#cat school

[simo0n]

Husbands 🤲💕

😺✨🐺

[inexplicifics]

my cat used to drop rodents on my parents’ bed as…tribute? snacks? training (sometimes she’d just chew on them a bit and set them loose after maiming them, like she was trying to give my parents hunting lessons with training wheels)? who knows. but at least she was small enough that it was just chipmunks we had to worry about, and not elks apparently lmao. dating a cat witcher is really a scale issue at heart

Yeah, apparently they'll do that.

(Unless they're my childhood cat, who was scared of mice. There were extenuating circumstances, to be fair. But still.)

But yes, dating a Cat Witcher is basically a scale issue. They probably won't leave the elk on the bed, at least.

[best-childhood-book]

[kenobihater]

Sorry, maybe this is obvious and I'm just clueless but what separates a good portrayal of Cat Witchers vs not? I'm kinda confused

Even though ableism against mentally ill people is baked into the lore, I don't think it's too obvious bc of how pervasive ableism is in our culture, so don't worry, you aren't alone in your confusion! As a mentally ill man, I didn't even realize what struck me as wrong about the whole Cat School madness thing until I read some fics that featured it heavily, so you're far from the only person not to notice it. That said, just because the lore is ableist doesn't excuse people doubling down in ableist ways in their fanworks. We shouldn't give ourselves or other people a free pass simply because the source material has bad implications, instead we should take accountability and tread carefully whenever engaging with Cat Witcher lore. Now, this is going to be Long and written for the dual and often overlapping audiences of fanwork creators and consumers, so apologies that the rest will be under a cut!

I've already written up a couple posts about ableism in regards to the Cat School, primarily focusing on fandom, but I wouldn't recommend those bc I not only focused a bit narrowly on mostly psychosis, but I also mistakenly identified dissociation as a form of psychosis in one of the posts bc that's what I'd been told by an actual mental health professional. F's in chat for me I guess, thanks Susan! Anyways I'll summarize and expand upon the contents of those posts here. Also, I don't know if I ever say in that post that the lore itself is straight up ableist, and I'll explain why in a moment. Now, it isn't inherently ableist to depict someone with severe mental illness, just like it isn't inherently ableist to depict anyone with any severe disability, but the way in which it's excecuted is what makes it bad or not. Basically, the whole "Cats are CRAAAAAZY!!1!" is ableist in excecution because it puts a value judgement on said madness, implying that they are both more violent and morally bankrupt because of their madness, whether or not it's linked with the mutagens (I think there's some wiggle room here canonically as to whether or not the mental illness is from mutagens or whether it's due to or greatly exacerbated by picking candidates who are prone to mental illness, but while that's fascinating, this post is gonna be long enough so I'll perhaps cover that in another one). Portraying Cats as more violent or morally bankrupt simply because they are mentally ill is bad, end of story. If you want specific examples of this, literally just go to the wiki, this post doesn't need a plethora of citations to pad it out even more.

Now that I've established the lore itself as being ableist, let's discuss theoretical specifics of their illnesses, and what that means for how we portray them faithfully! The Cats aren't easily identifiable as having any one mental illness. They're said to be "psychopathic", an outdated, pejorative term for people with antisocial personality disorder. Gaetan reports symptoms that could be identified with intermittent explosive disorder. The wiki says Cat Witchers have volatile emotions, which could be bipolar coding. The fandom also enjoys writing Cats as having psychotic episodes and dissociative episodes, both of which I suffer from and which are incredibly annoying to see done wrong. These disorders and symptoms can all have overlap, but they can all be boiled down into the terms of "mental illness" or "madness" which I will use interchangeably throughout this post, though it's worth noting that the latter is a divisive term and one I'm using to both engage with the canon and fanon on its level and to reclaim.

So, how do you portray Cat Witchers as mad without being ableist and also remain true to canon? I've come up with three guidelines for judging whether or not something is ableist or not. If you follow these as well as maybe do a bit of research into ableism against mentally ill people, and also excercise some common sense and empathy, I think you'll be fine.

1.) Considering the world of the Witcher, I'm not expecting anyone to use our modern terminology for their characters mental illnesses, but I recommend at a minimum researching mental illnesses and picking one to at least loosely base your Cat Witcher's symptoms on. I'd do this because that way you can have a reference for believable behavior and symptoms for your character. If you're depicting a Cat Witcher as having antisocial personality disorder, they would NOT have explosive outbursts like they would if they had intermittent explosive disorder (unless it was co-morbid, of course). If your character is bipolar, they would NOT be hearing voices (again, unless you write them as being co-morbid with a schizospec disorder, though I'd advise against this because it could easily come off as conflating two different disorders). If you aren't writing characters and are instead just engaging in fan content, some good questions to ask yourself while reading would be "Do I recognize this mental illness?","How was this handled?", and "Is this falling into any harmful stereotypes?".

2.) A topic I think is important to consider when portraying or engaging with portrayals of Cat Witchers is this: how is the ableism they face treated by the narrative? I'm not so naive as to think that you will be able to believably write a mentally ill Cat in the world of the Witcher who doesn't face some kind of ableism, but I'm concerned with the impression it leaves the audience with, not its mere existence as a narrative element. Does it come off as gratuitous? Is it legitimized by the narrator, plot, or narrative? By legitimized, I mean excused. I have read Cat Witcher fics where actual eugenics against the mentally ill were justified by the narrative, and the way it was handled was abhorrent. I don't want to get into specifics bc I don't want anyone to get harassed, but it left me with a horrible taste in my mouth. Please, at the minimum, don't treat eugenics or "purges" or whatever you want to call them lightly, and if you do cover such a dark topic I beg that you ask yourself if you're making it clear narratively that eugenics is bad actually, or if you're instead feeding into actively harmful rhetoric that is dangerous for an already marginalized group to face.

3.) The last thing I can think of that I would advise against that I've seen in other fandoms but thankfully not this one (yet) is that True Love™ doesn't cure madness. It just... doesn't. Mental illness doesn't just go away because you're seeing someone. It doesn't go away at all unless it's acute, and that has zero bearing on whether or not the character is in love. Instead, I'd recommend writing the couple as having coping strategies for when the party in question is experiencing symptoms of their mental illness. Doing so is a great way to strengthen their relationship in your writing! If you're reading rather than writing fic, I recommend asking yourself about how mad characters are treated in the fics you read, whether or not they're magically "cured" bc of the love of another or any other means.

That's all I can think of at the moment, and I encourage you to do your own research about ableism against mentally ill folk as well if you want to improve your understanding! Also do keep in mind us mad folk aren't a monololith and I can't speak for all of us, but I hope my personal opinions on this have helped you out!!

[fantasyoftales]

Cat

[schoolofthepussy]

Vesemir: How many kids do you have?

Guxart: Physically, emotionally, or legally?

[unbury-the-gays]

I'm still investigating the theme of Kiyan's relationship with his demon. I see a lot of potential here.

A.

[the-witcher-confessions]

[murkycrush]

Geralt of Rivia (Ver.2) Cat School Gear & cute prince hair 🐺Support me on Ko-fi | Print shop | Commissions 🐺

[vera-simik]

Day 27 - Newest (july 2022): Gwyn of Oxenfurt

Say hi to the latest (and most likely the last) TW summer camp roleplay character I made!

More info about her will come soon, time wasn’t my friend today and I’m posting it quickly before midnight, sooo... stay tuned 😅

[bhaalbabe1]

Please for the love of the gods, look at the tiny gaetan doodle that I drew while on the bus

[inexplicifics]

Back to the cuteagens! 😄

You know how cats (dogs do it too but cats are most known for it) will stretch when they get up or are lying somewhere comfy?

Do Cat witchers do the same?

Like, there's a Cat draped over one of the beams in the great hall and they're just sooo comfy so they do a big stretch including fingers (and toes but you can't see those coz they're waring boots).

Or a trainee (Kitten) flops onto of a few of his bunk mates and a bit later he does a stretch and rolls over. Everyone ignores him and just resettles except for the one boy who gets a foot in the face but he just grumbles or nips at the Kittens ankle without actually intending to do any damage.

I think Cat Witchers definitely do the big stretch. And then they bite or stab anyone who dares draw attention to it.

[my-burnt-city]

I just think it's really important, before you next go to The Burnt City on a red cast night, that you are fully aware of who it was who taught Taylor Swift (and all the rest of the cast of Tom Hooper's 2019 disasterpiece Cats) how to be a cat

[kenobihater]

moodboard for when you're trying to find cat witcher fics that aren't blatantly ableist against psychotic people

[best-childhood-book]

Oh, maybe those two ?

Cat School by Kim Jin Kyeong

Corydon by Tobias Druitt

Added to the list! The review numbers for Cat School may be off since it seems to be a Korean novel and Goodreads is a primarily English site

[schoolofthepussy]

Gaetan: I'm not a lover but I am a fucker

Aiden: A motherfucker