#original post was created by Jayfeather though.

[quaranmine]

10 Years of Posting Fanfic: A Retrospective

(If you only care about reading my writing from when I was 12, skip to the cut)

I've always enjoyed reading as a kid. I was the kid in class who was reading at a high school level in intermediate school, and the kid who had 8 library books on her desk at a time. Therefore it is no surprise that I quickly realized that I enjoyed writing a lot too.

This post cannot be a look into when I started writing fanfiction though, because frankly I don't remember. Instead, all I have to go off of is the publishing date on my old fanfiction.net profile: December 15, 2013. I'm a little too young for the heyday of Live Journal and other fanfic sites, so ff.net was my first introduction to fanfiction. I also used to use Wattpad now and then, but I never posted anything there. I preferred ff.net, and did not make an AO3 account until 2016.

In middle school and intermediate school, if you asked what I wanted to be when I grew up, I'd tell you I wanted to be a novelist. Of course my actual career went a different direction--I'm now an environmental outreach specialist. But the great news about writing is that it can be done at any time!

Fanfiction.net was also my introduction into the world of fanfic, back when I stumbled onto some Jayfeather Warrior Cats fanfic from a random google search. It took me entirely by suprise to find out that I could actually read more stories about my favorite characters! It was like stumbling into a gold mine. I still remember how thrilled I was. I was instantly hooked, despite being more than a little traumatized by instantly finding a "lemon" and reading about cat sex at probably 11 or 12 years old. Somehow, that did not stop me. I continued to avoid lemons, and developed a huge taste for angst, whump, and hurt/comfort stories. In retrospect, I'm not sure my mom would have viewed reading about torture or suicidal characters as particularly better than smut, but oh well. She never knew.

Throughout middle school and early high school, I was constantly writing. In middle school I had a notebook and used to hand write fanfics and original stories inside. I had two friends who also liked writing, and together we'd spend time developing and editing each other's stories. It's during this time I posted my first stories on FF.net. In high school, my school gave every student a chromebook laptop, and I started writing fanfic in Google Docs on that. I was fearless and had no problems writing angsty anime fanfic in class, on a school-monitored device.

I stopped writing fanfic somewhere in 10th grade, though I never stopped reading it. I stopped writing it primarily because I spent a lot of time writing other things. I was taking college classes. I doing competitive essay writing (I medalled at state) and competitive literary criticism. I was doing art competitions. In 12th grade, I had a job reporting school news to my local newspaper. I wrote op-eds about the environment and dutifully recorded hours of school board meetings to summarize. Then, I was properly off to college, and despite the pandemic hitting a year later I had classes to take online and a part time job outdoors. I had 60 page mock-environmental risk assessments to write. I was too busy to write fiction.

The MCYT fandom is what brought back my desire to write. The creativity of this fandom is so astounding, and I'm grateful all the time that I get to see the things everybody creates. Back in 2021, I no longer felt like I just wanted to read. I felt restless again, so I started writing a DSMP story about clingyduo at the disc war finale. I scrapped this, but it set things into motion again. In the summer of 2021 I posted my first two fanfics in years. I received such good feedback. By kudos, NWNF is my most popular fic on the site, and The Babysitting Game is still 4th most popular. I'm super grateful for that, and I'm grateful for everybody here who reads my stories. I still can't really comprehend that I post things that people actually read now. I save so many of your comments to keep for later.

I'll stop reviewing my history of writing here. You guys know the rest. I wrote HC, Evo, ESMP, and Life series oneshots. I wrote my first long fic, and then smashed that record by writing another longer one that I'm less than two chapters away from finishing. It's been a huge amount of fun and the improvements I've made in two years of active writing is super encouraging.

If I've made this much progress in 10 years, who's to say what I could do in 10 more years? I really look forward to it.

Anyway, the sappy stuff aside, who wants to read the story I wrote when I was 12? I'll post it below the cut in its entirety, no matter how much psychic damage it dealt me. It's Doctor Who, because of course it is. It always goes back to Doctor Who with me :)

From the TARDIS Files--A One-Shot Book

by: crazykatz430 <- I used to go by this everywhere

Description: This is a book of drabbles and one shots-nothing long will be found here, and it will not be updated frequently. Chapters will often have more than one short story in it. Rated T because I'm paranoid, don't know about what I'll end up writing in future chapters. All that said, enjoy! EDIT: CANCELLED

Published: 2013-12-15

Words: 1196

Rated: Fiction T - Language: English - Genre: Humor/Adventure -

Characters: 11th Doctor, Clara O. - Reviews: 4 - Follows: 1

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A/N: Okay, so this is a collection of four short (I mean SHORT) oneshots I wrote, most of them just drabbles. So far, this will be just a fic to update when I write more short oneshots in the freewrites on my English Class.

Disclaimer: I don't own DW but if I did… <- oh the early days back when we were all sticking disclaimers on things but not knowing why

There will be a linbreak for new oneshots, and a cat symbol (crazyKATZ430..it's in the name) for the time skips or point of view changes..

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Without further ado, I present: Geronimo , Uploaded , The Forgotten , and Cemetery Nightmares .

Geronimo

Set: The Wedding of River Song

I don't know what to say. All my secrets, fears and enemies, they've all caught up to me. I've run too far, run for too long.

The prophecy states that silence will fall when the question is asked. The first question, the oldest and most important question. I do not know what the question is nor do I want to find out, for the silence that falls will be the silence of my death.

I do not want to do die here, at Lake Silencio, Utah, but it is a fixed point. It will always happen no matter how far or long I run from it. I don't want to die alone… don't want to make my love do it.

I have made a plan, one to hopefully save my life and the earth. Everyone will think I am dead, but it will be safer. They'll be safer from me.

Geronimo!

Now I know what to say, the same thing I've always said when adventure and danger and the unknown ensued…

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Uploaded

Set: The wi-fi's first victim ;

"Where am I?" I whispered, scared. "Hello?"

I looked around myself, studying the surroundings. It was all strange to me, I'd n idea where I was.

I felt panic rising in my chest. "I don't know where I am!" I shrieked, becoming ever more terrified. "Somebody, please, help me! Where am I, I don't know where I am!"

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I raced around the room looking for a way out of what appeared to be someone's bedroom. I gave a cry when I couldn't get out and I subconsciously returned to the computer. "Help me!" I screamed infrustration and fear, my heart racing as panic took over my body. "I don't know where I am!"

・・・・・・・・・・・・・・

The wi-fi had taken its first victim.

The uploading had begun.

The Forgotten

Set: hmm… can't remember. Strange.

I was alone in a cold, dark room, no other living thing in sight.

I can't remember what I've forgotten. But if I can't remember what I've forgotten, then how do I know I forgot something?

But I wasn't alone.

How did I know that? There was nothing visible..yet I felt there was another creature in the room.

Sudden pure, unexplainable terror washed over me. I yanked the sleeve of my shirt down and stared at the underside of my arm. One fresh, black tally mark marred my skin.

The panic reached its heighth and I dropped into a defensive postureautomatically. I didn't know why, it felt like I was forgetting something… I was confused and terrified.

A second crisp tally mark appeared on my arm, closely followed by three more. A full set. But why?

Fifteen or more sets of five tally marks were tattooed on my arm.

Wordlessly I pulled down my right sleeve. What I saw there cause me to scream in fright and drop to the ground.

・・・・・・・・・・・・・・

Doctor who?

Silence will fall when the question is asked. The first question, the oldest question…

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Cemetery Nightmares

Set: New York City, 1950 (set in New York City; however, the

character is British)

The statue had moved. It had really, properly moved!

Eagerly, I lifted my camera to take a picture. "Moving Statues in City Cemetery"? Sounded like a story to me! My editor always thought my stories were rubbish, but I begged to differ. Maybe he's let me print something with proof.

Curiosity killed the cat. This statue could be dangerous, what did I know of it? I smiled as I recalled the second part to the phrase. But satisfaction brought it back. Making up my mind, I held up the camera and clicked a picture.

I waited for it to move again, but it did not. Was it my eyes? No, I'd had two cups of heavily caffeinated tea this morning, you don't start seeing things untill the third day without sleep, I still had a day to go.

I huffed and sighed, closing my eyes. Why must good stories always slip way like this? Or was I just being too impatient?

Either way, I got a shock from when I reopened my eyes. The same stone figure, who seemed to be an angel statue, had moved again, closer to me. I didn't know if I should be happy for more evidence or scared because the hand seemed to be seemed to be reaching out to me…

I blinked again. A small cry escaped my lips as I noted it was closer. Was it all just some sick game? I was the only one in the cemetery though so that option was out of the question. Either way, the expression on the face of the angel now was frightening me. I decided it was best to leave.

I turned to walk back to my car, but on a whim turned to look back again. The statue had moved again, probably 15 meters in a few seconds! I began to tremble. It was like straight out of a horror movie! I just wanted to get away, to get home and out of this creepy place!

Then I made the mistake, my fatal mistake. My eyes began to burn and I blinked, a simple movement. But when I reopened my eyes I stood in a place far more different from where I'd been.

I was somewhere else! It was impossible, the city, cemetery and creepy angel statue were gone too! But where was I? I set out to find someone about what had turned into a nightmare for me. A cemetery nightmare.

The image of an angel becomes an angel.

・・・・・・・・・・・・・・

One bright red vintage camera lay on the ground, on button switched. The last picture it had taken displayed out from the screen. A seemly harmless picture of an angel statue, taken a minute before the camera's owner was whisked away.

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A/N: There you go, three short oneshots with a fourth that's twice the size of the others! PLease remember to review and say if it was good or not, and have a wonderful day… now that I've given you some stories of dying people. ( Geronimo had no dying but it was pretty intense if I do say so.) And please forgive me, I'm not British so I may tend to overdo some things…

(narrarator voice: she did not, in fact, ever upload another chapter)

Anyway, hope you enjoyed, as soon as I type it up, another's on its way!

[fencesandfrogs]

cloudtail’s daughter au

so i decided to do a full write-up of this au instead of doing a second post to cover books 4-6 and then everything will be self-contained.

the essence of this au is pretty simple: dovewing does not, imo, fulfill the prophecy by being the granddaughter of firestar’s nephew, because that’s at least 3 “kin” away from him. so while i think she’d actually have to be princess’ daughter to fit, i’ll let her be firestar’s grandniece and call that “close enough” because it’s better.

anyway, there’s no real reason for this to change anything, but i think given who cloudtail and brightheart are, and how close dovewing and ivypool are to whitewing, it would probably change quite a few things.

[4k words. 15 minute read. proper section headers.]

this is a big summary so i’m sure i’ll forget things, i’ve already had to add in the events caused by the dovewing/tigerheart romance/conflict that carries through the first three books, and that cloudtail being an atheist has a major effect on ivypaw. i know i wrote a detailed summary of the first arc, where i didn’t forget any of that, but nothing exists for the second arc. anyway this au is tagged cloudtail’s daughter and apparently i have a lot to say about it so i’m sure if you click on the tag you can find info about it. assuming this isn’t the first thing i post. which it might be.

section one: things that don’t happen

so i don’t want this to be a po3 rewrite, which means i’m going to take a moment to explicitly discuss what doesn’t change.

first, po3 stays pretty much exactly the same. i want jayfeather to be a warrior too. i also want him to be dovewing’s brother. but the au where brightheart gives birth to dovekit, anxiety child, and jaykit, blind, and feels like a failure despite the fact that its not like her half-blindness is genetic, is not this au. that is another au.

anyway, hollyleaf does keep herself more together, because she needs to be alive for some family drama. she’s in background character hell (BGCH) for a while, though, especially the first book.

she still goes to the tunnels, mind, she just comes out sooner.

but otherwise, despite my personal tastes, i’m not changing po3 very much.

section two: brightheart’s litters

okay so cloudtail and brightheart have four children, i believe, and my choice is either to replace whitewing, or to replace the others. now, i don’t particularly care for either of these options, but i’d rather they have their second litter younger, so we’re replacing amber/dew/snow. this still lets you have old queen drama, but not so much that you’re like “brightheart how on god’s green earth did you have 3 children with no issues”

instead, she’ll have dovekit and ivykit at about the same time whitewing had them.

now, for complicated cat genetic reasons, cloudtail could have been a black cat. now, here me out: what i mean is, if he wasn’t white, he could be black. basically, white is a masking color in cats, it goes on top of whatever pattern they would have displayed. both he and brightheart would have to inherit one dilute gene (princess was not dilute, so she had to carry it), and then either dovewing or brightheart are tortie, and that’s the best i can do for keeping dovewing grey.

i, personally, lean towards tortie brightheart, because i always pictured her that way, but i have seen some pretty cute tortie dovewing.

ivykit inherits red from her mother, and is tortie either way, because tortie ivypool is cute.

in fact, i’ve been tinkering with the idea that ivykit and dovekit have kind of mirrored grey and cream spots. not, like, perfectly mirrored, because that’s not how tortoiseshell/calico (they would technically be calico, since they have white) works, but close enough to be cute.

section three: arc one (summary)

these books are going to have six protagonists (dovekit, lionblaze, cinderheart, hollyleaf, jayfeather, ivypool, in that order) with a secondary character who gets less chapters but the most important b-plot (ivykit, hollyleaf, lionblaze, jayfeather, cinderheart, dovewing).

arc one focuses on “two braincells” i.e., dovewing, lionblaze, and cinderheart (sorry bb, ur not like the other two, but i’m putting you somewhere) and the main theme is dovepaw learning to manage her power. it’s a tug and pull between dovewing: glass canon, and dovewing: can’t do shit.

cinderheart and lionblaze also have a romance going on, which irritates ivypaw, who has a bit of a catalyst with the dark forest in the middle/end of the arc (like in the original). we only get this through external perspecives, though, because when this happens, lionblaze is in the secondary position.

one of the ways to fix this book series is to decouple it from ivy and dove, much as i love them. both the beavers and the dark forest make up a b-plot in this arc, while the quest for the third prophecy cat, as well as growing tensions between clans, take center stage, and lionblaze and cinderheart work in the second and third book to give us the adult perspective of the tension that dovekit and ivykit can’t in the first book.

mostly, this is fairly low stakes. part of that is because characters are having stakes appropriate for them, rather than smeared around in a book. (looking @ u, flametail buddy). so dovekit/paw spends her first book worried about apprentice things and doesn’t get to narrate again until the end of the series.

section four: book one — growing shadows

i think the fourth apprentice is a stupid name, okay?

so book one is dovekit and ivykit, for pretty obvious reasons.

although actually i’m pushing off the beavers in this to book two or three. i’m not 100% sure where i want that, yet.

so anyway, dovekit is born and wow is she anxiety child. (i call dovewing anxiety child a lot, because, well, she is? i feel like it’s sort of implicit in the books and i’m making it explicity.) anyway, she’s in sensory overload like 100% of the time. see, she was born late, and so she didn’t have her powers kick in over time like lionblaze and jayfeather. nope. she got the adult version right away.

so she spends a lot of time hiding with cloudtail because he’s big and fluffy and not complicated to look at. cloudtail and brightheart are understandibly pretty worried about her, because no one really knows what to do about it. she’s skittish and distractable and extremely sensitive. she hates going out in the rain, hates bright sun, etc.

(side note: dovekit’s powers extend to pretty much all her senses. she can see, hear, and smell much farther than she should, and she can taste and feel much more strongly than an other cat.)

ivykit doesn’t feel unloved, but she does know her sister is getting more attention, and that always kind of hurts, even if you’re understanding.

cloudtail and brightheart work to try to help dovekit get on her feet, but they’re not super successful. she learns to cope enough to be able to function as a kit, but she’s always kind of a strange, quiet kit. she doesn’t know how to talk about seeing too much because she doesn’t realize its too much.

dove is given to cinderheart, because lionblaze is a terrible mentor for small anxiety child, and ivy is given to lionblaze. this will also create drama later, just wait.

so the main plot of this book is keyed into dovepaw learning to hunt. the stakes are pretty low, honestly. they’re mounting around dovepaw and ivypaw, but the girls are too young to properly understand everything.

dovepaw is initially successful hunting due to some luck and being good at spotting prey, but she can’t replicate it. ivypaw only trains with her a bit at first, and she sees this success, and feels like her parents’ attention on dovepaw made dovepaw better than her.

this gets ivypaw into the dark forest. this is the b-plot: ivypaw training, realizing she made a mistake, and not knowing how to get out. plus, she doesn’t have to mind her sister. (ivypaw is raised by an atheist, so while she’s smart enough to eventually work out that these cats are evil, she doesn’t have a sunshine and rainbows view of starclan. that’s the only way i can justify her not being smart enough to nope the fuck out of there, even if she is really young and really angry.)

in clan life, ivypaw knows she needs to look out for dovepaw. she doesn’t mind, but she gets to experience a life without that in the dark forest.

dovepaw does mind how everyone treats her like she’s made of glass. she sees cinderheart talking to brightheart and jayfeather and firestar and feels like everyone thinks she’s useless. so she decides to go out on her own and prove she can function.

dovepaw starts sneaking out at night and she finds the tunnels. her senses dampened, she panicks, running deeper and deeper, getting lost. fallen leaves will find her, and help get her strength up and then get her out. kind of like with hollyleaf, who is out of the caves by now.

ivypaw sees everyone searching for dovepaw and starts to feel guilty about wanting more attention, and the fact that part of why she wants dovepaw back is so people pay attention to ivypaw again. she also feels responsible for this.

cinderheart is distraught, because she really did care about dovepaw, and it’s been three days, her scent tracked to the tunnels but it was raining and no one has seen her since, so she’s probably dead.

ivypaw, grieving, refuses to accept that dovepaw is dead and she hunts outside the tunnel mouth until she thinks she hears something.

dove and ivy reunite and return to the clan. ivypaw’s convictions that dovepaw needs to be protected are strengthened, and dovepaw knows she failed in her goal. everyone is happy to see them.

we get some fretting about how washed out everything is, how the rain didn’t even stick because the soil is so dry. that’s a cue to the drought, which will be a bigger deal next book.

section five: book two — fading echoes

honestly i’m not attached to book titles, but this works here too.

so this book is split between lionblaze and hollyleaf. i’m pretty sure hollyleaf is out of the caves by now, but i haven’t decided if she’s rejoined the clans. she feels strongly for fallen leaves: they’re listed as mates on the warrior cats wiki, and if hollyleaf and jayfeather are both going to have ancient dead ghost mates, she’s at least going to visit hers. her end goal is to get him to starclan so they can be together after her death.

anyway, this is beavers book. i don’t have a ton to say about it because it’s pretty much the same, except hollyleaf goes with dovepaw and cinderheart and she’s our pov as dovepaw falls for tigerheart because (and this is my understanding of her logic in the books to begin with): “big fluffy tom is safe fluffy tom.”

lionblaze feels the disconnect between him and ivypaw, but he can’t help that cinderheart is away. ivypaw is clearly preoccupied, but he can’t tell with what. his larger conflict is in finding the third cat.

this isn’t a filler book, per say. the tree falls and that happens, and lionblaze gets thrown into rebuilding camp. ivypaw feels doubly abandoned. lionblaze tries to win her affection, but he doesn’t know how.

beaver crew gets back. dovepaw has stars in her eyes. ivypaw is close to passing her warrior assessment, but lionblaze can tell she’s holding back because she doesn’t want to leave dovepaw. dovepaw can hunt by now, but she can’t really split her attention.

she’s scared of going into battle.

after a border skirmish where dovepaw just freezes, ideas of her being a medicine cat are raised.

ivypaw sees tigerheart in the dark forest, and she goes all bluefur being like “snowfur ur bf has rabies” on dovepaw, who is not happy with this. ivypaw pushes dovepaw to be a medicine cat because of this. the sisters are squabbling and barely talking.

book ends.

section six: book three — distant whispers

again not 100% sold on the names.

so this is cinderheart’s book, and she’s going to figure this out, because dovepaw and ivypaw are falling apart, and dovepaw deserves to be a warrior. so she convinces firestar to let her and lionblaze take ivypaw and dovepaw to the mountains. she believes, well, i’m not sure i haven’t worked that part out.

anyway, they go.

the tribe is like “yeah the world sure is a big place with a lot to look at. that’s why only half of us look.” (i know that’s not exactly how cave guard’s work but close enough.)

cinderheart is like “hm. what if, dovepaw, just a thought, what if you just, you know, avoid battles? i know it’s part of clan life but judging by the two souls crammed into my body, i’d say there’s been very few major conflicts over this and, reasonably, you should be able to avoid being chosen for battle control.”

dovepaw says, “but cinderheart, i’m a main character! unless i’m being punished or taught a lesson about duty, i’ll be automatically registered for every battle patrol until i die!”

cindheart says, “you’re right, i’m so sorry. hey ivypaw, [whoops yeah ivy and lion are here too sorry i forgot to mention that] what if you two learn to work as a team.”

dovepaw says, “i don’t want to work with her.”

ivypaw says, “that’s a great idea.”

because dovepaw talks very quietly (she forgets not everyone can hear as well as her), ivypaw wins.

they spend at least a month in the tribe, maybe longer, i’m not sure. eventually, they decide to go back. dovepaw is never happy in the tribe, it’s way too loud all the time, but she does manage to sort out her hunting issues, and so fighting is left.

so there’s still a big push for dovepaw to consider maybe being a medicine cat.

but that is not this au. this is the jaywing/dovefeather au where they basically switch roles. there’s a really good fic where dovepaw goes to riverclan for a while that i love and anyway this au is a as-close-as-possible to canon au for me to rectify my issues with dovewing in canon (nominally, i don’t have any, but i think her character was displayed…curiously, and i’m mad about the prophecy.)

ivypaw is team medicine cat. cinderheart and lionblaze are struggling. cinderheart eventually teaches dovepaw an extension of the techniques of the tribe, and they work out that dovepaw can kind of, track the cats she’s with to anchor herself in battle. this means dovepaw no longer is tied to ivypaw for her success, and so they both become warriors.

while they’re still in the tribe, ivypaw has time away from the dark forest and lionblaze finally puts two and two together, and that basically makes up the b-plot for the back half of the book, lionblaze trying to get ivypaw to admit what’s going on and then trying to help her.

dovewing’s senses begin to return but since they come back slowly she’s able to manage them. so she quickly excels in hunting.

ivypool cottons on to the dark forest breeding loyalty between its members, not to their original clans, and realizes that this is going to threaten all four of the clans.

end book with a bang, end first arc. we will now turn to the actually-have-more-than-two-braincells crew (sorry cinderheart, you don’t deserve to be in this group, but your prefix doesn’t end in -y, so you can’t be with jay/holly/ivy in the brainy crew.)

section seven: arc 2 (summary)

so this arc is when the main conflict (dark forest battle) becomes obvious. dovewing’s problems have been sorted out, so she’s pushed into BGCH for a little bit while the smart adults sort things out.

book three ends with ivypool realizing the dark forest isn’t a personal problem, but a clan-group (like, all of the clans together? not sure how to call it) sized problem. ivypool, jayfeather, and hollyleaf together manage to sort out a lot of the dark forest’s eventual plan, and they try to sort out a way to solve it. then the battle happens. that’s basically the summary?

in here, the clans start working together way sooner and the prophecy comes out way faster.

section eight: book 4 — the forgotten character

alright, hollyleaf is liberated from BGCH. actual title is still the forgotten warrior.

hollyleaf and ivypool start to bond, and hollyleaf is convinced all the clans need to know about what’s up.

ivypool disagrees, and they talk about it like rational people.

hollyleaf and fallen leaves are still cute.

jayfeather has his timetravel thing in this book so he can do flametail’s job in the next book. he gets to talk to hollyleaf and fallen leaves about it.

i don’t think i’d mess with jayfeather and briarlight’s relationship in this au, because i think it’s sweet in canon as is, but you know i have thoughts about half moon and briarlight. anyway, jayfeather gets his book next, this is about hollyleaf.

fallen leaves helps hollyleaf learn to control, idk, spirit dream travel? jayfeather helps with this too. hollyleaf has to share extra hard with jayfeather because she took up a disproportionate amount of time in lionblaze’s book.

so anyway, hollyleaf is learning to travel into the dark forest. similar to the way dark forest cats leave it? but in reverse. this is the main plot.

like the second book, it’s not really filler, so much as lower stakes, and like the second book, i don’t have a ton to say about it because the plot is self evident. unfortunately, hollyleaf has the two “chill” books. sorry bb.

anyway, this is building into jayfeather going all angry old man yells at sky at starclan next book, so the biggest conflict in this book is hollyleaf realizing she can just, leave. she can go back in time the way jayfeather did, but on purpose, save fallen leaves, and they can be alive.

i mean, that wouldn’t actually work, not the least because i’m not keen on hollyleaf being a reincarnation, espcially in the reincarnation-lite universe, but also because she can’t save fallen leaves, then he wouldn’t be a sharpclaw, not really, and like a whole host of other issues but anyway

at the end of power of three, hollyleaf runs away from her problems. this book is about her standing up to defend them.

i don’t know if she explicitly breaks up with fallen leaves, but they have a falling out that won’t get resolved until after the great battle. this is a mutual/not mutual thing where they both know that fallen leaves is stopping hollyleaf from fully committing to helping her clans now, but they love each other.

relationship conflict that isn’t forbidden romance.

speaking of, ivypool getting close to hollyleaf means that the two of them start to reconnect with their siblings. hollyleaf’s actions alienated her from jayfeather and lionblaze and she kind of just was sad and apologetic but they didn’t want to forgive her.

(sorry hollybush, says jayfeather,

that’s not my name, says hollyleaf,

oh, says jayfeather, guess i forget. well anyway, i have a new sister now. her name is dovewing.

dovewing?, says hollyleaf. but you don’t like her.

it’s okay, says jayfeather, she never tore my family to shreds and then abandoned me to deal with the fallout.)

(jayfeather and hollyleaf always seemed closer to me than lionblaze and either of them, until hollyleaf’s whole event. anyway he remains petty about everything and lionblaze stands by him because, well, he’s not wrong, also dovewing is important to cinderheart so he feels like he should be on her side on this which means jayfeather’s side. even though cinderheart is friends with hollyleaf look i said lionblaze is a loveable dumbass already, didn’t i?)

so anyway hollyleaf is sad and ivypool sees that and is like “hm maybe i shouldn’t be a petty bitch for no reason” and this is fine until after this series is over when dovewing and tigerheart are like “bitch we gon b together”

dovewing’s emotions get jayfeather to, well, not go back on his actions, but recognize hollyleaf is the most effective person to work with. because lionblaze and dovewing are just. so dumb.

and yeah this book ends with things feeling almost hopeful.

section nine: book 5 — sign of the moon

i cannot overstate how little i care about the titles of these books.

anyway, jayfeather and cinderheart.

i don’t have a ton of thoughts about this one. jayfeather reunites starclan, cinderheart helps convince ivypool and dovewing to work together. this is the book where clans find out about the propechy but not the dark forest that is for next book

they know something is coming, but everyone agrees not to give ivypool away yet. they like her, you know, alive.

anyway, i don’t have much to say because it’s pretty obvious what happens, because this is just a bunch of events from other books crammed into this book, now, and they’ve been written and i don’t see the need to make many changes.

cinderheart and lionblaze have kit drama, maybe? cinderheart counsels dovewing about tigerheart, maybe? my point is it’s not super important.

the book ends with the two warriors to every camp. and dovewing, jayfeather, and lionblaze, are going to get split up.

this is my biggest change so far imo because it’s the most plot relevant.

dovewing is going to shadowclan with ivypool. jayfeather is going to windclan with…i’m not sure yet? i don’t want him going to riverclan because leafpool has ties to riverclan and, well, i want jayfeather to get a chance to stand on his own. and lionblaze goes to riverclan, with either cinderheart or hollyleaf.

jayfeather is super grumbly about this, but admits that it’s important as a show of unity, and also, he’s pretty functional in wind clan? like they’re all playing to their strengths.

jayfeather learns to navigate pretty quickly, dovewing appreciates quiet and also not being that-strange-cat who everyone is super careful around, and lionblaze is big and gregarious and enjoys riverclan being chill and friendly. so yeah, people get a chance to chill and be happy.

ivypool is in position to be angsty next book.

end book.

section ten: book 6 — the last hope

despite my claim that the biggest change is sending the three to different clans, i don’t have a lot to say about it.

basically, well, okay

first, we see ivypool and dovewing again. reminder that last time we were in one of their heads, they were apprentices. in book one.

dovewing couldn’t even hunt last time we had her pov.

so there’s a few chapters to some characterization that happens. dovewing is no longer anxiety child. she’s somewhat shy, she’s soft spoken, but she’s not skittish. you can’t surprise her. and she’s intense. she’ll just stare at you with wide eyes if you come talk to her until you say something she wants to respond to.

ivypool sees why dovewing and tigerheart are good together. she’s still not supportive, but, like, he understands her. he doesn’t treat her like she’s fragile, but he also is kind and forgiving and soft to her.

plus he’s a total simp for dovewing. that helps.

anyway, ivypool gets along fairly well in shadowclan. i don’t have ton of thoughts about this.

ivypool, hollyleaf/cinderheart, and jayfeather’s companion, as well as half of the other cats away on missions, are acting as messengers between their host clans and their home clans. that’s how ivypool gets to find out about info. they meet on the island every morning. or something.

anyway, this bit is where i most hate the set up of this with two pov per book hard cap because it’d be cool to see into everyone else’s head but that’s for novellas and side stories.

the battle happens.

everything sucks. dovewing has basically committed to tigerheart, but bramblestar’s storm messes with the timeline.

and that’s pretty much it.

section eleven: what’s next?

so i swore i wasn’t starting new fic and then i thought of this and now i do want to write it so, maybe?

the most important thing is:

tl/dr: the reason dovewing shouldn’t have been a prophecy cat is because she’s not the kin of firestar’s kin.

[wctfa]

Welcome to WCTFA!

This is an introduction post to this blog and AU!

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What is WCTFA?

This is a combination AU of Warrior Cats and Transformers: Animated. It involves taking characters from TFA (and other conts if needed) and putting them into the place of other characters from Warriors!

What are the plans for the AU?

We are focusing on the Power of Three arc, just aiming to show snippets of interest here and there! There are as of now no plans to make a full comic or fic or anything, just creating a story and filling in information as is desired.

How should others interact with the blog?

People are more than welcome to send asks about how characters and dynamics are translated across the AU or really anything else! This is by no means a long-suffered AU; we’ve only had it for a month or so, so we would love to hear what others have to think about the AU! People are also definitely welcome to to make their own content for it!

Where is [x character] in this AU?

We are only three people, and have only seen a small number of different continuities. We have done our best to include as many TFA characters as possible that we are familiar with, but if there is a character that is not in TFA specifically, they likely don’t have a set place in this AU. That being said, we are open to suggestions from others! If you have a character that you think would fit in a particular position, let us know and we’ll consider it! Do know, though, that making a character connection on your own outside of this blog does not make it this blog’s canon.

What about characters that are put into ship/family situations that they weren’t in before?

Thus far, our solution to this is to work around it. For example, Prowl takes Jayfeather’s place in the Po3, but is not siblings with the other two. Deviations like this can definitely be made to fix weird relationship/family situations! The goal is to make the story stay relatively the same while also making sense within the original characters. Note also that relationships in this AU will reflect ships of the creators’ choice.

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If you have any questions, please feel free to ask! You can also see our about page-- we will try to add more to it as time goes on, but at the moment it’s mostly the same as this post. We should be uploading actual content here soon.

[smokedcapybara]

I somehow ended up rambling to someone on a discord server about some of my oldest characters and I realized just how much they affected how I write

not like my writing voice or anything like that but how I treat tropes and my sorta go-to bases for characters and how I do relationships and interactions and stuff like that

and I realized that despite the huge impact they’ve had on me and how much I love them I don’t talk about them very often, especially on here

so I’m gonna dedicate the rest of this post to going through every one of those early roleplays and the characters that came from them and how they’ve affected my writing

First - The Shadow Warriors

the first ever roleplay that I got create the story for - and I went straight for trope subversion without even knowing what that was

I took every stereotype for evil characters I could think of and made that the good guys and made the literal knights in shining armor the not technically evil but misinformed and working for Bad empirialistic governments ‘bad guys’

essentially the story was that there was a small village in the one inhabitable part of a mountain range and all these surrounding empires wanted the village to be part of them so they could say the whole range was theirs but the villagers refused so the empires started sending in soldiers

but the village was defended from the attempts at force by a black dragon that had made his home in the mountains

so the empires started sending more troops

and he fought them all off

and eventually the empires all stopped trying

but all the battles left the dragon much weaker than before and he could barely hunt for himself

so the village sent up some of their youth, to hunt for him or be eaten by him(though they hoped for the former), and he chose a few of the youth to stay with him, hunt for him and be trained by him, and sent the rest back down

and it became a tradition, every year the village would send all the youth of a certain age up the dragon’s mountain, he’d select some to stay and the rest would return, and then those that stayed would be trained and would help hunt

and when the first group reached adulthood he selected some of them to help him train the younger ones and sent the rest back down to use what he had taught them to defend the village

among the things he taught was the ability to turn into shadowy smoke to avoid injury and all who he taught wore black to match his black scales, so the villagers began calling them the Shadow Warriors

and then after a short time the empires started sending knights on quests to slay him and the task of defending him and his students was taken up by the Shadow Warriors

so the roleplay started with all our characters being sent up the mountain for the selection(or, all but two who were introduced later as members of the next year’s batch)

my first two were

a dark skinned girl with an analytical mind and a loyalty to rules, a woman of science and alchemy, named Alexir(pronounced like elixir)

and a soft spoken enigma, pale as snow, with his own strict morals, and a talent for illusions, he had no name but his fellow students started calling him Pale Boy because everyone from the village was at least tan, later he earned the moniker Illusion for his absolute mastery of his own senses and everyone else’s

my character who came later with his twin brother was originally named Rainbow but I’ve since changed it to the Norse word for rainbow, which is Regnbogi, the son of a pirate he was a shamelessly flamboyant jokester with gorgeous rainbow hair(I was not creative with names) and a missing eye from a childhood accident

and then of course there was the dragon himself

Svartr

of course his original name was much less Norse and much more obvious

Shade

the shadow dragon

even more shamelessly flamboyant than Regnbogi

he had a ‘human form’ that was pale skinned with red eyes and long black hair and a black goatee

he talked and walked and draped himself over furniture like your classic ‘flamboyant villain’ character

he’s a huge flirt

and he’s incredibly selfless and benevolent

also he gets what I call ‘The Adventurer’s Itch’, the inability to remain stagnant for any significant length of time, every couple hundred years he has to go on an adventure(this infuriates the rest of the Dragon Prince Council[which I created many years after the Shadow Warriors] cause it causes him to be late to many council meetings and even miss some altogether)

obviously, Shadow Warriors affected my tendency to subvert tropes, not because I think it’ll make the story somehow Better or because I’m Making a Statement or for Plot Twist or anything, I just Really Enjoy how it makes me think

it also gave me the base characters of 1.flamboyant man(usually a flirt but not always), 2.intellectual woman, 3.soft-spoken man

and my tendency to gravitate anyone with those bases to people with the other bases

Second - The Pantheon

the second ever roleplay I got to create the story for

and once again I decided to go big or go home

I said ‘lets take every religion on earth and make a world where none of them are true, and actual deities grow up as just normal humans until they Discover their deity-ness. now let’s take a bunch of kids in a street gang and have them suddenly find out that they’re all deities’

and so I have my two street gang girls

Rebecca, the wiry, excitable, blonde knife fighter who turns out to be a goddess of winds

and Laea, the powerhouse of the gang, who can take on a whole other gang on her own, a fistfighter, and younger sister of one of the city police, whose love of fighting is only matched by Rebecca, her best friend and girlfriend, Laea is a goddess of the earth

after the gang members discover their divinity they’re sent by the head goddesses of the main pantheon, the goddess of nature and her younger sisters, the goddess of fire and the goddess of water, to be trained in using their divine abilities and then are sent to prove their worth to the pantheon

the gang are sent on a quest to recruit a goddess of ice into the pantheon, many have been sent but none have succeeded

they get to the temple she lives in(a temple to the greek goddess Athena, because mankind still worships the same gods as in real life) and eventually find out that the reason nobody has succeeded in recruiting her to a pantheon is because she’s been cursed to be unable to leave the temple and thus literally cannot join a pantheon

they help her break the curse and so Ganlina, regal and traditional goddess of ice joins the pantheon, and eventually Laea and Rebecca’s relationship too

(though of course none of the relationship stuff happened in the roleplay, it’s all stuff I added later, after I started to get past the heteronormativity I grew up with)

the gang is then pulled into a war between the pantheon and the goddess of shadows and death(who’s actually, it turns out, not really evil, just so freaking sick of being ostracized for what she’s the goddess of that she decided to turn against everyone and prove them right)

they go on several more quests to help defeat the goddess of death, the only one of which I can actually remember still involved Ganlina feeling pain for the first time in her life because her powers create an impenetrable ice layer over her skin, but even that can’t completely protect against a punch from the god of strength, so she had a moment similar to Legolas in him and Gimli’s drinking competition

this roleplay affected, or set a precedent for, how I approach religion and divinity in my stories, which is to say that generally I don’t

it also added big strong woman, excitable woman, and regal woman to my base characters(though I don’t use them as often as, say, flamboyant man[which might be the base character I use the most often])

and also, again, I tend to gravitate characters with these bases toward/around each other

Third - The Order of Masks

this one I did not come up with the story, a semi-post-apocalyptic superhero story roleplay my brother came up with the premise for

unfortunately all I can remember about the premise is that it’s a group like the Justice League except a little more organized, a little more underground, a little more official, and a little more invested in their apprentices&proteges

also, all of them wear masks, more like masquerade masks than the classic domino mask too

I had several characters throughout it, because I was less confident in my character creating skills and had a tendency to scrap a character because I was just Not Invested in them

the four I scrapped(that I can remember) were named Jay, Swan, Peacock, and Peafowl(these were their hero names, I didn’t give any of them real names)

Jay was literally just a human version of Jayfeather from Warriors, Peacock and Peafowl were insufferably proud and self-centered twins, and Swan was just kinda waay too over powered with no personality to make up for it

the characters I kept were Falcon, Raven, Lion, and Streak

Falcon was one of the main heroes, a strict but kind woman with the power to locate anyone at any time no matter where they are, obviously she had a day job as a bounty hunter, in which she was known as Bird of Prey

Raven was Falcon’s protege, a serious minded, no-nonsense girl with power over wind and the ability to grow wings(or pop working wings into existence on her back might be more accurate)

Lion was somehow Raven’s best friend, despite being a total flirt who couldn’t take anything seriously if his life depended on it, he came from a family of hero musicians, had super-strength and a banjo with a hidden dagger he called his banjagger

Streak was a weird character that somehow lasted against all odds, a blind and deaf girl with power over the movement of molecules who was stronger in hot&dry areas because she was from the desert

Falcon started the base character of the strict but kind mentor woman, Lion and Raven are branch-off bases from the flamboyant man and the intellectual woman, the flirtatious man and the serious woman(bases I tend to pair together - not in relationships, just in general)

Streak helped me learn not to make a character too much

Fourth - Gooz and The Little Black Kitten

I don’t remember much about their story, just that the main characters were Tomb Raider’s children

Gooz and the LBK helped me realize that sometimes the best and most memorable characters are simply the ones that are the most fun, even if nothing about them makes sense

Gooz’s official name is Intelligent And Highly Explosive Cream(or something along those lines, I don’t remember exactly) but he prefers Gooz

he’s an experiment, the kind where you say there’s no possible reason for the scientists to do this but the scientists are like ‘we just want to see if we can’

he is a cream

that has an intelligence and a personality

he communicates telepathically

he causes explosions when he touches anything with over a certain level of force

in the roleplay he got applied to the outsides of a pair of gloves and a pair of boots

that he then somehow had the ability to control

his chosen name is Gooz because that’s how he pronounces ‘goo’, for some reason anytime he tries to ‘say’ a word that ends with a vowel ‘z’ ends up being added in, also ‘s’ is replaced with ‘z’ usually

he’s a bit of a goofball and just really loves people, wants to be treated as an intelligence with wants and likes and feelings

the Little Black Kitten is just that, a little black kitten, small enough to fit in the palm of your hand, who can speak

and boy does she

she is the most dry, snarky, does-not-care-and-literally-just-wants-to-be-left-alone, little thing you will ever meet

instead of growling or hissing when upset she just says, in a completely flat voice, ‘hiss, growl, go away’

she’s like the goth of tiny kittens

but somehow her and Gooz became friends

I think she just liked that she could curl up inside his boot and anyone trying to get her out would risk blowing themself up and then he just kinda grew on her

they started my love for having characters use dry wit, characters who are friendly and innocent(relatively), and the most unlikely of friendships

also, like I said at the beginning of this section, they helped me learn not to take myself too seriously in creating characters and letting them grow into whatever amazingly ridiculous or ridiculously amazing thing they end up growing into

and, of course, they showed me that sometimes the side characters are so much more engaging, enjoyable, and memorable than the main characters

if you have some really old ocs you haven’t thought about in a while you should look back and see how they’ve affected your current ocs and how you write, you might be surprised