Animal grace (or lack thereof)

You know how romance novels always use animalistic descriptions for the heroes? Particularly feline ones?

"He gracefully prowled like a jungle cat, sleek muscles rippling under skin. He stretched, strangely and suddenly shirtless, and she watched as he lithely got out of the chair."

See, if he really were like a cat, he would lithely get out of the chair and then promptly fall flat on his face, only to gather his shattered dignity together and stalk off, offended by any onlookers.

Or occasionally, romance novel heroes will possess lupine grace and grin toothily.

I can just imagine what would happen if a romance hero were actually based on a rat (this post brought to you by a reread of Fruits Basket!)...

Enter Renji the Rat. He yawns while stretching one itty rat paw in the air, exuding intolerable levels of cuteness. He hunkers down on the towels in the bathtub and flattens himself like a rug in preparation for his nap. Unfortunately for Ren, he lands on a not-so-level portion of towel and immediately rolls over on his side. He stares in rattie confusion. "Huh, Bya didn't pin me," he thinks. "Why am I not on my tummy like I should be?" *cue flailing as he tries to rolls back over*

Or:

Enter Bya. Bya stands on the food bowl, gracefully balancing on his hind legs to threaten Ren, who is clearly attempting to encroach upon Bya's alpha rat territory (Bya thinks nearly everything is his alpha rat territory). The two stand on their hind legs and sort of flail at each other with their paws, a la Xander and Harmony. (See? Already like a romance novel hero, what with the territory protecting and alpha status and all!)

Bya achieves dominance! Ren backs down!

Victory! And then Bya balances. Bya teeters. Bya flails at the wheel in hopes of grabbing on to something (as opposed to the far more stable cage bars, but really, who knows what goes on in his rattie mind?). Bya very slowly slides off the bowl and clings to it with his front paws, his back end dangling off the ledge the bowl is on. After a long struggle (ok, a few seconds) trying to get his hind legs back on the ledge or something (may I also note that said ledge is approximately three inches off the floor of the cage? The rats are short, but not that short...), Bya flails again and lands in a heap.

I present my rats*, paragons of grace.


* Bya and Ren, at least, both caught in embarrassing acts of extreme clumsiness today. Ruki is actually a graceful rat. Then again, he is also my smart and cunning rat. Maybe he got the lion's share of rat survival genes, because I honestly have no idea how Ren and Bya would survive in the wilds of suburban California.

Takaya Natsuki - Fruits Basket, vol. 01 (Eng. trans.) (reread)

Finally, I start a week late in the Great Manga Reread Project: Fruits Basket edition!

Spoilers for this volume under the cut; spoilers for later volumes further hidden using spoiler code. Please use spoiler code for later volumes in the comments! Also, I've only read up to around ch. 126 (aka, I am where Akito is female, Momiji and Hiro have had the curse lifted, and Tohru has just fallen off the cliff).

Uh, I may have gone a little overboard in taking notes; I suspect I will get lazier as I reread and much less detailed.

( Spoilers for vol. 1 )

Sample spoiler code:
Spoilers here.

Links:
- Thread collecting all vol. 1 GMRP posts.