@garius I've played a RPG, "Cat", with precisely that premise: cats as fierce protectors against the invisible and disguised emotional parasites haunting humanity and bringing fear and unhappiness.
Players are the cats protecting a family or neighborhood.
Especially as I've been staying up late alone and playing horror games and freaking myself out, but then notice the cats around doing their thing and feeling safer.
"It's all good they'd be freaking out if anything was up, right?"
@garius in our house, the dog keeps ghosts and monsters away. When he barks, that’s him chasing them away and keeping us safe.
Our dog is also terrified of strangers, and shakes and hides from everyone on his walk, so my 6 year old daughter has started barking at people when she is out with us and the dog.
Yes, but mom didn’t mention evil things they are thinking dining to you the whole night. Only thing that keeps them from acting upon it, they want to be fed in the morning.
@garius my cat (RIP) used to give me the heebie jeebies by sometimes staring fixedly at a point just over my shoulder. I was convinced she could see otherworldly things. Either that or she was messing with my head.
@garius I’ve said the same to my kids many times. I live in a house that’s over 150 years old, and (at the risk of mockery) is almost certainly haunted—sometimes things happen that defy rational explanation, and the kids would get scared, especially when they were younger—and it is nice to be able to provide them some comfort in that our many cats can sense things that we cannot, and are looking out for us.
@garius This is one aspect that is touched on, briefly, by the movie Constantine that I wish was explored further; in one scene John Constantine travels to the underworld to find a wayward soul using a cat as a guide.. because of course, thats one of the powers cats have in that world. The whole notion of cats as a guardian of the mortal realm from horrors and demons from others is great.
@garius Reminds me of the Cats of Ulthar by H. P. Lovecraft, and how they rescue the protagonist in the DreamQuest of Unknown Kadath against the monsters and slavers from the Dreamlands.
@garius My mother made me a little ghost called Ghosty from an offcut of material from something she was (most uncharacteristically) making; Ghosty was terrified of humans in the night
@garius I believe there is a Neil Gaiman short story along those lines. In the story there is a cat that keeps showing up during the day always looking beat up from fighting something. Turns out at night it fights The Devil to protect the family it has chosen. I'm heavily truncating the story.
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