I get that calling white lotus lbh a sticky little 'sheep' is a canon translation and stuck in the fandom now anyway, but I do feel the intended spirit of the original word wasn't the sheeple/dumb herd animal that's more common in the western world, but instead something actually conveying sweetness, innocence, purity and youth - lamb.
Famous for being utterly adorable and following around their mothers, gambolling in sunny meadows, curly white wool shining.
And NOW we can talk about black sheep/wolf in sheep's clothing metaphors.
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Hello :D
You're so cool
Anyway have you thought that in your rat sons au Splinter might outlive the boys?
You're very cool :D love your stuff dude
(tw for some blood, light gore, implied overdose (kinda??))
hi copper!!! this is a fantastic question!
so obviously typical irl rats have far shorter lifespans than the average irl tortoise. according to google (yes, be awed by my spectacularly in-depth wealth of research) the average pet rat lives between 2-4 years ish, and the oldest on record lived to be about 7. meanwhile, an African spurred tortoise (Splinter's species) averages more around a 50ish year lifespan in captivity, tho is suspected to possibly exceed 75 or more in the wild.
Now, the mutation does give us a lot of wiggle room for playing with these numbers. For the rat sons boys, id say their natural lifespan probably clocks in at about 45-55 years old? definitely not old by human standards, but not young young either. (though, its also important to note that the boys were exposed to the mutagen just days after being born.)
For Splinter, meanwhile, aging is slightly more complicated. He lived the vast majority of his life as a regular normal African spurred tortoise (well, non-mutated at least. there were perhaps some shenanigans of a more mystical variety going on before he was mutated, but thats a separate matter) He was about 70ish i think? when the boys were born and they were all exposed to the mutagen. so he is already distinctly an old man turtle papa. id guess he'd probably still have another eh lets say 25-30 years after his mutation. he could probably push it a little farther even with some mystic nonsense, but when push comes to shove id say his 'natural' post-mutation lifespan would put his death like a solid decade or two before his sons.
of course, the tricky part of the matter is that theres no way for Splinter to know any of this. theres no way for him to know how the mutation affected them all, or if it even affected them all in the same way. especially since the boys dont show many physical signs of mutation for the first few years, and just kinda look like normal rats, (albeit with a more human sort of intelligence) — what sort of health standard do you hold them to? what if they simply dont show external signs of sickness or old age anymore? how do you actually know if something is wrong?
for a while there Splinter is very worried that one of his babies will just essentially reach the end of their normal rat lifespan, fall and not get up again.
so mostly, he just tries to live in the moment, enjoying whatever time he does have with his little ones, taking each day as a gift <3
still,
that fear
never
really
goes
away.....
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If Pinestar was the Mi of his kits, why didn’t he try to take any of them with him when he left? Like Brightsky keeping some of her litter. He knew how the clans were, he was specifically leaving to get away from it, why did he choose to leave his children behind?
It wasn't a choice. Brightsky gave birth in the home she bolted to; Pinestar wasn't going to be allowed to take his children unless he snuck out with them.
He wishes he did something, when he sees what became of his son. But he tried to be brave when he left, announcing that he would not be coming back, and where he would be going.
He thought that was the right thing to do. Unfortunately, no one else appreciated it the way he hoped they would.
If he DID though, ThunderClan would not have allowed that. They see it as kidnapping. Being Mi doesn't mean you're allowed to do literally anything you want, especially if you do have a Ba involved.
In cases of handoffs (surrogacy, secret halfclan kits being given to their other parent, etc) it's actually SUPER important you do it before 1 moon, so you can pass the disappearance off as a fading kit. There are no funerals thrown for fading kits besides the Mi and any Ba quietly burying the body, so this is the time where you smuggle the baby out.
So you need all the Ba on board with such a handoff, in addition. Cloudtail is an example of that actually! When Brightheart surrogates, he is fully aware of how many are ACTUALLY faders and who is receiving their child.
Tigerkit was like 3-ish moons when Pinestar hit da bricks, unfortunately there wasn't a way he could take him along... plus it wouldn't quite make sense with how he was having nightmares about murdering his son.
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idk if this has been said much or anything but i feel like some people who want to become parents kinda forget that theyre not just getting a baby. theyre getting a baby thats gonna grow into a toddler into a child into a tween and a teenager and an adult and parenting doesnt stop once your kid stops being 'a kid'.
and parenting is a lot more than people think it is. like youre committing yourself to take care of a whole new person. and you're responsible for that whole new person for their whole life- parenting that person maybe stops when they move out or whatever but its not like all ties are cut yknow. you may not be actively involved in every moment of your child's life, you may not be making decisions for them and such, but you're still their touchstone in this world
and what does parenting even mean like its not just giving them a house to live in and food to eat its also taking their emotional needs into account its also taking care of their physical health its also teaching them how to be a person. and everything and anything you say to your kid is The Law. if you make a joke about eating the seeds of a watermelon making a tree grow inside them theyre gonna think that's true. and if you offhandedly comment on something in a negative way theyll take it to heart and holy shit i could go on forever.
there's so much. and some people are aware of the muchness they're getting into when they decide to have a baby. but most people arent i think, and that needs to change
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