bonefall

[bonefall]

Prev naming the foster kit disco really fits considering she can't sit still, maybe you should incorporate that into discopaw's personality

Discopaw is coming easy to me! She does fit the personality of the kitten quite a bit, with a few differences.

I want to make sure Discopaw doesn't take up too much "screentime" that other characters could get, so I plan for her to consistently be in the background of conflicts

A voice shouted in a Gathering argument, one of Deerfoot's rebels, seen tangling ferociously with a bigger warrior in battle, etc!

In every way, she's perpetually sanguine. She has a zest for life. Discopaw loves to dance, join chants, sing loudly and play games.

That's based on her canonical appearance, shouting for Ravenpaw to tell his battle story. She's definitely a Gathering friend of his.

(Thinking about it, I should give her a line where she asks Fire about where Ravenpaw is at a Gathering. Good way to sneak in exposition/recap in book 2, that he feels sad that he needs to lie to her about his death to keep his friend safe. Especially when she takes the news pretty rough.)

So being "unable to sit still" is very fitting. Background character who would casually be changing places, vanishing from crowd shots in between camera pans.

Since I need to pad out some mass death events in ShadowClan, she's going to go down in one. She's a "high priority" kill since she's a Glitch Warrior, but I am hoping to get her to survive TPB at least.

So probably Yellowcough at the latest.

Also, I'm unsure who her mentor is. Deerfoot is an obvious choice, though I'm unsure if Brokenstar would want to reward him as one of his major critics. Russetfur is who I'm leaning towards right now.

Or maybe even have her old mentor be one of the cats driven out with Brokenstar, such as Tangleburr, and Nightstar reassigns her. Something like that.

[bonefall]

after hearing about discopaw i became immediately enamored and instinctively associated her with my new foster kitten who needed a name. so congrats! i just emailed the shelter she came from and told them i've named her disco :)

pics of the lady herself for reference :) (she cannot keep still and i cannot take good photos of her i apologize)

DISCOPAW REAL!! LIFE REFLECTING ART STAY WINNIN'

[bonefall]

Would be funny if you gave Disco some kittens (swapped over from anywhere) and they were named after silly mushrooms too. Mushroom family.

If I had gone with the prefix Devil, I was actually going to put her in the Military Bug family that Admiralpaw and Not-Antpelt/Majorheart are in. Since we're collectively adoring Disco, her lineage is more loose atm.

I am gunning for the opportunity to toss in more mushroom kits, though. I already try to "default" to them, when I can. Might re-visit some of the older names I tossed to unnamed ShadowClan cats, like Brightflower's siblings.

[bonefall]

[ID: A digital drawing of Fallenleaf (aka Hollyleaf) from Better Bones. She is a dark green scraggly pelted cat with large tired green eyes that have a circle of orange around the pupils and her one front leg covered in red and white markings that resemble leaf blight. She is huddled over herself with the one patterened paw pressed against her not visible left eye and her tail wrapping around her. Her fur is spiked to resemble the shape of holly leaves. Fallenleaf is in a cave with stalagmites and stalactites making a very compacted, almost cage like look. Behind her on the back wall of the cave are scratchy names of varying visibility. On the left side they say “Holly”, “Folly”, and “Fallen” over and over again. Above her head is “SOL” scribbled many times, some of them scratched through. And then to the right is “Jay”, “Lion”, and faintly “Dove” carved into the rock. The cave is cold with dark purple shadows to deepen this. In bright yellow and red light cuts across the scene particularly highlighting Fallenleaf’s eye, paw, and particular words like “Fallen”, “Holly” “SOL”, “Jay”, and “Lion”. Faint splatters are illuminated by the light to depict dust. End ID]

God gives the toughest butches the hardest times. BB!Hollyleaf is maybe my favorite character of the whole rewrite. Love a butch who goes through thousands of years of grief over her own horrible actions. Second favorite part of her story, after the torture timeloop of course, is when she accidentally sneezes a clone of herself into her wife. Been following @bonefall ‘s stuff for awhile now and I just can’t get enough of it. Cheers to creativity!

Easier to see versions under cut \/

[bonefall]

Discodance or Discostep would both be absolutely adorable names!

Part of me thinks Discodance makes for a SUPER satisfying name with the alliteration, and I love the mental image of disco mushrooms "dancing" out of a rotten nut. On the other hand, Discostep feels like it's a little more "fitting" of the time and era, more mild. The mental image there is nice too, as if disco sprouts after her pawsteps.

Still undecided, but I think it's between these two. Honorary mentions to Discowing and Discoblaze, though.

[bonefall]

so what I'm hearing is is discowing is a valid warrior name

It is absolutely valid. There are so many fun prefixes that you can pull from mushrooms in the setting, Disco is only one of them. Here's some more;

Prince

Knight

Amethyst (Deceiver)

Bracket

Jelly

Cake (King Alfred's)

Butter (Witch's)

Chicken (of the Woods)

Dead (Man's Fingers)

Elf (Cup)

Parasol

Puffball

Angel (Destroying)

Funeral (Bell)

I kinda hope I can toss Cake and Jelly onto some cats eventually, they're almost as cute as Miss Discopaw imo

[bonefall]

thank you warrior cats tumblr user bonefall for introducing me to diagoras of melos, heracles-chopping baked beans guy. new favourite historical figure

Diagoras "The Atheist" of Melos is the most historical figure ever, I didn't even scratch the surface of how incredibly camp he was. He should win a trophy for "funniest little freak in the forum"

Story begins with Democritus posting his bail after being arrested while his island was occupied. Enter Diagoras, stage right.

Immediately starts writing poems, singing songs, doing blasphemy

A buddy of his tries to convince him God is Real while they're in an art gallery, says "There HAS to be a loving sea god, look at all these paintings of people who survived shipwrecks!"

Diagoras: "Bro they don't have enough paint for all the guys who drowned 💀"

At some point Diagoras starts dating a statesman, Nicodorus. Like all gay couples, they immediately bond over politics and Di helps his lover write legislation.

And, like all the BEST gay people, Diagoras gets in trouble with the Democratic Party (it really was called that) for being too democratic.

After moving to Athens, Diagoras faced a lot of pushback for being a Mellian migrant. He could have kept his "head down" but he absolutely would not.

While on a boat in the middle of a storm, the rest of the crew is like "This never would have happened if we didn't bring a HEATHEN on board!"

Diagoras: "WOW! I DIDN'T KNOW THAT EVERY SINGLE SHIP IN THIS HARBOR HAD ITS OWN DIAGORAS!"

Not only did he chop up a statue of Heracles to bake some lentils (or boil turnips, depending). He was sitting there, cooking, and he said, "He's doing his 13th labor for me <3"

This man had SUCH disdain that he would join cults JUST so he could spill the tea about their sacred rites. Imagine becoming a Scientologist just so you could talk shit about Lord Xenu; that was the life he was living.

There's also speculation that there was a sincere political edge to a lot of his rabblerousing; he was contemptuous of the Athenian government for occupying the island of Melos. The sacred rites he shared were entwined with the government, almost like he was trying to goad them into engaging with him.

They eventually accused him of Atheism and put out an order for his execution, even putting a bounty on Diagoras' head.

But they never got him! He fled to the city of Corinth, escaping the wrath of the Athenian empire.

I love this guy, we stan a heretic with a dramatic sense of humor.

[bonefall]

Splashtail and Atheism

Hello. I am an Atheist and I call Splashstar an Atheist because he is based on widespread bigoted depictions of godless people like myself. There have now been several posts about this written as if they're trying to "correct a misconception," and I am tired of vagueposts completely missing the point of the criticism to get caught up on arguing semantics.

The misanthropic, god-hating "Atheist" character in Christian propaganda, which I feel Splashstar has some alarming similarities with, does not come from the writer's correctable "misconception" of irreligious labels. It is born from a hatred of nonbelievers.

Specifically, my point that Splashtail is a mashup of two popular anti-secular tropes common in religious media;

The assertion that there's no such thing as a "real" nonbeliever, and that Atheists are just "rebelling" against God because we're mad at him, want to do bad things without guilt, or have "lost our way."

The belief that morality itself stems from faith in a higher moral being, asserting that the irreligious are "evil" in contrast to the faithful.

Even passing familiarity with the arguments of Christian apologia seen in Chick Tracts, Pureflix films, PragerU videos, and so on, will have put these tropes in front of you. They are false and harmful, and they target Atheists.

For more on this, TVTropes has an entire article dedicated to the Hollywood Atheist and its sub-tropes. Note how many of these Curlfeather and Splashtail fall into, regardless of if you're arguing that they are "real atheists" or not.

Those that hate us do not care about semantic labels. To them, we are without God, A-Theistic, and they do not actually care what is at the core of your beliefs if it contradicts their narrative.

But, even worse, the "Splashtail Can't Be An Atheist" crowd isn't even totally correct on the semantics they're trying to have a pedant battle about.

Most atheistic organizations and online atheists define Atheism as "one who does not believe in God" and attempt to push a sliding scale of "agnosticism" on how hard of a "maybe" you're feeling about your lack of faith. In the sliding agnostic scale, Agnostic Atheists are a "probably no god" and Gnostic Atheists are a "definitely no god." Others describe that scale as "hard" and "soft" Atheism-- but there is NOT universal agreement on that definition.

There other definitions of an "Atheist," and even those who reject the "agnostic scale" completely (I am one of them). "Atheism" was historically the catch-all term for what we might now call "Irreligious," and more.

The Encyclopedia of Philosophy explores its many meanings, and proposes that what defines an Atheist is an active choice to distance oneself from faith; "Someone who rejects the premise of gods either based on lack of belief, or meaninglessness of the question." Matt Dillahunty, a prominent educator and activist, intentionally refers to himself as an Atheist when others (including religious people!) have tried to pressure him into using the label Agnostic, for reasons he covers in great depth. Historically, "atheist" simply meant anyone who denied the gods or acted impiously, evolving into use as a broad label for irreligious practices around the 1500s, until attempts to narrow it to "nonbelievers in deities" in the 1800s.

By EoP's expanded definition alone, Splashstar qualifies as an Atheist. The rejection does not have to come from a belief that Theism is false, but that the question is meaningless. He doesn't have to "believe" in StarClan any more than you have to "believe" in a total stranger. He rejects faith in it and lives without their influence.

But even more than that, "atheist" is a broad, stigmatized term with a history you can't erase. Hundreds of combinations of philosophies, spiritual beliefs, and logical positions have been called "Atheism."

"Atheist" can refer to Agnostics (those who aren't sure if there is a god or not), Antitheists (opposition to the belief in and/or worship of gods), Igtheists (those that feel that "god" is such a nebulous term that the question of belief is meaningless), Apatheists (people who just don't care), practitioners of Non-Deistic religions (such as Humanistic Judaism and some sects of Buddhism), and even heretics who spoke against religion like Diagoras of Melos (gay guy who chopped up a statue of hercules and used it to bake beans. king.)

In a fantasy universe where gods are provably, visibly real, the term "Atheist" is going to look a lot more like those historic and expansive uses.

Unless you want to argue that "atheism" by the narrow, popular definition of "believing in deities" can't exist in such a setting. So, arguing that Cloudtail stopped being an Atheist when he saw demons in OotS, in spite of this not affecting his spiritual practices. Or, dancing around using one uniting term, you could specifically say Curlfeather is a Misotheist, Splashstar is an Antitheist or Agnostic, Mothwing is Deist, etc.

You could have a discussion about how applicable these words even are in the setting. Or make up terms that satisfy yourself. You could do this forever. But I choose not to.

I think it's counterproductive to push people to learn a bunch of terms for hyperspecific branches of irreligious philosophy just to discuss clear anti-secular sentiment within the text of a book, actually. Or push people to abandon a useful word because fantasy isn't exactly the same as real life. Functionally, imo, all of those aforementioned cats are Atheists within this setting, living "without god" by rejecting belief-- and many of them invoke real world bigotry, with tropes much older than WC itself.

So the simple fact is; Calling Splashtail an "Evil Atheist" immediately communicates the narrative tropes I am criticizing.

Either by authorial accident or on purpose, Splashstar's lack of morality being tied to his rejection of StarClan invokes the demonized atheist trope, very much like the ones seen in PureFlix's God's Not Dead or Jack Chick's The Last Generation.

All the arbitrary wishing that the terms were more narrow and exclusive will not change the reality that those characters are intended by bigots as atheists. The terms of the discussion reflect that. Trying to tut-tut the fandom for calling a spade a spade is a smug way to phrase you completely missed the damn point.

[bonefall]

Possible glitch warrior spotted: when i was rereading into the wild for my own rewrite, i found this odd mention

she's not listed on the wiki, is there any black-and-white molly from RiverClan or ShadowClan this could possibly be? and if not i think she could be a perfect addition to TPB shadowclan, and maybe one of deerfoot's rebels!

GOOD CATCH, I'm adding her to BB!ShadowClan immediately. I also went to go read the passage again myself-- she's an apprentice, around the same age as the TPB Trio. There's no apprentice in RiverClan at this time who fits the bill, so she must be from ShadowClan.

Absolutely ideal. I think I even have a really fun name for her, since I've wanted to give out more mushroom names.

This is called Nut Disco. It is a type of fungus that likes to sprout on rotten nuts and fallen fruit trees. It's interesting and usually quite striking, with the pure white caps dotting black rot.

ShadowClan's term for an attractive cat is "Skubi Yaywi"-- bright mushroom. So this feels like it fits very well. Disco is also just objectively a very fun prefix to have floating around.

For now I'm calling this cat Discopaw. I'll figure out her suffix depending on if Nightstar or Brokenstar is the one who names her. Brokenstar likes "fearsome" suffixes like slash, claw, blight, fall, etc. Nightstar is more "hopeful," giving positive and pretty suffixes like whisper, step, shine, bloom, etc.

[bonefall]

I’m in love with your “Frostpaw meeting King Arc” concept, and I really want to make a comic out of it at some point. For now, have some sketches from today:

Thank you with all my heart, I cannot be normal about it either. Something drives me absolutely crazy about the idea that two, intersecting themes of BB!ASC are "echoes of the past" and "love was there, it was not enough, but it was still there."

Small recap for others; In BB!DOTC, the Park Cats are now a cultural group with a king. King Arc leads a massive group of refugees up from the south and establishes a kingdom by the river. The First Battle is caused when Clear Sky takes his prince, River's Ripple, as a hostage to hurt Thunder Storm, not respecting the political value of his son's friend. King Arc dies in this battle, and Riverstar continues the River Kingdom until his death, kicking off Riverstar's Heir.

I'm unsure if it came across, but something I intend with the Arc/Frost meeting during Frostpaw's Sabbatical is that King Arc is seeing his son Riverstar in her. The way that the ambition and responsibility that he put on him as his prince, is reflected in the stress and confusion that Frostpaw herself is now going through.

He, too, died saving his child, much like Curlfeather did. It's still a terrible burden to put that on someone you love so much.

I still need to tweak her siblings (thinking in my next draft for Mistpool, I'm gonna use blue merle dog markings and give her the same shape as Graysky), but this absolutely validates Frostdawn's design in my eyes lmao <3

There's a scene in my head during the first book of BB!ASC where Frostpaw is shoved up the tree by Curlfeather. Curl looks up at her and everything is moving in slow motion, her eyes full of love and sacrifice. She tells her daughter to trust no cat as the teeth of the dogs sink into her, softly, gentle as a kiss.

...And the camera cuts quickly to Frostpaw, up in the tree, the "wool" pulled off her eyes for the first time, the screeching, violent agony of her mother's bloody death reflected in them. Her grip falters as her body trembles with nausea, but she catches herself. Tears her face away from the horrible sight, and pulls herself up further out of harm's way.

I'll be making sure to write it down in the upcoming post too, but, preview <3

[bonefall]

Any thoughts about how you're gonna approach moons sis def being a fading kit? How would this work in your world?

I've gotten this question a few times and it's honestly really simple; she can be a Fading Kit who refused to fade.

Fading Kits are extremely common to the point of not being a thing that is mourned. Clan Cats believe that they're StarClan spirits who come down to deliver the souls of the rest of the litter, and sometimes "fall in" either by accident or to briefly visit.

So, Moon's parents would believe she was just a normal occurance, until they were wracking their brains trying to figure out what's happening and realize the description fits what should have just been a StarClan visitor.

But that's as far as I'm going with it for now. I need to see where this arc goes, because I might end up deciding that it would fit the story better to do something different entirely. You know how the writing team is about having 6th books that are massively disconnected from the tone and themes of the 1st one.

It's just too early to be making plans-- but the idea that Moonpaw's sister would be a Fading Kit in BB's cultural overhauls isn't even slightly hard to work with.

[bonefall]

I’ve only seen glances of it but Tigerheartstar being so terrible to people this book neither surprises me yet shocks me at the same time. I can see him being a rude leader, but getting mad at his mom for helping encourage his kid to do something he and Dovewing did? Talking about how Birchfeather and Tawnypelt are being disloyal to their clan?? Hello? Did the Erins forget what he was up to in OOTS? That he thought clan loyalty was stupid?

I'm a bit torn on it.

For full context, I finished the book but im still writing chapter summaries over on my sideblog since ppl seem to appreciate them. So lemmie real quick catch up everyone on what happened;

SkyClan is in crisis again due to a poisoned river. They ask for the borders to be a bit more lenient, just so that any prey they chase over the line can still be theirs.

Tigerheartstar AND Squilfstar say no. Bruh :/

Tiger also decides to tighten security to make SURE they don't.

(I am choosing to interpret this as partially being his longstanding grudge against SkyClan, and partially being petty payback for how Leafstar responded to him trying to hold RiverClan together in the last arc)

Birchfeather admits his love for Ridgeglow to Tawnypelt, after her scent is picked up at the border and is causing tensions.

Tawny encourages Birchfeather to share his feelings.

This backfires and Birchfeather announces to his parents that he's leaving. Everyone involved is completely shocked and caught off-guard by this. Tawny absolutely did not anticipate this going down this way.

All of ShadowClan is upset when they gather to say goodbye. Everyone. Dovewing and Tigerheartstar are the only two who don't show up.

Tawnypelt goes to drag them out to say goodbye; they are huddled in the den, Dovewing is very upset.

Narration emphasises that they are being unreasonable because of Rowankit's death and that their son is leaving now.

Still, Tawnypelt points out the hypocrisy since they were cross-clan lovers themselves.

Dove and Tiger come to say goodbye but in a very overly formal way which is clearly cold.

Tawny walks her grandson to the border and continues to meet up with him when she has a chance. She even offers to relay messages.

Tigerheartstar decides (even interrupting and speaking over Dovewing) that they are practicing "tough love" and will not acknowledge him until he returns.

Tawnypelt fights with her son several times, culminating in her gently helping Birchfeather pass a trial and feed SkyClan by chasing a rabbit over the border. For this, Tiger calls her disloyal.

Tigerheartstar admits that his plan is to give Birchfeather the cold shoulder until he either fails his trials or decides to come home, and accuses Tawnypelt of overstepping her boundaries as a grandparent.

He's being an extremely unsupportive parent, here. Clearly. The narrative keeps emphasising that his behavior is fuelled by losing his child in the last arc, and that he had become particularly overprotective of the surviving son.

So, part of me enjoys the family drama here. I like Tigerheartstar because he is messy and biased. His position on Clan Loyalty has shifted in the past (oots speeches vs avos loyalty punishments for example) and he's possessive enough of his family for him to act very unreasonably when faced with a situation where he might be separated from another kid.

That said-- WOW he's acting gross in the later chapters. The way he cuts off Dovewing when she tries to speak especially makes my blood boil. He straightup admitted to Tawnypelt that he hopes to manipulate his kid into returning home with the same kind of emotional abuse Bramblestar does when he's having a temper tantrum.

Now, I don't think it would be in-character of him to just happily support Birchfeather shifting Clans, especially to a group ShadowClan has had beef with for several arcs. But, something feels off.

It's hard to accept he's not making a big scene about this, explaining exactly why he doesn't want to see Birchfeather go to his son's face. I guess it's not that I don't expect Tiggy to act manipulative, but he should be a different type of manipulative imo. The guilt tripper, the "you're breaking your mother's heart" guy.

I also would have preferred better buildup towards how nasty he's being towards his mother-- or at least a little hint towards which previous incidents were fuelling this.

The writers are notorious for forgetting events and details from previous books. Is this resentment coming from how outspoken Tawnypelt was against him in the last arc? Her comparing him to his grandfather, a cat she named him after? Her failure to protect any of his siblings? Are ANY of these situations contributing at all, or are they just flying by the seat of their pants again

In a nutshell, there could be interesting reasons for him to be acting like this. Still, it can be hard to read, and something feels a little wonky. The writing has my attention, but not a fully formed opinion from me as of yet.

[bonefall]

Bones. Bones I'm so tired. I made a mistake Bones save me Bo

But fr, the discussion of the new book is making me remember why I can barely talk to anyone in this fandom. I got my hands on TEQ early and decided to make a post on the subreddit detailing all the stuff I thought was the weirdest/stupidest. It got way more traction than I thought. The fallout is nuclear. The WC Tumblr users are using me as a source. Several people have messaged me calling me names for talking bad about plot points they like. Someone called me ableist for saying I thought the direction they were taking Moonpaw is a little weird. There are fights breaking out over if Crowfeather is abusive again (to nobody's surprise: it's all Nightcloud's fault again. Somehow)

Everything is falling apart in front of my eyes. Someone found my discord account and told me I shouldn't be ashamed for "pirating" the book. Oh my God what have I done

NOO ANON DON'T POST ON REDDIT. THAT'S WHERE THE ASHFURS GATHER TO BE WEIRD ABOUT WOMEN

This is why I don't wander too far outside of my little orbit LMAO. WC Tumblr is surprisingly good as a space, especially if you take your happiness into your own hands and curate your experience well. So it can be easy to forget that this little area is a tiny island floating in a storming sea of discourse.

Anyway, StarClan save your poor, unfortunate soul. Moisturized. In my lane. Unbothered.

[bonefall]

The only thing that would make me angrier than them being official is if somehow Tawnypelt has Crowfeather’s kits. Her grandchild just moved clans to be with someone and Crowfeather’s grandkid just had kids. But I seriously do not trust the Erin’s considering this is only Book one of Changing Skies and she’s already crushing hard.

I'm sorry anon, I hope this happens because it would be stupid funny. Can you imagine Crowfeather being an awful parent to a THIRD set of children, and Tawnypelt gives them absolutely horrific names like "Brokenkit" and "Sharptoothkit." And both parents are like 70 years old

This is so bad it's laughable. I've gone full Joker. Society

[bonefall]

What the heck was even the point of Wafflepelt if they were just going to immediately sideline him? “Oh, here’s an extra kittypet for Thunderclan to have.”

I have no idea. Nightheart did not need an apprentice. ThunderClan did not need another warrior. Even Frostpaw's journey was largely irrelevant; half a book was dedicated to traveling so she could learn a skill she barely used.

Why even run a submission contest to get a cat added as a warrior if they're not even going to matter at all. Waffle could have just been a kittypet cameo at this point. Hope he doesn't just become Stormcloud 2.

[bonefall]

DON'T PANIC

I GOT THE BOOK EARLY.

I'm going to liveread over at @bonebabbles, trying to limit how many screenshots I take and just assessing the damage. Coolabi/Harper Collins can be a bit testy when there's too many screenshots of leaks posted, apparently, and the book officially releases on Jan 7th.

From a cursory Control + F though, there's some baaaaad facts to report.

Fernstripe, Wafflepelt, AND Stormcloud are allegiance-only. That's THREE fresh, non-Clanborn characters introduced to ThunderClan, the most bloated Clan by far, who are completely unused.

Shellfur, meanwhile, has 4 mentions. This points towards the Erins having totally forgotten he's supposed to be Fernstripe's mate. If this is a mistake, or if they are planning a conflict about his cheating/dumping of Fernstripe, remains to be seen.

Moonpaw did not absorb her twin in the womb; there was a stillborn sister. I am actually happy about this, having fought tooth and nail during The Mooncourse.

In fact, Starpaw/Moonpaw's Sister/Whatever you'd like to call her, she seems to be portrayed as more of a haunting than an evil second personality. Also good, imo, I don't think the Erins would have been able to portray a headmate well.

Tawnypelt and Crowfeather interact a lot. The way she develops a crush on him is a lot funnier than I thought it would be, she's like... actively kicking herself about it in two scenes LMAO Ok Mad King Cherith, I will continue to dodge your fireballs but maybe it will hit the kindle of this conveniently placed pot of soup I have placed nearby.

[bonefall]

Babe wake up it's time for your bi-yearly reminder you shouldn't read Warrior Cats