listening ears > cricket

[CRICKETKIT]

☼ BASIC VISUAL MENTALITY RELATIONSHIPS & INTERACT SKILLS QUICK LOOK ☼

• CRICKETKIT ; find your light, make it bright
  

  a visually impaired, short haired high-white red tabby with hazel eyes. an energetic, but observant kitten trying to navigate the spiderweb of two bright and bold sisters and a father with a dicey reputation. He yearns for positive attention and will bend over backwards to please other people if it means getting it. A polite, old-soul type whose own desires are smothered under a larger fear of being left behind

  ⤷ named by snakehiss as a legacy to proud, pure moor-cats, the name 'cricket' comes from the sweeping fields and plains of WindClan generations ago.
  — cismale; he/him
  — kitten of windclan
  — created 2.17.24 at 3 moons / ages every 17th
  — penned by noia; find me in discord
  
• 
  

  

  SH red tabby with high white and hazel eyes; nystagmus
  Young as he is, Cricketkit has not developed a great opinion of his own personal appearance. But, most of the older cats in the clan would call him, relative to his siblings and others around his age, average. It's likely that in adulthood, Cricketkit will stand just shy of his own mother and father's statures, and this is a fact he would be perfectly okay with. If you asked him, in his kittenhood, his favorite part of himself would be the amount of white on him. White that starts at his paws and swoops up his entire body to his belly, up his chest, and smudged across his face. He'd tell you this is his favorite part of himself because when he plays, the white fur stains with grass, the smudges of earth that he digs his paws into, retains the lingering scents of wildflowers that he gets his paws on. It doesn't matter that they stain; the white stands out against the world and he gets to carry it with him. Isn't that cool? If you really, really asked him, he'd also admit that he likes his orange, because unlike the darker pelt of his dad, he feels like his stands out against the moors. It's bright, and beautiful, when he looks at himself in the reflections in the water. He likes the idea that he's easy to find. That he can't be left out if people can see him.
  
  See, the thing about being young is you don't have a chance to see yourself as anything other than what you are - yet. Doubts, insecurity, fears, those all start later. Usually by other people. Usually by things you begin to notice, begin to wonder. The fears that Cricketkit has are not things he will be able to see for himself, for in fact he doesn't see well at all. By three moons of age, he will develop nystagmus, a condition that causes the eyes to shake. Being young as he is, the extent of how this will affect him later on in life is yet to be seen but one thing is clear: he is visually impaired. He stands with a little bit of a lean, is more clumsy than most kittens his age, and in many cases struggles with some tasks that require precise depth perception and fine-motor skills. Nystagmus can be a stand alone condition, or in many cases is an indicator of other health problems. For Cricketkit, at three months, this is the beginning, but in the moons to come, it is likely that the rest of his vision will be more greatly affected.
  
• 
  

  ENERGETIC - WELL MANNERED - GULLIBLE - PEOPLE PLEASER - OBEDIENT - DETERMINED - MILD - OBSERVANT - KIND - EASILY SWAYED - ANXIOUS

  Imagine: you're a child, figuring out that you're different from others. Learning that your father has a reputation. Learning more about your family, your place within it, your place within the world around you. Imagine, being a child, trying to learn how to become part of a Clan, a family. Imagine, knowing that something about you is different, and not knowing how to handle it. What do you do?
  
  You become good-mannered. Say please, and thank you. Only complain a little when he's asked to do his chores. Imagine the complaints becoming instant agreement. Because he wants to be good. Because he is good. But where's the line between good-mannered out of the pureness of his heart and the good-mannered out of the sake of knowing that he has to be? See, when you learn about yourself and the world around you there's pressure. Faced with this pressure, of maybe going blind, of trying to understand his father's behavior in comparison to other people's, Cricketkit is a good boy. He is, truly, cross his heart. But there's a line of good that becomes destructive, becomes exploitative. He doesn't want to mess up- he can't. Because what will people think of him if he can't see well and he's incapable of something?
  
  He'd sooner grit his teeth and lie straight through them to make people like him, not realizing at all that that's what he's doing. He'd sooner adhere to his father's own personality traits because, clearly, it worked for him. It's not that he's manipulative- he would never do it intentionally, but he is a people-pleaser. Give him a task, a good enough reason to think that it's the right thing to do and he'll do it. He's young; he doesn't have the defenses yet to know whether or not people would make him do something that was bad just because all he sees is a chance to be well-behaved and well-mannered. The perfect kid.
  
  Cricketkit is capable. That's what he believes anyway. Because if he assumes that he's unable to contribute to the world around him, then what's the point? There's a great sense within him that needs to feel valued, and to protect the vulnerable part of himself that doesn't want to admit that they could be obsolete- is there a time in which they feel or have reason to believe that their family would think less of him if he can't live up to their, or his own, expectations? There's a lot of anxiety that will surround the idea of others being better than him because there's a good chance they will actually be.
  
  It's not at all to say that Cricketkit is a wolf in sheep's clothing, prepared to do whatever it takes to be liked and respected. It's just not true. He would never intentionally manipulate the perception of his own self but subconsciously, there is a part of him that wants to love, and be loved, no matter what it takes- especially for a father that's not the best at showing his own emotions. Whatever is necessary that prevents him being afraid that there are parts of them that will make them so they are irrelevant to clan life. He wants to see other people happy, and is potentially at risk of believing that he can be loved only if he is giving out everything he has to give and not asking for anything back. What he fears most is being obsolete. What he fears even more is being alone.
• 
  

  SINGLE ; UNKNOWN SEXUALITY ; INTERESTED IN NO ONE
  it's almost too easy to befriend Cricketkit. It might not be that he inherently trusts everyone he meets, but if someone gives him sound enough reasons, enough logic for a mind so young to contemplate, it's easy to talk him in to doing just about anything- he's too young to think ahead to the potential consequences. He's anxious of being left behind, or not being interesting enough to keep around so he would more readily bend over backwards to make himself likeable even if it's not what he wants to be.
  SOUNDS LIKE: the edges of the words are always a little breathy, like he's never quite sure it should be said, or like he's run out of breath by the end of his sentences.
  SMELLS LIKE: wildflowers, the windswept moors, a strong smell of the nursery
  speech is #A66B54

  
  snakehiss xx berrysnap sibling to violetkit, waspkit, and privetkit (unknown)
  NOTABLE FRIENDS: who?
  NOTABLE ENEMIES: who?
• 
  

  ⬤⬤○○○○○○○○ PLAY FIGHTING: poor. when it comes to actually landing 'strikes,' Cricketkit often lacks the balance and the swiftness that the other kittens do. However, when it comes to hearing the approach of someone, or getting an idea of which direction they're coming from, he fares better, even if he isn't the best at blocking

  ⬤○○○○○○○○○ MOSS BALL: poor. his ability to visually track in this game is poor, and more often than not he chooses to sit out of it instead of playing. He'd much rather play it alone, when he has control over the ball

  
  

  ⬤⬤⬤⬤⬤○○○○○ CHORES: proficient. for a kit his age he loves to help; give him a job, even the most boring ones, and he'll do it. Maybe he doesn't get anything really important, because he's not even an apprentice, but he's proving himself to be quite reliable

  ⬤⬤⬤⬤⬤⬤⬤⬤○○ LISTENING: admirable. If there's one thing Cricketkit is good at, it's listening to instructions and what he's told to do- within kit reason, of course. You can't expect him to be able to make his sisters to listen, right? But even outside of obedience, he has a penchant for simply listening to the world around him, and has found some pretty cool bugs by listening out for them.

• Cricketkit is a three month old WindClan kitten, a short haired red tabby, and the son of Snakehiss, and a mother who he has been told is dead. He is brother to Violetkit and Waspkit, both sisters. He has a condition called nystagmus that causes his eyes to shake. He stands with a slight lean in his body and often tilts his head to one side. As a result of it, he also doesn't have the best depth perception, and struggles with fine details on objects and fine-motor coordination; which, on the other hand, he is a young kitten so this is also to be expected. But it makes him more clumsy and physically uncoordinated than others of his age.
  
  Cricketkit is a sweet boy who, with the recent discovery of his potential vision problems is currently worried about fitting in to Clan life - especially when it seems like his dad maybe doesn't have the best reputation either. But with two boisterous sisters and a narrow-minded child-like understanding of the world, he instead is afraid of being left behind. He will do anything in order to make sure that he can make other people happy, and to keep people from forgetting about him.

​