#daffodilcloud

[moonlessnight-things]

Finally decided to compile my human versions of some of barrenclan cats! These were initially published in the official comic discord, and now the folks on tumblr can see it. (Featured: Slugpelt, Daffodilcloud, Asphodelshine, Pinewing, Beeface, Plumstripe, kid versions of Meadow/Harry, Egret, Bluebell/Sky, Honey, Eberhart)

[barrenclan]

"Binary Star"

Oh Slugpelt, oh Slugpelt... probably my favorite character from the whole comic. I worked really hard on her epilogue to make sure it had everything I wanted to include, because I had a lot of thoughts on Slugpelt and her rocky road towards recovery and the places she's suffered or regressed along the way.

A lot of her story has revolved around grief and depression, and the fear that comes from being raised under abuse and how you deal with that as an adult. Slugpelt's tendency has always been to isolate herself, inside of a protective shell of prickliness and avoidance. It's very tempting, and would be deeply understandable, for her to retreat into again after the events of the comic. After a long time, that misery feels natural and familiar, and very scary when you consider trying to leave the thing that's helped you survive. And although it can be cathartic to really dig yourself into those emotions, at some point I think many people just - want to feel good again. That can be a difficult decision to face, but Slugpelt has people around her who are able to give her concrete goals to work towards, and support her when she falters.

Daffodilcloud's kittens are named Goldie (gold spotted), Jenny (black and gray), and Nellie (brown tabby). All three are female.

The title comes from Tom Godwin's story "The Cold Equations": The law of gravitation was a rigid equation and it made no distinction between the fall of a leaf and the ponderous circling of a binary star system.”

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[patfw-ship-tournament]

ROUND ONE

[empress-s]

Old Warriors Amino adoptable number 10! Almost done folks, only one left. Also not sure of the original creator :(

[warriorsredux]

If you haven't done this already, renames for the three babies named after others: Fernsong, Sorrelstripe, and Hollytuft?

Am I still angry about them being named after dead characters? Yes. Hell yes I am. That cliche will never not piss me off. 

Fernsong is a golden tom who... actually had the role of queen for a while? Because he moved into the nursery to raise his kits. I have no fucking clue why he thought that was a good idea. His younger siblings were also being born around that time, so that’s a nice overload of Lionblaze’s genetics. Also he’s mates with his second cousin. Fantastic. 

So there are plenty of plant names that we can replace his prefix with. Fennel- is closest to his original name, but I do kind of like the names Daffodil- or Marigold-. They sound good for a cat like him. Speaking of, he’s noted to be very gentle and kind, and especially good with kits, to the point of offering to switch out with his mate as soon as the kits are weaned so she can continue her warrior duties. He can’t gestate, which is a requirement for -flower, so I would go for second best and name him for his soothing and calm personality. That means we can go with Fennelcloud, Daffodilcloud or Marigoldcloud.

Sorrelstripe is a dark brown molly whose main trait is that she’s productive and likes to help others. That is, when she actually shows up. She barely has any screentime and is most notable for who she’s related to, more than her actual actions. 

She’s not specifically stated to be a tabby, but I’m willing to assume that she’s got something like Bramblestar, where she’s brown with black stripes and she could be named for them. As such, I think she can keep her suffix. Her prefix is more fit for a ginger cat, though, so that’ll have to change. I think Swift- or Cedar- sound nicest. How about Swiftstripe or Cedarstripe?

Hollytuft is a black cat that looks like Hollyleaf. That seems to be all anyone notes about her. Which is unfair, I think. She has moments of personality, but they all seem to revolve around what the current mood is. If a crowd is angry about something, she’s angry. If someone’s doubtful, she’s doubtful with them. That could be a potentially interesting subplot where she’s struggling to find her own identity free of what others think or how much she looks like her aunt. That’s not a thing, of course, but it’d be neat. 

Holly- is for a ginger or white cat, so that’s gotta go. For a prefix, I think it’d be interesting if she had a more plain prefix to go with a plain personality, like Black- or Dark-. That and her most likely suffixes, -fur and -pelt, would help with that lack of notability and personal intrigue, if that were to be a thing. Blackpelt or Darkfur becoming an attention-worthy cat in her own right would be pretty cool, I think!

[barrenclan]

"Our Lasting Legacy"

Finally, our apprentices who were once so small have grown into their warrior names! I hope you give Redstar, Pinewing, Cormorantleaf, Daffodilcloud, and Asphodelshine a very hearty welcome. I won't be changing the tags of any of the characters, though, just to preserve continuity.

I've mentioned it before, and it should already be abundantly clear in the comic, but leaders in this comic do not have nine lives. The leader title and oath is purely ceremonial.

This is the second to last issue of PATFW! However, I've been very busy and haven't gotten much time to work on the last one, so it'll likely be a longer than usual time until it comes out. I will be posting it earlier on my Patreon once it's done, but I don't have a good idea of when that will be yet. Please have patience. I want to wrap this story up right.

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[barrenclan]

"Gold Flowers"

Finally, time to talk about Daffodilcloud! I love this girlie real badly, and I was looking forward to writing about her future. In it, I wanted to re-examine some of the insecurities she'd shown early on in the story, and show both how they still existed but also how she's grown outside of them. She's a lot more comfortable in her own skin now, and is finding better ways to cope with disappointment and grief.

I also wanted to focus on how she's been figuring out what she wants from other people, too, and teasing it out of those expectations she drilled into her head to 'have kittens'. Really she wants gentle affection and a guarantee of safety, of somebody who is able to give her as much or more love than she gives away.

I hope you all like Duncan, I think he's a sweetheart. He's named after a cat I had when I was a little kid.

The title for this epilogue is taken from Theodore Sturgeon's story "Baby Is Three": “She made me go ahead of her into a room as big as our swimming hole. It had books all over and leather on top of the tables, with gold flowers drawn into the corners.”

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[barrenclan]

Name: Duncan

Role: Ex-loner

Mate: Daffodilcloud

Mother: Chickpea

Father: Toulouse

Children: Goldie, Jenny, Nellie

Bio: Bought as a kitten as a birthday present for a human family, Duncan was abandoned after a year and lived in the wild, until he was found by Daffodilcloud. He was taken into the barn and now lives there permanently.

Duncan has an odd habit of dangling his front legs in front of his chest when not standing or walking.

[barrenclan]

After all she's gone through Daffodilcloud does deserves a silly goofball of a man to be happy with :)

Duncan moodboard

[barrenclan]

Honestly one thing I really appreciated about corm’s ending is that at the beginning, corm thought being mates was exclusively a male and female relationship and a means to an end (kittens). It does mean a lot that he’s comfortable in his own skin now, is in a stable relationship with pinewing, and is okay with not having children - that goes to show how far he’s come in breaking away from the principles his father insisted upon

Very true! Early on Cormorantleaf had the idea implanted that reproduction was the true endgoal, and love and romance were only the means to get there. I'm sure that for a long time, the idea that he could just love someone forever without needing a 'transaction' or having an end date was difficult to unlearn.

That is a great way to describe Cormorantleaf, yeah. He is super great with kids and loves having them around. I'm sure he absolutely adored by Daffodilcloud's kits; the best babysitter ever.

[barrenclan]

This might be a bit of a strange ask but do you think after the epilogues are posted you could post a sort of.. list or allegiance or whatever of cats who live in the barn area after a point? Like, do Puzzle and Duncan both exist there at the same time, is Pinewing there at that time, something like that? I'm tossing around the idea of a sort of candid snapshot family photo of the barn type fanart and I'd like to know who all could reasonably be included! Sorry if this is a big weird request you are free to say no I'm just thinking thoughts

Sure, that's a sweet question. I wrote the timeline of the epilogues as very rough, and some of them take place simultaneously while others are months or years in the future. Generally, this is what it looks like:

-The group leaves the territory in late November, has to overwinter in Nebraska until about February.

-It takes another month or two to find the barn. By this point the kittens are about 6 months old

-About another 4 months pass, and Beeface and Plumstripe leave the barn. Pinewing, Daffodilcloud, and Cormorantleaf are now about two years old

-Once the kittens are about a year and a half old, Meadow leaves and becomes a housecat. Puzzle arrives in the territory shortly afterwards, and she stays in the area, but she and Honey don't have kittens until about another year after this

-Pinewing and Cormorantleaf leave a little bit after this point; they're both around two and a half years old

-Duncan and Daffodilcloud meet when she's around 3 (Pinesiblings were born in the summer)

-The spring following that is when Pinewing and Daffodilcloud meet up again to visit Asphodelshine's grave for the first time (they do this every year or so for the rest of their lives)

All the characters would be older, but there is definitely points in time where everyone would be at the barn at the same time (including Puzzle, Duncan, Beeface, Plumstripe, Pine & Corm, etc.) even if they're just visiting. The permanent residents are Redstar, Egrettail, Blacknose, Slugpelt, Daffodilcloud, Duncan, Puzzle, Honey, and Sky. And Daffodilcloud/Duncan and Honey/Puzzle's litters of kits, at least during their childhoods.

[barrenclan]

i feel a bit bad for cormorant :( im sure this isnt your intent but it almost feels as though hes settled for a life he didnt want

I'm curious what this is in response to - there's two major things I can think of, so let me explore them for a second!

So, if this is in response to the idea that Cormorantleaf wants kittens and Pinewing doesn't; lemme talk about that for a second. I tried to go into it in the last epilogue, but with their late-stage relationship I wanted to address a trope in fiction that really bothers me, especially as someone who doesn't want to have children. Stop me if you've heard it before:

Characters A and B are in a romantic relationship. Character A wants to have kids, but B doesn't, for whatever reason. They struggle, and talk about it, and eventually A says "it's okay, even if we don't have kids, I'll still love you!" It's really nice, and confirms that they love each other even if they don't want. Except, then, B turns around and says "it's so good to know that! It made me change my mind; I got over my 'fears', and now I do want kids!"

That bugs me. It's always the assumption, even if it's established that a relationship would be okay without kids, it's always on the onus of the person who doesn't want children to change their mind. It's never enough to stop at "it's okay if we don't have kids together" - and then they don't. So that's what I wanted to do with Cormorantleaf and Pinewing's relationship, and it's why I had Pinewing talk about his discomfort surrounding children so often and Cormorantleaf's potential to be a father. If Corm wanted kids more than he wanted to be with Pine - he could leave! No stopping him. But Pinewing matters more to him than having kids does. I find it more distasteful that someone would force themselves to raise children if they didn't want to (it's almost like that's a theme of the story... and kind of exactly what happened with Nightberry). Admittedly, I would've liked to rather do that idea with Daffodilcloud and Duncan instead of the main gay couple, but eh, I already had an end-of-arc theme with Daff to wrap up that would've clashed. These are the decisions you make when writing a story.

On the other hand, if this is in response to the idea that they're traveling around instead of settling down in one place, or that Pinewing is forcing him into the relationship; maybe I was a bit too subtle with what I was trying to get across. Cormorantleaf was actually the first one to suggest that they travel around together, way back in Issue 26:

Corm needs an emotional anchor more than a physical anchor. And this was especially clear in his early development, and how his relationship to Pinepaw was a bit unhealthy (and vice versa, too); he had such intense abandonment issues that he was holding Pinepaw up as a total pillar of support, and believed he wouldn't be able to survive without him.

That's why I wanted Cormorantleaf to have a chance to be on his own during the breakup, and solidfy that he could exist without a relationship, that he didn't need another person to survive. But instead that he could willingly choose a relationship with Pinewing, because it was something he wanted and something he thought would enrich his life rather than an obligation.

All that to say that Comorantleaf's hesitation in the last epilogue is not meant to be presented as "he's being forced into something he doesn't want by Pinewing", but rather "he's scared that them traveling around will cause Pinewing to abandon him, and that makes him panic and lash out".

And Pinewing would have absolutely stayed with him even after Cormorantleaf yelled at him, except that Corm happened to hit on Pinewing's own insecurities that come from his childhood of neglect and feelings that nobody actually wants him around:

You don't have to be un-anonymous to respond to this, and anyways if it's just personal feelings that's perfectly valid and not something I want to try and change. But I never meant to make it seem like Cormorantleaf wasn't happy with where he ended up, or that he 'settled' for something he didn't want.

[barrenclan]

Sorry if this is silly / been answered before, but do Pine and Daff visit Asphodel every year? They talked about visiting her when they turned three, but they seem fairly up in years in the last panel. Also, they brought their whole fams, right? Pine brought Corm, and Daff brought Duncan and their kits? Again, sorry if this is obvious / already answered!

Of course they would go back home to visit! I was a bit surprised that I got questions about this (more than just seen here). I mean, most people around the world leave home to live their own lives, but that doesn't mean they literally never visit their family again. Pinewing is extremely good at navigation and travel (due to basically having a GPS inside his head), so he's able to plan out visits with a pretty high degree of accuracy. Cormorantleaf is an incredible uncle to Daff's kittens, and he loves getting to spend time with them.

When Pinewing and Daffodilcloud go to visit Asphodelshine, they usually do it alone. For the first few years I think Slugpelt would've gone with them, but eventually she would be too old to make the trip. It's a private thing for them, and the rest of their families understand.

[barrenclan]

Firstly, holy shit I predicted Asphodel’s warrior name!!! I don’t think I ever sent an asking talk abt the prediction, but my main hint was the comic issue thumbnail that was Asphodel and the firefly. So I thought it was foreshadowing of her suffix being something like shine or glow, which I seemed to be right abt

Secondly, question: What was Redpelt gonna name Pine, Comorant, and Asphodel if no one spoke up abt the names

Thirdly, why’d you choose Daffodilcloud? Or are we gonna get more clarification next issues?

Hey, congratulations! That was a little piece of personal foreshadowing, just for me, I didn't expect anyone to pick anything up with it.

Without intervention, Redstar would have named them Pineblossom, Cormorantclaw, and Asphodelsong.

Daffodilcloud's name doesn't have any special symbolism to it, other than it representing her lightness and buoyancy... I just thought it was cute.

[barrenclan]

How old was Daff when she and Duncan had their kits? Also did any of her previous boyfriends ever visited again in a "we stayed friends" way?

Honey and Puzzle's are older; they met when they were much younger, about 2 years old and had kits about half a year later. The ending of "Binary Star" is set several years into the future, like Slugpelt alludes to in this line.

Daffodilcloud and Duncan are both about 5 years old when they had their kits.

[barrenclan]

so do bee & plum ever see blacknose again?? :(

Of course, they'd make journeys home sometime. The city they live in is not very far away from the barn. I'm sure Eberhart would get along fantastically with everyone, I can see her being flustered by thinking Egrettail is really cool.

No, it's a good point! There is the fact that Blacknose is surrounded by many willing cats who can care for her (Redstar, Pinewing, Slugpelt, Daffodilcloud, the four now-adult kittens, Cormorantleaf), along with her primary caretaker Egrettail. But there is a very real question of balancing your own life with the responsibility you feel to your parents in their decline.

I don't think it's too far outside of Plumstripe and Beeface's characters to prioritize themselves over trying to care for Blacknose. And Plumstripe is especially trying to pay attention to Daffodilcloud's wishes - "I never want to see you again and I don't want to live with you." I'm not trying to present the sisters as perfect, noble characters - rather as two siblings with a terrible relationship who are trying to fix things between themselves first and foremost. They're still quite young, after all, and they might make different decisions in the future.