#Ancestor Rats

[bonefall]

BB!MALICIOUS ENTITY: Ancestor Rats

A cruel fate that can befall a shattered pantheon, and the enemies of Firestar's Quietus

With SkyClan homeless and exiled at the end of the Skyfall Era, StarClan itself was in chaos. 1/5th of their ranks broke from the sky to walk with their descendants into exile, with only some of the most powerful ancestors staying behind.

Skystar himself, Patron of War, was one of them. He scoffed that a Clan that couldn't hold even a sliver of land had failed his teachings, and deserved nothing.

Scores of cats died in exile, starved, exposed, killed by predators. Cloudstar desperately tried to keep his cats together as SkyClan dwindled. Soon, there were barely enough cats to maintain a Clan, let alone such a large pantheon.

When Cloudstar died, his successor Spiderstar found herself facing a new threat. One she couldn't defeat.

Over and over, there were rats who would attack the camp. Horrible, twisted creatures of many colors, with sharp claws like a cat and jaws full of needle teeth. They swirled like a storm around a central point, wound so tightly that it was impossible to see what lay at the eye.

While watching baby spiders fly away from their mother on little silk balloons, Spiderstar devised a Great Plan. SkyClan would live apart but connected, loosely, like a web. The Rats could not kill what they could not find.

As she watched her Clan disperse, some to humans homes, some to live as rogues, the blood roared in her ears. It pounded, throbbed into a rythmn, until the words of a prophecy became overwhelming,

"EEK SHARRARRAM SSARSHAIWO!"

[Rat ancestors disastrous-they-will-kill]

Could this be true? Would their ancestors save them from the rats, someday?

(Below the cut; a guide to Ancestor Rats and how they are dealt with in Firestar's Quietus. CONTENT WARNING: BODY HORROR, GORE.)

Firestar's Quietus; The Secret of the Rats

Exactly as before, when Firestar and the spirit of Brokenstar gathered the SkyClan web together, the rats had one point of attack. They washed over the soon-to-be warriors in a wave, but they were able to fight them off.

Skywatcher laid on his side in the clearing, trembling and wide eyed, covered in horrible bites. At first they could barely get a word out of him, too shaken to speak. When he was finally able to force a word out, he could only mumble;

"I saw Lowbranch. That was my mother..."

And then, someone else came forward, sharing that one rat had the same stripes as their brother. Another recognized their son's tufts on another's ears. The camp buzzed with tension as the stories bubbled forth.

Everyone recognized something in the rats.

Something had happened to their ancestors. Something terrible. It became clear why they had never answered their prayers or sent a hero to save them. Brokenstar tried to reach them, but he could only hear a command echoing in the darkness.

"Neek urrspeekorreen urrsnyarhak, karrl urrsnakochya." "THAT WHICH CANNOT BE FIXED, MUST BE BROKEN"

It was only later, when they went to confront the rats once and for all, that they realized what those words meant. Stumbling out into the dim light out of the barn, they saw them.

Those weren't just rats!

And the most horrible thing of all was the atrocity behind it all, the creature at the center of the swirling, agonized mass, the eye of the storm...

The Rat Leader; Cloudstar

He promised to keep his Clan together. So he did.

As each life wasted away and his Clan dwindled, smaller and smaller, as their heaven crumbled above them and became too tiny to hold their ancestors, Cloudstar kept them in one piece.

When he died, that mission continued. Trapped as this cursed creature, Cloudstar was mindlessly commanding his cats like a storm around him, dragging in both the dead and the living in a desperate attempt to save the Clan he'd vowed to protect.

SkyClan could not mend until this curse was broken. These fallen angels needed to be released, by force, to rejoin a new heaven of modern making. Slipping into the body of Firestar, Brokenstar was able to lend all of his talents for one final fight. It was just like being back at Carrionplace.

With his purpose as the fallen 5th tree, a guardian spirit, fulfilled and the rats freed from their prisons, Brokenstar's soul grew sleepy with peace. Firestar buried the acorn necklace that he had used to channel him overlooking the gorge, where it quickly sprouted into a new oak.

Rat Ancestors; Tome of Beasts

When an afterlife is destroyed, through mass death or supernatural attack, and the spirits within it cannot peacefully fade away or join a new pantheon, all of its souls can become earth-bound.

There are many types of entities and curses in this world, each one completely unique. Ancestor Rats are the form that this pantheon took.

From a distance, an Ancestor Rat could be mistaken for an odd, escaped domestic rodent. Their faces were an unsettling mix of rat and cat, with teeth laid out like a cat's but endlessly growing like a rat. They had the blade-like claws of a Clan cat, tearing through the skin and laying at various angles.

They had no physical needs, but were unable to handle being separated from their leader. Cloudstar himself, however, did need to rest in some way, returning to the barn where he died every day.

When one was killed, it would flash blue as if briefly turning into a shard of the sky, before leaving a completely standard rat corpse in its place. As long as Cloudstar was alive, the pulsar of each spirit would simply be dragged back into another rat after some time.

There was no escape until he was killed.

After the defeat of the Ancestor Rats, the spirits moved on to SkyClan's special heaven; Skypelt. Even after moving to the lake, Skypelt maintains its independence from Silverpelt, judging its own souls and staying separate (but connected) to StarClan-Prime.

With an abundance of rat bodies on their paws, SkyClan started a morbid tradition for a very special celebration. "The New Day" is celebrated every year with a grand feast, where a traditional rat meat dish called "Roasted Grandpaw" is served.

[weepingtalecowboy]

Rodent links

Fanfic prompt: many rodents have a tendency for allogrooming (which essentially means they bond by cleaning eachother)

So it is very likely that four is aggressively braiding and combing the links hair

(if we go from rat logic because they are canonically one of the smartest rodents on earth so if I use it for minish it would make a bit of sense)

But rabbits also use it as a form of dominance

If a rabbit is grooming another they are essentially acknowledging the other rabbit's dominance and add their smell to the rabbit to show it

So the reason why legend is a bastard to warriors is because wars once gave him his shampoo and he decided that obviously he is superior to him since then

Four doesn’t have a clue why legend always looks so smug when he is braiding his hair

He just thinks they are friends when legend goes up to him to get his hair braided because obviously they are friends

The chain had to learn that they should under no circumstances give legend their personal shampoo or perfume(even if their lives depended on it)

Rodents especially rats can also tell when another rat is related to them because of smell so four could probably tell that wind is related to him

Then chase the dirty animal into a corner and drag his filthy body into a bath (no way wind would willingly take a bath if he isn’t carried there by sheer force )

Because bonding and the fact that rats genuinely get anxiety when pups in their colony are not clean enough because filthy pups imply low health and carry stronger oder making them easier to detect for predators

Rats have an obsessive need for grooming because it is both beneficial in an environment like sewers and also beneficial for the health of the colony

Four has to get physically dragged away from wind if the chain doesn’t have the time to clean up because wind WILL be dropped in the nearest river

In minish form he will be licked too death by four

(Now blue being a neat freak makes perfect sense now he is secretly a rat)

Also rats have a surprising tolerance for other rats and will even let other rats they have social bonds with assist during parenting their own pups

Warriors is allowed near wind and even encouraged into being a dad everyone is

Warriors sad that four is bonding so close to wind and he isn’t needed or wanted by the family: ;(

Four about to attack him as well and drag him to wind : SIKE no milk for you ,you are not getting milk ,nobody is

[fauvester]

uh oh! triggered some phantom trauma! (dannymanny iteration (c) nicktoonsunite)

[justpentdraws]

so appaerently i finished this little team zits spread even before the skizzther piece. and i forgot about its existance. huh.

[lab rats au]

[dualscar-daily]

As promised~

To all those still following us here, you have my gratitude. Life is hectic, we mods still care and do want to share with you all. One day, you are drawing hot old man fish for the internet, the next moment, you blink, it's been over a year, every day vanishing to working sun up to sundown, and you didn't even realize how long it'd been since the last post!

Thank you for sticking with us through activity and inactivity alike.

I hope tonight's fish is enjoyed !

- Mod Rat

[honeycombhank]

1/9/24

Apple pie..

I was just thinking that it would be so neat if I had video footage of my ancestors with their animals.. wouldn’t that be something..

[fortjester]

i AM thinking abt the significance of the number 200 in tlt. two hundred kids died in the creche flu. two hundred extra people onto the FTL ships. the things harrow is willing to do to make their sacrifice even vaguely mean something. everything john did to stop the ships.

[catocappuccino]

Snork and Snorkmaiden's relationship in the books is so funny

They are the most sibling sibling characters that exist I love them

[bornetoblood]

men i find hot

this guy (why????)

he

Like everyone TMA (especially Peter)

tree??????

every gender

uhhh

[daily-mees]

i'm running out of interesting captions to put here. anyway mees

[ID: simple pen doodles on paper of many little mice in varying positions and with a small variety of expressions, from neutral to smiley. the mice have triangle legs, pointy noses and little whiskers. notable individuals include a long mouse spiralled around itself, a round mouse looking down and a mouse on a skateboard. there are also a couple of rats in the mix, and also a sheep. end ID.]

[bonefall]

Extremely strange question, but can we get a recipe for Roasted Grandpaw? Or at least like what other ingredients and/or flavors it includes? Obsessed with the real world concepts of culturally significant foods/holiday traditions(which often includes special meals bc such is being a living being, loving Good Food) and if I remember correctly this is the only one you've showcased with a specific source event

Roasted Grandpaw is a special treat, honoring SkyClan's History! It can be made year-round, but has a special place in their version of an "independence day."

The traditional ingredients are;

Large Rat (for the rat ancestors)

Mushroom Gravy (for Cloudstar’s journey)

Kibble (for Spiderstar's plan)

You take the rat, skin it, and remove the offal. This is chopped and sauteed in the mushroom gravy. Meanwhile, you take your kibble and add it to a boiling bone broth, until it becomes fat and juicy.

Then, combine the sauteed offal and the marinated kibble, mixing them up nicely. Stuff this back into the raw rat, and then bake. The juices of the meat soak into the stuffing, and the whole rat will sizzle.

Apply extra juice as it bakes, so it doesn't dry. Firestar, leader of BarbequeClan, taught them this very important skill.

Usually served with extra mushroom gravy.

[weepingtalecowboy]

Rodent links (Blue is the rat)

Fanfic prompt : minish are very similar to rodents

And the way blue acts is so rat like that it’s funny (he is the minish given form in four lol)

Rats are clean freaks because to them dirt and grime means risking disease and death

They clean obsessively and will clean themselves and other colony members several times a day

They literally get anxiety when they cannot clean their nest enough

(Blue incarnated )

Rodents are also prey which means that they are very anxious and will lash out when they feel threatened

Because for a rodent those encounters can lead to death quickly and they have very strong survival instincts

The fact that four lets himself be picked up by twilight means he genuinely trusts him

( when your rats let you pick them up they are sure that you would not hurt them and don’t complain to much because they get to be close to you)

Which is very cute to think about lol

Legend was probably only complaining about it because when twilight was carrying him

Twilight was unknowingly implying that he was more important lol

(legend is too proud to be picked up .. especially as a bunny because those creatures are very damn prideful when they are interacting with their own)

But man , those two probably have the worst anxiety known to hylian kind

Anxiety in rodents is often shown as twitchy or hyperactive behavior (or a freeze response)

Where rabbits will be more stiff (a melting rabbit is a relaxing rabbit ) with their ears pressed back and a hunched posture and in some cases even aggression

(Legend seems to not be vibing at all from the way he acts)

Rats will try to escape or hide away if they can and if it’s related to grime they will try to clean up more obsessively (also have their ears pressed flat against their head)

[aesthetic-lillie]

techichis and the art made of them u are everything to me

[saritawolff]

Phew. This one took, uh… a bit longer than expected due to other projects both irl and art-wise, but it’s finally here. The long-awaited domestic animal infographic! Unfortunately, I didn’t have enough space to cover every single domestic animal (I’m so sorry, reindeer and koi, my beloveds) but I tried to include as many of the “major ones” as possible.

I made this chart in response to a lot of the misunderstandings I hear concerning domestic animals, so I hope it’s helpful!

Further information I didn’t have any room to add or expand on:

🐈 “Breed” and “species” are not synonyms! Breeds are specific to domesticated animals. A Bengal Tiger is a species of tiger. A Siamese is a breed of domestic cat.

🐀 Different colors are also not what makes a breed. A breed is determined by having genetics that are unique to that breed. So a “bluenose pitbull” is not a different breed from a “rednose pitbull”, but an American Pitbull Terrier is a different breed from an American Bully! Animals that have been domesticated for longer tend to have more seperate breeds as these differing genetics have had time to develop.

🐕 It takes hundreds of generations for an animal to become domesticated. While the “domesticated fox experiment” had interesting results, there were not enough generations involved for the foxes to become truly domesticated and their differences from wild foxes were more due to epigenetics (heritable traits that do not change the DNA sequence but rather activate or deactivate parts of it; owed to the specific circumstances of its parents’ behavior and environment.)

🐎 Wild animals that are raised in human care are not domesticated, but they can be considered “tamed.” This means that they still have all their wild instincts, but are less inclined to attack or be frightened of humans. A wild animal that lives in the wild but near human settlements and is less afraid of humans is considered “habituated.” Tamed and habituated animals are not any less dangerous than wild animals, and should still be treated with the same respect. Foxes, otters, raccoons, servals, caracals, bush babies, opossums, owls, monkeys, alligators, and other wild animals can be tamed or habituated, but they have not undergone hundreds of generations of domestication, so they are not domesticated animals.

🐄 Also, as seen above, these animals have all been domesticated for a reason, be it food, transport, pest control, or otherwise, at a time when less practical options existed. There is no benefit to domesticating other species in the modern day, so if you’ve got a hankering for keeping a wild animal as a pet, instead try to find the domestic equivalent of that wild animal! There are several dog breeds that look and behave like wolves or foxes, pigeons and chickens can make great pet birds and have hundreds of colorful fancy breeds, rats can be just as intelligent and social as a small monkey (and less expensive and dangerous to boot,) and ferrets are pretty darn close to minks and otters! There’s no need to keep a wolf in a house when our ancestors have already spent 20,000+ years to make them house-compatible.

🐖 This was stated in the infographic, but I feel like I must again reiterate that domestic animals do not belong in the wild, and often become invasive when feral. Their genetics have been specifically altered in such a way that they depend on humans for optimal health. We are their habitat. This is why you only really see feral pigeons in cities, and feral cats around settlements. They are specifically adapted to live with humans, so they stay even when unwanted. However, this does not mean they should live in a way that doesn’t put their health and comfort as a top priority! If we are their world, it is our duty to make it as good as possible. Please research any pet you get before bringing them home!

[seeinginthedark]

Notes from a psychosis continued …

For a while, I didn’t really want to dig into the simulation theory during my 2021 internet and YouTube “research” era. I did dip my toe into it and I did watch some freaky content about it which was traumatising.. I think it induced an acute psychotic episode. I couldn’t watch after absorbing only 15 minutes of an hour and a half video . I wish I didn’t watch it I can’t un-watch it. It’s only one partial bit of truth anyway. There’s an element of truth to a simulation and the matrix. And mythology. There’s an element of truth of the creation story of Adam and Eve and the creation stories from all different cultures and religions . There’s a bit of truth with the Veda’s. There are true benefits of surrendering and meditation, being compassionate and grateful. Being zen. All the things the Buddhist’s practice. And the afterlife version of reincarnation, there’s a bit of truth .

I’ve taken all these different truths, like slices of them I guess, and hard a good hard look at them and I think they are all basically true. Whether they can be scientifically backed up or not is kind of irrelevant because people believe it. It just is because we believe it, we make it so. We make it real by our belief and imagination. So I believe the programmers of the simulation/matrix/reality we exist in, they understand this magic-like ability of our imagination and beliefs and how potent and powerful it is in creating and simulating a reality.

Where we are right now… we are so behind where we are meant to be. So off course. It’s just ridiculous. This is what I believe, I’m sorry. Our ancestors had a spirituality framework that they knew wasn’t a finished product. They knew it was going to synthesise more. We started voyaging and visiting other countries and mixing with other cultures, sharing stories , mythology and spirituality. We knew it was going to enhance our spirituality, we were going to evolve because of it. We lived in the “now”. We had sun clocks and astrology. That’s how we measured events and timelines. Thousands and thousands of years ago. Predicting events through the planets, this was a science , not woo woo in the slightest. Amazing building structures that were able to harness magnetic energy/electromagnetism from the Earth without any draining of resources going on. Every single village had a seer, a person who was like a prophet and see visions. That kept us connected to the spiritual realm which is part of the natural realm. All of this stuff is being deleted, re-taught and bred out of us. This is what I believe.

The other night, I had a vision of an event from our past , it sort of felt like my consciousness time travelled to the past but I was still here in this timeline in my body at the same time . The vision was “they” used to capture us , out of the Hunter-gatherer tribes out in the wild and herd us up and bring us into these yucky smoggy cities . Overpopulated, yucky, rat-race cities. These cities popped up in history randomly at times when apparently when were we meant to be primitive(not technologically advanced enough to build those cities) and living like hunter-gatherers. Like, Iron Age. “They” keep telling us one thing : that we were so primitive that we didn’t have all the nice medicines and that we were living like barbaric and actually benefited from “them” colonising us. But if that’s the case , where did all these freaking cities come from?

I’ll leave it there for this post, more tomorrow night .

[aparrotandaqrow]

Saying Israelis should just up and leave also ignores the fact that the Jewish people are indigenous to the Land of Israel; justifying any of these brain-dead positions with some bullshit about settler colonialism is itself extremely colonizing, as it acts to erase Jewish indigeneity, a favourite pastime of westerners for over 2000 years. Not everything needs to fit the mold of Western settler colonial narratives. In addition to everything OP said, it's also extremely complicated because it's a case of two indigenous peoples fighting over the same land, with mutually exclusive goals for certain culturally-significant locations, where the presence of one of those groups is already a decolonization project with zero modern parallel. It's okay to not know enough about that history to say anything intelligent, and to therefore sit down, shut up, and just stick to urging leaders to try to not kill civilians.

I think people need to understand that when someone says the situation in Israel/Palestine is complicated they are not necessarily saying that the discussion of who the oppressor vs oppressed is complicated. The Israeli government has been oppressing the Palestinians for a very long time, that is clear, and it is not complicated to understand that at least since the 80s they have had dramatically more financial and military power to keep control of the territory in the way they like.

However, it is reductive and dismissive to insist that there is no complexity in the potential ways to move forward to bring peace to the region. Despite what people on tumblr.edu like to believe, "Israel should never have been created" is not a practical solution to an incredibly heated geopolitical situation in the present day. Israel was created and it does exist. 10 million people live there. 74% of the population is native born and the country has existed for 75 years. Hand waving these fact away with the opinion that "they should move back to where they came from" may make you feel good about being a Radical Leftist, but it does not give anyone a road map for how exactly millions of people without dual citizenship are supposed to just up and evaporate. Nor does it acknowledge the reality that 21% of Israelis are Arabs, the very people you are claiming to want to give the land back to.

Insisting that there's nothing complicated about expecting an entire country's population to willingly dissappear with no consequences is not a productive way to think about this conflict. It ignores the many massive superpowers that have an interest in proping up different states in the region, the power dynamics involved in any land back movements, and the inevitably negative consequences of totally dissolving an established state without a plan. It is also completely and almost comically unrealistic, so much so that it makes it hard to believe that anyone who's opinion starts and ends with this idea really gives a shit about anyone who lives in the area as much as they care about their online leftist clout.

There's nothing complicated in understanding that the Israeli government is and has been maintaining an oppressive apartheid state for decades. It is, however, very complicated to come up with a realistic way to resolve some of the most intricately entangled land disputes on the planet without plunging the region into total chaos. Not everyone has to be deeply educated on every geopolitical situation, but it is very hard to take people seriously when they know nothing about the politics or history of a region and yet insist that there is nothing complicated about it at all.

There's a lot of people on this website who are getting dangerously smug about their own ignorance, and are starting to go down Qanon type anti-intellectual paths in the name of being sufficiently radical. Not knowing the details of a very convoluted land dispute isn't something to brag about online as you call for intentionally reductive solutions. You can support the Palestinian cause and be aware of the oppression they have faced while also holding off on calling people trying to do real analysis and de-escalation work bootlickers. We need to get control of the urge to fit every global issue into a simplistic YA novel narrative structure that appeals to Western revolutionary fantasies.