies short so I don't burn out for the Tumblr event!      Me: *writes this, which is almost 2k words*      ...welp xD      Typically I try to average about 1200 words for these drabbles...I think last I checked the overall average was actually 1400-ish? So even then I've managed to go a bit overboard, lol - I just...really liked this prompt and had to flesh it out a bit more than usual xD      Anywho, Hinata found a kitty! Which then led to MANY MORE kitties! Which I promise all ended up with good homes. And that's...really all there is to this, lol      Remember folks: spay and neuter your pets!      Anyway, on that note, I'm gonna go pass out! Still got a LOT of writing ahead of me for the next three days, so I need some sleep - thanks for reading!

[tisfan]

Title: From Russia with Purrs Square: A3 - FREE SQUARE Warning: no animals were actually harmed in the writing of this fic Rating: Gen Pairing: Peter Parker & Ned Leeds / background Bucky/Tony Summary: Spider-Man doesn’t always get called in to help with the Avengers stuff, but when Peter is given a special, urgent mission from the Winter Soldier, he needs to call in backup Link: A03 Word Count: 2505 For @tonystarkbingo

The spidey-sense was a bitch, really. Bad enough all his senses were cranked up to eleven and a half, but then he was on edge constantly for the first year, or more. Spidey-sense wasn’t common sense. It wasn’t directional. About half the time it wasn’t even useful. Had him ducking spitballs by diving to the floor like there was an lone shooter on school grounds.

Not that Peter didn’t already have a rep for being a bit of a spaz, and at a school for top academics, that was saying a lot. There were many ways to bully people, and shoving them into lockers was only for the most uncreative.

Which did mean, after the first year or so, he got sort of… used to it. The spidey-sense tingling didn’t have him bolting upright out of bed at three in the morning to cling to the ceiling like a terrified bat.

Usually he woke up long enough to blink at his clock, pause a moment to see if whatever it was actually planned to break through his window, and then went back to sleep.

Not this time.

His skin rippled and electric jolts went up and down his spine. Spidey-sense was like licking a nine-volt. Not painful, but impossible to endure for long, and freaky-weird on top of that.

Rap-rap-rap.

Peter rubbed at his eyes. “I swear,” he muttered, pushing himself up from his bed, “if I’m getting danger signals because there’s a pigeon at my window, I’m going to hurt someone.”

(more below the cut)

He reached under his bed and grabbed one of his spare web-slingers. Not one of the fancy things that Mr. Stark had set up for him with five hundred and seventy-six possible combinations, but the regular old one. Because he was tired and he was pretty sure it was a pigeon, but he wasn’t sure, so--

Rap-rap-rap.

Peter was just peeking through the blinds when a hand shoved his window up. A metal hand, with black and gold fingers. A moment later, the blinds shifted aside and there was a man in his bedroom.

A familiar man.

“Hey, aren’t--”

“Hush, kid,” the guy said in a deep, smoky sort of voice. The kind that spies used in meetings with their contacts.

“Aren’t you the Winter Soldier?” Peter hissed, excitable. Better to keep his voice down, though. Aunt May would completely freak out if there was a superhero in his room. Especially one that had been wanted for war crimes.

“Look, kid,” the Winter Soldier said. “Stark told me you could be trusted.”

“Mr. Stark said--” Peter squeaked. “Yeah, I mean, yeah, he… we do missions. Sometimes. Together. We’re a team. Partners. Like that.” He crossed his fingers. “You can trust me, yes sir.”

“Great,” the Winter Soldier said. “I need you to watch this cat for me.”

“What?”

The Winter Soldier reached outside onto the fire escape and brought in a cat carrier. It wasn’t an ordinary, plastic PetsWorld thing, either, but a fancy, modular box. Shiny and sleek and bearing the Stark Industries logo. “This is Alpine,” the Winter Soldier said. “Don’t let anything happen to this cat. I’ll be back in about a week.”

Peter looked into the carrier and saw a pair of blue eyes looking back at him.

“Okay--?”

The Winter Soldier was gone.

At least the multilayered cat carrier had come with supplies.

And the highest high-tech litter box Peter had ever seen, which was not saying a lot, because Peter had never lived in a rental that allowed pets, much less ever had one. Aside from a goldfish he’d won at the fair one time, but that had died within a week, and really, the less said about that, the better.

“You--” He told the cat, pointing at it, “--had better not die in a week.”

The cat came forward to sniff at his finger, and then brushed her head under his hand.

The Stark-Box came with a very fine layer of particles -- like crystals, really, in red and gold, because sure, why not, let the cat poop on the Iron Man colors. That was probably a bet that Mr. Stark had lost, or something. Or a joke that he didn’t want to know about -- and did a quick removal of feces or urine, put it in a little air-tight bag like they were on the International Space Station, as well as performed basic medical analysis on the output and sent a text to Peter’s phone, telling him that Alpine was in perfect health.

“What are you, some kind of spy cat?” He couldn’t imagine Mr. Stark going this far out of his way for a housepet.

There were also several tins of food, packets of a semi-soft food, and some hard kibble. There were feeding instructions and an admonishment to water the cat (that also went directly to his phone and he wondered if there was some sort of bluetooth connection and onboard computer in the Stark Carrier.

There were enrichment activities -- including a miniature of Cap’s shield that zoomed around the room under its own power and Alpine chased it a few times before batting it into Peter’s laundry basket where it stayed, buzzing fitfully, until Peter put it away.

A cat brush that Alpine turned her nose up at, and proceeded to attack his hand when he tried to use it. “Well, I went a week last year without brushing my hair-- don’t look at me like that, it was finals -- and it didn’t hurt me, so you’ll probably be okay.”

Alpine turned around and curled into a ball on Peter’s bed and went to sleep.

Which was great until Peter considered the fact that it was now four in the morning, he’d spent the last two hours poking and playing with the Winter Soldier’s cat, and he still had school in the morning.

And the cat… was laying in his bed. In the center of his bed. Where he wanted to sleep.

He poked her a few times. “Get up, that’s my sleeping spot.”

She ignored him.

Peter sighed, considered moving her. She opened one blue eye and gave him a Look.

Psychic cat, maybe?

“Ug, whatever.” He slung a web hammock and climbed in. He’d slept in worse places.

“You look like crap,” Ned said, sliding into the desk next to Peter. “Busy night crime fighting, rescuing stolen bikes? Giving directions? Oh, oh, I know, stopped a mugging?”

“Cat.”

“What?”

“I have a cat,” Peter explained, through a yawn. “The Winter Soldier showed up and left me a cat. A special cat.”

“Like, a lion? Or a radioactive housecat? Do you think if it bit me, I might get powers?”

Peter almost laughed.

Almost.

“I don’t think so?” Peter opened his textbook and turned to the page the teacher required. “I don’t know, he didn’t say much, just that it was important, and--”

“Mr. Parker, is there something you’d like to share with the class, or can I get on with our history lesson?”

“Sorry, sorry,” Peter said. “Go on, it’s fascinating.”

“Sarcasm, dude,” Ned hissed at him.

He waited until the teacher turned away again. “So, come over and help me out?”

“With a cat?”

“Dude, you have pets, I need advice! Help!”

“I have sea monkeys that I ordered from a comic book,” Ned said, with vast patience. “That’s not exactly the same as keeping a mutant cat under control.”

“She’s not a mutant,” Peter said, “at least I don’t think so. I don’t know, maybe she’s housing nano-tech or something. Just come over and help me out, okay?”

“Mutant nanotech cat,” Ned said. “And yet, somehow, this seems like work.”

“You’re the one who wanted to be a hero, pal,” Peter told him.

“Guy in the chair, Peter,” Ned corrected. “Q to your Bond.”

“Why is your room covered in webs?”

“She keeps knocking stuff off the shelves.”

“Really? Like that’s an actual thing, I thought it was just a meme,” Ned said.

“Sure, sit something there-- just on the edge of the desk.”

Ned pulled out his cellphone and put it on the side of Peter’s desk.

“Now come over here, so you don’t scare her,” Peter told him.

And sure enough a few seconds later, Alpine hopped up onto the desk. Sat next to the phone.

And knocked it on the floor.

Alpine was strong, Peter discovered. After pushing over Ned’s phone, a pile of algebra books, the casing for Peter’s old computer, a few dumbell weights that he’d used back before the spider bite and rarely even thought about now…

“This cat can push fifty pounds,” Ned said in awe. “Maybe it’s got the super soldier serum in it!”

Peter scoffed. “I can pick up an eighty-thousand pound cargo truck.” For a few seconds, at any rate, and really, it was more like he caught it. And it had kinda knocked him on his ass. A bit. But Ned didn’t need to know that.

“Well, not everyone can be Spider-Man,” Ned said, philosophically.

“Peter, you need to be -- are you listening to me?”

“Yes, Aunt May, “ Peter said, grabbing a bag of granola from the drawer and emptying into his mouth, chewing like a chipmunk. The worst thing about the whole Spider-Man gig was how he was always freaking hungry, no matter how much he ate. And he knew they couldn’t afford it. MJ had gone on a tear a few months ago about a diet that the goal was SNATT -- slightly nauseated all the time -- to obtain the perfect beach body.

One time his stomach had growled in biology so loudly that the whole class turned to stare, and Peter had said he was doing the kimkins diet. Almost everyone had stopped worrying about it, then, except for MJ, who started bringing him articles about eating disorders.

“--you need to be more careful about leaving your window open. There was a cat in your room.”

Slightly nauseated all the time.

The granola turned into a rock in his stomach. “So--” casually, casually “--where’s the cat now?” And how the heck hadn’t she noticed the cat box and food and litter if Aunt May was in his room?

“Her owner came and got her,” May said, blithely unaware that she was single handedly destroying Peter’s entire existence. “Nice man. Michael-- what did he say his last name was? I don’t remember. He said he saw her in your window, and came over to get her. I said we didn’t have a cat here, he must be mistaken, but when I opened the door to your room, she ran right to him. Says she’s his companion animal -- suffers from a rare blood disorder and she can smell it when he needs to medicate. That’s so smart, you know, having an animal that can do that.”

Morbius.

His aunt was less than six feet away from someone who drank human blood? Peter just about swooned.

“Peter, are you okay?”

“Yeah, I mean, you know, cat. In my room. I should go check and make sure she didn’t leave any presents.”

Aunt May made a fair enough sort of shrug and Peter bolted, leaving the rest of his snack on the kitchen counter. Threw on the spider-suit, stashed the Stark KatCaddy in his closet, and was out the window in a moment.

“Now, aside from a castle, if I was a nasty old vampire with a cat that I wanted for some reason, where would I go?”

Alchemex.

Alpine was, of all crazy things, asleep in Peter’s lap. He’d webbed her twice trying to get her back from Morbius, she’d spent half the day with a crazy vampire, and then she’d taken a trip across the city via the spider-street.

That she was curled up in his lap, absently kneading his thigh and purring little cute snores while she slept was…

“This cat is something else,” Peter said. He scratched between her ears and she opened up one eye to peer at him, then mewed softly and went back to sleep.

“So, like a mutant cat?”

“Well, no,” Peter said. “I’m not sure. Morbius thought she might have been injected with the super soldier serum. He was planning to drain all her blood and analyze it, with the idea of making a cure for himself.”

“A vampire who wants a cure,” Ned said. “Why is he a bad guy again? I mean, if I was a vampire who could go out in the day time, I’d go to high school every day and be cool and broody. Like Twilight.”

“Ned, you do go to high school every day,” Peter pointed out.

“Oh, right, yeah…”

Spidey sense didn’t wake him up.

The knocking on his window did, though.

Peter groaned. “What’s the matter with you? Can’t you just come by during normal daytime hours?” He shoved the window up to let the Winter Soldier in.

“You look tired, kid,” the Winter Soldier said.

“Yeah, well, your super cat’s like super useless,” Peter said. “Three villains, two nights of knocking all my stuff on the floor, one day of puking on my bed, and a partridge in a pear tree. Does she have any abilities, because you should totally train her up some.”

“Villains?”

“Dude, your cat got catnapped -- and not like in the cute, sleeping in my lap way -- four times. Twice by Morbius, who either wants to drink her blood or test it or something.”

The Winter Soldier’s eyebrows went up and his face took on murderous intent.

“Look, I got her back, everything’s cool, you do not have to get Cap to drop another 18-wheeler on me,” Peter said. “Everything’s perfectly fine right now, we’re all fine here, how are you?”

“I’m still stuck on villains,” the Winter Soldier admitted. “What’d you do, take out an ad in th’ papers that you were cat sitting?”

“I don’t know how Morbius knew,” Peter admitted, “but once the Sinister Six saw that Spider-Man was rescuing a cat, they decided the cat had to be important for some reason, I guess.”

“Well, shit, kid,” the Winter Soldier said. “I didn’t think that would happen. I just-- Tony… last minute--”

“You had a mission?”

“I had a vacation,” the Winter Soldier said. “Vacation. I love the sound of that word. Va-caaaay-shun.” The Winter Soldier rolled his shoulders and stretched his neck and --was that a hickey?

“I thought you had healing factor,” Peter said, “so-- who-- I mean, how har-- you know what, don’t answer that. You had a good vacation, that’s all I need to know, it is not my business if Mr. Stark was gnawing on your neck like a starving vampire, we have enough vampires around here, that’s all perfectly normal and fine.”

The Winter Soldier laughed. “Somethin’ like that, kid,” he said. “Sorry about the trouble, though. She wouldn’t have liked a kennel and I jus’ didn’t have anywhere else to take her, to someone I trusted.”

“You know what, Mr. Winter Soldier, sir, any time,” Peter said.