Post by STREAKZ on May 26, 2013 5:01:43 GMT -5
NAME! Lord Tailscratch [Scratch for short]
AGE! 38 moons
GENDER! m
TYPE! loner
SHORT DESC.! An unkempt long-haired tabby tom with pale yellow eyes
FULL DESCRIPTION!
Lord Tailscratch, or Scratch as he will ruefully allow himself to be called, is by no means a handsome feline. A thick matted pelt is the first thing any cat will see upon meeting this odd piece of work. In it are often twigs and crawling insects that cause him to bite and tear at it until he can manage to yank a couple chunks out. This pelt looks as though it hasn't seen the attention of a tongue in a good long time -- Tailscratch is the sort of cat that someone would pet and immediately wish they had done positively no such thing.
Tailscratch is about as substantial as a twig -- though he appears to be bulky because of his matted pelt, upon being soaked it is revealed that he is a gaunt feline under all that fur. Living on one's own isn't always a bonus, after all, and Tailscratch has been alone for a long time.
His hind claws are nearly always blunted in some odd way, as while he is lying down he enjoys shoving his hindpaws into his face so he can gnaw away at his own toenails. He does this until he nearly causes himself pain, for reasons entirely uncertain.
As a rather unkempt feline should be, Tailscratch stinks to high heavens. In fact he particularly enjoys rolling in things that would best not be rolled in at all. Perhaps there's a good reason to not be lapping at that pelt.
As far as stamina and strength goes, Tailscratch has incredible bursts of energy -- but they are simply that. Bursts. As an ever so slightly malnourished feline he doesn't quite have the energy to tussle about and run for hours on end.
PERSONALITY!
Meet Lord Tailscratch, underling of the whiskery goodness that claims the throne to all catdom! Oh ah-- that is to say, this is what Tailscratch would readily introduce himself as. There are some that meet Tailscratch and say that he's completely bonkers, there are others that argue that he acts the way he does for attention, others still claim that he is only hiding his true intelligence. One thing cats can agree on, however, is simply this -- Scratch is weird.
A buggy, odd cat that has had about as much contact as an octopus thirty leagues under the waves, Tailscratch is prone to spending hours on end on his very own. Not to worry! He's more than willing to chatter at himself for days at a time, be it mutterings about the weather to asking himself what the next hint is in his delusional little quest, Tailscratch does not often run out of things to talk to himself about.
Upon meeting others Tailscratch can be a tad strange. He's quick to put cats into categories -- friend or foe is a decision made upon the instant he meets them. It doesn't seem to follow any given pattern at all. A cat could cheerfully call out a "hullo" to him and he'd think they were planning on stringing him up for the whole world to see -- another still could hiss and spit and he'd think they were a fast friend. Yet he could also see such hostility as an act of an enemy. It is, with Tailscratch, an incredibly difficult thing to tell.
His decision making skills seem to lie on the horrific side as a result. Left could be a cheerful meadow, right could lie a pack of dogs, and a cat could still seriously worry that he might choose right. One cannot say that Tailscratch is brave, despite the things he may blatantly face, as "oblivious" is a word far better suited for the odd tomcat. He blatantly trots into the very jaws of danger, good cheer in place, and it seems he hasn't got a worry in the world.
Ah but all cats have worries. Buggy as he is, Tailscratch has earned his fair share of enemies -- be they made up or simply cats that couldn't stand the eccentric feline -- and this has borne in him a deep rooted paranoia. Tailscratch may confide in friends (or foes he thinks are friends) that he has foes following him, after him -- even if he is feasibly far from the other cat's grasp. He is often plagued by nightmares, and spooks easily when he thinks he's got something on his tail.
Genuinely harmless, even when cornered Tailscratch is more prone to miserable muttering and whimpering than actual physical attack. He doesn't seem willing to lift a paw to almost any cat, and would rather run than get in a tussle. This rule simply does not apply to any other animals, which he will attack like a cat possessed if he thinks he has any sort of right to.
Tailscratch seems to perceive himself as rather noble -- though this is hardly the case at all -- and holds his "quest" in incredibly high regard. Said quest is something he himself seems to know only the scarcest of details on, and said details change from day to day. There are few things that stay consistent with his stories but he seems to wholeheartedly believe in them.
He is loyal, and if a cat takes the time to stand him he'll pay back his dues one way or another. Though seemingly shameless and out of sorts with the rest of the world, Tailscratch is considerably happier when in the company of other cats -- it's just most in his past have taken lengths to avoid him you know?
Finally, Tailscratch is -- at his best -- incredibly inventive. Quick to make up tales of cats that have never been heard of, his talent lies in his storytelling and he is at his happiest when given the chance to show it off.
HISTORY!
In the streets of a city, dingy and wailing with noise, the litter of kittens was birthed in this world. The mother had been a stray who had paired off with a wild tom who she neither knew nor cared about. Like most female cats she'd been left to raise the litter all on her own -- it had been fine by her, and bringing her kittens into this world was something she'd done countless times. She was a worn old queen, and by the time she got to giving birth to Tailscratch and his siblings she'd fallen into the rhythm that one falls into when they have been doing the same thing over and over but have grown to hate that thing.
She didn't hate her children, simply the act of raising them. Tailscratch and his siblings were brought up under the short-patience of his mother, and then left to fend for themselves when their claws and wits seemed to be sharp enough.
From the get-go Tailscratch was a little... odd. Prone to asking questions, trailing off and sticking his whiskers where they were certainly better not stuck, he was the one cat in the litter that his mother clung to. He stayed with her until he had seen nearly eight seasons, and then she finally dumped the little tail-biter on the streets like the rest. Funny, but Tailscratch couldn't tell you her name even if he was asked now.
Nearly immediately, and like most cats on the streets, Tailscratch sought his kind and quickly found them in a ragtag group. He stuck with them and learned to survive, fighting when he had to (running when he didn't) and simply living the life of a young tom. Litters were sired by him, despite his eccentric behavior. Ah to be young, she-cats didn't care what Tailscratch talked about so long as he could bring kits into this world. The city was a very different place from the forest.
Very different indeed.
Cropping from the shadows and corners of the alleyways came rumors of "His Whiskery Greatness" as Tailscratch almost immediately took to calling him. It was a cat that claimed he was ruler of all felines, at his side a beautiful she-cat, and two healthy kits. Now of course, these felines stomping into the City acting all high and mighty -- with their strange pointed faces, and dark masks and lilting meows -- weren't quite taken with a grain of salt.
"His Whiskery Greatness", however, had back up. Healthier cats that had seen far better days than those on the streets. The "fight" was hardly even that. Mostly cats spitting and stalking circles around each other until, one by one, the common sense of the rogues kicked in. Not a single drop of blood was even shed before the Siamese Cats took over the territory that Tailscratch had lived in.
He adored them immediately and immensely these, "royal families". The tomcat doted on them, loved them to bits and pieces, and quickly crawled his way up through the ranks. Oh surely they could see that he was a bit strange, Tailscratch was just like that, but he could tell a good story -- and really the tomcat was harmless. What could come of promoting him to "Lord".
Tailscratch hadn't the slightest clue what a "Lord" was, but it sounded darn important to him. Syra, the "Queen" explained to him what their strange words meant. What royalty itself meant, and Tailscratch found himself being taught the ways that odd little Syra knew of. He, nor any of the other felines around them, had no way of knowing that Syra and her mate were just about as delusional as Tailscratch himself. They certainly weren't royalty -- they were but abandoned pets, left to die in a home when their Twolegs left. They made the best out of a terrible situation, adapted and learned to survive... sort of. They were treated as pets, still, demanding royalties from their subjects and services such as food. They needn't twitch a whisker toward prey.
For all it was worth, the strange words they'd learned from the "World Before", as Syra calmly described it, provided handy and important sounding labels that many of the cats didn't quite understand. Ah but with these important sounding titles, made up though they were, came another undeniable feeling -- greed. Slowly, ever so slowly, the reach of the two Siamese cats spread. They, as well as a choice few cats, were kept in tip-top shape. To intimidate opponents into backing down without the stress of lifting claws to do it.
It actually worked, and in those days Tailscratch was clean and some might dare even say handsome. He never had to fight, and he was happy to stand at Syra's side -- gosh he liked Syra. He liked her bunches and bunches. So much, in fact, that he wouldn't mind having kits with her and becoming the king instead.
He naively confided this to said "King of Cats" one day, and the Siamese was of course furious. Ah but when you have an image to protect, particularly a false one, you should not go killing relatively nice (though strange) cats as an example. Especially if blood had been kept from your claws until that point, you know? So he gave Tailscratch a quest. A grand quest, one that could be useful no matter how it turned out.
See the world. Find where all feline-kind stood, and spread the word of his "Kingdom". This is when Tailscratch left, set out, and as the days grew into moons -- lost his way. He only realized seasons into his journey, that he did not know when it was that he was supposed to return.
He missed Syra terribly, and in his loneliness seemed only to grow more and more eccentric. He lost his love for cleaning his pelt, as one often does when they are lonesome, and simply took to wandering. Some cats took pity on him, most thought that he was completely insane, others still saw him as a threat.
Ah but whatever the case he had a quest to fulfill, and that at least made him happy. To be so trusted by the King of Cats! ...Poor deluded Tailscratch.
Did you purchase a trait for this character from the site store? Yes or no?:
no (sidenote that Tailscratch is in no way insane, simply very gullible and a little eccentric ^^)
