#in how they like to characterize the cats)

[bawmbo]

hi, thank you. youve opened a can of worms that cannot be closed

killer is such an interesting character to me. i realized that im not actually too sure where to start but ill start with his timeline;

the idea of a character whose home was slowly destroyed for reasons outside of their control and beyond what they couldve ever thought was real is an incredibly interesting concept to me. i also love psychological horror and reality breaking type of things in relation to it.

to be transformed into something outside of the bounds of definition, and live with the consequences of that, of your loss of autonomy is terrifying. to be named under that total loss is horrifying. to know that everybody will only know your name and never what you went through to get there, that no one would even really care. not that you could get yourself to. theres so much potential with the idea of someone who wants to drain your world of everything for entertainment, and they can forcefully recode it, and they do not care about you because you are just a game character to them. and you are the only one aware of this. and when youre taken out of the timeline by a strange man who can also forcefully shift your control of your situation, everyone will only know you as just as bad as him. as a murderer with no reason. and every time you look at this man (nightmare) all you can feel is the same hatred you feel for yourself. you cant help but feel like youre the same. but this isnt about nightmare as much as i really do love him and writing his character (also super passionate about him)

i have a lot of problems in general with his fandom portrayal and the fact that we either see him as portrayed as either incredibly childish, dumb, very sexualized, etc. and its okay to want to write him how you want to write him, have fun, just not our cup of tea

to us, hes incredibly agile, quiet. hes eerie and incredibly smart and much more aware of whats going on than he lets on. he has lost all respect for anyone who claims theyre more powerful than him, and the way he taunts is by bringing them back to his level (or just doing things he knows pisses them off but not enough to get him killed for it. massive staring problem and wont elaborate on it). and while he can be flirty, where i understand the sexualization comes from.

i think i just crave more in depth characterization from him. how terrifying he is during battles, how he knows the knives he fights with better than the air he breathes and the placement of his feet just as much. how he could be using his magic but its difficult to fight him even without it. the absence of what he could be doing and the presence of how difficult what he is doing showing through. his disconnection from the world around him and how hard it is to realize that everything around you is just codes. that everything is malleable in the wrong hands and everyone lives their lives blissfully unaware of how quickly things can change. and how he could be deeply angry by this but never actually feel it well in his chest like he sees with others. he isnt indifferent, and at some point, somewhere he might express that care. but he cant. and this is it. and he doesnt know how to move on from that.

maybe when he gets close to people his relationships end up showing slow signs of trust. when he does trust people is he surprised if they leave? how scared is he to depend on anyone when no one was ever there to? maybe one day he finally learns to sleep with his chest or back exposed and around people. and his version of hanging out is going "hey i know a spot" and its a 50 minute walk through a closed off forest but its beautiful. and youll probably get some diseases, just gotta hope you dont. the next place is probably a feral cat colony hiding in the sewers hes been feeding and slowly gaining the trust of. hes weird.

in general i really do love complex characters and think about them a lot. and i love seeing how complex characters can be written. i love exploring the possibilities with him and i find that when we either write him or collab stories where we write characters interacting with him, we have a lot of fun and end up thinking about him a lot.

my friend @nullandvalid is a big killer enthusiast too and if you send him an ask you could probably get a big rant too. (also @thaltro. both him and null write killer super well imo. been incredibly fun to listen to them talk about how they write him and engage in writing stories with them) thank you for giving me time to yap about it, ill probably be thinking of more in the meantime but this is all i have atm fhahaha

another one for fun, pretty experimental. this one was one of those "draw regardless of whether or not you think it looks good" things. swore to myself the next utmv character i drew and posted was gonna be fell but here we are. gonna try to get used to posting things that i dont consider my best work. hi killer love you dude

[fromtheseventhhell]

"Sansa = Ned 2.0 and Arya = Catelyn 2.0" is one of those takes where you can just tell people are more attached to the aesthetic than anything. "The Stark girls are most like the parent they look least like" sounds good on paper and people run with the idea, regardless of how it actually fits into the story. A majority of the justification relies on misinterpreting all of their characters + a healthy dose of fanon. What gets me is that this is the same fandom that insists that Lyanna, only compared to Arya in the text, is equal parts Arya and Sansa but Ned and Catelyn, two fully fleshed-out and complex characters, have to be more like one girl or the other? There's just nothing in the story to justify being so adamant about these comparisons. Arya and Sansa have parallels with both of their parents but at the end of the day, they are unique characters with their own stories. I'll never understand why people want to flatten these complex characters down to their most basic tropes and fit them into restrictive boxes just for a "poetical~" comparison.

[pinksilvace]

"There are merits to the Broadway revival choreography," I say. The crowd boos me off the stage. I walk, dejected and with my head down, to the wings.

"They're right!" A voice cries out. I look up, and there he is: Alonzo catsthemusical himself,

[nemesis-is-my-middle-name]

this is a tiny pet peeve but i think its kinda odd that people seem to like. forget, or maybe just neglect to take into account, that yellow, for whatever reason (whether he's an alt universe john or a fresh piece of this universe's KIY that kayne went and ripped off) has ALSO been trapped in the dark world prior to being with arthur and has exactly as many Feelings about it. this is a very load bearing character trait imo

[toxxtt-kotlc]

Hello! If I may, would you be amenable to expanding on your "most of you are kinda racist" tag? I do have an idea of what you're referring to with characterization for character of color, and there have been several posts about that in the fandom in the past, but I wanted to ask for clarity to know what you, specifically, have noticed. To be aware of what's happening, talk about it, correct mindsets and actions if needed

Of course, you don't have to answer and can just delete this if you'd like. No pressure. Hope you have a good day :)

hi! mostly i was referring to characterizations of the song twins and wylie and maruca. obviously posts about the issues with linh and tam have been made many times before. for the most part i think that problems with the song twins come from canon itself, but i think people in general need to be more conscientious when looking at their characters and the stereotypes that are already in them :)

and for wylie and maruca, i can't really speak on stereotypes and biases that the fandom has for them as a non-black person, but i just feel like they get put aside by the fandom a lot despite being major characters (wylie in particular)

i really feel like wylie should be an incredibly popular character in this fandom. i mean, he's just got so much... angst about him. you guys love angst. i feel like people take what makes his character so interesting and the hurt and loss that comes with him and just slap it onto another non-black character.

obviously not everyone has to be in love with wylie. but i think the reason such a hurt-and-comfort fic generating machine is ignored so much is because as a black male, he's automatically viewed as more masculine than other characters. therefore he can't be the fandom's "boohoo sad wet sopping cat" character like fitz or keefe, even though HE IS LITERALLY THE DEFINITION OF SOPPING WET SAD GOT KIDNAPPED AND TORTURED DEAD MOM FUCKED DAD WHAT ELSE DO YOU GUYS WANT FROM HIM!!!!!!!!

anyways i wish this was more eloquent but i just wrote this really quick!! these are really specific examples but i don't know how to put the general overall racism that i see into words... i'll work on that!! i also don't know how to explain the issues with fanon maruca that i see so

tldr: the song twin's characters have pretty obvious bias and stereotypes that the fandom needs to be more aware of, wylie isn't popular despite his sad cat-ness because black men are seen as more masculine, maruca's characterization makes me uncomfortable in general but idk how to explain it

please tell me if anything i said was wrong or hurtful! i am not black so you should always listen to black people before me. also i am probably biased as a die-hard wylie fan so take anything i say with a grain of salt :) would love to hear other people's opinions on this!

*also, put this in the tags but i feel like its important to say here too: sad sopping wet meow meow wylie is NOT a good interpretation/characterization its pretty shallow but he still should be getting the same treatment as other characters

[thirdtimed]

unfortunately if i ever developed the lifeseries orv au in my head in earnest i would in no capacity whatsoever manage to be normal about it at all and like. i mean it

[orions-hound]

if anyone has any questions for what my opinion on skybound is by the way

[the-cat-at-the-theatre-door]

The soft way the cats exhale the beginning of Old Deuteronomy after Coricopat and Tantomile confirm his presence; reverent and gentle. Like they've been waiting forever to see him and have been holding their breath in anticipation. How they all scramble to greet him and touch him and rub against him, young and old, not just as a sign of respect, but because they *missed* him and they love him and they are over the moon he's come to see them. Like his presence creates a blanket of comfort and safety - how some of these cats grew up right under him and still see him with the same stars in their eyes.

Everyone waiting their turn to be with him throughout the evening and leaping at any opportunity to do so, and he envelopes them each the same. The amount of comfort and compassion he radiates, even if the actor initially turns away from Grizabella during the Act 1 Memory, being the only cat to balance out the otherwise empty stage as a counter point to Grizabella's loneliness.

It's just...it's so much.

[moe-broey]

Why did I start like three other projects when I was already working on a big project when I just got hit with the autism exhaustion beam (requires. At least One Full Day just dead in bed, and then some more Taking It Easy time after)

[caracello]

i think there needs to be a point where the bennymos interactions shift from 'deimos is scaring benny on purpose as a type of revenge/protectiveness over spades' to 'this is just how they interact'. someone's like oh don't worry, deimos isn't around today he's not gonna torment you, lol. and benny's just *vaguely disappointed* oh okay.

[jellicle-chants]

Ok, I don’t know if this will be a very popular opinion, but I just don’t get the idea behind naming any of the extras from the 2019 movie or assigning them to characters from the show when they get about 30 seconds of individualization combined and none of it is like the characters they’re named after at all 🤷‍♀️

[kodokugumon]

thinking about how I imagine hawkfrost as someone who loved his sister so much. how I think Sasha told hawkfrost to protect his sister until she comes back and he keeps saying to mothwing that she'll come back and until then I'll look out for you. Until she finally snaps and says mom is never coming back. Then I think about how hawkfrost made sure to fake a sign from starclan so his sister could do something she likes doing (I'm ignoring canon hawkfrost of wanting her to put him in a position of power too, that does not exist here). And it ends in a fight between them where hawkfrost screams about how the clans will never accept them bc of their heritage. Mothwing is the best healer mudfur has ever seen but he still was hesitant on making her his apprentice w/o starclans approval. that they have to work 4x as any other cat and even then it's never enough. That he just wants her to be happy. Thinking about how I made hawkfrost want to train w/ his father, knowing he's a bad cat, just so he can become stronger so maybe his clanmates would respect him but they never will so he just sinks deeper and deeper into the dark forest and then there's no way out for him

[godblooded]

@bornbreathless asked: Rain falls lightly on the ground outside, pitter-pattering gently against great glass panes. The sun is just barely beginning to dip below the horizon after a warm day. The King in her castle is done with duties for the day, and is now splayed across the comfort of the bed, a welcome weight across Char's legs. Her fingers mindlessly run through Kitty's hair, stroking and coiling and smoothing without much thought, attention more solidly focused on the book propped up in her other hand as she reads it aloud.

the King is a King in title and name, a thing that runs deep in her bones, in the starlit marrow one cannot name that bleeds a scarlet more scarlet than a human’s sanguine concoction. but otherwise it is no more than Who she is, and has very little to do with the what. a deep purr tremors and trembles and shudders all the way through her entire body, vocal cords comfortably settling into that secondary rumble before she nudges her head quietly, sequentially into fingertips so beloved.

“t’ank yuh much.”

she butts her head ever so against a palm and stretches to press the heels of hands into a luxurious mattress, cheek finding its way to fabric. good eye peers up, a single jade marble with a pupil nigh decorated in its oblong shape. teeth are all so pointed and it lazily reveals itself in their pearlescent sharpness.

she points with a gloved hand at the book char focuses on. removed will be the sheathes eventually, but for now it remains habit. clawed points are yet still so delicate just as they are.

“yuh reayuhd ver’ prett’ly. book.”

the jumble of uselessly hapless words that come from her mouth, tired as they are, are pleasantly and happily sated. the little god is for once naught more than kitty valentine.

in her arched and unmistakably feline posture she completes that stretch by anchoring herself and rolling over, a weighted blanket entirely once more. a hand raises to complete her point with a thumb up. good eye blinks.

[pa-pa-plasma]

HATE it when people make a half animal character with like ears & a tail & stuff but it's very clearly entirely for the aesthetic & not because the creator actually likes the concept of a half animal person. those ears do not move. that tail does not tell you shit. the claws are not anatomically accurate & neither are the legs, if they choose to be a little bold & make them more obviously a hybrid & not just a person with two sets of ears. the wings are not big enough to support their weight. the doggirl is eating chocolate just fine & the catboy does not headbutt you in greeting & you do not explain why there are domesticated animal-human hybrids in a world where they arose naturally. *pointing a gun at you* make an effort.

[softstuffs]

It's not entirely on the fans. Spottedleaf's Honest Answer was a story written by Vicky, hosted on the Warrior Cats website. In which Spottedleaf notes having a romantic interest in Firepaw, spesifically dating her feelings to start around when Firepaw was caring for yellowfang. It sucks, and it's weird and gross and FOR SURE a retcon from the original intent of her character in Into The Wild but like. one of the offical authors wrote that on an offical warrior cats website. The authors have been doing her dirty since 2009. The story isn't officially archived anymore, but it was available for years and afaik no statement by Vicky or anyone else has ever been made. Vicky who, also wrote Spottedleaf's Heart. Putting Spottedleaf in weiirddly uncomfortable minor-adult relationships isnt an isolated incident, unfortunately.

There is definitely some sexism going on with how Spottedleaf is treated by the writers. Her main purpose in the plot is basically to smell nice, be pretty, and then get fridged for the tragedy. And the fact that these messed up relationships are a repeating pattern not just for her character but other female characters in the books as well is, gross! and there's something very unsettling about singling out the character whose entire character purpose is "be pretty and in love" and turning her novella into a very poorly handled grooming plot, that was completely unnecessary and actively contradicted the narrative set for her character in both the main series and super editions.

when it comes to people discussing characters within warrior cats who've been affected by the sexism of the Erin's it always kind of perplexes me that people don't really discuss spottedleaf on the same level as other characters like squirrelflight or frecklewish. I know shes a background character with no plot relevance and dies within the 13 chapters of the first book of the series, but I still find it really hard to believe that a good chunk of the fandom still believes that spottedleaf's feelings towards firepaw were always meant to be romantic and not just a side recon to make fans of the series who shipped fire x spotted happy and also because they quite literally had nothing else to do with her character because shes a female background character who served no purpose to the plot so they could write anything they want about her and write it off as canon because they couldn't bother to write an actually personality for her besides "hot doctor woman who firepaw had a crush on". and the fact she got a side book about her being groomed by a man who's been pursuing her since she was a KIT, and yet people still swear up and down that shes a pedophile due to a half ass recon about a man she had no relationship with when she was alive just rubs me the wrong way

[the-cat-at-the-theatre-door]

Do you know of any cats fanfiction blogs? I want to find new recommended stories but I don’t know where to start looking or browsing for recs

Do you mean a blog that is specifically tailored towards CATS fanfic? That's a good question - I believe at one point we had a blog like that a few years ago, you can find it here, but it hasn't been updated in years and was mainly the work of...I think three or four authors? So not very extensive. We had another one, I swear, that was more recent back in 2019/2020 (but still not updated) but I can’t seem to find that one at the moment (maybe it was deleted - I’ll take another look around). 

If you meant more along the lines of accounts that post a lot of fanfiction, you would be looking moreso for our writer pals - I can think of a handful off the top of my head. But in that case, the recommendation would depend mainly on what kind of fanfic you are looking for; a lot of authors in this space have specific headcanon bubbles or scenario preferences that aren’t going to necessarily be to your liking, depending on how you like to read things or characters. 

I guess a couple questions then reside in what you’re looking for - What characters or pairings? Old or new style fic (that opens your choices up pretty significantly)? Do you like AUs (and what do you define as an AU)? Or maybe self-inserts? Are you pro or against a lot of OC involvement? etc. etc. Once you have a general idea, it’s easier to find recs for what you’re looking for ^_^

I could leave the floor open for this one; if anyone would like to bump their writing here in the comments or reblogs, or you have recs of your own, please feel free to leave them here!