#How Forests Think

[millidew]

his change in career has captivated me

bonus:

[daily-sifloop]

We've seen tiny Loop, but what about tiny Siffrin?

Day 68: Am I big or is it you who's small?

[local-hellhound-steals-spaghetti]

Watching Spirit: Stallion of the Cimarron again as an adult is so great because not only do you appreciate the nostalgia and joy of it, the stunning 2D animation mixed with early 3D techonology and well written tight story with a main character that never speaks.

But also you appreciate that the plot relies on horses, despite not being typical talking horses in cartoons, being extremely intelligent to the point that they are aware of their captivity and exploitation. And it involves a hyper intelligent horse dismantling (or, at the very least significantly delaying) American colonialism's expansion into the west.

This horse also very likely killed many colonialists when they were either launched at high speeds from his back, kicked in the head or blown up in a train explosion.

Good for him.

[0vergrowngraveyard]

bothersome creature

[princesskkfish]

Long road ahead

Ocean one

[anna-scribbles]

you know all of those movies and shows about princesses and twins and twin princesses and swapping places etc etc. well miraculous ladybug is actually also one of those shows, it is just told from the angle of “what if the twin princess was your mom and she gave you so many issues”

[bonefall]

I was thinking about your tags, and while I understand the caution, it feels like it would still be a stretch to baseline equate common traits among the clans with eugenics. I know that humans can rly quickly go from everyone has biological differences = there are innate qualities that are "good" and "bad", and there's a quality of fascism in that, but when the clans are fairly isolationist, it seems like it'd be natural for there to be trends among its members.

this is also just me prompting for your thoughts on biology and politics surrounding that, since i appreciate your thoughts on fascism in warriors overall.

I think you're missing a piece in your takeaway that I'm more conscious of-- it's not that I'm wary of population genetics and natural trends; it's that the Clans have an obsession with "blood purity" paired with that.

When you introduce "subspecies" Clans to that, cats who are truly biologically suited to a particular environment, you are inevitably narratively connecting the rhetoric to this worldbuilding fact. Unless you're going to massively overhaul the theme and setting of Warrior Cats, to me it's like looking at xenophobic characters that say "mingling with out-groups is bad" and announcing, "I AM GOING TO GIVE THEM PHRENOLOGY BUT REAL."

Even canon is wise enough to not do this-- Graystripe shows in TPB that it's the oily diet that makes RiverClan's fur so water-resistant. WindClan's lanky legs never get more extreme than a general population trend; enough Clans have skinny warriors that you wouldn't "clock" mixed cats like Jayfeather and his siblings.

But in making those Clan differences MEGA extreme, suddenly, you have taken the irrational social bigotry and turned it into a potentially legitimate practical concern about adeptness in an environment. Not just against an individual, but against that individual's population.

As an example of what I mean, imagine if RiverClan had special, extreme adaptations to living in water. Let's say they're webbed-foot cats who can close their orifices like seals and their coat is twice as thick to keep the water out.

Outcrossing to another Clan means hybrid kittens display the opposite of hybrid vigor-- hybrid depression.

Without webbed feet, other cats are always slower swimmers than their counterparts

Hybrids have thinner fur, making them lose heat in cold water much faster, requiring them to eat more to stay healthy or get sick more often.

They may not have the same muscles to close their orifices, meaning they're more likely to damage their senses by swimming in dirty water.

You can reduce disadvantages with accessibility technology in a more advanced setting like BB, but... they are still born significantly disadvantaged, compared to a ""pure blood"" RiverClan cat.

Doing this also says something you might not have realized you've said at all; Your population is proof of evolutionary pressure. Highly specialized genetics like this (not just trends but HIGHLY specialized) implies there's been something preventing the genetics of other Clans from intermixing with RiverClan.

Which has two implications;

The hypothetical RiverClan cats achieved a positive goal by self-inflicting a selective breeding program onto themselves. (...eugenics. that's eugenics.)

The hypothetical RiverClan environment is so harsh and demanding that it will naturally, swiftly eliminate unfit phenotypes. (The river totally cancels out any secret outcrossing)

(as a side note, ppl tend to misunderstand evolution. Darwin wasn't totally right with "survival of the fittest," I prefer Bill Nye's description of "survival of the good enough." But that's a topic for another time)

Either way, I find those implications DEEPLY unfitting for BB. This is a project which has major themes of exploring bigotry, showcasing its irrationality and digging into how it's perpetuated and exploited in spite of that.

I think BB's themes have a better clarity of purpose if the physical differences between Clans are kept subtle. Never more extreme than what you'd see between ethnic groups-- with frequent reminders about how culture, environment, and politics shape behaviors more than genetics do.

Don't misunderstand me-- I'm not saying that every setting with physical differences between races/sapient species is doomed to this. I actually have good things to say about certain artworks that lean into it (Steven Universe, Beastars, Oren's Forge). I'm saying this specifically about WC and my work within that context.

If you're curious though, I actually have a loose set of "rules" in my head to try and keep my Clans' population differences within my own critiques! I've given a lot more thought to this than I've shared.

There are no "unique" Clan mutations, any trait could appear within any hypothetical kitten.

It's a matter of prevalence. ThunderClan is like 80% Sweetness Tolerant and the other clans are between like 15% - 60%. It's not a sign your mate cheated on you if your kitten likes honey.

But it is something that an accusation can be based on, if your mate is insecure or the Clan's politics are going sour. A "pedigree" RiverClan cat could still have a mane, and it can get used against them.

Some traits do help or hinder ability slightly (ex; thick tails making RiverClan cats better at steering in water), but typically not significantly. I Just Keep It Reasonable.

Most importantly, I just make an effort to have most traits be based on social behavior. Reflect enough and eventually you sorta train your brain to think differently. As a bonus, it helps with cultural worldbuilding.

Related: If you found this insightful, I also dove into fascism and TigerClan in a way that's relevant to this.

[mokadevs]

well, that's okay! it was going to happen eventually!

[punkitt-is-here]

[suja-janee]

So did Ashrah tell the shaolin she was bringing Sareena, or did they just have to find out the hard way?

[gummi-ships]

Kingdom Hearts 0.2 Birth by Sleep - A Fragmentary Passage - The World Within

[ewwww-what]

Aelwyn Abernant and a vision of her sister

[luck-of-the-drawings]

[OLD ART ALERT] A COLLECTION OF SCENES FROM THE GILLIONS CATSCRATCH ARC THAT BROUGHT ME GREAT JOY. i love fishy chips especially when its just gillion being delirious and violent and hostile

[gen4grl]

a nap in the sun

[mintjeru]

i may be less normal about yudrain than i previously thought reference for the text on hope under the cut

open for better quality | no reposts

[marianchurchland]

I'm away from home for the month of June so I can only re-post old art, but here are some contemporary (as of ten years ago, anyway) Inquisition portraits while I wait to return to my scanner.