#fireheart learns to code

[eelclaw]

the protagonists of the broken code. who's rootspring

i am tbc's number 1 hater! negative thoughts below

shadowsight: other characters sometimes acknowledge that he was manipulated by ashfur, but the narrative puts all of the blame for the ashfur situation on him, neglecting that (a) he did exactly what he was supposed to do as a healer (obey and take messages from a starclan cat), and (b) the codebreaker hysteria was far more a product of clan culture than the actions of a single apprentice. he isn't treated like the victim that he is, and it is frustrating and not cathartic.

bristlefrost: what the hell does she even do. what does her spy arc accomplish or contribute (like mother, like daughter). she finds out that bramblestar isn't bramblestar far too early. she's so perfect and she has no flaws and she's so empty. i want her to be worse. how much more interesting would she be if she was sneaky and selfish? if she was loyal to the imposter because she truly believed in what he was saying? not to mention how she reciprocates rootspring's feelings with literally zero warning, and ceases to have what little character she'd had to begin with. i genuinely don't care that she dies, they did nothing to make her an engaging character. miss bristlefrost, i'm sorry they did you so bad.

rootspring: first rootpaw thinks he's weird because of his father. i hate this because i hate tree. later, rootpaw thinks he's weird because he can see ghosts. so they give him this "i just want to be normal" deal, and the clans suddenly pretend that ghosts are silly and not real. sure, rootspring and tree are the first clan cats with this specific power. and i get that the clans have very rigid beliefs, and they are afraid of anything that contradicts those beliefs, and that's interesting! but ghosts have been appearing to clan cats all the way back to tpb. fireheart tries to kill clawface at one point and he senses spottedleaf's spirit beside him, there to avenge her death. so rootspring's issue is stupid and he's nothingburger to me.

bramblestar: the arc really depends on me giving a shit about what happens to him. which i don't.

i think bramblestar is unintentionally a bad person and a great character. he proves himself by rejecting tigerstar, but he's still deeply insecure. he makes mistake after mistake (conspiring with tigerstar; hesitating to save firestar from the fox trap; forsaking his children after finding out they're not biologically his; using his power over squirrelflight as a warrior, deputy, and leader to control her), and for none of these mistakes is he held accountable (no thunderclan cat except leafpool learns that he plotted with tigerstar; he is allowed to remain deputy; his children think he was the best father ever; in every situation, squirrelflight seems to bear the consequences of his actions).

in other words, bramblestar gets chance after chance to redeem himself, and he keeps fucking it up. again, that's interesting! there is a story here about how difficult childhoods affect adults, and how powerful men are not held responsible for hurting people. except that's not how he's written. he's written as a completely good person, a brave and noble leader, and all of the clans respect him and they need to get him back.

there's a crazy amount of bramblestar worship in this arc. even rootspring, a brand new skyclan apprentice, thinks about how important bramblestar, the thunderclan leader, is, and how all the clans wouldn't be the same without him. i can't take it seriously.

graystripe: graystripe also got a crazy amount of worship. i couldn't stand reading every few paragraphs about how great he is.

side note: shadowsight, bristlefrost, and rootspring all want the same thing. they advocate against killing bramblestar's body. wouldn't it be more interesting if the protagonists had different perspectives and opinions? if they wanted different things? for example, it makes sense that shadowsight wouldn't want bramblestar dead. he feels like the only way to make up for his mistake is to recover bramblestar alive. but bristlefrost could be in favor of killing bramblestar, because the only way to make up for her mistake (supporting the imposter) is to get rid of him. putting our protagonists at odds would generate some interesting conflict.

conclusion: i also have problems with ashfur (why does ashfur try to stir up trouble with codebreaking which will certainly get him caught when he could just take over bramblestar's body and live quietly with squirrelflight), tigerheartstar, mothwing, starclan, the dark forest insta-death water, firestar possessing rootspring, the pacing (oh my god! they were debating whether to kill bramblestar for like three books! and for three more books they were running in circles in the dark forest!), etc. but i've already written a lot and i'm out of steam lol.

let me finish by saying these are kids books, and i'm not expecting them to be the cream of the crop, but there are a lot of writing choices which are incredibly misogynistic and/or completely baffling from a narrative standpoint. i still have a soft spot for this series though. dammit. okay bye

[hatsbattlecats]

The Lore pt 1

So my idea for the Tinysnow au is that after being attacked by Tigerpaw and running away, Tiny winds up in Windclan where he’s found by a patrol. They take him back to camp cause the warrior code says you gotta take care of kits even if they aren’t yours, and also this poor kid is hurt and scared out of his lil mind. Besides, sure he’s a kittypet, but he’s little and its dark.

Talltail, upon meeting this kid, notices he’s got some similarities to Jake, (with my versions of them for this au, him and jake have the matching white paw, and Jake has blue/green heterochromia, his blue eye matches Tiny’s) and after hearing his story, decides to adopt Tiny as his son, naming him Tinykit, later Tinypaw (Tall dad his Tiny son)

Theres some pushback from the clan, but Talltail refuses to back down on keeping Tinykit. Tinykit/paw deals with a fair bit of bulling and hazing from the other apprentices and older warriors, but that just pushes him to prove himself even more. He eventually earns the warrior name “Tinysnow” and later mentors Onepaw/Onewhisker instead of Deadfoot.

He goes with windclan when they’re driven out of their territory, and harbors a resentment towards shadowclan for many moons to come, much like how he’s harbored a grudge against Tigerpaw/Tigerclaw since their meeting.

When Fireheart and Greystripe come to bring Windclan home, Tallstar confides in Tinysnow that he’s certain Fire is also Jake’s son, like Tinysnow is. He walks with Fireheart and Onewhisker on the way back, wanting to learn more about how Fire came to join Thunderclan.

When they stay in Barley and Ravenpaw’s barn, Tinysnow is confused why Ravenpaw is there (seeing as he's the "great and powerful tigerclaw's" apprentice), and ends up prying the story out of the trio (Raven/Fire/Grey). He tells them he’s not surprised, and recounts his own Tigerclaw story to them, reassuring them he’ll have their back if Tiger ever tries anything else.

He also goes with the group to bring Fire and Grey back to Thunderclan territory, and gets in a fight with Riverclan before heading back with Deadfoot and Onewhisker. After that, Tinysnow and Fireheart meet up at every gathering to share news, and sometimes extra times since Tinysnow never had any siblings other than Ruby and Socks who always mean to him, and Fireheart never really got to know his siblings other than Princess.

[redux-iterum]

Is Fireheart aware that, technically-speaking, the Sunningrocks are neutral grounds? Could you imagine his outrage learning that the territory they keep bleeding over isn’t even legally theirs?

He does not know! In fact, most of ThunderClan doesn't. Legally, somewhere in the code, it does say that, so some cats are aware that technically it's meant to be shared. That doesn't matter much to them, though. They want the stupid rocks. The code's been bent before. It's fine.

[shummthechumm]

i have a lot of thoughts and feelings about fireheart and cloudtail's relationship through arc one.

rusty being indoctrinated into the clans only because of a prophecy and an innate need to feel like he's part of something bigger. ironically triggering like at least five other prophecies surrounding yourself and your lineage, far outliving you yourself (how big is that?). fire constantly being singled out and shunned for his origins and for ever questioning/going against the code. the taunts and microaggressions never really stopping even after you assume the role of leader. all of this because of a choice he made when he was a child.

then you have cloudtail. fireheart bringing his infant nephew into a cult, removing him of that choice and then later shunning him for not "acting like a warrior". like yeah no shit this child is acting out and ignoring authority because that same authority is constantly bullying him for his heritage.

that scene where fireheart learns that cloudtail doesnt believe in starclan...and fire is horrified. enough to the point where he wants to intimidate/frighten his own kin into believing???? like his own mentors and clanmates had been doing to him ever since he joined??? (btw can totally feel the white british Christian woman influence seeping through, there....)

cloud being kidnapped by twolegs is framed as the final nail in the coffin for cloud to see the "error of his ways" and truly commit to his warrior role. idk something about that strikes me as...odd (again yt middle aged women wrote these books)

i could go on and on really. again, im always eating up any "firestar is a deeply flawed character/possibly a failed prophet who was brainwashed into containing the clan's status quo" content i can get. especially if he reflected on his role later in life and realized that he's directly responsible for forcing cloudtail into a similar position despite believing it would do him good?? midlife crisis firestar???

[talonslockau]

Forest of Secrets - Chapter 46

Chapter 45 || Index || Chapter 47

Fireheart stood on the stone floor of Sunningrocks, watching as dawn’s earliest rays began to cast a vibrant pink hue into the sky. Once he had stood here, water lapping around his paws; now the river was contained by its banks once more, leaving the hotly contested stones as dry as sun-warmed sand. It had taken nearly a half-moon, but at last, Riverclan could return to their territory once more.

He looked out towards where Riverclan was beginning to stir. When they had first sighted the Clan, stranded on the rocks, they had been nearly skin and bones; now, though still skinny, they seemed no different than any other cat after the harsh cold of leafbare. He couldn’t help but feel pride, knowing that thanks to his and his friends’ efforts, Riverclan would endure the terrible flood.

“Fireheart.” He focused his attention on Crookedstar, who was bounding towards them with his typical lop-sided scowl. “I’m sure you can see that the floodwaters have left Sunningrocks. Riverclan has no further need for Thunderclan help.”

The large tabby’s tone was harsh, but the young deputy did his best to overlook it. He knew that it had torn up Riverclan’s leader to accept help from one of their most bitter rivals, including the tom that had broken the code with his daughter Silverstream. With what he had learned from Bluestar regarding their past, he knew that Crookedstar had only suffered at Thunderclan’s paws - not even saving his Clan would be enough to change his mind.

“I’m glad to hear it. Will you be able to return to your camp now?” Fireheart asked amicably, flicking his ear towards where the Riverclan cats were disappearing into the reeds on the far bank.

The leader glanced over his shoulder briefly at the river. “I sent a patrol to scout the camp and see if it has re-emerged yet. The Clan is eager to get back to their nests and out of the wind.” He looked back at the Thunderclan cats, his eyes narrowed. “Don’t think that means you’ll be able to take Sunningrocks back without a fight. This is still Riverclan territory.”

“Of course, just as I expect you know that any warrior that dares to enter the forest will find no leniency from Thunderclan. We’ll be returning to patrolling the border vigilantly.” Fireheart didn’t let his fur rise as he returned the thinly veiled threat calmly. It seemed as if any hopes for long term peace with Riverclan were unlikely, but he would still do his best to try and be cordial with the other Clans, even if they didn’t always feel the same. “What about Frogleap? One of your warriors told me he was missing. Has he returned now that the river has gone down?”

Crookedstar’s green eyes dropped to his paws. “He has not.” The giant tabby admitted with a heavy sigh. “Once we’ve returned to our camp, we’ll be sending out hunting parties to look for him.” 

“Thunderclan will keep an eye out for him from our side of the border. I’ll be sending a patrol to Fourtrees today to make sure we can get to the Gathering; if he’s there, we’ll let him know that Ivyskip and his kits are waiting safely for him.” After all, it was only a few short days until the full moon - they had to be prepared in case something had happened to their normal routes. “We’ll see you then, Crookedstar. May Starclan light your path.”

“May Starclan light your path.” The Riverclan leader returned to his Clan as they both stepped away from their sides of the border, the Thunderclan cats turning and plunging into the undergrowth. Fireheart let a sigh of relief escape him. Their task was finished; Riverclan had survived the flood, and now at last they could return to their normal duties without fearing getting caught.

“I’m so ready to get some sleep again!” Graystripe groaned as they padded along. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy to have been able to help, but I’ve been absolutely exhausted this past half-moon.”

“We’ve still got work to do today. And don’t think I’ve forgotten about what you’ve done in all of this.” Fireheart glared back at the dark gray tom, who shrank slightly under his wrathful gaze. “For now, let’s head for the log bridge and see if it’s still there, since we’re already out anyways.”

The three padded along the riverbank in silence, content to enjoy the warm newleaf air and the song of the birds in the branches above them. Things were finally looking up for a change; Tigerclaw was no longer threatening to destroy Thunderclan, Graystripe was no longer sneaking out every morning, day, and night to see Silverstream, and for the time being all the Clans seemed to be at peace.

Still, even as he tried to relax and enjoy the brightening sky and the forest around him, something nagged at the back of his mind. He couldn’t tell what it was; had he forgotten something? Was there something in the breeze? He glanced back at Peppermask, who was always the most astute when it came to danger, but she didn’t seem bothered at all. He sighed, trying to force himself to relax, but with every pawstep he took he could feel anxiety prickling in his paw pads.

“Fireheart?” He jumped at the sound of someone speaking, his eyes immediately darting to the source. Lionheart was padding towards him from the forest, accompanied by his apprentice, Thornpaw. “What are you doing out here so early?”

The young deputy forced himself to take a deep breath. It was fine; he had reason to be out here with Graystripe and Peppermask. “I could ask you the same thing.” He mewed with his best teasing grin, before glancing back at the two gray tabby siblings behind him. “I wanted to get up before daybreak and check the river, since it seems to be going down, see if it’s safe to patrol regularly again. Once we reach the bridge, we’ll be making sure it’s safe for a Gathering patrol to cross.”

He couldn’t read the giant golden warrior’s gaze, but he dipped his head smoothly in acknowledgement nonetheless. “It’s good to see you taking such care in your duties. That’s the kind of deputy the Clan needs.” He glanced at Thornpaw behind him, who was glowering into the trees. “As for us, I was taking Thornpaw out to hunt around the Owltree. Land prey is scarce around here due to the owl and the flood, so it’s a good place to practice tree-hunting.”

A logical explanation, one Fireheart remembered from when he had been an apprentice with Tinyfrost. The trees around here were stout but solid, good for dashing from branch to branch without fearing a bone-breaking fall. “Makes sense. I expect to see some birds and squirrels on the freshkill pile by sunhigh.” He directed the last part to Thornpaw, but the golden tabby apprentice either hadn’t heard him or didn’t deign to give him a response.

For a moment, he thought about pushing the issue, but he could see from Lionheart’s narrow gaze that he had already caught onto the apprentice’s dismissive attitude and would deal with it himself. There was no need for the deputy to step on the mentor’s paws, and so he turned away with a flick of his tail to the two gray warriors behind him. “Come on, then. Let’s see if we can’t also get a little bit of hunting in before sunhigh.”

They continued in silence past the Owltree, where the namesake bird was likely slumbering now that the sun had risen, and onwards into the forest beyond. He kept his paws light as they approached the tree bridge crossing to the Gathering, but he could already feel his heart begin to beat heavily in his chest as they approached. What if the log had been swept away in the floods? Would the Clan accept crossing by the way of the Twoleg bridge? He wasn’t sure, and-

He blinked in surprise as they walked out of the bushes and into the sunlight. The tree bridge was still there; but now, it was no longer alone. It seemed that during the floods, several large branches had swept into it and locked against its still-solid roots system, tangling into a mass of wood that seemed lodged against the muddy banks.

“Those branches might actually make the bridge more stable.” Peppermask observed as she approached it, sniffing curiously. “But this thicket’s probably going to be hard for the elders to get through. We should see about getting some of the warriors to prune it before the Gathering, so it’s easier to cross.”

“Good thinking.” Fireheart purred as he walked up to it. She was right, as always; Though he was certain he could maneuver through the tangled twigs, the elders weren’t nearly as flexible anymore. “I’ll see about sending a patrol of cats to take care of it after sunhigh. It sounds like a project the elders might like to be involved in, and I’m sure the mentors wouldn’t mind giving their apprentices some busywork while they take the evening off.”

He flicked his tail for them to start heading back. As they entered the forest, the silver tabby molly padded up beside him, briefly resting her tail on his flank as they walked. “You’re getting better at being a deputy, you know.” She purred quietly to him, softly enough so Graystripe wouldn’t overhear.

He refrained from scowling at her. He wished he didn’t have to be a deputy at all; though Bluestar was beginning to recover from whatever had plagued her, she was still too weak to help him with leading the Clan. Still, he didn’t dare say that out loud to her; she already knew his feelings on the subject. “Some days, it doesn’t feel like it.” He responded to her, equally quiet.

“The Clan is demanding, especially after… what happened.” She didn’t need to say it out loud; even though a moon had already passed, the incident was still fresh in everyone’s minds. “But newleaf is here, and prey is running well. Everything will be better soon, you’ll see.”

He wished he could believe her; he wanted things to be like when he was a young apprentice, when his problems were simple and straightforward to solve. Back when life hadn’t seemed so terribly dire, when their biggest issue was a fox out on the territory. Yet, even though everything did seem to be looking up, he couldn’t help but feel as if it was too calm; as if there was a storm, looming on the horizon, that only he could see. He was afraid of what would happen when that storm broke, and unleashed a torrent among the Clan that they might not be able to withstand.

[the-determined-sparks-au]

Take this as an opportunity to rant and rave about any blorbo of your choosing

AHHHHHH I LOVE YOU ANONS THANK YOU FOR KEEP SENDING ME ASKS

my blorbo of course is my girl Blaze! She is my female Firestar, who i have been trying to create since my middle school days after I learn that the Hunters at first wrote fireheart as a girl but I felt most, how to say...dissapointed that they would have her with graystripe...GRAYSTRIPE? Like don't get me wrong my grayfire fellows, I do think the ship is cute...if it wasn't canon graystripe...because canon graystripe is a...well you know, not really a good friend, not a good deputy and well...yeah I mean don't get me wrong...but I like him and fire just as friends, though Ankh makes a good grayfire that is for sure (listen Flippy never forgave him for attacking Fire when Fire was trying to help and I still hold a grudge)

So, that's where Blaze came from, or her full name Blazelight. Over the last few years she became more from a copy of fireheart that's a girl to her own person. She still has fire's mischief into sticking her nose into things that people really don't want her too, and standing for what right even if it goes against the code but unlike fire she will fight. She won't have the other clans, or kingdoms say shit about who she lets in, and she won't just try to talk it out because she does like fighting, it's part of Thundergrowth's culture, they love a good fight. She and Tigerclaw are like the power couple of Thundergrowth, Blaze softens him up a bit, while Tiger...well is one of the reason why Blaze is a bit claw first ask questions later.

Honestly the most excited thing I can't wait to write about (If I ever get to it) is Blaze's relationships, with Blizzard, Tigerclaw, Flickertail and the other prophecy cats, her brother Soot, along with Smoke and Scorch (Sasha)

[staircasttext]

Ep 10 Transcript: Fireheart Learns to Code

Episode 10

[intro music]

PAZ: Hi, everybody. Welcome back again to Stairway to StarClan, a Warriors Cat reread pawdcast. I'm Paz.

JULIAN: I'm Julian.

LIZ: And I'm Liz.

PAZ: And we're back again this week reading Fire and Ice, chapter eight through 10, if I am remembering correctly.

JULIAN: Yep.

PAZ: But before we get into the chapters, we have some updates on the Barnes and Noble saga that I want to share, because they're all incredible. So a lot of these are just like additional comments to the Tumblr post that we read last week. I guess we can just go in the order through like how you sent them, Julian, because that's how I pulled them up.

JULIAN: Sure. I can read the first one.

PAZ: Sure, go ahead.

JULIAN: All right. Tumblr user melthedestroyer says, "I used to work at Barnes and Noble. And I need you all to know, when you pulled up a book in the internal system, it gives you a couple of top reviews from bn.com on the page. Imagine now my coworker Sal, a 60 year old Italian man with a flip phone, pulling up one of these one day. It was an interesting shift for Sal and I." Imagine having to introduce your coworker to the concept of roleplay, Warrior Cats roleplay.

PAZ: Yeah, not any roleplay. I love that.

JULIAN: I mean, I'm sure if he worked at Barnes and Noble he was familiar with the Warrior Cats phenomenon.

PAZ: Yeah, better be. Yeah, I'll read the next one. This is by Tumblr user diatribe. "I was part of a different circle of this for three-ish years in the early 2010s. Most of us had super controlling parents and weren't allowed internet access. The BN book reviews were broken af, completely unmoderated. Multiple books often shared the same reviews. And you didn't even have to own the book to write a review."

LIZ: Lawless.

PAZ: "It started with people just shouting out in these popular books, wondering if anyone else could see them. And then when people could reply, it spiraled. Also, we used BN's e-reader, so it just looked like we were reading." So Julian, you were like 100% correct.

LIZ: That's amazing.

JULIAN: Yeah, I was talking about this with Han after the podcast. And they also mentioned that Barnes and Noble's website probably also wouldn't be blocked on a school computer. So people might have been doing it from school computer labs. But a lot of the comments mentioned like doing it specifically on the Nook. So it looked like you were reading which is, oh, I'm really glad that these kids had somewhere to roleplay Warrior Cats that their parents could not control.

PAZ: Right? And just like, instant message, because we saw some of those as well. The creativity of children when they want to RP cats with their friends is endless. And I have nothing but respect.

JULIAN: Yeah, another update was someone saying that there was also a big Warrior Cats roleplay community on Khan Academy, which again, tracks.

LIZ: That is just incredible to me. That's like saying yeah, I used to RP on like Wolfram Alpha, or whatever that math site is.

JULIAN: Does Wolfram Alpha have a comment section because if so there might be Warrior Cats RP there.

LIZ: Wolfram Alpha forums. Let me check. Yes.

PAZ: Oh my gosh.

JULIAN: Oh yes.

PAZ: Search Warriors.

JULIAN: Community.wolfram.com/groups.

LIZ: Wait, search Warriors, please.

JULIAN: Oh, I'm doing it. I'm doing it.

LIZ: Cats, anything.

JULIAN: Oh, no, I'm not seeing anything, unfortunately.

PAZ: Oh no. Maybe it's too moderated.

JULIAN: It might be too moderated. It seems like it's pretty moderated.

PAZ: Tragic.

JULIAN: It's also like a whole company.

LIZ: Well, the framework is there. You could get past that. Listen, we saw some territorial disputes in the Barnes and Noble comments section.

JULIAN: We really did.

LIZ: So if anyone needs to branch out, I bet-- you know, there has to be someone who can hack a little bit.

PAZ: Yeah, Wolfram Alpha? Yeah.

LIZ: To get around this.

PAZ: Who wants to read the other final update that kind of dove into the questions we had about like, moderation and stuff?

LIZ: Is this the very long one that's like a screenshot?

JULIAN: Yeah, it's the one I had to screenshot because it was a reply, so I couldn't link to it.

LIZ: Okay, I can do the first one because it is pretty long. Okay, "here's a breakdown for you guys. You'll find people RPing in classic books because they're multi rez, which means multiple books link to the same review section. You can only post one review per book and posting in it erases your original review. So multi rez books are obvs desirable if you wanted to RP more than one character. Or if you wanted to leave a post up for someone who wasn't online at the moment."

JULIAN: "If you posted a bad word, you'd get locked out and wouldn't be able to post in that particular book anymore, which also made multi rez books desirable. You can get around this by putting open angle bracket underscore close angle bracket after the first two letters of a swear word, and then posting it would make it look like you hadn't censored it at all. Warrior Cats books were the most popular, but I remember Percy Jackson RPers hung around in like the Athenian constitution books."

PAZ: Yeah, so I remember we'd noted that like you could see the review counts of people and it would just say like one. And I think the explanation for that phenomena is here.

LIZ: Incredible.

PAZ: Because apparently it'd just delete if you reviewed more than once.

JULIAN: Yeah, so that makes sense, though, because it's like, if people are basically waiting for someone else to be online and then kind of RPing back and forth, but each of their new posts erases the old post, we only see the last one.

PAZ: Yeah, it's really tragic that there's no archive, though, because of that.

JULIAN: It's all gone. And the odds of it being on like Wayback Machine are very low if it replaced that quickly, unfortunately.

PAZ: It's truly the epitome of like, touches ground, something happened here.

LIZ: God, I hope someone has at least like saved or archived or screenshotted somewhere like just a moment of this. Like a slice in time to put in a museum in 3021.

PAZ: Yeah, I hope somebody was like copy-pasting into a Word doc somewhere.

JULIAN: Right? Ugh.

LIZ: I mean, how else are you gonna remember what's happening if you're RPing?

PAZ: Right?

JULIAN: I mean, you depend on the encyclopedic memory of an eight year old for like trivia.

LIZ: That's true.

JULIAN: They don't have to remember how taxes work so they can remember every detail of what Umbrellastar from BloodClan told them.

PAZ: I wish that was me.

LIZ: God, if only.

JULIAN: Same.

PAZ: But yeah, I guess that's the updates we found. The fact that it was somewhat moderated is extremely funny, but like not moderated enough that they're like we're gonna not allow this RP to happen.

LIZ: You just can't say fuck.

JULIAN: Like we can't stop you from RPing on this forum but you can't get horny about it.

LIZ: For some reason, we can't stop you.

PAZ: I so badly want to find someone to talk to who was in charge of the Barnes and Nobles website in some capacity and be like, what happened here?

JULIAN: I want the email chain where someone was like, Hey, my boss. You got to know about this. What do we do about this?

LIZ: CEO voice, you know, it's interaction. It's engagement.

PAZ: Yeah. They're probably like--

LIZ: We need to get those Hamlet numbers up. The kids do not care about Hamlet. This is as close as we're gonna get. If Shadowfur wants to RP with an assassin cat or get into a territorial dispute with the Percy Jackson RPers, we let them.

PAZ: Yeah, we need those clicks. That's all that matters.

JULIAN: Honestly, I wonder if they were so laissez faire about it because Barnes and Noble really, really wanted people to like use their Nooks. There was like a big push for them to like-- they were pushing Nooks versus Amazon's Kindle really hard. And so if they were like, well, at least people are using the review section with their Nook devices.

PAZ: Yeah, I mean, I guess if you're a kid who wanted really badly to RP with their friends and you could convince your very strict parents to buy you a Nook, it works out in Barnes and Noble's favor, so.

JULIAN: I mean, honestly, I wonder if it was just like, you know, I borrowed my mom's Nook because she never used it. And I didn't know about-- I was also too old for RP at that point and was just bulk downloading fanfiction to the Nook. But like if I had been slightly more sheltered and a little bit younger at the time, I definitely would have been-- I would have done this.

PAZ: Did you guys do that thing where you would print out fanfic?

LIZ: Yes. Mm-hmm.

PAZ: And then either read it in bed or take it to school?

LIZ: Yes.

JULIAN: I did not print out fanfic because I was mortified that my family would find out about it. So instead, I copied and pasted it from a particular Doctor Who fanfic archive into Word documents. I had like one Word document that was like one genre and then another Word document that was like a different ship, and they all had like little secretive acronyms so that...

PAZ: Oh my god.

LIZ: This is so intricate.

PAZ: Wow.

JULIAN: It was so much. Because this is before Ao3.

PAZ: I don't think I was smart enough as a child to do that. I would just like to try and throw out all the fanfic I'd printed out before people saw it. Because I would read it in bed because I didn't have a phone I could read it on.

JULIAN: Oh yeah.

PAZ: If I wanted to get cozy in bed and read my, I don't know, Kingdom Hearts fanfic, I had to print it out.

JULIAN: When I finally did get a phone my senior year of high school, I spent pretty much that entire summer reading fic. And so my mom was like, oh, what are you doing? And I was like, Oh, I'm-- someone had posted about this on Tumblr and I stole it. I was like, Oh, I'm reading unpublished stories by authors online.

PAZ: God.

LIZ: Not untrue. You're just supporting new writers.

JULIAN: It's accurate.

PAZ: It's what people on Twitter want to think, so.

JULIAN: It's literature. It's literature, Mom.

LIZ: God.

PAZ: Yep, classic. You know, getting fan content, it was bad. It was hard back in the day.

LIZ: It was hard.

JULIAN: We didn't have tags. You had to just pick a pairing and hope that the fic was good.

PAZ: Right? Oh my god. Yeah, it was all summary based, like good fucking luck.

LIZ: It did have genres. Like fanfiction.net did have genres. It was like romance.

PAZ: I vaguely remember that.

LIZ: Comedy, poetry, suspense.

PAZ: God. What was the fanfic that I would... what was the fandoms that I was in reading fanfic on fanfic.net? I know it was Kingdom Hearts. I think Ranma 1/2, probably Naruto fanfiction.

JULIAN: Yeah, it was just Sherlock and Doctor Who. I'm so sorry to tell y'all this.

PAZ: That seems kind of... Sherlock seems kind of late for fanfic.net though. I don't know. Maybe I'm wrong.

JULIAN: It was... I like started out fanfic.net. It was like right when Ao3 was becoming a thing. But the wait for Ao3 was like six months at that point.

PAZ: Oh right.

LIZ: I used to read Sherlock fic on Livejournal.

PAZ: Also definitely read Invader Zim fic on fanfic.net.

JULIAN: My Invader Zim phase was before I realized that like fanfic was a thing that existed outside of me writing fanfic in my journal. So unfortunately, I did not stumble across that.

PAZ: Maybe, maybe, fortunately.

JULIAN: Maybe good. I also probably would have been reading a lot of iCarly fanfic.

PAZ: It wasn't like ship fic though. I don't think I understood the concept of that at the time. It was just like-- I read a lot of like OC self insert fic when I was much younger. I don't know.

LIZ: You just loved the character building.

PAZ: I did, I loved the worlds.

LIZ: Yeah, well, what an intricate like beautiful universe you've created.

PAZ: I think I remember a fic like that was like a crossover with Alien.

JULIAN: Oh my god.

LIZ: Like Alien-alien?

PAZ: Yeah, the movie Alien with like the xenomorph.

JULIAN: I love that. That's wonderful.

PAZ: It was powerful.

JULIAN: Oh all right, sorry, Chickpea is screaming. Let me see if I can feed her and then she'll stop.

PAZ: Okay.

LIZ: I'm just thinking about that fucking like Sherlock Livejournal community that we looked at with the graveyard with all the broken Photobucket links.

PAZ: I'm kind of... I don't know why I never got into Sherlock fandom like seriously, but I'm happy I didn't.

LIZ: Bullet dodged. It was something. We should look for Warriors Livejournal stuff. I bet there's some good graphics if...

PAZ: Yeah.

LIZ: If it ever made it there.

PAZ: No, I'm sure there were Warriors Livejournals. But Livejournal was after my Warriors period so I wouldn't know from personal experience. Definitely read a lot of Doctor Who fanfic on Livejournal though.

LIZ: I actually didn't. I was big into it.

JULIAN: Alright, hello.

LIZ: I just stuck around for icons and stuff. Hi.

PAZ: Hi, welcome back. We were saying there's probably like Warriors communities on Livejournal, like old ones somewhere.

JULIAN: Oh my god, I bet there are.

PAZ: Yeah, we should look into that in the future.

JULIAN: Yeah, we should do a hunt there.

PAZ: There's so much content out there. Even on Barnes and Nobles.com.

LIZ: I don't think people are RPing in like Goodreads reviews for Warrior books. But wouldn't that be something? You can reply on those things.

PAZ: Are you sure people aren't doing that?

LIZ: I don't know. Maybe.

PAZ: Now that you've said that, that seems like an obvious situation to do it.

LIZ: Put it on the docket. We've got so much research. God.

PAZ: We're going to become scholars of Warrior Cats RP communities.

JULIAN: Great news. Uh.

PAZ: Yeah.

LIZ: Yeah?

JULIAN: There are... Goodreads: Group. Show Tag RP.

LIZ: [gasp]

PAZ: Oh my god.

LIZ: Fuck yeah.

JULIAN: We have 1825 roleplay groups on Goodreads.

LIZ: What?

PAZ: Oh my god. Is this just Warriors, or like everything?

JULIAN: Oh, this is everything.

LIZ: Oh, okay. I was like damn, Warriors. Can you give us a little tasting board of this?

JULIAN: No, don't make me login. So let's see. Just a little something. We have Percy Jackson and HOO– I guess that's something about Olympians– roleplay group. Have you waited for your satyr all your life but it never came? Well, welcome to CHP, where all demigods are accepted. You can create your own character and talk to other half bloods. We are here to have fun, sing songs on the fireplace, play Capture the Flag, volleyball, and of course go on lots of quests.

LIZ: This sounds fun.

JULIAN: Yeah. I haven't seen any-- oh, here we go. Warrior Cats: A New Fall. Yep, we've got three separate Warrior Cats RPs on the first. So we'll have to dig into this a little bit.

LIZ: Thank god.

PAZ: This is so exciting.

JULIAN: A lot of this is like... a lot of boarding school RP. Like people have made up-- this roleplay is tagged as semi-advanced. What does that mean?

PAZ: I guess your reading level has to be... I don't know.

LIZ: Middle school and above.

PAZ: Eight plus.

JULIAN: Oh, I'm so glad people are just out here on the Goodreads forums RPing.

LIZ: Good. Fuck it up.

PAZ: This is a better use of Goodreads.

JULIAN: Yeah, it is. I hope Amazon has to read all of these.

LIZ: Yeah, get wreckt.

JULIAN: It'd be good for them.

LIZ: Humble them a little. We should look into those. I bet there's some new innovations going on if it's still active.

JULIAN: Oh yeah, no, these are sorted by the latest activity. So the three ones I found, last activity six hours 25 minutes ago.

LIZ: Oh my god.

JULIAN: Yeah, so we can really dig in here.

LIZ: We need to check out that semi advanced style. I wanna know what that means.

JULIAN: I can't tell, but they have their own gifs. Like there's some really nice graphics.

PAZ: Wow, you can post gifs on Goodreads?

JULIAN: Yeah.

LIZ: Wow.

JULIAN: It's like a fully fledged forum here.

PAZ: Wow.

LIZ: Yeah I think you can post like reviews and then that you have like, here's my Marvel GIF about reacting to... I don't know. Twitches.

JULIAN: I think there's like... because there's like a Groups function.

PAZ: Oh my gosh. Yeah, this is just a forum.

JULIAN: That I think is intended to be like for book clubs. But is, in this case for--

PAZ: This is a book club. What are you talking about?

LIZ: Oh, yeah, these things. I joined one for exactly one reason. It was to ask what book this was because I didn't remember the name, title, or character, or author, or anything. And they were mean about it.

JULIAN: Aw.

LIZ: They were like, everyone has asked what this book is. Did you not read the FAQ?

PAZ: Oh, no.

LIZ: And I did. So anyway, Goodreads is bad, but I'm glad people are using it to RP.

PAZ: Good on this random boarding school roleplay for saying no racist, homophobic, discriminatory, etc. comments.

JULIAN: Yeah.

LIZ: Yeah.

JULIAN: The Warrior Cats: A New Fall RP's number one rule is "no bullying. We make exceptions for in the roleplay."

LIZ: Wow.

PAZ: Gosh, perfect. Well, this is an exciting possibility world before us that we will have to revisit in the future. But I guess now that we're done with that update, we should go into our chapters.

LIZ: Beautiful.

PAZ: So this week, we read three chapters, chapters eight through 10. And I'll just dive right into the summaries. So chapter eight continues from the scene of the RiverClan warrior Whiteclaw's death. Leopardfur, the RiverClan deputy, warns ThunderClan that this has now gone beyond a border dispute and leaves. The WindClan cats leave as well, thanking ThunderClan again. And Sandpaw is freaked out from her near death, and Graystripe is shaken and disturbed from accidentally causing another cat's death.

Once they are back at camp, an angry Tigerclaw takes Fireheart and Graystripe back to Bluestar and informs them both of WindClan's rescue and the RiverClan death Tigerclaw believes seeing ThunderClan with WindClan cats will push RiverClan and ShadowClan together. Bluestar, while disappointed, is not as angry. She decides Graystripe and Fireheart should take apprentices to train to prepare for future hostilities.

Later that night there is a naming ceremony for the apprentices. Fireheart takes Cinderpaw, an energetic cat, as his apprentice, and Graystripe takes Brackenpaw, who is more serious, as his apprentice. The chapter ends with Fireheart thinking about how he wants to be a good warrior and mentor and that it feels like Tigerclaw is waiting for him to fail.

In chapter nine, Fireheart takes Cinderpaw out into the forest for her first day as an apprentice. Graystripe declines to join them and is still depressed. Fireheart and Cinderpaw travel various places, with Cinderpaw bounding ahead and not listening to Fireheart closely. Fireheart teaches her some things about scents, hunting, and owls. Cinderpaw then runs ahead towards Snakerocks before Fireheart can warn her, but comes back once he makes the danger clear. They then visit the Thunderpath and eventually go near the Twolegplace, where they spot a pregnant kittypet. Fireheart gets an inexplicable feeling that this cat isn't a threat and gives away their position so she runs away. Back at camp, he dreams about when he was a kitten and realizes the kittypet he saw was his sister.

In chapter 10, Firepaw gets an intense longing to see his sister after seeing the familial familiarity amongst the clan cats. He asks Graystripe to take Cinderpaw for the day and heads back to the Twolegplace. He waits until the sister comes into the garden to reveal himself. She is frightened at first, but once he remembers her name, which is Princess, and remembers who he is, she calms down. When she asks why he came to see her, Fireheart simply says, because you are my sister. He asks about their other family, who all still live in the neighborhood. They talk for a while and Fireheart tells her about the clans. Princess eventually has to go inside and Fireheart returns to the ThunderClan camp after hunting.

Back at camp, Tigerclaw confronts him about leaving Cinderpaw with Graystripe. Fireheart apologizes and says he will focus on her training. Graystripe still seems disturbed about the RiverClan encounter. The chapter ends with Fireheart watching Cinderpaw and her brother, and thinking about how he has felt lonely within the clan, as none of his family is there. And that's the end of our reading this week.

JULIAN: My first note for chapter eight is Graystripe killed a man.

PAZ: Yeah. RIP Whiteclaw, our beloved friend. Yeah, Graystripe, you did kind of kill a guy. This was like, the first time I'm like, damn, I just agree with Tigerclaw because it really is like Fireheart's fault completely. There was no reason to go into RiverClan territory. And he is also partly responsible for a death.

JULIAN: Also Fireheart being like, Oh, it was a special mission, just like Highstones. So it's okay for us to-- like, no, it's not. You knew it wasn't.

PAZ: Yeah, you had to convince everyone to do it. Because everyone was like, I don't think that's a great idea. I feel bad for those poor WindClan cats who just... they just had a horrible two months, and now this bullshit.

JULIAN: Well, and like Tigerclaw is, for once, worst person you know just made a great point.

PAZ: Exactly.

JULIAN: He's like, yeah, this is gonna solidify RiverClan and ShadowClan's alliance. And he's right, it will.

PAZ: Yeah. This is the worst thing that has come out of Fireheart's lack of brains by far. And he seems like he doesn't have any lingering guilt about it.

LIZ: No.

JULIAN: Yeah, Graystripe is like, tore up about this. And Fireheart is just like, Why doesn't he want to eat with me?

LIZ: Isn't there that part in like, that part where he's like, aw Graystripe doesn't want to hang out. Oh, well.

PAZ: Yeah, I mean, I think I think Graystripe's having the appropriate emotional reaction. But I don't know why he's the only one having that reaction.

JULIAN: Yeah, I am still unclear on like, when it's okay to kill another cat. Um.

PAZ: Yeah, it's very, extremely unclear. Because I really feel like people die all the time. But then it's like, we're sad when people die. Also, sometimes maybe it's dishonorable? Question mark?

LIZ: They say like that it's just a border dispute, which is why like, the murder was, I guess, like, too much, but it seems like all of their disputes are border disputes.

JULIAN: Like what else do they dispute about?

LIZ: Yeah, what?

PAZ: I don't know. Maybe there are periods of active warfare. I don't know.

JULIAN: Yeah, like maybe it's okay to kill another cat like, if they're in your camp or something.

PAZ: Yeah. Or like they stole your children.

JULIAN: Yeah, I remember-- in Warrior Cats roleplay, we would like schedule battles. And I'm trying to remember whether that is based on the books or just useful for RP scheduling purposes.

PAZ: Yeah, I don't really remember from later books. So I can't really say. But I do like how this whole situation sets up like Sandpaw's changing thoughts on Fireheart. Like, her appearances in the rest of these chapters is her being like, very, like, shaken that she almost died and also like, seeming to be thinking thoughts about Fireheart, so.

JULIAN: Yeah, it's very like... you can tell that she's sort of thinking about like, Oh, you know, damn, kittypet did save me.

PAZ: Have I been wrong? Who knows. I do still feel-- damn. Dustpaw and Sandpaw have it bad, though. They're still apprentices and fucking Fireheart and Graystripe are getting their apprentices. Can you imagine sharing the apprentice den with these little tiny babies?

JULIAN: With these babies that are like, technically still too young.

PAZ: I hope they become warriors soon. They don't deserve this.

LIZ: I don't know. You'd think that since Fireheart and Dust-- nope, Graystripe are getting apprentices so early, that Bluestar would also make the other apprentices warriors by now too, just like, gotta keep moving.

PAZ: Right? She's like, we need more warriors. I'm just gonna make these babies apprentices and not promote these older cats for some reason.

LIZ: Who have seen battle.

JULIAN: Right? They're also like, at this point, they're like super seniors.

PAZ: Yeah, I assume they're at least a couple months older than like, Graystripe and Fireheart.

JULIAN: Just like, oh, yeah, I'm gonna keep taking classes.

PAZ: This is so sad.

JULIAN: I was really happy to see that there was some sort of like criteria to become a mentor, because Bluestar says that Runningwind would make a bad one. So at least they are thinking about it a little bit.

PAZ: I think her judgment is off because she decided Tigerclaw would make a good mentor, but I guess, at least there are considerations. Yeah, the other thing from the beginning of this chapter is I know we said we'd keep a Fireheart/Onewhisker alert out. Yes, here it is. "Fireheart meowed a quiet farewell to Onewhisker as he passed. Onewhisker glanced briefly at him and walked on."

JULIAN: Damn.

PAZ: It's there. It's real.

JULIAN: Oh my god.

LIZ: This is all those posts about tender yearning, you know.

PAZ: Exactly.

LIZ: It's about glances... and they don't have hands, so paws.

PAZ: The nose touches. The tail touches at their annual ball dance.

JULIAN: The jellicle ball.

PAZ: But yes.

JULIAN: God-- oh sorry. One more Bluestar thing. Um, she does tell Fireheart to pass on everything that she taught him. And I just have a note that's like, you didn't teach him shit.

PAZ: Right? There was something-- like there was like a part in like, a later scene with Fireheart and Cinderpaw that implied she did more than one thing with him. Because it said something about like, Bluestar teaching him about owls. But I'm like, when in the world did this happen? This did not happen. They had one fight.

LIZ: Is it just like... is it like a retcon to imply that like more time passed than we saw?

PAZ: Yeah, maybe?

LIZ: Or I guess so. It just would have been nice to see like, if not just one, maybe two or three, and then you can just say it kept happening. I don't know.

PAZ: Right?

JULIAN: Yeah.

PAZ: It really felt like it was only one. But yeah, but speaking of time passing and timelines, I was trying to figure out the timeline for like, how long they were actually warriors before getting apprentices. I think it was like three days, because--

LIZ: Oh my God.

PAZ: Because, right? So they became like, apprentices after-- they became warriors after their vigil. And I think it was the day after that that Bluestar's like okay, you gotta go find-- I don't know. When was the Gathering?

JULIAN: Let's see. Pull up my ebook.

PAZ: I forgot there was a Gathering in between. Maybe it's like five days.

LIZ: Well, how long did the WindClan retrieval take?

JULIAN: I feel like three days, I think?

PAZ: That was like two days.

JULIAN: Two or three?

PAZ: They slept two nights. They slept a night before finding WindClan and then they slept a night on the way back with WindClan. So yeah, I guess it was like three days.

JULIAN: Yeah, they sleep a night on the way back, and then they come back, go through RiverClan, go back to ThunderClan. And then that night they get apprentices. I think the Erins are really relying on the fact that children have no idea what timelines are.

PAZ: Okay, so, checking back to the beginning, it appears there was the day after they became warriors. And then the following day was the Gathering. So that's like two days. And I think it was the day after the Gathering that Bluestar is like, Okay, you got to go on this journey. So that's like another day. And then there's the day of the journey. They sleep. Day of finding WindClan, coming back. They sleep. Then they're back. So that's six days, I think.

JULIAN: What are we at? A week?

PAZ: I totally was not counting. Yeah, like a week, about.

JULIAN: Oh, you know.

LIZ: Oh my god.

JULIAN: They are cats. A week is a long time if you're a cat and have no real sense of short term memory.

PAZ: I guess.

LIZ: What's a week for a cat?

PAZ: But I mean, cats don't live like-- cats can live until they're like, 20. They don't... I mean, not outdoor cats, I guess. But it's not like they only live to be like five years old. I feel like it should be at least a month.

LIZ: What's a week to a cat? Like, a month?

PAZ: I don't know.

LIZ: Two weeks? Three weeks.

JULIAN: I'm googling cat sense of time. But I don't know. That might be a rabbit hole we can't fall down.

PAZ: I feel like cats don't... Cats wouldn't have a concept of days, though. Because they just sleep whenever.

JULIAN: Yeah.

LIZ: I mean, not these cats.

JULIAN: I mean, pet cats have a really good sense of time because like, they do get onto a...

PAZ: Yeah, they know when they get food.

JULIAN: Right. They get on to a rhythm. And if their rhythm gets disrupted, they get very upset.

LIZ: Yeah, they have to have their breakfast at 5am.

PAZ: And they have to run around the house at 3am. Very strict schedule. Well, anyway, yeah. Timeline is weird, but they get their apprentices. I couldn't remember any cat named Bracken-something. I feel like maybe there was like a Brackentail. But I'm like, I don't know. I don't know if this guy's gonna make it.

LIZ: Maybe he's destined to just be like--

PAZ: Pouring one out.

LIZ: -- inoffensive side character.

PAZ: Yeah, that might be the case.

LIZ: That's the life you want. You don't want to be like a fucking Firepaw. Look at that shit he's going through.

PAZ: I didn't look it up because I'm like, I'll just see.

JULIAN: I did look it up and spoiled myself, but I will not spoil y'all.

PAZ: I know what happens to the other two apprentices so far in this book, which is why I'm like who the fuck are you, Brackenpaw? I don't know him.

JULIAN: I mean, in his defense. Well, not in his defense. He hasn't really established much of a personality yet.

PAZ: I know.

JULIAN: You know, sometimes you're the quiet sibling, and your sister is real boisterous.

PAZ: Yeah, is their other sibling Swiftpaw? Or like, am I getting confused?

JULIAN: I thought it was just Brackenpaw and Cinderpaw. I didn't think there were...

PAZ: Was Swiftpaw a different litter? Maybe. Because that was the one who got promoted to apprentice at the beginning of this book.

JULIAN: Oh.

PAZ: Or wait, at the end of last book? I don't know. Recently.

JULIAN: Um, yeah, no, Swiftpaw is a different...

PAZ: Okay. That makes sense. Cause he's older.

JULIAN: Yeah. Different litter. The stuff with Cinderpaw is very cute.

PAZ: It's so cute.

LIZ: It is.

PAZ: But I'm also like, Oh, God, don't go to Snake Hell please. Listen to the adult.

LIZ: She got so close to Snake Hell like immediately.

PAZ: Cinderpaw needs to be on like a child leash.

LIZ: Uh-huh.

JULIAN: I am a little bit like, watching Fireheart mentor her is very much like when you have a teen babysitter take like a bunch of children to a pool. Or like to the zoo. It was just like, Oh, this was a mistake. You all need an adult.

LIZ: Bluestar, why did you do this?

PAZ: Right? Once again, worst person you know makes a good point. I think Tigerclaw was right when he was like, they're too young to have apprentices.

JULIAN: Fireheart like fully does not know what he's doing. He's just like, uh, I'm gonna take you around. We're gonna go to the Thunderpath. That sounds like fun.

PAZ: Yeah, no one gave him the like, teacher's manual.

LIZ: No, he's not certified. He's a teen boy.

JULIAN: Fireheart, your union contract.

PAZ: This is really just like in high school when you have a, like, junior college student come in and be like the assistant teacher for their like college credit courses. And it's, like, so obvious to you as a senior. It's like, Oh, wait, we're actually pretty close in age. What are you doing here?

LIZ: Don't worry. Cinderpaw [inaudible]

JULIAN: I fully respect Graystripe wanting to be alone and not be near Fireheart right now because Fireheart does not seem to understand that he did anything wrong. I also think that he should have stuck with Fireheart because two adults and two children is much more manageable than one adult and one child. Especially when one of the children is like... like if you have a rambunctious child and like a very calm child, that's much better than one rambunctious child.

LIZ: Graystripe even says so, right?

PAZ: Mm-hmm. But Graystripe is having a crisis so I'll excuse him.

JULIAN: God. And then Fireheart is like, well, I'm just gonna ditch my apprentice with you for a day. Is that chill?

LIZ: Yeah, like the second day.

PAZ: Ah, God. I gotta say though, all the internal thoughts about family Fireheart has in these set of chapters is very good.

JULIAN: Yeah.

PAZ: There's just so much more internal life than in the first book. It's like, it's very noticeable.

LIZ: Yeah. He's really going through like-- he has not become dad, but he thinks he is. Like, he's looking at Cinderpaw like, Oh, God. Oh, God, what do I do? Oh, god, no, no, she's going to Snake Hell. Wait, come back. Oh, my God, children. So he's also like, just a young guy. But it's very funny.

PAZ: Yeah. And his like, anger and worry about being a former kittypet continues to be like, a thread running through this. Which is... I don't know, it's just good to see that they're keeping that like personality trait consistent in this book.

JULIAN: Yeah. And like the tension between like, found family versus birth family is like, nice to see explored here.

PAZ: Yeah. And like how he feels like he's-- even though he really likes his found family, how he still feels alienated because, I mean, like, they still see him differently.

JULIAN: Yeah. And like, even through that, you know, there's a bit where he's like, yeah, you know, I do wonder if I would have closeness with my birth family. But also I know that like, you know, the closeness that Princess has with her siblings who she sees occasionally is not the same as like, the closeness that the cats in the clan have.

PAZ: Yeah, he like, thinks some thoughts about like, you know, would my life have been different? Like, what am I missing?

LIZ: And he still does feel like, like that level of remove, and he's like, lonely. Like, damn, I wish I had someone who knew exactly like where I was coming from and had the same experiences.

JULIAN: Yeah, that moment where they both-- like he and Princess talk about like, the bedding that their mom had when they were kits is really sweet and like, poignant.

PAZ: Yeah.

JULIAN: Because he doesn't have anyone in the clan who remembers how he grew up.

PAZ: And like, what they think of his childhood is just like, really mean to kittpets because they're all xenophobic. So he can't even really talk about it I think is one of the points. Like he can't tell anyone like he saw his sister or anything. And it stresses him out and it's just, yeah.

JULIAN: Also the bit where he doesn't remember her name is awful.

LIZ: Oh, yeah, that was bad.

PAZ: Aw, I know.

JULIAN: Like, initially, he can't remember it and he's like, Oh, I'm Rusty. And then like, finally does remember it but like, it takes him a bit and that's just like, ah. Aw, buddy.

LIZ: Aw.

PAZ: I hope he finds, you know, something where he feels like he can be his whole self. I also got to say, Rusty, do you think your balls really would have been stolen? Because apparently nobody spays or neuters their cats here. Because your sister's just pregnant. She obviously didn't go get the-- what the fuck.

JULIAN: The snip?

PAZ: The cut. Think he might have had balls still.

JULIAN: Like she's pregnant, which clearly means that like A, she didn't get neutered and also, like, whatever cat is the father didn't get neutered either.

PAZ: What is up with this neighborhood?

LIZ: Did you catch the part where-- I mean, like, she says that all the siblings are still kind of nearby too. So do like-- I just want to know if a cat gets pregnant in this neighborhood, do they just distribute the kittens to neighbors, or do they just keep all of them? Cause I know that happens but that can't be regular.

PAZ: When our cat Maria kept having kittens before we could get her to the vet, we would just post free kittens sign. People would come and check out the kittens. I don't know. But it wasn't just like our immediate neighbors.

LIZ: No.

PAZ: No, not at all.

JULIAN: The HOA where it's like, to live in this neighborhood, you must accept every fucking six months or whatever.

PAZ: Oh god. Yeah okay, so let's go through our list of kittypets so far. Princess, wasn't fixed. Their mom, Nutmeg, obviously wasn't fixed. Jake, still had his balls because he fathered children at some point. I guess Henry is the only one we got confirmed to...

JULIAN: Smudge. Smudge got neutered.

PAZ: Oh, yes. Smudge got neutered. Okay. I don't know.

LIZ: So two out of like, what? Six, seven? Probably more.

PAZ: Yeah. I don't know. I don't know what's going on here.

LIZ: They're really just lax about it over in England, huh.

JULIAN: I mean, is it England or is it just this book?

LIZ: Is it just this one neighborhood in England? Like oh yeah, that's cat city.

JULIAN: That's cat hell.

PAZ: Maybe it's some sort of weird hippie community.

JULIAN: You know what, maybe that's why all the Twolegs they run into are so awful to the cats because it's like you know...

PAZ: Oh, it's just overrun.

JULIAN: The neighbors are really nice, but like anyone who comes and visits this park is like, oh fuck. It's the fucking cats again. It's all the horrible cats.

LIZ: It's like that one island they always talk about on clickbait articles that's like, oh yeah, this is the city of cats. And they're just everywhere.

PAZ: Oh, the one in Japan? Or near Japan.

LIZ: God, yeah.

JULIAN: I want to read a Warriors book set with the feral cat colonies that live in the Colosseum. That's all I want.

LIZ: Yeah.

PAZ: Oh fuck yeah. They'd all be Italian. Cat mafia.

LIZ: The Meowdessy.

JULIAN: You already have a clan structure.

LIZ: The Kittyad.

PAZ: On the day of my daughter's naming ceremony. But to go back to that point about Fireheart's character exploration in this segment, like the second to last sentence in these sort of chapters was just really nice. It was just a good sentence. It was, "He had found the closeness he had missed, but it had given shape to a sense of loneliness that until now had lain vague and nameless in his heart."

JULIAN: Aw buddy.

LIZ: Aw.

PAZ: That was a good little sentence and evocative of a feeling. And just wanna give him a little hug.

LIZ: He's just a little guy.

JULIAN: He's just a little guy.

PAZ: He's a little guy, but also now a responsible teacher.

JULIAN: He's a little guy and he's also a father.

PAZ: And an accessory to murder.

JULIAN: I mean, manslaughter. Graystripe didn't mean to kill him. It wasn't premeditated.

PAZ: Yeah, sorry, Graystripe.

LIZ: Has Firepaw killed anyone yet? Fireheart, sorry.

PAZ: No.

LIZ: I don't think so.

PAZ: He wanted to kill that one ShadowClan cat but then I think Whitestorm was like, no, we do not kill, apparently.

LIZ: The emphasis on it, and I mean, the emphasis on Whiteclaw dying and like the almost murder from the last ep, I wonder if it's gonna come to a head at like the finale of this book.

PAZ: Yeah, maybe. I just... I know in later books cats die so much, but murder seems to be like... so far the only like onscreen murder slash manslaughter we've seen is Oakheart. Is that the guy? I don't know. That RiverClan cat who got killed by Redtail. And then all of Tigerclaw's murder victims, but that was obviously evil. And then there's accidental death. But I know these cats are killing each other in later books. So I don't know. Maybe it's just like a change that happens.

JULIAN: I feel like there is some-- there is like a shift. But I don't remember when it happens.

PAZ: Yeah, I'll be curious to see if it happens like within the first series, or if that only really starts happening like, second series onwards.

JULIAN: There's definitely murders in the first series.

PAZ: Okay.

JULIAN: Unless I'm misremembering what happens in the first series.

PAZ: No, I mean, there's like murders. I know there's murders of like the other evil group. But I'm talking like interclan murders.

JULIAN: Oh, gotcha.

LIZ: What other evil group? Hold on. Wait.

PAZ: Don't worry about it.

LIZ: Okay, sure.

PAZ: We'll get there.

LIZ: Hmm.

PAZ: Yeah, I don't know. We'll see.

JULIAN: Yeah, there have so far been no war crimes, I would say. At least in these chapters. I think this book has also been pretty low war crime.

PAZ: Yeah, I feel like the war crimes might be coming up, though.

JULIAN: Yeah, I probably shouldn't call it. We're only on chapter 10.

PAZ: Yeah, I think we're gearing up for war crimes.

JULIAN: I guess hunting on WindClan's territory after driving them out could probably be construed as a war crime.

PAZ: Yeah. Breaking treaty, breaking word also. So there were war crimes. Couldn't go 10 chapters without some war crimes.

LIZ: Well, it is Warrior Cats. Not like non Warrior Cats. I think I've made this joke but better before. These are some fighting cats.

JULIAN: Cat fight.

PAZ: They sure are. I don't know. I don't have anything else really for these chapters. I don't-- does anyone else?

JULIAN: Yeah, I don't either.

LIZ: As a note, I think it's very funny that in like these chapters Tigerclaw he's being put on like, the sensible side of the argument or whatever. Yeah. It's just like, he's just acting normal guy now, but he's still evil.

PAZ: Yeah. He was so normal guy these chapters, noticeably.

LIZ: It's very funny.

JULIAN: Yeah, I feel like it's like trying to set us up for like, a twist when he goes mask off again. But.

LIZ: But what if he does-- what if he does just become normal? He's like, Oh, yeah, Vice President. This is good enough. I'm retiring my evil ways. I'm still mean, but from now on, I'm just going to be critiquing your teaching style.

JULIAN: Which frankly, needs it.

PAZ: Fireheart, have you considered murdering your apprentice as a motivator?

JULIAN: Oh.

LIZ: Oh, no? Well, have you considered taking notes?

JULIAN: Fireheart, have you thought about taking some continuing education classes? Some workshops?

LIZ: Night classes.

JULIAN: Personal development? Professional development?

PAZ: Needs to get his education certificate.

JULIAN: Yeah. Fireheart, where's your MA?

LIZ: You know, Fireheart, they have some courses on LinkedIn that you can take. About seven hours each. You get a little certificate at the end. That's how I got mine.

JULIAN: Fireheart learns to code. Fireheart goes to boot camp. Comes out with a Udemy badge.

LIZ: Are we good for these chapters?

PAZ: Yeah, I think we're good.

JULIAN: Yeah.

PAZ: It was only three chapters. And it was a lot of like, internal stuff.

JULIAN: Right, they're a lot less eventful than the last ones.

LIZ: Everyone's very sad.

PAZ: Yeah. Yeah.

[meow]

So, in honor of meeting Princess these chapters, I decided maybe we should look at all of the canonical kittypet names and rate them and see what the kittypet names got going on, because I think we were pretty positive on Nutmeg last week.

LIZ: Oh, yeah.

PAZ: So we're gotta see if there's more where that came from. So I'm pulling up the list of canon kittypets on the Warriors wiki. Okay, I'm just gonna go down them and we can give our thoughts. How about that?

JULIAN: Sounds good.

LIZ: All right.

PAZ: So the first that we have is Algernon? Is that how you say that? Al-grr-non?

JULIAN: Al-jer-non, yep.

PAZ: And Bess. How are we feeling about that?

JULIAN: I like them, but only as a duo. Like you got to have Algernon and Bess. They really play off each other.

PAZ: Yeah, I agree.

LIZ: They sound like a separate pirate duo in Black Sails.

PAZ: Yeah, I agree. They have to be a pair. Okay, next we have Hal.

JULIAN: Eh.

PAZ: Pretty boring.

LIZ: Yeah.

PAZ: Pixie.

JULIAN: Very good.

PAZ: Eh. Yeah, I think it depends on the cat. I have to visualize this cat.

JULIAN: That's true. This is a fluffy white she cat, which is like a less good-- I hear Pixie and I'm biased by our friend Erin's very good cat who is a little tabby freak.

LIZ: Pixie should be a freak.

JULIAN: And this doesn't... this cat does not sound like a freak.

PAZ: No. Freaks only. Okay, the next cat is Red.

JULIAN: Eh.

PAZ: Uh, it's okay, I guess.

LIZ: We've got a good ginger cat already. And Fireheart really got the protagonist name thing down.

PAZ: Yeah.

JULIAN: Yeah.

PAZ: Okay. Next cat is Marmalade.

JULIAN: Excellent.

LIZ: 10 out of 10.

PAZ: This is fantastic. He is described as a large ginger tom.

JULIAN: Yes.

PAZ: I am a huge fan of this name. Then we got Jay.

JULIAN: Eh.

PAZ: It's okay.

LIZ: It's all right.

PAZ: I do like-- a very old black and white she cat. I'm just picturing Chloe.

JULIAN: Oh.

LIZ: Yeah.

PAZ: Then we have Jake. I feel like we already discussed his name, but I'll just reiterate. I love when a cat is just named a guy.

JULIAN: Just a human man.

PAZ: Then we have Twig.

JULIAN: Very good.

PAZ: That's pretty good. I like the energy that brings. Then we have another duo. It's Cherry and Boris.

LIZ: Very good together.

PAZ: I love Boris so much.

JULIAN: That's another human man name.

PAZ: Right? It just sounds like some Russian, old Russian man. I don't know.

JULIAN: Who is out here naming their cat Boris? I love it.

PAZ: I don't know but they chose right.

LIZ: I mean--

PAZ: Um-- yeah, go ahead.

LIZ: No. Our good friend does have a cat named Putin. Short for, if I'm remembering correctly, Rasputin, so.

JULIAN: Yes.

PAZ: Exactly. Then we have Echo. That's okay, I guess.

LIZ: Nice Friends at the Table reference.

JULIAN: Next cat name is Fourteen Fifteen.

PAZ: No, if only. Hutch. I don't know.

JULIAN: It really depends on the cat.

PAZ: Yeah.

JULIAN: I feel like.

PAZ: It's original, I guess.

LIZ: Yeah.

PAZ: I'll give it points for that.

JULIAN: "Hutch is a dark brown tabby tom with amber eyes and hard paw pads." Why do we know that his paw pads are hard?

PAZ: Oh no.

LIZ: You mush them.

PAZ: How am I gonna squeeze his beans?

JULIAN: Give him some coconut oil.

PAZ: Okay, our next cat is Oscar. Once again, love just a normal human man name.

LIZ: I know I shouldn't be looking at the descriptions of these cause they're probably really spoilery.

PAZ: Yeah, don't do that. Stop.

LIZ: But this one's really funny. I won't remember it by then.

PAZ: Okay, you can read it.

LIZ: But if anyone's worried about spoilers, cover your ears. This says, "an unknowing descendent of SkyClan who chooses not to live in SkyClan because he believes clan ideas are stupid."

PAZ: I agree with Oscar.

JULIAN: That's a real Oscar-- Oscar would.

PAZ: Classic Oscar. Okay, the next cat is Bella. It's boring, I guess. I don't know. Another duo, Rose and Lily.

JULIAN: It's fine. It doesn't have the same energy as our previous duos.

LIZ: No.

PAZ: No, I don't... they're not bringing the same heat. I guess at least they have a theme, which is flowers.

LIZ: I want these to be like really out there cats, if it has to work, like real fancy or really evil.

JULIAN: Yeah, I just want like a cat with a flower name that's like really fucking-- like, where's my cat named Hydrangea?

LIZ: Yeah.

PAZ: Fuck yeah. Okay, next cat is Hattie. Feel like that's cute.

LIZ: Yeah.

JULIAN: Yeah.

PAZ: Sounds like it should be like a little, little old cat. Next cat is Velvet.

LIZ: Very decadent.

PAZ: Yeah, just makes me think of the Velveteen Rabbit.

LIZ: Aw.

PAZ: Which I guess is a vibe. I don't know. Okay, then we have Benny.

LIZ: That's cute.

PAZ: It's pretty good. It's not as good as the other man names but it's cute. Then we have Brandy.

JULIAN: Brandy feels like such a 90s name to name your cat.

LIZ: Yeah. Like you're definitely thinking of like Brandi, capital B Brandi, right?

JULIAN: Oh, yes.

LIZ: I guess these did come out around that time.

JULIAN: Like that cat needs to bring that energy.

LIZ: This is a cat with a rhinestone collar.

PAZ: I think the name is better conjunction when you see that his sibling is Minty.

LIZ: Aw.

JULIAN: Oh, that's good.

PAZ: I think that's a good pair of names. So another one where I think a duo really brings out that energy.

JULIAN: The next one is also a duo. Or like, half a duo.

PAZ: Yeah. So it's Frankie. And then Jesse.

LIZ: Very cute.

PAZ: Those are just like, those are solid names. (laughing) The next cat is O'Hara.

JULIAN: Oh boy.

LIZ: Uh.

JULIAN: Bad, but it's not her fault.

PAZ: Yeah.

LIZ: No.

PAZ: Oh, God. Okay, next name is Parsnip.

JULIAN: Excellent.

PAZ: I love that.

LIZ: 10 out of 10.

PAZ: This is a perfect cat name.

LIZ: Wow.

PAZ: I'm gonna keep it in mind for future cats, I think. It's powerful.

LIZ: I think Parsnip should have like a little vegetable clan and it should just be like, here's my deputy Carrots. Here's my other deputy, Rutabaga. And my [laughs] I don't know, my apprentices, like, Cabbage and... I'm running out of vegetables.

JULIAN: Peapod.

LIZ: Potato. Peapod, yeah.

PAZ: Polly. Eh.

JULIAN: I like Polly, but I think I'm mostly biased toward it because it's my grandma's name. So I'm just envisioning like a very like old, cheerful cat.

PAZ: That would be good. Then we have Riga, I guess? It's unique.

JULIAN: Yeah.

LIZ: It's probably a person name or something?

PAZ: Yeah, I don't know.

JULIAN: I think it's a person name.

PAZ: Points for not being a common name. Scarlett.

LIZ: No. Hold on a second. Are Scarlett and O'Hara a duo?

PAZ: Oh, no.

JULIAN: Oh, I'm very afraid that they might be.

LIZ: I don't like that. No.

PAZ: They both live in the same place apparently.

JULIAN: Nooo.

LIZ: Bad.

JULIAN: Hate it.

LIZ: Not their fault. But bad.

PAZ: No, but I'm looking at Scarlett's wiki page. It doesn't mention O'Hara anywhere, so. Maybe not.

JULIAN: That might be an Erin Hunter badness.

LIZ: Oh, no. Okay, wait. It says they're hostile. [laughs]

JULIAN: Well, then the name is perfect.

PAZ: Yeah, I don't think they're together. They live in the same neighborhood. I think that's about it. Thank God. Okay, then we have Victor.

JULIAN: Excellent.

PAZ: That's powerful.

LIZ: Mm-hmm.

JULIAN: Oh.

PAZ: Then we have Webster.

JULIAN: Yes.

PAZ: I like-- I love that.

LIZ: Yes.

PAZ: That's a little, like, nerd cat.

LIZ: With glasses.

PAZ: Exactly. Then we have Ziggy. That's also cute.

JULIAN: I think the four here are just really good kind of in conjunction, where it's like Victor, Webster, and Ziggy.

PAZ: Yeah, that's a great combo. That's a little like, YA friend group.

LIZ: They all sound like, like in that book, they would be the little nerd group that's going to go on like some sort of robotics competition thing. And it's about friendship.

PAZ: Exactly.

LIZ: And accepting who you are.

PAZ: The next name is Betsy.

JULIAN: Cute.

PAZ: It's a good name for an old cat. Gonna skip some of these names. Max. Eh.

LIZ: Can we go back to one? Just one because it's--

PAZ: No, we gotta skip them.

LIZ: Aw, but the one before that is so...

JULIAN: It's really good.

PAZ: Okay, I don't think that counts as a real kittypet name.

JULIAN: This was clearly not chosen by a human but Harveymoon.

LIZ: Can we give it a shout out?

PAZ: Harvest Moon sequel, Harveymoon.

JULIAN: Is that what they're calling it now that they can't use the Harvest Moon trademark anymore?

PAZ: Yeah.

LIZ: Harveymoon, friend of Susanclaw.

JULIAN: Now I'm gonna be imagining them as an elderly couple.

PAZ: That's perfect.

LIZ: Oh my god.

PAZ: Okay, um, Ajax.

JULIAN: Excellent, real powerful name.

LIZ: Mm-hmm.

PAZ: That just reminds me of dogs because I read a book about a half-dog half-dingo named Ajax, but that's my own bias.

JULIAN: Can I just read his description real quick?

PAZ: Yes.

JULIAN: "Ajax is a kittypet and friend of Rose and Fuzzball."

LIZ: Aw.

PAZ: Yeah, I was waiting to get to Fuzzball on this list to rate that, but Fuzzball is a 10 out of 10 also.

LIZ: All three of those together are just... what a wonderful friend group. Powerful.

PAZ: Then we have Pickle.

LIZ: Beautiful.

PAZ: Perfect.

JULIAN: He has a squashed in face.

PAZ: Aw, Pickle. Imagine Pickle and... what was it? I've already forgotten it. Yes, Pickle and Parsnip together. Imagine that.

JULIAN: Oh yes.

LIZ: Oh, yeah.

PAZ: Yeah. Powerful.

LIZ: Wait, wait, wait. Do you think Pickle used to be Cucumber when he was younger and then as he aged he became Pickle?

PAZ: God.

JULIAN: Aw.

PAZ: Then we have Yew.

LIZ: Oh, me?

[laughter]

PAZ: Yep. Then we have Bumble.

LIZ: Beautiful.

JULIAN: That's very good.

PAZ: I like to picture this as the cats, you know, with like the balance like condition.

JULIAN: Oh yeah.

PAZ: Where they wobble.

LIZ: Aw.

PAZ: Yeah, it'd be a cute name.

JULIAN: I do think it's a cute name. I do think about the dating app unfortunately.

PAZ: Oh no.

JULIAN: But it's fine.

PAZ: I forgot that existed. Um, there is a cat just called Tom.

LIZ: Yeah.

JULIAN: Good.

PAZ: Here's Tom's description. "He is hostile to every cat he meets and is a mean bully."

JULIAN: Good for him.

LIZ: So this is an old man.

PAZ: Who wrote this? Then we have a cat, Flower. Eh.

JULIAN: Eh.

PAZ: I don't know about--

JULIAN: She is said to be frightened by strange cats.

PAZ: Who isn't?

JULIAN: So I'm picturing a very skittish creature.

PAZ: Yeah. Um, we got our boy Rusty. I think that was a pretty good name, but could be better.

LIZ: Yeah.

JULIAN: Yeah.

PAZ: Yeah. Then we have Smudge. I think Smudge is a cute name.

JULIAN: Smudge is very good.

PAZ: We have Princess.

JULIAN: Eh.

LIZ: Classic.

PAZ: That name didn't do much for me.

LIZ: In context, it's very good.

PAZ: Yeah.

JULIAN: Right, when you know that Princess is the daughter of Jake and Nutmeg.

LIZ: Yeah.

PAZ: Yeah. Um, then we have Henry.

LIZ: The best.

PAZ: We love Henry. Henry is 11 out of 10. Fantastic.

LIZ: I'm looking at Henry's page wondering if there have been any hot Henry updates.

PAZ: No, I think we already established this.

LIZ: There's a pretty good image of him. He doesn't look as big as I imagined him, though.

PAZ: Yeah, it's like the stock Warriors wiki for kittypets.

LIZ: Aw.

JULIAN: I want him to be like a real chongus.

LIZ: Yeah.

PAZ: Okay, moving on. We got Purdy. I think that's a great name.

LIZ: Mm-hmm.

JULIAN: Mm-hmm.

PAZ: Cody.

LIZ: That's just a boy. That's just a guy. A lad.

JULIAN: Cody feels like a dog name to me.

PAZ: Yeah.

LIZ: Yeah.

PAZ: Yeah, if you told me there was an animal named Cody, I think I would assume a dog. Then we have Sasha.

JULIAN: Cute.

PAZ: It's okay.

LIZ: Also feels like a dog name, but like a sort of big furry one.

PAZ: Yeah, kind of.

JULIAN: Mm, I can see that.

PAZ: Then we have another duo. Jacques and Susan.

JULIAN: Perfect.

LIZ: Yes.

JULIAN: Yes.

LIZ: Oh my god.

PAZ: Jacques is such a good cat name.

JULIAN: Yeah.

LIZ: And with Susan, though, that's like...

JULIAN: Yeah. I'm picturing like, you know how kids cartoons have like, sometimes just a very stereotypical French character.

LIZ: Yeah.

PAZ: Yeah.

JULIAN: I'm picturing like a little cartoon where it's like, I'm Jacques. (high-pitched creaky voice) And I'm Susan.

PAZ: Yeah, Jacques has a little beret on.

JULIAN: Yeah, he's all stripey.

LIZ: I've seen this and it's the cooking show that Jacques Pepin had with Julia Child. This is just what it is.

JULIAN: Perfect.

PAZ: We have, um, Jingo. I have to say, don't name your cat that.

LIZ: Mm-mm.

JULIAN: Yeah, I think the cat right after is also bad.

PAZ: Yeah.

JULIAN: It's like Jingo and Huss-er. Or Hussar. I don't actually know how to pronounce that word.

PAZ: Yeah.

LIZ: Bad.

PAZ: Yeah, it's like a cavalry person. Really leaning on that theme. Then we have Snowdrop.

JULIAN: Perfect.

LIZ: Cute.

PAZ: I think for a little kitten, that would be a very cute name. We have Jigsaw.

[laughter]

Yeah?

LIZ: I love puzzles. That's the only reason I'm laughing.

JULIAN: I think it's a very good cat name.

PAZ: Yeah. Is Seville how you pronounce this next one?

JULIAN: I think so.

LIZ: Yeah, like with the oranges?

JULIAN: Yeah.

LIZ: Seville oranges.

JULIAN: Unless you're being super like, "suh-veal" or "suh-vee" or something. But like I don't think anyone...

PAZ: No.

JULIAN: That's like people who say "cwossan."

LIZ: Oh god, can I get another read on that? That was very good.

JULIAN: You want me to...? "Cwossan."

LIZ: Name a cat that.

JULIAN: But you have to say it exactly like that.

PAZ: Uh-huh. Next up we have Bob.

JULIAN: Good.

PAZ: 10 out of 10. Fantastic. Then we have Zelda.

LIZ: Great cat name.

JULIAN: Can I just read this list of like the next like three or four, kind of all in conjunction?

PAZ: Yeah, go ahead.

JULIAN: So we have Bob, Zelda, Max, and Loki.

PAZ: Wow.

JULIAN: Just a real--

PAZ: One for the Marvel fans there.

JULIAN: That's another YA book friend group.

LIZ: Yeah.

JULIAN: You have Zelda, your sort of token girl. And then Loki, who clearly chose their own name.

PAZ: Loki's just LARPing. I think we already rated the next two, which is Velvet and Fuzzball.

JULIAN: Fuzzball is still so good.

PAZ: Fuzzball's still fantastic. Okay, everyone brace yourself for the next two. It's Eggs and Bacon.

LIZ: Perfect.

JULIAN: Yes.

LIZ: Best ones.

PAZ: And Eggs and Bacon are the sons of Pancakes.

LIZ: Oh my god, they're siblings. Of course they are.

PAZ: This is 100% the best names on this list.

LIZ: Pancakes, you've done it.

JULIAN: Pack it up. What else can we do?

LIZ: We can't go on.

PAZ: It's so good.

LIZ: Fuck.

PAZ: Oh my god. Okay, um, we got Millie... eh.

JULIAN: Eh.

PAZ: Also, Liz, don't look at these descriptions. I'm covering your eyes.

LIZ: Okay, can I-- I'm covering the half that has the descriptions and I'm just looking at the names.

PAZ: Uh-huh.

LIZ: These... these mostly look like people names going forward.

PAZ: Yeah, yeah. We got Millie, Duke, Ruby, and Socks. I think Socks is cute.

LIZ: Socks is cute.

PAZ: Socks is a classic.

LIZ: Yeah.

PAZ: Quince... Okay.

LIZ: So a fruit?

JULIAN: I think it's a fruit.

LIZ: Yeah.

PAZ: You little fruit.

LIZ: Tigerclaw.

PAZ: We have Shnuky.

JULIAN: Oh, that's good.

PAZ: That's a powerful name.

LIZ: Oh, when did that book come out, with the Shnuky in it?

JULIAN: Shnuky's in the mangas.

PAZ: Yeah. Then we have Patch. That's cute.

JULIAN: Cute.

PAZ: Then we have Harry. Once again, that one's just a guy.

JULIAN: Can I just post real quick an image of Shnuky?

PAZ: Yeah, please.

LIZ: Yes.

JULIAN: From the wiki? That may be from the official art. Um, this is not a cat.

LIZ: Wait. Wait a second.

PAZ: Oh my god. That's definitely from the manga.

JULIAN: Yeah.

LIZ: That's a man. Or that's some sort of human.

PAZ: This is a human man who's been cursed to be a hairless cat.

JULIAN: He looks like those paintings.

LIZ: This cat has the eyes of Prince Eric from The Little Mermaid.

JULIAN: The legs are also all wonky. They're like--

PAZ: They look like arms.

JULIAN: I'm like... so I assume this is, because I don't want to make fun of it if this is like a child's fan art.

PAZ: No, I think this is the manga for sure.

JULIAN: Oh god.

LIZ: I think it is. It's got that screen tone.

PAZ: Yeah.

JULIAN: Yeah, I think oh, it does have screen... Yeah, no, this was drawn by an artist. These are human eyes.

PAZ: Yeah, it's kind of scary.

JULIAN: I hate to look at this.

LIZ: They're human eyes and they're begging you to set him free from this cursed form.

JULIAN: God, and the back legs. One knee bends forward like a human's knee. And then the other knee is bending back.

PAZ: God.

LIZ: This is an animorph mid-transformation.

PAZ: Oh god. Okay, we're almost at the end here. Let's get haulin'. Myler.

JULIAN: I... sure?

PAZ: I don't know. I guess.

JULIAN: I don't know how I feel about that.

PAZ: Yeah.

JULIAN: It feels like a... like a Kayleigh. Like a Michaela name.

PAZ: Yeah, I don't know. It's a name, I guess. Um, Crystal? She's just like, a blonde.

LIZ: That's the name of my old boss.

PAZ: I don't know.

JULIAN: Yeah, it's like, the problem with Crystal is that it is a human name. But it doesn't have the same kind of human name energy that like... Susan--

LIZ: Yeah.

PAZ: This is no...

JULIAN: --has because it's also an object.

PAZ: This is no Boris.

JULIAN: Yeah, no, not a Boris at all.

PAZ: We have Violet. It's fine.

JULIAN: Yeah.

PAZ: Riley. Also fine, I guess.

JULIAN: Yeah, Riley's cute I think.

PAZ: Yeah, depending on the cat, I think. Then we have Lulu.

JULIAN: Lulu's very good.

LIZ: Good.

PAZ: That's what my dad calls my cat Loo, whose full name is Waterloo technically.

JULIAN: Aw.

PAZ: Heck yeah.

JULIAN: I didn't know Loo was short for Waterloo. That's really cute.

PAZ: Then we have Madric. I feel like that's something, but I don't know what that is. Okay, googling it just showed me soccer players so I don't know. I guess it's a--

LIZ: This is a jock.

PAZ: Oh my god, this cat's homophobic.

LIZ: What?

PAZ: "He is an antagonistic kittypet who acts hostile towards Ravenpaw and Barley--"

JULIAN: Fuck off, Madric.

PAZ: "--and accuses them of trespassing."

LIZ: Fuck you. Get out of here.

PAZ: Madric's just some fucking straight boy in those like knee length shorts in winter on the football team.

JULIAN: Ravenpaw and Barley don't respect your land borders.

PAZ: No. And then we have Pasha. I don't know why this is the second cat named after historical military officers, but okay.

JULIAN: Isn't Pasha also like a diminutive for like Sasha?

PAZ: Is it?

JULIAN: I thought it was.

PAZ: I believe that, yeah. It probably is. Oh my god. Okay, I just have to read this description. "A dark tabby. He is one of the kittypets tormenting SkyClan."

LIZ: Oh no.

PAZ: Oh god. Okay, that's all the kittypet names.

JULIAN: We did it.

LIZ: I think there's some more.

PAZ: No, I think that's all of them.

LIZ: No, if you click on the-- did we miss Gremlin?

JULIAN: What?

PAZ: Where is this?

JULIAN: Oh, there's-- if we go into List of kittypets, there are more kittypets.

LIZ: Oh my god.

PAZ: Liz, I don't want you to-- stop clicking around. Please.

JULIAN: Here, I opened it up. There's no spoilers on this list. And we don't have to read them all because there are--

PAZ: No, Liz, close the list. I'm holding a gun up.

JULIAN: 155.

LIZ: I'm closing it.

JULIAN: Um, but I just want to call out a couple of really good ones.

PAZ: Yeah, please.

JULIAN: Bigteeth. Bugeater. Buster.

LIZ: They're good.

JULIAN: Cheddar.

PAZ: Oh god.

LIZ: Oh my god.

JULIAN: Oh, we do have a good-- Daffodil.

LIZ: Aw.

PAZ: That's cute. Diesel.

JULIAN: Yeah. Um, Gremlin, as mentioned.

LIZ: Perfect.

JULIAN: We have not only Hal, Harry, Harvey, Hattie, and Henry, all of which are good.

LIZ: Oh my god.

JULIAN: Macgyver. Oh, Miss Mama Cat. Hello?

PAZ: Oh my god. That is incredible.

JULIAN: I must know more. Oh, Miss Mama Cat is a different name for a cat who has a separate name.

PAZ: Oh, yeah. Don't click.

LIZ: Spoilers, huh?

PAZ: Look away from this list.

LIZ: I'm not clicking. I'm not clicking.

PAZ: Holding up the gun.

LIZ: I've exited. Don't worry.

PAZ: Okay.

JULIAN: Um, let's see. Raindrop, very good. Scraps.

PAZ: Aw.

JULIAN: Shanty, Snooky.

PAZ: Tiny.

JULIAN: I can't be fond of Tiny because I know who Tiny is.

PAZ: Oh yeah, fuck, I forgot. Yeah, you're right.

LIZ: Oh, that's very ominous.

PAZ: Yeah. That bitch Tiny.

JULIAN: But apparently there are two Tinys. So maybe I can be fond of one of them.

PAZ: No, it says graphic novel.

JULIAN: Oh, they've listed it twice.

PAZ: Yeah.

JULIAN: They just haven't sanitized this list well. Um, but yeah, there's some good ones on here. I think we-- oh, Little Mew. I missed Little Mew.

PAZ: Aw.

LIZ: More cats should have little titles.

PAZ: I agree.

JULIAN: Yeah.

LIZ: Like imagine if--

JULIAN: Oh.

LIZ: I don't know, Nutmeg was like Miss Nutmeg.

PAZ: Aw, that's very good.

JULIAN: Little Mew is the kit of Husker and Moss and kin to Splash. Their siblings are Pad, Raindrop, and Birdy. And they all live in a barn besides a Twoleg nest.

LIZ: Wow.

PAZ: Aw, that's so cute.

LIZ: They're in their own book. This is some like Beatrix Potter shit.

JULIAN: Oh my god, Little Mew has anime bangs.

PAZ: Oh my god, please. Please please please. Oh my. They're horrible.

LIZ: Oh my god.

PAZ: Little Mew has 90s boy like middle part anime bangs.

LIZ: Little Mew looks exactly like a little boy in Pathologic Classic.

JULIAN: Here's the screentone version of Little Mew so you can see the bangs better.

PAZ: The bangs are colored differently.

LIZ: Little Mew's frosted tips.

JULIAN: Little Mew's center part.

PAZ: Oh God.

JULIAN: Little Mew's Edward Elric haircut.

LIZ: No!

PAZ: It also kinda looks like Yugioh hair.

LIZ: No.

JULIAN: I love the Warriors manga. I love that it exists and that it gave all the cats anime bangs.

LIZ: But not the ones we wanted.

JULIAN: Oh.

PAZ: Okay, well, that's all the kittypet names. I think there's some pretty good ones here.

JULIAN: Yeah.

PAZ: So good job, Erins.

LIZ: 98% good job.

PAZ: Yeah.

JULIAN: Can I share one more art from the manga?

LIZ: Yes.

PAZ: Oh yeah, please.

JULIAN: This is Birdy.

LIZ: Holy shit. What the fuck.

PAZ: Does she have eyeshadow on?

LIZ: What the... who...

JULIAN: I just, I love that for the manga they appear not to have gotten like furry artists or people who were particularly good at drawing cats.

PAZ: No.

JULIAN: They got some like regular manga artists and were like, hey, you're good at shoujo manga, right? Um, can you draw cats? Don't worry. It's just like people.

LIZ: This cat looks like one of those old cats in the Cats musical.

PAZ: Yeah.

JULIAN: This is Grizabella the glamour cat. But this is before she really went downhill. You know? She's got her eyeshadow. She's looking fierce.

PAZ: Uh-huh.

LIZ: This is her in her prime.

PAZ: Yeah. Got her side face fluff styled to perfection.

LIZ: I don't like this expression that the artist has drawn.

PAZ: No.

JULIAN: She looks really vacuous. It's kind of scary.

LIZ: Don't look at me with those big old eyes.

PAZ: Oh gosh. Okay, well, I think that might do it for us. It's been a while. It's been a journey.

LIZ: I think we can agree that there are three really good categories of kittypet names. So there's one, just stuff in the kitchen. Two, just human names. And three, which is just kind of like a cutesy descriptor.

PAZ: Yeah. I agree.

LIZ: Fuzzball, you know, can't top that.

JULIAN: Socks.

LIZ: I think for the new generation of Warrior Cats as a series, if they have more kittypets, there should be cats named Toaster and Tax Return. That seems to be what millennials are doing now, right?

PAZ: No, it's for the children. It has to be like TikTok and, um...

LIZ: This is my cat Fortnite.

PAZ: My cat Fortnite. Exactly.

JULIAN: Name your cat after memes that are like three years old. This is my cat Doge.

PAZ: Oh god.

LIZ: Name your cat Bean Dad now to be already out of date.

PAZ: My cat Milkshake Duck.

LIZ: No.

JULIAN: This is my cat Warrior Cat. I'm sure somewhere there is a cat rescue that is naming their cats after memes.

PAZ: Oh, absolutely.

JULIAN: Ensuring that everyone who adopts the cats will immediately rename them.

PAZ: Mind games. Okay, I'm gonna call it here. Great list, some great names. But we'll be back next week reading chapters 11 through 14. And as always, you can follow the show on Twitter @staircast and send in any questions or anecdotes to stairwaytostarclan@gmail.com. I can't remember if there's anything else to plug. Oh, I don't know if I ever mentioned it on the podcast but the episode summaries like written out, I'm linking them in the episode description. If anyone wants to look at that, they're there. Other than that, I think that's it. So until next time, may StarClan light your path. Bye.

JULIAN: Bye.

LIZ: Bye.

[outro music]

Let's podcast. Sorry.

JULIAN: We have to get that MeUndies money.

PAZ: Ugh. MeUndies wishes, but they'll never get us. They won't corner this market.

[bonefall]

Bramblestar not being made deputy at the end of TNP would have fixed soooo many things. If Firestar JUST said, “I want you to be deputy... someday. But for now, learning you were conspiring with Hawkfrost, I need you to step down.“

First of all, he’d have to eat some humble pie and realize that his behavior has been holding him back in the eyes of most of his clanmates. Some do judge him unfairly, but he realizes in this moment that if he really wants more responsibility, he has to make himself worthy of it. The journey didn’t entitle him to power, he has to earn it.

Second of all, he would have more time to mature and be a mentor to Berrypaw. That’s one of the few laws in the Warrior Code that shouldn’t have any exceptions, and Brambleclaw really needed the time to grow up and enjoy his warriorship (something denied to Fireheart due to the Tigerclaw crisis, remember)

Lastly, it would remove the horrific power imbalance we see in Leafpool’s Wish and OOTS. He can be upset without being Squirrelflight’s boss. His treatment of her still sucks and they shouldn’t have gotten back together, but at least they wouldn’t HAVE to interact.

We could still have the Bramblestar that the Erins wanted, too. Just have the deputy be Brackenfur and have him die in the battle. In fact it would be better, because then Bramblestar has no experience as a deputy and it’s more interesting to see him have to quickly adapt.

[cat-alyzing]

I need my man fire… please give me the boy fire

Pants Firepaw/heart is my favorite. I almost made him a tabby but scrapped it so he has pants. As he gets older I’ll give him a pouch but as a younger cat he’s smaller.

(ID- Firepaw is standing to the left, his head slightly to the camera and right eye looking off to the top right. He is winking with a big smile and his tail goes up, curling slightly with his old green collar wrapped around his tail. He is orange with ginger pants, front paws, ears, stripes to his eyes, on his chest in a heart, and eyebrows. White is on his mane, belly, front toes, under his eyes, inside of his tail, muzzle, inner ear tufts, and ear tips. He has emerald green eyes and is sleek with tufts on his mane, belly, and cheeks. End ID)

Fireheart is trans he/him, bisexual and poly. I’m scrapping his half brother being Scourge bc it did nothing to the story but he is still Jake’s kin through a sire situation as his mom just wanted kits. Best friends with Graypaw and Ravenpaw with a guardian relationship with Icestar and Brindleface. Personality wise he is caring, incredibly compassionate and quick to help those he cares for. Even cats who aren’t really nice to him he can still help. With a very very loyal attitude. While he’s still rather naive as he grows he learns what rules he can bend and should and what one’s matter the most, and to trust those older and wiser then him to help. While he does see the reason for the rules he can see their flaws as a outsider brought in and he’s working to slowly change them to a better code that does what its intended to do and not create more cats like Tigerclaw. His main flaws is how loyal he is, occasionally lacking attention when it comes to his environment, and a pretty bad grasp at how to keep track of time relying a lot on his healers and elders to tell him when the next gathering is coming around.

Also here’s the alt tabby version:

(ID- Fireheart is a rusty orange color with darker tabby stripes across his pelt, a heart on his front paws, banded tail, and stripe around his neck. White is on his mane, belly, paws, ear tips, inner ear tufts, and on the left of his muzzle in a semi fire like shape. He has the same pose, green eyes, and dark green collar the other design. End ID)

[bumblegaze]

Couple of major changes to Cloudtail.

Firstly, Cloudtail gets a rename to Cloudpath. He is named after a cat who provided him a lot of guidance as an apprentice, Whitepath (canon: One-eye).

He has much the same characterization as canon as a kit and young apprentice, but under the elders’ guidance, he becomes a bright young cat, if not still a bit brash at times.

Fireheart brings him to Thunderclan in mid-winter at Princess’s request, and Brindleface is hesitant at first to take him as her own, but seeing him curled up next to Ashkit and Fernkit, she caves. Whitestorm names him Cloudkit for his fluffy white fur. Even before he’s named an apprentice he shows an affinity for hunting and tracking, convincing his siblings to sneak out to hunt for the clan and catching his first prey. He is punished when he returns to sleep in the elder’s den for a few nights. By the third day he barely sees it as a punishment, and begins spending lots of time there, Whitepath and Sparrowtail (canon: Halftail) becoming like grandparents to him.

As an apprentice he still becomes tempted by the lures of kittypet food and is briefly captured. When he returns he is chastised by Whitepath for giving in to temptation when he could have been using his hunting skills to feed the hungry clan. He swears off breaking the code, but he is otherwise not punished for his actions.

He is devastated following the fire and the death of Sparrowtail and Patchpelt. He grieves harder than most with his lack of faith in Starclan or any sort of beyond. He heals but feels more resentment towards stories of their ancestors as a result and he begins to share his opinions on them. When it’s brought to the attention of Bluestar by an offended clanmate, she laughs it off, saying that it was not her job to make any cat believe in Starclan when it was clear their ancestors were punishing the clan.

He becomes a warrior soon after, named Cloudpath, not only for his skills in tracking and his bond with the Thunderclan elders, but, as mentioned by Bluestar, he ‘walks a unique path that the clan would do well to learn from.’

Cloudpath is remise that none of the other apprentices are named warriors with him, but does not dwell on it. This is something he regrets deeply after Swiftpaw and Brightpaw’s accident and he becomes protective over Brightpaw during her recovery. He refuses to call Brightpaw by the name Lostface, something that is met with a mixed response by his clanmates.

When Firestar becomes leader, Cloudpath urges him to grant her a naming-changing ceremony, a ceremony he has heard about from the elders. Firestar grants her the highest honor he knows to give her through name, the suffix -heart. He says he never felt he properly lived up to it, but that she had shown great bravery, and she deserved it far more than he had. Cloudpath is overjoyed and soon after, he and Brightheart become mates.

Thank you for the ask @ace1z! Admittedly I did not plan to write this much but here we are lol. I plan to make a full lore post regarding the -heart suffix and other naming traditions in the clans soon, so keep an eye out for that if you’re interested!

WC REWRITE/AU ASK GAME 🐾

send an ask with the name of a canon character and I’ll tell you what major changes I’ve written for them!

[moths-wc-aus]

Clan Culture; ThunderClan

ThunderClan is known as the friendliest Clan, and is often teased about it by the other Clans.  They often invite kittypets and loners into their camp, and let them stay a while if they are injured or traveling.  Despite this, they're actually tied as the second most likely to take a non-Clan cat in as a permanent Clan member (the other second-placer being RiverClan).

ThunderClan cats tend to be very fluffy, but rather small compared to the other Clan cats.  They're muscular (although not as muscular as RiverClan), and their pelts tend to come in shades of browns, yellows, and oranges.

ThunderClan is one of the more traditional Clans.  They prefer names relating to a cat's personality (Fireheart, Tigerclaw, Brightheart), appearance (Snowfur, Redtail, Greystripe), or a mixture of both (Sandstorm, Whitestorm, Brambleclaw).  While they’re not the strictest about the warrior code (that honour belongs to WindClan), they are pretty firm in which rules are most important.

Wrenfeather, a ThunderClan healer, learned about gardening from RiverClan and began a garden of her own.  While RiverClan only ever gardened herbs, ThunderClan began growing flowers and other plants as well.  They even began growing plants in camp and using them as parts of their dens!  Many ThunderClan cats plant and tend to plants in memory of their loved ones- favourite flowers, or a particular vine, or a bush that grows flowers the same shade as their pelt or eyes.

True to their name, ThunderClan cats are… loud.  A quiet, contemplative cat is seen as an oddity, and is often the subject of wild rumors.  The only time a ThunderClan cat is truly quiet is when they're hunting.  In their minds, loud = powerful.

ThunderClan places a huge emphasis not just on being loud, but strength and prowess.  Cats with remarkable willpower and those who don't flinch in the face of danger are admired as true warriors of the Clan.  Battle scars are seen as trophies, and apprentices will often show off their first scars to whoever will look.

From an outsider's view, ThunderClan cats are vain, nosy, and prideful.  ThunderClan, on the other paw, see themselves as courageous and fierce.  They believe it's their job to help, no matter whether or not they've been asked to.  They often refer to it as their "holy duty", much to the chagrin of literally everyone else around them.

The ThunderClan accent is throaty and low in pitch, with emphasis on their vowels.  Many ThunderClan cats have a sort of rumble to their voices when they speak.

[thunders-warcats-stuff]

Thunder's Warrior Cats AUs

Prophecies Begin AUs

Apprentice to Leader - SkyClan happens right after Into the Wild. Firepaw gets strange dreams after the battle for ShadowClan and goes on an adventure. Things unravel back home

Fireheart’s Exile - One-shot, Fireheart gets exiled after he prevents in battle with WindClan and has to deal with the dogs himself

Firefang’s Rise - Female Rusty AU where Tigerclaw is mentored Firepaw but is still a traitor

Fireheart’s Sacrifice - One-shot, Fireheart gets hit by the car instead of Cinderpaw

Finding Jake (Jake Gets Involved) - Rusty’s looking for WindClan but finds ThunderClan instead

Growing Up Wild (Jake Gets Involved) - Jake takes Rusty, Princess, and Blackie (scourge) to live with WindClan but ends up in ThunderClan

Just a Dream - Firestar wakes up as a housecat after defeating Tigerclaw. Naturally, he tries to fix everything. Up to A Dangerous Path

Louder Than Words- Instead of going to StarClan, cats roam the forests as ghosts. No one knows why. Enter Rusty, a ghost seer who goes where cats ask him to. After things go terribly wrong, he’ll have more than just the new surroundings to adjust to.

Ravenpaw’s Stand - Redtail survives because Ravenpaw lunges for his mentor and distracts him long enough for both cats to run for the river

Reflection (one-shots)

Regrets of a Would-Be StarClan Cat =Swiftpaw lives. Here’s what happens next

RiverClan Chronicles (one-shots)

Rusty’s Family - AU where a stricter warrior code and tighter familial bonds make for a different story

ShadowClan Chronicles (one-shots)

Tigerclaw AUs (one-shots)

New Prophecy

Brambleclaw’s Ascendancy (one-shots) - Some one-shots about Brambleclaw set to Hamilton because why not?

Brambleclaw’s Worst Fear (one-shot) - Brambleclaw knows that the Dark Forest is more than just a dream, but just this once, he hopes he can wake up from this.

Journey (Blackstar AU) - Blackstar was a rogue before he joined ShadowClan. Now, as the cats leave for the Great Journey, some cats from his past make a reappearance

Next In Line - New Prophecy but everyone's all up in each other's business

Rescue Mission Gone Wrong - new prophecy's missing cats get tnr'd and that derails the plot

Secret Hopes - trans squilf and bramble acknowledges he has issues

The Other Side of Paradise - leaf and crow stay gone, Holly, Jay, and Lion grow up very different, and that just might save the clans

Power of Three/Omen of the Stars

Any Other Way - Warrior Jaypaw

As Long as I’m Here - Brambleclaw keeps an eye on the DF trainees

Denounced - Squilf and Bramble react differently to The Gathering ™

Fortune- ThunderClan's acceptance of a kitten with a dark past rocks the whole lakeside

Hidden - When Breezekit discovers a Clanmate's dangerous secret, Nightcloud gets help from another Clan and Crowfeather must choose to put his past to rest once and for all

Hurt Lionblaze- Lionblaze can't get hurt... unless there are strong feelings behind the attack. Ashfur's betrayal, for example, left more than a few scars to remember his mentor by.

Keeping the Secret- semi-genetics

Lessons Learned Psychiatrist Jaypaw learns from Half Moon

Long Shadows Fire Remix (Squilf goes off)

The Moons Without Stars (Moonpool found after Last Hope)

Runaways (Bramble Knows, calmer-ish reactions)

Secret Life of a ThunderClan Medic (Cinderpelt romance leads to Cinderpaw's strange life)

Shadows of StarClan (Founders reincarnated to fight DF)

The Outca(s)ts (Ashfur and the Dark Forest mystery)

A Vision of Shadows/The Broken Code/Starless Clan

Adoption- Alderpaw protests Twig + Violet being separated

Starting Again The warrior code and life as everyone knows it is uprooted after OotS

Outside Series Canon 

A Twist in Our Story- two best friends go through life together and figure out their love lives eventually

Afterlife- Bluestar is greeted in StarClan and explores 

Back to the Future - My favorite characters end up way in the future

Devastated- A healer is thought to have a forbidden relationship but is actually searching for a cure for a disease that affects their family

Futility, Valued- A Clan full of misfits struggles through the day. One, in particular, wants to be more than she is

How to Save A Life (edgy, tw for rape and suicide)- A bullied apprentice with one friend goes looking for StarClan and finds it. Meanwhile, everyone else has to deal with their part in his death

History Lessons- Cats read their series’

Human Neko Warriors- The Clans gain the ability to turn into humans as the forest is devastated. They remake their homes and traditions

Legacy - A shy cat makes friends with the leader and they get philosophical

Rants - mostly on framing vs context w/ certain characters

Reject the Deputy- Fireheart didn’t want to be deputy and is feeling the strain. He snaps at the Clan and runs off for a break. Some bits of his past resurface

Warriors In All But Name- Fireheart begs for Seiftpaw and the rest to become warriors. Bluestar refuses. A nasty argument ensues.

Shattering of Darkness - drugs in warcats makes everything worse

Strange Choices - a new leader’s unpopular choice for deputy is more than he seems

Sweetfur’s Legacy - edgy story undergoing a rewrite, tw for rape, One cat’s greed comes back to haunt him

To Love Without Acknowledgement - A romance between a clumsy warrior and his clan’s healer goes unremarked

[talonslockau]

my fav charries are mousefur and longtail,,, can you talk about them in talonslock???

Ah, Mousefur and Longtail, the young background cast of arc 1 that turned into the elder cast of arc 2. No hate towards you, anon - I think they're fun characters, I just wish the Erins would have done more with them, y'know?

(Possible light spoilers below the cut - nothing that explicitly covers future plots, but which may explain some cats' reactions in the future!)

To start off with, they're siblings with Quickflash (Runningwind) in my AU - One-eye being their mother. They're not especially close by sibling standards, but they do care deeply for one another (as seen by Longtail and Mousefur seeking revenge for Quickflash's death on Brokentail and company). They were born basically at the same time as Willowbranch, Mistspring, and Nightwish, so they were all essentially raised together, and in time they all kind of became pairs of friends- Quickflash and Willowbranch, Mousefur and Mistspring, Nightwish and Longtail. Quickflash and Willowbranch went on to become mates, as we know...

I won't cover Longtail's feelings over Nightwish in depth, but suffice it to say that he was devastated when she died. He was offered the apprenticeship of her son, Ravenkit, but refused it - he couldn't help but see Nightwish every time he looked at her son, and thought he wouldn't be fair to Ravenkit. (An interesting timeline would see him as Ravenpaw's father - it's interesting to think about how things might have changed then!)

He was apprenticed to Redtail at the same time that Darkpaw was apprenticed to Tigerclaw, and the four of them were all quite close before Redtail's death - they would often spar together, even after Darkstripe and Longtail became warriors. He was extremely close to Redtail, who taught him everything he knows today about the code. From Tigerclaw, his 'second mentor', he learned a great deal about fighting - but it was Redtail that taught him when to fight, and when to choose peace. Even after he became a warrior, it wasn't uncommon to see him eating with Bluestar and Redtail.

I think he's a very interesting character, especially since in my AU he wasn't the one to attack Fireheart because he was older and Redtail taught him to be less headstrong (that role went to Dustleap instead). He's previously had a very black-and-white outlook on things - either you are for the code, or against it. This lead to his strong dislike of Fireheart (a kittypet, and therefore against the code), as well as susceptible to the manipulation of Tigerclaw, who has always portrayed himself as a loyal, Code-abiding warrior. Recent events have turned all of his previous thinking on its head, and in the wake of Tigerclaw's destruction he has his own inner reckoning to deal with...

Mousefur, on the other paw, has always felt left behind by those around her. Her brother, Longtail, was apprenticed to the deputy himself (an honor normally reserved for leader's kits). Her other brother, Quickflash, eventually became deputy, after mentoring the deputy's kit Dustleap. Even her best friend, Mistspring, got an apprentice before her. Willowbranch and Nightwish were always considered the pretty mollies of the group, leaving her dead last in everything.

It's perhaps for this reason that she's poured every bit of herself into everything she does, which can sometimes have disastrous results. Prior to Rusty joining the Clan, she injured herself badly over a fight for Sunningrocks - a fight they lost, a loss she blames herself for. She's considered one of the best hunters in the Clan, alongside Dappleshine, Sandstorm, and Peppermask, but even then she's only 'one of' the best - she longs to be the best, to have something no one can challenge her on.

Now that Mousefur has an apprentice at the same time as her brother, as well as the deputy and his kits, she's started to feel like her life is finally going somewhere, and she's subsequently done everything she can to be the absolute best mentor to Cherrypaw - to the point Cherrypaw almost sees her as a third mother. She often goes to Dappleshine for tips, and Dappleshine (having previously gone through much of the struggles that Mousefur now deals with) is happy to help. Mousefur just wishes that someone, anyone, would notice how hard she's working, and care for her just because of her... but is that too much for her to ask?

(A bit long I know but I hope that satisfied you, anon! I'm open to doing deep dives of any character if any of y'all want to send an ask/comment - I have a lot of these characters rotating in my head when I'm bored [always] so I think about them a lot and have a lot of headcanons for them XD No spoilers though!)

[twilights-800-cats]

@lurking-in-windclan-camp​ To put it simply, the warriors are knights! There are different tiers of knight, divided by their seniority, with an elite Royal Guard (senior warriors) all led by the Kingdom’s Successor (deputy).

It’s admittedly fairly basic and really could just be it’s own thing at this point, divorced from Warriors. As far as human AUs go, it’s fairly basic as well lol. But here’s a rough infodump on the Kingdom hierarchies!!

It goes basically Child (kit) > Squire (apprentice) > Knight (warrior) > Royal Guard (senior warrior) > Successor (deputy) > King/Queen (leader), with Healer (medicine cat), Courtiers (queens), and Elders (retired) as fringe outliers.

Children chosen for court from the surrounding country villages (the territory, basically) are raised by Courtiers, then Squired to a Knight until they are anointed with their own titles. Children are usually chosen at around five or six years, taught and educated by Courtiers, then Squired at around 14. Knighthood typically comes anywhere from 18-22, depending on the Squire’s accomplishments.

Outsiders (those born outside of the Kingdoms) are generally avoided, but there are fringe cases where it has happened (eg. a certain redhead from outside the Kingdoms catching the eye of the venerated Bluestar).

Squires are meant to learn from their Knights all the ways to defend their Kingdom, and the Knight’s Code (the warrior code). Every Knight is different in how they’ll go about this. Squires are given a partial title (eg. Fire, Gray, Raven) that will be what they are referred to as from now on.  A King/Queen’s Squire, if there is one, is often presumed to be a future Successor, and depending on who currently holds that position, that can be very precarious.

Knights are the Kingdom’s general defenders! They receive their full title (eg. Fireheart, Graystripe, Sandstorm) and are tasked with the protection of their respective Kingdom. These titles generally take the place of their names, unless between close friends and family. The children of Knights are raised in court from birth and are firstly chosen for Squire positions.

Knights usually serve until death or about 60-65.

Royal Guards are Knights that have earned the prestige, through either seniority or deed, to act as the personal guard for their King or Queen. These are usually the ones most likely to be chosen for Succession.

Successors are the King/Queen’s second in command, next in line for the throne, and functionally treated as if they are the Royal’s kin. They are generally being trained to take full command of the Kingdom and are often seen handling Royal matters in the place of the King/Queen.

The King/Queen are the rulers of their respective Kingdoms. Each one is different in how they rule and how active or aggressive they are. Every leader is blessed by their Healer at a holy site and given the title of “star” to show their divine right to rule. They may also be given powers? Who knows!

Healers definitely have some magical powers! They take these from the Divines, and use them (along with a prodigious medical knowledge) to heal and guide their Kingdoms.

Courtiers are parents (some of whom are Knights) who take care of and educate children together. This role is very important, and they work with Elders to ensure the histories of their Kingdom aren’t lost. A Courtier is free to return to Knighthood after her children are Squired.

Elders are also extremely important, as the records of the Kingdom’s history lie with them. They hold tradition and stories close to their hearts, and often take the lead in the civilian territories.

[telepathicsnail]

For the dashboard osmosis game!! :DD

RWBY or Warrior cats? (Ye can chose either one!!)

Ok, here we go!

RWBY

Created by a company called roosterteeth. Why the rooster has teeth is unknown to me, but the concept is horrifying.

There are four girls. They are color coded: Red, White, Black, and Yellow.

The red one is named Ruby. I'm pretty sure she has this wild giant scythe looking thing that transforms. (This might be from another show; I don't know.)

The white one is named Weiss, I think. She has wings, possibly.

The black one is named Blake, maybe. She has cat ears. I do not know if they have a functional purpose.

I do not know the yellow one's name. She has purple eyes and lost an arm. I thought she had a very cool large fur-lined brown leather jacket but she does not. My brain made it up based on distorted memories of what her outfit actually looks like.

There is also a robot girl with ginger hair. She may be dead.

There are these very large doglike things. They are maybe called the grim or something. I think they are fighting them.

Characters keep dying. All of the time.

Warrior Cats

I read many of the original warrior cats books many years ago. I think I only got through the first three arcs. They were quite beloved. I remember the first arc the most, and my memory decreases as the arcs go on.

Rusty/Firepaw/Fireheart/Firestar is the protagonist of the first arc. He was a pet that travelled into the wild where there are four clans of feral cats. He joined Thunderclan. There was also Shadowclan, Riverclan, and Windclan. All the dead cats are in Starclan.

Firestar's best friend is Greystripe.

The leader of Thunderclan during Fireheart's time and his predecessor is a cat named Bluestar.

Fireheart's enemy is Tigerclaw/Tigerstar.

A wildly edgy cat named Scourge led a more urban ban of feral cats. He somehow attached dog claws to his own.

Scourge killed Tigerstar by taking all of his nine lives at once by disemboweling him. Even though most of the books are shockingly brutal for a series about cats approved for children, I remember this sequence being particular notable, with Tigerstar coming back to life every time only to bleed out again.

There are meetings of all the clans at full moons at somewhere to do with a tree.

There is a prey pile in the center of each camp - one time the one in Thunderclan was rotting and this was a very bad omen.

Medicine cats were consistently some of my favorite characters.

Near the end of my memories the cats travel to the mountains for reasons I can't remember. There was another group of cats living there. They told the forest cats to groom their kits in the wrong direction to warm them up when they were dying of the cold. There were some weird ancestral visons going on there with a pool of water.

Some of my favorite cats were: Firestar, Greystripe, Yellowfang, Leafpool, and Brightheart.

Now what I have learned through tumblr:

There is a cat named Jayfeather. He is blind and has visions. He has two siblings. They are the subject of a prophecy. They have powers. One of them drowned or died in a different way and they just kind of ... replaced him with another kit?

There are two cats I have completed the pickling of, and I read their wiki articles for research. One is Needletail. She got sentenced to death for rebellion, I think. This concept of cat executions inspires deep dread in me. The other is Flametail. He drowned. I think he is the drowned one mentioned in the previous bulletpoint.

This was quite fun, thank you! :D

[hometownrockstar]

i feel like warrior cats protagonists are so lame and predictable in these newer arcs, like i love alderheart but like... ok so into the wild had fireheart, greystripe and bluestar as main protags (sorry ravenpaw fans but i dont remember him being, like, THAT involved? hes more like cinderpelt to me. bluestar had narrative and plot development n stuff) and its like youre in fireheart's paws, learning abt this entirely new deal, with bluestar as a revered guidance figure who falls from grace.

the new prophecy is abt squirrelflight and brambleclaw, kids of the previous arc's main character and villain that already had narratives abt this brought up at the end of the first one so its going to explore that more, plus minor perspectives from other clan members who end up being important later in the series. power of three follows these little kits, the first main plotline perspective to start here and watch them grow as apprentices for more than a single book which starts this trend, and theyre very fun characters to follow and while they share a prophecy plotline like the previous plot, its different here where its about powers inherent to them. omen of the stars is similar to this, taking the young kit/apprentice and close sibling thing but expanding more on the growing resentment between them from lacking powers and how this factors into the end main plot. dawn of the clans... i havent read yet im sorry im sorry i know fake fan but you can tell how its different.

but then starting from a vision of shadows to the broken code and now soon a starless clan... the main protags all seem the same? 3 cats, usually apprentices or one young warrior, are already situated in these clans we know about. theyre probably kin or kits of important cats from the previous books, but it doesnt feel like its brought up that often as anything more than a setpiece rather than something to expand upon and add to their character development (it seems like the new cat flamepaw will explore this from the promo blurb but... why is it HIM and not squirrelflight or sparkpelt, who are also kin of firestar and look like him? gee i wonder why 🤔) in fact it feels like the only "development" these protags get is them resolving whether or not to leave their clan to be with their forced forbidden clan love. and when there ARE interesting tidbits abt them, like rootspring's ghost seeing abilities and connection to his father and shadowsight's whole deal, its never touched up upon as much as i want it to be. THAT stuff is interesting to me, not whether rootspring and bristlefrost will get together. i also cant like, name a character trait of anyone? i think exaggerating one or two big traits for these characters REALLY helps them stand out, like i remember squirrelflight for her brashness and jayfeather for his snappiness, but what traits do these cats have? theyre just not compelling protags anymore and i basically only like these modern books for the interesting convos and plot points about the code theyre only just NOW bringing up, but all these dumb forbidden love plots just get in the way of my enjoyment. i think it'd be neat if they did like more timeskips, not even as drastic as dotc like just a couple generations, or maybe bringing in a rogue or other outsider like firestar was.