#rat thinks

[gothamitee]

What will you be tonight? That’s the question

[bubblesthecow]

Watching Star Wars in chronological order is so funny.

Obi-Wan Kenobi really took one look at R2D2 in the middle of the desert and said “No, Luke, I’ve never seen this fucking droid in my life. Looks like a real bitch though. Not that I’d know. This is my first time meeting the asshole.”

No one in that whole franchise was Gatekeep-Gasslight-Girlbossing quite like “Ben” Kenobi, regular human-man.

[songouda]

i don't particularly find myself obsessed with like, interactions on my posts but something i do worry about is that i'm doing something 'wrong'

[lazylittledragon]

dndads s1 you're so special to me

[storybook-souls]

listened to the first episode of the severance podcast with adam scott and ben stiller today and i can't stop thinking about this bit they were discussing from the original pilot script where Ms. Cobel invites Mark into her house, has him watch while she tortures her pet rat, and then reveals that the rat is severed and "flips a switch" so the rat starts cozying up to her and acting like a sweet affectionate pet. like. okay! they were really just gonna put it all on the table like that! you're the rat, mark!!!! you and helly and all your friends are the rats, mark!!!! mark!!!!!!!!!!

[reasonsforhope]

"For most people, a rat is at best an unwelcome guest, and at worst, the target of immediate extermination. But in a field clinic in Tanzania, rats are colleagues—heroes even.

Far from a trash bin-dwelling NYC street rat, the African giant pouched rat is docile, intelligent, easier to train than some dogs, and for East Africans, the performer of lifesaving tuberculosis diagnoses every day.

400,000 new cases of tuberculosis (TB) were estimated to have been prevented by these rats, whose sense of smell would make a bloodhound take notice. As [TB is] the number-one killer among infectious diseases worldwide, many of those 400,000 can be translated into lives saved.

“Not only are we saving people’s lives, but we’re also changing these perspectives and raising awareness and appreciation for something as lowly as a rat,” said Cindy Fast, a behavioral neuroscientist who coaches the rodents for the nonprofit APOPO.

“Because our rats are our colleagues, and we really do see them as heroes.”

APOPO uses giant pouched rats to sniff out traces of TB in the saliva of patients. In parts of Tanzania, a saliva smear test under a microscope by a human may only be 20-40% effective at detecting TB.

By contrast, a giant pouched rat like Ms. Carolina, a now-retired service rat who worked for APOPO for 7 years, raised the rates of detection on TB samples by 40% in the clinic where she worked.

Pictured: An APOPO employee with one of their trained rats

It would take 4 days for scientists to analyze the number of samples that Carolina could screen in 20 minutes. For that reason, when Carolina retired last November, a party was thrown at the clinic in her honor, and she was given a cake.

TB is sometimes thought of as a thing of the past—a disease for which doctors used to prescribe “dry air,” leading a modern sense of humor to muse at the antiquated, pre-antibiotic medical advice.

But it remains the number-one cause of death globally from a single infectious pathogen, and Tefera Agizew, a physician and APOPO’s head of tuberculosis, told National Geographic that once people see what the nonprofit’s rodents can do to slow the spread, they “fall in love with them.”

3,000 times in her career did Carolina detect one of the six volatile compounds that can be used to identify Mycobacterium tuberculosis, and she got a hero’s send-off to a special compound to live out the rest of her days with her closet friend and sniffer colleague Gilbert, in a shaded enclosure dubbed “Rat Florida.”

“We’ve made special little rat-friendly carrot cakes with little peanuts and things on it that the rat would enjoy,” Fast said. “Then we all stand around and we clap, and we give three cheers, hip hip hooray for the hero, and celebrate together. It’s really a touching moment.”

APOPO has made headlines for its use of these rats in other lifesaving tasks as well: landmine clearance.

One of the world’s great underreported scourges (a lot like TB, coincidentally) is landmine contamination. There are 110 million landmines or unexploded bombs in the ground right now in about 67 countries, covering thousands of square miles in potential danger. Thousands of civilians are killed or injured by these weapons every year.

GNN reported on APOPO’s demining efforts using pouched rats back in 2020. One rat named Magawa alone identified 39 landmines and 28 items of unexploded ordnance across an area the size of 20 football fields.

If at the start of this story you didn’t like rats, maybe Magawa and Carolina will have changed your mind."

-via Good News Network, March 31, 2025

[shalmonsdraws]

i say hello old chap

[ratzinmybasement]

Okay rat gay

insp this post @thighguys

[poorly-drawn-mdzs]

HOT, SINGLE, UNSTUDIED SPONGES. 3000 NAUTICAL MILES AWAY. Come sail the distance and read Tiger Tiger!

[blackberry-s0da]

I think I never posted this over here?? It’s old, from like 2022. Might as well post it while I work on new stuff

[nemnums]

me when fortnite

[firebreathingpandas]

Malevolent is kinda funny from the king in yellow’s perspective

like imagine reaching out your window and then your hand gets fucking cut off so you have to make a giant elaborate plan to get it back. Then you learn that a stupid depressed rat stole your fucking HAND and has been carrying it around, and when you finally get your hand back it then flips you off, slaps you, and runs away with the rat.

[stump-not-found]

Second or Third Contact

part 1 / part 2 / part 3 / part 4

---

they're about to be really normal about things

[songouda]

been on my twitter a lot recently (which is fun !!) but i feel a little embarrassed talking about yume stuff (i have more than 5 followers on there now LOL) so much so it feels a little nice coming back here and just talking to myself

[bedupolker]

Just wanted to say, I love your Mouse mom and Rat dad. The artwork gives me Ghibli vibes and love how you draw eyes and expressions.

But I do have a few questions. Does Mariela have/had parents? I recall that her cousin is a grasshopper mouse, so is Mariela adopted? If her parents are still around, how would they react to her being a mother?

Mariella's own mother was sickly and passed away when she was a baby, she doesn't have brothers or sisters which is very unusual for a mouse. Her grandparents raised her and she had aunties and uncles of course but she quietly longs for the mother and siblings she didn't get to have

[kingtheghast]

Ah yes. Me, my lieutenant, and the Ratsune Miku figurine that he got for ratmas and that is also a lamp.