#i need to like reread hamlet but like i have some fucking words about how Wendy brings up Ophelia in multiple quotes and how her tragedy

[fduck0]

As someone who never stops thinking abt Wendy and Abigail, I've always seen Wendy's rework animation as less of a hallucination and more as a simple but effective rundown over Wendy's struggle with her grief through how she remembers Abigail's death. Most notably, I believe the last bit with the bush is either a slightly older memory stitched in or deliberate misremembering as a defense mechanism of sorts. My main reason for thinking this is partially cause yeah no that just didn't happen, but also because to me it makes the previous moments hit so much harder because of the harsh contrast between Wendy's attitude towards Abigail in the two scenes. In the previous, she's dismissive, and has to be dragged away from her books, and is clearly much more reluctant about doing things than Abigail. And in the next scene, Wendy is smiling, laughing, and playing with Abigail. This actually fits quite well with Wendy's dialogue too, but that's besides the point. And with the ending bit, I see it as a basic snap to reality from a deep daydream. Also, one detail I love is how Jack does look concerned for Wendy and briefly tries to reach for her before giving up, which just is soooo good like a big part of Wendy's hashtag issues was not just losing Abby, but also seemingly having very little support after that loss. In general, a lot of Wendy's messy and sometimes contradictory statements and actions are incredibly easily explained by the fact that she's a traumatized and grieving child who in no way has the tools to healthily cope with her emotions and very little support even outside of that. This is why Wendy makes me want to start biting things and why that's my favorite don't start animation 👍

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS THIS PERSON GETS IT.

Tbh while ive never thought ab Wendys animation like that, that is SUCH a good fucking take on it and tbh PRETTY GOD DAMN FITTING to wendys rapid change of emotions in the animation. and with this i have to say, YESSSS SOMEONE IS FINALLY POINTING OUT THE JACK THING.

I feel like a lot of Wendys fear of letting go of Abigail comes from this. Its like a god damn tragedy cycle. feel alone without Abigail- get no support from family- feel more alone and abandoned- cling to the fact Abigail WOULD have been the support and form an unhealthy coping mechanism around it- grow MORE dependent on her and restart. It is essentially what makes her SO god damn afraid and i feel like this quote from her forge vignette puts it best "Wendy clings fiercely to the grief over her sister's death, for fear that moving on would cause Abigail's memory to fade."

With the lack of support from her family and being "left behind", Wendy most probably feels to some extent she is the ONLY one trying to keep Abigail's memory alive. Abigail is the ONLY one she has ever had.

And with this last thing, another YES. A lot of Wendys contradictions can be boiled down to her conflicted and jumbled emotions as a child trying to cope and her fears getting the best of her. Wendy doesnt HATE colours, Wendy hates what memories those colours bring back and the cheerfulness she doesnt feel anymore. it is all a mockery to her grief, but there is STILL a part of her that longs for that part of her childhood back, which leads to a lot of the conflicted quotes as a kid who doesnt know what she wants anymore.

But yeah, we going off again bc WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH Wendy lore is both so cool and complicated and idk how to write down my opinions so they just come out in rambles but like YEAH Keese you are so fucking right

#dst #dst wendy #duck rambles #i need to like legit ramble ab Wendy more often on here because i haVE BEEN THINKING AB HER LORE FOR LIKE 6 YEARS ITS INSANEEEEEEE #i need to like reread hamlet but like i have some fucking words about how Wendy brings up Ophelia in multiple quotes and how her tragedy #mimics that of Abigails death in a way and how Wendy can be seen as Laertes

[lapinlunaire-games]

what the fuck. how. how is your writing so beautiful and masterful and makes me want to weep and follow your every last word until my feet have been worn down to their bones. the way you write as if each movement and detail in your works is nothing less than holy im , , , ROUGI IS INSANE 2 ME. SO IS ELSINORE: AFTER HAMLET.

i am so in love with giselle. you refer to her expressions to be similar to the faces of the moon so often im so so ill. the scene where the other violinist plays on even though strings strike him like the hands of a scorned lover , , , ur writing is so inspirational to me i will be rereading it whenever i need to find beautiful prose because oh my god. the scraps of red fabric u pick up with every clue. the paint. the cursed shoes oh , , ,

the "(s)he makes me want to be selfish" line is INSANE. i hope ur life is bountiful and full of joy and beauty bc. god. <333

is it alright if i ask what writers have inspired you in the past?

Thank you so much! This is such a lovely ask, and I'm so glad you enjoy my writing (to the point of telling me so! what a wonderful thing this world is!)

Ahh Giselle is such a fun character to write and it means a lot to me that all those purpley details in Rougi stand out to you. And thank you for the Elsinore love!! Baby's first IF is very clearly baby's first IF haha, but seeing other people enjoy it is so deeply rewarding.

Thank you again so much for the kind words - this kind of response is so delightful to receive, and inspiring to boot. My answer to your question about writers got longer than I anticipated, so below the cut!

As for writers that inspire me, Rougi is very specifically modeled after a few works from the late 19th century: Guy de Maupassant's Le Horla, Oscar Wilde's The Happy Prince, and (pushing the late part of "late 19th century here, but oh well) Balzac's La Fille aux yeux d'or. I really enjoy reading Decadent writers and in Rougi, my aim for the writing style is to pit Decadent attention to imagery and setting against a more naturalist cynicism as the mystery digs deeper. I'll admit also that I have not kept up with contemporary authors as much as I'd like to!

In general, I think my writing style takes a lot from the 19th century. I love sensation fiction and the Gothic - most of my work focuses on hauntings of some sort, and I like creating narratives that force people to confront uncomfortable aspects of themselves by recognising them in others.

#ask #luna-the-moth

[exciting]

As requested, books / series I read in 2020 in the order I read them, with a few brief thoughts. (This took me a hot second because there are a few and also I moved cities) Should I keep a consistent goodreads? Yes I should but I didn’t think of that at the time, so bone apple teeth & sorry if I offend you abt your faves x

P.S. I can’t figure out how to do a read more on mobile so long post ahead!

A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J Maas - This is one of the most vivid published fantasy books I have ever read... I read it twice in rapid succession. The fandom POPS off. I must say I have issues with certain aspects e.g. fae lore completely ignored à la Twilight, all love interests 500+ years old and technically a different species, etc (I’m not going to deconstruct the entire series here but just know that I could... Nesta deserves better)

Cruel Prince by Holly Black - This fucking slaps, HB clearly has done her research, the lore is near immaculate, and it explores the Fae in such a unique way, tying it to the modern world subtly and seamlessly. My only qualm was that the books felt quite short; truly wish there had been more content.

Throne of Glass by Sarah J Maas (6/7) - So basically I read this in one single, hyperfixated fit which meant I literally locked myself in my room for three days straight and read all six books back to back in a row from morning to the wee hours. Which is not to say it was spectacular; although it was a VERY rich world, sometimes it was too much... this felt like 6 stories in one. Ik she was young when she wrote this but it is my humble opinion that SJM needs a better editor & I personally think Rowan is a grade A asshole / straight up abusive (& personally think the ACOTAR Tamlin plot was born from that?). It’s good but not as good as ACOTAR. Skip-read the last book. 

Grishaverse (Shadow and Bone) by Leigh Bardugo (3) - This is essential to read before SOC but was very much simply a YA fantasy book, although the world was cool and the way the love plot played out was, imo, a subtle middle finger to the fantasy trope. Felt very much aimed at younger readers though? Really liked the sandwhich structure of the Proluge and Epilogue, especially in #2

Six of Crows series by Leigh Bardugo (2) - INCREDIBLE continuation of Grishaverse, better than the original series by a mile. It has the range, the diversity, the representation (the male lead is a disabled asexual and still the most cunning of the entire cast of characters), the plot is phenomenal, and it manages such a well rounded plot in only two books which means nothing is stretched out or squeezed in more than need be. Deserves all the praise it gets.

King of Scars series by Leigh Bardugo (0.5/1) - Personally I don’t consider this book canon, and while it’s nice to see the rest of Nina’s journey & the world again & everyone else, I don't like it. I will, however, be reading book 2 when it comes out, so shame on me, I suppose.

Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo (1/1) - this was incredibly cool although it went off in a completely different direction than I thought it would based off the first few chapters? One of my favourite YA-author-debuts-New-Adult novels in 2020 though!

Crescent City by Sarah J Maas (1/1) - This was supposed to be SJM/s New Adult debut, although personally I would put her other series in New Adult, and I can’t say a remarkable amount was different with this except they said “fuck” and “ass” a lot. WHY is the romantic interest 500 years old AGAIN. I just... don’t... I just don’t think it was necessary... the world was cool though, and the last half of the book was riveting, but the beginning was quite slow and I thought the sword thing was predictable. I am interested to see where this goes though.

A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab (3) - This world is so fucking cool... four Londons aka parallel universes & the one in ‘our’ world is set in industrial era London. Magic, girls dressing up as boys, thieves, pirates, royalty... it all just slaps. Schwab is an incredible writer & I was completely immersed.

Midnight Sun by SMeyer - I didn’t think anything could possibly detract even further from the Twilight story but I was sorely mistaken... seeing the stalking from Edward’s POV - and it was worse than depicted in Twilight, for the record - completely obliterated any sort of romance the first half of the original book may have portrayed. I still hold the opinion that the entire series would have been better if some kind of vampire lore had been abided by, if only to see all of the villains thwarted by someone dropping a bag of rice on the ground, forcing them to have to count them all.

An ember in the Ash by Sabaa Tahir  (3/4) - This was just a very stereotypical ya fantasy series, emphasis on the YOUNG... it wasn’t anything to write home about but I remember quite enjoying it at the time. 

The Power by Naomi Alderman - This book is FUCKING incredible and EXCEPTIONALLY thought provoking... essentially women alone develop a power of electric shock etc. and then take over the world from men, and it explores feminism and the balance between equality & tipping the scales in the other direction. Written by a friend of M.Atwood in a similar tone to handmaids tale, I would say? Content warning; there are some exceptionally graphic scenes in the latter half of the novel. 

Hamlet by Wllm Shksp - I can’t believe it took me this long to finally read it but Ophelia is my favourite name in the entire world & we love to see a woman go batshit (although she didn’t deserve that). 

Catherine House by Elisabeth Thomas - this was unsettling in the best sense of the word... it was a little slow & honestly more of a concept than a big reveal, but I couldn’t stop thinking about it after I finished it? A Secret History vibes but make it blurry like the memory of all those dystopian novels you read when you were young?

The Invisible Life of Addie La Rue by V.E. Schwab - This is without a doubt my book of the year, and probably the best book I read in 2020? I stayed up all night on a friend’s couch reading it, got a book hangover and reread the ending, and then thrust it upon my mother who doesn’t usually read but read this, and loved it just as much. HIGHLY recommend and you HAVE to read it, it’s beautiful and endearing and just plain wonderful.

Captive Prince by C.S. Pacat (3/3) - I went into this knowing it was going to be terrible, because I had received a blow by blow telling me as much; although I must say that it did learn a remarkable amount of new words, the books did get better as the series went on, and it did have a rather charming ending? BIG content warning for almost everything.

Sapiens by Yuval Harari - mind-expanding & must recommend for everyone, there is everything in this and I daresay everyone should posses this kind of knowledge? I listened to it as an audiobook (which I recommend because it’s rather hearty) but will be buying this in hardcopy & rereading it with annotations. 

Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller - Without a doubt, one of the most beautiful novels I have ever read, and certainly the most beautiful portrayal of the story of Achilles and the battle of Troy I have ever seen. Patroclus deserved the justice that was given to him in this book; indeed, all of the characters were written with justice and grace. Highly recommend.

Trials of Apollo by Rick Riordan (3/5) - Apollo is my favourite Greek God, and the sexiest greek god, and Rick Riordan’s writing slaps, as always. It did pain me to see Apollo, the sexy immortal, have to be forced back into a 16 year old’s body but everything else? Whimsical & wonderful, as expected. 

These Violent Delights by Chloe Gong - a retelling of Romeo and Juliette, except it’s set in Shanghai in the 1920′s, and the protagonists already have a history. Very well done, characters are incredibly diverse in race, sexual orientation, gender, and ability / disability (and honestly, representation has never appeared so effortless and elegant). Also it includes a monster and possible magic. Incredibly underrated and highly recommend.

The Once and Future Witches by Alix. E Harrow - this was such a unique concept, and truly captivating, the story was charming, and felt like the kind of beautiful fairytale you would read as children but with more grit? ABSOLUTELY recommend this one

The Pisces by Melissa Broder - I hated this so much, not my vibe at all. Mermaid smut x therapy but make it cynical and judgemental (I know there was a moral in there but that’s not my point) also the dog dies.

Library of the Unwritten by A.J. Hackwith (1/2) - really interesting & unique concept (all unwritten novels / ideas reside in a special library that is part of Hell and then sometimes the books can come to life) however, my first thought upon reading this was “this reads as if it’s stemmed from one of those writing prompt tumblr posts” bc of the tone and whatever and as it turns out I was somewhat correct, it did stem from a short story (not bad just obvious). It did kind of settle down as it went on but I found reading it kind of a drag, and I don’t think I will read the second one.

Abandon by Meg Cabot - 1. Meg Cabot’s writing always fucking slaps 2. Hades and Persephone but make it modern & very 2000′s & somehow kind of unique 3. I literally loved this, sue me

Medusa Girls (Sweet Venom) by Tera Childs - Like Percy Jackson except they are descendants of Medusa so they are Gorgons and have fangs & venom (hence the title). Gave me very 2000′s vibes? Quite cool but tbh I found the books quite short (like two hours each, if that)? Do NOT read the GoodReads description of the book before you read it, you will spoil it for yourself.

Bring me their Hearts by Sara Wolf - In my opinion, this is one of the most underrated YA series I read in 2020. The heroine is endearing, self aware, witty, and loves to look pretty even while kicking ass which in my opinion is an incredibly underrated trait. Also, immortality without being hundreds of years old? VERY sexy. HIGHLY recommend. 

A Deal with the Elf King by Elise Kova - High commendation to be given for the fact that it is a standalone and yet manages to fit in the plot of what would usually be a full fantasy trilogy without cutting corners or being a million miles long? Also sweet storyline & beautiful ending? If you liked ACOTAR you should read this as a “what would have / could have been had SJM had a different editor” (No shade I promise).

The Iron Fae by Julie Kagawa (4/4 + novellas) - Incredibly detailed faerie set around the modern world & our current use of technology & iron in it. Very neat adventure-style series, by the time I read the last novella I was well and truly done with the world (aka provided enough content to be fulfilling). Was definitely aimed at a younger audience though, NO smut / smut was brushed over.

The Modern Faerie Tales by Holly Black (3/3 SS) - This is technically the prequel to Cruel prince, set in the modern world, but with the fae world inside it as it traditional? All I have to say is that it is excellent & I highly recommend it.

Bridgerton series (The Duke and I) by Julia Quinn (9/9) - I read this after watching the Netflix show twice through and I am obsessed, although the books were not quite as elegant as the show, and some parts that made me cringe either by their portrayal (it is very firmly set in the 19th century and thus some things are not handled with tact or grace), the characters were exceptionally loveable and I am so excited to see where the show takes them! Lovely language & an abundance of words I had never seen before (always a plus). 

#the number of these which I hate with a passion now #fuck my life #HATE SJM #MAD about grishaverse #ASHAMED of bridgerton and the feminism leeched from my soul after reading this

[staircasttext]

Ep 04 Transcript: Purr-fidy

Episode 4

[intro music]

PAZ: Hello everyone, welcome back to Stairway to Starclan, a Warriors Cat reread pawdcast. I'm Paz.

JULIAN: I'm Julian.

LIZ: I'm Liz.

PAZ: And we're back today to tackle some very action-filled chapters. And because the reading this week, we finally get to go to Moonstone and tangentially get some of that StarClan action, I thought we could all go to the official site where they let you ask the Moonpool a question. "Seek the wisdom of StarClan. Enter a question with a yes or no answer and let them guide your path." And I think we should give StarClan some questions.

JULIAN: Hell yeah.

PAZ: I wonder if they'll let you curse in this. Will warriorcats.com let you say fuck?

LIZ: Wait, wait.

JULIAN: There's a nice little shimmer when you click the Start.

LIZ: "This page is currently not supported on your platform."

JULIAN: Oh no.

LIZ: And I'm getting a little crying cat emoji.

JULIAN: What browser?

PAZ: I'm on Firefox too. It's working fine for me.

LIZ: You'll have to ask Moonpool questions for me.

PAZ: I'll ask you a question for you. Okay. I think the first pressing question is, are these cats gay? [typing] "StarClan lights your path with a yes."

LIZ: [gasps] Get a screencap. Oh my god.

JULIAN: Word of God.

PAZ: Word of God. You heard it here from StarClan. These cats are gay.

LIZ: You know it.

JULIAN: I have a question.

PAZ: Yes.

JULIAN: Will these cats be held accountable for their many crimes? "We have heard your call and answer in turn. StarClan sees a yes in your destiny."

PAZ: Oh.

JULIAN: All right, StarClan, get the tribunal together.

PAZ: Okay. These cats are going on trial for their war crimes. They're gay and they're going on trial. Liz, what's your question?

LIZ: Will warrior cats and kittypets ever reach an accord and maybe be friends?

PAZ: Okay, I'm asking. "The stars shine brightly in favor of yes."

JULIAN: Does this thing ever give you a no?

PAZ: I feel like StarClan might be a bit of a yes man.

JULIAN: I want to ask another question and see if we can get a no. Will it snow tomorrow? "The strength of Starclan is with you." It didn't tell me yes or no.

LIZ: Maybe it's like prophecy. You have to interpret it.

JULIAN: Oh, I see.

LIZ: Like do you need the strength because it'll snow.

JULIAN: Yeah, I think this may just never tell me no.

PAZ: Well, you know what? That means everything we say is right.

JULIAN: There you go.

LIZ: Can you ask it like, does my cat know that I love it? Yes. No. Not me personally because I don't have one.

PAZ: Okay, does my cat know that I love them? If it tells me yes-- "StarClan guides your question with a yes." I was about to say, if it tells me no, that'd be real sad. Well, I'm happy that everything I said now has the support of StarClan. So that was a fruitful visit to the Moonpool. And I think we can go into the summaries now.

LIZ: All right.

PAZ: Okay. So this week we read chapter 15 through 18. Chapter 15 follows Bluestar, Tigerclaw, and Firepaw into the cave as they travel to the Moonstone. It was pitch black and they all have to follow Bluestar by scent who knows the way. Firepaw notices that Tigerclaw seems very scared as they travel inside. When they actually reach the Moonstone, Tigerclaw gets so scared he runs out of the cave. Bluestar then sleeps by the Moonstone while Firepaw watches. When Bluestar wakes up she seems very worried and insists that they return to the ThunderClan camp immediately.

In chapter 16, the cats begin the journey back to camp. The three apprentices have a brief conversation and Graypaw notes that Ravenpaw seems very on edge whenever Tigerclaw is around. On the way back, the group meets a loner named Barley, who lives near a Twoleg farm. Barley warns them to go back a different way because the dogs from earlier are now loose in the field.

And Bluestar takes his advice and the different way leads them to be attacked by a bunch of rats. Everyone gets really battered, but Barley comes in to help them. Tigerclaw says Barley sent them into a trap, and Barley was like, No I did not. Then everyone realizes Bluestar is gravely injured, possibly dead, but she soon revives. Bluestar says she lost a life. When they finally began to move again, Tigerclaw very nonchalantly asks how many lives Bluestar has lost and she says this is her fifth.

In chapter 17, which is a hefty chapter, the cats finally arrive back to the ThunderClan camp, only to see it under attack by ShadowClan warriors as Bluestar saw in her vision. There is a huge cat battle happening in the camp, and everyone joins in. There are some action scenes, and then Firepaw is the shadow plan deputy kill an elder who is guarding the kits. Firepaw is unable to get there to rescue them because he's fighting another cat. And by the time he rushes to the nursery, the ShadowClan deputy is gone.

Yellowfang, who is inside, reveals that she fought him off to protect the kits. The battle soon dies down, and one of the queens publicly declares that Yellowfang saved the kits. Then Bluestar delivers the news that Lionheart, the ThunderClan deputy is dead. Graypaw is devastated. Firepaw realizes that the whole situation is exactly like a dream he had before. There are some scenes of various cuts morning and being looked at after the battle.

Bluestar then announces she has to declare a new deputy before moonhigh, and uh-oh, it's Tigerclaw. Next to Firepaw, Ravenpaw reacts in dismay and lets it slip that Tigerclaw took care of Redtail because he wanted to be deputy.

JULIAN: Duh-duh-duh.

PAZ: Chapter 18 opens with Tigerclaw overhearing the conversation and menacing Ravenpaw. Firepaw quickly salvages the situation by saying Ravenpaw was wishing Tigerclaw was there to take care of Lionheart as well. Ravenpaw refuses to speak to anyone after this interaction. Firepaw then goes to sleep and is woken up when Bluestar calls another meeting.

Tigerclaw speaks at the meeting, declaring that he has decided Bluestar must be guarded at all times by his lackeys, Darkstripe and Longtail. He says that no cat is allowed to approach Bluestar otherwise. Bluestar then asks Yellowfang to officially join ThunderClan, which Yellowfang accepts. Tigerclaw then insinuates that there is a traitor in the camp who must have fed ShadowClan information, and looks at Ravenpaw. Both Firepaw and Graypaw are worried for their friend.

Firepaw goes check on Yellowfang first, and they have a brief conversation about how Yellowfang misses the old ShadowClan, before Brokenstar became leader. She then tells him to roll around in garlic to help heal his rat bites. Firepaw tries to leave camp to get to the garlic patch, but Darkstripe refuses to let him out. So he sneaks out instead.

And on the way to the garlic, he overhears a conversation between Tigerclaw, Darkstripe, and Longtail. Tigerclaw lies to the two cats and says Ravenpaw left the group and must have gone to ShadowClan during the journey. He implies they need to kill Ravenpaw. The chapter ends with Firepaw racing back to camp in the hopes of convincing Bluestar of Tigerclaw's danger and Ravenpaw's innocence. And that ends that set of chapters.

JULIAN: Lot of intrigue.

PAZ: Yeah. We're getting to that murder plot mystery. Who could have seen this coming?

LIZ: Yeah, you know that Tigerclaw is so subtle. I never would have expected it.

PAZ: I'm shocked. I put down the book. I was so shocked. I also put down the book because that was the end of our reading.

JULIAN: I was trying to remember like, what my reaction was to this when I first read it as, you know, a fourth grader or whatever, but I could not remember. I think that I saw it coming. But I was still like upset.

PAZ: Yeah, because I read A New Prophecy first, I knew that Tigerclaw was evil like, because I mean, it's all in the past at that point. So I certainly was not surprised when I read the first book and the first book only.

LIZ: Well, I have never read these before. And you can definitely see it coming. And I think that's like good. Because it's like, yeah, this is your first big series as a kid. Author is laying down clues to lead to like a conclusion that makes sense, which is that Fire-- sorry, not Firepaw. Tigerclaw is a shady little bitch.

PAZ: Yeah, and I mean, I think there's nothing wrong with a mystery being obvious or predictable, especially not in kids media. Like, that whole shit with like Game of Thrones, where they changed the ending or whatever because someone predicted what would happen, and they were like... and it's like, that's just good storytelling if people can predict what's happening based on clues you've put in the text.

JULIAN: Congratulations, you've successfully deployed foreshadowing.

PAZ: Yeah, exactly.

JULIAN: I was into like Tigerclaw being like afraid of StarClan in the Moonstone. I thought that was neat. Some sort of like, yeah, he's shady. Also. The ancestors fucking hate him.

PAZ: Yeah. That was very funny and very like, evil cats go to hell. Good cats go to heaven. You can't enter our good vibes cave, you little piece of shit.

LIZ: Yeah, um, I would like to draw some comparisons between two great pieces of literature: the first Warrior Cats book and Hamlet.

PAZ: They're on the same level, I think.

LIZ: I mean, listen, there's the dude who commits a terrible secret murder and is shown to be super shady, and then he shows fear at the first mention of any sort of, like, mystic or religious kind of influence. Like, oh, I've sinned against StarClan. The parallels between Tigerclaw going into the cave and what's his name's, Hamlet's dad.

PAZ: Hamlet's dad?

JULIAN: Claudius?

LIZ: Hamlet's stepdad.

JULIAN: His uncle?

LIZ: Hamlet's uncle. I read Hamlet many times.

PAZ: C-something.

LIZ: Yeah. Claudius being like, praying because he did a bad murder and knows he's going to hell. It's the same thing. It's the same.

PAZ: It's the same.

LIZ: Can't believe Shakespeare totally just like cribbed the style from Warrior Cats.

PAZ: And Graypaw is Horatio. It's all there.

LIZ: He is Horatio, right down to the people shipping him with Firepaw.

PAZ: Yeah, exactly. Um, I mean, I guess I can kind of go in chronological order now that we've gone back to Moonstone cave.

JULIAN: I have an important question about Barley. But if we're still-- if we have more on the Moonstone.

PAZ: I guess the one other thing was like Alix's question from last week about Bluestar like planning this was on my mind, when she like, decides to take Firepaw into the cave. I wonder if she was like, hey, Starclan is this who you mean? If she was hoping to get some answers there?

JULIAN: Yeah, he did have like a prophetic dream. So that was cool.

PAZ: Yeah. But yeah, that's the only other thing I had to say about the cave chapter.

JULIAN: My Barley question was just um, does he got balls? What's his soul doing?

PAZ: That's a great question. I wonder if my Cats of the Clan book will give me insight. I don't have it on hand. Um.

JULIAN: Let me pull up the trusty wiki.

PAZ: I feel like barn cats in real life aren't often like neutered or spayed.

LIZ: I guess only if like people do a lot of catch and release, right? Like they do that.

PAZ: Yeah, which obviously they're not doing in the Warriors universe, or all these cats would be fucking snip snip.

JULIAN: [muffled shriek]

LIZ: That would be so terrifying as a warrior cat.

PAZ: I think warrior cats--

JULIAN: I found some very tasty information about Barley on the the wiki.

PAZ: I like Barley.

LIZ: Yeah.

JULIAN: So I couldn't find a way to see if maybe he had had any kits to see if that would tell us his ball status. No kits, um, is gay.

PAZ: What?

LIZ: Wait, what?

JULIAN: He's gay.

PAZ: Wow. Barley, gay king.

JULIAN: His partner is kind of a spoiler, I guess.

PAZ: Oh, I think I remember. I think I remember that.

JULIAN: Yeah.

LIZ: Wow, good for him.

PAZ: I didn't know they were officially partners.

JULIAN: Yeah, no, officially listed as a partner.

PAZ: Oh, fuck yes.

JULIAN: Barley's a gay.

PAZ: StarClan was right.

JULIAN: Gay ally and a gay.

LIZ: And Tigerclaw is homophobic. Of course.

JULIAN: You know what?

PAZ: Yeah.

JULIAN: This whole story is about homophobia.

PAZ: Tigerclaw's like, that little fruit told us to come this way. He's betrayed us.

LIZ: Barley is a type of wheat, or grain.

JULIAN: And that's why Tigerclaw hates--

PAZ: Ravenpaw.

JULIAN: Right.

PAZ: My god, it's all coming together.

LIZ: I knew it.

PAZ: I do remember liking Barley because I think he shows back up in A New Prophecy because they, you know, go places. And he's like, chilling. And I was like, that's a cool cat. And now I know it's because I sensed a fellow in him.

LIZ: I just like his name a lot. That's a good name to have for a cat.

PAZ: It's a great barn cat name.

JULIAN: Oh, great news. Vicki believes that Barley will not go to StarClan when he dies as he lacks the necessary faith. No word about his balls, though. So he might still have them.

LIZ: He's an atheist.

PAZ: Does he go to that--

JULIAN: Kate however, believe that he'll live just on the outskirts of StarClan.

LIZ: Oh, there's some contention.

PAZ: What was that-- I was on the wiki looking at where like cats who don't go to StarClan and don't go to the Place of No Stars go. It was called like the something residence. Let me see if I pasted it.

LIZ: Just another neighborhood? Because that's what it sounds like. Yeah, it's like StarClan is like Los Angeles and the whatever residence is just the outer LA County.

PAZ: It's the ghost residence.

LIZ: Yeah, that's where I live.

JULIAN: Incredible.

PAZ: "The unnamed residence serves as a place for ghost cats, acting as a purgatory of sorts."

LIZ: That's still where I live.

PAZ: The ghost-- no, okay there's another residence. Unnamed residence. "This is a list of cats that currently reside or have resided in an unnamed residence. Cats in this category our cats that have died and been seen as spirits but do not reside in StarClan, The Place of No Stars, the Tribe of Endless Hunting, or as ghost cats."

JULIAN: I love that there are ghost cats.

PAZ: Me too. What?

LIZ: What?

PAZ: There's another gay cat in this place.

LIZ: Oh my god.

PAZ: The gay cat that Liz doesn't know about yet. Unnamed residence is the gay commune of Warriors.

LIZ: You know what, good for them.

JULIAN: Stray cats go to heaven. Gay cats go to unnamed ghost residence.

PAZ: The homophobic cats do go to hell.

LIZ: Confirmed.

JULIAN: Yes.

PAZ: Yeah. Um, well, yeah, I love Barley. Um, it does lead to an extremely funny scene of rats attacking these cats and like, absolutely wrecking them. Like, they killed Bluestar. I was like, what the hell are these rats?

JULIAN: Maybe the rat situation is like, you know, these are like concerted rats. These are like, a lot of rats working in concert for a shared goal, which is to beat the fuck out of the cats.

PAZ: Oh my god, okay.

JULIAN: Like rats will like kill a baby.

PAZ: Will they? What?

LIZ: Probably.

JULIAN: I'm actually basing this off of the plot of the dog movie? Lady and the Tramp, which may not be accurate, now that I think about it.

PAZ: I think maybe that might be inaccurate. Um.

LIZ: Well, I've got a very reliable source and it is Dishonored. And rats will totally eat a cat and a baby. Like all the way to the bones right in front of you. Definitely.

PAZ: "Cats or rats? Rats win in New York hands down." I'm clicking. I want to learn.

JULIAN: This is an educational podcast.

PAZ: This is like Goku vs. Darth Vader. Who will win?

LIZ: Why do we have to pit two queens against each other?

JULIAN: Yeah, this study says that cats are not good predators of rats. The rats actively avoid the cats and the cats only recorded two rat kills in 79 days. That's not a good record.

PAZ: Damn. These cats really need to step it up. Well I guess-- this doesn't say anything about the rats killing the cats. But it does say that cats suck at fighting rats, I guess.

JULIAN: Yeah, I guess that's why we have like terriers for rats.

PAZ: Yeah. This article says that people see fewer rats and assume it's behavior-- it's because the cats have killed them, whereas it's actually due to the rats changing their behavior so the rats will just like leave.

JULIAN: I mean, that's not-- that's like, fine.

PAZ: Yeah, it achieves the same result.

JULIAN: I don't mind if the rats live in the sewers. They're allowed. I don't go down there.

LIZ: This is their city.

PAZ: It is their city. Well, I still think it's very funny that all these rats fuck them up.

JULIAN: It is. it's very good. Bluestar loses a life.

PAZ: She loses a life to these rats.

LIZ: Yeah, just like in Dishonored.

PAZ: Should have just gone on with dogs.

JULIAN: God. I also like, if I were Bluestar, I would not have told Tigerclaw my life count.

PAZ: No. Once again, she's--

JULIAN: I realize that she's very trusting but like, you can't tell him you only have four left. He's counting.

PAZ: That was so suspicious.

LIZ: He's just gonna bring some more rats.

PAZ: Like who is like, hey, like, how like-- what are your weaknesses? Can you tell me them? Can you make a list of them? Not for suspicious reasons. Thanks.

JULIAN: Yeah, deeply sus.

PAZ: Yes. I do also gotta shout out Barley for saving them and being the only one who knows how to kill rats apparently. He jumps in and fucking owns these rats.

LIZ: Yeah, he has--

JULIAN: He does a great job.

LIZ: --the rat eating term?

PAZ: In Dishonored? Yeah.

LIZ: He gets HP from it. Crunch.

PAZ: Oh, I looked down at my notes. I did indeed write "died to rats, dot dot dot... just like Dishonored."

LIZ: It's like in the same brain here. Okay, hold on, speaking of Barley, I googled him and there's on his Facebook page or something, there's just a picture of a regular black and white cat.

PAZ: Oh my gosh. That's his face cast.

LIZ: I love it.

JULIAN: That's him.

LIZ: Perfect part nose.

JULIAN: Are Barley and Chloe related?

PAZ: We have no choice but to stan Barley.

JULIAN: And they have this like horrible, brutal rat fight. And then they go straight to like, fucking horrible, brutal ShadowClan fight.

PAZ: I know.

JULIAN: It's just, it's out of the frying pan that's full of rats into the fire full of cats.

PAZ: That's what they always say.

JULIAN: That's how the saying goes.

PAZ: Yeah, shout out to the action sequences. They are fun. But--

JULIAN: They are fun. They're good to read.

LIZ: Yeah.

PAZ: Yeah, so the next next bit is the fight at ThunderClan cat camp. And it's kind of a bloodbath, huh.

JULIAN: Is it time to talk about war crimes?

PAZ: War crimes and murder. Uh-huh.

JULIAN: Yeah. Like, they go after the kits.

PAZ: Yeah. Julian, I did think about you saying, like, are they stealing the kits, which I still don't remember, cause it was described as Blackfoot, the ShadowClan deputy was like picking them up. I was like, oh, is he gonna whisk them away? But I don't know. We never find out.

We never find out.

LIZ: Also, that's an unfortunate name for a cat to have.

PAZ: Yeah.

LIZ: Yeah, that is-- that already belongs to something. And you should not be using it.

JULIAN: Yeah...

PAZ: British authors not doing their research, I guess. Or...

LIZ: Yeah. Hey, there's eight of you. I know you're all very old, but come on.

JULIAN: Also, I feel like you know, Harper Collins is... I'm sure they have a UK imprint. But like there are also editors in the US. Surely someone should have, uh.

LIZ: Someone out there must know what Google is.

PAZ: Yeah. Hopefully that character dies soon. We don't have to see the name anymore.

LIZ: They use that name so much in this chapter.

PAZ: Yeah.

LIZ: But yeah, back to the kittens, right?

PAZ: Yes.

JULIAN: Yep.

PAZ: A cat does just die also. He kills one of the old cats, cold blood.

JULIAN: Yeah, I'm looking at the Wikipedia page for war crimes.

LIZ: Like in general?

PAZ: Yeah? Do you have a list? Do you have a list of what constitutes a war crime?

JULIAN: Well, so there's a lot of them. But intentionally killing civilians or prisoners is definitely one of them. So I think killing an elder kind of counts.

PAZ: Check that off.

JULIAN: Yep. Destroying civilian property. They did destroy the camp. So that's one. They did not take any hostages. So that doesn't count. I don't know what performing a perfidy is.

PAZ: Me neither.

JULIAN: Oh, it's when you like, lie about... Basically, you're like, oh, I'll make a peace treaty and then you don't.

LIZ: So is that spelled--

PAZ: Mm, I don't think they did that.

JULIAN: P-e-r-f-i-d-y. Perfidy.

LIZ: Not p-u-r-r-f-i-d-y?

JULIAN: [cackles] Damn. We don't see any child soldiers onscreen. At least I don't think so.

PAZ: Are the apprentices child soldiers, though?

JULIAN: Are the apprentices here?

PAZ: They're not...

JULIAN: How old are they?

PAZ: The book says apprentices are more than six moons old.

JULIAN: I mean, you're basically an adult cat.

PAZ: So most of them are probably under a year. Yeah, I guess they're like adolescent, I don't know. Yeah.

LIZ: Teen?

JULIAN: Like, it's not great, but.

PAZ: Yeah, they get away. They get away with that. Not a war crime.

JULIAN: Pillaging? Oh, looting. Um, I mean, they don't take anything. So I don't think they pillage.

LIZ: No. There's not really anything to take this except like food and maybe medicine. There's not a lot of like, property.

PAZ: Yeah, unless they take those kits.

LIZ: Well, that's a person.

JULIAN: Well, that would be-- that would be taking a hostage.

PAZ: Okay, yeah.

JULIAN: Declaring that no quarter will be given, which they did at the gathering. So that was sort of a pre-war war crime.

PAZ: Really talented.

JULIAN: And then it just says "seriously violating the principles of distinction, proportionality, and military necessity." And I don't know what the fuck that means, but I think we can check it off.

PAZ: Yeah, I think they do that.

LIZ: It's quite a count already.

JULIAN: Yeah, they're not doing great.

LIZ: No.

PAZ: Yeah, this book also absolutely does not shy away from like death.

LIZ: Nuh-uh.

PAZ: Like on screen death too.

JULIAN: Onscreen death. Like very brutal onscreen death of like the elderly.

PAZ: Yeah.

JULIAN: Right off the jump.

PAZ: Yeah, it's like, very soon after the chapter starts.

LIZ: Yeah, and the part where that one cat is trying to get at the the kits. That's very distressing. Like there is--

PAZ: Yeah.

JULIAN: Yeah.

LIZ: Like, whether it's for a hostage or just, you know, straight up child murder. There is definitely like the threat implied in a very effective way.

PAZ: Yeah, I mean, like, good job to the book for making like, a distressing battle scene. Like, because it did. It did. It was like, intense.

JULIAN: Yeah, yeah, I was watching a lot of Warrior Cats AMVs this afternoon. And a lot of the many great animators in the Warriors AMV community have really picked up on the style of the books, which is very bloody.

PAZ: Great, because that's important, essential aspect of the book. It's in the name.

JULIAN: Yep.

LIZ: Yeah, these are not peacetime cats.

JULIAN: No. These are... I am really glad that Yellowfang got to save the kits and redeem herself.

LIZ: Yay.

JULIAN: Good for her.

PAZ: She's so cool.

LIZ: She's the best.

JULIAN: She's so cool.

PAZ: Old, like badass lady. And then Bluestar is like, you're so cool, Yellowfang, haha, will you join my clan?

LIZ: What if we were both old lady cats and I asked you to join my clan? Haha, just kidding, unless.

PAZ: You should make an edit for that. Post to Twitter. I'm sad we don't get to see her fight on screen.

LIZ: Yeah.

JULIAN: Yeah, I would have liked that.

LIZ: It's a good moment to have it. We're almost at the end of-- we're like at the last quarter of the book?

PAZ: We're very-- more than a quarter.

LIZ: I don't know, I switch between like--

PAZ: I think we're about like 70% done, 75% done.

JULIAN: Let me see. We're 69.3% done.

PAZ: Oh nice, nice.

LIZ: Nice, nice.

PAZ: I did write down, "all these cats are dying. Just go live inside, idiots." Which, I'm like reading these horrible battle scenes. And I'm like, if you were just kittypets, you wouldn't have to deal with any of this shit. No rats. No cat murder.

JULIAN: It's true. No one is gonna tear your throat out if you just live here.

LIZ: Just Temptations and cushions.

JULIAN: If you live in my house on the heated bed I bought.

PAZ: I was absolutely right about the Lionheart death flag.

LIZ: Uh-huh.

PAZ: Fucking typed it. I was like, wow, I called it.

LIZ: What was it that Graypaw said before they left, like I will always remember what you taught me.

PAZ: Yeah, it's like, exactly. I was like, this is a little...

JULIAN: Like, oh, good job, Graypaw. You doomed him.

LIZ: Just start--

PAZ: I wonder-- Oh, go ahead.

LIZ: No, just start saying shit like that every time you say bye to anyone. Like I will always [dissolving into laughter] remember you.

PAZ: Oh no.

JULIAN: You just never thank your mentor. That way he'll never die.

PAZ: Yeah, I do wonder if Tigerclaw-- I assume Tigerclaw murdered him as well. Or rather than it being a happy accident, but I don't know.

JULIAN: I also assume that. I don't think there's any way that, given Tigerclaw's significant looks at Ravenpaw, that Lionhart died of ShadowClan-related causes.

PAZ: Well, I assume that significant looks are just still like Redtail-related like, don't give out my secret, but it would really suck for Tavenpaw if he had to watch this, like, shitty guy kill another person.

JULIAN: He has so many traumas.

PAZ: Poor Ravenpaw.

LIZ: Ravenpaw's just Hamlet but like without any... He's not angry. He's just sad.

JULIAN: Well, he's like, he's Hamlet. But he also like he doesn't have any of the doubt.

LIZ: No.

PAZ: Yeah.

JULIAN: He just saw it happen.

PAZ: You know that video of the guy yelling at the cat in the store, like I'm gonna get you out of there? That's me with Ravenpaw.

LIZ: Ravenpaw, come into my house. [everyone laughing]

JULIAN: Yeah.

LIZ: Get a Temptations every other day. I think that's-- I don't know what's healthy to give cats. Like what's the rate of Temptations?

PAZ: Probably not too many.

JULIAN: I feel like you can get them like a treat a day.

LIZ: Yeah.

PAZ: One treat.

LIZ: You'll get a Temptations every day.

JULIAN: I don't know, though, cause last time we went to the vet, the vet said we had to feed Chickpea less, so my calibration may be off.

PAZ: Tigerclaw's really setting Ravenpaw up to take the fall.

LIZ: Mm-hmm.

PAZ: And I don't know why anyone would believe him because that's like a young adult. That's like a-- that's like if you were pointing at like a high school senior and being like, they committed these war crimes, not me.

LIZ: They killed the vice president and the other vice president.

PAZ: And now that I'm vice president, that means nothing. It was this teenager.

JULIAN: Well, it's also a teen that he's responsible for. Like if your apprentice grows up and becomes like a conniving little shit, isn't that partly your fault? Like, if you're so mean to your apprentice that he runs into the welcoming arms of ShadowClan, which he didn't, but like if he had.

PAZ: Yeah, I wouldn't blame him.

JULIAN: You know, I think I think it's a little bit on you.

PAZ: Yeah. Where is the accountability in like this mentorship program?

LIZ: He's not even--

JULIAN: The unpaid internship.

LIZ: Ravenpaw's not even that conn-- he's just like, terrified so he doesn't talk to anybody.

JULIAN: Yeah. But like, Tigerclaw is making him out to be this like, big sneaky, you know,basically being like, all these things that I did, this person that I am, that's Ravenpaw.

PAZ: The fact that he already has like lackeys, is like so much. Tigerclaw does. But it seems like he's like lying to them versus them knowing he's trying to do a weird takeover.

JULIAN: Yeah, I mean, I think Longtail at least, it was like, easily persuaded to to believe in like, this secret outside conspiracy because he was the one who attacked Firepaw at the beginning.

PAZ: Yeah. Didn't we read the other day that Longtail is Ravenpaw's like, sibling?

JULIAN: Oh, you're right.

LIZ: That sucks.

JULIAN: I think he's his half-sibling. That sucks.

LIZ: Aww, Ravenpaw.

PAZ: Man.

LIZ: He's getting like a really raw deal.

PAZ: He really is. If the book was from his perspective, it would be so sad.

LIZ: My sibling hates me enough to conspire against me. Or at least believe that I'm a terrible murderer.

JULIAN: Poor little guy.

LIZ: My mentor hates my guts and also is trying to frame me for murder.

PAZ: Yeah, and it takes Firepaw so long to figure out what's happening.

LIZ: Oh my god.

JULIAN: It has to be explicitly spelled out for him.

PAZ: Yeah, literally.

JULIAN: Like, he doesn't figure shit out.

PAZ: Yeah, Ravenpaw just says something and then he overhears it.

LIZ: Firepaw is so very dumb.

PAZ: It's so funny too, because Yellowfang has like a section where she's praising him for being clever. And I'm like, Yellowfang, he's so stupid. There's nothing going on upstairs.

LIZ: It's air. It's just fluff.

JULIAN: Is Firepaw a himbo? The greatest thread.

LIZ: Since we're talking about Ravenpaw too, the part where later on Bluestar asks him to go train with her alone, where no one's gonna bother them. And he's like, I should tell her about Ravenpaw and Tigerclaw. And he's like I should tell her. I should tell her, and he just forgets.

JULIAN: He was too overwhelmed by her girl boss, uh. Her girlboss nature.

LIZ: It's very overwhelming, true.

JULIAN: I do think like Tigerclaw appointing bodyguards to-- "bodyguards," quote unquote, to like, prevent anyone from ratting on him, was a very savvy move, even though it's like patently evil. It was smart.

PAZ: He's a decent conniving villain for a kids' book in which the protagonist is very stupid and doesn't realize what's going on.

LIZ: And just forgets key points.

PAZ: He has a little cat brain. How's he supposed to remember all that?

LIZ: His friend's gonna die! Okay, but yeah, the guard thing is like very smart. Feels really ominous too because like there's an extra layer of removal of Bluestar from like everyone else.

PAZ: Yeah, he's like already like, taking over like public power by, like putting her behind a wall, essentially.

LIZ: Yeah.

JULIAN: Security theater baby.

PAZ: Yeah, there's also like another like thread of-- I mean, like the continuing thread of intrigue with like what happened with Yellowfang and ShadowClan because she kind of drops more like, oh, everything was fine till Brokenstar was leader. So that's also a mystery we have going on.

LIZ: Um, yeah, there's a cute section when she's talking about like what ShadowClan used to be like. And I think she and Firepaw are like joking about like, who replaced her as the medicine cat, and she's like, oh, not Runningnose.

PAZ: Yeah, like, he can't even cure his own cold. It's cute.

LIZ: Hey, maybe it's allergies. Don't be mean. Cats get allergies.

PAZ: Cats also get chronic infections.

LIZ: That's what Oliver has, right?

JULIAN: Especially if they live in the outdoors and won't visit the vet.

PAZ: Yeah.

LIZ: Like, wow, a whole bunch of nonvaccinated, fighting cats on the brink of starvation all the time feel sick. No shit.

JULIAN: It's okay though. They have berries.

PAZ: Why are they doing that? Go inside.

JULIAN: I do have a-- when Darkstripe tells Firepaw that he can't go roll in the garlic, which is just really funny as a premise. But also, Firepaw like mutters under his breath, "Dirtstripe," which is such a teen thing to do.

PAZ: Got them.

LIZ: Owned, wow.

JULIAN: It's such like a shitty little teen move. It's really fun.

PAZ: It's very funny.

LIZ: You're not my real dad, Darkstripe. I will roll in the garlic if I want to. God.

PAZ: Do we think rolling in garlic has any medical backing, or?

LIZ: Smelly.

PAZ: Cause it's very funny.

LIZ: Smelly cat.

JULIAN: So garlic is-- like I don't know about the greens of it, but like garlic bulbs are antibacterial, like slightly.

PAZ: Oh, okay.

JULIAN: Which is why, like if you have a throat infection, sometimes like doing like a garlic rinse can be sort of helpful.

PAZ: Good to know.

JULIAN: Not a doctor, not a doctor. But yeah, I think that's where they're getting that.

LIZ: Just like the picture of like this. Like Firepaw at this point is like, not an adult but like the kind of teen cat that's all like gangly, I bet.

PAZ: Yeah.

LIZ: And just picturing that like having a fun time in some garlic is so good to me.

PAZ: I do love it. [inaudible] a good picture of these little cats doing stuff.

LIZ: He's a garlic boy.

JULIAN: And then he overhears a conspiracy.

PAZ: Yeah, very very classic of the villains to just openly talk about their evil moves.

JULIAN: Well, they said no one could leave so I'm sure it'll be fine.

PAZ: Yeah. I mean, I don't-- I think, I mean that covers everything.

JULIAN: I have just, uh, "that'll go well" about him going to talk to Bluestar.

PAZ: Yeah, Firepaw, I think you might also get blamed.

LIZ: God.

JULIAN: Yeah, all is not well in the kingdom of ThunderClan.

PAZ: No.

LIZ: I'm still just a little like, aghast that he does, he just forgets. I know she's the most amazing girl boss you've ever seen. But oh my god.

PAZ: It's fine. He's--

JULIAN: He's just a stupid little boy.

LIZ: I know. He's orange too. He's a little orange cat, you know.

PAZ: Yeah, he's gonna go work on it now. It'll be fine.

LIZ: Yeah.

JULIAN: Bless him.

PAZ: Should we move on?

LIZ: Yes.

PAZ: Maybe get some levity after the war crimes chapter.

LIZ: So we've returned to wikiHow, a wonderful font of knowledge and activity. And this article is called "How to host a Warrior Cats themed birthday party." Who's birthday is coming up in June so, a little...

PAZ: Mine's in August.

JULIAN: Mine's in July. Lotta summer babies here.

LIZ: Well, we got time to prep then.

JULIAN: Yeah.

PAZ: Yeah. I want to note that this was last updated June 20, 2020. There are 26 co-authors.

LIZ: Oh my god.

PAZ: And 42,000 views. So you know this is a good, good peer-reviewed article.

LIZ: Yeah, let me give you the blurb that will entice everyone in. "Do you sleep, dream, smell, and eat Warriors? Do you want to have a party sleepover for your birthday based on the books? Well, this guide to a snappy party is a great idea." It's also available to download as a PDF just so you know, in case you need it.

JULIAN: Oh good, so you can print it out.

PAZ: Yeah, and check it off.

LIZ: And you know, in the wikiHow to set up their beautiful, beautiful illustrations that-- I don't know, is it legal for us to post wikiHow images?

PAZ: I don't know.

JULIAN: Yeah, they're public domain.

PAZ: I mean, they're all traced, so really, how can they get on our case?

JULIAN: I'm really pretty sure they're Creative Commons. I think we're good.

LIZ: Yeah. Okay, so let's plan. "One, make sure your parents agree." So, let's go check.

[laughter]

PAZ: Uh....

JULIAN: Wait, I need to call my dad. Why does-- I just want to describe to our listeners, um, the parent in this image has the largest nose I have ever seen.

PAZ: You could land the plane on that.

JULIAN: It's like, you know the phrase, a ski jump nose. This is a ski jump.

LIZ: Because we're seeing the back of his head so it's the perspective, that's all. This is a front nose on--

JULIAN: It looks like a Hershey's Kiss is stuck on his face.

LIZ: This young man asking his parent for permission looks very smug, too, so I think he got a yes on that. "Step two, start planning early."

JULIAN: Oh, we're doing step two.

PAZ: Well, we are, because we're all summer birthdays.

LIZ: There's a picture of a person looking very determined, with a little three mouth. And that's because this is about cats. "Invite a couple of people to the party. See if they like the idea of having a Warrior Cats theme." Okay, well, I don't know whose birthday we're actually celebrating, so we're all invited in a circle.

JULIAN: There we go.

PAZ: Yeah.

LIZ: You guys okay with the theme?

PAZ: I love it.

JULIAN: Yes.

LIZ: Wonderful, wonderful. Okay, we're getting to the meaty part of things. "Part two: decorations." Now to just give you a word picture of what's going on, there's a sort of cushion bench chair thing, covered in sticks and leaves. The floor is also covered in leaves. The wallpaper has grass on it. There are paw prints on the wallpaper and the floor. There is a separate panel of just a spider web, with a spider in it. And there's another panel of some-- seaweed?

PAZ: It's vines.

LIZ: Vines.

JULIAN: The green silk or fabric.

LIZ: Does anyone else want to have a have a stab at reading this? It's very good.

JULIAN: Sure. "First, decorate. Before your guests arrive, decorate your houses with posters, paw prints, and anything else that will complement the theme. If you have any party games, make sure you have anything you need for those games. Instead of decorating the whole room, make a fort and say it's the den, and fill the blanket draped chairs with the items suggested. To make it even more forest like, you could use camouflage blankets and cover them with sticks and leaves, if strong enough."

I'm not sure if that's the sticks, or the blanket. "Take out spider webs from Halloween and decorate a few corners with the spider webs. Cover doorways with green silk or fabric, and cut some of the fabric into slivers, making a vine-themed door entranceway."

LIZ: Finally a use for my green silk.

JULIAN: I'm just, if I were an adult and my kid is like, I want to have a Warriors-themed birthday party, I'd be like, Oh, sweet. That sounds fun. And then they brought a bunch of sticks and leaves into my house, I would not be thrilled.

PAZ: Yeah, it doesn't specify like fake sticks and leaves. I think it just means you're, like, go out into your garden.

LIZ: That's authentic to the books. You have to.

JULIAN: It is.

LIZ: This also sounds like something a kid would absolutely do.

PAZ: Absolutely.

JULIAN: Oh, step two. "Make each room a den." They have suggestions for each of the rooms. How many rooms do they think your house has, cause this is a lot. They have a kit's room with pillows and stuffed animals, and spiderwebs scrunched into soft play balls, which apparently is a thing that kits play with.

LIZ: Aw.

JULIAN: A warriors den, a leaders den for the largest, least occupied room. An apprentice den, "which can be made just like the warriors den, but larger, and less comfortable." [laughter]

"Make the medicine cat's den. Outside, in the kitchen, or by a window would be the best place, because there are plants you can use to heal. For the comfort of the person who volunteers to be the medicine cat, place down multiple blankets on top of one another, to get that carpet effect, just like inside. Use a brown or blue tarp to make a ceiling, and add cozy green spiderweb beds, and the best pillows you got. Offer spoons, forks, sticks, and ground-like bowls to be able to make the treatments. To ensure your medicine cat is comfy and not lonely, ask a friend to be the apprentice of the medicine cat." Yeah, it would suck to be the medicine cat.

PAZ: So is everyone separating into their room and not interacting? Is this how the birthday party goes?

JULIAN: They have instructions for making the High Rock, and a fresh kill pile. Um.

LIZ: We should--

JULIAN: And then we get to games.

LIZ: We should describe the fresh kill pile.

PAZ: It's very good.

JULIAN: Oh yeah, you're right, I'm sorry.

LIZ: It is a cardboard tree stump drawn pretty well and also shaded, and some green pillows surrounding it, and a bunch of stuffed animals. There is a panda, a teddy bear, a lion, some sort of pink horse thing, and a monkey. You know, regular parts of a cat diet.

PAZ: And the final step in the decoration part is, "decorate the forest, or, quote, 'forest'. Your outside or quote, 'forest' can be a room decorated with cardboard cutouts of trees, spiderwebs, and badger holes. Under furniture you can place a skunk, or borrowed stuffed animal, green moss, or a fake river." I think you should just use the actual forest.

JULIAN: Yeah.

LIZ: What if we don't have a forest? What if you live in, say, just shot in the dark here, LA County, where--

PAZ: Don't.

LIZ: Okay.

PAZ: Problem solved.

LIZ: Everyone's telling me that lately.

JULIAN: Just move.

LIZ: [claps] All right, part three.

JULIAN: Part three is games, which is really important.

LIZ: One for the gamers here.

PAZ: Okay, "step one, welcome each guest, maybe with a dip of your head or a whisper of 'Welcome to the home of the clans.'"

JULIAN: The next picture. [dissolving into shriek-laughter]

PAZ: The art for this is extremely good as well. So we have-- it's featuring that beautiful green silk vine curtain from before. And in front of it is a girl, in like-- doing that like butler pose, where it's like, come in, sir. Except she's wearing a black t-shirt, and nothing else except a black bow tie and a cat ears headband with cat face paint.

LIZ: She also has these um, these side bangs that are very like 2010-specific. Maybe earlier.

JULIAN: I was specifically losing my shit over the next picture, for "start with some roleplay."

LIZ: This is our new header image.

JULIAN: Which features some incredibly drawn visitors who have attended this party, all wearing all black, all wearing those same drawn on whiskers. There's some really interesting things happening with their faces. And the girl in the back is on all fours.

LIZ: She's doing it right.

JULIAN: She is, she's--

PAZ: Dedicated to her role.

JULIAN: "Once everyone has arrived, why not pretend to be warrior cats?"

Why not?

"Everyone could be one RP character-- roleplay-- and one real warrior. If you have the time, you could make name badges." So you have the time to spray paint spider webs green to make moss, but you couldn't make name badges? So everyone can remember who Pinestar is?

PAZ: You hit the deadline.

LIZ: Is that a soap? It sounds like soap.

PAZ: It really does. Moving on to step three of games, "have a hunting party. People can hide stuffed animals while others try to find a stuffed animal with a number they were assigned to written on a card around their neck."

JULIAN: I like the next one a lot.

PAZ: Yeah, we can just move on to four.

LIZ: Yeah.

JULIAN: Sorry, the art for number three for having a hunting party is very good. It's a child with a cat hat, just really smirking.

LIZ: At a little giraffe stuffed animal.

JULIAN: But game number four, "have a twisted version of egg toss."

PAZ: Welcome to my twisted mind.

JULIAN: "Have everyone pair up and give each pair a spoon. Fill water balloons up with dyed water." Nothing to do with cats.

PAZ: That's so twisted.

LIZ: What's the catness?

PAZ: Uh, you know. Self-explanatory.

JULIAN: You know, cats.

PAZ: Number five, "come up with a collect a resource game. In this game, each den will be removed of its items and hidden among the forest. Teams assigned to each den must collect the items and amount wanted. Give them a checklist to cross off items safely brought back to the den. The first to bring back and arrange the interior like before everything was pooled will get prized with an extra piece of fresh kill and a new piece of bedding from leftover pieces not collected."

LIZ: The image for this is--

JULIAN: My favorite part of a birthday party, resource management.

PAZ: Yeah.

LIZ: Can we--

JULIAN: Sorry Liz, please describe the image.

LIZ: Yeah, it is a picture of four people. There is a just a camping tent and two of the black jumpsuited cat headband ear wearing people are sneaking into it, while two other people in just shorts and shirts, holding a giant caterpillar and different colored hats of of cat like description are walking away totally unaware. I think this is a war crime. This is looting, I think.

JULIAN: Oh, you're right, this is looting. This is pillaging.

LIZ: War crime. Number five, commit some war crimes.

PAZ: Yeah. Gotta be accurate. Number six, "play pin the tail on the warrior. Select a cat from one of the books and make a large cardboard cutout of this cat, and make its tail separately. Put a pin or tack on it to make it stick to the back of the cat." Now which cat do we want to do this to?

LIZ: Longtail. Obviously.

PAZ: Haha, No-tail. [laughter] Got 'em.

JULIAN: How long until Firestar-- sorry, Firepaw does that?

LIZ: In the heat of battle, haha, No-tail.

PAZ: Number seven, "do some more evening activities. Once you've eaten, maybe you could play some Warrior Cat games with your friends on the Internet. In the evening, have a mini battle– doesn't have to last long– and then a gathering, if your party is on a full moon. Lucky you. Otherwise, make an exception just for the party." Well, there are many Warrior Cats games to play with your friends on the internet. So great suggestion.

LIZ: Start a podcast. That's a game, basically.

JULIAN: There you go. That's a game. That's a game that keeps on giving.

PAZ: Number eight, "sleep over, if that's part of the plan. Not all birthday parties need to be sleepovers, but they can be lots of fun. In the morning, depending on the time you wake up, you could play some party games or read books and have breakfast." This does picture people sleeping outside in a tent. Should we move on to part four?

LIZ: Yeah.

JULIAN: Yes.

PAZ: Food.

LIZ: Okay, so step one of food is "make dinner Warrior Cats themed too. When it's time for dinner, call it fresh kill instead, and ask everyone what they would like. Obviously don't really serve mice at the table. Think of something everyone would enjoy, maybe something fresh, like a pizza you can have delivered to your house." So, this is the--

PAZ: Same thing.

LIZ: The image is the previous fresh kill image from before, with all the stuffed animals, but, um, the children are sitting and having a great time with pizza, just chomping down. Makes me, you know, makes me think we should do this.

PAZ: They have more suggestions for food in step two.

LIZ: Okay, "provide lots of meaty foods. Food is fresh kill warriors, so you must get something close to meats, Think, think, think. Have meat skewers, steak, meatballs, pepperoni, salami, and hamburgers. Anything with tasty meat will do. If you have a vegetarian, then offer veggie patties, cheese, and anything that sticks to the theme."

PAZ: Wait, why does cheese stick to the theme?

JULIAN: How does cheese...

LIZ: Wait.

JULIAN: You know. Fresh killed cheese.

PAZ: I mean my cat right now is extremely into eating cheese, so I guess...

LIZ: Yeah, see, it's accurate. The image for this is just some food. There are kebabs. You know, like cats enjoy. Just like a whole steak, you know, like children should have. A very smooth sliced hot dog, and just a burger. Just a burger with the cheese on entirely different levels of the burger, which is new to me. Like there's multiple cheese. Okay.

JULIAN: My favorite image is--

LIZ: In three.

JULIAN: Step 3, the birthday cake.

LIZ: Yes. "Get a birthday cake. The best birthday cake can have something printed on it, such as the cover of your favorite book from the Warriors series, or a map of the territory. Some local businesses in your city may offer custom cakes. Even better as some may even be able to design a 3D landscape." That is not what's on this cake that they've shown us and--

PAZ: It's a beautiful cake. It's so good.

LIZ: It's so much better. Yeah, it's a round yellow cake with just a little-- like just a huge cat face on top of it, and a candle. It's very happy looking. And then there's like little black and white cat silhouettes like around it.

PAZ: I want this to be my cake.

LIZ: It could be.

PAZ: It's so good.

JULIAN: It's so good.

PAZ: The face on top is so good.

LIZ: Beautiful. What flavor do you think it is?

PAZ: Um, red velvet because it's red inside like fresh kill.

LIZ: Got it.

JULIAN: Oh, we don't have to go through the whole Q&A but the first one is I think very important. Um, "what do I have for food if I have a vegan friend?" And the answer is, "provide berries and greens for them to eat. Warrior cats use them for medicinal purposes, but you can pretend they are an elder or a sick cat."

PAZ: Oh my god.

JULIAN: If you're vegan, you're old or sick. "You can also just ask your vegan friend what they like to eat and provide that." Yeah, I would go with that one, animebread.

LIZ: That's exactly the answer you'd--

JULIAN: wikiHow user anime bread.

PAZ: Here's another question, "how do I not be embarrassed about my Warrior Cat party?"

LIZ: Aw.

JULIAN: Aw.

PAZ: "It's a decision you make just not to care what others think. Of course, if you're selective about who you invite, you'll be less embarrassed. Invite friends who will enjoy this kind of party." If your friends have a problem with your Warrior Cat party, then they're fake. They're fake friends.

LIZ: Okay, these questions are really good. I have one more. "What if my friends make up unreal Warrior Cat names such as Fluffyhead?" This is a community answer. "Just tell them that it makes no sense, or provide everyone with a name badge at the start of the party using names you've chosen. Of course it's important that everyone have a good time, so it's fine to loosen the rules a little bit for your friends."

JULIAN: God.

PAZ: Isn't there a canonical cat Fuzzy-- like Fuzzypelt?

LIZ: Yeah, that's--

JULIAN: There is, yeah.

PAZ: I would say Fluffyhead is accurate.

LIZ: Yeah, he's like Ravenpaw's dad. That's like an immediate connection.

PAZ: I think Fluffyhead is a perfect name, and if you come to my Warrior Cat party, you can have that name.

LIZ: Oh, there's some tips and warnings.

JULIAN: Oh good.

LIZ: The best one from tips to me is "ask older siblings to be rouges." Not rogues, rouges, "who hate the Clans. Maybe they could get their friends to help making a rouge group."

JULIAN: You know what I love about a birthday party, built in bullying.

LIZ: For your older siblings specifically.

JULIAN: The warning about, "make sure everyone is comfortable with the battles, or anything else you may be doing," and then "make sure nobody gets hurt."

LIZ: Very important.

PAZ: That's good advice all around.

LIZ: Yeah, So we've got three months till any birthdays happen. Better get planning. I wanna see those cardboard cutouts.

JULIAN: We got time to plan.

LIZ: Just ready.

PAZ: I'm going to give this five stars.

JULIAN: Do we each have to provide our own?

LIZ: Communal effort, you know. They have the fresh kill pile, we have the freshly made and painted cardboard scenery pile. This made me want pizza. That one person in the corner on the right, eating that pizza at the Warrior Cats party is just having the best time I think.

PAZ: Yeah, I could go for some pizza too.

JULIAN: Well, is that it for us?

PAZ: Yeah, I mean, we covered the war crimes and we covered the party, and I think that's all. So, thanks everyone for joining us again this week. May StarClan light your path. [outro music begins] Bye.

LIZ: Bye.

JULIAN: Bye.

[outro music ends]

PAZ: I'm gonna post some little Barley art. Very handsome.

LIZ: Love to see some Barley. Oh, he's a little cow.

PAZ: Black and white cat.

JULIAN: Aw, he's just a little guy.

PAZ: He is a little cow.

LIZ: I love that. Is this official?

PAZ: Uh, no, this is Warrior-- he has official art but it's the weird manga art style that I--

LIZ: He deserves better than that.

PAZ: His pants.

LIZ: Oh my god, pants.

PAZ: Anyway, back to the rats.

JULIAN: Um, yeah, the rats, I guess it's like a sort of...

LIZ: Wait, I'm listening and I can't. It's gone. Sorry, Julian, Julian.

#into the wild ep #transcript #ep 04 #purr-fidy

[saunteringhusbands]

“What are your thoughts on me?” Jason looks down at Roy who begged the question while tying his shoes. Jason opened his mouth, though nothing came out, as he wasn’t quite sure what it implied. Roy rose up, locked eyes with the other boy. Looked to his lips then back up, studied those blue eyes and waited. 

“I’m not sure what you mean,” the response was gravelly. He turned his back on the red-head to put on his jacket. 

Roy grabbed at Jason’s hand and tugged. He spun him around and took a step forward, holding the other man in place. “You know exactly what I mean.” 

Jason stared down at their hands, eyes transfixed on how perfectly their fingers tied together. Roy was right. He knew exactly what he meant. He couldn’t answer yet, though, the words weren’t there and any spoken would simply be forced. He leaned forward instead, squeezed the hand he was holding and parted his lips and fell into Roy. And one could say that was an answer enough for Roy. He smiled into the kiss and moved his arms to embrace Jason. Both consider it the start of their life together.

Not much time passes, some months, maybe a year maybe two. They’re shopping downtown, in some furniture store and Jason is looking at plates. He’s holding a blue one in his hands, inspecting its ridges. Roy looks up from a selection of hand cloths to focus on Jay. He smiles softly. 

“What are your thoughts on moving in together?” Roy asks, stalking over. 

Jason raises an eyebrow, ponders slightly, and bites his lip. He eyes the atrocious, bright orange wash cloth in Roy’s hand. “Fine,” he starts, “but only if I’m in charge of the decor.” He tears the cloth away and gives Roy a kiss in place of it. It’ll simply have to do.

They’re walking through the park. It’s warm, that first solid week of spring when all signs of winter are out of sight, out of mind, and the flowers begin to bud. They’re hand in hand, strolling down the sidewalk path. Neither is really talking, save for simple phrases, lines about the weather and a bird over yonder and what they’ll have for dinner. Things are good for them right now. 

Roy takes mental notes of the dogs. He turns to Jason, ever so suddenly. The corner of his lip rises and he looks down at the ground thoughtfully. 

“What are your thoughts on getting a dog?” 

Jason chuckles. They spend the rest of the afternoon spit-balling names back and forth. They spend the following day picking out chew toys and a leash and collar and harness and food bowls and a bed at the local pet store. By the weekend they’re at the shelter, wandering up and down aisles of kennels. They find a pitbull named Raptor. Jason chats with the receptionist and fills out adoption papers. Roy sits with the dog on the ground, covering him in kisses, scratches, and belly rubs. Jason smiles at the sight.

They just finished dinner, a roast chicken with mashed potatoes and corn. Jason cooked the majority of it, and he does the dishes now, scrubbing away at their plates and setting them aside to be dried. He hears Roy enter the kitchen and teases him with a comment about having to do dishes alone. No response. He rolls his eyes and shuts the water off, drying his hands, ready to say something else, but Roy beats him to it.

“What are your thoughts on marriage?”

Jason’s jaw drops the slightest bit. He turns around. Roy is knelt before him on the ground, a look of pure wonder on his face. One hand is caressing an open box, revealing a simple gold ring. The other reaches out for Jason. He grabs that hand, pulling Roy up. There’s a foot of space between the two and neither’s quite sure what to do. One is holding on anxiously, awaiting an answer he’d hoped would come without thought. The other is terrified. His mind is going a million miles a minute. He loves Roy. He’s sure he loves Roy. Yet, there’s still a tugging, a fear. 

It doesn’t matter. It can’t possibly matter. From their last four years together, Roy has given Jason everything he could ever possibly need; every ounce of solace, every kiss, every hug, every dance, every smile. Life with Roy is comfort. It’s serenity. It’s everything he’s never had, everything he’s longed for.

He collapses then, into freckled arms, an embrace. “Yes,” he relieves. “God fucking yes, Roy, god do I want to marry you.”

They spend the night covering one another in kisses, drinking the finest wine their cupboard could serve them, straight from the bottle. They make plans. They aren’t in a rush, but they are in love, and perhaps there isn’t much of a difference. 

Their wedding is small. Immediate family and friends only. Alfred walks Jason down the aisle. They marry and eat cake and Dick gives a speech about each of the grooms and they spend the night dancing to a shitty playlist put together by Tim. Oliver and Bruce try to outdo each other with wedding gifts. And at the end of the night, when it’s just the pair of them, Red Hood and Arsenal, Robin and Speedy, Jason and Roy, they hold one another close and talk in soft voices, breath entwining, much like their bodies beneath the sheets. They speak of love and promises. 

Months later. Roy is working at the dining room table, clicking away on his laptop. Jason is in the living room, rereading Hamlet for the umpteenth time, twisting his wedding ring around on his finger. He loves that damn ring. Once so afraid of the weight it might bring, he’s been met with the utter opposite. He finds relief in it all. In having someone to hold onto when the nights get long, look forward to on the stressful days, lounge with when the outside world is gray and he’s in need of a day off. They work together. Everything aligned so perfectly, fit so snugly, like pieces of a puzzle. 

Jason’s never been happier.

He looks up now and is met with the image of Roy standing in the door frame, laptop in his hands still.

“What are your thoughts on a house with a white picket fence?”

They move to the middle of the country, far from both Gotham and Star City. They hang up their capes and never touch a weapon again. Their days open up and begin to be spent painting the walls of the house. Their nights are spent cuddled up on the couch, Jason reading aloud to Roy and Raptor, exposing them to worlds they’d never before tasted, never even thought to step foot in. 

With bliss comes rain and when it rains it pours. They just had a big fight. Each party said things he didn't mean, and though they both know they weren’t coming from truthful places, neither is ready to apologize just yet. 

They sit side by side on their bed, a few feet between them. Both stare absently at the wall. They won’t go to bed angry, it’s something they both agreed on. Still, this waiting game doesn’t seem to be going anywhere and it’s getting late. Roy has work early the next morning, Jason an appointment. 

It’s half past one when Roy breaks the silence. He gnaws on his cheek, straightens his back, bows his head and looks at his husband out of the corner of his eye. 

“What are your thoughts on kids?”

Jason’s shoulders drop, all pent-up tension released in a single second. He crawls across the bed and falls into Roy’s lap, wrapping arms around a slender waist. They stay up late dreaming up a family. 

Jason doesn’t make it to his appointment that day. Roy calls in sick to work.

Over the course of the next few years, they adopt three children, who they love as much as if they were their own. Their house becomes chaotic, the good kind. Jason cooks family meals and cleans up and gets the kids to school. Roy works as an engineer for some company and comes home every day to his husband and children. 

When the kids are asleep, and the house is still, and the night is a haven in opposed to a battleground, Jason and Roy still snuggle up on the couch for Jason to read aloud to his husband, their dog at their feet. It’s a particular night. Jason’s back is against Roy’s chest, Roy’s fingers are running through Jason’s hair as he reads Picture of Dorian Gray. There’s a candle burning on the coffee table, and a small, warm lamp is turned on from its place on an end table, but besides that, the house is dark, it’s sleepy, it’s homey. Roy trails kisses down Jason’s neck.

“What are your thoughts on me?” He begs, a whisper.

Jason smiles. It’s been twelve years since he was first asked that. He remembers his response to it then: a passionate kiss, a skipped patrol, a night in bed together. He had been young, full of fear, yet lust, yet a deep, growing love for this boy before him. And now, today, tonight, he sits with twelve years of experience in his back pocket.

He’s fallen in love with Roy. With his hands, freckles, eyes, cupids bow, back dimples. With his corny jokes, useless inventions, stupid catch phrases that aren’t catchy in the slightest. With his mannerisms, the essence of him, the ins, the outs, the very existence that is Roy William Harper.

Jason’s heart swells, it’s warm, his head is an eruption of butterflies and he simply thinks to himself, “I love him.”

“My thoughts, Roy Harper, love of my life, father of my children,” Jason starts slowly, taking small breaks between words, as if sounding it all out, warming up to the water before jumping in head first. “Are that I love you, and that you complete me.”

Roy buries his face in the crook of Jason’s neck. “God, I fucking love you.”

They fall asleep there, on the couch, a tangled mess of limps and a book discarded to the floor. They awake the next morning to their children bouncing atop them. They spend the Saturday as a family. Roy plays a board game with the youngest two while Jay helps the eldest with a history assignment in the kitchen. In the midst of it all, they exchange a look, a knowing look, a loving one, one which promises so much, one which reads, ‘we’ve made it.’

#just a drabble #this wasn't the piece i was planning on posting this weekend but the idea came to me this morning so #here we are #jason todd #roy harper #jayroy #menziewrites #red hood #arsenal

[thebestoftimes]

50 QUESTION BOOK TAG FOR WORLD BOOK DAY

By me, Jess. I made this for world book day but then got depressed and didn’t post it on time lmao but here ya go kids be warned though it’s a long one. Also the numbers thing got fucked up and I couldn’t fix it.  I got a lot of these questions from other tags I’ve seen and google so if something sounds familiar... that’s why.

Who or what sparked your love of literature?

Aw my parents fueled my book habit when I was a kid and took me to the bookstore all the time and since then all my teachers have always encouraged me and made me love books even more than I thought possible.

Do you have an ‘odd’ book habit? (page sniffing/never leaving the house with a book)

It’s true that I never go anywhere without a book. I got one in my backpack or purse or reading on my phone but it’s always there.

Do you have a book that you think has changed your life? How?

A lot of books and series have made significant impacts on my life (like I can’t picture elementary school without Percy Jackson being in my life) but like as a person I can’t think of any one book that has changed who I am. It’s been a team effort.

Which book have you reread most frequently?

I think I reread Hush Hush every year lmao idk why

You can meet any author and ask one question. What author would you chose and what question would you ask?

I’d want to meet Shakespeare and ask him if all his characters really were just that gay or if we’re all reading too much into it.

Best book published this year so far?

It’s only March but The Gilded Wolves by Roshani Chokshi

Imagine you’ve started a book and don’t like it. Do you see the experience through to the bitter end, or are you able to talk away from it mid story?

I used to always finish what I started but now that I’m in college and have a mountain of a TBR I’ll just stop.

What book is top of your wish list/TBR pile?

Uhh A Winter’s Promise by Christelle Dabos  is on top rn

Favourite place to read?

My bed. Boring but a classic.

If you buy books, do you lend them out? Ever had a bad experience?

Of course. No all my friends respect my stuff and return them promptly.

What fictional character do you ship yourself with?

So many but I think Gansey and I from The Raven Cycle would make the best couple.

Weirdest thing you’ve used as a bookmark

I use whatever near me so I might have done something weirder but lately I’ve been using tissues because I have a tissue box by my bed and never real bookmarks. But I’ve used graded homework, a toy car, a crayon, earbuds, etc.

Favorite quality/qualities in a protagonist and antagonist

Wow this is s hard okay for protag I am a sucker for like stubborn, smartass with a martyr complex. Sad but true. Antags I love a good morally grey character or anti-villain. Tragic backstory but smart as hell. The worst (the best). Characters like the Darkling from The Grisha Trilogy, and Warner from the first Shatter Me book (I know he’s a good guy NOW but back then we all thought he was a sadistic and sexy villain).

Favorite genre and favorite book from that genre.

YA Urban Fantasy babyyy and that’d be City of Bones by Cassandra Clare or Lady Midnight by Cassandra Clare:)

  Best/worst movie adaptation in your eyes

Best: Harry Potter and The Hunger Games | Worst: Percy Jackson

Do you prefer reading your own books, or library books?

My own.

How do you choose your next book to read?

Literally whatever I’m feeling like at the moment.

Your favorite word.

I love many words but I have a soft spot for “lively” and “lilt”.

Book that got you hooked on reading/how you got hooked.

I’ve always been obsessed with reading but The Peter and the Starcatchers Series was like my shift from nicotine to heroine.

Opinion on dog-earing, margin writing, ect.

I only write in the margins of books I have to read for class/textbooks. And that’s for studying and active reading purposes. For any other situation: no.

Top 5 immediate to read in no order

A Winter’s Promise by Christelle Dabos

A Very Large Expanse of Sea by Tahereh Mafi

Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan

The Wicker King by K. Ancrum

A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E Schwab

Most underrated book you’ve read

Definitely The Foxhole Court/ All for the Game series. Fairly small fanbase for some of THE most amazing books I’ve ever read. And the memes will have you in stitches.

What is the first book that catches your eye when you look at your bookshelf?

Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell because of the exceedingly bright cover/spine haha

How do you arrange your books on your shelves?

LOL I do not have a system at all. I keep series and authors together and that’s it. Everything is placed where there is room.

You have the power to change a book’s ending. Which ending would you change and what would you make happen instead?

I’d change the end to Allegiant and SPOILERS SPOILERS not make Tris fucking die over her shitty ass brother. I know why she did it but like Veronica girl wyd with that. And I’d want the entirety of Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins to be rewritten into a book that just focused on the domestic life of Finnick and Annie and no one dies.

Favourite book cover?

This is SO HARD. Either The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkin or Ignite Me by Tahereh Mafi

Which book from your childhood has had the most impact on you?

My entire personality was shaped by the Maxmimum Ride series by James Patterson. For better and worse.

When reading, what do you value most: writing style, characters, plot, world building, pacing, etc?

Characters. I think all of those things are essential and as I read more and more, the pickier I get, but I find myself leaning towards being a fan of a book when I become obsessed with the characters. Like hey!! New friends!!! For my brain!!!

Do you prefer buying books or borrowing them from a library/friend?

Buying them even though I shouldn’t. It’s a real problem.

What books/sequels that are being published this year are you most excited for?

SO MANY OH MY GOD

Okay some of these already came out because it’s March right now but I’ll include them anyways.

SEQUELS/ SPIN-OFFS AND SHIT

The Wicked King by Holly Black; King of Scars by Leigh Bardugo; Dream by Natalia Jaster; Chain of Gold by Cassandra Clare; The Red Scrolls of Magic by Cassandra Clare; Capturing the Devil by Kerri Maniscalco, Call Down the Hawk by Maggie Stiefvater; Defy Me by Tahereh Mafi; The Shaw Confessions #3 by Michelle Hodkin

FIRST BOOKS

The Binding by Bridget Collins; Wicked Saints by Emily A. Duncan; The Gilded Wolves by Roshani Chokshi; A Curse So Dark and Lonely by Brigid Kemmerer; Romanov by Nadine Brandes; The Infinite Noise by Lauren Shippen; The Beautiful by Renee Ahdieh

Which fictional character would you want as a sidekick?

Percy Jackson because he’s my firstborn son and one of my favourite characters of all time. He is talented, smart, hilarious, an amazing friend, and the sweetest of boys (when he isn’t the sassiest of boys).

How many books have you read so far this year?

Only 15 I am so behind :(

What’s been your favourite read so far this year?

Oh man. Gotta be Crooked Kingdom by Leigh Bardugo :)

You’re stuck on an island with a suitcase big enough to hold five books. What books are they?

I probably shouldn’t cheat and say How to Build a Boat huh

City of Bones by Cassandra Clare

Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

The King’s Men by Nora Sakovic

Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo

The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan

If you had to go out to dinner with any character who would it be and why? What would you talk about?

Will Herondale and we’d talk about books

Is there a book you have such a hatred for that you would throw it off of the highest tower knowing that the last copy of it will be destroyed so that not another living soul can read it or would you rather keep it and give it to someone else who might actually enjoy it?

The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne or After by Anna Todd

Do you believe books make nice decoration?

I mean. I think they should be read before used as decor but I love showing off my books so I guess both. But I don’t believe in buying books for the purpose of decoration instead of reference or reading lol

Do you listen to music when you read? Or do you need complete silence? 

I need silence or low amount of white noise. I used to read and listen to Taylor Swift when I was a kid but I can’t do it anymore.

Do you have a favorite book? If not are you in the group that believes there are too many great books out there to just choose one?

I tell people it’s City of Bones by Cassandra Clare but in all honesty no I don’t have a favourite.

Do you sleep with books under your pillow.

Nope

Do you go to the library or do you have a book buying addiction or are you one of those lucky people who is able to do both?

I do both. Mostly bookstore though.

Own any book inspired clothing?

Yes. Several items :)

Have you ever read a book in another language?

I read Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, Tristan and Isolde, and Beauty and the Beast in French. And parts of Les Mis.

Strangest book you’ve ever read?

John Dies at the End by David Wong. Still not sure exactly what was going on. 

Favourite type of non-fiction?

Memoirs babey

Favourite non-fiction?

Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand

Favourite subject to read about?

History

Favourite book you’ve read in school?

Wuthering Heights by Emily Bronte

Favourite work of Shakespeare?

Hamlet

Character you’d love as a mom or dad or guardian?

Hmm Sally Jackson, The Women of 300 Fox Way, or Tessa and Will (they totally count because The Last Hours Series)

I tag literally whoever wants to do this and @fangirl-daydreamer97 @acleeds12 @iviisastrawberry @221bdoom @bicycles-bees-bisexuals @betterthanapit @dippindots126 @vlctorvale

[staircasttext]

Ep 10 Transcript: Fireheart Learns to Code

Episode 10

[intro music]

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

JULIAN: I'm Julian.

LIZ: And I'm Liz.

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

JULIAN: Yep.

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

JULIAN: Sure. I can read the first one.

PAZ: Sure, go ahead.

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

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

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

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

LIZ: Lawless.

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

LIZ: That's amazing.

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

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

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

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

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

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

PAZ: Oh my gosh.

JULIAN: Oh yes.

PAZ: Search Warriors.

JULIAN: Community.wolfram.com/groups.

LIZ: Wait, search Warriors, please.

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

LIZ: Cats, anything.

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

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

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

PAZ: Tragic.

JULIAN: It's also like a whole company.

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

JULIAN: We really did.

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

PAZ: Yeah, Wolfram Alpha? Yeah.

LIZ: To get around this.

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

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

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

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

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

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

LIZ: Incredible.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

JULIAN: Right? Ugh.

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

PAZ: Right?

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

LIZ: That's true.

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

PAZ: I wish that was me.

LIZ: God, if only.

JULIAN: Same.

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

LIZ: You just can't say fuck.

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

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

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

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

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

PAZ: Yeah. They're probably like--

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

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

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

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

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

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

LIZ: Yes. Mm-hmm.

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

LIZ: Yes.

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

PAZ: Oh my god.

LIZ: This is so intricate.

PAZ: Wow.

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

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

JULIAN: Oh yeah.

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

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

PAZ: God.

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

JULIAN: It's accurate.

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

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

LIZ: God.

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

LIZ: It was hard.

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

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

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

PAZ: I vaguely remember that.

LIZ: Comedy, poetry, suspense.

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

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

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

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

PAZ: Oh right.

LIZ: I used to read Sherlock fic on Livejournal.

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

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

PAZ: Maybe, maybe, fortunately.

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

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

LIZ: You just loved the character building.

PAZ: I did, I loved the worlds.

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

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

JULIAN: Oh my god.

LIZ: Like Alien-alien?

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

JULIAN: I love that. That's wonderful.

PAZ: It was powerful.

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

PAZ: Okay.

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

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

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

PAZ: Yeah.

LIZ: If it ever made it there.

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

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

JULIAN: Alright, hello.

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

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

JULIAN: Oh my god, I bet there are.

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

JULIAN: Yeah, we should do a hunt there.

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

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

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

LIZ: I don't know. Maybe.

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

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

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

JULIAN: Great news. Uh.

PAZ: Yeah.

LIZ: Yeah?

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

LIZ: [gasp]

PAZ: Oh my god.

LIZ: Fuck yeah.

JULIAN: We have 1825 roleplay groups on Goodreads.

LIZ: What?

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

JULIAN: Oh, this is everything.

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

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

LIZ: This sounds fun.

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

LIZ: Thank god.

PAZ: This is so exciting.

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

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

LIZ: Middle school and above.

PAZ: Eight plus.

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

LIZ: Good. Fuck it up.

PAZ: This is a better use of Goodreads.

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

LIZ: Yeah, get wreckt.

JULIAN: It'd be good for them.

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

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

LIZ: Oh my god.

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

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

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

PAZ: Wow, you can post gifs on Goodreads?

JULIAN: Yeah.

LIZ: Wow.

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

PAZ: Wow.

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

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

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

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

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

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

JULIAN: Aw.

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

PAZ: Oh, no.

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

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

JULIAN: Yeah.

LIZ: Yeah.

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

LIZ: Wow.

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

LIZ: Beautiful.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

PAZ: Exactly.

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

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

LIZ: No.

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

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

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

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

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

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

JULIAN: Like what else do they dispute about?

LIZ: Yeah, what?

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

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

PAZ: Yeah. Or like they stole your children.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

LIZ: Who have seen battle.

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

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

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

PAZ: This is so sad.

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

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

JULIAN: Damn.

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

JULIAN: Oh my god.

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

PAZ: Exactly.

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

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

JULIAN: The jellicle ball.

PAZ: But yes.

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

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

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

PAZ: Yeah, maybe?

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

PAZ: Right?

JULIAN: Yeah.

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

LIZ: Oh my God.

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

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

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

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

JULIAN: I feel like three days, I think?

PAZ: That was like two days.

JULIAN: Two or three?

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

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

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

JULIAN: What are we at? A week?

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

JULIAN: Oh, you know.

LIZ: Oh my god.

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

PAZ: I guess.

LIZ: What's a week for a cat?

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

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

PAZ: I don't know.

LIZ: Two weeks? Three weeks.

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

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

JULIAN: Yeah.

LIZ: I mean, not these cats.

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

PAZ: Yeah, they know when they get food.

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

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

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

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

PAZ: Pouring one out.

LIZ: -- inoffensive side character.

PAZ: Yeah, that might be the case.

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

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

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

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

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

PAZ: I know.

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

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

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

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

JULIAN: Oh.

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

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

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

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

PAZ: It's so cute.

LIZ: It is.

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

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

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

LIZ: Uh-huh.

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

LIZ: Bluestar, why did you do this?

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

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

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

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

JULIAN: Fireheart, your union contract.

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

LIZ: Don't worry. Cinderpaw [inaudible]

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

LIZ: Graystripe even says so, right?

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

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

LIZ: Yeah, like the second day.

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

JULIAN: Yeah.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

PAZ: Yeah.

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

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

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

LIZ: Oh, yeah, that was bad.

PAZ: Aw, I know.

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

LIZ: Aw.

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

JULIAN: The snip?

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

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

PAZ: What is up with this neighborhood?

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

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

LIZ: No.

PAZ: No, not at all.

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

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

JULIAN: Smudge. Smudge got neutered.

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

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

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

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

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

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

JULIAN: That's cat hell.

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

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

PAZ: Oh, it's just overrun.

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

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

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

LIZ: God, yeah.

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

LIZ: Yeah.

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

LIZ: The Meowdessy.

JULIAN: You already have a clan structure.

LIZ: The Kittyad.

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

JULIAN: Aw buddy.

LIZ: Aw.

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

LIZ: He's just a little guy.

JULIAN: He's just a little guy.

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

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

PAZ: And an accessory to murder.

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

PAZ: Yeah, sorry, Graystripe.

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

PAZ: No.

LIZ: I don't think so.

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

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

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

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

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

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

PAZ: Okay.

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

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

JULIAN: Oh, gotcha.

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

PAZ: Don't worry about it.

LIZ: Okay, sure.

PAZ: We'll get there.

LIZ: Hmm.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

JULIAN: Cat fight.

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

JULIAN: Yeah, I don't either.

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

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

LIZ: It's very funny.

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

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

JULIAN: Which frankly, needs it.

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

JULIAN: Oh.

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

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

LIZ: Night classes.

JULIAN: Personal development? Professional development?

PAZ: Needs to get his education certificate.

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

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

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

LIZ: Are we good for these chapters?

PAZ: Yeah, I think we're good.

JULIAN: Yeah.

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

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

LIZ: Everyone's very sad.

PAZ: Yeah. Yeah.

[meow]

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

LIZ: Oh, yeah.

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

JULIAN: Sounds good.

LIZ: All right.

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

JULIAN: Al-jer-non, yep.

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

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

PAZ: Yeah, I agree.

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

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

JULIAN: Eh.

PAZ: Pretty boring.

LIZ: Yeah.

PAZ: Pixie.

JULIAN: Very good.

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

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

LIZ: Pixie should be a freak.

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

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

JULIAN: Eh.

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

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

PAZ: Yeah.

JULIAN: Yeah.

PAZ: Okay. Next cat is Marmalade.

JULIAN: Excellent.

LIZ: 10 out of 10.

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

JULIAN: Yes.

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

JULIAN: Eh.

PAZ: It's okay.

LIZ: It's all right.

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

JULIAN: Oh.

LIZ: Yeah.

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

JULIAN: Just a human man.

PAZ: Then we have Twig.

JULIAN: Very good.

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

LIZ: Very good together.

PAZ: I love Boris so much.

JULIAN: That's another human man name.

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

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

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

LIZ: I mean--

PAZ: Um-- yeah, go ahead.

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

JULIAN: Yes.

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

LIZ: Nice Friends at the Table reference.

JULIAN: Next cat name is Fourteen Fifteen.

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

JULIAN: It really depends on the cat.

PAZ: Yeah.

JULIAN: I feel like.

PAZ: It's original, I guess.

LIZ: Yeah.

PAZ: I'll give it points for that.

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

PAZ: Oh no.

LIZ: You mush them.

PAZ: How am I gonna squeeze his beans?

JULIAN: Give him some coconut oil.

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

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

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

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

PAZ: Okay, you can read it.

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

PAZ: I agree with Oscar.

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

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

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

LIZ: No.

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

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

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

LIZ: Yeah.

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

LIZ: Yeah.

JULIAN: Yeah.

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

LIZ: Very decadent.

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

LIZ: Aw.

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

LIZ: That's cute.

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

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

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

JULIAN: Oh, yes.

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

JULIAN: Like that cat needs to bring that energy.

LIZ: This is a cat with a rhinestone collar.

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

LIZ: Aw.

JULIAN: Oh, that's good.

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

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

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

LIZ: Very cute.

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

JULIAN: Oh boy.

LIZ: Uh.

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

PAZ: Yeah.

LIZ: No.

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

JULIAN: Excellent.

PAZ: I love that.

LIZ: 10 out of 10.

PAZ: This is a perfect cat name.

LIZ: Wow.

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

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

JULIAN: Peapod.

LIZ: Potato. Peapod, yeah.

PAZ: Polly. Eh.

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

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

JULIAN: Yeah.

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

PAZ: Yeah, I don't know.

JULIAN: I think it's a person name.

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

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

PAZ: Oh, no.

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

LIZ: I don't like that. No.

PAZ: They both live in the same place apparently.

JULIAN: Nooo.

LIZ: Bad.

JULIAN: Hate it.

LIZ: Not their fault. But bad.

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

JULIAN: That might be an Erin Hunter badness.

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

JULIAN: Well, then the name is perfect.

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

JULIAN: Excellent.

PAZ: That's powerful.

LIZ: Mm-hmm.

JULIAN: Oh.

PAZ: Then we have Webster.

JULIAN: Yes.

PAZ: I like-- I love that.

LIZ: Yes.

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

LIZ: With glasses.

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

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

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

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

PAZ: Exactly.

LIZ: And accepting who you are.

PAZ: The next name is Betsy.

JULIAN: Cute.

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

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

PAZ: No, we gotta skip them.

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

JULIAN: It's really good.

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

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

LIZ: Can we give it a shout out?

PAZ: Harvest Moon sequel, Harveymoon.

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

PAZ: Yeah.

LIZ: Harveymoon, friend of Susanclaw.

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

PAZ: That's perfect.

LIZ: Oh my god.

PAZ: Okay, um, Ajax.

JULIAN: Excellent, real powerful name.

LIZ: Mm-hmm.

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

JULIAN: Can I just read his description real quick?

PAZ: Yes.

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

LIZ: Aw.

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

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

PAZ: Then we have Pickle.

LIZ: Beautiful.

PAZ: Perfect.

JULIAN: He has a squashed in face.

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

JULIAN: Oh yes.

LIZ: Oh, yeah.

PAZ: Yeah. Powerful.

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

PAZ: God.

JULIAN: Aw.

PAZ: Then we have Yew.

LIZ: Oh, me?

[laughter]

PAZ: Yep. Then we have Bumble.

LIZ: Beautiful.

JULIAN: That's very good.

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

JULIAN: Oh yeah.

PAZ: Where they wobble.

LIZ: Aw.

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

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

PAZ: Oh no.

JULIAN: But it's fine.

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

LIZ: Yeah.

JULIAN: Good.

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

JULIAN: Good for him.

LIZ: So this is an old man.

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

JULIAN: Eh.

PAZ: I don't know about--

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

PAZ: Who isn't?

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

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

LIZ: Yeah.

JULIAN: Yeah.

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

JULIAN: Smudge is very good.

PAZ: We have Princess.

JULIAN: Eh.

LIZ: Classic.

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

LIZ: In context, it's very good.

PAZ: Yeah.

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

LIZ: Yeah.

PAZ: Yeah. Um, then we have Henry.

LIZ: The best.

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

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

PAZ: No, I think we already established this.

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

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

LIZ: Aw.

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

LIZ: Yeah.

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

LIZ: Mm-hmm.

JULIAN: Mm-hmm.

PAZ: Cody.

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

JULIAN: Cody feels like a dog name to me.

PAZ: Yeah.

LIZ: Yeah.

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

JULIAN: Cute.

PAZ: It's okay.

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

PAZ: Yeah, kind of.

JULIAN: Mm, I can see that.

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

JULIAN: Perfect.

LIZ: Yes.

JULIAN: Yes.

LIZ: Oh my god.

PAZ: Jacques is such a good cat name.

JULIAN: Yeah.

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

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

LIZ: Yeah.

PAZ: Yeah.

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

PAZ: Yeah, Jacques has a little beret on.

JULIAN: Yeah, he's all stripey.

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

JULIAN: Perfect.

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

LIZ: Mm-mm.

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

PAZ: Yeah.

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

PAZ: Yeah.

LIZ: Bad.

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

JULIAN: Perfect.

LIZ: Cute.

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

[laughter]

Yeah?

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

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

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

JULIAN: I think so.

LIZ: Yeah, like with the oranges?

JULIAN: Yeah.

LIZ: Seville oranges.

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

PAZ: No.

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

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

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

LIZ: Name a cat that.

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

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

JULIAN: Good.

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

LIZ: Great cat name.

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

PAZ: Yeah, go ahead.

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

PAZ: Wow.

JULIAN: Just a real--

PAZ: One for the Marvel fans there.

JULIAN: That's another YA book friend group.

LIZ: Yeah.

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

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

JULIAN: Fuzzball is still so good.

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

LIZ: Perfect.

JULIAN: Yes.

LIZ: Best ones.

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

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

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

LIZ: Pancakes, you've done it.

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

LIZ: We can't go on.

PAZ: It's so good.

LIZ: Fuck.

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

JULIAN: Eh.

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

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

PAZ: Uh-huh.

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

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

LIZ: Socks is cute.

PAZ: Socks is a classic.

LIZ: Yeah.

PAZ: Quince... Okay.

LIZ: So a fruit?

JULIAN: I think it's a fruit.

LIZ: Yeah.

PAZ: You little fruit.

LIZ: Tigerclaw.

PAZ: We have Shnuky.

JULIAN: Oh, that's good.

PAZ: That's a powerful name.

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

JULIAN: Shnuky's in the mangas.

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

JULIAN: Cute.

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

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

PAZ: Yeah, please.

LIZ: Yes.

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

LIZ: Wait. Wait a second.

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

JULIAN: Yeah.

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

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

JULIAN: He looks like those paintings.

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

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

PAZ: They look like arms.

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

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

JULIAN: Oh god.

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

PAZ: Yeah.

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

PAZ: Yeah, it's kind of scary.

JULIAN: I hate to look at this.

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

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

PAZ: God.

LIZ: This is an animorph mid-transformation.

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

JULIAN: I... sure?

PAZ: I don't know. I guess.

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

PAZ: Yeah.

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

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

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

PAZ: I don't know.

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

LIZ: Yeah.

PAZ: This is no...

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

PAZ: This is no Boris.

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

PAZ: We have Violet. It's fine.

JULIAN: Yeah.

PAZ: Riley. Also fine, I guess.

JULIAN: Yeah, Riley's cute I think.

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

JULIAN: Lulu's very good.

LIZ: Good.

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

JULIAN: Aw.

PAZ: Heck yeah.

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

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

LIZ: This is a jock.

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

LIZ: What?

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

JULIAN: Fuck off, Madric.

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

LIZ: Fuck you. Get out of here.

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

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

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

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

PAZ: Is it?

JULIAN: I thought it was.

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

LIZ: Oh no.

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

JULIAN: We did it.

LIZ: I think there's some more.

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

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

JULIAN: What?

PAZ: Where is this?

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

LIZ: Oh my god.

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

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

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

JULIAN: 155.

LIZ: I'm closing it.

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

PAZ: Yeah, please.

JULIAN: Bigteeth. Bugeater. Buster.

LIZ: They're good.

JULIAN: Cheddar.

PAZ: Oh god.

LIZ: Oh my god.

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

LIZ: Aw.

PAZ: That's cute. Diesel.

JULIAN: Yeah. Um, Gremlin, as mentioned.

LIZ: Perfect.

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

LIZ: Oh my god.

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

PAZ: Oh my god. That is incredible.

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

PAZ: Oh, yeah. Don't click.

LIZ: Spoilers, huh?

PAZ: Look away from this list.

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

PAZ: Holding up the gun.

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

PAZ: Okay.

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

PAZ: Aw.

JULIAN: Shanty, Snooky.

PAZ: Tiny.

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

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

LIZ: Oh, that's very ominous.

PAZ: Yeah. That bitch Tiny.

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

PAZ: No, it says graphic novel.

JULIAN: Oh, they've listed it twice.

PAZ: Yeah.

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

PAZ: Aw.

LIZ: More cats should have little titles.

PAZ: I agree.

JULIAN: Yeah.

LIZ: Like imagine if--

JULIAN: Oh.

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

PAZ: Aw, that's very good.

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

LIZ: Wow.

PAZ: Aw, that's so cute.

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

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

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

LIZ: Oh my god.

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

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

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

PAZ: The bangs are colored differently.

LIZ: Little Mew's frosted tips.

JULIAN: Little Mew's center part.

PAZ: Oh God.

JULIAN: Little Mew's Edward Elric haircut.

LIZ: No!

PAZ: It also kinda looks like Yugioh hair.

LIZ: No.

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

LIZ: But not the ones we wanted.

JULIAN: Oh.

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

JULIAN: Yeah.

PAZ: So good job, Erins.

LIZ: 98% good job.

PAZ: Yeah.

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

LIZ: Yes.

PAZ: Oh yeah, please.

JULIAN: This is Birdy.

LIZ: Holy shit. What the fuck.

PAZ: Does she have eyeshadow on?

LIZ: What the... who...

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

PAZ: No.

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

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

PAZ: Yeah.

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

PAZ: Uh-huh.

LIZ: This is her in her prime.

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

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

PAZ: No.

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

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

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

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

PAZ: Yeah. I agree.

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

JULIAN: Socks.

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

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

LIZ: This is my cat Fortnite.

PAZ: My cat Fortnite. Exactly.

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

PAZ: Oh god.

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

PAZ: My cat Milkshake Duck.

LIZ: No.

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

PAZ: Oh, absolutely.

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

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

JULIAN: Bye.

LIZ: Bye.

[outro music]

Let's podcast. Sorry.

JULIAN: We have to get that MeUndies money.

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

#transcript #ep 10 #fire and ice ep #fireheart learns to code

[staircasttext]

Ep 06 Transcript: xXBr0kenStarXx

Episode 6

PAZ: Welcome back everyone to Stairway to StarClan, a Warrior Cats reread pawdcast. I'm Paz.

JULIAN: I'm Julian.

LIZ: I'm Liz.

PAZ: And we are in an exciting, I guess, finale episode today because we're finishing Into the Wild. Went for a pretty good clip through it, and we're at the end, and, um, I think we'll do more of like, full on like, post book. What's the word?

JULIAN: Like a recap, like, revisitation of the book as a whole?

PAZ: Yeah, our full impressions of the book, post book, later, but I'm just gonna say before I do the summaries that this was a good book. And I had a lot of fun.

JULIAN: Yeah!

LIZ: It was. I mean, it was my first Warriors book ever and I think-- I'm in it now. I'm invested. If this got me at like 12, 13, 14, I would have been the Warriors veteran at this point.

JULIAN: It's never too late.

LIZ: No, it's not. You're right.

PAZ: I mean, it's still quarantine season. No one's gonna judge you for getting into Warrior Cats right now.

LIZ: You think I wouldn't go to like a super-- you know, back in 2019, I wouldn't have gone to a super hip cafe and pulled out of my artisan bag like a Warrior Cats book? Like yes, I have my oat milk latte and read my book Into the Wild right in front. Oh, would you like to join me? Hello, I see you're a fellow fan.

PAZ: Yeah, that's how it goes.

LIZ: Yeah.

JULIAN: Oh, to sit in a cafe.

PAZ: Ah, truly. Well, no cafes in the wild. Just death.

LIZ: That's the saddest thing I've ever heard.

PAZ: So let's get into these chapter summaries. Okay, so this week we read chapters 22 through 25, which is kind of like the end of the book, a lot of action and drama. So chapter 22 opens with Firepaw and Graypaw returning to ThunderClan territory after they saw Ravenpaw off. Firepaw goes back towards ThunderClan camp hoping to pick up Yellowfang's scent before the storm ceases entirely.

Her trail leads into ShadowClan territory, and Firepaw grows worried that maybe Yellowfang was a traitor. Graypaw smells kit blood in ShadowClan territory and they find Yellowfang nearby. The two apprentices attack her and accuse her of killing the kits and Spottedleaf, but Yellowfang's genuine shock at the news convinces Firepaw she is innocent.

Yellowfang explains that Clawface, a ShadowClan warrior, stole the kits, and she was trying to get them back. She explains how Brokenstar has been stealing kits and forcing them into warrior training much too early. He also killed ShadowClan kits and then accused Yellowfang of killing them, which was why she was banished. Firepaw promises Yellowfang they'll all rescue the kits together, and the three hide as a ThunderClan patrol approaches.

Chapter 23 opens with Yellowfang deciding to go and convince some old ShadowClan warriors to help and Firepaw deciding to try and convince the ThunderClan warriors to help rescue the kits and also to not attack Yellowfang. They part ways, and Firepaw and Graypaw go out to meet the ThunderClan patrol, which is headed by Whitestorm rather than Tigerclaw, who was ordered to stay back at camp. Whitestorm is much more level headed and open to hearing Firepaw out and agrees to hear Yellowfang out as well, and they go back to their meeting place.

Yellowfang soon returns with three other ShadowClan warriors who want to get rid of Brokenstar. They report that ShadowClan is in shambles, with the old and sick starving and countless kits dying. Yellowfang laments that Raggedstar died in a warrior patrol ambush and that his son has become evil. The cats come up with a plan to lure Brokenstar out into the open by having the ShadowClan cats bring Yellowfang in as a fake captive. Then ShadowClan and ThunderClan cats will attack Brokenstar and his guard once they're out.

In chapter 24, the cats make their way to the ShadowClan camp. Yellowfang and her friends go in and signal the ThunderClan cats to come in, and a fight erupts in the camp. During the fight Firepaw off faces off against Clawface, the cat who killed Spottedleaf, and nearly kills him in his rage before Whitestorm stops him. Then Firepaw sees Yellowfang fighting Brokenstar, who reveals to Yellowfang that he killed his father Raggedstar. Yellowfang is overcome by grief and stops fighting, and Firepaw jumps in to attack Brokenstar before he can kill Yellowfang. Brokenstar says Firepaw won't be able to kill him because he has nine lives, and retreats from the camp with the rest of his warriors.

The ShadowClan warriors who remain that were not loyal to Brokenstar promise to rebuild the clan and keep Brokenstar away. The ThunderClan kits are rescued and Whitestorm promises to leave ShadowClan and peace for one moon, and Yellowfang decides to return to the ThunderClan camp.

In the last chapter, chapter 25, the ThunderClan group returns to the camp, and Frostfur is overjoyed to see her kits back safely. Tigerclaw is angry that Yellowfang has returned to the camp, and Firepaw insists that she is no traitor. Graypaw suggests they look at the fur between Spottedleaf's claws, which turns out to be brown fur of Clawface, and not Yellowfang's gray fur. Tigerclaw still accuses Yellowfang of taking the kits, but Firepaw fiercely defends her and Whitestorm backs him up. Bluestar then formerly asked Yellowfang to become ThunderClan's medicine cat, which she accepts.

Bluestar then asked where Ravenpaw is, and Firepaw says they found his body in ShadowClan territory, where he had been killed by ShadowClan warriors. He promises to tell Bluestar everything later. Tigerclaw pretends to be upset by this news and gives some empty words about regretting the loss of Ravenpaw. Bluestar then declares that it is time for Firepaw and Graypaw to be given their warrior names, which is a ceremony that she conducts. Graypaw is named Graystripe, and Firepaw is named Fireheart. Fireheart thinks about how grateful and happy he is to be in ThunderClan. Tigerclaw then hisses a threat to Fireheart to not tell Blueheart-- Bluestar.

LIZ: I know.

PAZ: Oh my god, these names, they're tripping-- bleagh. There's too many consonants. Fireheart tries to go and speak to Bluestar, but she insists that he follow the traditional silent vigil following his warrior ceremony. The book ends with Fireheart and Graystripe sitting together on their vigil. As Fireheart locks eyes with Tigerclaw across the camp, Fireheart thinks to himself, if he was destined to oppose Tigerclaw, then so be it. And that's the end of Into the Wild.

LIZ: I hope I see you. It's on sight.

PAZ: That really was the--

JULIAN: Again, ShadowClan has got to get better SEO on their names.

PAZ: Oh my god. There's like, Clawface. Clawface?!

JULIAN: Well, and Raggedstar was the good one.

PAZ: I mean, maybe they're just like punk, but like, come on guys.

LIZ: Yeah, that means they have like a whole bunch of like little babies that are just called like, Clawkit and Brokenpaw.

JULIAN: Bustedkit. Like someone please get like an image consultant or something in for ShadowClan.

PAZ: Their medicine cat is named Runningnose. Like come on, guys.

JULIAN: Well, and the one before that, the competent one, was named Yellowfang, which also doesn't fill me with confidence.

LIZ: Yeah, both of the medicine cats have names that say, I have allergies that I can't take care of, and I have dental problem that I can't take care of.

PAZ: Oh gosh. ShadowClan.

LIZ: I mean, just, it loops around somewhat to kind of be like cool again, because if you see like a little baby kitten that's called like, I don't know. Clawevil, something something.

JULIAN: Scorchedkit.

PAZ: Oh, gosh.

LIZ: That's just a little punk baby now.

JULIAN: Is ShadowClan the Hot Topic of clans?

PAZ: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, like out of all the clans, yes. And I guess they think the names are really cool, but that backfires on them when they're evil because then it just, you know, seems a little on the nose.

JULIAN: They edged all the way into an authoritarian dictatorship.

LIZ: No.

PAZ: Yeah, ShadowClan was having a real bad time.

JULIAN: Yeah, God.

LIZ: They need to be in like a little farming commune now.

JULIAN: Yeah, all the elders.

PAZ: Yeah, I love that there was just like this reveal-- this totally off screen father murder plot happened. Seemed very dramatic.

JULIAN: We said it was Hamlet and turns out it was Hamlet.

LIZ: But Hamlet was evil.

PAZ: It just was happening in ShadowClan. Oh gosh. Yeah. It was also very funny that there was a ShadowClan cat named Ashfur because that's the name of like a major character later. I was like, hello?

LIZ: Is that the same one?

PAZ: No, cuz this one's a fucking old ass bitch, I don't know.

LIZ: Oh.

JULIAN: Yeah, they seem to reuse names sometimes.

PAZ: Which makes, I mean, sense. There's only so many combinations, I guess.

LIZ: It happens in real life.

PAZ: Maybe, maybe Ashfur is just like the like, I don't know, Jake of Warriors names.

LIZ: The Susanclaw of Warrior Cats.

PAZ: Ashfur is just your John Doe.

JULIAN: Yeah, if I search Ashfur on the Warrior Cats wiki, I do get a disambiguation page.

PAZ: Speaking of characters who show up later, I think one of the kids was Cinderpaw.

JULIAN: Oh yeah. Definitely.

PAZ: Yeah, that was a cute little like cameo before she shows up for real in the next book.

JULIAN: God, there was one bit, before they actually even go into ShadowClan, Graypaw goes something about like, "my mother warned me about the stench of ShadowClan many times." And I'm like, Are y'all good?

PAZ: No, they're so xenophobic. To the point when anybody who's not them is smelly, apparently.

LIZ: I have some news for them. They're all stinky cats. They're just rolling around in the dirt and hunting wild animals and never having baths, except for maybe RiverClan.

JULIAN: They all have ass ticks.

PAZ: They do. They definitely all have ass ticks.

LIZ: And fleas. And their medicine is mouse bile and spiderwebs. I don't think they're walking around smelling like Bath and Body Works or anything.

PAZ: No.

JULIAN: No.

PAZ: Rolling in garlic too, apparently.

LIZ: Oh yeah.

JULIAN: Maybe they just like-- at this point, none of them can smell very well because everything is so stinky around them at all time, like nose blind.

PAZ: That's kind of how I felt when I was on excavation, and like all we could do is take bucket showers.

JULIAN: Oh god.

LIZ: No.

PAZ: I was like, I'm sure I smell horrible right now. But we all are dirty. It's fine.

JULIAN: Yeah. Eugh.

LIZ: Cats can be so stinky, too. Even housecats. There's a point where like they just become stinky. And you have to help them.

JULIAN: Although I will say this for Graystripe. If all the cats have been like eating like roadkill and like getting sick, they may in fact be stinky.

PAZ: That's true.

JULIAN: It's not their fault but.

LIZ: No.

JULIAN: I also can't believe that none of the other clans seem to have noticed that ShadowClan has like been all slowly starving, question mark?

PAZ: Right? Okay, maybe at the gatherings like Brokenstar only brings his like best warriors, who presumably get to eat more, so maybe nobody noticed.

LIZ: That's true.

PAZ: I mean, that makes sense to me.

LIZ: They did note also at the last one that like the warriors that he did bring were like, pretty young looking and also kind of skinny, which is because they're also--

PAZ: Yeah, the apprentices?

LIZ: Yeah. They are young and skinny.

PAZ: Yeah, they're babies apparently.

JULIAN: Fucking, okay, chalk up another war crime. That's child soldiers.

LIZ: Oh my god.

PAZ: Oh yeah. ShadowClan has that one down.

LIZ: This cat's a war criminal. Violated the Geneva Convention.

PAZ: Yeah, okay. ShadowClan, not only do they have child soldiers, they are taking hostages, too.

JULIAN: Yeah.

LIZ: To turn into child soldiers.

PAZ: Yeah, that's some pretty big war crimes if you ask me.

LIZ: How do they conceptualize this as cats?

JULIAN: I mean, they seem pretty upset about the child soldier thing. Like they're all like, Oh, he's been training kits as young as three months old.

PAZ: Yeah. No, like the normal cats aren't happy about that.

LIZ: Oh, no. Yeah, for sure. I mean, like, hey Brokenstar, how did you come up with this idea? Where did you get it from? What the fuck, my dude?

PAZ: Yeah, he's kind of twisted. He's a little twisted. He's kind of a sicko.

LIZ: He's real fucked up.

JULIAN: Brokenstar in his Invader Zim tshirt. I'm a little different.

PAZ: Oh no.

LIZ: Screen name, xX, Brokenstar with a 0, xX.

PAZ: Yeah, he's so comically evil. Like, like, way more than Tigerclaw. Like Tigerclaw is like kind of cool and conniving. This guy's just fucking like-- not even like Skeletor. He's just evil.

JULIAN: Like he's not even sneaky about it. He's just like, what's up? I'm gonna torture children.

LIZ: Tigerclaw is like the evil regent in every story. But Brokenstar is just like laughing maniacally on top of like a hill where he's on a throne of bones. And he's like, yes, I will make a soup out of the children.

PAZ: God. Again, if you look at the map in the book, ShadowClan territory is right next to Carrionplace.

JULIAN: Jesus.

PAZ: Which is like, great. I think maybe ShadowClan needs new-- maybe they should just go somewhere else.

JULIAN: Yeah, have they thought about moving?

LIZ: Hey, maybe they could all just be barn cats.

JULIAN: I'm like, do the cats ascribe to the miasma theory of-- just in general?

LIZ: Where are they at in their phase of society?

PAZ: They don't know shit about germs.

LIZ: No.

JULIAN: Because it seems like even if you don't understand germs, you might understand that those are bad vibes coming from the Carrionplace and you should...

PAZ: Right?

JULIAN: The vibes are really rancid.

LIZ: What about their humors? They're gonna get all messed up.

PAZ: Too much black bile or whatever. I think we're looping back into Hamlet. We've done it again.

JULIAN: I think-- yeah, we've done.

PAZ: Shit.

JULIAN: Welcome to Staircast where every episode we loop back around to discuss Shakespeare.

LIZ: Finally, my degree comes in use.

PAZ: But poor-- I don't know. I'm just trying to figure out what happened chronologically. It's all kind of, a lot of action going on. But like poor Yellowfang.

JULIAN: Yeah. She seems to have really liked Raggedstar.

PAZ: Yeah. Yeah, she's very, very upset to hear he was murdered by his own son. But I also mean like, poor Yellowfang. Like, even like Firepaw gets a moment where he's like, oh, maybe she is evil. Like, leave her alone.

JULIAN: Yeah. No one trusts her.

LIZ: And she's getting like, jerked around so much. Like she was basically like, welcomed before cause of like a huge act of bravery, specifically involving children, like saving children. And then she got cast out immediately. And the same thing is happening again. And like, that's good, but also like, how-- she must be thinking like, well, is this one gonna stick? Fuck if I know.

PAZ: Yeah, right. I guess maybe now she's like, if I'm the doctor, they probably won't kill me.

LIZ: She was the doctor last time, too.

PAZ: No, she wasn't. She wasn't the doctor. Spottedleaf was still there.

LIZ: No, no, in her clan anyway, like in ShadowClan.

PAZ: Well, that's cause Brokenstar is a sicko.

LIZ: That's true. Tigerclaw isn't a sicko but he's a real nasty guy.

JULIAN: The sicko versus nasty guy dichotomy. Oh, another one of Brokenstar's crimes I'm finding here is he also like forced out all the elders and made them hunt for themselves.

PAZ: Yeah, what the fuck?

JULIAN: Which is just like, well, fuck you. You took the one good thing about this fucked up cat society.

PAZ: That was real fucked up.

LIZ: They have already such a hard time like conceptualizing sharing and like mutual aid. So let's make it worse.

PAZ: No, I mean, like, they got that mutual aid. It's just in very clearly defined borders is the issue. But Brokenstar said, fuck that. Brokenstar said, we're going full authoritarian, baby.

JULIAN: It does sound like ShadowClan has some-- I mean, maybe ThunderClan has it too and we just haven't seen it yet because Bluestar is a girl boss. But like, it seems like they have some fucked up ideas about leadership already because Yellowfang is like, oh, no one could stand up to Brokenstar cause Raggedstar was his father, and his word is law. And it's like Well, great. You've reinvented monarchy.

LIZ: Oh no.

PAZ: Yeah, like is ShadowClan just doing like rules of succession? Like cause I don't think--that's not how it's supposed to work, even though it feels like that. There's a real nepotism problem in ThunderClan coming down the line.

LIZ: Ooh, good.

PAZ: I think we'll see but um, but yeah, like ShadowClan just straight up has like their first son succession rule going on or whatever.

LIZ: And it's definitely not supposed to be like that. And like the whole word is law thing, that is-- like we see pretty early on that Bluestar at least consulted like the other members of the clan on pretty important decisions. She's always like, what do you guys think? And I would like your input on this, right?

PAZ: Yeah. I think we do get to see more of RiverClan and WindClan in the upcoming books. Definitely WindClan I think comes up in the near future.

JULIAN: Oh yeah. No, they definitely do.

PAZ: But yeah, I'll be interested to see what they got going on in their leadership structures. Also, I think Firepaw should have committed a murder.

LIZ: Yes.

PAZ: He's allowed.

JULIAN: Yeah, that was like in the heat of battle. It's justified.

PAZ: Right? These cats killing each other constantly. Just let him have it.

LIZ: He can have some like conflict about it later, but you know, I think he should do it for the drama.

JULIAN: Oh, I do have a quick question. Hey, how the fuck does Graypaw know what kit blood smells like?

LIZ: That has never popped up before.

PAZ: That's a great question, actually. Yeah.

JULIAN: Like very specifically like the blood of kits. Excuse me?

LIZ: It was so alarming when it popped up because it was like oh, like did one die? Is this just like a bloody scene? No. It's like just the scent of it, right? Like around?

JULIAN: Yeah. And like when we do find the kits one of them was like-- like a couple of them were like kind of scratched up. But.

PAZ: Maybe like in the camp the kits get like, I don't know thorns in their paws or something. Who knows?

LIZ: How do you pull those out if you don't have thumbs?

PAZ: Your teeth.

LIZ: That sounds like it hurts.

PAZ: Well yeah, probably.

JULIAN: I mean, it hurts when you have thumbs, too.

PAZ: But this series does also not stray away from child death. So don't worry about that.

LIZ: They're just little guys though.

PAZ: Yeah, but they're warriors. They're out in the wild. And anything could happen.

LIZ: (crestfallen) I see that now.

PAZ: This series is like the opposite of video games where like the children are invincible and you can't kill them. The children here are very killable.

JULIAN: Yeah, I would say children die like a lot in a series that is meant for children.

PAZ: Uh-huh. I'm kind of amazed that all of these kits survived, actually. Good for them.

LIZ: Yeah, there's a pretty good survival rate in this book. I can't wait to see that just decimated.

PAZ: I feel-- just like from knowing general knowledge about what happens in the first series, I think it gets real bloody near the end.

JULIAN: Oh yeah. Yeah, it does. Um.

LIZ: I guess it's not called Peacetime Cats.

PAZ: Yeah, it is kind of wild to be like rereading this as an adult, and be like these are like so graphic for kids novels. I mean, kids like love that shit, but.

JULIAN: Right. I don't know if I like-- if I remember it being in this book, but there's definitely like in later books, like explicit descriptions of like cats getting their throats torn out, and like, cats getting like disemboweled. And like--

PAZ: I feel like there was a bear trap or something at one point.

LIZ: Oh my god.

JULIAN: Oh god, the bear trap. Oh, God, that was awful. Yeah. And like kids do eat that shit up.

LIZ: Oh, for sure.

PAZ: But usually, it's not like in the kids media. It's usually like you sneak in and like watch or something you're not supposed to. This series is just like, fuck it.

JULIAN: Yeah, gloves off. Ugh. Speaking of kit death. Firepaw completely forgot to mention that Ravenpaw was dead until like, they got back to the camp and like, did a lot of other exposition.

PAZ: Oh my god, that was so funny.

JULIAN: Like he didn't even remember to act sad when they met the ThunderClan patrol. He was just like, Oh, this is fine.

PAZ: Oh my god, yeah.

JULIAN: And then when they get back to camp, it's like, oh, by the way, real sad. He's dead.

LIZ: It's his limited object permanence. He's just a little guy.

PAZ: There was a lot going on. But yeah, he's uh, he failed in his great like, subterfuge plan there, I think.

LIZ: He did the best he could as Firepaw.

PAZ: Yellowfang was just giving him a look like, uh, excuse me?

JULIAN: Yellowfang has the only brain cells in this entire, like society of cats.

PAZ: It really feels like that.

JULIAN: And then later on Firepaw-- after becoming Fireheart, when Tigerclaw threatens him, is like Bluestar has to know about Tigerclaw's treachery. And it's like, yeah, she would have if you hadn't forgotten to tell her.

PAZ: I know. You could have told her when the witness to the murder was still in the camp. But no. Oh, God. Yeah. And then he says something like, Tigerclaw isn't a problem to be solved in a day. I'm like, it could be. It really could be. I don't know.

LIZ: Mm, I think the sooner you solve it, the better, too.

JULIAN: Like it's only going to take longer the more you let him get his claws in.

PAZ: Haha. Yeah, though. But, but it was also very, like, Whitestorm like, is the cat who like comes out to help in the ShadowClan battle, specifically because Bluestar is like Tigerclaw is too bloodthirsty, so he'll have to stay in camp. And I'm like, Bluestar, why didn't you just make Whitestorm the deputy?

JULIAN: Right?

PAZ: Hello?

LIZ: Yeah, he's like, right there. He's doing great.

JULIAN: He's right there. He's like, very chill.

PAZ: Yeah, he seems like a real nice, nice guy. But I guess if he have been a deputy, he would have gotten fucking murdered instantly.

JULIAN: Yeah. I guess it's good.

LIZ: Maybe she did ask and he was just like, no.

JULIAN: No, I don't want to die today.

LIZ: I'm good.

JULIAN: That's the secret. You got to turn down the promotion or they make you do more work.

PAZ: Yeah, he just wants to go like, take some sunbaths, like he doesn't need that deputy business. It also like boggles my mind that nobody investigated the murder scene with Spottedleaf before. Like, if you can just look at like fur color and rule out suspects, I feel like you should do that right away, maybe.

JULIAN: Yeah, I mean, they had just found out the kits were missing. So tensions were kind of high.

LIZ: They need to have more jobs aside from doctor, president, evil vice president, soldier, and mom.

JULIAN: Are you suggesting that the cats need to have cops?

LIZ: Noooo, oh I take it all back.

PAZ: No, just like forensic scientists.

JULIAN: Okay.

LIZ: Alright.

JULIAN: That's fine. I mean I guess if you think about it, they're all kind of cops already.

LIZ: Noooo.

PAZ: They got that multipurpose job title. Also going back to the Ravenpaw thing, that lie was like, also just terrible in general because everyone saw the three of them leave together. So it's like, Firepaw, are you gonna make up a story like at some point you got separated and that's where Ravenpaw got killed? Like, it's just-- the holes in this story are enormous.

JULIAN: He like straight up doesn't even come up with a story. He just goes, Ravenpaw is dead. Oh, no, he does come up with a story. I'm sorry. I'm rereading it.

PAZ: It's just not very good.

JULIAN: They found his body in ShadowClan.

LIZ: On the other hand, Tigerclaw can just say whatever shit he wants, and that's fine with everybody.

PAZ: That's true.

JULIAN: I mean, if we think of Firepaw as like, exemplar of the average cat intelligence in this clan, it might not be that hard.

PAZ: Yeah.

LIZ: What a grim prospect.

PAZ: Well, you know, apparently nobody liked Ravenpaw. So I guess they don't really care enough to think too deeply about it.

JULIAN: God.

LIZ: So sad.

JULIAN: Including, like his siblings.

PAZ: I know, fuck his siblings.

LIZ: His siblings fucking suck.

JULIAN: I hope he's having a great time getting those Barley smooches.

LIZ: Good for him.

PAZ: Yeah, there's like a line. Oh, yeah, it's like after Tigerclaw pretends to be sad about Ravenpaw. Firepaw is like, "what would Tigerclaw say if he knew that Ravenpaw was safe, far beyond the forest, catching rats with Barley?"

JULIAN: Good. It's what he deserves.

PAZ: It is what he deserves. Not deal with any of your shit.

LIZ: Get out of the horrible, wartorn, militaristic cat society.

PAZ: Also, like, I guess Ravenpaw is also like, only five hours away from also being a warrior.

JULIAN: What do Sandpaw and Dustpaw think about this? Because they're older, right?

PAZ: Oh yeah, that's true. Probably pissed. Maybe they became warriors offscreen. I don't know.

LIZ: I don't know, a lot's happening. Maybe they did. They're just not part of like, the main friend group. So, they went patrolling or something together.

PAZ: Here's some trivia though about Ravenpaw. Tara says that if she could have made Ravenpaw a warrior, she would have named him Ravenwing.

JULIAN: Aw.

LIZ: Aww.

PAZ: So that's his warrior name that was never realized.

LIZ: That's very cute.

PAZ: That's a good name, I think. We love and support Ravenpaw here.

LIZ: We do.

JULIAN: He's our little guy.

PAZ: He's our little guy and he's a member of our community. So we have to support him.

LIZ: Absolutely.

PAZ: Yeah, but then once again, that does raise the question, though. How does like Bluestar come up with these names? Does she just have like a list she pulls from, like?

JULIAN: I mean she does like have a line to StarClan, it seems like. Maybe they're giving her the names.

PAZ: StarClan has that Warriors Cat name generator up there. They're clicking away at it. You know, if I was leader, I would absolutely having to give people their names. That's too much pressure for me.

JULIAN: I mean, I think she picks pretty good ones. Like Fireheart and Graystripe are pretty solid.

PAZ: No, they're good. I'm just saying if I was a cat and a leader of a Warrior clan I would not be good at it.

LIZ: I mean, not good in the way that they would like, but would there be-- if it was me, would there be a lot of cats named like Oatmilk and Jeremy? Yes.

PAZ: I'd be the one naming people Fuzzypelt.

LIZ: They should be honored.

JULIAN: I dub thee Susanclaw.

LIZ: Yes.

PAZ: Susanclaw is extra funny because someone pointed out in the later books that there are cats named, like Bellaleaf I think is one of them. There's cats that basically get names that are Susanclaw in canon, so.

LIZ: No, no, no, no. You don't understand. That cat's Italian.

PAZ: Oh, okay. I see. My bad. But you know, I do appreciate this series like promoting the idea of like, name changing being simple and easy, and like, just swapping, like how you refer to someone. I don't know.

JULIAN: Yeah, no, it's nice. Like, the cats have names that change throughout their lives like, as their roles in the clan change. Like even when they become elders, sometimes they get weird names.

PAZ: Sometimes the name changes are questionable, but. But yeah, I mean like, it's because it's part of this like cat society lore mythos. But I don't know, I think it's nice for children to see that concept at least, like changing names not being like a big deal, so.

JULIAN: Yeah.

PAZ: Nice to have.

LIZ: Yeah, the scene at the end is like, very sweet because they just changed their names, and like both of the cats are like swelled up with pride. And everyone just immediately starts chanting both of the new names, and it's great. Like that's a wonderful little scene to have there.

PAZ: Yeah, it's very heartfelt and touching.

JULIAN: Yeah, I legitimately really do like all of the like Warrior Cats little rituals that they have.

PAZ: Me too.

JULIAN: Like all the religious stuff is cool, but also just like the life of the clan and like, you know, the stuff that they do to mark people's passage from like kit to apprentice and apprentice to warrior is neat.

PAZ: Although the fucking vow of silence thing really fucked Bluestar over in this case, because she's not getting to hear vital information.

LIZ: I know.

JULIAN: Yeah, I don't have anything else for the rest of the-- or for the book.

PAZ: Yeah, a lot of it was mostly like action. Um, and ShadowClan being cartoonishly evil, or I guess just Brokenstar being cartoonishly evil. Um, let me just look.

LIZ: Hey, did you know that if you google Ravenpaw, one of the suggested additional words is Ravenclaw-- sorry, Ravenpaw sad?

JULIAN: Oh. Oh, no.

PAZ: Makes me sad.

JULIAN: Hey, how come Fireheart gets two moms and Ravenpaw has none?

PAZ: Yeah, that's not fair.

JULIAN: Ravenpaw, who needs the most moms.

LIZ: He does. What the fuck?

PAZ: Can Ravenpaw get like any parents? Any parents at all? Oh, god, it's okay. Ravenpaw can go hang out with the cows and sheep.

LIZ: They're his moms now.

PAZ: Yeah. Oh my god, I do-- I can't stop thinking about that fanart I saw where the artist very specifically made it so Ravenpaw and Barley were in a trap neuter return program. Everytime I think about it, it kills me. Nothing but respect for that artist and taking a strong stance.

JULIAN: God.

LIZ: I think we have to describe this art a little. It's just a--

PAZ: No, it's very nice art. It's very, very sweet.

LIZ: They're just like sleeping on a windowsill, and then the tag underneath is like, by the way.

JULIAN: I think it's because they have like the little ear corner taken out.

PAZ: Yeah. I would not even have made that connection if not for that helpful clarification in the tags. Well, I hope they're having a good time over there in that barn cause shit's still going down in these woods. Yeah, I don't know. That was a good arc in the first book. Yeah, I don't have much else about these chapters.

LIZ: Oh, one last thing I guess. Just like a nice scene. When Yellowfang and Firepaw are like meeting up again, she says something like, you were looking the wrong way the first time I met you too.

PAZ: Oh, yeah, that was very cute.

LIZ: It was. That's her son now.

PAZ: Yeah, I like their relationship a lot.

JULIAN: Yeah.

PAZ: That is his mom now.

LIZ: Yeah, at some point like, he says like, in the-- he didn't say in the dialogue, but in the text it's like, oh, he's so happy because like the cat that he had grown to love is going to join his clan. Aw.

JULIAN: That's his mom.

LIZ: That is his-- boogie woogie woogie, you're my mom now.

PAZ: His two moms. I think Yellowfang is a better mom, though. I'm gonna pick sides.

JULIAN: She's certainly a smarter mom.

LIZ: Yeah, you need at least one mom who can like do the taxes and know when assassination plots are happening.

JULIAN: Yeah. It's important for a household to have clearly, like delineated division of labor.

PAZ: Exactly.

JULIAN: And Bluestar's job is look cool and get visions.

LIZ: Tag yourself, which one are you? Don't worry, the visions are tax deductible. They do work together.

JULIAN: Well, as we know, if it's a religious organization, it can be a non-profit.

PAZ: These cats don't need to discover taxes.

LIZ: Wait, if a cat had a mortgage, it would be a meowgage.

[laughter]

PAZ: Thank you.

JULIAN: Thanks.

PAZ: I think with that, I think we can move on to hear from the authors themselves.

[meow]

Um, so I figured to celebrate us finishing the first book, we could look at some interviews from the authors about the series and like the conception of the series, because I don't know, I think it's interesting, kind of how it came to be. So I think we look at the one on the Warriors Cat official website first, because it's kind of short. So this is a post from Vicky Holmes, who I think is the-- I don't know if she's one of the authors or editors.

JULIAN: I think she was one of the like original Erins.

PAZ: She was, but I'm not sure if she was an author or like the overseeing editor. So this is just like a post on the website about the origins of like, the Warrior cats and its world building. Great first paragraph here that ends with this inspiring sentence. "Writing really is all about harnessing the fish and persuading them to whisper their stories to you." Thank you, Vicky.

LIZ: I love that.

JULIAN: Vicky, why are you writing about cats and not fish?

PAZ: Yeah, so she goes in a bit about like the conceptions of the series. She says, "many of you know that Warriors began with a request from a publisher for a book about cats. They didn't mind what form the story took, just that it would appeal to a ready made nation of cat lovers. The earliest worldbuilding tried to establish the elements that are needed for any good story: characters from different backgrounds, a strong sense of location, lots of potential for conflict and resolution." I think that's so funny that the publisher was just like, write some shit about cats. People love that.

LIZ: Were they wrong? Were they wrong?

PAZ: No, they were right.

JULIAN: They were right.

PAZ: I don't know if the Erin Hunters need to go so hard, though. But they did. And thank you for that.

JULIAN: Oh, this is interesting.

PAZ: Do you want to read the next paragraph, or?

JULIAN: Oh, yeah, sure. Um, "it was decided quite quickly that we would focus on a tame kitten joining a band of feral cats who lived in a forest. These cats would be divided into clans that sometimes fought and sometimes united against a common enemy." We have yet to see that, but. "There would be a town or at least a clutch of modern houses next to a broad expanse of woodland and moor, and some spiky stone hills in the distance where the cats could visit an old mine for quasireligious purposes. A rough cast list was drawn up, and we came up with the idea for composite names that would change according to the stage of life that the cat was in: kit, paw, etc.

At first the four clans were called RiverClan, WindClan, ShadowClan, and StarClan. This would be the clan that our hero, the tame kitten joined. He would be treated as an outsider until he did some heroic things. And then at the first book, indeed the only book, he would be made the leader of StarClan." Whoops.

PAZ: Yes, that's another interesting piece of trivia is that they initially planned for it to be one book, like a single book. They were not expecting a series, really. And I don't think they were expecting to go beyond the first series once it became a series. So that's quite funny.

LIZ: Look at where they are now.

PAZ: I know.

LIZ: People love cats.

PAZ: The publisher was right. There is a ready made nation of cat lovers. Yeah, I didn't know that trivia about StarClan initially just being a regular clan.

JULIAN: She goes in a little later to talk about it was they chose ThunderClan because the territory is bounded on two sides by the Thunderpaths, which is fun.

PAZ: Um, Liz, do you want to read some of the next one?

LIZ: Yeah, I'll read the next part. "It was at this point that the development of Warriors became my responsibility. The stories were proving hard to nail down, and as I was a very new and inexperienced commissioning editor, it was a chance to test my creativity on a project that didn't have an established audience. I had absolutely no idea what I was getting myself into for, dot dot dot..."

PAZ: "Given that nearly 20 years have passed, it's a bit difficult to remember exactly what order things happened in. But I know that I soon realized that StarClan would be a much better name for the ancestors that my living cats worshipped in the night skies. This meant I needed a new name for the fourth clan. RiverClan lived near a river, WindClan lived on the windy moor, ShadowClan lived in the pine forest. So it seemed logical that ThunderClan whose territory is bounded on two sides by roads should be named after Thunderpaths, which meant that at this point, I didn't foresee an origin story in which each clan was named after its founding cat." Which I think is what they've retroactively done now.

JULIAN: Really?

PAZ: Yeah, yeah. I think there's like ancient cat history, quote, unquote, "ancient," because the cats. There was like Thunderstar or whatever.

JULIAN: Oh, the last paragraph is great. "I had a very rough map drawn on a scrap of paper, names for my clans, and a starting place for the story, Rusty the kitten feeling bored with his life and wondering if tales of wild cats in the forest were true. It was time to harness some bigger fish and follow Rusty's adventures into the woods."

LIZ: Aw.

PAZ: Aw.

LIZ: I love the continuing fish metaphor. It's very good.

JULIAN: It's very good.

LIZ: Also, just going back to the previous paragraph about names, ShadowClan lived in the pine-- why is it not PineClan? Or even ForestClan?

PAZ: I don't know, I guess those weren't cool enough. I guess also, they probably just said we need an evil clan.

LIZ: That's absolutely true. But in the universe as a cat, why would you do this to yourself?

PAZ: They're just goth and punk. What can you do?

LIZ: You're right. Gotta respect that.

PAZ: So yeah, that was a very recent article. I think this was posted like a week or two ago. But I have another interview from the old Warrior Cats forums, which were obliterated in 2016, I think.

JULIAN: Tragedy.

PAZ: This is the interview with the Erins from 2010. So this is-- God, this is 11? God, this is 11 years old now.

LIZ: Old enough to start middle school.

JULIAN: This is older than my brother.

LIZ: Oh my god.

PAZ: Jesus.

LIZ: Also this is--

PAZ: But there's-- oh.

LIZ: Oh, no, just want to say it's on archive.org. Thank goodness for that.

PAZ: Yeah, you have to access anything from the old Warriors forums through Wayback Machine, which is very frustrating. But I'm glad some of it is archived. Yeah, so there's some interesting Q&A stuff in here. This first question. Shademint's coming in with some, some weird gender ideas.

LIZ: Right from the start, too.

PAZ: So the first question is from Shademint. And they say, "the rule for medicine cats to not take on a mate, does that go for male medicine cats, too? They wouldn't exactly be stuck in the nursery nursing their kids, they could still work. But are they still required not to take on a mate?" Somebody want to read the Erin?

JULIAN: Oh, yeah. "Hi Shademint, a male medicine cat could still work. But just because he can't give birth to cats wouldn't make him any less distracted. He would still be focused on the raising of his own kits and by his mate's needs. Plus a medicine cat must treat all the cats in his clan fairly. Could you imagine how difficult it would be for a medicine cat to treat his own sons and daughters after a battle, and maybe have to make them wait for treatment after other more seriously injured warriors?" Nice save by the Erins.

PAZ: The Erins were like, we support equal shared labor from the parents, so.

LIZ: That's a very graceful answer, hopefully teaching this-- I'm assuming-- 12 year old boy, that if you're a father you should also parent your child.

PAZ: Yeah, Shademint was like, Why don't they just be absent fathers? What's wrong with that? I also like this answer for other reasons, ignoring some future stuff. But you know, that's a little foreshadowing for our readers in the know.

LIZ: Just a fun hint for me, I guess.

PAZ: Do you want to read the next question?

LIZ: Yeah. Two. "Hi, Erin. I've been wondering, how did three of you meet? I think about it a lot. Please reply. Thanks." From Lilybreeze.

PAZ: And they reply, "Hello, Lilybreeze. This is Vicky here. So I'll answer from my viewpoint. Before I started in Warriors, I worked as an editor of children's books. Kate and Cherith were established children's authors, who were interested in working with me on a project. Kate started first on Warriors. For book 3, I realized that we needed another writer on the team in order to deliver the books fast enough, so I invited Cherith to join because I knew she loved cats, and even more importantly, would be able to write in the way that sounded like a combination of Kate and my style.

Meanwhile, Tui Sutherland, the fourth Erin who wrote Secrets of the Clans and some of the Seekers books, was the editor at HarperCollins Children's books who worked on the finished Warriors manuscripts. After the early seasons, Tui left to write her own books, and I quickly asked her if she could join the Erin team as well. So the short answer is I knew each of the other Erins through work, and now consider them to be my friends. The other Erins have never met, partly because they live so far away from each other."

LIZ: What?

PAZ: They're in the UK. They probably live like an hour and a half away from each other.

LIZ: That's so far, geez.

PAZ: An impossible distance.

JULIAN: Y'all have trains.

PAZ: "But we all correspond by email." End answer.

LIZ: Amazing.

PAZ: This is so interesting to me. I don't know if this is like common in publishing to do this shit, but like, what a wild way to to start your book.

LIZ: Okay, I have some thoughts. One, you know, there's three of us. We could totally-- listen, we love cats. I mean, the Erins can use the competition.

PAZ: Oh no.

JULIAN: We're gonna start a competing series of collaborative cat books, in which the cats of CrabClan learn about socialism. And our pseudonym will be Terran Punter.

LIZ: Wait, hold on. Terran Gather.

JULIAN: Holy shit, I'm sorry. This is completely unrelated to the wiki or the sorry, the interview. I went on to the Warriors wiki because I remember there being seven Erin Hunters, and the other three joined after this interview. "Gillian Philip is a former member of Erin Hunter team. As of June 2020, she's no longer with the Erin Hunter team due to her conduct and demeanor and actions on her public Twitter account. The nature of her comments resulted in her being stripped of her work."

PAZ: Oh my God.

LIZ: What?

JULIAN: Jesus.

LIZ: What did she do?

PAZ: Was she like off being like a TERF on Twitter?

LIZ: Oh no.

PAZ: I just assume any British person's doing that.

LIZ: Yeah, you know, that's--

JULIAN: I mean, it's June so I wonder if it was like some--

PAZ: Ooh. That's fascinating.

JULIAN: --Black Lives Matter bullshit.

PAZ: You know, like, I love to see that she was just fucking kicked off entirely.

LIZ: You should have some, you know, immediate action.

JULIAN: She was a TERF. I found the results.

LIZ: Oh, man.

PAZ: Yeah, I assume any British lady who gets in trouble for something is just being a TERF online. But wow, that's really nice to hear actually that they punted her to the curb.

LIZ: Immediate fuck off. Good.

PAZ: Yeah, unlike some other British TERF authors who still have a platform

LIZ: I can't possibly know who you're talking about.

PAZ: No, I don't know. I don't know who it could be.

LIZ: Also, I do want to draw attention to like a cute little part in this answer, where Vicky's saying like, I worked as an editor of children's books, and then it says in parentheses, "(I still do, in fact, in between being one of the Erins.)"

PAZ: It always sounds like they're a band. But yeah, that's a fascinating way to write a book to me. But I think it's worked for them, so

JULIAN: Oh, they talk a little bit more about the process in the next answer.

PAZ: Yeah, I can read out that question. "Hi, Erin. I can't believe that I'm actually talking to the person who created all those awesome books that I buy and read EVERY NIGHT!!!" Three exclamation marks, all caps.

JULIAN: Aw.

PAZ: Parentheses, "(when I can, that is.) How long does it normally take to write a book?" asks Spottedfang?

LIZ: That's adorable.

PAZ: Very cute.

JULIAN: I can read the answer. "Aw, thank you, Spottedfang. There are certainly plenty of books to read, aren't there, if you read them slowly. Take note, those of you who are very proud about being able to read a whole book in one day. It takes about two months to write the storyline for a new book, which includes details of what happens in every scene, plus some suggestions for dialogue and character development. This is Vicky's job. The final storyline usually takes up half the length of the entire book.

Then the storyline goes to Kate, Cherith, or Tui, who have about three months to write the first draft. Then the manuscript comes back to Vicky, who spends about a week or so carefully going through it, checking that it all sounds like Erin, and that the story works as she imagined. Sometimes she asks whoever wrote it to do a bit more work on it. But if all the words seem to be in the right place, she sends it to the editor at HarperCollins. Erika for Warriors, or Sarah for Seekers. They go through the manuscript and ask for changes or additions to be made to make the book as perfect as it can be. Sometimes Vicky does these changes. And sometimes she asks Kate, Cherith, or Tui, whoever wrote the first draft, to produce a second draft. Then it goes back to the publisher ready to be turned into a book. So the entire process takes about six months in total, although we are always working on two or three books at once, so that we can produce more than two books a year." Jesus, they turn them out.

PAZ: That is crazy.

JULIAN: Wow.

LIZ: That is a lot of books.

PAZ: That is such a tight writing deadline.

JULIAN: Yeah, I mean, I guess like if Vicky is doing the storyline. And then she does a storyline, and then one of the authors has three months, she can be doing another storyline during those three months.

PAZ: Yeah, that's true.

JULIAN: But God.

PAZ: Yeah, and I mean, I guess it works because you already have like, established worldbuilding, but oh my gosh.

LIZ: It feels like a good like process. Like if you have someone to map out, you know, the the basic planning and everything, and you already have that set of rules from your universe. And then you can just pass it on between people who are also very familiar with it. Like it sounds like they have a good clip going.

PAZ: Yeah, I mean, it seems to have worked, so good on them, I guess.

LIZ: I wouldn't want to do this twice a year, but this sounds like something fun to like, try.

PAZ: Yeah.

LIZ: Just, um, what do you call it a thing where like-- this isn't the same thing, but it's like a group of people. They write like one section of a story and then like they pass it on to the next person.

PAZ: Exquisite corpse?

JULIAN: Oh.

LIZ: Yeah. Like, kind of like that, but a little more organized. I don't know. That sounds fun.

PAZ: Yeah.

JULIAN: Yeah. I've liked like what I've done, just like collaborative like fic or whatever, in the past. It's been fun. It's a nice challenge to kind of fit into someone else's style.

LIZ: Yeah.

PAZ: Yeah.

LIZ: It is cute that they refer to it as the Erin style.

PAZ: I'll be curious to see if I can like notice when a book switches a writer. I think we learned early in this interview, the first three books were all one author, so. Do you want to read the next question, Liz?

LIZ: Question 4, "hey Erins. Do you have any guidelines or rules when naming Warrior Cats? When I first started reading the series, I heard something about how you were breaking your own rules for creating warrior names. Are there any, or is that just a fanbase thing?" From Hawkclaw20.

JULIAN: Hawkclaw has clearly fallen afoul of the Susanclaws of the world.

PAZ: I can read this. "Hi, Hawkclaw. Well firstly, we can only create names from words that cats know about. So you're unlikely to find a leader with the name Ferraristar." Why not? "A warrior's name comes in two parts, either or both of which can reflect something about the cat's appearance, personality, or habits. For example, fur, claw, heart, or stripe, or something about the natural world like fire, bramble, or cloud. You can also have colors or something descriptive, such as tall, red, or swift. So Hawkclaw is a perfect example."

LIZ: Aw.

PAZ: "These are the basic rules by which we have followed throughout Warriors, although you might be interested to know that in the very first book, Tigerclaw was originally called Hammerclaw."

LIZ: Oh my god.

JULIAN: [singing "Can't Touch This"]

PAZ: "Until someone pointed out that cats wouldn't know what a hammer was." Oh my god.

JULIAN: How far into the prep process do you think they got before they were like, oh fuck.

PAZ: Hammerclaw.

LIZ: No, they finished the entire first draft and they were like oh, fuck, we need to Control-F hammer.

PAZ: Oh my god. Hammerclaw's a much less intimidating name. It's so funny.

JULIAN: Yeah. I'm very glad they made that switch.

PAZ: Yeah, oh my god.

LIZ: That's so funny. He just sounds like a guy on YouTube who like makes stuff.

PAZ: Some like weird like blacksmith YouTuber is...

LIZ: Yeah, he's a guy with a beard silhouette as his icon. That's what it is.

PAZ: Oh my gosh. Okay, question 5. "Are greencough and whitecough actual sicknesses, only with different names? If so, what are they?" Basilstar.

LIZ: That's such a cute name, Basilstar.

PAZ: Extremely cute.

JULIAN: I know. "They certainly are real, Basilstar, although we haven't based them on a specific illness like pneumonia. Whitecough is a chest infection: coughing up clear fluids, feeling tired, but still able to eat or drink. And greencough is a severe chest infection: coughing up green fluid"– yuck– "and feeling too ill to move, let alone eat or drink. This is why so many cats who catch whitecough end up developing greencough if it goes untreated.

PAZ: Nice little bit of--

JULIAN: Bit of lore.

PAZ: --medicine lore.

JULIAN: I think whitecough/maybe greencough come up like in one of the next books, like pretty soon.

PAZ: Yeah. Next question, I think is about the Seekers series, so.

JULIAN: Yeah, a number of the next ones are. Although right after it is--

PAZ: Yeah, I think seven is Warriors.

JULIAN: Number 7.

PAZ: Do you want to read that, Liz?

LIZ: Yeah, question 7. "Okay, StarClan gives clan leaders their names and nine lives. They lose their lives to sickness and wounds. But what about age? Let's say a leader gets really old. Do they die over and over again?" From Foxcloud. There's a second question in the same number. So I'll read that, too. "What happens if a leader dies of natural causes on their first life? Do leaders lose all their lives if they die of natural causes on their first life? I REALLY want to know." And that's from Moonstar99.

PAZ: These are such big brain questions I never even considered.

JULIAN: Foxcloud has raised a horrifying possibility.

PAZ: I know.

JULIAN: Which is that like you get old. You like get old enough to die and then you just speed run dying nine times.

PAZ: Oh God.

LIZ: That's terrible.

PAZ: I feel like someone must have written like a horror story like that.

JULIAN: Oh, I'm sure. I'm sure. I can read it.

PAZ: Okay.

JULIAN: "Welcome to the Ask Erin pages, Foxcloud and Moonstar. In the natural world, animals rarely get to die of old age. They're more likely to die sooner than their domestic counterparts due to the harsh lives they lead."

LIZ: Oh my god.

JULIAN: "Without medication or a reliable source of food."

PAZ: Oh my god.

JULIAN: Yeah, Erin.

LIZ: Uh-huh.

JULIAN: You put them in the woods.

LIZ: They can't get vaccines there.

JULIAN: "Even very old warriors usually die because of something else, such as a disease, or hunger, or extreme cold. Leaders are even more likely to lose lives because they take part in most battles, and would go without food or medical treatment for the sake of a clanmate in greater need. So it would be unusual for a leader to make it to a very great age with more than one life remaining. If they became very weak, say from being unable to eat or because their kidneys were failing--"

PAZ: Oh god.

LIZ: Oh my god.

JULIAN: "--I think they could return once. But after that, more than one thing inside them would fail, and they would lose successive lives very quickly."

LIZ: Holy shit.

JULIAN: This is horrifying.

LIZ: Holy shit.

PAZ: This is so scary.

JULIAN: This is so scary. Erin! Erins!

PAZ: Oh my god. I love that they just admitted like, yeah, like wild cats just fucking drop like flies. But it's okay because they're cool.

JULIAN: These cats eat it constantly.

LIZ: They jump from oh, from death in battle to their kidneys failing.

PAZ: Yeah, I feel like there is a cat that dies of kidney failure.

LIZ: Oh my god. You know how you can, you know, mitigate that. I have a suggestion. Take them inside to the vet.

JULIAN: Take them to the cutter.

PAZ: Not dying of kidney failure is a small price to pay for not having balls.

LIZ: We'll take the balls, but we'll take the other stuff too.

PAZ: Oh gosh.

LIZ: Who wants to read the next one?

JULIAN: I can read it. Number 8. "I heard this question during a book signing, and I'm curious. Will there be an albino cat sometime in the series? I think it would be really cool if there was. It would make the book really interesting." Starshine.

PAZ: "Hi Starshine, we are definitely considering an albino cat. But we're waiting for the right story to come along so its unusual coloring can play a central role." Um, to my knowledge, this has not happened yet. So sorry to Starshine.

LIZ: Aw.

JULIAN: Also, what do they mean by albino cat? Because there are like white cats in the series. I know like albino cat and white cat are different.

PAZ: I guess they just have like cool red eyes and bad vision. I don't know.

LIZ: I also think that cat can just like, be. Just let that cat be in the story.

JULIAN: It doesn't have to play a central role.

PAZ: I think Starshine may have an OC that they want.

LIZ: Starshine is like, here's my G-- no, no, sorry. Here's my Hotmail address.

PAZ: Do you need another Erin?

LIZ: I know in several years, you're going to be kicking one out and I will-- I'll probably be at an employable age by then, so.

PAZ: Okay, well, sorry to Starshine from 11 years in the future. That didn't happen, as far as I know. So the next Warriors question is number 10, which is--

JULIAN: I think this is also the last one.

PAZ: Ah, I think there's one more we got to read.

JULIAN: Oh, you're right.

LIZ: Oh, I see it, yeah.

PAZ: Number 10. "How popular is Warriors?" From Pigeonheart.

LIZ: I can read that one. "That's kind of tricky to answer, Pigeonheart. As popular as the readers make it is the truth. New books always make the top 10 on the children's bestseller charts in America when they're first released, which is a good sign that a series is doing very well. In the UK, only the first series has been published. So the books are less well known."

PAZ: What?

LIZ: "Although they have some dedicated fans. Warriors is much better known in America, and hundreds turn up wherever I tour. Yet in the UK, where I'm from, the popularity is more, dot dot dot... subdued. That said, my very first UK event in October 2009 was a big success. So watch this space."

JULIAN: That's wild.

PAZ: Why is only the first series out in the UK?

LIZ: That's so crazy.

PAZ: That's so confusing.

LIZ: I mean, it's worldwide now, so.

PAZ: Yeah, it is, but okay, then. Once again, the mysteries of publishing, I do not understand them.

JULIAN: You would think that I would have like a better grasp on how publishing works, given like that we know folks who work in publishing. But I do not.

PAZ: I have no idea, no.

JULIAN: It is a mystery to me.

LIZ: All I've learned from that is that publishing's real fucked up.

PAZ: Yeah.

JULIAN: Yeah.

PAZ: Basically. Okay. There's one last question we must read.

JULIAN: Oh, yes.

PAZ: Which is number 12. "Will you write about horses? Yes, they live in groups (herds) and they'd be different from Warriors. Horses aren't exactly really like cats, but they could travel their home every so often. Horses would be a very neat idea, and I'd rather like to see a series about it sometime. Sincerely, Willowfern, parentheses, (your number one fan.) Smiling sunglasses emoji."

LIZ: Oh my god.

PAZ: Incredible.

LIZ: Julian, would you like to read this beautiful answer?

JULIAN: Oh, yes. I would love to. "Are you a horse lover too, Willowfern? We have considered writing about horses because they are such beautiful, intelligent animals. But we were concerned that horses tend to run away when anything exciting/scary happens."

PAZ: Oh my god.

JULIAN: "We need our heroes to sprint towards danger, not vanish over the horizon in a cloud of dust. Also, cats have tiny paws, which are handy for harvesting and using herbs, whereas you can't do much with a big clumsy hoof. However, never say never. Maybe when we've written about some other animals, we'll find a way to bring horses into their own series."

LIZ: Looks like someone didn't watch Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron.

JULIAN: This is such a funny like reason for not writing a horse book.

PAZ: I know.

JULIAN: A very popular genre.

LIZ: Yes, they're fucking cowards and don't have thumbs.

PAZ: This is just like a big own on horses.

LIZ: Oh my god.

PAZ: Horses can never be warriors.

JULIAN: Can't pick up grass, fucking cowards.

LIZ: Wait, warhorses were a thing.

JULIAN: Yeah.

LIZ: More than cats, you could say.

PAZ: Oh, God.

JULIAN: Like horses fight each other all the time.

PAZ: Yeah, I bet they do.

JULIAN: Yeah, I guess they didn't want to get into like the sexual dynamics of like...

LIZ: Nooo.

PAZ: Oh gosh, no.

JULIAN: Stallions.

PAZ: Oh no. Also, I will say like if horses break a leg they're just goners. They're like, bye-bye, so I guess that's another downside.

LIZ: I read a lot of horse books when I could have been reading Warriors Cats books. That's so-- yeah, you sprain your ankle? They just shoot you.

PAZ: Yeah. Did anyone else here ever read Misty of Chincoteague?

LIZ: Yes.

PAZ: Yes.

JULIAN: Yes. In fact, I was Misty of Chincoteague for Halloween in third grade.

PAZ: Oh my god.

JULIAN: Um, it was great. Everyone thought I was a cat. Because it turns out if you dress up like a horse, you need to have like some sort of back situation. Or people are just like, oh, you have pointy ears. Cat.

PAZ: That's incredible. I loved those books.

JULIAN: I was really upset that A, no one recognized that I was a horse, and B, no one recognized that I was specifically Misty of Chincoteague.

PAZ: Oh my god.

LIZ: I would have recognized you. You should have gone to my school.

JULIAN: Thank you.

PAZ: Yeah. Could have banded together. My very fun story about that series is I did get to go to the pony run on Assotague as a kid.

LIZ: Oh my god.

JULIAN: Oh, that's so cool.

PAZ: Yeah, I think it was probably like 12 or 13.

LIZ: The perfect age for it.

PAZ: It was so cool. And I would go again as an adult, so.

LIZ: Yeah, sounds like a cool place to go. My personal experience with that book is I loved it so much. I kept it in my lunchbox every single day I was at school.

JULIAN: Aw.

PAZ: That's adorable.

JULIAN: I was really worried that this story was gonna have like a tragic ending.

LIZ: No.

JULIAN: Like you were gonna spill something awful on it.

LIZ: It does kind of. Yeah, I spilled like some salad dressing on it.

PAZ: Oh no. I think my mom gave me her copies of the book from when she was a kid.

LIZ: Aw.

JULIAN: Aw.

PAZ: Yeah. So I think if Willowfern needs a horse series, just go read Misty of Chincoteague. Well, yeah, that was the end of the Warriors questions in that interview. I think it's very nice that they did like interviews of the, like 13 year olds on the forums.

JULIAN: Yeah.

PAZ: Yeah. The writers, like from what I can tell, seem pretty like, engaged and supportive of the fan base, which is nice to see.

JULIAN: Yeah, the first paragraph of that Vicky Holmes interview was her talking about like, one of the best things is seeing how many kids write their own fiction in the world of the books, which is really sweet.

PAZ: Uh huh. And, um, the official website does like, like fanart, like spotlights and like, features a lot of fanart with like credit, of course, which is very nice.

LIZ: Yeah, from the the first page that we looked at, that's, you know, on the current website, like, right in the middle of that writing thingy is a banner with some deviantArt fanart with little credit. And another fanart of the I think ancestor cats with some credit, also on deviantArt. So it's sweet.

PAZ: Yeah. That's nice to see. Yeah, I mean, that was it for this section. I am hoping we'll be back next week with a more in depth like book wrap up retrospective episode. So look forward to that, probably. And then we'll be moving on to Fire and Ice. I think I accidentally called it Ice and Fire in the last episode. So apologies. I know what books we're reading.

JULIAN: Outed as a fake fan.

PAZ: Yeah. Sorry. You're gonna have to cancel me now. I'm also announcing my resignation from this podcast.

JULIAN: Oh, no.

LIZ: No.

PAZ: For my unforgivable crime. But yes, that's the update. Very happy we finished Into the Wild. Had a great time. And I'm very much looking forward to the next book.

JULIAN: Hell yeah.

PAZ: And once we figure out what-- we'll probably announce what chapters we're reading them, in the next episode.

JULIAN: Yep. And that will be on our Twitter, which is @staircast.

PAZ: Yes. And, as always, if you have any questions or anecdotes, you can send them in to [email protected]. I think maybe every few episodes, we'll kind of dive in there and take a look if we have anything and answer them. And thank you so much again, everyone, for listening.

LIZ: Oh, one more thing, because we are now on Spotify. Right?

PAZ: Yeah, we should be on Spotify. And we're also on Apple Podcasts and Google Podcasts. So if you listen there, go check it out. Also, I guess leave a review if you want. I don't know.

LIZ: You know, we're just vibing.

JULIAN: Yeah.

LIZ: Yeah.

PAZ: Yeah, I guess that's all the housekeeping.

JULIAN: Thanks for listening. And also, this has been really fun to do with y'all.

PAZ: Yeah. Thank you so much for listening, and for doing this podcast with me. It's been very fun. And I hope everyone who's been listening has been having lots of fun too, because that would be the best thing to get out of this is for everyone to have lots of fun.

LIZ: Thank you for taking me on this journey with you.

PAZ: Yes. I'm excited.

JULIAN: Thank you for coming on this journey. It's so fun to talk about this with someone who like hasn't read the books before.

PAZ: Yeah, I'm really glad we could get a initiate here.

LIZ: A noob.

PAZ: A noob, as they would say.

JULIAN: (with a funky accent) Your fresh perspective.

PAZ: Okay, well, I think that's gonna do it for us. And we'll see you all again next week, and until then, may StarClan light your path. Bye.

JULIAN: Bye.

LIZ: Bye.

[outro music]

PAZ: We clap.

LIZ: Podcast wrapped.

PAZ: We finished the first book!

JULIAN: Time.is. I know. [claps]

PAZ: It really has been so fun. Thank you guys for doing the podcast.

JULIAN: It's been really really nice. I've loved doing this.

LIZ: It's fun. I knew I was gonna have fun with the book, and of course you guys, but I got way more into the book than I thought I would.

JULIAN: Oh, I'm so glad.

PAZ: Me too. I'm back in it. Yeah, I forgot how much I liked this series.

JULIAN: Same.

LIZ: It's real good!

JULIAN: They're just funky little guys.

LIZ: That's the thing.

JULIAN: I'm really invested in all of their emotions

PAZ: Yeah, we haven't even hit the real like romance drama aspect of these books yet.

JULIAN: Oh God.

PAZ: Oh, it's gonna pop off. It gets wild.

LIZ: Paz has been showing me, like these characters way ahead of me that I'll never remember by the time we get there, but all these women cats just going apeshit, and I'm like yeah, I'm ready for this.

JULIAN: It's good.

PAZ: There's definitely some apeshit women.

LIZ: Oh, wait. We should also just clap before it gets too far.

JULIAN: Yes.

[meow]

PAZ: [typing] Okay, cat psychedelic substances.

JULIAN: You're gonna get put on so many watch lists.

PAZ: "Behavioral effects of LSD in the cat." What?

JULIAN: Who is giving the cats LSD?

PAZ: B. L. Jacobs, apparently. They fucking gave these cats LSD.

JULIAN: Why would they do that?

PAZ: "We talked to a scientist who gave LSD to cats back in the 70s."

JULIAN: Okay, back in the 70s it was a little easier to do shit.

PAZ: But no, I don't know if this was-- okay, yeah, this article was published in the 70s. I just notice. In the news article reporting on this, they have a picture of a cat, and the caption is, "photo of a presumably sober cat via Flickr."

"Reporter: So what do cats look like when they're on acid? Did they seem to have good trips?

Dr. Barry Jacobs: With a dog, I could have told you, right? Because he'd be wagging his tail and have a big smile on his face. The one thing I can tell you definitively is that none of them seemed fearful, meaning we studied cats for years in my laboratory. And what a typical fearful cat would do is crawl into the back of the cage. These are all done in cat cages, you know, big large, where they can move around, but nice and clean.

None of them crawled to the back of the chamber, and stood there looking at you in a fearful manner. That didn't happen. Some of them ran around like crazy people bounding around. Can I say that they were happy? No, I can't tell you about happiness. But they certainly seemed-- can I say they enjoyed it. They were really bounding around as opposed to having behaviors that looked fearful. And a lot of them stared for long periods of time."

JULIAN: Oh my god.

PAZ: They gave these cats acid. Oh god. "So why were they licking their paws so much? Maybe-- and this is a guess, maybe has something to do with increased sensitivity through their paws? That is, they felt something crawling on their paws, which would be very consistent with hallucinatory-like interpretation.

JULIAN: Oh no, the poor cats!

PAZ: "After the study was published, did you get any backlash from animal rights groups? No. This was a long time ago. Once we--" no. Well, um, we know that now.

JULIAN: Incredible.

PAZ: Aw.

JULIAN: Yeah, it's really sweet.

PAZ: No, I was looking at Ravenpaw trivia on the wiki. And it says--

JULIAN: Oh, I thought you were talking about the art that Liz linked.

PAZ: The art's also very cute. But the wiki trivia says Ravenpaw is revealed to be one of Vicky's two favorite cats because he is quote, "shy, says dumb things under pressure, and is much happier living outside the clan rather than the middle of a busy community governed by rules."

JULIAN: Aw.

#into the wild ep #transcript #xXBr0kenStarXx #ep 06