YOUR FANCLANS ARE SO COOL!!!! i cant wait to see more of them omg! could you share some more on the clairvoyants/prophets and their pilgrimages up the mountain? :o also, did you have anywhere specific in colorado in mind when mapping? it looks gorgeous! and i love the landmark names omg, how'd you come up with those? sorry for all the questions im just very excited about these guys!
YAY thank you so much that means a ton! you're enabling my infodumping I'm about to write 1500 words (serious). Don't ever worry about asking too many ST questions it's all i think about.
Here's a MSPAINT doodle of the girls. hope nothing bad ever happens to them
easy questions first!
ST's set in the northern Colorado Rockies where they border the Great Plains. Somewhere unpopulated in the northern Front Range!
Landmark names are usually named after past leaders/healers/deputies of the Clans, who I just made up on the spot (except I have a Blizzard playthrough on Clangen so I used some of those leaders and important cats.) To come up with a lot of the names I researched local fauna. Colorado has a LOT of elk and a lot of large carnivores! Summer Thunder has a storm motif (did you know) so a lot of the place names have to do with that
I'm going to go ahead and put the Clairvoyant/Prophet stuff under a cut because I write headcanons as I go and it gets so lengthy lol.
SORRY IN ADVANCE. this is like 3/4 just for me so i can put it in my document
Clairvoyants are the cats who would have "a strong connection to StarClan" in canon text. StarClan (usually called the Stars in-universe) are not an explicit thing or confirmed. There is something spiritual going on, but it's a lot more like a Primal Force than it is "My Dead Aunt Says Hello To Me In My Dreams." The technical name for cats who are tuned in to this spirituality is "Clairvoyants", though it's an ambiguous label and not something that ever puts cats into a group. Most cats aren't clairvoyant or are to a very low degree (this works since level of clairvoyance in any universe doesn't affect how much you believe in a higher power).
Prophets, a role found only in StormClan, are kind of like canon Medicine Cats except I separated the role into its composite Prophet and Healer. Some cats are both, in which case they'll call themselves whichever one makes more sense - usually Prophet because it's rarer and so it can feel closer to your identity. A Prophet is sort of like how Ancient Greek Oracles were. They are rare and usually have a medium to extremely high level of Clairvoyance. (ex. Leafpool, Goosefeather.) Their role, like medcats, is to speak as the Stars' voice and share wisdom with the Clan. The Stars do not "give prophecies" in the literal sense that they do in canon - cats interpret things how they will, like we would in real life. It's easy to think of an omen or prophecy if you want to hear one.
Storm cats just take it really seriously because they REALLY love the Stars. They have a higher genetic predisposition of Clairvoyants, so they have become really connected to spirituality and piety. They believe in fate and destiny and will use the Stars to justify any achievement. Naming ceremonies often go like "You are so lucky to be blessed by the Stars with such amazing jumping skills - your new name will be Pigeonleap." (Maybe Pigeonleap just got really good at jumping because he trained for his entire apprenticeship. It doesn't matter. It's the Stars.)
Pilgrimages, which I may start calling something cool (like the Prophet's Ascent maybe?) are taken by aspiring Prophets when they want to prove their connection to the Stars. Prophets are usually apprenticed to someone who is also Clairvoyant/a Prophet or a Healer if there isn't one. When they reach the end of their apprenticeship they are sent to hike Cloud's Tooth via Thunder Ridge/Lightning Point. Usually their mentor will follow them as far as the path from the Ridge up to Lightning Point (I'm thinking this is like a day's hike), but the mentor in most cases has already done the hike and is not interested in doing it again.
Cloud's Tooth is tall (probably around 9-11,000ft???) and not too forgiving. Cats are sent when the weather is predicted to be good, but anyone who's been to the Rockies knows that can change in about five minutes. The Clans are crepuscular in my universe like regular cats, so, in the interest of safety, cats usually just try to hike the mountain during the day. It can be 7-9 hours to the summit. They spend the night at the top and the Stars speak to them (whatever that means for the particular cat.) No one else except Prophets hikes this mountain, not even people - it's rocky, without water in most places, and very windy. And slick when wet. And worse when snowy. And you'll notice all the surrounding landmarks have something to do with storms.
That being said - a cat who makes it up and down again is pretty much guaranteed the Prophet role. Otherwise, they probably just fell to Stardom down a scree slope.
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the problem is that being single is seen as the consolidation prize, and not the natural neutral state of being-a-person. at the end of the movie or the book or the poetry, there is a person waiting for you at the altar, and they love you. if the play is a comedy, everyone gets married. the metaphor is about how you are not-whole. the metaphor is about how everyone is going to be happily-ever-after. the metaphor is that romantic love is the most important resource on the planet, not just all-love. all-love is not a thing, that is a disappointment. the treasure is not the friends we made along the way. the treasure is the girl you landed.
the metaphor is that you cannot be alone, that means you are broken. are you getting over someone? that is acceptable, you can be getting over someone, but not for long. you must be single because you would rather not be single. you must be single and looking to not-be-single. you must want to date, eventually.
friendship and community are never seen as being equal-to or even-better than romantic connection. that person is your one! you need to find them. you need to hunt through the sand particles until you can shift out some kind of gem. this is regardless to your own experience of the beach and the sun. you need to be somewhere with someone.
if you are taking this time alone to heal, that is so sad. everyone gives you this little pitying look. the understanding is that you are not actually happier than you were before you were single. it is seen as a sort of pity - oh, you are choosing yourself, making yourself the priority? - that isn't quite right. you must mean that you are making yourself ready for the right person. you are just laying the bed better this time. open up your heart. you'll find them, we promise!
what do you mean you're really-truly genuinely-very happy? you are probably misremembering what it was like to be in a relationship. and besides, once you meet your person, that time will look grey and bland and wasted. your person is the only way for you to see in color. so what if you have taken this time - for the first time in your entire life - to actually-for-real do the fucking work. you can be proud of yourself, sure. but the way we need to know that you got better is that you get a partner. you're healed enough for the next bad part!
people don't choose to be single, they just say they're choosing to be single - they actually mean "nobody wants to date me." it doesn't matter how many people you have gently rejected or how many times you've talked it over carefully in therapy. what matters is that you are single, and by all accounts - that means you are something worth our pity. your successes and life all seem pale in the sunlight. sure, you have done amazing things and finally found your way in life. what matters is that there wasn't a person in the room with you while you did it.
you want to tell them - that's the whole thing. i didn't know how to be alone in the room. i didn't know how to handle the silence. every moment was so sharp, and i kept choosing the wrong way to close the door. i have spent my entire life in the empty well, living in the ricochet of someone else's cruelty. for once i have built myself a ladder. for once everything i taste is all mine, every bite of sunshine and laughter. i have learned how to sleep out in the open with my memories. recently, they have started to purr.
your father rolls his eyes. listen. this isn't about you. i just want a grandchild in my future.
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I do think that, when discussing the merits of a post-god Exandria, it's important to remember that many people in this world find peace, comfort, and purpose in their worship of the gods, and would be devastated by their loss. Not just clerics or god-aligned paladins, but many, many regular folk. Here in the real world, significantly more people ascribe to some kind of religious faith than don't; imagine what that proportion would be like in a setting where the gods are clearly and objectively real. Where people can pray and truly feel the presence of their god with them. Where they can grieve their loved ones in death yet know, without doubt, that that person's soul was welcomed into a divine domain. Where they know these gods came to their world and created all mortal life. Is there truly nothing there worth preserving? Is the imbalance of power between gods and mortals so fundamentally unjust that all that faith grants should be violently ripped away?
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