rookflower

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doodles from my stream! thanks to everyone who came!

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if the sister moonpaw hears is genuinely and truly 100% confirmed as just her other, stillborn littermate haunting her normal style and not some kind of manifestation of the embryo she fused with despite the fact that she is explicitly a chimera and all the foreshadowing about that and talk about them being one in the same, then that's so baffling im not even mad about it. im not even particularly invested in it as a plot either way it's just so confusing and so warrior cats to do all that and then go ahaha coincidence! it was a red herring the real answer is (most boring possibility)

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btw shoutout to whoever it was looking for me at furrydelphia! i have never been to the usa sorry but im flattered to be thought of

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new book

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i feel like it's not that warrior cats doesn't have any intentional themes or messaging, or has ideas that are purely conservative, but rather that its state as a continual marketable series and its need to uphold its own perpetuity takes precedent above anything else it might have to say, and this leads to a lack of any meaningful conclusion or progression. every attempt at trying to maybe say something meanders or carelessly muddies itself or dwindles off prematurely, and this combined with how repetitive and formulaic the series can be then naturally allows a lot more unchecked biases and bigotry to creep through

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Me when I remember something I said ages ago that was wrong or my values no longer align with

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what are your favorite designs you’ve done so far?

TRICKY question bc theres over a thousand and most of them are old enough that i just want to redesign them if i look at them (especially any characters in the latter half of the alphabet). as far as "quality through recency bias" goes i do like my starlingpaw and robinpaw designs

and here are some other designs im fond of off the top of my head (leafpool frostdawn plumstone flipclaw sparkpelt poppyfrost antpelt toadstep)

i also like most of the designs in these mapleshades vengeance headshot sketches i did a while back so shoutout to them (other than oakstar and darkstar, i wasnt cooking with those)

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im guilty of it myself but i do think a lot of fandom social media participation is just a ragebait cycle tbh. it is a lot easier to have a pleasant discussion with people in a group chat or discord server or something where you are forced to view the bad takes you see as the people posting them first and foremost, and then reason with that fact and be open minded in your rebuttal. granted absolutely not all things should be discussed pleasantly in an "agree to disagree" way and the room for critical thought is what i think makes tumblr way more enjoyable and constructive to talk about things on than twitter or whatever the fuck. but personally speaking, i know i do need to work on not being provoked into making contextless opinion posts whenever i see bad takes by random people in the wild, lest i start being an asshole about it 👍

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Favorite warrior cats POV character? Why? (Do you think they are more well written than others? More likable? Just special to you for personal reasons?)

it's hard to cut down opinion on a character purely to how fun it is to read their pov when I haven't read some of the arcs in years, but as far as a general ranking of main series female pov characters goes i think my personal taste goes leafpool > squirrelflight > dovewing > hollyleaf (those last two sometimes swap around) > frostdawn > the rest are all changeable depending on how I'm feeling that day but maybe bristlefrost > violetshine > ivypool > sunbeam > twigbranch right now. I don't actively dislike any of them. Too early to make a judgment on Tawnypelt Leafstar and Moonpaw before we're further into Changing Skies so I know what theyre doing with them.

As for why, it's a whole tangle of factors including how interesting their story is to me, personal investment and relatability, how much I enjoyed the arc they were in (violet and twig lost mad points on that sorry girl), how frustrated I am by certain aspects of their character, how mean spirited they feel in how they treat the characters around them, how the narrative treats them, whether they go on to be a character after their pov is over or not, how many amvs I can make in my head about them, how their inevitable romance is written, fanon influence/amvs that exist, and so on. Lot of biases at play

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what are ur thoughts on sweet girl sorreltail

sorreltail is awesome! unfortunately as with most wc minor characters she's maybe not the most fleshed out in canon, but i've always really liked her and i think a lot of fanon content of her is really cute + there's a lot to explore with how she loses a lot of her family and goes through some pretty horrific shit early on. i remember reading a wc fic years ago that had sorreltail as a protag and enjoying it a lot, there's a lot of potential to work with. also i like that people commonly draw her as fat and/or muscular, thank you ursiday and moonkitti and anyone else who contributed to that in some way it did a lot for getting people to give female characters more varied body types in their designs. also sorreltail and leafpool should kiss

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bored. ama

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StormClan's Folly PDF for anyone who wants it

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I haven't read StormClan's Folly (don't plan to either), but I hear Galestar is the only valid character in this book

(We also got our first two canon gay cats, but they are bg cats... I mean, cool but this is also the xenophobic racist cat book we are talking about here)

i mean, im only halfway through the book so idk what the rest looks like, but so far i wouldnt say it's an "everyone sucks here" one, most of the side characters are fine if generic, it's just that starclan sucks and that of the two protags stripestar is kind of an ass (i like galestar) (i have heard from people who have finished the book and who finished ivypool's book that stripestar does indeed fucking suck). maybe some real dickheads are revealed in a chapter from where i am but so far it's more "galestar is the only valid and actually interesting character" yknow

also yeah. i wouldnt call pebblenose a bg character per say, he is definitely A Person In The Story On Some Level, but his boyfriend verges into bg character territory. their relationship is stated but not really explored. it's small but fine rep. sets a better precedent for the series moving forwards and im glad it's there but you do not under any circumstances gotta hand it to the erins etc etc etc

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other spoiler free stormclans folly review is that im enjoying galestar as a character but stripestar should die for all i care

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stormclans folly spoilers, animal death and gore mention

im not there in the book yet but my friend sent me screenshots of a cat being mauled fatally by some sort of huge mink or weirdly bristly seal (unclear. probably former but latter is funnier) and that was pretty gnarly but nothing beats out the description of a kindly old cat being smashed into viscera across the road by a large vehicle and then a cat leaving to become a kittypet because she's traumatised that she can "still hear it". jesus man this is sootfur having his hindlegs broken by a badger preventing him from escaping type shit again

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