#which he passed down to squilf

[duskfeatherz]

you should draw hollyleaf............

sorry this took a hot minute, school decided to ramp up when i posted last time LOL

bonus genetic stuff because im autistic about that

[warrior-cats-rewritten]

With Thunder released, I think it is almost time to finalize some plans for WCR!A Starless Clan.

Needless to say, MASSIVE spoilers for A Starless Clan, especially book 4, Thunder.

Under the cut are some IDEAS. NOTHING HERR IS FINAL YET AND ALL IS SUBJECT TO CHANGE. Behold, my chaotic note-taking in its raw, unfiltered form.

So. First concept: All leaders are at one point either deposed or killed.

Mistystar dies the same awkward way, but with more emotion this time. She is the leader most of Riverclan has known either all their lives, or most of their lives. However, and I cannot emphasize this enough, Mistystar had dementia. She was holding on by threads before she dropped dead.

Leafstar dies suddenly as well due to a massive heart attack, falling off of Highbranch and breaking her neck. The problem here is, ex-deputy Waspwhisker JUST SHOWED UP. This leads to the release of Waspwhisker's Adventure, where he and the other kidnapped Skyclan cats come home.

'so what'd I miss?'.mp3 moment

Tigerheartstar is dethroned. Berryheart's group is too powerful, and Puddleshine does agree. At least, with staying out of Riverclan. Shadowclan just had a major Greencough epidemic and Birchkit is dead due to it, they needed his support. Shadowsight is also missing.

Cloverfoot, however, picks Berryheart as deputy (Berryheart will have also had an apprentice by this point) and goes off to the Moonpool, only for a larger than normal gray fox to kill her. It leaves Berryheart alone, and, much to Sunbeam's horror, allows her to go to the Moonpool.

Splashtail also races up behind her, and the 2 earn their names.

Enter Splashstar and Berrystar. Frostpaw was too late.

Frostpaw also now time travels with Nightheart, Shadowsight, and Whistlepaw. Nightheart is an idiot who never studied history (though he did study Camp Keeping and Glyphs), but the other 3 (especially Whistlepaw) know to take on differently styled names, referencing heroes they heard of in stories.

Shadow Eyes, Whistle, Frosty Paws, and... The other guy who inspired Night Heart, first deputy of Riverclan.

"Stop laughing at me I PREFERRED LEARNING GLYPHS"

Harestar passes after a long, brutal battle with Blackcough. His Deputy, Breezepelt, is about to go to the Moonpool with his new Deputy Heathertail and Kestralflight, when the dog pack attacks AGAIN. I'm not sure if it kills Breezepelt, but it sure as hell leaves him out of commission. He will, tragically, not become leader. In wake of the events, Heathertail turns to the one cat she has always been able to vent to. Lionblaze. Not as a lover, just friends.

Since Squilf steps down in Squirrelflight's Freedom, she... also won't become leader. I love her so much, but her not becoming leader means Leafpool lives longer, and she actually gets the rest she deserves with her sister and new husband Shrewfeather. Hey, at least she gets to keep being Squilf. I love Squirrelstar but I don't like that name very much, doesn't feel right. I want some canon cats to get caught up on it too because Squirrelflight is such a good name, and she's good humored enough I don't think it would bother her. ANYWAY

Hollyleaf is deputy, and Bramblestar does not want to give up his position, he isn't happy that his Clan now fears him, and that makes him lash out because he 'always knew they were suspicious of me'. Self fulfilling prophecy, my boy. Maybe stop using your huge size and BOOMING voice to get what you want.

When the Clan uses their votes to vote him out, the vote starts with... Dandeliontuft. She completes her arc. She was the first to know that Bramblestar was replaced when he started paying more attention to her, and now she is going to take down the real one.

Is Bramblestar had a nickel for every time he has been snapped at by golden tabby mollies he was related to, he would have 3 nickels. Not a lot, but he doesn't have a concept of money, so that's okay.

They vote against him because his leadership has been nothing but disaster. Which....

Fair enough. Ashfur wasn't his fault but there's a reason no one thought he'd been replaced for a WHILE, longer than in canon. Bramblestar was not liked, most cats were gunning for Hollyleaf to be made leader.

He tries to fight back against this, that he was blessed by Starclan, this is unfair, they were only doing this because of his father, what would Firestar think?

For the second time in Clan history, in broad daylight, a lightning bolt strikes. It is taken as a very clear sign. Starclan has made its approval of Hollyleaf QUITE clear!

But! Boom! A wild Lionblaze and Heathertail appeared!

Lionblaze used Announcement!

"THE MOONPOOL IS CURSED"

it's super effective...

Well, that sucks. But Hollyleaf is smart. She knows that something will be done about it, but in the meantime, take leader names, pick new deputies, and build yourselves up. Skyclan is about to break into civil war, Splashstar and Berrystar are coming down on the other Clans to purge 'outsider blood' and make them "pure" again.

Hollystar names Lilyheart or Rosepetal her deputy. Haven't decided yet.

I know Frostpaw is gonna stay in Windclan for a while, trying to unravel the mystery behind Curlfeather and her group, because there needs to be more to it than what she has been told.

Sunbeam is done with Nightheart's whiny crap, and will probably end up with Myrtlebloom or Finchlight, or back with Lightleap. He is told to get over himself.

Lightleap is now a POV and is struggling with being enough, throwing herself into more and more reckless situations and overworking herself. She needs to prove herself, in her own eyes.

Frostpaw has an epic escape from an animal hospital, also Smoky died of pneumonia between arcs. The three new barn cats are Rosey (tortoiseshell molly with green eyes), Whiskers (black tom with long white whiskers), and Muffin (white tom with blue eyes, deaf in one ear). They had no idea what would happen, but they are young and panicked at the sight of Frostpaw's wounds, calling for the Twolegs, who rush Frostpaw to the vet. She trusts them through her fear, as is her nature.

Jury's out on if she still gets spayed.

Fringewhisker loses her back leg to Berryheart's trials, before she and Spireclaw flee Shadowclan, heading for Skyclan. It may be a shitstorm over there, but at least they will be safe.

Frostpaw is determined to know what is causing the curse, and to get to the bottom of it.

The arc ends with the villains winning, leading to the next arc, Dark Times, because we need to take it easy on how disconnected the arcs are.

Arcs 9 and 10 are Homebrew.

Dark Times and Beyond The Stars.

Also, the book names for A Starless Clan have begun to shuffle, I know the first one is River and the last WILL be Star.

[warriorsbutnotreally]

Hypokits my beloved…

So, this one’s weird a bit, and I’m not sure how would you react (was not on the black list, but still), so sorry in advance if you don’t like it, feel free to ignore

What would Spark and Alder look like if Bramblestar chose Jessy at the end of BSS and they were hers?

idm Jessy x Bramblestar, even though I don't ship it myself [he at least was never shown to be consistently shitty towards her, though I can't see them lasting because Jessy, like Squilf, is a spirited and stubborn cat]

I will admit I don't keep them together in this AU, BUT that's a small detail and you're free to ignore it

also after the initial awkwardness, Jessy and Squilf do become friends and Squilf was Alderpaw/heart's mentor cause Jessy trusted her the most with her nervous son

and Jessy never takes a warrior name cause I like the idea of her refusing to give up her name

[ID: the image depicts four cats - two alive and two spirits. The living cats are sitting back to back with one sibling behind each of them. From left to right -

Rumblekit is a dark brown tabby tom with a gray-brown muzzle, gray-brown chest, and a gray-brown underside. He has brownish amber eyes that are solid in color due to being a ghost. He has a swoop of fur going over one eye and a thick-furred tabby tail. He is hovering lightly in the air and his hind legs are covered by Brandypelt's head. He looks worried.

Brandypelt is a lighter brown molly with darker brown points and two stripes on the side of her face. Her underbelly is a creamy brown color, which she also has on the lower half of her dark brown tail and at the bottom of her paws. Her eyes are reddish in color and she has some light creamy brown markings over her eyes. She is facing to the left and sitting down. She seems determined. She wears two claw earrings in her right ear and her tail, like Rumblekit's, is thick.

Next is Alderheart, who is a dark brown tabby with a light brown face, light brown chest plus underside, light brown paws, and a thin tail. His eyes are magenta in color. He seems nervous, his head lowered, one paw raised to his chest, and his tail wrapped around himself. The fur on the top of his head is sleeked back. He has a tuft of fur on his chin that looks like a scruffy beard.

Finally is Flowerkit, who is a brown molly with dark brown ears, dark brown legs, dark brown over her eyes, and a dark brown tail. She had a brown-gray streak on her nose, a gray-brown chest, and pinkish eyes that are solid colored due to her being a ghost. She is mostly blocked by Alderheart's head, but she appears to be worried and reaching a paw out to her living brother.]

so!

let's start with the two little elephants in the room; I also did Juniperkit and Marigoldkit [Rumblekit and Flowerkit respectively here].

Rumblekit was originally going to be named Thunderkit, because Jessy was trying to celebrate how she was brought to ThunderClan, but Bramblestar didn't like the idea. After some thought, he agreed when she suggested Rumblekit.

Rumblekit had a heart condition and that's what eventually caused his death after the stress of Flowerkit's death was too much.

Flowerkit was named somewhat after her grandma, Goldenflower, though mostly because Jessy thought Flower would make a nice name and so she figured that name would be the most fitting.

Flowerkit passed from sickness after a long struggle

now onto the next part;

Brandypelt [Sparkpelt] was a big stress for the couple when it came to naming. Bramblestar wanted her to have a normal name while Jessy refused to let up on naming her after her friend, Minty's sibling, Brandy.

Bramblestar refers to her as Bramblepelt cause he doesn't understand what a 'Brandy' is. Brandypelt does not get along with her father at all.

Alderheart's name stayed the same because I couldn't figure another name that fit and naming him after a tree just felt right. So he got to stay Alderheart.

Alderheart got his name as a warrior, but because I imagine Jessy and Bramblestar broke up after their kids became warriors, Bramblestar did proceed to put his son in the medicine cat den cause he thought Alderheart would do better there.

/

as a side note;

Jessy 100% approves of her son's crush on Velvet and would've defended his feelings for her.

[vixenday]

Why does Lionpaw have Squirrelflight’s ears and markings if she’s not his actual mother, unless she is in this AU?

okay okay hold on let me get their designs rq, and no she’s not their bio mom, it’s still crowpool

okay!! the most notable traits are that their paws all have coloring, but their left (right?? i’m bad with directions) paw is white (or a significantly lighter color), their floppy ears with the splotching on the tip, and their white/cream tipped tail. and their back and tail ig but i do that design feature with too many cats for it to count

OKAY so these designs were originally made for an animatic (hence the notes) that then turned into the crush au (i’ll put its tag down here in case you want to see it) in which lionpaw sort of kind of almost kills ashfur and thinks he did for a long while. the parallels between him and squilf were important to me because i thought it was cool that the one to almost kill ashfur for what he did to squirrelflight was the kit that looked the most like her. plus i love floppy eared lionpaw

as for why they have these traits, they actually come from princess, firestar’s sister, hence why leafpool was able to pass those traits down to the three. also, i wanted to drive in how the three really are squirrelflight’s kits, because she was the one to raise them. leafpool, on the other hand, has the most similarities to hollypaw, and crowfeather with jaypaw. idk i thought that was cool.

[fallowheart]

Hollypaw thinking about some apprentices she met on the way back from her first gathering...

Or, a fun “The Three are raised in separate Clans” AU. Big Rant and Explanations under the cut.

The base gist of this AU is that Mothwing is the Three’s other parent with Leafpool, and actually recognized that her girlfriend was acting weird and confronted her about it. Thus, Mothwing learns about her kits, and is a big contributor to the resulting conspiracy. Leaf and Moth also never really entertained the idea of running away, since Moth was still her Clan’s sole medicine cat, but the kits were a huge surprise to both of them.

Squilf is trans and won’t take the kits since any cat with half a brain cell in ThunderClan would know they weren’t hers, so they make an alternate plan with the assistance of Crowfeather, since Squilf and Bramble never get together in this AU and SquirrelCrow is cute don’t @ me.

The plan is for Moth and Leaf to fib about getting some omens from StarClan about needing to leave for a while to find an herb or something to help their respective Clans, while in actuality the three leave and Leaf has her kits elsewhere with Moth assisting. On the way back, Mothwing takes Lionkit and Jaykit to circumnavigate Clan territory while Leafpool and Squirrelflight bring Hollykit to ThunderClan. Moth brings Lion and Jay to the Horseplace to meet Crowfeather, who takes Jaykit to WindClan. Finally, Moth brings her son to RiverClan.

The kits are split up based on which clans they think will work best for their body types, since Lionkit has Mothwing’s build, Hollykit has Leafpool’s, and Jaykit ended up looking like his grandmother Sasha.

Squirrel and Leaf claim that they found Holly following StarClan’s omen, Crow says that Jay was left on the border, probably from a passing rogue who didn’t want to deal with a runt, and Mothwing tells her clan that Lion was an abandoned kit in the Twolegplace down south. While RiverClan is reluctant to let their medicine cat bring in a kit, they take pity and figure she needs Lion to take her mind off of Hawkfrost’s recent death.

Crowfeather, meanwhile, had sired Breezekit’s litter as a favor to Nightcloud, something he and Squilf agreed upon, and asks her to take in Jaykit. They’re just friends, nothing more, and Nightcloud agrees since she lost two out of three kits to stillbirth.

So, the three are raised in their respective clans believing that they’re orphans, Lionkit being raised with Pouncekit (who are your parents, Pouncekit.), Jaykit with Breezekit, and Hollykit follows canon to be nursed by Ferncloud. In terms of actual parenting, though, Squilf treats Holly like her own, Crow ends up being Jay’s father figure, and Mothwing gets away with all of her mothering instincts on the pretense of grief. Jaykit also does a lot better in WindClan than he would’ve in ThunderClan, and becomes close friends with Kestrelkit, who he is relieved to discover is planning on being Barkface’s apprentice as soon as possible.

As for mentors, things get fun here. Lionpaw goes to Rippletail, giving Ripple more character development before Omen of the Stars and his death. Jaypaw goes to Ashfoot, since she’s the most experienced warrior and, while Onestar is reluctant to get Jaypaw warrior training at all, he figures that if any cat can do it, it’s gonna be Ashfoot. And Hollypaw goes to Stormfur after her brief stint in the medicine den, because I like Stormfur and it actually calls back to a Shadow in Riverclan, with Feathertail promising to look after Moth and Hawk, so her brother ends up mentoring Moth’s daughter by coincidence. Firestar also figures that Storm can defend her from anyone who thinks Holly doesn’t belong in Thunderclan due to supposedly being a loner’s abandoned kit.

Jaypaw does really well with Ashfoot as his mentor, and she ends up telling him a lot of stories about her deceased mate Deadfoot, and Jaypaw ends up idolizing the guy somewhat. On the other paw, his empathy abilities pick up on a lot of pity from some of the senior warriors, with comments being made about how he should’ve been made a Tunneller like Onestar suggested instead of allowing Ashfoot to train him as a moor-runner. Oh yeah, tunnelling still exists, because it’s rad. Jaypaw does have a pretty good support system, though, mostly in the form of the other apprentices, and especially in Kestrelpaw and Breezepaw, though the latter has been distant since they got apprenticed...

Lionpaw’s best relationship in RiverClan is definitely with Mothwing, since she’s his mother in pretty much everything except blood in his mind. Lion was a bit of a drypaw at first, but his appetite for fish eventually got the better of him and helped him get that glossy coat RiverClan’s known for. However, Lionpaw keeps hearing stories from his clanmates about Mothwing’s dead brother, Hawkfrost, though the molly herself has never mentioned him, and brushed Lionpaw off the one time he asked...

Hollypaw actually struggles the most with her position in the clan, since while she tries her absolute best to be as best of a warrior as possible, there’s a seed of doubt in her mind that, if she isn’t a valuable warrior, she won’t be allowed to stay in ThunderClan. Stormfur does his best to assuage her doubts, since he had a lot of the same ones when he and Brook first took refuge in ThunderClan. Holly remains anxious, despite Stormfur’s best efforts, and the bullying from Berrypaw certainly doesn’t help...

And as a really fun bit: Firestar has no clue who the Three could possibly be.

[mallowstep]

For the love of god, please consider renaming some cats, I've seen names like

"One-Eye, Halftail, Oddfoot, FLIPCLAW (what kind of prefix is 'Flip'?) Twigbranch, Clawface etc. Don't get me started on those atrocious SkyClan names with KITTYPET PREFIXES

Harrybrook, Snookthorn, Rileypool

Like tf?

so i'm going to start with saying! as a general rule, i love these names. i will address them each in turn, but i don't have a problem with warriors having "bad names," i have a problem with names that don't make sense given their context.

it does not make sense for blackfoot to be named blackkit, when he's mostly white. (and, as a colorpoint cat, i assume, would be born entirely white.) etc.

but i have no problem with bellaleaf, because well, yeah! makes sense to me.

after all, leaf was named leafdapple, why shouldn't bella be named bellaleaf.

i'm going to discuss each name you brought up in turn, and then, under the cut, i'm going to ramble about naming philosphies.

one-eye: i'm fine with this. i don't mind cats being named after their disabilities, not when it's an established part of warriors culture. (even if it doesn't happen anymore because people would be pissed about it.) i don't know if i think it's right, or if i think cats would have a problem with it, but i think it's good. i'd like to think most cats wouldn't have a problem with it, though. that said, for one-eye in particular, her name was already white-eye, so it feels redundant. food for thought, i suppose.

halftail: i'm not okay with this, because he lost...half his tail? trust me, as someone who had a cat with half a tail, you don't notice it. doesn't make sense. he can keep sparrowpelt, altho tbh i almost always forget about him.

oddfoot: oops i forget him initially! i actually assumed he was named odd because of numbers or something, but apparently it’s a deadfoot situation. we don’t know his kit name, so i’ll assume he was named as either an apprentice or a warrior to fit. it wouldn’t make sense for him to just have the prefix odd, and i’ll give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that he didn’t. if he did, however, i would have a problem with it because that makes his name a compound name, not because his leader renamed him.

flipclaw: i don't have a problem with it. what kind of name is flipkit? the kind of name a mother would give who looks a lot like the cat who traumatized her, i think. more importantly, i think it's cute! doesn't bother me. would i name an oc flipkit? probably not, but that's just me.

twigbranch: oh no i love her name. i love it! it's so cute. it means something, too! it has meaning. nope. no one is taking twigbranch away from me. i love it.

clawface: mixed. i don't really have a problem with a cat being named clawkit, but it feels...violent. shrug. i don't like it, but like, i also don't like sandynose.

and i won't directly address skyclan because uh i already stated my thoughts on them.

skyclan in particular, tho, it actually makes a lot of sense for their names to be like that. there is no reason to apply any clan norms to skyclan names.

i really hope they keep their names, too. tradition and legacy of names is important to them (pebbleshine and violetshine for the most direct example, but it's everywhere), and i want that to stay. i love that leafstar named her kit harrykit. never change skyclan.

as always, i want to say that i do not have a problem with anyone's methodology of naming cats. i do not care. i support every single name in existence (barring certain combinations of color and "-face," and anything in that vein), and i do not want to come across as telling you what you should do.

that includes you, anon! i do not think you should listen to me when i say i like these names. i think you should rename them whatever you want. (i strongly suggest reconsidering skyclan renames, tho. there's established reasons in canon for them to have those names, and i think it's a cool cultural thing worth exploring. i keep meaning to write a funny lil one-shot about it.)

but you know! if you want to rename them, go for it! i support you!

that said, here is what i think (and i am not an authority on this in any way, shape, or form) about names:

i've written extensively about naming traditions in the clans. if you want to read that, "names. leaders. meaning" and "names part two" are where i recommend you look. (note: first link is to my main, before i migrated warriors content here.)

i'm not going to go over any of that in detail, because well, i'd rather talk about something new?

anyway, i don't think there's a reason to rename the vast majority of cats. i have very, very, few rules. heck, in ashes, i even had squilf come out and say that there's not even a problem with cats sharing a prefix.

the two cats i have renamed are yellowstorm and runningcloud, both for very specific reasons: -fang is a suffix that only makes sense if you're a warrior, and yellowfang names runningpaw runningnose, but in this au, sagewhisker names him, and she doesn't seem like the type to give that kind of name.

in yellowfang's secret, which i do generally treat as canon, yellowfang explains runningnose's name. i don't have a problem with her giving that name to him in the slightest. i just don't think sagewhisker would, and that overrode my general conservative approach to cat names.

but i do think, to an extent, cats are named for the world around them. i explored this in "without warning," where cats can be named after all sorts of strange things (elevator is my favourite), because well, they don't know what strange names are and are not.

so, for example, if there was a kit named, say, chaffinchkit, i would probably rename them, because i've set my warriors in the pnw, and there are no chaffinches in america.

i would just name the kit finchkit, because really, a chaffinch just a specific type of finch anyway.

i also refuse to name a kit maggotkit. there are probably other canonical prefixes in this nature that i refuse, but maggot is the big one that comes to mind.

but i don't care that ferns are green and cats aren't green. maybe it's a name passed down through the generations, one they don't even remember the origin of, but now, it is a thunderclan name.

or maybe, it is given to a riverclan cat simply because their mother thinks ferns are nice and soft.

none of that matters to me, because i personally find limiting name to appearance is incredibly boring, and gives up a really nice chance to worldbuild.

in "fair is the night," ivypool and tigerheart have a brief conversation exploring this.

"ThunderClan is different," he says. "You don't use names in the same way. You don't know the Ivy before you. But ShadowClan isn't like that. Dawnpelt knows Dawncloud and Flametail knows Flamefur, but...I have Tigerstar." "That seems ineffective," Ivypool says. "You can get more mileage out of your names. Here, Ivy is for grey kits, right? But wiry ones. We need strong roots. And Dove is for grey kits, or white ones, but its for the ones who are born soft."

they go on, but i would never pass up an opportunity to explore that type of thing. (and yes i see the typo)

similarly, i like the renaming system. i am like, this close to saying i love it.

the only reason i don't make brightheart lostface in everything i write is because it'd be too much of a headache to remind people, and i also don't want to needlessly invite arguments about it.

she keeps her name in "saccharine tithes of love and glory" because it's the kind of au where i can throw small things like that, without worrying, because it fits, tonally.

i wish it didn't set a fic in a very specific tone, but it does, and so, i usually use brightheart.

(also, it's clear that she prefers brightheart in the books, and i respect that. i don't think, in my culture, that makes sense for her, but i've talked about my works as being on a spectrum between canon and me, and most stuff is far enough away from me that i call her brightheart.)

anyway.

part of it is, renaming cats is imposing my rules over canon. i feel that saying "flipclaw should be named something else" asserts that my world is correct, and canon is wrong.

like, tallstar as a name does not make sense in my windclan. a kit can't be tall, and i've established that windclan names are very literal. but i've let it go, because i chose to make that a rule, and now i live with it.

i hope i didn't come off as prescriptivist, here, because i honestly believe if you want to rename cats, you should. i'd even be happy to discuss alternatives.

for clawface, might i suggest scorchface? (the suffix is malleable, frankly, but i don't feel like thinking much about it.) scorch deliberately has negative connotations in shadowclan, so you keep the same effect as clawface. especially since it just kind of sounds ominous.

but as for what i will do, it is not rename cats. i like their names (especially skyclan's), in all their idiosyncratic glory.

[pinkispoggers]

Questions Lead to Answers | Lance Bishop x Fem!reader

Prompt: Asking an artificial person questions is easy, but the answers, could lead to something a little different.

WARNINGS: Smut, light fluff, and rough sex.

Words: 3.8k

notes: if there is bad grammer, im sorry! PLEASE READ!!! (BIG CREDS TO SQUILF FOR REFRENCING THE PART WHERE (SPOILERS!!) ROBOT RELATIONSHIP TALK COMES IN AND ALSO THE IDEA OF GETTING DRUNK AND KISSING HIM!!) (If you think I haven't credited them for other things please let me know so i can credit them!)

Waking up from Cryosleep is always hard, like when you feel nauseous after finally waking up, or Sergeant Apone always on your ass. You rise up from your bed, peacefully, not feeling the need to vomit, and sleeping away from Apone. This was gonna be a great trip, you thought. You had heard the rumors of a new synthetic being put on board, or a new crewmate but nothing else about the situation.

You didn't say hello to anyone except for Hicks and Drake, as you had met them before beginning this trip. You were very new to the crew as this was your first trip with them. Before you could get a chance to hear Apone's morning bullshit, you rushed over to get your flight suit. 

As soon as you are done with that, you rush over to the cafeteria as fast as you could, not trying to catch the attention of anyone, keeping as quiet as possible. About half way there you're about to turn a corner when you see a pretty average height… male? You aren't sure but it makes you stop in your tracks. You try to stay as quiet as possible, trying to slip past him but when you tried to take a step, he turns around. He looks straight into your eyes, with soft ones.

You have never seen him before, not even when you were getting ready for cryosleep. "I'm sorry…" you whisper "no need." He says as clear as day, his voice almost soothing and a little deeper then you had imagined he would sound like when you saw his face. "I'm Bishop." He exclaims softly "I'm sorry if I scared you." He adds. "No, no your fine." You say, louder than you intended. He smiles at your response, a tight but soft smile. 

In all honesty, you were a little creeped out by the situation you were in but you couldn't deny that he was attractive. "I'm Y/n" you say awkwardly. "Well hello Y/n. Would you like me to walk you to the cafeteria?" "Uh… sure…" you answer softly and he starts walking and you catch up to his side. You walk to the cafeteria slowly, taking in every moment of your new surroundings and him, but you do not talk. 

He locks eyes with yours for a second as you look back at him and then he parts ways with you but not before he smiles which makes you blush. You just stand there, in the middle of the cafeteria awkwardly, not knowing what to do, not knowing how to do anything other than breath. When you finally notice your situation and surroundings, you get your shit together and find that you need to get food, which Bishop seems to be passing around. And of course the first person he walks over to, is you.

You aren’t even seated yet when he asks you, "do you want some cornbread" you are still anxious from all the new eyes gazing over at you "uh.. uh.. sure!!" You say and you take it. You don't look back and walk away to where Hicks is sitting with another crewmate. "Hey guys!" You blurt out and they look at you all smiley as you sit down finally. "Whats up man!" The unknown man smiles widely. "I'm Hudson, and he's Hicks" He says, lowering the smile on his face to a grin, awaiting your response. "I'm Y/n! I've met Hicks!" "Well great!" Hudson shrugs off. 

Hudson turns his head to Bishop, who was still serving cornbread. Bishop notices Hudson looking at him, and reaches out with the cornbread, raising an eyebrow. "Hey Bishop man, Do the thing with the knife!" "Oh please no-" he gets cut of by Hudson's begging and finally steps over to Hudson. Drake is standing right next to him and offers to play the game with Bishop. 

Bishop places his large hand over Drake's and pulls out the knife he has in one of the many pockets on his flight suit. He places the knife in between their fingers and starts. He raises the knife in and out of between both fingers, gliding to a new set each time at unhuman speeds. Your eyes widen, thinking he's going to hurt himself or Drake. You had almost reached your hand out to stop them but it ended.

A wave of reassurance washes over you and you are finally calm. Bishop heads to sit down right next to you and you freeze in your seat. "I thought you never missed Bishop." Says one of the voices at the table. You look over to see the man with white liquid in his fingertips. You are in shock when you see this.

"Oh… I thought you were… nevermind" you blurt and he looks over at you "is there a problem?" He says softly. "No, no, I just wasn't expecting you to be a synthetic on board" you say quietly "I prefer the term "artificial human" myself" He smiles. "Ok then!" You smile back. "We always have an andr- artificial human on board. It's standard practice, he's just new." A man called from the other side of the table. You just nodded, getting a bad, creepy vibe from him. 

…….

It's been a fine day, and everyone is bringing out the drinks for a celebration of some sort, maybe to celebrate the first day out here. You have never had alcohol before, or any type of drink like that, so you were very nervous about how to act around everyone. You try to stay near to Drake, Hicks, and Hudson if you could. The first line of shots were rounded around you and the others. You took your first. It was a strong taste, but you loved it but didn't want to ask for more. Drake slides you over another and you take it

Apone was yelling at Hudson for a reason you didn't know. It's cause that's how drunk people act, you thought. You were 7 shots in and feeling woozy, but you needed more. You could barely walk, but you could walk over to grab the bottle, which had the marines cheering you on. "CHUG CHUG CHUG CHUG CHUG!" They cheered and you did. After that you could barely see straight and everyone was heading off to bed, except for Drake and an unnamed female. It was time for you to go, but you had the urge to see someone. You get up from the table and head out.

You found him. You continue your search, as drunk you is more persistent than sober you. You pass the docking and loading unit, but you still can't find him until "Y/n?" A familiar voice says, and you bolt around, not saying anything but wanting to scream. It's Bishop, emerging from the darkness. "Y/n what are you doing here?" He chuckles deeply. "I- i- Bishop- I was looking for… you…" you say, speech slurred. 

You walk up to him slowly, and unsteady. "You should have been there" You blurt and he smiles "I'm sure I would have enjoyed it" "I missed you" you smile drunkenly. You walk even closer to him and he just stands there, waiting for you. You plant your face in his chest, not knowing what was happening right now, but you liked it. He grabbed your waist and you blushed, hard. "You should be in bed right now." He hushes softly "but…" you smile wider, looking up at him. 

you get up to kiss him again.. Your teeth clash as you kiss him deeply. He puts his hands behind your back, but it ends as soon as it begins. You pull away to catch your breath, and he looks at you blankly. 

You fall forward, head meeting his neck and he holds you to support you. You never want this moment to end but… everything goes blurry.

_________________

You wake up to the normal nonsense, but this time with a burning headache, and Apone screaming at Hudson - but all of you at the same time but mostly Hudson - and getting everyone up. You feel like screaming. It's bad. You're rubbing your head, knowing that you were going on a mission today. To check on the Colonists of LV-426 since they hadn't heard from them in a while. Then you remembered it. Kissing bishop while you were drunk, it was the only thing you could remember from that night.

"Shit" you murmur and you get up fast. You get past everyone slowly and put on clothes, getting ready for the day. 

~~~~~~~~~

You get down to the room where the ships and transporters are held and you see him. "Fuck…" you whisper and he looks at you but you just walk away. You hop on the drop ship and sit alone as it falls down to LV-426. 

You get off and it's guns up. You are just there to supervise everyone so you don't have one. You know Bishop is coming down too but you stray far from him. 

You get inside the building and start to search but you see nothing. But when you get to a certain lab, you do. You see things that shock you there. In tubes, what looks to be a horseshoe crab with a long flexible tail is preserved in there. Until it moves. You jump in place at the sight of it and now you are shaken up… great, you thought. Such a great day so far. Everyone leaves to check out other things which leaves you on another path of your own. 

You reach the lab again and only to see Bishop… dissecting something? You knew he was gonna see you, alone nonetheless. Unless you could sneak past him, but you really didn't want to waste your energy doing so. Right when you were about to turn the other way, "Y/n, I want to show you something." He says politely and you blush "shit" you whisper. You walk towards him awkwardly and you see one of those… things under his hand, which was holding a scalpel. "That's a nice pet you have there, Bishop…" "magnificent isn't it" 

He started to ramble on about the thing he was dissecting and you had to admit his passion about it was quite cute. But you broke it with "Bishop…" you say quietly and he turns his full attention to you. "I'm sorry" you whisper anxiously. He grabs your hand which you are surprised about. You knew that androids can't touch people unless they are in danger of falling or they need to steady them or carry them. "I- you can't usually touch me." You exclaim. "Unless of emergency situations, I know, but I'm reflecting off of our relationship." 

"Relationship?!" You blush, knowing exactly what he meant but still acting clueless.  "You kissed me" He said confidently. You blushed even harder " Bishop, I was drunk I didn't-, I mean I did mean it but…" you smile. You noticed how close you were with him and you knew you needed to back up. "I can always change our relationship status if you want." "Wait? Are you saying we have a romantic relationship in your system… Bishop…" you say sadly. "Well, I cannot have a partner, but If a crewmember wants and gives consent, I can access my sexual functions to pleasure the crewmember for their physical needs." 

"Ok… I thought robo- artificial humans were just flat down there." 

"Well, we aren't and yes, I do have one" He smiles and you blush feverishly. "My system could also trigger an erection if needed." "So you can get hard by what? Seeing some pretty?" "Well, its more like when someone makes a sexual joke or gesture that "turns me on"" "Will you kiss me again?" He whispers but you hear him and climb in him from where he is sitting so that you are in his lap and he smiles as you kiss him gently then you kiss him hard, lips clashing and he kisses you back. "Was that ok?" He asks and you nod and nuzzle your head in his neck. "Bishop… can we… further this?" 

"Are you sure?" 

"Mhm" 

But just before you could kiss him again, you heard footsteps towards the lab. "shitttt" you murmur and jump off of him and he frowns and you glance at the door. It's that weird dude from before. "Hello there…" He says seeing the two of you close to each other, not thinking anything of it. "Oh hello Bishop and Y/n, how are you?" He says. But before you could speak, he cuts you off "I don't think we've properly met, im Burke." "Ok… hi Burke, since you already know my name, I guess we don't have to properly meet." You say a little annoyed.

"Oh, yeah then." He exclaims anxiously as he shoots his hand around the back of his hand "I'm just here to tell you it's time to leave, the Colonists are safe, they just weren't responding." "Ok then, let's get outta here" you say and the three of you leave to the drop ship. 

~~~~~~~~~~~

You sit alone again, only this time, holding in sexual frustration. You wanted him, you needed him but you couldn't think of that now, it wasn't professional of you to have thoughts of intercourse with a ROBOT… no, you felt completely disgusted now. But also ashamed and you had to go back to talk to him about what was happening and how you felt, looking for someone, anyone to tell you if what you were feeling was ok or not.

_________________

You sit alone in your quarters, pondering endlessly. But the thought of going to see him was tempting. "Ah fuck it" you sigh as you get up, still in your pajamas to go to the place you knew you would find him. His lab. You walk alone, mildly afraid of something happening to you, or that someone would catch you going to see him. You finally got up to the lab and to no surprise, he was there, working on that thing he had taken back with him. "Bishop-" you whisper, secretly hoping he wouldn’t hear but he did. "Y/n, come in, I knew you would come see me" He smirked. 

"Yeah i- yeah." You say frowning. He walks up to you slowly and kisses you like he had done before. You grab the back of his waist and kiss him back. He smiles at your lips. Next thing you know, you are in his arms and he's guiding you to a table. You gasp, not expecting him to be able to lift you up. He sets you down on the table and pushes you back slightly. You blush, knowing that you weren't wearing anything under your pajama gown. 

Without warning, he pushes his hand up your gown, getting feverishly close to your area. He opens your legs with one hand. "B- Bishop" you moan softly, aching for him to go farther, to touch you. He looks up at you "are you ready?" He asks and you nod as he continues. His other hand is reaching for your breasts but instead of touching them, he unbuttons your gown, slowly taking it off to see your beautiful breasts, then taking them in his palm and squeezing them, making sure not to hurt you. 

"Ah Bishop…" you moan and he smiles, knowing that he's pleasuring you. He moves his hand farther until he reaches your warmth and sinks two fingers down to your clit and makes you flinch. You were very wet for him already soaking and dripping down your leg. His fingers start to move in a circle around your clit and your legs start to shake, you can't escape the pleasure running through your veins. 

He continued to swivel his fingers around your clit, making you whine and quiver under him, going feral. You now were shaking with pleasure that you couldn't control anymore. "Bishop im- I'm about to come" you shout through hard quick breaths. "Then cum for me sweetheart" He says as he smiles, knowing that he's getting the job done correctly. You explode with all the strength you have, going completely numb. This is the strongest orgasm you have ever had in your life.

Your chest is rising and falling and you're panting. "I'm guessing I did good" He grinned and you nodded slightly, still coming down through your high. With 2 fingers already on your now swollen clit, he drags them down to your entrance, and without warning, shoved them in you while smirking at you and keeping eye contact and you squealed. "Bishop!!" You yell. Thank the gods that this is a noise proof room, so you couldn't scream his name all you wanted.

He dragged his fingers in and out of you at a slow pace, curling them and getting close enough to your ear that he could whisper sweet nothings in them. "You are very tight Y/n" "thank you" you bite your lip and smile while holding in the urge to scream out his name. "Will I fit?" He asks as he quickened his pace, knowing that it would make it harder to talk for you. "How about- mph- you show me- agh!!" You whisper and he slows down, then completely stops to get up from on top of you, to unzip his flight suit.

He finally gets his flight suit all the way down and you can see everything, from his chest, which actually had a little bit of abs, to his cock from where he is standing and the position you are in. He has the perfect size for you, about 6 inches fully hard. He smiles as he notices you looking at it. "Will it hurt, because you know I cannot hurt you, and I only want to please you." He says shyly, but politely. "No, it won't, just start off slow and everything will be fine." You reassure him. 

 "I have to tell you this before we start. By performing sexual intercourse, I cannot get you pregnant, nor give you any stds or stis. Would you like to proceed?" "Yes Bishop, I would like you to fuck me." You say and he smiles. His cock is pressed up against your leg and you bite your lip. You sit up a little to guide him to your entrance. 

He pushed the tip between your folds and straight up to your clit making you shudder. He brings it down to your entrance, and pushes in slightly. "Ah!!" You cry in pleasure. He's not even an inch in and you are crying out for him. He looks up at you, worried but you smile at him, which calms his system. "Please" you look up at him with big puppy eyes and he looks back at you with his, pushing about half way in.

You want to scream out his name, for him to go further but it turns out to be just a whine and now he's all the way in. "Ah! Bishop!" You moan and your head rolls back onto the table as he looks up at you and smiles once more. He starts up a pace that is painfully slow, to which he moans softly, thrusting deep inside of you and you arch your back so it's easier for him to go even deeper, even though you were belly up. You start to move your hips around his cock, silently begging for him to speed up. "Bishop… faster!" You almost scream out for him. 

He speeds up to a comfortable pace but you still want more as you are a moaning mess now, but you still wanted more and maybe if "you're doing s- so well" you moan and he grunts as he speeds up, grabbing the side of your hips and pulling you inwards. "AH!!" You scream out. "Don't st- stop!!" You cry out, tears brimming your bottom lashes. He's trusting even harder, hitting your gspot and cervix every time. A single tear streams down your face. He's grunting and growling from pleasure going through him, more like sparks building up in him, ready to burst.

Next thing you know his fingers are on your clit again, circling fast around you, pushing you farther out to the edge. You're barely holding on. "Im- Im- gonna cum Bishop please!" You yell out and he sees that you are shaking under him so "please cum for me y/n" he says and his voice makes you just go wild. You shudder and quiver under him, your orgasm flowing through you at high speeds. It's even more powerful than the last one. As you are coming down, a hot liquid shoots unto your pussy, making you moan, just knowing that he is finished but he fucks you through it.

Your breathing hard, chest rising and falling fast. He slows down, then stops. While he's still in you, he bends down to wrap his arms around you and kiss you as you are still panting. "Did I do ok?" He asks. "Bishop" you pant "you did amazing" you say and he grins. "Thank you" he adds. 

He stands, pulling out of you slowly, and sliding on his flight suit. You got up, sorely and he rushed over to help you. "Y/n, are you ok?" He asks "Yeah I'm all good!" You get up, slipping on your flightsuit and you kiss him once more. You leave the room, holding his hand. 

_____________________

you get back to the cryo room where everyone was getting ready to go back to sleep, to return to the ship you came from. You weren't ready to say bye to Bishop just yet so you pull him over to the side. "Hey Bishop?" You say and he turns over to you "I'll miss you, ya know" you smirk as you pull him down for a kiss. It doesn't last long but it was worth it just incase you don't see him again. 

"No you won't, im just an artificial person. You can always upload my data into another Bishop model." He says "I will miss you, trust me. And I know I can, and I probably will" you giggle. "I'll sure miss you Y/n, and I won't forget you just incase you do." He smiles and you release his hand and walk into the room. 

You both part your ways to get to your chainbers. You watch him get undressed, down to his underwear and you remember the moment you two had together and you sigh, slumping in place in your bed. Hicks comes over to shut the top of your bed down and you smile at him and he smiles back. You smile as you are going to sleep. And of you go to dreamland as you finally feel peace.

[maplewind-au]

Retrospective Author’s Notes

I just crossposted this note to the Wattpad and AO3 copies of Maplestar’s Light, but I’m going to post it here, too.

Hi there! My name is Razeru. First of all, thank you very much for reading my story!

I think, if you've read my story, you can surmise that I love Mapleshade. She's grown to be one of my favourite characters in Warrior Cats; her story, narratively, is written the best - in my opinion - out of most of the super editions and novellas.

Keep in mind, these words are coming from someone who grew up with these books, and also gets big mad about the things the Erins have pulled on other characters, like Squirrelflight (specifically Squilf, actually. They keep doing my girl dirty, and I'm so angry).

I took a read through my story again recently, and passed through the comments both on this Wattpad copy of the story, and the AO3 mirror. I really and truly appreciate all the love, but some people did seem to misunderstand the intention behind some things in my story, so I feel like I owe a bit of an explanation to you, my readers.

I offer this explanation because I've chosen to abandon the MapleWind AU entirely. There's too much in retrospect that I'm unhappy with, too many story ideas that don't connect narratively - it just makes a poor story. So, this is basically a big spoiler chapter for what would have happened, if I continued.

The remainder of this letter is just going to be me giving a word vomit about this story, so feel free to skip down to the bottom if you're only curious about closing remarks or projects surrounding other upcoming warriors works.

Alright. First and foremost, I want to address something specific. Mapleshade's story, as it was in canon, is a multidimensional story that a lot of people see as black-and-white. I, personally, see it as a fantastic narrative where not a single character is in the right, at least not in the context of the Clans - or morally, in some cases. This being said, a lot of the arguments about Mapleshade are usually "she's absolutely terrible and deserved what she got" / "she did absolutely nothing wrong and everyone else should be suffering" - both of which are... Very, very dangerous views to take on any person or character. When I wrote Maplestar's Light, my intention was to explore the idea where a few cats stepped out of the norm that seemed to affect this specific generation of the Clans and offered sanctuary.

WindClan has always felt like the most lax Clan out of the four, to me. With their history of welcoming in strangers and making kindly bargains with the other Clans in their times of need, it made sense to me that if a wandering cat passed out on their territory, they would reach out and help them. I chose Heatherstar specifically for this story because she was such a revolutionary, and wasn't afraid to shoot down any cat's words if she felt someone was going to get hurt.

Moreover, this AU explores the idea that instead of sleeping in Myler's barn and then going on her rampage, Mapleshade simply collapsed into grief - so Ravenwing, Frecklewish, and Appledusk all survive. Temporarily.

While Mapleshade is taken into WindClan, Mapleshade's kits are restless, and it's their turn to be angry - assuming StarClan spirits know everything (and it's heavily implied, in the first series, that they do), they pull strings just like the canonical iteration of their mother would. Ravenwing, Frecklewish, Appledusk, and - moreover - Oakstar, all suffer painful deaths as a result of the angry StarClan kits. To add insult to injury, all four lose their lives to the river while patrolling it - or are tricked into falling in. The kits drag them down until they drown.

Ravenwing and Oakstar are the only two who are able to make it to StarClan themselves, if only because of the good acts they've done to balance out the karma. The kits, however, are able to swing judgement on Frecklewish, who attacked their mother, insulted them, and was fine to watch them die, and Appledusk, who was willing to have them to begin with, who failed to save them.

This is unhealthy point of view, but they died as kits. All they know is the anger and betrayal.

On to the future.

Maplestar and Palebird have the three kits; Finchkit, Larkkit, and Firekit. Some people didn't seem to get it, and I thought I wrote it to be obvious, but Firekit is supposed to be THE Firestar in the future. With Maplestar at the helm of WindClan, ShadowClan is unable to drive them out. ThunderClan, however, is much weaker after their constant battles with RiverClan and the loss of not only Redtail, but many other great warriors. ThunderClan is driven out instead; WindClan, in their graciousness, would allow them to share the territory until something can be done about ShadowClan's terrible leader, and three Clans would unite against the one to protect their way of life.

During their time in WindClan's camp, Firepaw would grow close to the ThunderClan apprentices Ravenpaw, Graypaw and Sandpaw. Following the battle against Brokenstar, not only do Firepaw and his siblings get their warrior names, but so do the ThunderClan apprentices who participated (Sandstorm and Dustpelt included). Fireheart realizes during the night of his vigil that he doesn't want to lose his ThunderClan friends, and while meeting his family on the battlefield would be painful, he would feel worse fighting Graystripe or Ravenflight - the latter tom being the only cat Fireheart has met that makes his heart flutter.

The following day, as ThunderClan returns home, Fireheart goes with them. Yellowfang, in turn, has joined ThunderClan, having been a crucial asset to getting them in and out of ShadowClan. In return for the WindClan warrior, Spottedleaf stays; Spottedleaf had been attacked by a ShadowClan warrior the day before the battle, but Hawkheart protected her with his life. Feeling indebted, she swore to finish training Barkwing and serve WindClan just as she did ThunderClan.

The rest of the story would have gone similarly to canon, with a few minor changes; for one, WindClan and ThunderClan would forever have a close bond, not only through the blood of their Clanmates, but also through Bluestar and Maplestar, who exchanged each other's stories and bonded over how similar they were. Cinderpelt would have still gotten disabled, but through saving the ShadowClan apprentice Littlepaw from a monster; while she picks up healing from Yellowfang, she remains a warrior in spite of her leg. Swiftpaw narrowly survives, and Brightpaw lives with her scarring still, taking inspiration from Cinderpelt. Fireheart and Ravenflight become mates and have kits - Squirrelflight and Gingerpool.

I had further plans for TNP and PO3, but they're sort of lost to time at this point. The general ideas surrounded Brambleclaw - renamed Brambleflower - taking after his mother instead of his father, and being close friends with Squilf, but not mates. Gingerpool and Crowfeather do have kits, and Squilf does take them, but claims they were loner kits that she chose to raise. Bramble was their nursery parent, having chosen to be a queen instead of a warrior, and took care of them while Squilf went about being a warrior, only tuning in to feed them and sleep with them. Jay would have become a warrior named Jayclaw and Holly, an albino in this AU, would go on to be Gingerpool's apprentice and become Hollysnow. Jay is blind, and Holly is a selective mute. Lion would still have his powers of strength, but use them unwisely, and he would be the one to wind up having a crisis and revealing the secrets of his origin before disappearing into the caves.

The general idea for the OOTS arc of this AU was to give Ivy powers and still have her train in the Dark Forest, under Lionblaze - who is very much still alive, but misaligned. Dovewing would be given the opportunity as well, and only take it when she learns Tigerheart is also training there. Their struggles would surround a constant sibling rivalry, one that would deepen once Jay and Holly figure out Ivy is the third cat. I also threw around the idea of a deaf Ivypool, either from birth or caused by something much later - just to complete the "See/Speak/Hear No Evil".

The underlying, long plot to the AU was that Petalkit, Larchkit, and Patchkit effectively replaced Canon Mapleshade. Maplestar recovered, then seemingly forgot about her previous kits and replaced them with Fire, Finch and Lark. Petal, Larch and Patch want stupid, special Firestar and his bloodline to suffer for being their replacements. Technically, they were still spirits of StarClan, but pulled the strings in the Dark Forest.

Oh, boy. Those sure were a lot of words, huh.

I hope I'm not disappointing anyone by discontinuing this story. Again, looking back on it, I'm very unhappy with the way I was handling certain subjects and aspects of the story - and I'd rather kill it before I get carried away again. I've always held the belief that taking time and writing a more consise and well-placed narrative is much better than writing it quickly and breaking characters and morals. Mapleshade is a character I do want to do justice by, and Warrior Cats is a great sandbox to play in!

All that being said, I am still writing Warriors works. On AO3, I've published a couple smaller one-off stories that explore the idea of Tigerclaw not getting twisted up by Thistleclaw, and getting Scourge to join ThunderClan instead. You're welcome to read them if you haven't yet!

And I'm not done with Mapleshade, either. I'm currently working on a new, seperate Warriors rewrite based on the same time (with better allegiances); the working title for it, right now, is Falling Petals. I don't want to give too much away, but if there's enough interest, I might post a teaser excerpt to this story! There's no telling when I'll be finished with it, but I would much rather publish a finished work in full than post it by chapter and run the risk of losing interest or being unhappy with what I've put out.

A final project I'm working on is a personal Warrior Cats story called Rising Storm - it'll surround some OC Clans and Characters instead of rewriting canon material, and I'm looking for a main platform to post it on when I crack into it! If you're interested, I could use some beta readers when I start working on it, so please get in touch if you want to help out! If you know any non-Wattpad or AO3 websites I could publish the story on, please do let me know. I'll likely crosspost here, but I don't actively post on here too often, so I'd rather it not be the primary host.

I think that's everything I wanted to say! Again, thank you so much for your continued interest in my work. If you'd like to see more of what I do, look for the user 'ghastimafrix' on Tumblr, Twitter, YouTube, deviantART, AO3, and toyhou.se! I do a lot more than just write Warriors, and I'm always happy to chat.

Stay frosty, y'all!!

[warriorsbutnotreally]

Goldenflower And Sasha Switch Kits AU

so uh

apparently my draft posted and I wasn't aware of it, despite it being saved as a draft????

so

let's

try this again

with this au

and pretend nothing happened

Tadpole, Hawk, Moth

Tadpolekit, Mothkit, and Hawkkit are born to Goldenflower and Tigerstar. [Tadpole is an almost black tabby, Mothkit is almost identical to her mother, and Hawkkit looks how Bramblestar does in canon]

They are still in the nursery when their father is exiled. The kits are notably hurt by him leaving.

When whispers about the kits start, Tadpolekit is quick to fight and kick and protect his siblings from any rumors, causing quite a ruckus. He's also close to his uncle, Snowkit, especially once cats start to realize the white tom is deaf.

Mothkit is clearly hurt the most by what's going on, feeling lost on why everything was happening. She sticks closer and closer to her brothers, though the words against her aren't as harsh as with Tadpolekit and Hawkkit.

Hawkkit is harder to read, as he acts like nothing is wrong and nothing happened, instead choosing to pretend everything is fine, though he slowly is less and less connected to his brother and sister as a result.

When Snowkit is grabbed by the hawk, Tadpolekit tries to save him. He doesn't, but he slows the hawk down enough for a warrior to snag the bird and save Snowkit. Tadpolekit and Speckletail become very protective of Snowkit as a result.

They grow and become Hawkpaw, Tadpolepaw, Mothpaw, and Snowpaw - their mentors, respectively, being Firestar, Brightheart, Cinderpelt, and Brackenfur [with help from Speckletail]

Not long after they're apprentices, though, Mothpaw and Hawkpaw go missing and cannot be found. The Clan panics until the next gathering, where it's revealed Hawkpaw and Mothpaw were in ShadowClan.

Mothpaw isn't happy there, but she was pressured by Hawkpaw to go. It turns out, too, that Tadpolepaw knew about this, but didn't leave with them as he wanted nothing to do with his father. Mothpaw is now Littlecloud's apprentice and Hawkpaw is being mentored by Blackfoot.

Hawkpaw also makes a scene at the gathering, saying how ThunderClan chased them out because they kept judging them on their kin, and specifically says its Firestar's fault

The rest of the gathering isn't that pleasant

Time goes and when Tigerstar is killed, Tadpolepaw finds himself unable to feel sorry for his father and this angers Hawkpaw beyond belief.

Tadpolepaw asks Mothpaw to come back and Hawkpaw stops her from leaving, saying that Tadpolepaw abandoned them, too

Tadpolepaw is outraged that his brother feels this way, feeling more about this than he did his father's death, which only proves to piss off Hawkpaw more

Mothpaw apologizes to Tadpolepaw, stating she needs to be there for Hawkpaw.

He tells her she doesn't, but still watches as his sister leaves with their brother.

The battle against BloodClan happens about the same way, with all the apprentices - including medicine cat apprentice Mothpaw - coming together to kill Bone. Hawkpaw also attempts to ight Scourge, but ends up having half of his face ripped to shreds. He spends many days in the medicine cat den, seething.

As warriors they become Tadpolefrost, Snowheart, and Hawkclaw Mothpaw eventually earns the full medicine cat name Mothwhisper

Bramble, Tawny

Bramble and Tawny are born to Sasha after she returns to the forest. Sasha is weak and tired, but does her best to care for her two kits. [Bramble is a brown and cream tabby and Tawny is a seal point cat - both of them are massive kits, too, which was stressful for a lone molly giving birth]

Sasha eventually starts getting sick, but is afraid to turn to ShadowClan for help.

She eventually grows too weak and drags herself and her kits towards the Clans. She is taken in by RiverClan, but they are unable to save her in time and she passes away a few days later.

Bramble and Tawny, who are still young, are named Bramblekit and Tawnykit, and given to the queens, who all take turns taking care of the kits.

Tawny was eventually apprenticed to Leopardstar and Bramble was apprenticed to Blackclaw [it should also be noted that around this time is when Leafkit and Squirrelkit are born in ThunderClan]

Featherpaw and Stormpaw, who are young apprentices at this time, are curious about these new kits and are glad to have potential friends.

The two brother and sister duos become fast friends and teach each other everything they need to know.

However, Featherpaw feels a tinge of worry every time she looks at Bramblepaw, especially as he gets older. She brushes this off, but it doesn't stop the worried thoughts.

Tawnypaw and Featherpaw also get really close, even after Featherpaw becomes Feathertail, and the two are best friends. Tawnypaw also actively defends Feathertail while she works through her trauma and gives her her space when she needs it.

Bramblepaw had a harder time making friends, secluding himself for a bit as he felt a strange tugging at his dreams every time he closed his eyes. He did eventually become friends with Feathertail, Stormfur, and Dawnflower later on in his apprentice training.

Tawnypaw and Bramblepaw earn the warrior names Tawnyfang and Bramblefur

Where Their Stories Intertwine

The chosen cats for the journey are Feathertail, Crowpaw, Tadpolefrost, and Mothwhisper Stormfur and Tawnyfang refuse to let Feathertail go alone and Tadpolefrost gets joined by his apprentice, Squirrelpaw, whom he can be frustrated with, but he still thinks highly of her as he can't deny that her spunky attitude is refreshing.

Tawnyfang and Feathertail at this point are mates and openly so as they are rather affectionate

Things go as they do in canon, though with the new cast of characters and with new interactions. I have few memories of the journey itself, honestly, and will need to reread TNP once more fdksh

When they reach the lake, Mothwhisper pulls Tadpolefrost to the side and tells him that Hawkclaw is getting worse and she's worried about what he may do in the future.

Tadpolefrost wants to brush this off, but something deep down feels a familiar dread.

Back in ShadowClan, Hawkclaw is currently mentoring Smokepaw, becoming a model warrior and someone Blackstar clearly trusts, though there is the bias with the two being a former mentor and apprentice. Bramblefur finds himself jealous of the ShadowClan warrior, as he seems to be the star of that Clan, but he doesn't speak about his envy.

During a gathering, Bramblefur notices the ThunderClan medicine cat apprentice, Leafpaw, watching him. After the gathering, he confronts the apprentice, who apologizes and admits she didn't know she was staring. She admits he reminds her of someone, but before he can press for answers, she ends up being called away.

Returning to the journeying cats as they start their return, they come across the Tribe. When Feathertail almost sacrifices herself, Tawnyfang gets in the way. She doesn't die killing Sharptooth, but she is badly injured. Feathertail and Stormfur stay behind with her, leaving Tadpolefrost, Squirrelpaw, and Mothwhisper to return to the Clans.

Bramblefur and Leafpaw work together to save cats who are taken by twolegs, Bramblefur getting them out and Leafpaw treating them for their injuries.

and I'm not sure how I want things to go past here

But Tadpole is the one to kill Hawk, who almost became leader as he was actively trying to kill Blackstar after Russetfur's "mysterious" death

Tadpole did try reasoning with his brother, but after he realized there was no hope, he killed him

I don't even know which of the Tiger kids I want to have trained in the Dark Forest jakffds

And to get some side notes out

Squirrelflight doesn't have a planned mate, but she doesn't get with Ashfur

I'm not sure if I'd go with LeafCrow or LeafBramble [as they are close in this AU, but idk if they'd become mates], but one of those two toms is the father of The Three. Also, before anyone complains, there's only a 6 moon age gap between Bramble and Leaf and they wouldn't have feelings for each other until they're both older. Though, I can't imagine they'd run away together and split mutually because they can't manage to keep meeting when they're a whole lake apart.

Squilf still lies for her sister and raises Holly, Jay, and Lion as her own

If Tadpole ever has his own kits, he names one Hawkkit after his brother, though I don't know who he'd be in a relationship with [maybe he gets with Daisy instead of Spiderleg?]

While in the Tribe, Tawny and Feather find a Tribe tom willing to help them and they become the proud mothers of Stonekit/Stonesplash, Silverkit/Silverfeather, and Ravenkit/Ravenstep Stone is a brown and gray tabby trans intersex tolly [uses he/him] Silver is a pale gray and white tom and Raven is a black tabby molly

Stonesplash ends up the RiverClan medicine cat and has to be partially tried by the other medicine cats after Mudfur passes away. He tries to convince Leopardstar to let Willowpaw train with him, but is denied for a while. He eventually wins and Willowshine, as a warrior apprentice, trains to be a medicine cat. It's not until moons later that it turns out the two had been flirting since they were apprentices.

[mallowstep]

If you have enough spoons:

'What’s your favorite relationship in your story?' For ashes

'If you had to create a soundtrack for your story, what songs would you choose? Why?' For 'i'll believe the wind is calling me.'

<3

anyway these are for the fic asks but i forget where the link went so. anyway.

uhhh my fav relationship in ashes hasn't been revealed, but it's prob lion's endgame ship. it's a good ship. i'm very excited about it. very very excited about it.

but that's not very fun! bc u don't know what it is and we don't see a tonne of it "on camera" anyway. next Up is jaystorm + snailkit, of which we see Slightly more on screen. jaystorm just...he just sees snailkit and goes "oh another smallest of the litter...you and me and squilf will be small together."

it's mutual. snailkit loves him a lot. and likes him a lot. you know.

all of squilf's children love each other, but jay and snail are extra close.

and for a quick listing of some other relationship:

ferncloud and squilf as besties, squirrelflight and leafpool having a relationship, holly/willow, squirrel/ash, the friendship between jay cinder and holly, jay's endgame ship, dove & squilf's friendship (it's a coming), i like the dynamic that cloudtail has with bramble but we won't see that in ashes, and some other stuff that's background/minor/i know exists but you don't.

some of those include: ivy & cricket, chickadee & leafpool, whitewing & squilf. basically i like every relationship in ashes tbh. i mean that's why i'm writing it.

okay...let's see fair warning this might end up being long i'm just going to list songs by chapter. not including it's mere assignment, even if it is a chapter 0 for ibtwicm in a Lot of ways.

obviously! before i start obviously "nina cried power" is the fic's Anthem so you know. that's a big one. i don't have like. just know. it's in every chapter. also these aren't in order. well they're alphabetical. ordering playlists properly just takes Time and it's time i don't usually put in.

chapter one: those stronger than me (deadfoot)

be ok (ingrid michaelson)

big parade (the lumineers)

cleopatra (the lumineers)

good day (twenty one pilots)

growing up (run river north)

helplessness blues (fleet foxes)

marjorie (taylor swift)

nfwmb (hozier)

this too shall pass (danny schmidt)

chapter two: everything that we're denied (yellowfang)

growing up (run river north)

here before (vashti bunyan)

it will come back (hozier)

roll away your stone (mumford and sons)

soon you'll get better (taylor swift)

this too shall pass (danny schmidt)

truce (twenty one pilots)

chapter three: grounding of a foot uncompromising (fireheart)

be ok (ingrid michaelson)

cleopatra (the lumineers)

good day (twenty one pilots)

hoax (taylor swift)

house of gold (twenty one pilots)

soon you'll get better (taylor swift)

warriors (imagine dragons)

chapter four: it's the obstacles that cast it (tallstar)

growing up (run river north)

here before (vashti bunyan)

jackie and wilson (hozier)

this too shall pass (danny schmidt)

truce (twenty one pilots)

what will become of us (phillip phillips)

chapter five: if you love being free (???)

believer (imagine dragons)

es (crying)

good day (twenty one pilots)

helplessness blues (fleet foxes)

roll away your stone (mumford and sons)

run boy run (woodkid)

she wants me (to be loved) [the happy fits]

the shrine / an argument (fleet foxes)

theseus (the oh hellos)

chapter six: i could cry power (???)

almost (sweet music) [hozier]

good day (twenty one pilots)

growing up (run river north)

nothing better (american authors)

soldier, poet, king (the oh hellos)

sweet child o' mine (guns n' roses)

to noisemaking (sing) [hozier]

-

tbh i could put a lot more songs on all of these, but i tried to keep it paired down to what i've been listening to lately

[mallowstep]

That fae AU has me like 👀. I wanna hear all about it, but particularly, I wanna know what the three have gotten up to thanks to their ancestry.

rubs my hands together god i'm so excited for an excuse to talk about this

as some of you may know, i'm very into this kind of thing. i own a Lot of books about mythology. the fair folk are some of my favourite things. oh shit hold on jasper wants my attention he's shouting

okay turns out he just wanted me to carry him around outside for a while. i'm back.

okay so first up! actually zeroth up! i'm gonna refer to everyone by their prefix but i'm not sure what names i'm using yet

but first up! so uhhhh fae have reflective eyes? like cats? or dogs? or most animals actually? so like. imagine. you are squirrel. you hear a bump. you head to check it out, and then just. glowing eyes stare back at you.

it's an experience.

(they don't notice this when the three are babies because it takes a while for it to fill in. just like pigment takes time, so does the reflective stuff. it doesn't show up to human eyes until about 3y old, and not like, Strongly glow-y until about 6y old.)

so yeah they all have very reflective glowy spooky eyes. it's one of the most inhuman physical features about them.

(we don't subscribe to pointy eared fae here because i don't want to. 58888888888888888888-0

sorry jasper was deciding if he wanted up or down. he decided he wants me to stand and hold him. i did that for fifteen minutes. i need a kitty bjorn.)

anyway so yeah their eyes. their eyes are also so uhhh humans are omnivores so we have round pupils. good for seeing patterns.

the fae are tricksters that need to see Through things so their eyes are uhhh. there's something off about them: the iris is just a hair too wide and the pupil just an eyelash too narrow. and the three inherit that fully.

(lion, with his glowing, inhumanly golden eyes and just barely cat-like pupils: hm yes this is normal human stuff for sure)

let's see...okay so. lion passes the best for human. so to speak. he does inherit fae characteristics, namely, he is stronger and faster than humans, but 986666666666666666666-8574jui

oop that time it was freyja, mad that i pet jasper but not her, but also not wanting to be pet. she pressed my f7 key so many times god damn girlie. just let me pet you it's what you want.

anyway, he's strong and faster, but he looks a lot like squilf, he's physically capable of telling a lie (which is like, baby's first test for the fae), and unlike his siblings, he doesn't have a penchant for chicanery like a need.

jay and holly look p similar, and they both look like bramble. (i'm not sure how it works in this universe, but this is related to moth and bramble sharing a father in canon.) they're uhhh they're look. you do Not want to break a deal with them.

all three of them get up to a lot of antics together though. they go through a pranks phase. like. it's so hellish for poor squirrel and bramble.

"hey squirrel? have you seen a single left sock?"

hjl, giggling, in the background: there are no more left socks

they just like causing trouble. holly and jay are the most Internally fae, so they think and act as such, but they're the most physically human. lion is the reverse. he's strong despite not having nearly enough muscle, has very Gold Hair like That's Not Normal Lion, can move faster than a human can move in an unnerving way, but he doesn't like. he doesn't enjoy trapping people in logic and such.

so holly and jay are kind of the terrors of the town until they start to figure out how to manage their impulses in a less destructive manner. holly starts a gambling ring.

(this is based on something that happened in my high school. there was a major gambling ring the school actually had to crack down on certain types of notebooks of all things. kids were getting violent. we had a mini-organized crime thing happening.)

jay just starts fucking with people. tourists and the like. are there tourists? i don't know. my point is, he becomes local oddity but in like a good way. i'm not quite sure how to explain it. sorry.

all three of them are close with sorrel's kids. uhhh let's see tho bc while the three are triplets, sorrel's kids aren't. i think honey is older than them, by like 2 years, poppy is about a year older, and cinder is a few months younger.

but they all grow up mostly together. (poppy and mole were twins.)

jay likes to tell berry how he's going to die, for lion's sake.

as they get older and start to come into themselves, they all start to get harder and harder to believe as fully human without actively hiding it. by the time they're ten (i'm going very non chronologically here sorry), they're pretty much impossible to pass off as fully human. actually for a while they think they're changlings.

most people have never met a full fae, so the three seem pretty damn fae like. but they are not.

it takes one about thirty seconds with a full fae to realize this. the fae are taller than humans, with too many teeth, too sharp and needle-like, and their laugh sounds of bells, not like bells, but the sound exactly. they are intoxicating and thrilling and dangerous. they will dance you to death and not feel bad about it. (well, some of them will. they run a spectrum. like people.)

(currently imagining leaf bringing moth home for the holidays. i don't know who that tall vampire lady everyone loves is, but it has strongly that energy.)

anyway, holly's very charming. it doesn't work on her brothers, and thankfully it doesn't work on her parents. she could probably get it to work on them as an adult (25 or so), but definitely not as a youth. she's also the best with glamour. i don't okay i don't have like. glamour down in the high magic sense.

this is a fae au, not a fantasy au, if that means anything to anyone.

but holly is the one who can smile too wide, before her face snaps back down to its position. if that makes sense.

lion has a thing with fruit. i'm sorry that's so unhelpful he's just. overripe fruit, sweet and sticky, at his fingertips. i don't know how to explain this stuff, because part of the point is that it's not tangible, it's subtle and just off centre of reality, so you can almost believe you're seeing things, imagining things. describing it directly is hard.

but anyway, continuing.

jay has some foresight. he's also the best with words. holly is the one who will convince you to make a terrible deal, jay is the reason it's terrible. lion is the one who will enforce it.

but anyway, jay has a knack for phrasing and wording. he would make an excellent lawyer. but he's extremely perceptive, very good at that sort of thing.

uh hopefully this answers your qs.