Cat Tools Guy

I am a queer adult over 20 and I use He/They pronouns. This is a side blog where I post Warrior Cats analysis and discussion, designs, and writing for WC-related projects.

Currently, I'm maintaining the Better Bones AU, a WC conlang called Clanmew, and my Clan Culture series. All of these are free to use, reference, or take inspiration from.

My side-sideblog is @bonebabbles, that's where I do most reblogs, live-read books, talk about random stuff, and discuss other media (usually xenofiction). Consider that my 'spam blog' if you will!

Please read this entire post before sending an ask or tagging me.

You are never bothering me with "like spam" or "reblog spam!"

I LOVE seeing people talk in the tags and replies

I adore asks and I read all of them! I can't promise to get to every single one though, please check out my Ask Etiquette

"Can I use Clan Culture in my project?" Yes. Please read this entire post.

Do not ping me for my AU on other people's posts. If you want to know how I will handle something, send an ask.

Better Bones AU, also called BB or BB!AU

My most comprehensive passion project is the Better Bones AU, a revamp of Warrior Cats that aims to:

Fix the tangled family tree and give it clearer rules, expanding on kinship between cats while not neglecting friendships

Make the environment accurate to northwestern England, including education on how different biomes are managed and lists of local flora and fauna

Build out Clan culture by giving the Clans tool use and food preparation, additional traditions and customs, their own language, and medicinal treatment guides from sniffles up to HRT.

Change the themes of canon by addressing (not removing) its problematic elements, giving the cats consistent politics and making the narrative conclusively anti-authoritarian.

Be cool as fuck, with wilder deaths, more clanborn villains, bloodier battles, and even MORE complicated innerClan drama

HERE IS ITS CONTENT WARNING LIST.

Its old name was #Bonefall Rewrite, but was changed as it became more divergent from canon.

Individual posts are tagged #Better Bones AU, and are sorted further by arc such as #BB!TPB, #BB!Po3, #BB!characterName, so on.

GO SEE ITS MASTERPOST OVER HERE

It even has a TVTropes Page that was created by @halogenwarrior

If you want to see or submit memes, you can hop over to @bb-fennelposting!

Clan Culture

Like I mentioned, I create extra culture for Clan cats and society (tagged #Clan Culture), with a whole bunch of guides that expand on canon-adjacent crafts, meals, medicines, and so on. Clanmew is part of the Clan Culture series.

Go check out the MASTER POST here!

These are free to use for YOUR projects, AUs, FanClans, etc.

YES even things unrelated to warrior cats. You can use it in your pathfinder campaign, rainworld project, etc.

Feel free to send suggestions or ask questions!

Other Things

Canon analysis and discussion

I also talk about the books and the general themes of Warriors! When I’m analyzing characters, themes, plots, or anything else about canon material, I tag it as #Warrior Cats Analysis.

When I discuss the newest books as they’re released, I tag it as #ASC Spoilers.

Fan Work

Was the feature of the conlang where it’s specified where information came from, with different levels of reliability, inspired by the indigenous Matsés language in Peru? It have an EXTREMELY similar feature, one that struck me immediately as similar to the one in clanmew, and I’m extremely curious if there was inspiration there or if it’s a complete coincidence!

It's probably a little above coincidence, because Clanmew is a collaboration with my buddy, @aerial-jace! He handles most of the grammar, and I handle the vocabulary.

We chat back and forth about sentence structure, what information they should be able to communicate right away, and general flow. In addition to speaking several languages, he's actually an archeologist who studies proto-Mayan culture and an understanding of Nahautl is obviously very important to that.

The Matsés language didn't come up by name, but a LOT of languages from further south did. It's very likely that Matsès has a similar concept to one of the Quecha or Uto-Aztecan languages we did talk about, or even was influenced by them.

Sooo, it's a coincidence in that it wasn't one of our main inspirations, but also not a coincidence in that we were discussing languages in the geographic area. I'm 75% sure I remember the "reliability" feature being something Jace suggested, so he's more likely to remember where the inspiration came from specifically.

The language that I tried hardest to put into Clanmew is actually Welsh. I intentionally worked Welsh into the phonology, since I was studying it at the time. We actually came up with the OSV word order before we started talking about Xavante and Apurinã as examples of the rare word order to reference.

Japanese is also probably present in Clanmew's DNA, amusingly. That's simply because me and Jace both just happen to like it, and it amuses my lover a lot when I point out similarities between it and British-English.

(Ee otenki innit bruv? Nice weather so desu ne? This gets them every time.)

Casually dropping a few deets because MMMMMM I'm really excited about some of these

Im gonna blow up Nightheart

And then I'm gonna take the pieces and glue them back together

I want her to grapple with the way that sometimes, you blow your second chances. Even more importantly; oftentimes, you have to change your environment before you can be the best version of yourself.

In canon, Nightheart NEVER ACTUALLY CHOSE HIS OWN NAME.

Bramblestar came up with it based on the color of his fur, while still forcing the legacy suffix (the thing he was actually contentious about) on him.

It frustrates me that every book after the first seems to completely forget that, leading me to believe that this amazing detail was a total accident.

So yeah. My bones now.

BAB!Nightheart isn't going to be satisfied with that. It wasn't about the color of her fur. It wasn't even necessarily about Firestar's legacy.

It was about how she felt like she had no control over her life, didn't know who she was, and didn't know how to express that without just lashing out in defiance at anyone she percieved as an authority.

SO

By the end of ASC, she needs to truly choose a name.

Right now I'm attached to the name Deltastep. In reference to how her life changed when she chose to travel with Frostpaw, when she followed her down the southern delta to learn about the true nature of patron Riverstar. The journey to the "Source of the River."

Also Delta is a really cool prefix lmao

And speaking of RiverClan

It will probably undergo RADICAL change at the end of this arc, fracturing into several camps that share a large border.

These camps then have a negotiable coalition, picking one leader from a collection of deputies from each camp.

Exact details subject to change, but I'm not satisfied anymore with there being no functional political changes between each arc. As far as I'm concerned, that itty bitty "change" to the warrior code after Canon!TBC, allowing a leader to be "impeached' after a supermajority senate vote and an additional United Nations meeting was a joke.

I previously thought about calling this new coalition the "River Republic," but I'm going to revisit the name after banging out BAB's new Vow system.

Each camp might end up taking an individual vow based on the water cycle, and then they call the coalition something like "The Rain Decree." I wish I could find a way to justify "The Sea Decree" for the rhyme, though...

Bottom line is, BAB!RiverClan is NOT going to be the same after this arc. It's going to have a breaking change with canon.

Part of what's going to he helpful about the new map me and my partner are making is that each Vow under the Decree can start to specialize in a type of aquaculture.

Instead of being stuck with the canon map, we can make ShadowClan's bog project have MASSIVE impacts on the lake ecology-- in turn, leading to more wet and submerged areas that the semiaquatic cats of the Decree will conflict with them over.

Plus.

There's probably going to end up being some ShadowClan cats breaking off to become part of the Decree.

With my freedom I can start SHUFFLING cats around based on political happenings.

Berryheart isn't going to do a harmless little vote that goes nowhere. VIOLENCE TIME.

Heartstar is going to respond to this VERY harshly, with cats like Sparrowtail being pushed to join the Decree as a result

Additionally, some will want to flee that territory completely. The other Clans will grapple with refugees AND newfound rogues and loners who choose to break their entire vow after this.

I Don't Rewrite Arcs Until They Are Done, or I DRAU TAD, if you will. However. The hammer is not enough for this arc so far. I need bombs.

We're halfway through the arc and practically nothing has happened! Just like the LAST arc! In addition to all the other reasons I've mentioned for wanting Better Bones to "evolve" into Broth and Bones... these bones just aren't interesting anymore.

Even the ideas I do happen to find compelling are sputtering out halfway before the climax (Berryheart's insurgency), ending with definitive and boring bookends (Nightheart suddenly being emotionally mature), or would straightup just work better with different characters (Canon!Leafstar vs BB!Waspwhisker).

It feels like the newer arcs are going to have increasing amounts of original material anyway, yknow?

So know this;

I am infinitely more likely to turn the Moonpool into a living being and ship it with Moonpaw than I am to pair her with Goldenpaw. I would rather build a Crackshipinator, Dr. Doofenshmirtz style, than abide by a choice that dull.

And yeah if everything goes according to keikaku (tn: plan) and Moonpaw is a Plum/Thrift kit while Goldenpaw is a Sun/Finch kit, they'll both ABSOLUTELY be struggling with the weight of being Firekin.

They're even first cousins once removed (FCOR) through Squirrelstar, who is alive to trip Onestar's Exception! It's an automatic veto over canon.

Vanilla Womanbeam or DELUXE SPECIALTY WOMANBEAM. Ideally, I'm thinking Tgirl Lionessblaze.

Especially with the trinary sense of gender, I like the idea of Lionpaw's struggle in BAB and its version of PO3 having a more direct conversation with the way that gender nonconformity is punished more harshly than transness in Vowcat Culture... and also the way that Ashfur's abuse is then compounded by factors of sexism, dedication to tradition, AND personal vendetta against both of the most important adult mollies in Lion's life.

Ashpaw helped to bury Ferncloud's victim, Fury, in his older sister Elderberry's grave. Elderberry is dead because of Willowpelt scheming with her. Working with outsiders.

It's not just Ashfur hating Squirrelflight for rejecting him in BB/BAB. It's also Lionpaw growing closer to Willowpelt, the Head of Hunting, who only got that position back after Cricketclaw's untimely death during the destruction of the forest.

To Ashfur, it's like Willowpelt hasn't been punished enough for what she did. She never could be. Even though he HATES his apprentice, he also boils with JEALOUSY that Lionpaw admires her. Wants to be like her. Might even become a secondary apprentice to her and take over that very valuable position.

Bullying Lionpaw for ever expressing interest in being a girl is useful to him-- and that's something often left out of stories about bullies. The way that ANYTHING useful, ANY trait they can get away with leveraging, is what they target.

Molly-gendered ("Yaow" in Clanmew) cats are also expected to be argumentative and perform a lot of camp-related activities. Ashfur can easily malgender Lionpaw with this. Keep her in camp (limiting how much hunting experience she gets) practicing battle moves because she's "interested in it," while also punishing her for "backtalk" when self-advocacy is expected from mollies.

Po3 has a LOT of opportunities to explore this theme with its "episodic" format, so with BAB's newfound freedom and the fact I'd like to bring a lot more of my worldbuilding into the plots themselves, it feels like it would be a shameful waste if I didn't make Lionessblaze trans.

That said.

Can you all promise to be normal about the fact BAB!Lionessblaze is going to be inheriting intersex traits from her biological mother, Leafpool.

We need to come together for a minute and acknowledge that ALL women, trans and cis, can go bald. ALL people can go bald. As many as 25% of cis women will experience hair loss, and that number tends to be higher for intersex and trans women. You do not understand how incredibly attached I am to Lionessbald. I do not care how small you think this hill is, I WILL die on it.

You will never stop me from portraying hairy women. Hairy women and balding women are a fucking axiomatic value to me, do you understand? I will PERSONALLY shear you like a sheep, TOP TO BOTTOM, if you even THINK about trying to be transmisogynistic about Lion's beautiful bald head.

You WILL kiss the beautiful bald head like the ring of a queen. This is a THREAT.

During the battle of the true eclipse, for the spirit channeling you mentioned that he ripped his claw out. Is that supposed to mean like the entire claw like what is taken out when a cat is declawed?? If it is, did the claw regrow or does he permanently lack one claw?

I was kind of amazed no one picked up on that detail until now, weirdly enough. I planned to bring it up in a character profile and never got back around to it, but yeah, he bites the tip of his finger off. He is permanently missing that claw for the rest of his life.

When I come back around to BB and BAB, I might pass it over to Lionessblaze because I'm VERY fond of the "Nemean Lionblaze" idea. OR make it something Jay does to stop her from sacrificing more parts of herself.

Lmaoooo dont worry my entire team is queers (except ONE single token straight, but we love her) so even though Woke Mob LLC got turned down, there will be a lot of gay in The Secret Project

Funny enough though one of the bits of lore we banged out recently was the idea of each "region" having a festival. I decided that the dominant culture of every region would have some kind of celebration using fire as symbolism for their values as a whole. From there I've worked closely with each teammate whose culture is being represented.

So for example, there's a region heavily based on Persia, so the Chaharshanbe Souri immediately jumped out. That's a festival just before Nowruz, which marks the start of Spring, and that lead to our other teammate bursting in HYPED about following that up with a Summer Powwow. That lead to the idea of a somber winter celebration based on the Aztec New Fire ceremony.

I have questions/need for clarifications on a few things around wildfur and briarlight's mobility aids, especially in what things are considered improvements

First, why is Briarlight's sled smaller than wildfur's? Wouldn't the sides help in protecting them from dirt, nasty plants who can cut them or give them problems when touched?

Second, the blankie. Is there any use for it going up to where she can feel things or is that just because the blanket is attached there??

For context, I'm a paraplegic and decided to redesign one of the protags of my xenomoggy whom is also paralyzed from a fall and promptly realized that I should throw hammers on past me for making it so they don't use disability aids (which, unlike another paralyzed character who doesn't use ones bc she's primarily in the water, doesn't make sense and is dangerous).

I decided to take info from your briar's aid but literally yesterday when working on them remembered my foot sack and thought how a leg sack with a sled might be even better than the blankie, causing a discussion with my mom (victim of all my warriors infodumps) where we realized that a burlap sack would be the best for this but have to get the thought process between these two choices before removing the blanket and making the sled big like the wildfur design

Thank you so much!

I'm replying to you sneakily from under my desk at work (I have barely had a free second since my last post!) and sure! I'll explain the thought process;

Purpose of the Blanket

The inclusion of a blanket is a HUUUUGE leap foward for safety.

Because Wildfur didn't have a protective blanket, it was not uncommon for sticks and thorns to get lodged in his taboggen, right up against his skin in places he couldn't feel it. Thankfully, he lived most of his life in marshy, wet areas without a ton of splinters and rocks.

For Briarlight, living her whole life in a stony forest, that Version 1.0 build had much more risk. There's much more to get stuck on where she's going. So, the blanket connects high up, kind of like a shield against anything that might hit her chest and roll under her belly.

Branch with twigs, thorny bramble vine, dirt or sand, leaves, biting insects, etc. I keep in mind that a paraplegic cat would be moving much more laterally through the world than a human would; our upright posture makes us much more perpendicular, if that makes sense. Your head is above your shoulders more than in front of them.

The neck also just makes a good anchor point. The Clans have a taboo about collars, but Jessy and Briarlight were not particularly concerned about it-- being able to easily slip the ring on and off without help was much more important to Brili than that.

A leg bundle could be a good way to do it, too!

Sled Size: Wildfur vs Briarlight

It's true that Wilf's is larger than Brili's, and I had two reasons behind that.

Firstly, the blanket is making up for that extra protection that a larger sled would provide. Wildfur had the first iteration without a comfort shield, so the taller sides were very useful to him.

Secondly, Briarlight's device better fits her lifestyle and environment.

ShadowClan's wetlands are soupy, but often much softer. Wildfur could run over a LOT of the ferns and mosses with some brute force, and the distribution of weight over a wider area made his long, round roll of bark good for not getting stuck in the mud.

Briarlight, buff as she is, can't flatten a fat sapling. She needs more ability to swerve, and a lighter load on her backside to make that easy. Schmoovement

(THOUGH I do need to make a better schematic of her device. It should still completely cover her legs, and any surface in contact with the ground... maybe I'll take a big stab at it again and make it more of a "side saddle" design. Hmm...)

Anyway,

If the character you're tackling lives in a grassland or other open terrain, I'd say you should make their device long so they can get some SPEED up when they hit a stride down a hill. The more uneven the terrain, the more they'd probably value keeping the wood component small and agile.

For a semi-aquatic warrior, I think the challenge would be making a device that can easily swap between land and water. But, I'd have to sit down and do research on it first and think out some sketches.

I will be explaining absolutely everything about BaB going forward in one post before I continue answering asks about specific story details, so that I can link it super easy with some clear rules about the freedom I can now wield like a maniac.

It's FULL HAMMER going forward. I really reflected on what I love most about writing BB, considering which limitations bring me joy like game rules VS what limitations are holding me down like restrictions.

One of my many little epiphanies is that I LOVE deconstructing what I think a given WC arc could have been about. Discussing themes, character arcs, narrative and framing, etc. It's a collective jumping-off point that links me to so many members of my audience, and even between a LOT of xenofiction fans broadly.

So, I want to keep that fun that I have (that we ALL have!) when we're following the new arcs, going "OOO WHAT IF" and "BONES PLS FIX IT." I'm just going to be a LOT more ruthless about changing the status quo, and letting those "breaking changes" snowball until newer arcs are essentially suggestions.

For an offhand example, I established Nature Spirits in the form of BB!Brokenstar, BB!Star Flower, and the composite character Hollylark. If the Moonpool is getting destroyed-- then, well, my logic is perfectly set up to introduce a new nature spirit character, and to do something BIG with that!

TL;DR Hammer Time.

OVER 50% IN A THREE WAY RACE LET'S GO BABEYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY GREATEST CITY IN DA WORRRRRLLDDD

PLEASE god let this happen it would be SOOOOO funny