#ch: brightheart

[octerminal]

my dragon daughter!!!! is all grown up!!!! and hyuge!!!!

[burning-thistles-bt]

ThunderClan Age List (Ch. 160) For Fun

idk it just tingles my little funky monkey brain

ThunderClan (oldest to youngest)

Smallear - ~96 moons

Halftail - ~82 moons*

Dappletail, Speckletail, One-eye - ~78 moons

Goldenflower - ~62 moons

Whitestorm - ~53 moons

Frostfur - 48 moons

Spottedleaf, Willowpelt - 47 moons

Runningwind, Mousefur - 39 moons

Darkstripe - 36 moons

Firestar, Creekflower - 35 moons

Sandstorm - 33 moons

Longtail, Cherryfur - 31 moons

Dustpelt - ~26 moons

Graystripe, Feathercloud - ~24 moons

Missingheart - ~19 moons

Cinderpelt, Brackenfur, Thornclaw, Brightheart - ~16 moons

Cliffwhisker - ~13 moons

Cloudtail, Ashpaw, Fernpaw, Tulippaw, Elderpaw - ~12 moons

Mistlepaw, Snowpaw - ~9 moons

Bramblepaw - ~8 moons

Sorrelkit, Rainkit, Sootkit - ~4 moons

Redkit, Sweetkit, Spotkit - >1 moon

*Halftail (Sparrowpelt) is the only one without any possible birth speculation. He could, theoretically, be older than Smallear or younger than the she-cat elders.

[sigurdjarlson]

Heartbreaking thought of the night - Diily and her sisters will most likely see Brightheart pass in their lifetimes and it hurts

She’s far older than they are, she grew up alongside their mother.

And she’s still spry as ever right now but eventually her age will catch up with her. Her muzzle is a little grey currently but she’s still got a lot of years left in her.

But Diily will know when it’s time. She’ll know it’s coming when Brightheart struggles to get up to greet them, when she can’t walk with them or hunt for them (she hasn’t been able to ride her for a very long time now at this point) And she sleeps more often than anything now and Diily just knows.

But when Brightheart passes it’s with all her children (both elves and saber) curled around her. She’s lived a good life. She’s fulfilled her duty. She protected, cared for and loved them for so long but they’ll be okay now without her. She knows that. She did good. She dies happy and loved and is finally reunited with Laeona. (And now alongside their parents she’ll wait for the day she can be reunited with them once again)

But oh god my girls will be devastated when she dies. (Diily will take it the hardest but they’re all be so fucking heartbroken. Ouch ouch ouch)

She’ll be the first to greet them when they too pass. Because god she’s missed her children so very much and now she can run and hunt with them again, free from any pain or limitations.

[mallowstep]

been having an extended discussion about jayfeather in the comments of my ao3 and i think for my own sake i need to just vent for a moment.

fuck.

okay, here's the thing. i don't think jayfeather needs to be equally competent, or even a warrior.

one day, i will write about jay's relationship to medicine, but i like to think both him and cinderpelt find satisfaction in it, even if they didn't initially choose it.

take, e.g., stolag — i didn't have to make cinder a seer. i could have chosen not to. and we haven't gotten to jay yet so i can't talk about him, but i do have a pretty thought-out plan on him.

or, in httg, jaypaw struggles with fighting. this is a fluff fic, so i didn't want to dwell on it, but...

"I can't even beat Icepaw in battle training. Icepaw! And she's been an apprentice for, like, half as long."

"You'll get there," Squirrelflight said. "I promise."

"Not if I can't beat Icepaw."

and this is jay's pov, but he admits that lionpaw had to be going easy on him, both because of his power and because he's just not...really there.

if i wanted to backfill httg as angst, i could, but i won't, because it's my fluffy lil au to tide me over until i can write the po5/jaywing au i want to write.

anyway, hollypaw flattens jaypaw in like, two seconds.

right, but like...fuck! just fuck!

it exceeds my research abilities to find info on how blind feral cats cope, but i have to believe...it's not great, but not terrible.

factor in near human intelligence, and i find it hard to believe jay isn't capable.

and again, i don't think he's equivalent. that's a big theme in ashes: jay is not the same, even if he is still equal. in ch 10. of ashes, we get this scene:

Brightheart stands close to him, and Squirrelflight realizes she's standing close enough Jaypaw can feel her signal. He flicks his tail — he hears something, and he's calling it. Squirrelflight doesn't know what he's found, but Brightheart nods, her tail brushing his, and he crouches, and pounces.

which oof that first sentence is a lil rough whoops but the point here is, he's not the same, he needs help, he can't function on a standard silent hunting patrol.

but. the conversation began with "i'm angry kate won't give us a jay novel/la because he's blind" (i don't mind not getting one, i mind not getting one because he's blind), and i followed it up with "i don't like that the author stated he doesn't leave camp very much"

like! fun fact: people have blind outdoor cats who like to go outside. i don't agree with this because i don't agree with outdoor cats, but, just, argh.

anyway, i'm waiting til later to write a response because...yeah i'm not coherent, but i needed to vent. if you're the person on ao3 who i'm discussing this with? sorry i just needed to express my full feelings in a not Polite Discussion way.

i think you have good points, i just needed to cram all of my thoughts into one place without padding.

[everybody-loves-purdy]

Hello ‘purdy! It’s pebblewhisper :) i am still rereading thru the old books and am on the last hope again. I had some interesting thoughts about ch 16. Jayfeather is trying to find flametail in starclan to convince flametail to tell the med cats that jayfeather didn’t murder flametail. I didn’t remember this but thought it was interesting that due to the dark forest cats “rising” star clan is going through leaf fall, even though it is supposed to always be green leaf. A lot of the star clan cats have lost weight as prey is scarce, they are hiding together within their own “borders” that they created due to yellowfang scaring the rest of starclan and being counterproductive etc. I’m bringing this up because i’m wondering if things are so bad rn in broken code that due to assfur’s trickery, starclan is in leaf bare or in a similar state to what we see now. I also wonder why the lost spirits who can’t reach starclan seem to be in pain? Like they aren’t just lost but definitely seem to be stranded somewhere. So are they fading away like bramblestar? Or is this somehow different since bramblebutt’s body is still “alive”. Idk but i assume if starclan has a leaf bare they starve eternally until starclan is restored. Thoughts? i also wanted to sumbit this as i remember recently people were debating if characters like brightheart and briarlight would be um “restored” to their original health prior to dog attack/tree incident. I personally feel 50/50 on the issue and like both sides to the arguement. But in this chapter jayfeather sees longtail in starclan and is sight is restored. But doesn’t crookedstar still have his crooked jaw? Maybe they get to chose? But i’m not really sure maybe it is just inconsistent or forgetfullness on the erins parts.

Hi Pebblewhisper!

Yeah I don’t think we’ve actually had StarClan described properly in this arc yet so it would be very interesting if it was in leaf-fall or even leaf-bare rn

I haven’t thought about the pain thing before. I think maybe they might be in pain because Ashfur is restraining them so they can’t go where they need to go? Also the fact he seems to be trying to control them, they seemed fine in Veil of Shadows so something must have changed since then to cause them pain. Maybe the amount of cats that died in the battle had something to do with it?

With the disability thing it could honestly be either forgetfulness from the Erins or personal choice of the characters tbh. To me Longtail having sight again makes sense since the clan literally didn’t allow him to do anything while he was blind so I imagine he might want his sight back due to the way he was pushed aside as soon as he became blind? Meanwhile Crookedstar seemed very accepting and eventually proud of his jaw after staying at that barn. Also there’s that thing Vicky mentioned ages ago that the cats are restored to the time in their lives when they were happiest, but I have no idea whether the new Erins are following that. I think they should get to choose for themselves what they want to be like in StarClan, but I wouldn’t put it past the Erins to automatically get rid of the disabilities of all disabled characters and claim that all the characters are happiest that way. I really hope we get a disabled protagonist next arc which doesn’t get forced into the elders or medicine den. Please Erins give me deaf Frostkit of RiverClan as Mistystar’s successor

[cruelseason]

Frostfur

Thunderclan Queen

Frostfur is a small, long furred, beautiful, purebreed white Turkish Angora queen with bright, aqua eyes. She has a long plumy tail, soft fur, and dainty paws.

Mate: Runningwing Kits: Dustpelt, Brightheart, Cinderpelt, Thornpaw, Brackenfur, Snowsong (biological), Shrewpaw, Spiderpaw (adopted)

Formerly a kittypetl, Frostfur met Runningwing when he was a young cat, still a messenger. Runningwing, as part of his duties, would often travel to the Town and speak to kittypets about the local news, and he took a liking to Frostfur. Intrigued by his wild life, she went with him to Thunderclan and asked Sunstar to make her part of the clan. He agreed, and though she trained as a warrior, once she and Runningwing had their first litter of Dustpelt, she found that she loved being a mother, and became a permanent nursery queen, something Thunderclan had been lacking up to then. She is stern but patient, and loves her life in Thunderclan, raising all the clans kits and spending her days with her mate.

Formerly known as CH Winter's Glow “Snowbelle” Shimmering Snow.

[ponytailzuko]

c a l en bro what if ATLA and LOK's fandom treated zuko's scar like they did brightheart's from warrior cats?? (for context,, people constantly down play the size of her scar to such an extreme point, which is hella bad because her arc is accepting herself and making her scar, which is meant to be at least half her face to just her eye or a s c r a t ch because it "looks better")

i think the reason people don't downplay zuko's scar compared to brightheart in warriors is because of the nature of their media (cartoon vs book), but i think i'd cry if the fandom drew zuko's scar like how it looked in the movie (aka similar to a sunburn)

[whos-wanshis-favorite-purrbeast]

m y favorit e purrbeast s ar e brighthear t and jayfeathe r!

Oh!!! Those are s∩ch good faves!!

Brightheart is j∩st… so good. She went thro∩gh so much and she’s so bea∩tif∩l and so strong and… Brightheart is so good.

And Jayfeather! A wise boy! A good boy! And, as often joked by the fandom, a stick-loving boy! I love him and his siblings, they’re good and wholesome p∩rrbeasts and deserve good things.

[sigurdjarlson]

You know, Diily remembers the days Alaluria and Ladelia were born vividly.

With Alaluria she was scared to touch her since she was so small (and Diily was quite young herself) and she wasn’t quite sure of this little thing..until Alaluria grabbed her finger and just held onto it, all big golden eyes and innocence.

And she remembers her mother telling her that this was her baby sister and she had to be there for her always. Because no matter what happened they would always have each other.

And Diily remembers feeling the strongest urge to protect the tiny helpless life in her mother’s arms.

She’s always taken her duty as Big Sister very seriously.

It was the same with Ladelia except she was less unsure and frightened. She was like gimme my baby sister, mama lmao. Poor Allueneth barely got to hold his new daughter that day between Laeona and Diily.

Alaluria (toddlerish age) didn’t respond as well at first. Because Ladelia was taking up everyone’s attention! Including her big sister’s and there was that typical child-like fear she would replace her but Laeona caught on and sat them down to talk about it one day so she could be assured she was still loved.

And she was still a little wary of the new addition to their family but Ladelia was pretty cute..and once Diily set her in Alaluria’s arms and little baby Delia smiled and giggled at her (and later fell asleep) Alaluria was sold.

Having a baby sister might not be so bad after all.

Diily carried both of them around everywhere as babies. They’d just hang on her like a koala until they were too big to do it anymore.

If they weren’t on Diily or their parents they were on poor Brightheart who would accept the accidental fur pulling with grace.

Alaluria’s first word was “Diily.” To Diily’s absolute delight.

Ladelia’s was “Dada.” (Diily’s was “Mama.”)

And Diily remembers this all surprisingly vividly and cherishes those memories. (Though they haunted her during Alaluria’s absence)

Listen to Light by Sleeping at Last and that is Diily with her baby sisters okay. Like every single lyric fits so perfectly and it warms my goddamn heart.

[octerminal]

[octerminal]

[sigurdjarlson]

The fact Diily hasn’t lost a hand or a finger somehow to some kind of creature is honestly astounding. Gotta give her credit there

Some close calls but so far she still has both hands and all ten fingers

Like oh yes she’s generally very good with animals but well, accidents do happen even with experts

[sigurdjarlson]

Laeona is hiding between her grandma’s paws what a cutie

i mean...i certainly wouldn’t try to get at that little kitten. what about you? ;) 

[mallowstep]

I wanna hear about the PO3 au's the anon left out! skyclan, loner, po5. Im guessing loner is Crow/Leaf raising the 3 outside of the clans. I love hearing you talk about your au's!

aww thanks! okay, same plan as before, details below the cut.

skyclan po3: it's, uh, pretty on the nose. crow and leaf run to skyclan with their kits.

loner po3: this is a catch-all term for three aus with similar premises, but i don't have a clear/short title to differentiate them. one is leafcrow, one is mothpool, and one is just leafpool. i'll talk about each of them.

po5: this is my internal name for the jaywing au. this, if you don't remember (and why would you), is a bit of a parallel to the dovefeather/med cat dovewing au where jaykit and dovekit are siblings.

skyclan po3: "they move on tracks of never-ending light" (title song)

the au title for this in my notes was "whitewater," but i think i'm going to save something else for that. (if you're confused why i have two titles for all of the aus: when i make a big au, it usually gets a temporary title that's short and easy to search, but i replace it with a permanent title later. sometimes they stay the same, like ashes, but usually i change it.)

so my only notes on this is

crowfeather and leafpool make it all the way to skyclan with a trio of newborn kits.

and like yeah, that's basically all i've figured out.

uhhh i know skyclan will come to the lake sooner, obviously, and i know that jay's character arc plays out really differently because there's less ableism.

(even in the windclan au, jay is intertwined with ableism: in that case, it's "either you're the same, or you're not capable." but leafstar is a sensible leader who doesn't have that problem.)

otherwise, yeah, i don't really know where i'm going with this, other than i think it'll be fun to explore, since leafpool is firestar's daughter and named after leafstar.

loner po3: the common thread in all of these is what happens to thunderclan's medicine cat after leafpool leaves?

(tbf, that's a common question in quite a few aus. but it makes itself a central conflict in these three.)

loner po3 I: leafcrow. "on and on we run in loops"

uh, yeah. they run away, and stay away. this one isn't supposed to focus on the kits that much, but rather, leafpool's struggle with duty and desire.

i've got this:

“There’s a loner,” the kittypet said, her voice languid, claws extended, but with an air of ease, “named Leaf. She’s been helping out loners for, oh, a season or two.”

as a quote from it. it's my least favorite of the loner po3 aus.

loner po3 II: single mom leafpool. "between us, i'd trade you for them every time"

i've talked about this one actually quite a bit, but it's probably going to take me a while to write it. it's inspired by "butterflies and hurricanes," but instead of leafpool dying, crowfeather dies.

also, the chapter titles come from "marjorie" which is basically 90% of why it's going to take me a while to work on it, that song makes me cry a lot and uh, things are a lil Much right now.

i've got a few scenes sketched out, from holly running away, and leafpool panicking, to leafpool worrying about bringing her kits to thunderclan.

loner po3 III: mothpool. "to make a choice in all this mess"

this is the au competing with divided po3 for next po3 au to write, and i'm...i love it. (as a note, i won't write two aus for the same time period at the same time. that's why i was waiting to finish wfmisus before i got back on doahins. now it's all messy. but i get confused lmao.)

anyway, i have the least written for this, but i'm very excited. in my first warriors fic ever, "if you love me any, let me know it now", leafpool thinks this:

(Leafpool should have left. She should have found Mothwing and told her and left. Maybe pause to say goodbye to Squirrelflight. Mothwing would have gone with her, and things would be alright. Not like they are now, all tangled and impossible.)

and well. i'm weak.

i don't have a ton of concrete stuff to say about it, especially considering it's so high on the list, but i mean, i'm excited.

po5: "wing and feather"

alright, this is an old one. since it's also high on my list, i want to explain where it came from rather than what it's about, because that will cover what it's about in a broad sense, without tempting me to give away the details.

(also, w&f is a working title. much like "feather take flight," i may change my mind.)

anyway. i started getting into warriors with "cloudtail's daughter," an au where dovewing and ivypool are brightheart's kits.

in a post so old i had to go to my main blog to find it, i said this:

i also want him to be dovewing’s brother. but the au where brightheart gives birth to dovekit, anxiety child, and jaykit, blind, and feels like a failure despite the fact that its not like her half-blindness is genetic, is not this au. that is another au.

and the seeds were planted.

so right, i'm writing up ctd around when i'm first reading "flightless dove, poison ivy," which will go on to inspire dovefeather (med cat dovewing au, but as you'll see, dovefeather is the assigned working au name. after i decided i didn't like feather take flight, i reverted back to its initial working title, dovefeather.)

so i've got these two things rolling around in my brain.

dovefeather comes first, because i reread fdpi so many times and i just. i want dovepaw to stay in riverclan. i don't want her to leave. i want her to be happy. (also please! i'm still finishing ch 2 of fdpi no spoilers it's taking me embarassingly long to finish.)

but anyway, consider this a bonus au talk because explaining what po5 is, imo, requires me explaining what dovefeather is. like, in an au talk scenario. they're unrelated aus, from a reader perspective.

so i come up with this list of "things i want to be different in oots":

dovewing should be cloudtail's daughter

dovewing and jayfeather should be siblings

dovewing should be a medicine cat

dovewing should go to riverclan

ivypool should be the fourth cat (but i'm not revealing which aus this applies to bc big time spoilers)

and this creates a bit of an au matrix. pick and choose, you know? ctd is (1).

dovefeather is (3) and (4).

but i still wanted (2), and so it seemed pretty natural to make a (1), (2), and (3) au.

but that's a retrospective analysis, what really happens is, i get like fourteen "what ifs" deep, until i'm writing fic for my fic for someone else's fic. kind of.

dovefeather diverges pretty sharply from fdpi, especially based on what i've read of ch2. it takes the same core idea, and because my idea of riverclan was inspired by fdpi, there are plenty of similarities, but i think it's functionally very different, and superficially similar.

(also, hollowflight ends up in a completely different trio lmao dovepaw hangs out with rushpaw, troutpaw, and mossypaw.)

but anyway, i'm trying not to write another au of the same time period, but i just finished writing out the full outline for ashes, and the next chapter (i.e., ch 12, which i'm hopefully posting today if all goes well) gets me thinking, and i can't let it go: i want (2) to happen.

so i look at my outline for dovefeather, because the rule is, it has to be very different from this.

since dovefeather is like 70% drafted (altho that number seems low, because i suspect i'm going to end up adding a lot into the fourth chapter), i now know that was never going to be an issue, but at the time, i was very worried.

so i was like! well, that means i'm going to fuck with every part of po3, and we're going to get ivypaw and hollypaw roped in, and jaypaw is always going to be a warrior, and i think i made squilf his mentor? or maybe sandstorm lmao.

either way, it ended up being defined by jaypaw, which i didn't initially plan on. but that's po5: squilf's litter lionkit, hollykit, ivykit & brightheart's litter dovekit and jaykit grow up together.

it's got a similar vibe to ashes IMO.

okay wow that ended up being a lot i've been hyperfocusing on dovefeather all weekend, and in my head, it's inextricably linked to ashes, ctd, and jaywing/po5, so uh. yeah.

hope this was what you were looking for?

<3

[sigurdjarlson]

CATS CATS CATS

the baby is named after Diily’s mother 

[mallowstep]

Brightheart crosses the bridge, and she takes his other side. “I can introduce you,” she says. “The apprentices usually stick together, I’m sure Hollypaw and Lionpaw aren’t far.” Jaypaw looks hesitant, and his ears are moving rapidly. “Okay,” he says, after a moment.

analog (ashes, ch. 11)

brightheart is a good and supportive mentor