#bulk download fanfic

[wolverinedoctorwho]

Doing some self-reflection tonight (contemplating whether I could have handled getting into TMA when it first released in 2016)

[petalruesimblr]

Hi everyone! I'm excited to share my latest part-time career with you all - the Army Reserve - Military Working Dog (MWD) Handler! I remembered reading a Criminal Minds fanfic where one of the characters joined the Army Reserve so I thought 'yeah that could work' and I wanted to do something different hence working with dogs! It's been fun creating this one as I had to dig out a cc I created a year ago for the uniform of this career.

If you are interested, click on ’Keep Reading’ below for more information and pictures of the Army Reserve - MWD Handler Part-time Career.

Army Reserve - MWD Handler

Individual files: Career - Sim File Share | Army Shirt Male - Sim File Share | Army Shirt Female - Sim File Share Bulk Download: Sim File Share

Join the Army Reserve as a Military Working Dog (MWD) Handler! Dive into a rewarding role working alongside brave military dogs from securing bases to detecting threats. Unleash your potential and serve your country with pawsitive impact, apply today - no experience necessary and embark on a unique adventure!

Career Type: Part-Time Available for: Young Adults and Adults Available Languages: English Levels: 3 Rabbit Hole: Military Base Work Days: M, T, W, F Work Hours: 7AM - 10AM (Downtown 5AM - 8AM) Does it have Carpool? Yes Does it have Uniforms? Yes (details under Final Notes) File Type: Package Min. Required Game Version: 1.42 Packs Needed: The Sims 3 📣All descriptions for the levels, tones and metrics as well as skills required, salary, uniforms and other details are provided on the pictures above.

NRAAS Careers Mod Male and Female Uniforms CC

I decided to stick with Athletic skill only for this part-time because this branch of the military mostly focuses on training with military dogs. As much as I wanted to include dog training skills, unfortunately that is locked to pets in the game. It may be possible but it is outside of my current skillset as it would require delving into scripting or modding. You can adopt a dog and train it, though training sessions will only occur outside of work hours. However, if you enjoy roleplaying like I do, I typically adopt a dog and train with them in the park after work. Regarding the custom content I mentioned earlier, I have included two files in the Download section above: Army Shirt Male and Army Shirt Female. These should be placed in the Mods folder like any other cc and are required for the level 1 uniforms to appear in your game. The shirts are simple t-shirts with the word 'ARMY' written on the front, and I owe huge thanks to the tutorials and references I found (links provided below in the Credits) for helping me complete them. The Army Shirts are exclusively available for the Army Reserve - MWD Handler career and are disabled for random outfits as well as maternity wear. I have included both individual files and a bulk download option depending on your preference. RAR files can be opened by third-party applications such as WinRAR or 7-Zip. If you do not have these applications yet, you can refer to this link for the download links. As stated above, you will need NRAAS Careers Mod for these careers to show up in the game and as long as you have the latest version of it, it should work for higher patches. You can also read my #psa regarding these careers, click here. I’m not fluent in any other languages to translate so if anyone is interested in translating this career, please don’t hesitate to send me a message here, comment on this post or let me know in my Ask/Contact form (if you don't have a Tumblr account) and will let you know the details. I have tested this career in my game, so far it is working and all scripts are showing up. All feedback is very welcome to help me learn and improve my skills so please let me know if you experience any problems on your end and I’ll do my best to sort it as soon as possible.

MissyHissy step-by-step tutorial Twallan for the Career Mod S3pe Simlish alphabet LGR Video Tutorial CAS Texture Unitool (CTU)

[geneeste]

Creating a personal fanfic archive using Calibre, various Calibre plugins, Firefox Reader View, and an e-Reader / BookFusion / Calibre-Web

A few years ago I started getting serious about saving my favorite fic (or just any fic I enjoyed), since the Internet is sadly not actually always forever when it comes to fanfiction. Plus, I wanted a way to access fanfic offline when wifi wasn't available. Enter a personal fanfic archive!

There are lots of ways you can do this, but I thought I'd share my particular workflow in case it helps others get started. Often it's easier to build off someone else's workflow than to create your own!

Please note that this is for building an archive for private use -- always remember that it's bad form to publicly archive someone else's work without their explicit permission.

This is going to be long, so let's add a read more!

How to Build Your Own Personal Fanfic Archive

Step One: Install Calibre

Calibre is an incredibly powerful ebook management software that allows you to do a whole lot of stuff having to do with ebooks, such as convert almost any text-based file into an ebook and (often) vice-versa. It also allows you to easily side-load ebooks onto your personal e-reader of choice and manage the collection of ebooks on the device.

And because it's open source, developers have created a bunch of incredibly useful plugins to use with Calibre (including several we're going to talk about in the next step), which make saving and reading fanfiction super easy and fun.

But before we can do that, you need to download and install it. It's available for Windows, MacOS, Linux, and in a portable version.

Step Two: Download These Plugins

This guide would be about 100 pages long if I went into all of the plugins I love and use with Calibre, so we're just going to focus on the ones I use for saving and reading fanfiction. And since I'm trying to keep this from becoming a novel (lolsob), I'll just link to the documentation for most of these plugins, but if you run into trouble using them, just tag me in the notes or a comment and I'll be happy to write up some steps for using them.

Anyway, now that you've downloaded and installed Calibre, it's time to get some plugins! To do that, go to Preferences > Get plugins to enhance Calibre.

You'll see a pop-up with a table of a huge number of plugins. You can use the Filter by name: field in the upper right to search for the plugins below, one at a time.

Click on each plugin, then click Install. You'll be asked which toolbars to add the plugins to; for these, I keep the suggested locations (in the main toolbar & when a device is connected).

FanFicFare (here's also a great tutorial for using this plugin) EpubMerge (for creating anthologies from fic series) EbubSplit (for if you ever need to break up fic anthologies) Generate Cover (for creating simple artwork for downloaded fic) Manage Series (for managing fic series)

You'll have to restart Calibre for the plugins to run, so I usually wait to restart until I've installed the last plugin I want.

Take some time here to configure these plugins, especially FanFicFare. In the next step, I'll demonstrate a few of its features, but you might be confused if you haven't set it up yet! (Again, highly recommend that linked tutorial!)

Step Three: Get to Know FanFicFare (and to a lesser extent, Generate Cover)

FanFicFare is a free Calibre plugin that allows you to download fic in bulk, including all stories in a series as one work, adding them directly to Calibre so that that you can convert them to other formats or transfer them to your e-reader.

As with Calibre, FanFicFare has a lot of really cool features, but we're just going to focus on a few, since the docs above will show you most of them.

The features I use most often are: Download from URLs, Get Story URLs from Email, and Get Story URLs from Web Page.

Download from URLs let's you add a running list of URLs that you'd like FanFicFare to download and turn into ebooks for you. So, say, you have a bunch of fic from fanfic.net that you want to download. You can do that!

Now, in this case, I've already downloaded these (which FanFicFare detected), so I didn't update my library with the fic.

But I do have some updates to do from email, so let's try getting story URLs from email!

Woohoo, new fic! Calibre will detect when cover art is included in the downloaded file and use that, but at least one of these fic doesn't have cover art (which is the case for most of the fic I download). This is where Generate Cover comes in.

With Generate Cover, I can set the art, font, dimensions, and info content of the covers so that when I'm looking at the fic on my Kindle, I know right away what fic it is, what fandom it's from, and whether or not it's part of a series.

Okay, last thing from FanFicFare -- say I want to download all of the fic on a page, like in an author's profile on fanfic.net or all of the stories in a series. I can do that too with Get Story URLs from Web Page:

The thing I want to call out here is that I can specify whether the fic at this link are individual works or all part of an anthology, meaning if they're all works in the same series, I can download all stories as a single ebook by choosing For Anthology Epub.

Step Four: Using FireFox Reader View to Download Fic Outside of Archives

This is less common now thanks to AO3, but the elders among us may want to save fanfic that exists outside of archives on personal websites that either still exist or that exist only on the Internet Wayback Machine. FanFicFare is awesome and powerful, but it's not able to download fic from these kinds of sources, so we have to get creative.

I've done this in a couple of ways, none of which are entirely perfect, but the easiest way I've found thus far is by using Firefox's Reader View. Also, I don't think I discovered this -- I think I read about this on Tumblr, actually, although I can longer find the source (if you know it, please tell me so I can credit them!).

At any rate, open the fic in Firefox and then toggle on Reader View:

Toggling on Reader View strips all the HTML formatting from the page and presents the fic in the clean way you see in the preview below, which is more ideal for ebook formats.

To save this, go to the hamburger menu in the upper right of the browser and select Print, then switch to Print to PDF. You'll see the URL and some other stuff at the top and bottom of the pages; to remove that, scroll down until you see something like More settings... and uncheck Print headers and footers.

Click Save to download the resulting PDF, which you can then add to Calibre and convert to whichever format works best for your e-reader or archive method.

Step Five: Archiving (Choose Your Own Adventure)

Here's the really fun part: now that you know how to download your fave fanfics in bulk and hopefully have a nice little cache going, it's time to choose how you want to (privately) archive them!

I'm going to go through each option I've used in order of how easy it is to implement (and whether it costs additional money to use). I won't go too in depth about any of them, but I'm happy to do so in a separate post if anyone is interested.

Option 1: On Your Computer

If you're using Calibre to convert fanfic, then you're basically using your computer as your primary archive. This is a great option, because it carries no additional costs outside the original cost of acquiring your computer. It's also the simplest option, as it really doesn't require any advanced technical knowledge, just a willingness to tinker with Calibre and its plugins or to read how-to docs.

Calibre comes with a built-in e-book viewer that you can use to read the saved fic on your computer (just double-click on the fic in Calibre). You can also import it into your ebook app of choice (in most cases; this can get a little complicated just depending on how many fic you're working with and what OS you're on/app you're using).

If you choose this option, you may want to consider backing the fic up to a secondary location like an external hard drive or cloud storage. This may incur additional expense, but is likely still one of the more affordable options, since storage space is cheap and only getting cheaper, and text files tend to not be that big to begin with, even when there are a lot of them.

Option 2: On Your e-Reader

This is another great option, since this is what Calibre was built for! There are some really great, afforable e-readers out there nowadays, and Calibre supports most of them. Of course, this is a more expensive option because you have to acquire an e-reader in addition to a computer to run Calibre on, but if you already have an e-reader and haven't considered using it to read fanfic, boy are you in for a treat!

Option 3: In BookFusion

This is a really cool option that I discovered while tinkering with Calibre and used for about a year before I moved to a self-hosted option (see Option 4).

BookFusion is a web platform and an app (available on iOS and Android) that allows you to build your own ebook library and access it from anywhere, even when you're offline (it's the offline bit that really sold me). It has a Calibre plugin through which you can manage your ebook library very easily, including sorting your fanfic into easy-to-access bookshelves. You may or may not be able to share ebooks depending on your subscription, but only with family members.

Here's what the iOS app looks like:

The downside to BookFusion is that you'll need a subscription if you want to upload more than 10 ebooks. It's affordable(ish), ranging from $1.99 per month for a decent 5GB storage all the way to $9.99 for 100GB for power users. Yearly subs range from $18.99 to $95.99. (They say this is temporary, early bird pricing, but subscribing now locks you into this pricing forever.)

I would recommend this option if you have some cash to spare and you're really comfortable using Calibre or you're a nerd for making apps like BookFusion work. It works really well and is incredibly convenient once you get it set up (especially when you want to read on your phone or tablet offline), but even I, someone who works in tech support for a living, had some trouble with the initial sync and ended up duplicating every ebook in my BookFusion library, making for a very tedious cleanup session.

Option 4: On a Self-Hosted Server Using Calibre-Web

Do you enjoy unending confusion and frustration? Are you okay with throwing fistfuls of money down a well? Do you like putting in an incredible amount of work for something only you and maybe a few other people will ever actually use? If so, self-hosting Calibre-Web on your own personal server might be a good fit for you!

To be fair, this is likely an experience unique to me, because I am just technical enough to be a danger to myself. I can give a brief summary of how I did this, but I don't know nearly enough to explain to you how to do it.

Calibre-Web is a web app that works on top of Calibre, offering "a clean and intuitive interface for browsing, reading, and downloading eBooks."

I have a network-attached storage (NAS) server on which I run an instance of Calibre and Calibre-Web (through the miracle that is Docker). After the initial work of downloading all the fic I wanted to save and transferring it to the server, I'm now able to download all new fic pretty much via email thanks to FanFicFare, so updating my fic archive is mostly automated at this point.

If you're curious, this is what it looks like:

Pros: The interface is clean and intuitive, the ebook reader is fantastic. The Discover feature, in which you are given random books / fic to read, has turned out to be one feature worth all the irritation of setting up Calibre-Web. I can access, read, and download ebooks on any device, and I can even convert ebooks into another format using this interface. As I mentioned above, updating it with fic (and keeping the Docker container itself up to date) is relatively automated and easy now.

Cons: The server, in whichever form you choose, costs money. It is not cheap. If you're not extremely careful (and sometimes even if you are, like me) and a hard drive goes bad, you could lose data (and then you have to spend more money to replace said hard drive and time replacing said data). It is not easy to set up. You may, at various points in this journey, wish you could launch the server into the sun, Calibre-Web into the sun, or yourself into the sun.

Step Six: Profit!

That's it! I hope this was enough to get you moving towards archiving your favorite fanfic. Again, if there's anything here you'd like me to expand on, let me know! Obviously I'm a huge nerd about this stuff, and love talking about it.

[peltk9]

A Simple (relative!) Way to Save a Lot of Fanfic to EPUB at Once

Disclosure: This is a relatively simple way. There are still a lot of steps and requires a little bit of computer know-how. However, many other processes involve copy-pasting URLs one-by-one, which, for 100+ fics, takes a long time.

This guide is particularly meant for Fanfiction.net works, which, at the time of writing, can no longer be downloaded in bulk from the Calibre FanFicFare plugin (rip in peace). FicHub can still reliably download from FFN, and there is a FicHub CLI to bulk-download from a list of URLs.

Regarding AO3: Using FicHub CLI with AO3 appears to be a bit finicky. FicHub CLI is more likely to give up on URLs in longer lists. Your mileage may vary. Personally, I recommend either the in-built AO3 downloader (one-by-one downloading only) or the FanFicFare Calibre plugin (for bulk downloading). EDIT: there is also this python program from tumblr user nianeyna: https://nianeyna.tumblr.com/post/659921552559783936

Regarding Wattpad: It does not look like FicHub can download from Wattpad. However, FanFicFare can download from Wattpad.

What You Will Need

Windows PC (theoretically this will work on a Mac or Linux, but will require different steps vis-à-vis python and the command prompt)

Firefox

Python (version 3)

Notepad++

fichub-cli

If you don't have Python installed, and don't know how, please follow this tutorial: https://realpython.com/installing-python/#how-to-install-from-the-full-installer (if it asks to create an account to view, open in a private window)

(I know the full installer works for the purposes of this tutorial, but you'll need to make sure you install pip--under Customize Installation--and add Python to the PATH. I am unsure if the Windows App version does both of these.)

Install Notepad++ from the official site: https://notepad-plus-plus.org/

If you installed Python correctly, then to install fichub-cli (https://github.com/FicHub/fichub-cli):

Open the Command Prompt in Windows (Windows search bar "cmd")

Copy-paste the following: pip install -U fichub-cli

Hit 'Enter'

Wait for the Command Prompt to do it's thing . . . and you're done!

Instructions

Getting the URLs - FanFic dot Net Favorites version

(These instructions are specifically for the Favorite Stories on a user's account, but can be modified to get any story URL on any page of FFN.)

Open Firefox and go to FFN. Now go to the mobile version of the site by clicking the smartphone icon on the top bar, left-ish side of the screen. You can also replace the 'www' in the URL to 'm'.

Log into FFN if you aren't already, then go to your account > Favorite Stories. The reason why we're using the mobile site is because it won't paginate your favorites. All your favorite stories will be all on one page, which means it's only one copy-paste for everything.

Right-click anywhere on the page and hit 'Inspect (Q)'. This will pull up DevTools, which will give us a nice place to get all the URLs. Look at the left-most panel in the the 'Inspector' tab. It should have a bunch of HTML code in. Find the <tbody> that's right before a bunch of <tr>...</tr>.

Right click the <tbody>, Copy > Inner HTML.

Open Notepad++. In a new file, paste in that Inner HTML we just copied. This is where we extract just the URLs for the stories from the mess of HTML by having some fun with regular expressions.

Open the Find & Replace in Notepad++ (Ctrl+F, or on the top bar Search > Replace ...). In the window, make sure you're on the 'Replace' tab. In the bottom-left-ish of the window is some Search Mode options. Select 'Regular expression' and check the box labeled '. matches newline'.

In 'Find what': .*?(/s/\d*/1/) In 'Replace with': $1\n

At this point, you should be able to click 'Replace All'; but if you want, click 'Find Next' to see Notepad++ highlight the first place it finds a regular expression match and click 'Replace' to see it change that highlighted section to just the /s/ . . . /1/ part (the /s/ . . . /1/ is the story URL on FFN). Depending on where your cursor was when you first opened Find & Replace, you may need to click 'Replace' once or twice even after 'Replace All'. You may also need to move your cursor to before the very first letter.

Once you've clicked 'Replace All', you should be left with a long list of partial URLs, looking like /s/ . . . /1/. There will be one section of unneeded HTML, probably near the bottom of the page. Manually delete it to leave only the URLs.

Now to change those partial URLs to a full URL. Open the Find & Replace again. In the Search Mode, select 'Normal'.

In 'Find what': /s/ In 'Replace with': https://m.fanfiction.net/s/

Click 'Replace All' (and maybe 'Replace' once or twice if needed--move your cursor to before the very first letter if needed) and now the list of partial URLs should be full FFN mobile URLs.

Save as a .txt file with whatever name you want.

Using FicHub CLI

First and foremost make a new folder somewhere on your computer. Name it whatever you like, but remember where it is and what you named it. Take the TXT file of URLs and move it into that new folder.

Open Command Prompt (Windows search bar "cmd"). In Command Prompt, navigate to the folder you made. If you don't know how to change directories in Command Prompt, this guide can help: https://www.howtogeek.com/659411/how-to-change-directories-in-command-prompt-on-windows-10/

For example, if I made a folder called 'FFNDownloads-2024-01-01' on my Desktop, I would type: cd Desktop/FFNDownloads-2024-01-01 in the command line and hit 'Enter'.

Once the Command Prompt is looking into the folder where your URL list is, type the following into the command line: fichub_cli -i [NAME].txt

Replace the [NAME] with the name of your URL list file. So, for example, if I named my URL list 'ffnurl.txt', I would enter: fichub_cli -i ffnurl.txt

Hit 'Enter' and the FicHub CLI will start it's magic. It can be a bit hard to read what's happening, because some of the text is dark blue, but it will print out how many URLs it finds, then check if there are duplicates, and then go through them one by one and start downloading them into an EPUB. The EPUB files will be saved in the same folder the Command Prompt is currently looking in--which should be that folder you just created.

There is a progress bar at the bottom of the Command Prompt with a rough estimate of time left. If you have 200 or more URLs, FicHub CLI can take an hour or more. Leave the Command Prompt alone until you're done. If you need, you can still use the rest of your computer, including the Internet. Just be careful to leave the folder and Command Prompt alone until the FicHub CLI is finished.

(Why does it take so long? As a general rule, polite internet behavior for robots, like the FicHub, is to ask websites for things slowly. If a robot asks for a lot of things quickly, it can overwhelm the website and make it difficult for the website to work properly. Some internet spam attacks do this, asking for a lot, quickly in order to disable a website. FicHub CLI is slow so that it doesn't get flagged as spam.)

Once FicHub CLI is done, it will make an output.log file. You can delete that if you want, it's basically a copy of the TXT file with the URLs inside. If there were any problems, FicHub CLI will also make an err.log file. Both LOG files can be opened in Notepad++ or in the default Windows Notepad. The err.log file will have a list of any URLs the FicHub CLI couldn't download, for whatever reason. I've found that if I make a new TXT file with just the error URLs copied right from the err.log file and re-run FucHub CLI on that TXT, most of the time they will be downloaded without problem.

Any lingering error files (hopefully less than 10 at this point, if any), you can go through the https://fichub.net/ site to download them one-by-one.

Et voilà, you have successfully downloaded a lot of fanfiction, all at once, as EPUB files. Once Python and fichub-cli are installed, then the process can be repeated to get any new or updated fics. All you need to do is create a TXT file of URLs for new/updated fics, and FicHub CLI will do the rest.

[etraytin]

So I dug down into all my old backup files and the stuff I've shoved into OneDrive over the years and after 45 minutes of very painful searching (and trying to remember my damn Yahoo password) I dug up the master list of forum posts I was working from to do the Josh/Donna Fanfic Forum archiving project, and more importantly, I was able to put PGoffline back on my computer _and_ find the .db3 file that actually contained the forum data I downloaded and saved in 2020. It seems to all still be there!

That leaves me with a conundrum, though. i could try and get back to work on the project, or at least try to find someone else who wants to work on the project. I'm not actively in the West Wing fandom anymore, though, and I honestly have no idea how many people would even be interested in the archive or helped by its existence. Archiving these stories is a lot of very tetchy work, and I don't want to just pour another few hundred hours of effort into the void.

What do you guys think? Is it worth it to untangle all the threads on this old project and try to get it moving again, or should I just leave it and trust that the bulk of the fics in question probably got scooped up somewhere else?

[wowbright]

I've gone to make this post a couple times this year and never posted it because most of my top posts were loooong. But this morning, I remembered, and just in time: This is Tumblr! I can edit a post before posting it! So I deleted the bulk of those long posts, and if you want to read them, you can click through on the little links.

Also, I wrote this little introduction!

Interesting and very relevant to post #2 that none of these are related to my fanfic or Glee, the two main reasons I am on Tumblr.

Without any more to-do:

I posted 3,369 times in 2022

That's 2,354 more posts than 2021!

516 posts created (15%)

2,853 posts reblogged (85%)

Blogs I reblogged the most:

@coffeegleek

@lucy8675309

@thnxforknowingme

@1908jmd

I tagged 3,294 of my posts in 2022

Only 2% of my posts had no tags

#fanart not mine - 223 posts

#klaine - 223 posts

#signal boost - 212 posts

#gpoy - 205 posts

#ofmd - 198 posts

#to read - 194 posts

#fandom - 190 posts

#kurt hummel - 160 posts

#fic rec - 140 posts

#us politics - 136 posts

Longest Tag: 140 characters

#this story isn't just about falling in love—it's also about trauma & grief and the role beliefs play both in creating & healing those things

My Top Posts in 2022:

#5

Controversial take: AO3 is an archive, not a social media site. If you have no intention of keeping your fics up after you leave a fandom and are just going to delete them, maybe you should post them only to social media and not use up bandwidth on AO3.

You've already put your words out into the world. Other people have already read them, and likely downloaded them. They are no longer only your own. You cannot make them disappear from the world, so why are you trying?

Orphan your works, don't delete them.

283 notes - Posted April 8, 2022

#4

You know those straight guys who seem really nice and awesome, but then complain about their female friends "friendzoning" them? As if being nice to a woman entitles you to her affection and her body? As if her agency, her own desires, ultimately don't matter that much?

So they're "nice" guys, but they're not actually kind or generous?

Marcus in Young Royals is the gay version of that.

He seems great at first. Just the kind of guy that Simon needs around him. Someone who's easygoing, who likes him, who supports him, who's uncomplicated and open and doesn't require much work.

Read the rest at:

387 notes - Posted November 18, 2022

#3

Since I'm seeing anti-voting posts on my dash again, and Tumblr is even *recommending* them to me, let's be clear about this--

Voting is one of the most basic tools for participating in American government and policy. It is not perfect, but it is there.

The people who say that change is possible without voting, that protecting minority interests is possible without voting, rarely lay out a course for how those things could be accomplished.

Sometimes, they make vague promises that "activism" and "pushing for change" is what is needed instead of voting. This makes no sense. Engaging with elected officials is an inherent part of activism. Voting is a way of engaging with elected officials. Voting is activism.

No, some say. Not that kind of activism.

Okay, then what kind of activism?

Historically, the only way to accomplish change without voting is through physical force, i.e. warfare.

That's right. Warfare. Like the Civil War, or I guess what we will soon be calling Civil War I.

Read the rest at:

556 notes - Posted July 1, 2022

#2

I was thinking about a conversation I had with a fellow writer a while back and I think it might also apply to fandom.

He was upset because his partner did not read much of his fiction. His partner was supportive of his writing in every other way--supporting his need to have space to write, asking questions about it, being a listening ear during brainstorming, encouraging him to make friends with other writers, etc. He (the partner) had never said anything belittling, discouraging, or negative about my colleague's writing.

But he didn't read much of it. The writer I was talking to wrote sci-fi, and his partner didn't read sci-fi. In fact, he (the partner) was not a big reader of fiction at all.

I told this colleague of mine something that I had decided about my own relationships: my friends, lovers, acquaintances, relatives, etc., have no obligation to be my fans. I met almost all of them outside of the context of writing. Our relationships are built on those things: common history, common non-writing interests, common social circles, common humanity. They didn't decide they liked me or wanted to hang out with me because of what I wrote. And I didn't decide to hang out with them because I thought they would read my stuff.

Read the rest at:

685 notes - Posted June 12, 2022

My #1 post of 2022

I wish there was a way to block "cute animal videos" that are actually depicting mistreatment of animals. People physically manipulating pets to do things that they clearly do not want to be doing is not cute. People provoking irritation so that their cat or dog makes the funny sound they make when they are irritated is not cute. People making pets of wild animals is not cute.

1,538 notes - Posted April 14, 2022

Get your Tumblr 2022 Year in Review →

[gisellelx]

Hello! I just finished Stregoni Benefici this past weekend, and I need to thank you for writing this and putting it out into the world.

I was obsessed with Twilight in high school, but I hadn’t discovered the world of fandom yet. I really came back to Twilight this past year. This time, I was fascinated with Carlisle. So I started exploring the fandom and searching.

I found Ithaca is Gorges first, and tore through it. I knew you had a deep understanding of him as a character. It’s beautiful writing and I love it. I’ve been slowly making my way through the rest of your work.

I saved Stregoni Benefici for a bit because this seemed to be THE fic in your body of work. I needed to mentally prepare.

Your writing and Stregoni Benefici, in particular, has given me all the feels in a way that I don’t think any other piece of writing has made me feel. I am twisted in knots over this story in the best way, particularly with his human years. I’m grateful to have discovered your writing and to experience Carlisle through it. Thank you again for writing, sharing, and keeping it around for people like myself to find now.

What a delightful small missive. Thank you so very much, and forgive me for taking so long to reply to both this and your AO3 comment.

SB was a tour de force of writing for me. It was actually what I wanted to write basically from the moment I posted "The Talk" and realized there were readers out there who thought it was fun to read fics from Carlisle's perspective. It's the thing I like most about fanfic--there's no question about whether there will be broad appeal. People get into their narrow groove and read what's in their groove and that's more than enough for me.

The thing I liked most about SB was getting to put some flesh on side characters and original characters--giving POVs to Elizabeth Mason and William Cullen, who we know existed via canon but we know next to nothing about--and to Aro, whom we know a little bit about but who can be a much more complicated character. And then there's Carlisle's vampire friend who I'm not going to spoil because I know I have at least one person reading right now who is still in advance of finding out who that character is.

There's a lot of potential in this canon. There still is, 14 years on from when I first read the series and started writing fic. It seems I might pull back on occasion, but I'm not sure I'll ever be quite done with playing with it. And I'm always happy to share. At least for the foreseeable future you can always find my fics at gisellelx.com and I've tried to keep reasonably high-quality ebook versions of them available for download. I did the bulk of my writing during a time when all the major Twifics were ripping each other apart to get book deals and any time a fic got popular at all, it would disappear so that the author could turn it into a novel. That had nothing to do with why I was writing fic, and I never wanted my readers to worry mine would disappear, so I've done a lot to make sure it never does. Take it, read it, share it. Fic makes the world go round.

[kiveriah]

TUTORIAL: How to bulk download fanfics

(This probably wont show up at the tags so every rb is greatly appreciated)

I had been looking for a while for an easy to use mass fic downloader who does not require coding knowledge and could run in the background and I found it in plain sight,  AO3 FAQ - Unofficial tools 

First you need to download Calibre (it is free and quite easy to use). Windows, Linux and Mac support. 2022 updated. Install and open the app.

Now you need to download the FanficFlare plugin. 

Go to preferences > Get plugins to enhance calibre > Type “fanfic” > Install

(click for image quality)

When it is done you will see this. [Desc. A “FanficFlare” icon/button will be added next to the others and by clicking the down arrow you will get multiple options]. Im only going to talk about 2.

>Get Story URLS from web page

>Download from URLS

>Get Story URLS from web page

For my example I will be using AO3 since it is the only website im familiar with. Go to your profile and copy your Bookmarks link > paste it  > click ok

This option will download all of your bookmarked fics.

!!!! It will only work with your PUBLIC Bookmarks !!!

>Download from URLS

This is for your private bookmarks or random fics you want to download. First open all tabs manually and then for Safari (Chrome surely has a similar option) open the Sidebar > the first icon will say how many tabs you have open > right click and pick “copy links”. This will copy all of the links (and sometimes the titles too). You can use this site to get the links only. Paste the links and click ok.

You can save in any format, add covers and update fics if they already exist but the have a new chapter.

General

When you click ok you will get asked if you are +18 if any of your fics has mature content, click “Yes to all”, if true. NOTE: sometimes it will ask you for your user/password if the fic is protected, you can just skip it and download that fic manually.

It will take a while to fetch the metadata; when it is done at the bottom right corner will be running a “Jobs” spinwheel and when it is done loading you will get a prompt asking you to add all of the new fanfics to your library, click ok.

!!! it is important to not open AO3 meanwhile the program is working so you don't get delayed !!! (the archive has a limit on how many clicks can a person make per second so you don't want to go over it)

And that’s it, enjoy!

[nianeyna]

Well folks I've been sitting on this little script for ages and finally decided to just go ahead and publish it. What does it do?

you can enter any ao3 link - for example, to your bookmarks or an author's works page - and automatically download all the works and series that are linked from that page in the format of your choice. if there are multiple pages, the script will page through results for you until there are no more fics to download

you can check your fanfic-savin' folder for unfinished fics and automatically update them if there are new chapters. you can also check for new fics in series!

if you're a dinosaur who uses Pinboard, you can back up all the Pinboard bookmarks you have that link to ao3

don't worry about crashing ao3 with this! this baby takes forever to run, guaranteed. anyway ao3 won't let me make more than one request per second even if I wanted to so it's quite safe

I've been working on this for about two years and it's finally in a state where it does everything I want and isn't breaking every two seconds, so I thought it was time to share! I hope y'all get some use out of it.

note: this is a standalone desktop app that DOES NOT DO ANYTHING aside from automate clicking on buttons on the ao3 website. Everything this script does, can be done by hand using ao3's regular features. It is just a utility to facilitate personal backups for offline reading - there's no website or server, I have no access to or indeed interest in the fics other people download using this. No plagiarism is happening here, please don't come after me.

---

2024 update

This is now a fairly mature project that I've been maintaining for quite a while (3 years?? omg), so let's do an FAQ

Question 1: Wait, a python script? That's scary! I don't know anything about running python scripts!

Answer: You don't need to! When I published this program I knew that there would be people who would want to use it that did not know anything about running python scripts. To that end I have provided extremely detailed instructions (accessible at the link above), which have been fine-tuned over the last three years to make them as absolutely easy to follow as possible. Not only do you not need to know anything about python scripts to use this program, you don't even need to know anything about computers at all. Try it and see! ;)

Question 2: I already use Calibre and FanFicFare to download fanfics - isn't this the same thing?

Answer: Nope! In fact, one of the reasons I created ao3downloader is that I tried FanFicFare and found it unsuited to my needs.

- FanFicFare requires a lot of configuration to work well. I wanted something that would get out of my way and just do what I needed it to do with as little prompting as possible. ao3downloader has sensible default behavior that will do what most people want it to do without too much pre-work.

- FanFicFare doesn't handle multi-page downloads very well - you need to enter the link to each page of results individually. What if I want to download dozens, or even hundreds of pages of fanfic? (Honesly, even two pages is too tedious for me...) I want to download all of the results I'm interested in, not just one page at a time. ao3downloader can download up to five thousand pages of fanfiction in one go if you're willing to let it run for that long... and that limit is only because 5,000 is the maximum amount of pages that ao3 itself will show you in a search result.

- FanFicFare doesn't handle ao3's rate limit very well - you need to babysit it and fine-tune the amount of time it pauses between downloads. I want the downloading process to handle itself, so I can completely ignore it until it's finished. ao3downloader will automatically pause when it hits the rate limit, and automatically resume when the rate limit expires. You can also quit ao3downloader entirely, and it will do its best to resume at the same point you left off when you turn it on again.

- FanFicFare uses its own download format, which doesn't match the files I download from ao3 directly - I want them to be consistent. ao3downloader downloads fics using the native download buttons from ao3, so it's exactly the same file as if you downloaded them manually.

- FanFicFare has an option to check incomplete fics for updates, but it relies on you telling it which fics in your library are incomplete. I don't want to have to keep track of that. ao3downloader can scan your existing files for incomplete fics and identify them for you, then check ao3 for updates and only re-download the ones that have new chapters. (It can also scan for incomplete series, and do the same thing!)

Question 2a: That's all great, but I need Calibre's organizational features.

Answer: Me too! That's why I import all the fics I download using ao3downloader into my Calibre library after I'm done downloading them.

Question 2b: That's all great, but I prefer FanFicFare's download format and I don't want the native ao3 one.

Answer: ao3downloader has a special option for this which instead of downloading actual files, will simply harvest a list of links to give to FanFicFare. You won't get ao3downloader's rate limit handling or automatic update functionality, but you will get to avoid entering individual page links! If you choose, you can also include detailed fic metadata in the links download (such as title, author, summary, tags, etc) which will be saved in spreadsheet format.

Question 3: Do I need to enter my ao3 login information? What happens when I enter my login information into this program?

Answer: You only need to enter your login information if you want to use ao3downloader to download archive-locked fics, or to download a page that is only accessible when you are logged in (such as your history or subscriptions). Hopefully the reason behind this requirement is obvious. If you don't need those things, you can simply skip the login prompt and the program will work fine! That said, if you do log in, here's what will happen. 1) ao3downloader will save your login information to a file so you don't have to enter it every time. (If you don't want your login information to be saved, you can turn this behavior off using the included .ini file - just open up the file named settings.ini and read the instructions inside to configure it.) 2) then, ao3downloader will use your login information to log itself in to ao3... aaaand that's it. It's not stored or sent anywhere other than your own computer and archiveofourown.org. In fact, there is absolutely no tracking or spyware in ao3downloader of any kind - I don't even know how many people have downloaded it, let alone what you type into it. And that's the way I like it!

Question 4: I thought of a feature that doesn't exist yet that would be really cool! Can you add it?

Answer: Very possibly! Feel free to contact me via one of the options listed in the readme (that's the page linked above) if you have a feature request.

Question 5: Do I have to pay you?

Answer: Never.

Question 6: But I really want to pay you... do you have a ko-fi?

Answer: Yes. It's on the github page in the sidebar.

Question 7: Does it work on mobile?

Answer: No. :( but watch this space... there may be certain things on the horizon. we'll see!

[klaineccfanficlibrary]

Hello! I was hoping you guys would help me with something? Is there a list for rainjoy’s Klaine fanfics? I’m new to this fandom and I’ve just recently discovered their writing and I absolutely loved all of their work, tho live journal is so confusing to me I don’t get it and I tried clicking on their profile to get more stories but I don’t know how to find all of them.. if you guys can help me I would highly approve it.. thanks so much

If you go to Rainjoy's LJ page, at the top, click on recent entries, then she separates by fandom, so look for ( Glee!fic, Kurt/Blaine ) and you'll get the list of all of her stories. Also, you can bulk download all of her stories:

My first fifty Glee! fics are available for bulk download thanks to the very patient 📷ravelqueen, thank you honey ^^ Up to date as of June 2012! for PDF: http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?ptwuan8sspcvyp3 for epub: http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?smzkgw6v3n6h95k

And finally, if you search rainjoy on the library, you'll get to all the library posts for the fics that I have read and shared here. Enjoy! ~Lynne

[juuls]

You might think the worst part of having a top tier network architect in your home is that your internet is the equivalent of a master mechanic’s home garage full of lemons and dumpster fires, but really, it’s the questions you get like:

Dad: “Juulna… Why is this fic from AO3 you downloaded called ‘Hot Pink Banana’? …… and why is it about a ‘sonic dildo’!?!????”

*

Me, internally: (‘If that’s the least offensive thing you found…..’)

*

Dad: “What is it with you and bulk downloading everything from this one author all at once?”

*

Me: “It’s polite!!!”

*

Dad: “You can’t seriously expect me to take you seriously when you just downloaded a story from the HP kinkmeme, can you?”

*

Me: “How do you know what that is…”

*

Dad: ……

*

Me: “Give me access to what you download and your browser history, then.”

*

Dad: “…… no.”

*

My brother: *trying to disappear back into the depths of the basement because he’s aro-ace and getting super uncomfortable but still listening at the closed door because we can hear him snort-laughing every so often*

*

Mom: *cackling*

*

Me: “Mother dearest, you still double click everything on a pc and ask me how to turn the TV to HDMI so you can watch Matlock and other Zoomer TV stuff. Do not judge me.” (I un-ironically love all of it though lol)

*

Mom: *slides a list of things she may be interested in reading off fanfic sites to my dad*

*

Dad: “oh. my. god”

*

Mom: *raised eyebrow, nonchalant* “It’s not my fault your daughter introduced me to the gayest murder shows of the era in Hannibal and Killing Eve.”

*

Me: *after laughing my ass off and composing myself finally after high-fiving mom* “You taught me before I was 10 to do crazy things on the internet (I distinctly remember thet time you were proud of me for turning the internet back on after midnight when the dumb timer you built in switched things off mid-helping a friend) and then get you to teach me more things, and to be unashamed of myself. This is your fault if anything, that you have to read the absolutely batshit, insane, sexually weird titles about fictional people having a lot of fun, okay? At least I haven’t had sex in years — be grateful.”

*

Dad: “I sometimes think that would be the better option.” Also him:

Some life lessons we as a family would like to impart, since we know so many of you feel ostracized by those you love because of fandom:

All jokes and laughter and embarrassment aside, my dad fully supports my writing and reading of fanfiction, even over my ex-husband when said man was calling me a whore, and this was over polyamory fic at that — he’s amazing…… He’s even read all my fanfic, even the smutty and filthy stuff (and my mom did too because she is super epic too but a whole other kettle of fish)! Because he (and mom, and even my brother who listens to me talk fic forever even though it bores him to tears) supports and loves me and wanted to prove to my ex what a real man/real person who loves someone is like and how they treat those closest to their hearts:

As humans. Not degenerates. It was getting remarkably Orwellian in that household, up to and including stalking me and planting viruses on my computers and stalking my internet haunts which is really the exact opposite of what my dad does (white hat versus black hat). Even hacked and deleted all my fics. And shot up my gaming computer with an AR-15. Then ‘accidentally’ broke my laptop. It was isolation, pure and simple. And scary as fuck. Bastard.

He and my brother also told all this to my ex’s face, in person after they drove 1600 miles just for the occasion. Within a month I’d left.

But that’s another story. This story is about the correct way to do things!

So yeah. Dad could…. just do without the titles of some of these fics I choose to download to my Kindle over the LAN being slammed into his eyeballs at light speed, which unfortunately cannot be helped at times in his line of work messing around with new network infrastructure at home. Happy to broaden his sexual horizons, though. In an entirely evil daughter way. Not the gross way.

He doesn’t intend to spy and has been remarkably hands off and goes out of his way not to do anything remotely like spying, teaching me how to protect myself even from him at times, and like….

It’s so cliché but I’m pretty sure I could never date or marry a man again (unless there are two of them or a woman to balance it out) because I’d constantly be comparing them to my dad and how supportive he is of me (and I know how unusual that is and how lucky I am 💜) and they’d just never be good enough. Not after the last clusterfuck of a man. I’ll stick to the ladies if I ever get back in the dating ocean again. At least then there’s no weird comparisons, ugh (yes I am a drama major and I know—)

Teach your daughters well. Your sons too. Don’t teach fear. Trust and love and respect go so very, very far. Let them be weird. Let them explore. Teach them where the line is. Teach them to toe it. Teach them to respect others and their fantasies.

Fantasy is not reality, but fantasy can create a sort of reality hellscape you wish you could save your child from.

Teach them to recognize those flags before it’s too late, by being the example of people they should have in their lives as friends and companions and partners in crime and— well. 😘

And for the love of all that is lovely out there: talk to your partners about fic before becoming more serious. Please. People have died from this. I nearly died. I fled before he got home with his gun. It was not something I woild risk. So many others have paid the price—over fanfiction. Because assholes can’t accept it.

Let’s change that.

Let’s change the next generations.

So fathers… be good to your daughters.

(And all other gender-associated or non-associated beings. ❤️💜💙💪🏻💋)

[ryqoshay]

Unstable World: Attack on Paragon

Flagship: YohaRiko Vanguard Ships: AiRina Words: ~2k Rating: T? Fandom: Love Live Sunshine, Love Live, Love Live Nijigasaki AU: A dimension other than ours Time Frame: ??? Event: step! zero to one! Event Source: Idol Fanfic Heaven channel on Discord Content Warnings: Depictions of War, Fantasy Violence

---------

Author’s Note: Second chapter posted for today. Be sure to find and read “Temporary Respite” before this chapter.

Summary: The device you found a few days ago pings. When you pick it up, a message displays “Update Downloaded.” Update? The last entry you read was about how their world was preparing to attack their invaders and they were sending out a bunch of archive devices so others could know their history. And you assumed that really was the end of it. The archive was what it was. If the people of that other dimension survived and sent out new archives, it was doubtful one would randomly reach you. But an update? Did they just... send raw data blindly through the void and hope it reached the devices they sent out? Strange. Nonetheless, you are curious, so you find the new file and begin to read.

---------

“Long live the Empire!” the troops shouted on the flight deck of the Hinome.

Yoshiko glanced at Riko, her eyes seeming to ask for one more shot of reassurance. Though she had just given another rousing speech to her battalion, she remained a little uncertain about some things. Her hair was still white, her eyes still gold, and her body still warmer, but at least she was no longer increasing the temperature for meters around herself.

But as far as Riko was concerned, and as she had told her wife multiple times, Yoshiko was still very much Yoshiko. Thus, Riko smiled and nodded.

Yoshiko shifted her shoulders to summon her wings, which were larger than before and pure white. Next, she forged the… light? energies within her into her favored weapon, a sizable scythe, no longer metallic black, but glistening white. Finally, as always, she spun the weapon in a grandiose display and finished with a dramatic pose.

It was no surprise to Riko that Yohane’s Little Demons cheered as loud as ever. But what pleased her more was the genuine smile Yoshiko displayed as she realized she had retained her troop’s respect and honor. Although based on the events of the last battle, and the last several weeks, Riko suspected her emperor had earned even more adoration than ever before.

“Alright, Prelude, let’s get ready as well.” Riko said to her companion.

“Aye ma’am.” The dog replied before beginning her transformation into her newly upgraded mech form.

Yoshiko reached to her ear and changed her communication channel to global. “Everyone ready?”

A chorus of affirmations filled the channel; Nishikino, Konoe, Ayase, Takami, Kazuno, and many others. The military forces of the world, though scatted across the globe to defend strategic locations from a counterattack, all stood ready to attack a single target, the dimensional coordinates from which the Paragon had attacked last.

The device found by the Imperial Ocean Floor Scavenging Fleet had been turned over to the URS for examination, though the Empire’s Hanamaru and the Kingdom’s Kotori were invited to collaborate. Nearly two weeks later, Rina’s team produced thousands of devices to open rifts leading to the Paragon homeworld.

It took another week for Yoshiko to convince Queen Yazawa, President Uehara, and a few other world leaders to join her in a combined attack. No longer did they need to stay on perpetual defense, their resources and populations whittling away in the war of attrition. It was time to take the fight to the Paragon themselves.

“Standby for my mark.” Yoshiko ordered before flapping her wings to take off. She turned her head and… “Eh? Riri?!” She scrambled to switch her comm back to the local channel.

“I’m coming with you.” Riko stated as she flew alongside her wife.

“B-but it’s just a quick recon to assess the enemy strength before we deploy the bulk of our fleets.” Yoshiko insisted.

“I’m coming with you.” Riko repeated, firmer than before.

The couple began to hover a hundred meters or so ahead of the Hinome and Yoshiko pulled out the rift controller.

Suddenly, a dozen URS sky fighters blinked into existence around them.

“We’re also going.” Setsuna stated.

“Well, Setsu and Ai-san at least.” Ai corrected. “The rest can wait for the attack orders.”

“You’ve already recovered?” Yoshiko questioned the squadron leader.

“I was pretty much recovered shortly after Phobetor-san dropped me off on the Datenshi, because one of your alchemists gave me an amazing potion.” Setsuna grinned. “I was about to borrow a mech and rejoin the battle, but you ended up finishing it too quickly.”

“… Sorry?”

Setsuna shook her head. “That wasn’t what I meant. I loved watching you fight; it really was a miracle to behold.” She paused for half a second. “As amazing as Ohara-san’s new weapon was, I wonder if your new battle form deserves the title more?”

“… I’m… not sure?”

“Anyway, the Empire’s healing potions really are something else. I’m coming to you guys next time I get banged up in battle.”

“Say, speaking of the Datenshi,” Ai spoke up “you guys did some heavy rework on her.”

“Sadly, we had to scrap the Datenshi, after Chika decided to use it to protect some of the other ships from those stupid tentacles.” Yoshiko admitted while Riko decided not to correct the term to arm. “Anyway, the Hinome is our new flagship now.”

“It matches your armor.”

“Yeah…” Yoshiko glanced down at the gold painted leather with white trimmings. “You designed it and Zuramaru made it… and Riri convinced me to wear it…”

“Well Ai-san, for one, loves it.” Ai grinned.

“Two with me.” Setsuna added.

“Thanks.” Yoshiko smiled.

Part of Riko wanted to say I told you so to her wife, but she simply smiled as well.

“Wait!” A voice called over the comm. “We’re coming too! We’re almost to your location.”

Riko turned to see a flight of dragons approaching, backed by a Μνήμη airship that could pass as the Jardin de Verre.

“The recon crew just keeps getting bigger…” Yoshiko sighed. “And let me guess…” She looked up.

“Ahaha! You found me!” Mari laughed as she dropped from above. “<Surprised?>”

“Not in the slightest.” Yoshiko responded. “Is that everyone? Is the recon squad big enough now? I hope so ‘cause I’m opening the rift.”

Riko felt her pulse quicken in anticipation, both of the upcoming battle as well as seeing a different world. The rift between dimensions opened and the recon crew followed Yoshiko through. Unconsciously, Riko held her breath, until…

“This…” Yohshiko breathed. “This isn’t the Paragon homeworld.”

“How do you know?” Honoka asked.

“I’ve been there, remember?”

“Oh, right… sorry…”

Riko scanned the barren landscape before them and knew her wife was telling the truth. This was nothing like the world Yoshiko had described; no structures anywhere to be seen, no bustling activity from millions, if not billions of Paragon. The world they had stepped into was nothing but rock, oh, and water behind them.

“So, if this isn’t their homeworld…” Setsuna thought aloud “What is it?”

As Riko continued examining the area, she began to notice small markings in the stone.

“What is it, Riri?” Yoshiko asked as Riko flipped down her lens.

“This is just a theory,” Riko started “but, based on the markings I’m seeing, I think this is a staging ground."

"I believe you are correct." A new voice stated from behind everyone.

“Rinari!” Ai greeted joyously, flying over to glomp her wife. “When did you get here?”

“Just now.” The Chief of the URS Army Corps of Engineers replied. “I came as soon as it was confirmed this was not the Paragon homeworld. I have recovered additional data from the device and wished to confirm it.”

“Confirm what?” Yoshiko pressed.

“That this entire planet is a staging ground for the Paragon’s invasions of other worlds.”

“So, what, after they killed or enslaved everyone here and stripped all of the usable resources, they just… use the remaining husk as a platform to prepare attacks?”

“I believe that to be the case.”

“So… if they come here from their homeworld, can we get there from here?”

“I do not know.”

Yoshiko let out a frustrated sound.

“I need more information. That is why I am here.”

“Uhm guys…” Honoka spoke up. “We’ve got incoming.”

Sure enough, hundreds of rifts were opening all around the area. A second later, ships and troops began to pour out.

“<Here we go!>” Mari cried, opening fire.

“All air fleets! Attack!” Yoshiko ordered while those around her began to engage. “Rina, send the appropriate coordinates to our surface fleets and ground forces.” She pointed to the sea behind her and the land in front of her as she mentioned each type of force. “You, Dia, you’re good to go once you’ve received the corrected data. Same goes for everyone else!”

More rifts appeared, but these ones allowed the combined forces of the Empire, Kingdom, States and whatever other nations had offered support to enter the battlefield. In seconds, the all too familiar din of battle filled the area.

“Setsu!” Ai called to her leader. “I’m going to hang back to help Rinari. You go on ahead. We’ll call it your win for our kill count contest this time.”

Setsuna shook her head. “The two of us can defend Rina-san that much easier together. I’ll stay back as well.”

Ai grinned in response.

“You guys are under Yohane-sama’s command for now.” Setsuna told the rest of her squadron before following Ai and Rina to the ground.

“Alright everyone, you know the drill.” Yoshiko said to those around her. “Do not let a single Paragon reach our rifts. And keep an eye out for any giant squid tentacles.”

With that said, Yoshiko fanned out a set of burning white daggers and sent them toward the enemy. Phobetor charged into a Paragon soldier and nearly swallowed it whole. Riko unleashed her whip sword and lasers. Mari fired her usual eclectic variety of munitions from her mech. And Honoka directed explosive blasts, Umi lightning, and Rin scalding sea water from their respective dragons.

Moments later, the big guns arrived and ships both on the water and in the air began to shell the enemy ranks. Eventually, the ground troops were able to set up their mobile cannons and joined the barrage.

As with all battles in which Riko had fought, minutes seemed simultaneously like hours and seconds. With every foe she felled, it seemed two more emerged from the rifts. And eventually, she began to wonder if their forces would be overwhelmed.

Until she realized that no new enemies had entered the battlefield for a while. How long of a while? She didn’t bother to check her chronometer. But the enemy ranks were definitely diminishing.

“Hey, are they retreating?” Honoka suddenly asked.

“I think you’re right.” Yoshiko replied.

“Tsushima-sama.” Rina’s voice came over the comm.

“Yes, Rina.” Yohsiko replied.

“I have located a terminal and have gained access.”

“You can read the Paragon language?”

“No. Hanamaru-chan gave me a translation device she built with Kotori-san.”

“I see. Can you get us to the Paragon homeworld?”

“No. The Paragon have activated a self-destruct mechanism.”

“For what… this staging area? There’s like nothing here.”

“It is for the planet.”

“Wha…”

“We have five minutes.”

“Everyone!” Yoshiko shouted. “You heard Rina! Retreat! Back through the rifts! Now! Anyone able to carry ground troops, do so. Leave any slow-moving vehicles if necessary. Leave the artillery too, we can always make more. I want to see everyone back home in three minutes!”

As she gave her orders, Yoshiko dove down, grabbed a pair of straggling soldiers, and teleported them to the nearest rift. Riko and Phobetor immediately followed suit, though were a little slower as they lacked their emperor’s teleportation. Within seconds, every airborne troop was carrying at least two soldiers.

Two minutes later, Yoshiko was scanning the area to make sure everyone had made it through. Once satisfied, she was the last to escape and closed the rift behind her.

“So,” Yoshiko started, as she and those around her made their way toward the Hinome “did we at least prevent the Paragon from invading us anymore?”

“Technically, no.” Rina replied.

“Technically?”

“The world they just destroyed was one of many.”

Yoshiko released a frustrated growl.

“However, though I was unable to stop the self-destruction program, I was able to duplicate it, and send it to all other staging planets that were linked to our dimension.”

“Wow, way to go, Rinari!” Ai cheered.

“As well as several others for good measure.”

“Well done.” Yoshiko said. “Thank you, Rina. It seems you’ve dealt the biggest blow to the Paragon out of all of us.”

“We should celebrate!” Ai suggested.

“Absolutely!”

“Unfortunately, I do not believe the Paragon threat is over.” Rina stated solemnly.

“Awww…” Yoshiko whined.

“It may be days, weeks, possibly even years before they establish new staging grounds, but the data I’ve collected suggests they will. They will return eventually.”

“Well, I say we still celebrate the peace we’ve got while we have it.” Yoshiko decided.

“First round is on me!” Mari declared, earning cheers from the troops around her.

Riko smiled as she listened to her allies continue to talk and looked forward to a night of festivities the likes of which few alive today may have witnessed. Perhaps, for the first time in their lives, everyone could find a moment of stability in this unstable world.

---------

Author’s Note Continued: So there we go, the core story of Unstable World. However, while writing this, I came up with a ton of other ideas that I would never have been able to fit within my chosen 10(+2)k word count limit. Although even if I had chosen the 20(+4)k tier, I remain uncertain if what I have currently could have reached that goal, and if I would have had time to write it.

That said, I do fully intend to write at least some of these ideas at some point, as well as an arc I’ve had planned for a while that was actually supposed to be the introduction of this AU. But plans change, I guess. Heck, I was also intending to introduce Yohane’s “bionically accurate” battle form in a completely different story, but I stalled out on that and have been slowly pecking away at it where I can. So spoilers for that, I guess?

Finally, per the intent of the event, this core story will remain its own thing. Everything else I write for this AU will take place either in different points along the timeline, or be from different character/faction perspectives. I will not directly add to this core story in such a way that the new stuff will be required reading to understand the original story. All new chapters will be in their own separate collection, much like PoH-PP or MA-FH, and will serve the purpose of supplementing and enriching the AU.

[advocacy-as-monstrosity]

“fanfic pocket archive library” is not “theft.”

I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice. 

The application is here on the Google Play Store, and here on the App Store. 

It is extremely up-front about not being affiliated in any way with the Organization for Transformative Works (OTW), the non-profit that runs the Archive of Our Own (AO3). 

According to the image at this tweet, the OTW doesn’t believe they have grounds to report or sue this app, and they’ve confirmed that while it is displaying AO3 content to its users, it’s not bulk scraping or storing it from AO3. 

A user of this app, then, is requesting content from AO3 through an interface the OTW doesn’t control, and AO3 is fulfilling that request. I strongly suspect that you have used technology not controlled by the OTW to access your own content and others’ content, in particular, most people access AO3 through a web browser like Chrome, Safari, or Edge. 

This app is a special-purpose web browser, for displaying pages from AO3 in a modified format that makes downloading and offline reading easier. That’s all it’s doing. That’s why if your work comes up in searches on AO3, it’ll come up in searches on this thing, too. 

The OTW has repeatedly, firmly said that they don’t have the bandwidth to build mobile applications for AO3 while the site itself is in beta. 

Elizabeth Minkel has said will see a more formal statement from OTW Legal soonish, but I don’t expect that statement to be extremely different from what I’ve said here. 

[agallimaufryofoddments]

Update: It took a little over a day, but I’ve now got a backup of this blog via Tumblr’s export option. It became obvious why it took a little over a day once I began the download; the ZIP file amounted to 2.82 GB. 

More details in case anyone is thinking of exporting their blog/currently has a backup processing and is curious: 

The unzipped folder (2.88 GB) contained a media folder, a messages.xml file, and a posts.zip file.

The media folder unsurprisingly made up the bulk of the data for me (2.87 GB on MacOS High Sierra, 2.96 GB when I extracted the full ZIP on my FAT32 formatted USB) - I guess I was just surprised that I’d managed to accumulate nearly 3 GB worth of images, gifs, and videos over time.

I’m...not sure why, but the unzipped posts folder is 23 MB on my Macbook and 191.2 MB on my USB. In both cases, the posts folder contains an html sub-folder and a posts.xml doc.

Total size of the backup is 2.9 GB on my laptop, 3.16 GB on my USB.

Note: I downloaded and unzipped the files on my (currently dying) Macbook first, but I’m glad I thought to unzip the ZIP file on my differently formatted USB too... you may want to do something similar?

I’ve also heard that for some people their downloaded folder turned up empty...? Part of me wonders if maybe they weren’t using the right extractor, but I don’t know any details there. 

I’ve also also heard that content below [Read More] cuts won’t transfer over, but I’m not sure if that’s ubiquitously true; I decided to try looking for my Claire-Elmer comparative analysis (which was in response to an ask) in my posts.xml file, and I did actually come across the under-the-cut text. Keep in mind I was using Tumblr’s native [Keep Reading] option; I can’t speak for manual read mores. 

^^It does also seem, then, that the .xml file at least is preserving asks. (Searching <question> in the .xml doc = 200+ results). I’m even finding my drafts, which is...surprising.

As you might imagine, messages.xml contains your instant messages and not your inbox messages.

One more thing; the native Tumblr export tool isn’t the only option you have for exporting your data. I believe there’s a github link floating around that’ll help you export your blog via external menas, though I think it doesn’t handle inbox asks or drafts...

Honestly, regardless of everything Tumblr right now, it’s a good idea to backup your data anyway. I’m a bit put out with myself for not doing it sooner, especially given that I semi-frequently backup the Baccano! Wiki. Speaking of backups...if you’re someone who types your fanfics directly into, say, AO3′s or FFN’s draft/document text boxes... 

First: don’t do that; and Second: backup your works there while you’re at it, too. 

[alteredphoenix]

In Every Song A Heartbeat  (WoW/ToLuminaria)(Celia/Michelle)[Tentative Prologue + Chapter Notes][First Draft]

A/N: So I’ve been plunking away at the ZM Fic for a couple days (which, as you can see above in the header, it finally has a title!), and as I’m trucking along trying to get a cohesive plot outline going - which is condensed as a table of contents in a separate notebook - I thought to myself Let’s try writing a prologue from an OC’s POV and share it, because initially my plan was to just start things off with Celia and Michelle wandering into Zereth Mortis during a scouting mission they’re sent on by Lisette in Silvayer by sheer coincidence because some Xy saboteur managed to get a portal open while the Enlightened was distracted pushing back the Cartel/Mawsworn/Dreadlords and BOOM go from there.

Which leads me to my current problem: if I should include this prologue in the actual, main story or put it in a separate fic that acts as an anthology to other side-stories a’la gap fillers/missing scenes and character-building chapters that might not be able to fit into the former. Not because this prologue is bad (although the bulk of it certainly had me trimming and retrimming it several times because I got the impression that, while it was trying to describe the greater conflict a’la the Jailer and the Mawsworn, it was going too off-track from what the journal entry is supposed to be about aka love as a powerful, recursive state of being that is being tested to its limits by external influences beyond the control of both the Enlightened, the Alliance and Horde, and the Covenants), but because I’m not sure whether or not it’s really necessary to include it outside of it being a small lore-building introduction, since:

a) As it’s already mentioned, if the prologue were to be included then the next chapter would immediately have the girls wind up in ZM, like, almost right after a short timeskip a’la shortly after Sylvanas wakes up in Oribos (but this could work as a case of “the readers know but the characters don’t”, except this probably defeats the purpose of the ZM Fic being explicitly described as “a very loose adaptation of Eternity’s End experienced from an outsider’s POV”, in which case having a prologue chapter describing the conflict and just describing it again to the readers would make it pretty redundant),

b) They’re going to find about the Iteration later on anyway from another broker campsite, and they view it differently as a force of nature called the Resonance that some brokers that are more religious go so far as to consider it a prophecy lain down by the gods they follow, the First Ones, and just happen to attribute it to the girls because they’re not from Azeroth/Draenor/Outland/Shadowlands and thus are not personally affected by the Jailer’s war (YET), and,

c) This particular broker camp plays a very minor role a’la serve as a starting point to where the girls end up and settle in Haven for the duration of the fic; and I like to think that when they are told about the Iteration from another camp, they’ll hear the other points of view from their first camp and others a’la Haven (which most consider to be a load of bunk and, even if it’s true, shouldn’t be shared with outsiders that shouldn’t be in ZM), Pilgrim’s Grace (the whole ‘gods work in mysterious ways, if it happens it happens because of something we did’ shtick), etc.

I took great care not to tip off the reader that the POV and the camp aren’t human or from Luminaria’s world (which...AFAIK...doesn’t have a name...?), and this being a perfunctory first draft I think I can tidy it up a bit more so it remains vague.

Most of the inspiration for this chapter and its ideologies stem from a Star Fox fanfic trilogy called The Books of Fox McCloud set in an AU world that practices Christianity, two of its stories being The Unonian Rose and The Significance of the Rose that are complete. Unfortunately, these two and the third and final story (which was never completed OOF) are no longer available on Fanfiction.net and can only be found by downloading and extracting them from the Fanfiction.net Pack off the Internet Archive. (I also understand that religion, especially Christianity, is a pretty contentious topic in this day and age, but those fics were written in 2007-2008, and while I was never religious to begin with I always did like how innocently they were portrayed. So even without the context behind this inspiration, I like to think that kind of ‘innocent, honest love that survives all odds even through death’ is universal. Maybe too idealistic and optimistic, but something to aspire to.)

-

For every story that is told, there must be a song to accompany it.

So many songs I have heard in passing whenever these threads are woven and spun, in those days when I knew only glory and greed. There are such stories that reflect my own with similar endings, and yet there are those same stories that do not end so gallantly, so powerfully, so wonderfully it would reduce the audience to fits of passion. Fairy tales and fables and poems laced with triumph, tragedy, sweetness, tartness—as small and inconsequential as the walls of one’s home to as far-reaching as the chaotic horrors and wonders of the spaces that construct their patterns to all that may hear, see, and pay respect to the lands that would be devoured and birthed anew.

Every song must be a story, but not every story must contain a song: it is but the way of creation and, by rote, the pattern in which the gods have made reality. Were it all the sound of music, I’d wager there would be little silence to be had for concentration! Oh, but I digress; I have known people that find luxury and motivation in the madness, the lights, the uproar of voices. Although I prefer my storytelling to be conducted in contemplative quiet among the drone of the eidolons and the trill of ambiance from the workers outside, I can appreciate the beauty within such calamity.

Much as I would like to, I cannot hear all these songs at once, and that is my greatest shame to bear. For every second that passes into a minute that becomes the hour and extends into eternity, there is music: the crescendo, the decrescendo, the diminuendo, notes, pitches, the stanza, the pattern of rhymes. Ah, but the voices—the voices. In all the realms that I have traveled and all the worlds I have visited in my days as a chronicler have I never found nor heard such articulated beauty as a voice in melody. A group which raises their voices to the high heavens is pleasant to hear, but a single voice, especially one joined by another in duet? Oh, it is harmony. Oh, it is unity. To join one’s voice among another and dance as the song is sung and the dance is spun is closest to reaching perfection. It is the grand design the gods have laid out for any one person, that we have been granted these instruments so that we may give praise and homage to for being alive.

That, I believe, is the definition of love.

It’s such a wonderful feeling, isn’t it? To be moved in ways that could be so easily put to words but at the same time be transcendental beyond any mere connotation. The response, our response, is universal: it is warm, it is comforting, it is divine. It has the power to instill flame into the meekest of souls and has the strength to force the coldest, hardest hears to their knees. We have been blessed to feel it, understand it, and to give it freely from one unto another from the gods, though we are undeserving of it. It is through our bodies and our voices that we express our gratitude to them and hope that our love shall be reciprocated. From these acts we create a union that is all-encompassing, fulfilling, and pure. It is an honest love that would survive even death.

I do not know if the other caravans adhere to this in the same manner we do, but here in our camp we have a word for this. My colleagues have seen this crop up time and again during our research into interpreting the lords’ tongue across the various plaques and facilities scattered throughout the lands; and although there is still much debate among us, we agreed that this note, this song, is integral to not only being in communion with them but ourselves as well. It is not just a fractal—it is a state of being, and it begins with the resonance of two alike minds.

We call it the Iteration.

Some of my colleagues have discussed that it would be more appropriate to call it an Iteration rather than the Iteration; what one person uncovers as love, another will find a different meaning to it and respond accordingly to that particular whim, and they are not quite wrong in that assumption. No song nor sound is the same, for if they were then it would make for a very dull if quite noisome existence! However, I think that is a rather cynical way of viewing the Iteration; I feel that line of reasoning comes from our more sinful, wayward days prior to our revelation, and it does not surprise me that a few of my brethren find my thoughts hypocritical if not heretical in regards to the laws the other elders have established among the caravans.

And I do not blame them. In fact, during those moments, when darkfall is heaviest and only the chorus of the bufonids to keep me company as I recite my prayers and pen my thoughts by the buzz of the lamplight at my desk, I think they are right. It is a very whimsical, hopeful idea to cling to, one that I should have moved on from long ago, when I was younger and more innocent. Everything that we are and everything that we are driven to do is based on imperfection, that the only way to achieve perfection and unity is to put our faith and trust in the gods, the one true beings that are, have, and will be perfect. To hope that there exists a kind of love that is bereft of the problems that can sully it in one fell stroke, or taint it in a way that will be deteriorate over time and be turned into hate, is to hope too much. Something that perfect, that whole, is simply unattainable.

Maybe they are right. Maybe I am being too idealistic to hope that something like that is possible. Maybe it is too much to even imagine what that would be like. The gods have plans for all of us, even though we may turn away from them for but a time, in disbelief and thinking we know better than them, but it is a plan we must follow to the end all the same. Those plans will be rife with tribulations that will test our resolve and make us want to desert and leave the path we have decided for ourselves. To desert it would mean to abandon the gods and ourselves, and to abandon one another means to abandon love and give in to our doubts and despair.

Yet even as the darkness closes in around us, even as the peace we have known for so long is disrupted by the discord of unholy monsters and their cruel masters, even as all they have shown is hate—for what has been taken from us—and given us grief—for what has been lost to us—and will continue to pursue those dark roads to their bitter end, I must have hope.

I must have hope that our love for the gods will be strong, and that the love they have for us will be strong enough for us to endure.

That is our Iteration. It is my Iteration. And I am sure, if I were to risk leaving the safety of the shield and make the journey across the Veldt to the camp that sits therein, it would be their Iteration as well.

It does not hurt to hope, does it? To hope that the darkness that has desecrated and plagued this sacred land be banished from whence it came and protect that which we hold dear, even as we push through the wounds that are inflicted upon our hearts. To hope that even when it seems twilight reigns supreme and the dawn out of reach, even when those same hearts are mired in turmoil and cannot see past the fog of turmoil they are lost in, love will still be there.

That is why I believe in the Iteration. Something, someone, must be out there to give back that hope. Not only to my brethren, but to everyone that has chased the darkness here and fought to bring back the sounds and the music that the trees and the rocks in their crevices, the wind and the grains of sand carried on its wings, and the water that flows from down high on the mountaintops used to sing.

There must be. Even those that have weathered the storms of war and heartache must have the strength to remind us that we are not alone...and that we cannot give in.

“Sir!” The door to the chamber whirled open behind him, and he did not have to look up to see the shadow of the protector standing in the threshold. The glow of his energy blade tossed a teal light over the walls. “Enemy forces have been spotted by the Path! They’re carrying translocators! What are your orders?”

He rested his hand next to the journal and bowed his head, thinking. Then he looked up, staring at the inactive lamppost on the wall, where it would soon be switched on for darkfall. “We cannot take any chances. Gather with you whatever servitors are still in functional operation and go with Ratashi and Ivect. Take the portal and redirect its coordinates to cross over the mountains. If we are lucky, we should be able to intercept them before they breach the gates and prepare the light step cyphers. Go now, with haste. I will join you.”

“What?! My Elder, you must stay here!” said the protector. “We cannot afford to put your life in danger!”

“What sort of leader would I be if I cannot stand among my kin and fight? I would be remiss if I were to confine myself here while you are putting yourselves on the line.” A terse silence fell, to which the protector uncertainly shuffled his lower leg articulations. The Elder sighed and twisted round where he sat, giving the protector a reassuring flare. “Forgive me, brother. I am not mad. I appreciate your concern, but I would not forgive myself if I did not do my part—and that part includes ensuring that not a single one of those translocators goes off.”

“Elder….”

“You have your orders. Go. We have no time to waste.”

“Sir!” The protector saluted and dashed out of the vault. The door shortly closed in on itself.

The Elder turned back to his desk and spared only a moment at the lamppost. Then he picked up the pen, shook it so that the ink loosened in the case, and set the tip to the flimsy once more.

A long, arduous road awaits us. I fear that it will break more than its fair share of people by the time this war will come to an end—far more than I and everyone else spread across the realm will see and hear about.

But I believe victory, and peace, will be within our grasp. If we reach hard enough and strain against this ill, misbegotten wind, then we will have it. We need only seize it.

We need not forget who we are, lest we fall from the grace of the gods. We must remember the Iteration.

Then and only then we shall be able to move forward and love again.

[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 stairwaytostarclan@gmail.com. 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.