mothdapple

[mothdapple]

I just realized that with the upload of the prologue I wrote for our TNP/AVoS hybrid AU Forest’s Echo, I’ve now passed 1 Million words on AO3.

I will eagerly await the arrival of my “oh my god, what’s wrong with you, why do you write so much???” trophy.

#warrior cats fanfic #forest’s echo au #forest’s echo

[mothdapple]

Noticing a trend among recent male protagonists and their sisters lol

[mothdapple]

Introducing Forest's Echo, a TNP/AVOS AU

Currently being written by @badgerstep, @doritopaw101, @elkpoint, @mothdapple, @offkeyed-reason, @troutfur, and yours truly (@heathfall).

Forest's Echo is a TNP/AVoS hybrid AU where the events of TNP never happened ('til just now) and so PO3 and OotS took place in the forest territories. As a result, when the events of TNP come to pass, the Clan's champions are chosen out of the AVoS allegiances. Chaos ensues as a very... personable lineup is selected.

(Or, as @mothdapple so elegantly wrote in the description of the prologue found here: Seasons of relative peace have passed in the forest since StarClan and the living Clans fought and defeated The Place of No Stars. But, when Twolegs threaten to destroy the Clans’ forest home, they are forced to face their greatest challenge yet. StarClan must choose their champions to save all the Clans… or die trying.)

The rest of the AU as its posted can be found here. Feel free to ask any of us questions about it :3c

#forest’s echo au #forest’s echo #Check out this really fun AU we’ve been working on lately! #I wrote the prologue for it :)

[mothdapple]

"The Death of BarrenClan: Part One"

First blood.

It'll become clear soon, but not all of Defiance is here - there are around 100 members in the group in total, and only about twenty here today. But it seems like a lot to the cats.

Also, Prowl did kill Mallowstar by snapping his neck, but I understand it may not be obvious in the art because I didn't want to look at pictures of broken necks for reference. Regardless he died near instantly.

He did his best.

Previous < > Next

#the good news is that Deep Dark has 100% given himself chronic wasting disease #(if he is messing around with Wild Rose's body as it sounds like he is) #the bad news is that even a 100% lethal prion disease is not going to set in quickly enough to save BarrenClan

[mothdapple]

I absolutely adore your TNP rewrite! I dont usually start series or fics before theyre completed but the temptation was too strong. Cant wait for Dawn! (Take your time though ^^)

Thank you so much! :)

I’ve been making good progress with Shaken Roots: Dawn, but I am also taking my time to get it right (especially since Dawn is my favorite Warriors book!)

I like to start off with a backlog of 10 chapters, since that gives me a big enough buffer to make sure the fic has a consistent, every other week update schedule. So far, I’ve got nearly 8 chapters written, and if I can stick to this current writing rate, I should hopefully hit 10 chapters within the next month or so. Then the first chapter of SR: Dawn will come out on AO3!

#warrior cats fanfic #Shaken Roots #tnp rewrite #Shaken Roots: Dawn

[mothdapple]

Stop making me want to read the new warriors series. I am free. My skin is clear. My crops are flourishing. You can't drag me back in.

Warrior Cats prison is a life sentence. Just you wait, the officers are gonna catch up ro you.

#I've been behind bars for 18 long years now 😩

[mothdapple]

SkyClan's Gorge Camp

Set this one up during SkyClan and the Stranger, so I could have Sol in it :) Otherwise pretty straight forward! Leafstar and Sharpclaw in charge, Echosong and Frecklepaw being the Medicine Cats.

[mothdapple]

Introducing TumbleClan's three newest apprentices! Careful, they're real mischievous 🐾🐾🐾

[mothdapple]

I honestly and truly believe all good AUs should be a little “”””ooc”””” in the sense that good characterisation involves understanding that changes a characters backstory and circumstances will have an effect on how they respond to the world around them

Good characterisation isn’t about creating a perfect 1:1 canon replica it’s about understanding why a character is different in your work and about grounding the changes you do deliberately choose to make in canon character traits

[mothdapple]

tnp journey squad my beloved

[mothdapple]

when when you want to see content but you are the only one who can create it

#is it really too much to ask for someone to see into my mind and write the exact fics i want to read exactly the way I like it for me?

[mothdapple]

I always knew that first arc-centric fics dominated most of Warriors fanfiction, but I was curious to see how much that was really the case. Being the data-driven nerd that I am, I took the top 100 Kudos Warriors fics on AO3, sorted them into different types, and these are the results.

No DotC, TBC, or ASC fics were in the 100 most kudos-ed fics.

I think the most surprising thing to me is how few TNP fics there are in the top fics. I know that TNP isn't the most popular arc, but TONS of iconic characters originate in it, and as the 2nd arc it also has time on its side to gain power with nostalgia for fics (or just rack up the kudos since the longer a fic is on AO3, the more readers/kudos it gets, hence I think most of these fics are biased to be older.)

There are also very few OC fics here (exactly 2) which isn't terribly surprising since almost every fandom favors canon character fics over OC fics, but I maybe expected a bit higher since Warriors in particular is a fandom rich with OCs. I am immensely proud, though, to say that one of those two fics in the top 100 kudos is mine, Cold Bloodlines :)

#warrior cats fanfic #warrior cats #data analysis

[mothdapple]

clan logo concepts

[mothdapple]

What ever happened to "fish-face"? Give me more clan-to-clan insults.

"Go chase a rabbit, big-ears."

"Hope you slip on a toad, swamp pelt."

"Oh go climb a tree, bird brain."

"Why don't you jump in the lake, fish-breath."

"Stick your muzzle in a bramble thicket next time, you meddling magpie." <- taking my ThunderClan L

[mothdapple]

The seasons in TNP are super wonky 😔 (I know because I’ve been rereading recently it while working on my TNP rewrite “Shaken Roots” so it’s been giving me my own headache lol.)

It at least unequivocally starts in summer when there is a bad drought happening, and Dawn/the Great Journey occurs in leafbare. However, the prophecy cats are said to have only been absent for about 1 moon, which checks out since only 1 gathering occurs in their absence (well technically 2 full moons, 1 gathering and 1 when Fourtrees gets torn down. This occurs only a couple of days before the prophecy cats return so they would have actually been gone for about 1.25 moons.) But what happens to those remaining moons between summer and winter is anyone’s guess lol.

If it helps, here’s how I decided to structure my timeline: Midnight begins in mid July, but the prophecy cats don’t leave for their journey until mid August. They return home in the beginning of November, having been gone for around 2.5 moons (missing 3 full moons/gatherings, including the one when Fourtrees gets torn down.) It takes them a couple weeks to actually convince the Clans to pick up and go, so the Great Journey begins in mid November. I decided to expand the time that the prophecy cats are gone since around 1 moon didn’t feel like a long enough time for me, and there was a lot of time to fill out in between anyway. The combination of an early frost with the twoleg destruction drives away enough prey swiftly enough that starvation has begun by the time that the prophecy cats arrive home, but I actually don’t have Larchkit dying of starvation until after they get back.

I'm struggling with the seasons in TNP. I remember that it was insanely hot at one point (beginning of the arc?), but then don't Hollykit and Larchkit starve to death while the quest cats are still gone? In my head they starve because it's leaf-bare and there's no prey. So then are the quest cats gone for the entirety of leaf-fall, or do I have the seasons just completely wrong in my head?

[mothdapple]

(Caveat: I’m not a lawyer, this is just my understanding of things.)

It really depends on how “transformative” their animation is. Little Dragon Studio was using dialogue taken word for word from the books. Although the canon is a written work and the fan adaptation is animated, which is pretty transformative, it is not considered transformative enough since they used direct quotes, allowing Warrior cats to say it infringed on their copyrighted work. But if WCAnimated avoids direct quotes like the plague and puts more of their own spin on events, they might be able to avoid a takedown request. 

Not a perfect analogy, but it’s a bit like how if someone posts a “fanfic” which is actually just Into the Wild word for word, only that Firepaw’s name is changed to “Emberpaw” and Emberpaw is a she-cat— that is plagiarism/copyright infringement. But if someone writes a fic about Fireheart being sad that Greystripe is in RiverClan, and this scene is not at all present in the books, that is not plagiarism even though it uses the canon, copyrighted characters.

The fact that WCA has a patreon though might put them into iffy territory. For written fanfics at least, you can only use the copyrighted material as “free use” long as you aren’t making profit off it. A fan animation might have been transformative enough from a written work to get away with someone making a profit off of it before, but it might not be now that a canon animation is in the works.

i made a post about this before but like. there’s really no way that wcanimated project could continue and/or be posted without intervention from harpercollins. im not trying to be a debby downer but like….what exactly is their end goal other than neat concept sketches/animations?

[mothdapple]

>For some reason it’s not letting me send an ask but: 💢🌈 🐾 ☯️!

Sorry the ask isn't working! I checked my settings, but it says that mine should be open, so I'm not sure what's going on! Thanks for sending in a comment anyway, @nghtspckl :)

💢 : what scene made you the most irrationally angry upon first reading

I think for this one I’ll say at the end of Veil of Shadows when Bristlefrost confesses that she loves Rootspring. It’s not that I hate the Bristle/Root ship or anything (I actually think they were pretty cute together in the books following this.) But, I just remember thinking “When??!!” once Bristlefrost said that. I was just shocked and a little frustrated since I didn’t remember her ever thinking of him romantically up until that moment.

🌈 : what's the most 2010s wcforum era esque fandom opinion you still hold onto and will fight people over (things like scourges collar color, dovewings eye color, etc)

My answer for this one is a little boring since I was never really in the trenches about these sorts of things! I guess I’ll say I will always see Scourge’s collar as red, since that was what I pictured when I first read the series (before Rise of Scourge with his purple collar even came out.) But, I will acknowledge that according to canon, his collar is purple (it’s just not to me lol.) 

🐾 : have you ever named a cat after a warriors character OR given a cat a warriors styled name? if so, tell us the story

I’ve never given a cat a warriors name as their real name, but I have of course assigned what names my cats would have if they were Warriors, as any good Warrior fan does haha. Meet “Cloudbelly” and “Stormleap!”

The reason that her warrior name is Cloudbelly should be obvious haha. But, I cannot actually picture her wanting to be anything but a kittypet. She is too timid and loves comfort far too much to live in the wild. I think she would look at warriors extremely disdainfully and think they are stupid for not living with humans (“Why would I ever fend for myself when I can just make these twolegs do it all for me?!”)

And, I named him Stormleap for his fur color and his energy! He is a lot more bold and adventurous, so I think would do much better as a warrior. I think he would want to be in SkyClan or ThunderClan. (He’s a naturally big and strong cat, loves to climb, and can jump really high!)

☯️ : what dynamic between two cats has got you up at night pacing for hours? (romantic, platonic, familial, etc)

Ooo yes, so I’m definitely going to say Hawkfrost and Mothwing! I have TNP on the brain often because of my TNP rewrite, Shaken Roots, and there is just so much to dig into with Hawkfrost and Mothwing’s relationship that was overlooked in canon. I love a good tragedy, and that’s exactly how I view the two of them. How they went from sad, (essentially) orphaned little kits with an attitude of “No one else in the world matters but you. You are all I have. You are all that’s truly important to me,” to transforming into complete strangers to each other; all that devotion worn away by betrayal and manipulation, but for the source of that manipulation to still be a misguided attempt at love— Hawkfrost’s desperation to help Mothwing, or just to not lose her??? Ugh it’s so good.

#ask game