bonefall

[bonefall]

Not an ask, but I am a big fan of how your description of Better Bones reads like a Minecraft bug fix update

You're actually the first person to notice that lmaoo.

It wasn't a completely intentional choice, I just came up with the name Better Bones (to replace the term Bonefall Rewrite) and then realized shortly afterwards that it was absolutely inspired by a popular style of minecraft mod naming. I really like modded minecraft.

I'm the kind of nerd who daydreams about Clangen But In Minecraft. With Farmer's Delight, also.

[bonefall]

*sounds of being dragged* nooo !! i dont want to go down into the plant disease rabbithole!!!!!!! NOOOOO

(/lh)

YOU WILL NOT ESCAPE. DISCOPAW WAS THE GATEWAY TO BEING FORCED TO LEARN ABOUT ASH DIEBACK DISEASE. YOU WILL BOOGIEOOGIEOOGIE INTO LEARNING ABOUT ECOLOGY

[bonefall]

I don’t remember, did you ever decide if you’re going with Night(cloud)Star or Crowstar? Was rereading through Nightcloud’s summary and saw it in the trivia section.

Every time they shove Canon!Crowfeather at me I inch closer and closer to Nightcloudstar, who would get a conflict rename to Sowstar.

I want to share more details of Nightcloud's Pannage but it is so close to being releaseable that im punishing myself with silence. Nico and Harespring have a more defined in-law relationship. Nico has friends who are girls. Brain keeps saying that Harestar is king of the lesbians. I can't say more.

[bonefall]

Howdy Bonefall!! Great work wanted to start with that

I'm trying to come with a hyena xenofiction (+ other canid-likes), and I'm struggling with like... Not doing the stupid shit Erins did with the sisters of "in a WORLD where MEN are OPPRESSED". "Actually all the guys are okay with being second class" feels like a cop out, and I don't want to erase such an interesting aspect of hyena hierarchy.

So... I guess I'm going to you sorta for advice? Because you're super cool, and the only xeno worldbuilder I really follow. If you want, feel free to use this ask as a pass to infodump about the sisters instead, instead. Like, your version or the Erins.

Sorey for the long ask bye now

This is a neat question without a totally straightforward answer, but my advice would actually be to look very closely at historical systems with rigid gender roles, and try to understand the role it played in society.

What usually makes xenofiction sexism so rancid is the way that an author states (by assertion or just by subconscious assumption) that their ""natural world"" is bioessentialist, and this is justified because It's Natural. For a clear, STARK example, the Ginga series asserts that male dogs are better than female dogs, just by matter of biology, while also assigning gendered human behaviors (vanity, whininess) to its female characters to make its point.

In Cheek by Jowl, Le Guin points this out as "cheating." The author both describes the world they're writing as "natural," while prescribing their own human biases to it.

With the Sisters, the Erins did this lowkey fascinating thing where they sort of did the reverse. They described realistic, normal cat behaviors, but they're SO repulsed by the idea of not portraying heterosexual, monogamous marriage as ideal that they got scared of their own concept.

Hence the way they've turned on the Sisters, using human values to have the Warriors react with disgust and hostility when they don't have husbands, don't raise kids in nuclear families, send teen males away at 6 months, etc. They're doing the same thing Le Guin pointed out, just in a different flavor.

So-- that's why my advice is to look at societies. If you're anthropomorphizing animals enough for them to consider high concepts like justice and equality, they aren't just working on raw biology. Gender roles can be influenced by sexual dimophism, sure, but look deeper.

WHY do those roles exist? What purpose do they serve to society? Hunting, food preparation, spreading news. Are there materials to be prepared, like clothing or tools? Are there social laws to be taught and remembered?

Are these gendered? How? Why are they divided in the way they are? Are these divisions rigid?

These sorts of questions in humans are not answered purely by biology. Gender and roles are different across cultures and, while most have common trends, nothing is truly universal. Why do Xenofiction writers assume that would be the case for fantasy animal cultures?

Be thoughtful. The phrase "Well Behaved Women Rarely Make History" wasn't a victim-blaming call to action for every girl to start 'misbehaving' to appease the historians-- it was to implore people to appreciate the contributions that women HAVE been making since the dawn of time, even within oppressive roles that downplayed those achievements.

And, I would also call for you to do some deeper research on hyenas, because here's a surprise-- the "male oppression" thing is actually an oversimplification!

Exactly like the concept of the Alpha Wolf, it's only partially true but largely inaccurate. Hyena clans are much more complicated than that.

Hyenas are not actually highly sexually dimorphic. Females are only slightly larger on average. In this way, they are quite like humans; we also aren't massively different between sexes.

Hyenas are so intelligent that they have theory of mind. Shenzi is capable of understanding that Ed likes Banzai more than Banagi, and uses that to her tactical advantage. Shenzi knows that she needs to befriend Banzai to have Ed's support, and then both of them will help her usurp Banagi.

Clans are not matriarchal, they are matrilineal. Cubs inherit their mother's rank, just below her. A male cub can massively benefit from staying in his birth clan because of this-- and that does include inheriting his mother's status.

So that thing about "highest ranking male is below the lowest ranking female" is not accurate. That applies to migrant males, not clanborn.

And here's the real kicker; size and strength is almost completely negligible to which hyena wins a fight. It's ALL about SOCIAL CONNECTION. me and the girlies attending the ides of march

Males are more likely to leave their birth clan and females are not. Leave home and your mom won't help you beat up your bullies, and you can't rely on the other males because they aren't family. This is the reason why females "dominate," they don't disperse so they've got family watching their back.

The idea of hyenas being "bizarro world" where the big, mean sex oppresses the tiny, demure sex is just as much a misconception of spotted hyenas as it is a misconception of human beings.

It would make a downright delicious concept to play with, if you wanted to make a deconstruction of gender roles broadly.

(Disclaimer: this post is intentionally discussing sex in a binary way for simplicity in how it influences gender, especially in a historical context. Sex is not actually binary. Even "bimodal distribution" barely scratches the surface of the topic)

[bonefall]

hold up, jellicle cats are canon? what?

Yeah I LOVE xenomoggy like, as a genre. Xenomoggy is the category of xenofiction dedicated entirely to cats as the main character, like Warriors, Tailchaser's Song, Ratha's Creature, Cats the Musical, etc

So I reference jellicles (Shewakl in Clanmew) casually. They're from the south of Albion (BB!England) though, so they mostly come up when railways are mentioned like in tigerHeartstar's Rise.

Haven't been able to reference other Xenomoggy stories yet tho, but I do have my eye out

[bonefall]

How do cats know what disco is

NUT DISCO MY GUY.

Disco is a type of mushroom that makes use of particularly fruitful mast (mast = tree species that makes food for animals) species-- namely Beech and Oak. It springs off the nut in cute little cups! Yes, it is a real, actual name, fight with the mycology board of england or whatever not me.

There's two types of disco I'm aware of in England; Nut Disco, and Hairy Nut Disco. Again, fight with the mycologists, not me

(Nut Disco, picture on a beech nut taken by Stathern Wood in 2019)

(Hairy nut disco, picture taken from woodland trust)

What's also really cool is that it's related to Ash Dieback disease, which is a massive problem in the UK right now!! I don't know how these facts are linked, but something in my brain is trying to connect "native plant that helpfully breaks down uneaten food" and "invasive plant that kills particularly helpful trees."

Anyway I think disco is really cool and the sort of thing ShadowClan would totally take notice of, since I'm giving them that chemistry/fermentation perk :)

[bonefall]

I've been researching saints for a thing and I totally get why you're so into patronage as a concept now. So many descriptions of Orthodox saints are like "this is Peter. He was killed for doing missionary work, so we named a town after him. His feast day is March 3rd" but almost every other Catholic saint is like "this is Catherine. She survived being ATTACKED by a SNAKE, so now she is the patron of ANTI-VENOM and HERPETOLOGISTS" it's so fun and great for thematic imagery

SO TRUE!!! Saint Drogo, patron of Ugly People and Coffee, pray for me!!!!!!

It's really fun to play with. There's no rules for catholic-style saints (at least, not in the fun and silly way), just a template. So you're playing with "Patron of (subject) and (noun)" and unironically it makes for incredible worldbuilding.

Weedwater, Patron of Good Food and Laughter

Milkshake, Patron of Emergency Running and Anxiety

Tortail, Patron of Public Speaking and Quails

Off the top of my head, three fun concepts. It's that simple.

I feel like a major draw of WC and any other media that manages to successfully court fellow autistics is "good templates." You need to be able to play mad libs with it, without too much skill or effort. Not that skill and effort aren't important, of course, just that those in and of themselves are skills that need to be practiced so having "beginner level" prompts MASSIVELY massages your brain and gets the juices flowing!

[bonefall]

On a plane home and slightly under the influence, sudden influx of very silly ask answers incoming!

[bonefall]

Quiet Period: Yuri Quest Edition

For the past few months I've been making plans to go visit my partner, and now the plans are here! I'm going to go be more gay than usual for a couple of weeks and eat things that are British. I'm gonna try fancy meat pudding eeeee :D

Posts will probably not entirely stop, but things will be both be especially quiet and casual. This is just a continuation of my previous announcement from a few months ago, though! Consider this both a reminder and a head's up.

[bonefall]

I know you only rewrite complete arcs but listen. Listen. Even if you end up axeing Starlingpaw's POV in the end I think you need to woman beam her out of spite.

Fear not, kittens. The woman beam is aimed at the wretched beast. Watching the Arc play out is just a matter of if the woman beam is going to be set to "gentle spiro shower" or "UTTER ESTRADIOL ERADICATION." Is the result a girl, or a smouldering pile of femme dust? Stay tuned!

Another thing I'm considering is, at some point, giving her the name Shrikepaw. Great Gray Shrikes are small, monochrome birds which have distinctive markings that resemble a badger.

But, more relevantly, they're called Butcherbirds because of their gruesome habit of impaling dead rodents on thorns, the same way leopards "cache" their kills. I think it would be fitting if, after her father's death, Shrikepaw requests for her name to be changed so that she's not always reminded of the fact it was her appearance that got her dad killed.

"Starling" as a prefix being an attempt at comfort, not a straightforward description. Starlings are in an odd space culturally-- both hunted due to their size and abundance, AND considered sacred songbirds which carry the shine of the stars in their feathers.

At the same time, I don't want to leave Robinpaw out in the dust, either. There's actually two kinds of shrikes in the area-- the Great Gray, and the Woodchat.

SO I'm thinking that they might have both changed their names, originally being twins matching their respective shrikes. Now they're gentler songbirds, with Robin swapping hers to consistently match her sister.

I'm thinking Shrikepaw and Fiscalpaw, since Fiscal is another name for certain shrikes (though mostly in Africa), since Butcherpaw is a bit on the nose. In Clanmew, the Great Gray Shrike and the Woodchat Shrike will have two totally different names, so it's going to be a rough translation either way.

I'm still going to leave room to "feel it out," though. We need to see how spiteful this arc makes me. I might fall in love with Robinpaw in blind fury and have a Category 5 Lesbian Moment, with windspeeds so high I obliterate a significant portion of the coastline. So we'll have to account for that

[bonefall]

The way Cinderpelt is described in this au is making me envision that she was a really good fighter. Daughter of Frostfur, apprentice of Yellowfang, grew up during the events of TPB. She’s a healer, but she knows how to defend herself. I’m imagining an enemy warrior trying to steal herbs and seeing Yellow and Cinder and just backing away before they’re attacked

Definition of “I’m a healer, but..” *pulls out spear*

I love to imagine that she compensates for the leg by using the spear as a pole for shifting her weight. She jabs the shaft into the ground, and uses her mouth and arms to "swing" her lower body in a new direction.

So if a group of warriors ever thinks they have her surrounded, she's not as immobile as they assume she will be.

She absolutely HAS to be pretty up there in terms of "average Cleric strength" though, you're right lmao. Funny enough she might be stronger than Yellowfang, just without the opportunity to show it off.

(Besides the fact she manages to kill a small boar while also sacrificing herself in the process ofc)

...now i have an image in my head of Cinderpelt saying "im a healer but" and then she cocks her spear and it makes a click noise like a shotgun

[bonefall]

Do you have any ideas for who you'll be picking as the povs for bb!changing skies? I know the arc is still super new, but since I know leafstar kicks it in bb!avos, i'm super curious as to if you have any early thoughts as to who might replace her (since someone HAS to - although something tells me that tawny's pov may also be on the chopping block, regardless of her still being alive by that point in better bones (i think? lol))

Leafstar's replacement is VERY easy! Waspstar will almost certainly be taking her roles, and I can already see how perfectly it will work out.

Xey remember her as being fair, above all. Committed to peace, to negotiation, to the ideals of justice and rationality winning out through unwavering generosity. Her first reward was to see SkyClan was driven from their home by Darktail and Sharpclaw's coup. Her second was to eat Juniperclaw's poisoned food.

Leafstar was fatally wrong. And Waspstar adored her.

How can you not? She lived by her ideals and died by them. Principles of modern SkyClan itself; to consider new ways of life, extend hospitality to strangers, and to keep the family together. In a good world, a better world, we could all live by these ideals.

...but Waspstar can see that the lake is not that world. So, xey lead ruthlessly.

As xeir mind starts to slip and the past becomes the present, xey'd see a lot of her. Consequences of xeir leadership catching up to them, it would be impossible to not ask what xey could have done different. If anything could have been different.

Plenty of interesting people for Wasp to remember, too, even beside Leafstar;

Sharpclaw, who betrayed SkyClan with the Kin.

Creekfeather, one of Waspstar's children, who xey had to kill to defend the Clan.

One of Rabbitleap's kittens who died very young.

The daylight warriors who stayed behind, or any cats trapped by humans.

People from xeir life as a kittypet, before xey were rescued from wandering the gorge that cold winter morning. Perhaps even xeir humans.

Again, say it with me; I Don't Rewrite Arcs Until Theyre Done. But. I've got a LOT to work with thanks to Waspy.

(And as for Tawny-- she gets a POV in BB!TNP already, even though she's still alive to the current day. So she's a lot more up in the air... especially considering there's now the possibility the girl POVs get sidelined in canon anyway :/ So I'll have to feel it out.)

[bonefall]

I know a lot of people are very excited over Starlingpov, but I just cannot share the enthusiasm. It feels like whenever we get a female character in the spotlight, she gets bowled over by the writers to focus on some male character's pain and trauma.

I liked Starlingpaw when he was a background character, because it's GOOD when random cats in a Clan have stuff going on. A glimmer of hope that we can just casually have interesting characters in a Clan is gone. The thought that it was part of a "plan" to turn him into yet another lackluster daddy issue POV absolutely ruins him for me.

Now it wasn't a great example of Leafstar's decline in faculties affecting the Clan at large, and setup for how her mistakes were going to follow her. It was a middling backstory for a type of character we've seen before.

In a sea of awful choices, Starlingpov isn't the worst. But it does ring particularly insulting considering this was the first all-female POV lineup.

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how are we feeling about hidden moon and starlingpaw as a protagonist

First all-female POV set of WC and they couldn't keep it up for more than a single book. They started having Daddy Issue Withdrawls and had to throw the camera at a whinyboy immediately. Can't have shit in this series!

[bonefall]

Does this mean we can have silk “scarf” or “shawls” in BB

bc that would make every scene so much better imagine Mistystar making a speech with silk accessories

I've been on-and-off looking at the possibility of the Clans making accessories out of silk for a few months now, but because of a lack of good historical examples to draw from, I've sadly had to rule it out for now.

Eastern silk production, which produces enough strong material to actually get used as a textile, is completely dependent on the fabulous, beautiful animal known as Bombyx Mori, the Domestic Silk Moth. What's amazing about this moth is that it's been domesticated for 5,000 years, and is so genetically distinct from its ancestors that they can't always produce offspring with their direct progenitor, Bombyx Mandarina!

In the west, we don't have any species (that I know of) which are capable of producing enough fiber. So far I've explored three kinds of animals, but hit snags with each one.

First one I started looking at was just some sort of alternative to bombyx mori, another silk-producing moth. While "wild silks" have been collected and used in the Americas, Africa, Asia, and even the Mediterranean and Middle East, it seems like central and northern Europe are like the one place on the planet where there's no appropriate wild silk moths.

At some point I encountered the Caddisfly and went down a small rabbithole for them. Caddis silk is VERY similar to that of a silkworm chemically, but also water resistant. Unfortunately, caddisflies cover their sticky cocoons in rocks and sticks, like bagworms. That would probably make the silk less useful.

The most promising was spider silk. Used as wound dressings since ancient times, briefly used to create paintings, plus several "proof of concepts" of modern humans applying silkworm techniques to create small amounts of textiles, several factors made me back off.

Spiders produce several kinds of silk, unlike insects which typically only make one per species. This means that you can't just apply "one technique" to turn all their silk from Bug Butt String to Useable Material-- you have to develop a technique for egg casing silk, dragline silk, capture silk, etc.

This means that I'd need to separately research every documented instance of spider silk weaving to understand what type of spider silk they were using, PLUS what species it came from, and if that species has any relatives in the modeled region, and if those relatives produce the right sort of silk, etc.

AND if these processes require too many advanced tools, all of that work would go out the window since Clan cats are working with sticks and rocks.

So, unless somehow unlimited money falls on me tomorrow and I get to hire a fleet of entomologists to conduct Silly Cat Experiments in tandem with, I can't find a path to silk textiles yet.

.....YET.

Because I can feel it in my bones that somehow, intelligent cats would be MILES ahead of human cultures in this technology. I think it would be just like humans and cheese. We didn't domesticate cows for their milk-- we domesticated them for MEAT, and THEN accidentally figured out how to make cheese by keeping milk in early "leather" (stomach) bags.

Likewise, cat cultures would be domesticating insects for food first. Silk would be a byproduct.

So someday I'd like to sit down and just explore what sorts of insects they would logically prioritize as food, which of those do well in captive conditions, and then work from there. Not only would it generally give me a good place to start with, but most importantly, it would feel more organic. As much as possible, I try to avoid working "backwards" culturally by starting with a tech and then figuring out how they got it.

Anyway! Mistystar can still have accessories

The primary textiles that Clan cats have is leather, linen, and yarn. Linen is the highest quality and most labor intensive material they have, worn by leaders, clerics, and other high-ranking cats as a sign of their status.

The shawl is actually canon lmao, a supporting character in Darkstar's Commandment is actually going to be wearing one. Xeir name is Smallstar, and they get to NOT die in BB because of the fact that Mapleshade's kittens are the ones who died to create Commandment 14. Runningstorm and Wolfheart also have very small cameos.

[bonefall]

For me? Never really enjoyed learning about genetics. ADORE learning about ecosystems and how environment influences culture. LOVE figuring out medical treatments based on accurate cat biology. But I need Speckletail to have anime battles with a bulldozer

My humble opinion on Warrior Cats realism is that it's good when you're having fun, and bad when you're not having fun

[bonefall]

My humble opinion on Warrior Cats realism is that it's good when you're having fun, and bad when you're not having fun