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Riverstar would’ve been a good subject for cosmic horror if he’d been physically dragged to the moonstone and forcibly given the nine lives. He didn’t even like going to gatherings. He’s the very definition of im only here cuz god won’t let me out

the image this ask produced in my mind was so visceral i had to drawn him. send that man to eeby deeby the moonstone!!!

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Artfight attack for @bpdbluestar!

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Does anyone ever think about how the clans used to actually have differences in culture and lifestyle and how all of that got erased in the newer books?

Imagine how cool it would have been if the Erins had explored these cultural differences between the clans even FURTHER because that would have given the series so much potential.

Here are some examples of just how cool cultural differences can be:

RiverClan

I want to see RiverClan using their skills in swimming way more than they do currently, let them swim to the gathering island every full moon, let them attack other clans from the depths of the lake and drag cats down into the water to drown them. Let them still have their easygoing and relaxed attitude but show how formidable they can be in a fight and make it clear that they are not to be messed with.

Give them their own traditions too, let them celebrate the coming of spring each year because of ice melting and the river thawing so that they can fish again. Let them collect pretty flower petals on this day to decorate their dens and have them celebrate it by all going down to the river to fish.

Show their clan’s love for pretty trinkets and have them gather pretty shells and pebbles from the river. Let the apprentices play games this way by seeing who can find the prettiest shell for their den and boasting about it later. I imagine the other clans would view them as relaxed and easygoing, always having a ready source of food thanks to the river but at the same time they know to fear them for their almost unnatural fighting skills in the water.

WindClan

Imagine WindClan still keeping their old tradition of tunnelling even at the lake territory, imagine WindClan tunnellers accidentally discovering the old forgotten tunnels that run under the forest and finding out pieces of their history this way, possibly even before Jayfeather does. I wish they had kept the tunnelling tradition alive because that was what made WindClan so unique.

Show just how fast WindClan can be, let them use the tunnels to invade other territories and let them be almost impossible for the others to catch up to. They might be considered scrawny but show that they have an advantage in battle because of their uncanny speed.

In general let them have a closed off and cold approach to the other clans. Show that they think they are closer to StarClan than the others because they live and sleep under open skies. They might seem almost mysterious to the other clans and deeply rooted in their traditions. Let them have oral storytelling nights and let them chart constellations in the night sky, keeping alive the tales of their ancestors.

The could even believe that the wind which blows over the moors is holy, the echo of the voices of their ancestors. I picture them as a religious clan, even more than the others. Perhaps they pray by listening to the wind and leaving offerings to be blown away in the breeze (usually the feathers of birds of prey)

ShadowClan

Next up is ShadowClan, the stereotypical bad guys. I would have loved if ShadowClan had been shown to follow a more nocturnal lifestyle, being active mostly at night. They would be masters of stealth, blending into the shadows and coating themselves with mud and leaves for camouflage due to their territories limited undergrowth. This might be what gives them their stereotypical bad smell, that ThunderClan always complains about.

Their territory is very marshy and due to little undergrowth it would be harder for them to stalk prey. This has caused them to be the stealthiest out of all the clans and the best hunters. But they are also able to use this stealth to their advantage in a fight. They attack without warning from the shadows and rely on surprise, always striking at night when it’s hardest to see them.

Their tradition could be the celebration of the winter solstice, the longest night of the year.

ThunderClan

And finally we have the main protagonists ThunderClan. This clan has always felt bland to me in terms of tradition because they don’t seem to have anything that really makes them stand out. I imagine they are probably the best trackers due to having to hunt and track prey in thick bushy undergrowth.

But honestly I would have loved if they had been given something to make them special and unique. Any ideas?

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Since it's pride month I decided to draw some pride kitties. Some of these I have no reason besides the vibes they give me. Feel free to disagree with any of these.

The characters from left to right(ish) are. Mothwing, Falling feather, Hazeltail, Bumble, Yellowfang.

Tallstar, Harestar, Littlecloud, Runningnose, Ravenpaw, Barley, Flipclaw.

Leafpool, Turtle Tail, Jake, Rosetail, Thrushpelt.

Brambleberry, Longtail, Redtail, Hawkfrost, Rainswept Flower.

Pebble Heart, Puddleshine, Squirrelflight, Egg, Twigbranch, Tree.

Brick, Petaldust, Snowfur, Rowanclaw/star, Bellaleaf, One-eye.

Whitestorm, Willowshine, Gray Wing, Dovewing, Cloudtail.

River Ripple, Foxleap, Cinderpelt, Heathertail, Shrewtooth.

Ivypool, Wind Runner, Graypool, Leopardstar, Sol.

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REBLOG TO KILL TOM

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@bonefall really inspired me with their redoing of some religious aspects! So I've decided on some of the many ceremonies/holidays that Clans have!

I'm only naming 1 each though for the sake of post length.

ThunderClan: Only taking place during a thunderstorm, all apprentices are to go hunting silently and each is to catch a piece of prey, to be returned to the Clan and shared as a sort of feast. Older apprentices are often made Warriors during this time. They do this to have Thunderstar bless their hunts.

Old!SkyClan: Old!SkyClan often has ritualistic "pit fights" where, claws sheathed, 2 warriors will fight until one has the other pinned. This is for the favour of StarClan, as their culture loves displays of strength.

New!SkyClan: New Moon nights are seen as a time of remembering, and the first New Moon of Leaf-Bare is the day that they remember and honour Old!SkyClan with a vigil. All cats watch the Sky that night.

Shadowclan: Bumblebee Festival! Oddly sweet for the tough ShadowClan, they gather as many flowers as possible and put them into camp to draw out Bumblebees, in honor of one of their founders: Bumble.

RiverClan: While a bit snippy about who owns what, the Shell Collection is a big deal (and why the Bonehill is such an atrocity). The most beautiful shells are placed in a clearing on a Greenleaf Wax Moon that is nearly full. The shells are piled up to show off the shining underside to remember the beauty of the world around them. Shells are often traded as well, and prey is shared amongst all.

WindClan: WindClan has a ceremony that occurs during Leaf-Fall. On nights with an Orange moon, the Clan is to take a silent vigil and sleep outside, honouring StarClan and their dead above all else, remembering them by mapping out the star in the camp using pebbles while the rest of the Clan is at the Gathering.

They also see Winter, Spring, Summer and Autumn as the actual names of the beings that control the seasons. Spring is a Lion, young and lively. Summer is a Leopard, brave and hot-blooded. Autumn is a Tiger, stern and quiet. Winter is... A Skeleton, ancient and unyielding, but not actively cruel. Exactly WHAT it is a Skeleton of differs depending on who you ask.

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3. Leafpool

Dandelions for Lionblaze, holly berries + leaves for Hollyleaf and blue jay feathers for Jayfeather.

The books are weird about Leafpool's lineage, so she's a little less 'Firestar-y' than her sister lol.

Stripes from Firestar's side of the family. Spots from Sandstorm.

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Leafpool discovering the moonpool🌌

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Damn I completely forgot about this scene in “Into the Wild”, absolutely blew me away on reread.

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As we all know, I'm obsessed with the idea of injecting more explicitly dynastic politicking into WC and I love theorycrafting and pondering the possibilities of tweaking the rules of this society. To that effect I've thought a lot about different types of hereditary succession and how they'd play out within the society of the Clans. I've been wanting to share my thoughts for a while because I think they make for very fun thought experiments and they could be very interesting to explore in the context of OC stories or AUs.

So, without further ado, here's four styles of hereditary succession other than plain vanilla primogeniture that I think would be interesting in the WC world:

Succession by Seniority

I call this one the murderous uncle prevention strategy. Essentially, the principle is that rather than the monarch's children being next in line to inherit it's the monarch's siblings. At the death of the youngest sibling, said sibling's oldest child inherits, starting the cycle anew. Thus, inheritance passes horizontally rather than vertically across an entire generation before it descends again. Considering cats are born in litters, almost every leader is going to have a sibling or two around, usually a same-age sibling. This has the delightful consequence of making twin/triplet/etc birth order squabbling have pretty significant political consequences. I can see both comedic and dramatic angles to it. And while this type of succession reduces risk of uncles murdering their nephews since they're not threats to their eventual inheritance, this does incentivise children of the monarch to eliminate their uncles to ensure their father is the youngest sibling. So, there's another angle for y'all...

Ultimogeniture

The opposite of primogeniture, rather than oldest child inheriting it's the youngest. This style of sucession tends to emerge in cultures which place the burden of caring for one's elderly parents onto the youngest child whilde elder children are expected to go out and make their living on their own. With this cultural logic in mind it makes perfect sense why youngest children would be entitled to the lion's share of their parents' inheritance. When it comes to importing it into the world of WC there's already a cultural practice of the Clans that lends itself to it, the fact apprentices are the ones in charge to tending to the needs of elders. Thus, in this hypothetical Clan, perhaps the reason younger children of leaders are preferred is because there's a cultural belief that the values apprentice duties instill onto apprentices, qualities that mark a cat as leaderlike, degrade over time. Thus it is preferrable to have a leader as close to apprentice age as possible. Of course, this style of succession produces, on average, very young leaders, maybe even apprentice leaders. This opens the door for scheming regent plotlines which are always fun.

Succession by Tanistry

This one's the most sensible one on the list. Well, as sensible as you can make hereditary monarchy, but I digress. I've talked about it before on another post, so I'll be brief here. Succession by tanistry is a form of elective succession practiced among Irish and Scottish clans that has a hereditary element in who are elligible candidates. At the ascension of a new leader, the clan gathers to elect a successor called a tanist. The tanist must be an adult descendant of the leader previous to the current. This has the advantage of ensuring the leader has the Clan's approval, at least at the time of the election, as well as avoiding regencies on account of the tanist being underage.

Porphyrogeniture

Not so much a concrete style of succession as a strategy of legitimation that emerged in the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire. According to this principle, a child born of a ruler after their parent has taken the throne has a stronger claim on the title than their elder siblings born before their parent took the throne. This works in conjunction with the succession by appointment already in place in WC, such that a leader is expected to raise one of their children to eventually take on a deputy position with preference for those children born after he's taken leadership. I think there's one scene from The Broken Code in which ThunderClan nepotism was justified because "Leaders raise leaders" and this could very much play into it. Perhaps a leader is expected to pass on their leaderly qualities by being an example to their children raised under their leadership. I have a concept relating to this particular idea in my endless list of things to write concerning Onestar, a leader who I think is particularly fun for this as he basically went straight from warrior to leader thus whatever children he could hypothetically have before ascending to leadership would be blindsided by this whole thing. In the AU concept I have for it, Haresrping and Kestrelflight are his children and got aged up so that they are fully trained by the time they reach the lake, with Heathertail being their younger sister born right after Onestar took leadership. There's more to it than simply "Harespring gets jealous of his literal baby sister" but... yeah that's kind of the core of it.

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this is a half-baked thought but i get when people say "appledusk cheating doesn't warrant him being killed" because in that sense it's being viewed with the same social sanctions as our society but like. they don't. they live in a society :tm: where his relationship with maple was illegal altogether and could warrant being exiled and losing the support of their community

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sunset and long shadow

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leafpool hated brambleclaw before it was cool just another example of why she’s always right

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does anyone have any good lists of warriors herbs and remedies?

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some warrior cats phone backgrounds I edited!

Please rb if u save <3

Edit: StarClan version!

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if your requests are open, can you draw runningnose

RunningNose for the runn1ngn0se tumblr hes silly funky gloopy glunky guy

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Ratscar is either Scourge or Blackstar’s husband, or both. Shrug

Scourge: sooo Blackstar, how’s Ratscar?

Blackstar: fine

Scourge: good

Blackstar: I smelled Thunderclan too close to the border

Scourge: hmmm, ah yes, I’ll tell others to be careful

Blackstar: right…

I can't help it, my first thought for an age-appropriate gay man warrior is Ratscar every time. I'm just going to lean into it.

He's covered in ratbite scars, smug and confident, raised his little sister Snowbird alone dad energy, most handsome possible warrior by Clan standards sitting in a crowd like,

Ratscar: "Everyone at this Gathering desires me carnally."