#animal guide

[helgahaze]

New Moon Totem Animals

Photo of the owl by Agto Nugroho on Unsplash

Roughly all nocturnal and watery creatures can be symbolically linked to the Moon in one way or another. But some totem animals reach their highest power precisely during the New Moon.

If your animal is one of those, New Moon may be the most resourceful time for you too, no matter how exactly you prefer to work with animal symbolism and spirits.

Here’s the list of "typical" New Moon Totem Animals.

FLICKER

Flickers are known for their drilling behavior. They make holes in trees to extract food. During the New Moon phase, flicker’s energy can encourage us to persevere in our endeavors and to remain focused on our objectives.

In search of food, these birds also tap and drum. It connects them to new rhythms coming into our life with a new moon cycle. Flickers even have a black crescent pattern over their breast area. The black color of the moon reflects the New Moon phase and ability to experience emotions more intensely.

Keywords: initiation, renewal, persistence, new rhythms.

HAWK

Photo by Shinta Kikuchi on Unsplash

To the Ojibwa, the red-tailed hawk represented leadership, deliberation, and foresight. Just as hawks soar high above the earth, gaining a broader perspective on their surroundings, they inspire us to rise above our own limitations and see the bigger picture of our lives and goals. They remind us to trust our instincts and intuition as we set new intentions during the New Moon phase.

Keywords: intuition, insight, vision.

OWL

Photo by Erik Karits on Unsplash

Owl is the bird of magic, darkness, prophecy, and wisdom. It is associated with «dark» feminine energies, Lilith, the first wife of Adam who refused to submit to him, and goddess Athena. In some belief systems, owls are seen not as evil incarnates, but as wise and knowledgeable beings. Much like the symbolism of the New Moon, which is a time for introspection, reflection, restrategizing and accessing inner wisdom.

Keywords: mystery, omens, wisdom, intuition, transition, renewal.

PANTHER

According to Amazon legends, the roar of the jaguar is the roar of thunder, and the black panther is the god of darkness who can cause eclipses by swallowing the sun. Panthers are associated with the New Moon phase due to their nocturnal nature and their ability to move through the darkness with grace and precision. They are often seen as mysterious and elusive creatures, much like subconscious mind. Panthers symbolize the ability to dive into the depths of the psyche and uncover hidden truths.

Keywords: renewal, intuition, transformation, the mysteries of the unseen world.

TIGER

Photo by Donnie Ray Crisp on Unsplash

In the Hindu tradition, the tiger was sacred to the goddess Kali, which is also connected to the New Moon. Mighty and resilient, tigers symbolize inner power and the ability to overcome challenges. New Moon is a time for turning inward, tapping into inner resources, and renewing one’s strength. Tigers are excellent swimmers, unlike other large cats, which connects them to water and moon even more. In China, the tiger is both a symbol of darkness and the new moon, as well as brightness and the full moon.

Keywords: inner strength, passion, power, devotion, sensuality.

SPIDER

Photo by Dirk Ribbler on Unsplash

Spiders are associated with the cycle of creation, destruction, and rebirth. They are constantly building and weaving new webs, which is also a lunar cycle symbol. The act of weaving also symbolizes creation and manifestation of dreams and desires. Spiders are patient and persistent in building their webs. They encourage us to be patient as we plant the seeds of our intentions and persist in our efforts towards our goals, even when progress may seem slow or uncertain.

Keywords: creation, transformation, patience, intuition.

OYSTER

Photo by Marcus Lange on Unsplash

Oysters reside in the ocean, which has a deep archetypal connection to intuition and the subconscious mind. These molluscs hold the potential to create a pearl. New Moon phase as well symbolises hidden potential and possibilities waiting to be discovered. Oysters are also constantly filtering water, which brings up the idea of New Moon cleansing rituals and «letting go» practices.

Keywords: hidden potential, the cyclical nature of life, renewal.

[starzpsychics]

The wolf power totem animal

You may have heard people refer to power animals as tutelary spirits, which means deity or guardian spirit, patron or protector of a specific culture, place, person, lineage, or nation.

Over your lifetime you will probably have more than one power totem animal with you, in Shamanism it is the belief that we all have tutelary spirits or power animals that empower, protect, and teach us.

Out of all the power totem animals the Wolf has one of the strongest symbolisms. Native Americans have long regarded the wolf as a teacher and pathfinder, the wolf is also thought of to find and connect to the deepest levels of self and inner knowing. Having a wolf power totem animal implies a strong connection with instincts and is thought to be an aid in understanding and perceiving the world around you.

Probably one of the best known stories surrounding the history of the wolf comes from Rome, legend has it that Romulus and Remus the two founding brothers of Rome, were raised and suckled by a she-wolf.

In astrology, the Wolf is characterized by the Dog, Sirius, believed by many Aboriginal tribes to be the home of the Ancients. They also believed that animals and humans shared the same spiritual essence between each other and that animals are attracted to us or present themselves to us during specific moments in our lives to reveal messages.

In Asia, the wolf is the guardian of the entrance to heavenly, celestial realms. It is also said that the Wolf is among the ancestry of Genghis Khan.

Wolves are very much misunderstood despite their friendly, intelligent, and social traits people still believe the wolf to be a cold bloodied killer. The Wolf has emerged noticeably right through history, with negative qualities for example as the darkness that mythical Werewolves represent.

The wolf is a symbol of the night, a time which for many can be quite scary, it is a time where we dream, during our dream time we revitalize, and re-energize, it is also a time to discover through your dream’s things about yourself.

The wolf power totem animal typically symbolizes:

Intelligence, deep connection, and expression of instincts

Appetite for freedom

Leadership and loyalty

Feelings of being threatened

Having a lack of trust in yourself and someone else

Social and Family Values

Symbol of Wildness

Communication

If you have the wolf as your totem power animal the likelihood is that he is with you to teach you about your inner strength and self-discovery. To do this you must face your deepest fears. The wolf provides extraordinary powers and endurance to help with our quest of discovery he helps you to listen to the inner voice within you. The wolf totem power animal guide whether appearing id dream or meditation may imply you are using your instincts and intuition to grasp a situation well. The fact that the wolf totem power animal guide appeared could be a call to use this capacity to deal with a recent challenge you have experienced in your life.

The wolf as your power totem animal is probably a signal that you are a great teacher or thinker. But if this is not so this wolf appears to ask you to consider if there is something perhaps you need to expand your views about. The wolf totem power animal guide therefore is asking that you be open to new concepts or ideas.

When you are open and receptive to innovative ideas you gain wisdom! Wisdom is also gained through experience as well as knowledge.

Let us look at the social order of the wolf pack; typically, this pack will have a highly ordered and structured base. The wolf will mate for life and be loyal to their mate the other adults in the pack will all help with raising the young. Even though ordered wolves remain free spirited and will go out of their way to avoid a fight a shift in posture, a growl, or a glance gets the point across without violence.

The message therefore that the wolf power totem brings you is to attempt to avoid trouble or confrontation and instead try and reason things out, be diplomatic! It also denotes the ability to make quick yet firm attachments. The wolf also wants you to trust your own instincts and reminds you that he will be there to guide you. You must regain control of your own life and restore harmony and discipline.

Although free spirited wolves are typically very social animals and are good at communicating with each other and having this power totem animal can imply the need for freedom within you, as well as the need to lead life by following your instincts. It may also imply the need to have more freedom, ask yourself if you are being to restricted or limited.

Wolf is a social animal, enjoying the company of others. Therefore, the message of the wolf power totem is that there does not need to be a hard separation between the solitary and social paths.

Therefore, when you spot a lone wolf in the wilderness it symbolizes freedom. When seen in a pack it symbolizes community. If the wolf has come into your life and appears on its own or in a pack this is a symbol to you to do the same - either take alone time or gather people around you!

This can also be implying that you may need to go it alone right now to achieve your desires and goals.

When you have the wolf power totem animal beside you it can also be a sign that there is loyalty and trust issues in your life. Quite often a wolf totem is a message that you have become too apprehensive of bonding with another or that you have trust issues.

Power totem animals the wolf may also appear as a warning to you and be speaking about your preconceived idea that someone or something is acting in a threatening manner and wants you to take time to consider why you feel this way.

If the wolf is your power totem animal, it may be implying that you feel threatened by something or someone.

For example, the wolf could represent something which feels predatory and has made you feel vulnerable – therefore the message of the wolf power totem is to look at what it is that makes you feel this way!

Wolves are not domesticated and having this power totem animal can imply a need to consider this area of your life, and what needs to be altered, it also tells you to trust your natural responses. It teaches the need to stay loyal to the pack, whilst not losing your own identity. Look also at where you are being too reliant and where you may be too self-contained.

A wolf has a high intelligence in addition to powerful instincts which is observed in their hunting tactics, habitation habits and their migration behaviours.

The Wolf is believed to be an independent explorer returning to his pack to impart what he has learned. Your message here of the power animal guide wolf is to explore the hidden paths, you may uncover new truths to share with the rest of your pack.

The message to be taken also by the power animal guide wolf is that of faithfulness, inner strength, and intuition. This power animal the wolf might be asking you to consider the role of instincts, and how you trust or mistrust your instincts and intuitive guidance.

This power animal the wolf is a path finder and is with you to give you the message to trust your instincts to lead you back onto the right path.

Consider whether this power animal the wolf is asking to look at personal boundaries, is it that you are too exposed within a situation and need to withdraw for protection? Perhaps your message is to not be so trusting of a person around you at this point.

Or consider whether this power animal the wolfis telling you that you are too closed and need to be more open, have you shut yourself off too much? It can be asking that you look at your own trust issues and wants you to look at whether you are being loyal to your own beliefs and principles. It can also be asking you to trust your own gut feelings.

Or are the people around you acting like a pack of wolves, maybe the competition is stiff?

When it comes to hunting though wolves hunt in packs, depending on perseverance and determination to to run down weak and older animals, it has been noted that wolves can run sometimes up to thirty-five miles a day in pursuit. The message of the wolf power totem therefore is of endurance and strength, teaching you to know who you are, and to develop strength and belief in what you do.

The wolf will use its howl to find pack members or to let other wolves that are not in their specific pack know their territory boundaries. If you hear a wolf howl, this may be telling you to stand your ground and defend your boundaries.

If you have the wolf as your totem power animal the likelihood is that you are intelligent and have strong instincts, if your wolf appears through meditation or the dream state your message could be either you are using your intelligence wisely at this time or you are not using it at all!

To learn more about power animal spirits’ visit: https://starzpsychics.com

[tutorialdrawix]

RESOURCES FOR POSES

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[thegypsystitchery]

Understanding Spirit Guides: Who, Why, and How

When it comes to Spirit Guides, we all have our own idea about who they are, what they do, and how they might help us. After all, it’s in their name, right? But, why is it so hard to recognize them and if they’re here to help, how come bad things happen to good people all the time? Who Are Spirit Guides? Spirit Guides are different than angels. Angels never incarnated on earth, while Spirit…

[selkies-song]

A red fox visited us last night. My dog was losing her damn mind around 3AM and there was a certain pitch about her bark that made me think I should pay attention. Took out my ear plugs and clear as day I heard a fox crying basically just outside. I live kinda smack in the middle of a suburb so it was unusual to see one just hanging out in my driveway screaming his silly little head off. Sat with doggo and watched it through the window for a while. It looked straight as us more than once, called for its friends some more, then eventually wandered off elsewhere in the neighborhood.

The Fox:

Trusting your instincts and intuition

Finding a way around obstacles

Maintaining your sense of self

Seek harmony between work and play

Be ready to take swift action

[trickengf]

For anyone who makes Gravity Falls fanart, having this is absolutely AMAZING!

[godofthestupid]

Disclaimer: I do not actually know how they paint the eyes,this is just me guessing their process purely from observations

Transcript:

General Shape:

- Upper eyelid is always thicker than the lower one

- younger characters tend to have bigger and rounder eyes than the adults

- there are five parts to an eye: 1. the upper eyelid corner(towards the nose) ; 2. the upper eyelid main part ; 3. the upper eyelid corner at the back ; 4. the lower eyelid ; 5. the iris

Eyelid:

- more muted color of the hair + accents with saturated eye color

Iris:

- lots of muted darker colors

- hue and saturation shift in lighter areas

- highlights are almost pure white

Eye drawing Steps:

sketch

flats

first shadow

first color

second shadow

highlight color

refine

[temeyes]

my darling tsukki!

[tigergirltail]

"Oh, you're transfem? Are you an Animal HRT transfem or a Human Domestication Guide transfem?"

[ihatebrainstorm]

The (Hopefully) Comprehensive Guide to Drawing Transformers! [1]

[Chapter 1/5?]

Decided to make a little quick guide to drawing transformers/humanoid mechs because some people asked! (Plus I thought it'd be fun lol) .... Hopefully it makes sense and helps some people out :'D

[Next] -> coming I dunno when, I keep adding to my WIP pile......

[leyagrossman]

BHVR!! PLEASE MAKE A FULL LEFT 4 DEAD CHAPTER!!! The ability/perks sheet might not be the best or balanced, maybe someone can come up with the better idea for it

[cheezitofthevalley]

a guide to internet graphics and my blog

I'll try to make this entertaining, but we have a lot to cover!

Q: Sooo... What are blinkies? Or buttons?

A: Blinkies are a type of graphic that was popular 15+ years ago on personal blogs, often on a web host called Geocities.

Geocities no longer exists, but lovers of the indie/old web use other platforms, such as the new Neocities, to make their own old web-inspired blogs. They often decorate these with collectible graphics.

Q: You haven't really answered my question. What's the difference between all of these graphics?

A: Well, there are a lot of different kinds of graphics. For the sake of time, I'll only talk about the ones I post.

Blinkies are usually 150x20 pixels, but many creators like to improve their quality by making them 300x40, or even larger. There are also some oddly-sized blinkies, like this one:

However, most blinkies adhere to the standard dimensions. Most of them also have "blinking" borders, and usually feature text.

Let's talk about buttons. Buttons are, well, buttons. This button specifically is 88x31. This seemingly random size was the standard for Geocities users back in the day, who used these buttons as a portal/advertisement to their website, as well as a way to say pretty much whatever they wanted. Lot's of companies used them as well. Here are some examples:

Not all buttons share this standard dimension, though. Here are some other possibilities:

There are variations of these, too. Some buttons look pretty weird:

...and there are blinkies called "chain blinkies" that look like something else entirely:

Q: Ok, cool. What about stamps?

A: Stamps are a bit different. They're a slighter newer thing, and were made popular on Deviantart in the early 2010's. They are traditionally 99x56 pixels, and can be used to decorate any blog or website. Here are some examples:

as you can see, they can be made with a variety of borders.

I would love to continue, but I think this is enough for today. I'll have a part two up within a couple days! Stay tuned for explanations and examples of dividers, favicons, fanlistings, web etiquette, and more!

part two!

[sturgeonista]

A helpful guide for learning the difference between Green Sturgeon and White Sturgeon. Although Green Sturgeon are a good bit harder to find, so consider yourself lucky if you have this dilemma.

[fullcolorfright]

On request, some of my old Hitchhiker's Guide doodles! This series had such a huge impact on me, I love it so

[bonefall]

Warrior Bites: Dietary Needs

[ID: A fish carcass, bird carcass, and mouse carcass on a stone slab.]

Are you wondering how much prey a Clan needs a day? What they should eat to stay healthy? Why food processing is useful at all? All the answers to these questions and more, contained within a general guide to dietary needs for your Warrior Cats!

As an obligate carnivore, a cat's entire diet revolves around processing meat. More specifically, the ideal diet should be 55% protein, 45% fats, about 1% to 3% carbs, with the remainder being various micro-nutrients. You can expect the average 10-pound warrior to need 350 calories per day, about 3.5 mice on average.

I've also included a section talking about obesity, which dives into how canon's depiction of it is both harmful fatphobia and wouldn't make sense from a cat perspective. It also discusses obesity in realistic cats; and how you're free to choose the realism on that aspect.

Below the cut;

Caloric Intake

Nutrition

Food Processing

On Obesity

Caloric Intake

The general rule for how much a cat needs to eat is that an active, non-neutered tom will need about 35 calories per pound of their own body weight, per day, just to remain the weight they are.

That means that the average warrior, assuming they are 10 pounds, will need 350 calories a day.

Kittens, pregnant and nursing cats, and large warriors will need to eat more than average. Neutered cats, elders, and clerics/medcats will eat less. There are calculators online for determining how much an individual will need, but you can estimate how much an entire Clan will need just by taking 350 and multiplying it by population!

Assuming the average population is about 30 cats, that's 10,500 calories to feed a Clan for a day! To put that in perspective, that many calories would feed 7 large humans. If you felt like fighting a group of angry cats to steal their day's worth of mice, I mean.

Generally speaking, land prey will have a caloric value around 5 calories per gram. Aquatic prey is significantly lower, around 4 calories per gram. Birds will be just below 6 calories per gram. To find out how many cats a piece of prey will feed, or how many pieces a cat will need that day, take the category and multiply by the prey's weight in grams.

So for example, the average house mouse is 20 grams and it is land prey, meaning its caloric value is around 100 calories! A warrior will need 3 and a half mice a day to stay healthy, and a Clan will need 105 mice daily to support 30 cats.

105 mice may seem like a lot, but remember that a wild rabbit is 1,800 grams on average which means 9,000 calories. 2 big pieces of prey will feed the whole Clan, with leftovers.

Those estimates include every part of the animal. Cats eat organs, small bones, and even skin. Skeletal muscle, or "fillets" in reference to fish, is so low in calories that it's typically somewhere between 1 kcal to 1.5 kcal per gram. That's what you're buying in the supermarket; but wild animals don't usually cut their food into choice strips.

(unless you're writing a clan that does food processing of course!)

QUICK FACTS

Average warrior will need 35 calories per pound of weight

10 pound warrior needs 350 calories a day

350 x 30 cats = 10,500 calories to feed a Clan for a single day

Birds provide the most calories per gram, land prey the middlemost, and aquatic prey the least.

Calculate calories in prey by taking the weight, converting to grams, and multiply by 4, 5, or 6 depending on broad category.

If you're having trouble feeding a Clan on small animals, look at bigger prey like rabbits and trout.

Muscle fillets are inferior to organ meats and have a much lower caloric value.

Nutrition

Not all food is the same. The more important thing to consider about any particular meal is NOT its calorie count, but its nutritional value. This is especially important to cats because protein is not stored as fat. If the body has no immediate use for it, it's flushed out.

Since cats should not eat more than 3% carbs, ALL of their fat stores will need to come from fat.

The ideal piece of meat would be at least 55% protein and 45% fat. Every individual species will have a different ratio, and more importantly, individual cuts will have a different ratio.

Skeletal muscle has a higher ratio of protein to fat. Organ meat, also sometimes called "offal," will have a more balanced ratio. That said, nearly all meat skews towards protein. PURE fat is very hard to find on the sorts of animals Clan cats hunt, and must be carefully divided, collected, or processed to make sure all warriors are getting proper nutrition.

I'll be going more in-depth with dietary fat at some other time, as this guide is meant to just be an overview! Just know that some Clans will need to eat MORE food to stay healthy because of this.

Cats need more than the "macronutrients" to stay healthy. They can't JUST rely on the juiciest cuts of meat to keep their health intact, they also need several vitamins and minerals to support their body functions, and avoid getting a deficiency.

Here's some of the important micronutrients, where to get them, and what happens they don't get enough;

Vitamin A: Livers, mealworms, eggs This is one of the most important micronutrients in a cat's body, used for practically everything. Without this, their coats will grow dull, and their joints stiff, and they'll start to go night-blind. In a severe state, they'll start to lose the ability to heal skin lacerations and die. Pregnant cats and kittens need more of this than usual, but it IS also possible to get vitamin A poisoning from getting too concentrated of a dose.

Calcium: Bones, eggs With a calcium deficiency, the warrior will feel stiff and sore, and experience painful muscle spasms. Most cats will simply crunch the bones of small prey and never have to worry about this, but if your cats cook or scavenge, they have to be told to NEVER eat the bones of a roasted bird. Because bird bones are hollow and cooking makes them brittle, they can splinter and cause fatal internal bleeding.

Thiamine: Trout, boar meat, mealworms, eggs Called a Fish Seizure because raw carp and raw bream contains thiaminase, which will destroy thiamine in the body. Lack of thiamine will cause neurological issues, such as the aforementioned seizures, general confusion, memory loss, and muscle weakness. This can be counterracted by eating trout, which is so high in thiamine that there's a theory that carp evolved it specifically to eat salmonids better.

Potassium: Trout, boar meat, mealworms, eggs As cats get older, they begin needing a lot more potassium for their bodies. It's a very common micronutrient found in most meat, but elders should get the first bite of special snacks "out of respect" which helps keep their potassium level up. Without it, they become very weak.

i feel like that evil struthiomimus from land before time with how many times i typed eggs

QUICK FACTS

The ideal ratio of a cut of meat is 55% protein 45% fat

Organ meat > Muscle meat

Micronutrients are important

But micronutrients can also cause poisoning if, somehow, they're too concentrated (very hard to come across concentrated micronutrients without the science of chemistry tho. Like if a cat swallowed a vitamin gummy.)

Food Processing

"Food Processing" is when you do something to your food before you eat it. Just a little bit of care is going to go a LONG WAY when it comes to health of the warrior.

Cats that eat raw meat the way canon warriors do are almost guaranteed to get worms. Roundworms, hookworms, and tapeworms are all passed through the infected tissue of rodent prey, and in fish, roundworms, tapeworms, and flukes can pass through raw meat.

All parasites do something a little different, but most digestive worms aren't fatal unless the cat is sick or a kitten. However, nearly ALL of them screw around with digestion, making the cat need to eat more just to stay healthy, or causing stomach irritation. Some of them can even pass in milk, infecting a suckler's nursing kits.

The easiest way to reduce this kind of infection is simply to slice the prey open from mouth-to-butt, Tigerstar-style, and hook and lift out the GI tract before eating. There's nothing in that worth eating raw anyway. It can just be discarded, or cleaned out and used to case tiny sausages! But it's only a reduction; there's still a risk of catching worms from raw meat.

There's also always the possibility of getting salmonella poisoning.

Many believe that cats are immune to this, but that's not true! Carnivores just have a shorter GI tract than omnivores and herbivores, so salmonella spends less time in their gut and ergo has less chance of causing an infection. It still happens, ESPECIALLY when cats hunt songbirds.

Nothing can be done about salmonella in raw meat, besides eating it as quickly as possible. It's innate to the bodies of birds and reptiles, and usually found on raw eggs too.

Some animals are small enough to be dried and carried around as rations, such as minnows or grasshoppers. Others could be sliced up into strips, and marinated in spices like valerian or catmint for an extra boost of energy. It could also be worthwhile to cut the pelt off a particularly soft animal, like a mole, to dry and keep as bedding material.

All of the above examples of food processing are possible without fire, but if your cats DO have fire, they will have a DRASTIC increase to the quality of their health.

Such as;

Cooking will almost completely eliminate those foodborne parasites. Their eggs don't survive extreme heat.

No more salmonella poisoning! GONE! Cooking is the only way to eliminate this!

It can increase caloric absorption from anywhere between 20% to 50%. Our example warrior who needed 3.5 mice a day could suddenly need one less mouse; and even a meager 20% drop in how much the entire Clan needs saves 2,400 calories a day. 24 whole mice!

I HAVE TO STRESS HOW BIG THAT IS. You save anywhere from 2/10 to 5/10 successful kills.

Thiaminase is destroyed by cooking, making bream and carp healthier and reducing "fish seizures."

It allows for fats to be processed and stored as tallow, lard, and oil, so it can be added to other dishes to make them both healthier and tastier.

Most food preservation requires fire in some way; by heating, jellying, boiling, etc. The only other two ways to reliably store food is by having access to a ton of salt, which is hard for most non-coastal clans to acquire, or vinegar, which is so acidic it's a notorious cat-repellent.

While cooking can also destroy some micronutrients, its benefits FAR outweigh any potential "strengths" of raw food. Destroying micronutrients is also not always a bad thing; as TOO MANY micronutrients can cause poisoning. Fire-using Clans will be more likely to "seek" micronutrients than non-fire Clans as a result, though they probably won't recognize the science behind a hankering!

QUICK FACTS

Worms. Basically unavoidable if your cat's eating like a canon warrior.

Some parasites can spread through milk.

Slicing and lifting out the GI tract can significantly reduce the chance of catching worms.

Salmonella can only be eliminated with cooking

Cooking will drastically increase the quality of a Clan's health, if your cats are advanced enough to figure out fire.

Warriors need to hunt a LOT less prey, and can store that prey, if they have fire.

Fire-using Clans will intentionally try to put more types of food in their diets and get 'cravings.'

On Obesity

Warrior Cats is not a realistic series. The boundary that any particular writer draws between humans and warrior cats is completely arbitrary. The series itself follows no sense of realistic genetics, regularly shows the cats using herbs that would poison them, and gives the characters human-centric morals like monogamy and paternal involvement.

So when it comes to being fatness in your project, please keep that in mind. You do not need too follow realistic cat weight distribution, if that's not what your project about. That said, let me tell you about humans vs cats in this department!

Humans have a massive diversity of weight distribution, with varied genetic predispositions to gaining and losing weight. The shame, bullying, and medical discrimination that comes with fatphobia is a LOT more harmful than being fat itself, and the causes of the "obesity crisis" are ridiculously more complicated than "ppl r snorking 2 much food".

Realistic cats aren't the same way.

When REAL cats are fat, that's VERY bad. It's a sign they are being fed the wrong things by humans, or live somewhere that they are able to eat what they shouldn't. They just don't have that same diversity in fat distribution that humans do. Because of how adipose tissue secretes certain hormones, feline obesity is like a chronic inflammatory disease which can cause arthritis, bladder stones, hepatic lipidosis, and more.

But with that in mind, fatness should be perceived very differently even in the most realistic settings. In comparison to humans;

It is harder for a wild cat to put on weight. Most of what they're eating is raw protein, actively trying to fill the 45% of daily fat intake they need to stay healthy. Protein isn't stored as fat, it's immediately discarded by the body if there is no use for it. A cat would need to be taking an INSANE amount of prey to start becoming dangerously overweight. Housecats are often fed human food, which has carbohydrates. Low-quality cat food will also use carbs as filler. High carb food is VERY bad for them, since they're only supposed to have 3% carbs at most. This is one of the reasons why it's easy for pet cats to become overweight.

Realistic cats don't look start looking overweight until they are significantly obese. Most of their fat is stored around their ribs and internally, unlike humans with our thick hips and round bellies, and they are covered in a naturally sagging pelt of fur. It's not as obvious with them. Visually, weight will be noticed best from a bird's eye perspective, unlike humans where it's apparent at every angle.

Putting on the fat that CAN be acquired is ridiculously important 3.5 raw, whole mice a day, per cat, are needed to fill their basic dietary requirements. There are going to be days or months especially during winter where they might be below that number, and that stored fat is going to be lifesaving. Bulking up is actually a big deal!

So not only is how canon treats overweight characters full of malice, it's full of lazy malice. It makes no sense from a realistic standpoint for wild cats to develop an association between fatness and greed or laziness. It's important, hard work for them to acquire it!

Though the Clans are notoriously xenophobic and kittypets are more likely to be overweight, it still doesn't make sense from a realistic cat perspective to be fatphobic in the same way as canon. It's more likely they'd see fat housecats as having "unearned" weight given to them by humans, like they're cheating, or they might be disdainful of how much junk food they eat, or pitiable because it's a sign of a bad twoleg... or just "sour grapes" variety jealousy ☕.

Bottom line is that there's a LOT you can do here which is better than canon's vicious bullying. The writers just lifted British cultural disdain for fat people and put it into the books. They simply did not think it through.

So please do what they didn't, and just put a little extra thought into how your project is going to view fatness! Consider if fatphobia is even a theme you need in your text.

As stated, you do not even have to write weight in your cats as being realistic in this way! I encourage you to pick and choose what's most fun and fitting for your own work. I personally give my characters a more human weight distribution, simply because I want to spite canon and be more body-positive. I am a fat people and you can take Bumble's big chunky bod from my cold, dead hands.

You can choose to make your work however you'd like, and now with this guide, you can have an easy reference for what your cats should eat! Thank you, StarClan, for this prey <3

[dailyfigures]

Tour Guide from the Underworld ; Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters ☆ Amakuni