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mallowstep · 3 years

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nursery things

when do queens move into the nursery?

also it is very important to me that kits call their parents by their names

this lost all formatting when i pasted it but i need to sleep in literally three mintues enjoy

gestation

cats have a gestation period of about 2 months. for the sake of cat ease, we'll say they think of it as a full season, but obviously they don't know if they're pregnant until as little as a moon before they give birth. this is not factually what is occuring, it's what they think, because that means kits become apprentices at nine moons, a holy number.

anyway, cats will show at three weeks to an experienced eye. at four weeks, they'll have a bit of morning sickness. by five weeks, they'll be able to feel the kits development. so that's uh, about 5 weeks before they give birth?

i'm really bad at math i'm sorry.

after that, they're going to grow rapidly and become unfit for patrols fairly quickly. i'm trying to construct a timeline for the fourth apprentice and the poppyfrost drama, but if berrynose knew poppyfrost's kits were coming, he probably had a point.

i mean, she didn't have to move into the nursery, that was overzealous, and she had some time before she couldn't serve as a warrior, but pregnant queens are not exactly mobile.

like mate. she's not going anywhere.

queen madness

i've talked about this a lot and i'm kind of rushing to get this out bc i have a midterm tomorrow so i'm going to bed in 15 minutes regardless of whether or not i post/queue something but i don't want to cheat by uploading allegiances for something i wasn't planning on writing allegiances for (plus those always take me forever) and fuck i'm getting to the point

look. i've talked a lot about this and i don't have anything new to say.

queens. they get overprotective.

frankly, squilf refusing to take young kits back to camp and them hiding under her tail is a fucking trope in my fic.

i don't even know how that's possible, and yet.

fading

so there's this cat equivalent of sids (sudden infant death syndrome) where young (feral) kits just kind of...don't live.

it's also pretty similar to what's called "failure to thrive"

anyway all of these things are interesting go look them up (sad tho be forewarned, also re. failure to thrive lots of very unethical decisions.)

but anyway, i've introduced this concept as fading for several reasons.

one, it explains the vanishing kits problem.

two, it explains why so many kits die despite having socialized medicine with around 95-99% cure rates.

three, it's a good folklore thing. like, queens are scared of this. they're anxious about it. especially in leaf-bare. it adds a good bit of filler drama and all that.

four, more cat biology accuracy.

anyway, this is marked by a kit failing to grow properly. there's nothing wrong with them, they just...never "get on board."

i'm not digging it out now but i have a quote somewhere that's basically "well, she's quiet and calm, but she's growing, so i don't think she's going to die in her sleep."

anyway, this is basically my merciful catchall for kit death. sue me, that's one of my lines.

(but wait, i hear you say, didn't you literally write a fic involving neonaticide and neonaticannabalism? i made that word up i can't spell for shit tho. well, yes, however, those are not character kits, they are plot devices, and you know it. so it doesn't cross the line. i didn't give them personalities for a reason.)

so yeah. okay 10 minutes left and two more sections i can do this.

birthdays (birth days)

heh no one fucking cares.

about, like, the human concept of a birth day.

no, so queens will know they're going to kit soon up to a week beforehand. hazy sources, i'm sorry, provide on request.

again i'm rushin.

right anyway so queens are pretty Aware as you will, and so there's plenty of time to prep the nursery. or other location. that's fairly common in green-leaf, but the clan works real hard to avoid it in the other seasons because it's significantly riskier.

but anyway, a separate kitting nest is provided, and because these are near human levels of intelligence, the cats don't have problems figuring shit out. the other kits are cleared out to the elders den for as many as three nights (kitting can take up to 40 hours), and it's usually the queen's wish to spend a night w her mate. (a) because parents and (b) because safety instincts.

(also as an only vaguely unrelated side, i've recommended "the minor fall, the major life" before and i can't say too much now because i don't have 15 minutes to reread the whole thing i read 1k words a minute and type 100 words a minute how do you think i publish so much but there's some funny? i think it's funny stuff where redtail is all "you know it's kind of concerning how willowpelt keeps having children with no clear father")

and uh, yeah. queens usually track their kits birth to the nearest whole or half moon depending on the clan. there's usually a transitional day ceremony and a mid season ceremony, kits are done when the queens decide they're mature, usually erring over six moons, but on occasion, erring under.

as far as i'm concerned, cinder/bracken/thorn/bright situations never happen. i never remember the four of them are littermates because of that.

moving on i have like 1 minute fuck i forgot i need to brush my teeth

kinship terms

i've already started work on a separate piece for this but.

kits call everyone by their name. they might stumble over it, and those become nicknames, the way young kids do, but please remove every instance of a kit calling "mama" and replace it with either a generic meow or their mother's name.

this is important to me. it just doesn't make sense for the clan to do this, imo, because we see no other terms to refer to people, not even a father term. kits canonically call their fathers by their name (skyclan and the stranger.) anyway i'll talk more about this later i'm out of time.

conclusion

love u bye <3

#q #mine #txt #1st #April #2021 #April 1st 2021 #cloudtail's daughter #jaywing #dovefeather #warriors #warrior cats #warriors worldbuilding #warriors culture #warriors au #essay #long

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fencesandfrogs · 3 years

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cloudtail’s daughter: jayfeather

alright, strap in, it's time for jayfeather. i've been holding it in on him for what feels like forever now; he's ya boy's favorite character

also, aside from dove and ivy, he's the character with the highest volume of changes to canon. even above cloudtail and brightheart, because they continue their lives, it's not a big deal. and lion and cinder go to the tribe, but like, that's it. (i'm figuring out if jay goes with them over the course of this essay. i think i said he did in holly? but he literally hasn't been mentioned once in that arc because there's a lot going on.) anyway lion and cinder don't get up to anything. but jay's priorities shift and we see that in his books. i'm really excited to write him but i need to finish arc 1 lmao.

but first, same deal as always. this is part of my cloudtail's daughter au, where dovekit and ivykit are born to cloudtail and brightheart. i don't know how well this will read preemptively, but i suspect it will be rather dependent on the others. cloudtail's daughter: dovewing and/or the long post that explains it are both good places to start, see the cloudtail's daughter tag on my blog.

[2.5k words, 14 minute read, one of the last warriors essays on this blog. i'm going to finish out with my character essays and then everything will be on new sideblog. so check out @mallowstep for more.]

section one: the leafpool business

at the beginning of this series, leafpool and jayfeather are on bad terms. they will stay on bad terms for basically the entirity of the book series. while one of my main complaints with po3/oots is the lack of acknowledgement of adoption, jayfeather has been lied to by his mother and his mentor, something neither hollyleaf or lionblaze have to contend with, and then his sister kills herself over it. obviously she doesn't, but from his perspective. so he blames leafpool because he was really close to hollyleaf and now she's gone, and it's his first real loss, and there's so much going on.

and so he's a grouch and he's unhappy and he's just trying to function when his whole support system has been dismantled over the course of what, like, a quarter moon? yeah so dovekit and ivykit are like "wow what a grouch he sucks" the same way they don't realize prey is dying of thirst & etc.

for the most part he's j chilling and then hollyleaf comes back and man is it some family drama. unfortunately it's postponed til book 4 because hollyleaf and jayfeather have journeys but anyway i'm getting ahead of myself, because this section should end and unlike the hollyleaf essay i want to actually have decent organization.

section two: hollyleaf is away (but jayfeather doesn't get to play)

holly, cinder, and dove go to deal with beavers. we only get jayfeather through lionblaze in the books, but jayfeather is...conflicted. he got his sister back and lost her again and oh i should say. i think jayfeather and hollyleaf are the closer pair of the siblings. not that they don't love lionblaze the same, but you know how cats pair bond? like, it's usually a trauma thing, but even in feral cats, you see very close friendships. anyway yeah so for other au's i've been sorting siblings n denmates into pairs for this purpose (mostly jaywing au because there's a lot re. dovepaw and jaypaw and remember they are reincarnated siblings they've got a close bond going.) and it's kind of...i don't know my point is jayfeather misses his sister because she's like, his best friend too. or she was. and then she died and now she's back and she left again, and lionblaze is more concerned about cinderheart, so jayfeather just comes off as grouchy all the time. but really he's lonely and sad.

so yeah, jayfeather is kind of moping around camp and then the tree falls and whoops now briarpaw/light is parapalegic.

and uhh this goes more or less as in canon but we don't get pov which is fine bc u can sub in canon. but jayfeather? he's still a sad boy but now he's a sad boy with purpose and that makes all the difference

yeah he's close with her. they're sweet. it's sweet. he's pressured by brambleclaw to take an apprentice. he's bristly and angry and "you're not my real father" you know?

beaver crew gets back. jayfeather, who had missed holly, is back to being angry for...angst and plot purpose, really.

but you know, when you love & miss someone and they leave and they come back and somehow that's worse because now they can leave you again? and you can't tell them you want them to stay because you're angry and hurt but you want them to stay? god i'm excited to write these chapters i love emotional turmoil.

he's protective of briarlight, he's trying to keep dovepaw from being a medicine cat, hollyleaf is apologizing but he's not ready to hear it and lionblaze and hollyleaf are beginning to reconnect and it feels like betrayal. so when cinderheart and lionblaze go to the tribe, he tags along. everyone, uh, strongly encourages he go. he is the big grouch.

section three: time travelling times

okay so the timeline for these books is...messy. if you track the chronology of my writing, it's messy. which is to say, i was thinking i could put forgotten warrior and distant whispers over the same time span, but that actually doesn't work, as i review my notes for FW because a big part of it is ivy and holly's relationship. so. fake news. whoops. that sucks.

or maybe it doesn't? idk i don't usually tell linear stories. i like messing with emotional impact of events. so writing 600k of very linear story telling is very not easy for me. but i'm trying.

right so basically the official order of events until i change my mind again is as follows (names abbreviated as DIHLJC because they're all unique): DCH returns from beavers, DILCJ go to tribe with some other random warrior undecided, J + rando return, JH start awkwardness (beginning of TFW, middle of DW), DILC return (end of DW), time travel stuff (middle to end of TFW). hopefully that was intelligble, but it is admittedly 85% for my own benefit.

alright so we've covered during beavers, now jayfeather and hmmmm let's say, uhhhh, let's say they go with, literally any interesting background character, uh, bumblestripe! he doesn't do anything in this au bumblestripe goes with them. also since his name starts w b i can still write DIHLJCB and have things be unambigious. and it means there are fewer bs in thunderclan and trust me you don't know how frustrating the existence of like 6 b characters is.

alright so we really have 3 sets of two pairs of cats here. maybe i won't go w bumblestripe, bc he doesn't have an existing relationship w jayfeather. i dunno. i'm a big fan of jay & briar, whether as a ship or just besties, but that's just out, and hollyleaf can't come a) because i said so and b) honestly maybe she can? actually wait hold on that solves my problems. hot damn so 6/6 of the pov cats go to the tribe and this will be one of the only times all six characters are plot relevant at the same time. but i'm going george r r martin on it and seperating the books not by time but into DICL + JH because they're two completely separate character arcs that happen to take place at the same time. (don't worry i'm going to resolve the fallen leaves thing. in this essay ig bc i've already covered hollyleaf.)

okay so yeah hollyleaf is sent bc jayfeather isn't planning on staying w tribe for long time. just short time. and he's all "firestar why"

"well jayfeather," firestar says, "you don't talk to your family."

"i talk to dovewing," jayfeather says

"you're not related to her," firestar says

"there's a whole prophecy about how i'm related to her," jayfeather says

"you know about that?" firestar says

and that's how the cat gets out of the bag.

so anyway. jayfeather and hollyleaf are sent because...hold on, spinning the wheel of reasons for a character to go on a field trip...because...because...because...because...jayfeather had one of those dreams. i don't know. rock or something. now he's going.

they get there, and this is where the books get a lil time wonky, bc jayfeather and hollyleaf stay for like a moon, during which jayfeather goes back in time. i think.

i haven't worked out the details and probably won't until i do an updated au synopsis because it's hard to keep track and i'm more concerned about character through lines. like, jayfeather does this and he feels sad, and hollyleaf is sad about her ghost boyfriend, and they're travelling back together, and hollyleaf is his sister and she doesn't make him feel like he needs protection and lionblaze is bad at that, and they start to talk again.

and yeah, they bond. again. it's kind of, on top of their old bond? like they don't repair anything, they bond like strangers. but it's not nothing, and that matters.

so jayfeather gets back, and we're moving into book five, and i don't remember when the last time i made a section break was or what number we're on, so...sorry.

section ???: old man yells at cloud

alright it's finally jayfeather's moment. you know, he's one of my favorite characters, and he only gets a book and a half. "but mateo," i hear you saying, "doesn't every character get a book and a half? and more importantly, 6x1.5 is 9, so how does every character get a book and a half?" well, yes, every character does, but dovewing and ivypool are relevant in books 1-3 and 6, cinderheart in 1-3 and 5, lionblaze in 1-3, and hollyleaf in 2-5 (and has a critical role in 1 and 6, just no character development), while jayfeather is just really essential to books 4-5, and has a background role in 3. that means he's about equal to lionblaze. he's equal to lionblaze. as far as the numbers go, i cannot tell you. it's a mystery.

right so the reason for this is because (a) jayfeather doesn't do that much in oots. i love him, but he's not, like, super important, and (b) he's going to work better in these books if he's concentrated. because his big theme is his relationship with hollyleaf and the past. they're both kind of stuck in it but in different ways. and that prevents them from ever properly healing. so jay never has a full arc in this. i mean he has a full arc, it's just not a satisfying one. and that means he's sort of got to be put in the containment units.

so anyway, he gets his real big moments in the fifth book, when he's reuniting starclan. i think this is one of the riskier decisions on my part: we'll see whether or not i can deliver on him the way i plan to. but i think i can pull it off so that his arc is more meaningful condensed as such.

right. so. jayfeather is decided. he is going to fix starclan. because dead cats need to get thier shit together and he dgaf.

he spends a decent amount of time arguing with yellowfang and bluestar, because basically no important cats have died. at least we're in omen of the stars so it still makes sense? i have no idea why yellow/blue are still so important. please kill more important cats. it makes us feel things.

but feathertail is also probably going to be involved, i don't know. i haven't read these books (specifically, books 4 and 5 of oots) in forever so i don't really remember what happens. but he's kind of, super done with everything. i think he'll probably try to get the support of mothwing and kestrelflight (which is canon i believe?) and try to work as a team. i feel like there's weirdness w shadowclan too i should sort out.

so yeah, there's some medicine cat bonding, everything is OK, sol is happening? but cinderheart is dealing with that. jayfeather is naturally very upset about disconnects with sol but like he's also dealing with stuff i...i really need to reread outcast and sign of the moon. well, they're on my list after "all of these fucking riverclan novels like why they don't show up in the main series but i still have to read a bunch to be able to write them that's not fair."

alright, well, with that very vague description of what happens, moving on, the prophecy gets revealed to the clans at a whole in like...the ending eighth of this book. trying to maximise the amount of exposure to other clans without messing with the pacing.

so jayfeather and undecided warrior B (definitively not hollyleaf) go to windclan. jayfeather is...very unhappy about this. he does not want to leave. thunderclan is his home, and he's blind, and it's really hard to adapt to a new space and he thinks everyone is going to treeat him badly.

and well, if you've read my culture posts, windclan is....very pro-medicine cats and pro-prophecy cats. funerals. mourning. prayer. is probably the best place to start, but to get to the meat of it, start with general clan culture. to summarize, windclan: religious. but kind of like catholics, they don't believe in an individual connection with starclan. only leaders, and medicine cats, and very rarely members of prophecies have a connection. so. jayfeather. he's twice over. that's very cool to windclan.

so cats are kind of falling over themselves to help him, and like. i mean jayfeather is a grouch and he hates that he needs someone to help him through the territory, but at least they don't treat it like a chore, or like he's pitiable. this is a desirable task. apprentices want to know about his powers. and kestrelflight is a respected part of the clan, arguably more important than onestar, and jayfeather has never really gotten over being shoved in the healer hole as a child like it was lesser or easier to be a medicine cat, and so it's a big change.

and yeah. so i mean. an unobservant reader might say jayfeather has sufficient ego. he does not need stroking. they, of course, would be wrong.

jayfeather has a complex, but it's not an ego issue. he's...he's been denied everything he's wanted, and he's jaded, and weary, and he's never really believed that his clan views him as able and equal. in canon, at present, he's lost almost every cat he's every cared about. alderheart is his strongest remaining tie, and his fear at losing him, but willingness to let him leave, is very telling.

so yeah, jayfeather enjoys being accepted. anyone would. he doesn't really have confidence issues, but....argh. i know why this is good i swear it'll come out in the writing.

anyway, that's...that's pretty much it. jayfeather? done.

#warrior cats #warriors au #warriors #hollyleaf #jayfeather #q #mine #txt #13th #March #2021 #March 13th 2021 #cloudtail's daughter #essay #long

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sorrelstream · 7 years

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Details for the hollyleaf au

· Holly + jay are a part of the prophecy, lion is not

· Holly has the power to have like glimpses of the future and shit, occasionally the past (these are either small glimpses or in the forms of symbolism/metaphors)

· Holly and jay become warrior apprentices – holly is bracken’s apprentice, jay is bright’s apprentice. Lion is apprenticed to leafpool and trains as a medicine cat

· Time begins to pass. Holly starts having weird dreams and nightmares over events that haven’t happened yet (and then she starts noticing the events in her dreams happen) and she panics and talks to jay abt it. Jay reveals 2 her his own abilities (walking in dreams/mind communication) and they don’t know what to do abt it

· They ask lion if hes had anything and hes rlly baffled bc theyre not med. Cat apprentices why r they getting these kind of dreams.

· Eventually lion gets the message from yellow that theyre the three (by they she means holly/jay, but lion misinterprets it to also include him)

· He brings it to holly+jay, theyre startled but eventually accept their fate

· There’s stuff in the middle that I haven’t really had the time to plot out ah!! Mostly sibling bonding + friendship bonds (hazel,holly,honey,cinder are tight af, so is mouse,jay,kestrel, and cinder,lion,berry)

· Holly ends up finding out cinder her bff is dating heater from windclan and is paranoid and jumpy bc she starts wondering if that means cinder will get in trouble and what would happen 2 cinder

· Its resolved in the end idk how yet

· Anyways as they grow older they all get their warrior names, blah blah, there’s the fire scene and the big reveal

· Ash ends up going 2 the med cat den the next night due 2 a bad cough developing from smoke inhalation, winds up dead the next morning, everyone assumes it was just breathing problems/failure

· Holly/jay start noticing lion is acting weird, uncomfy, jumpy, and how he starts refusing/making excuses to not go to the moonpool – they come to the conclusion he feels bad abt ashfurs death bc that’s one of the first patients he ever lost

· The three go into digging abt their parentage – holly receives a vision of a crow landing in the forest during leaf-fall, before taking off again

· After more sleuthing they all figure out crow and leaf are their parents. Holly is devastated, jay is bothered, and lion is also crushed,

· Lion has a lot of stress on him rn and the clan is starting to notice fishy things or something abt ashfurs death so eventually lion confesses to holly/jay that he murdered ash by feeding him poisonous herbs. He’s guilty and devastated by his own actions going against the medicine code (NOT abt ashfur tho he doesn’t care at all abt ashfur he just feels like starclan is judging him and the clan will too if they find out) so he runs off before anyone else can find out

· Holly/jay are devastated but are still handling how to deal with the issue of their parentage

· Crow, in a petty attempt to ruin leafpools career as a medicine cat, tells everyone that she had an affair and produced kittens – he’s smug bc he knows that in the flawed system even if everyone finds out/is aware crow is the father, none will really do anything because all blame will fall to leafpool

· Which it unfortunately does which is shitty and sucky but :( leaf can’t really step down though because her apprentice disappeared. Now she just faces constant shame and humiliation (holly notices that leaf is treated much worse than crow and starts getting REALLY pissed bc no one seems to care that crow just took advantage of leafs willing trust/love for him and abandoned her when she was pregnant so most of hollys hate-energy starts getting directed towards crowfeather/windclan)

· Eventually dove and ivy r born. Dove is apprenticed to cinder while holly trains ivy

· Lion eventually does return, after living life as a rogue

· There’s a lot more stuff I need to flesh out here but ah !! on to the end

· During the great battle things are a bit different?? The whole “dying twice” thing is scrapped – instead, when a starclan/dark forest cat is “killed” in battle, they’re just sent back to their respective residence, but now they can’t walk in dreams or walk among the living

· Bramble is killed by hawk, lion is killed by ash, ash is then banished back 2 dark forest by squirrel (yes ashfur is in the dark forest finally where he BELONGS), mousefur n millie r killed by df warriors, bracken dies instead of sorreltail, and dustpelt dies instead of ferncloud , fire still dies

crowfeather also dies after trying 2 hurt/attack leafpool and/or breezepelt . nightcloud motherfucking DESTROYS that dickhead

· After the battle is over its time to start leaving but everyone realizes that thunderclan now has no deputy or leader. Fire’s ghost gets up and walks to holly and touches his muzzle to her forehead, basically appointing her as the next leader

· Holly goes and gets her nine lives, which are:

o Brackenfur: Diligence

o Dustpelt: Trust (bc how he trusted fire despite their obvious differences)

o Cinderpelt: Appreciation (basically to love her life while she has it and value all her days)

o Mousefur: Wit

o Longtail: Sacrifice

o Honeyfern: Friendship (her and holly were super close, honey and hazel also verged on a romantic relationship before her death. This is just kinda the life given 2 holly 2 like, befriend other clans and make allies and shit)

o Brambleclaw: Dedication (like his dedication to prove himself 2 thunderclan

o Firestar: Prosperity

o Lionblaze: Loyalty (like his loyalty 2 his siblings, even if it faltered a few times)

· Poppyfrost, berrynose, birchfall, and thornclaw die after the battle (a few days later), bright moves to the elders den w/ cloud after their kits are made apprentices or warriors idk

· Time goes on. Mousewhisker/jayfeather become mates, hazeltail/hollystar become mates (mouse and hazel are both trans btw !! mouse is a trans boy and hazel is a trans girl bc these are honestly,,, my favorite lgbt wc headcanons ull never not see me make an au or headcanon where either of them aren’t trans like man,,)

· Anyways mouse and jay have kits, and hazel+holly adopt a pair of rogue kittens (this au’s version of alderkit and sparkkit. Spark is also a trans girl and alder is also a trans boy !!! spark is a ginger tabby n alder is a torbie)

#ahdfusf #yeah #aus #sorrel scrawls

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