I exist! Here are some baby stoats

@Otrame

Swifts are nifty. Do you have an expanding umbrella type swift, or Amish style?

ETA: Dur, you answered that. I have an Amish style swift – it breaks down and stores easily.

@Axe

Also, I doubt the reliability of the nobility of the badger narrative. They are, for all intents and purposes, conquerors too. Brocktree established an Empire from Salamandastron. He and his son, Boar, extended that territory to all of Mossflower. And then Boar’s daughter, Bella, and her mate, Barkstripe were routed by Verdauga Green Eyes. Yet, the badgers are called rightful ruler and the wildcats are tyrant even tho Verdauga wouldn’t have been considered especially cruel by historical human standards. ‘Evil’ creatures have spin placed on them that ‘good’ aminals don’t. Especially if the goodun is the local warlord instead of a foreign one

Of course! Our imperialism is bringing the light of civilisation to the benighted savages of the outer world, uniting everyone under the benevolent hand of our glorious monarch; their imperialism is a despotic blight upon the land, a creeping evil that will reduce the world to mere tyranny beneath the unyeilding heel of the foreign oppressor.

Weasels and crows are, at present, more prone to torture and conquest, but that’s down to geography.

Is it? Weasels and crows are, IRL, more prone to hurting things for fun than mice or rabbits.

@Freneticferret

Heck, even as the ferret kit is abandoned by his own kind, too young to walk or speak, he’s portrayed as a vicious savage, biting Bryony and devouring ‘frogspawn’ in a deliberate evocation of repulsive imagery.

Thing is, ferrets, baby or not, do that shit all the time. It’s kinda their thing

We’re not supposed to find this tiny baby ferret sympathetic or cute, and the hares and Redwallers certainly don’t.

And if I were the size of a mouse, I would’t consider a ferret cute either; I’d be legitimately terrified. Ferrets IRL kill mice and rabbits for shits and giggles; it’s quite reasonable that a civilization of rodents and lagomorphs would have a poor opinion of them.
That’s one of the oddest things about the setting to me, is that badgers are looked up to as much as they are, and how many predator species are counted as allies. Although apparently the Eurasian badger is more omnivorous and less actively predatory than the American variety I’m familiar with, so maybe the local rodents feel differently. OTOH, they eat hedgehogs a fair amount, so maybe not.

Redwallers good, because how could a ferret be a good guy?

How indeed? Ferrets literally exist for the purpose of killing mice. (Ferrets, as such, are an entirely domestic species, probably derived ultimately from the European polecat or some close cousin. They are traditionally used as a pest control measure, because they can and will go down mouse and rat holes and slaughter everything they find therein.) From the perspective of the Redwallers, I can’t see any way that a ferret could be considered good.

@Sandra

I honestly sympathized a lot with Asmodeus. Does a serpent even have an option for living that doesn’t involve eating rodents? No, they don’t. So why are they evil? They’re doing what they were meant to do in a very real way. Dangerous predators. Threats to public safety. Damned by their nature in a far more real way than the designated “evil” species. Possibly gods relative to the setting. But not evil.

That’s kind of my point from above, though. I mean, yeah, IRL Jaques was racist as all hell, etc. but in the context of the setting, the Redwallers’ classifications do make sense. Because stoats and ferrets actually are entirely different species from the protagonists, and those species actually do kill members of the protagonists’ species just because they’re there. I should rather like to see a more nuanced exploration of the idea, honestly, done by someone with less obnoxious baggage about humans as well as a somewhat greater knowledge of the natural world.

@Katie
I left a responses over there.

@Dalillama

Heck, even as the ferret kit is abandoned by his own kind, too young to walk or speak, he’s portrayed as a vicious savage, biting Bryony and devouring ‘frogspawn’ in a deliberate evocation of repulsive imagery.

Thing is, ferrets, baby or not, do that shit all the time. It’s kinda their thing

The point is that the language used intentionally displays it as disgusting – we’re meant to be repulsed by this tiny baby.

And if I were the size of a mouse, I would’t consider a ferret cute either; I’d be legitimately terrified. Ferrets IRL kill mice and rabbits for shits and giggles; it’s quite reasonable that a civilization of rodents and lagomorphs would have a poor opinion of them.

Really a moot point, as the books (with the exception of the original Redwall) portray the animals as being all roughly the same size. Bryony is able to cradle the baby ferret in her arms, which would be impossible if they were their respective sizes.

That’s one of the oddest things about the setting to me, is that badgers are looked up to as much as they are, and how many predator species are counted as allies. Although apparently the Eurasian badger is more omnivorous and less actively predatory than the American variety I’m familiar with, so maybe the local rodents feel differently. OTOH, they eat hedgehogs a fair amount, so maybe not.

And that’s part of why it makes zero sense. Badgers and otters are both very efficient predators.

Jacques tended to use creatures as ‘good’ or ‘bad’ based on their roles in folklore and heraldry. Badgers = noble and representative of royalty, foxes = sneaky and hungry. The issue is in representing entire species as symbols of good or evil, with no chance at transcending either label.

How indeed? Ferrets literally exist for the purpose of killing mice.

Mustelidae simply do as they must to survive, which is kill so that they can eat, and the domestic ferret does as we’ve bred and trained him to do. Actually, socialized ferrets are extremely friendly and loving, but I guess that’s beside the point. Badgers and otters will also engage in surplus killing, which is really what people are talking about most of the time when they refer to creatures killing ‘for fun.’ Most carnivores will. There are also ‘good’ raptors in Redwall, such as Skarlath, the kestrel, a species that is a terror to rodents.

Meanwhile, Jacques’ mice fish for food, which is portrayed as just fine, even though mice, hedgehogs, moles, squirrels, etc don’t need to eat fish. What makes it morally acceptable to brand a baby ferret as inherently evil simply because his species feeds on mice? I should point out that we never actually see foxes or mustelids in Redwall consume mice. When they do eat meat, it’s typically a bird of some sort, and birds range all over the spectrum of good and evil in Redwall. Veil survived just fine on the food provided by the Redwallers, but was still an abhorrent brat in personality for no other reason that his species.

The ‘good’ beasts also frequently display hypocrisy in their alleged reverence for life, so long as the lives being taken are the specific carnivores we’re meant to see as evil. The final book’s epilogue has the victorious woodlanders run down and crush a band of fleeing, bumbling ‘vermin’ with a landship, while laughing about it, which honestly killed off any remaining empathy I had for the ‘good’ guys of that story.

http://i.imgur.com/oDP1PAR.jpg

Pole cat?

@SFHC, well now, that pole cat is clearly the embodiment of evil. How could it jump so high and land on such a small area without involving the forces of darkness? I ask you.

@WWTH

I suppose the Knights Templar were possibly the inspiration for the trope.

I’d guess Freemasons, personally.

I have something that I hope is fun. I’ve been a bit locked up by social anxiety and I’ve been holding back on this one until now. (I’ve got my therapists narrowed down to two that I want to call from my first group I looked at so I hope to get some help soon).

I’m “working on” (mostly thinking about at this stage) some rhetoric designed to dismantle the improper use of inheritance and genetics by racists and was wondering what some of you think. (I think rhetorical analysis is a mental habit related to how the tourette’s syndrome intersects with my life). It plays on the “3-dimensional chess” metaphor that I’ve seen some Trump supporters use when describing his behavior during the election (as strategy), and my use of the metaphor puts racists at a fraction of a dimension in terms of accuracy with respect to inheritance and genetics (and I’ve never seen a racist speak coherently about chromosomes of any kind). I’m curious about any impressions and suggestions that anyone might have, it’s not a “I have specific questions” thing. More of a “Is is at all useful and can it be made better?”

The key concept is [Inheritance] because your original zygote inherited a lot more than DNA in terms of molecules that carry information. The [DNA] carrying genes is simply one dimension of this. They only get partial credit there because you also inherit the [DNA methylation] patterns of the DNA from both parents. That’s two covalently linked pieces of information in terms of inheritance. You do inherit methylation pattern changes from your parents, and ancestors before them. It’s arguably environmental and experience information.

Methylation patterns of DNA inhibit protein binding (at the very least).

But that’s not all. That methylated DNA is wrapped around [histones] that have been modified (]histone methylation], [acetylation], [ubiquitination], [SUMOylation], [phosphorylation], [citrullination] and who knows what else). The histone is a dimension and each modification class in which you can inherit alterations is a dimension.

Histone modifications affect the binding of proteins, RNAs of many classes and other strands of DNA in how tightly the DNA is wound (arguably the histone’s oldest role).

But wait! There’s more!

You also inherit RNA from both parents. The sperm contains miRNA and piRNA. miRNA’s have been shown to suppress the expression of genes by shredding the DNA copies (and they probably do other things). piRNAs have been shown to affect protein binding and other activity.
The egg contains lnRNA* and it’s easy to assume mRNA along with who knows what else. (lnRNA remodeling is apparently important in the zygote transitioning forward in development).
*https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_non-coding_RNA
(sorry, copy paste fuck up).

To be frank you don’t see a lot of people in academia pointing at epigenetics saying that it’s directly related to inherited behavior changes. To make my bias clear I’m saying that I’m convinced that the there is enough reason to start acting like we are inheriting things relevant to behavior. Even if it is something like inheriting an experience of famine, that comes with an experience of reality. The inheritance of patterns in the descendants of holocaust survivors are another one. We’ve also got data showing that the impulsivity in ADHD and Tourette’s Syndrome has an inherited component. I have inherited social impulsivity and that is a bit of a mindfuck right now. It explains too much. I’ll cite anything above and anywhere else upon request.

Gonads and gametes are hard drives that href=”https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epigenetics#Transgenerational”>soak up experience and store it. There will be aspects that we think of as good, but things like the effects of transgenerational trauma are in there too. Racists are so off the picture of reality emerging that it’s impossible to avoid the reality that they wreak social damage on our discussion of inheritance. Fuck that.

weirwoodtreehugger: chief manatee: “How could anyone not like rats?”

Several years ago, our street was torn up for sewer repairs. We came back from a trip to a strong urine smell in our garage. I figured squirrels or mice. When I saw a story on line about rats being reported, I said “uh-oh.” I got traps, spring and glue, and sure enough, caught one in a glue trap, the first of several. Filthy disgusting creature —-

Except he wasn’t filthy or disgusting at all. He was just a small animal with sleek fur and terrified out of his wits. I could actually understand why people keep rats as pets.

Of course we had to kill it. If we turned it loose it would just be someone else’s problem, and maybe a legal violation on top of that. But I really had the feeling “this is not right,” having to kill something merely for being what it was and being in the wrong place. It was perfectly happy and harmless in the sewers, and once the sewer work was done they disappeared.

Any excess stoats you have, send them to me.

Viscaria:

@SFHC, well now, that pole cat is clearly the embodiment of evil. How could it jump so high and land on such a small area without involving the forces of darkness? I ask you.

+3 Claws of Slashing and Climbing.

And I have scars in my shoulders to prove it.

IBKC~!

*squees happily*

@hambeast it not meant to insult Trump with calling him Tramp, this just how it done. You cannot write with the ‘y’ normally unless you want to spell like this like you say. But why you writing with russian alphabet-i think because this scandal about hacking? I dont like this really. I know now thay saying it true (( when i see first it was one woman from Georgia i thought they mean country georgia and i thought they mean she is hacking. Then i understand that this woman from amercia and only leaking again something from investigation. But no one already read what she share? Because i cant find this information. Only that it was been confirmed by independents and she arrested for this.

@WWTH

I had my own idea for a ‘British-based supernatural study’ organisation story a long time ago, the Derbyshire Zombie Patrol.

The peat bogs of the Pennines are a great place for bodies to be preserved, and I was going to have a group of what were essentially Peak National Park rangers, whose day job was looking after tourists, but at night were watching out for any reanimated bodies that were getting up and wandering about.

The deal was going to be that these bodies were not the bad guys; they were murder victims, Celtic sacrificial victims, Romans who’d wandered off the path and drowned in the swamp; basically, lost, confused people who, like the tourists, needed someone to look out for them.

The DZP would rescue lost zombies, protect them from exploitation, collectors, over-zealous slayers, and – the big bad of the season – the old Gods to which some of them had been sacrificed, like Cernunnos.

It was also going to be the only mystical association ever based in an old factory in New Mills, just outside Stockport.

This post is as much of it as has ever been written; maybe I’ll start again, summer holidays are nearly here and it would be a project!