#ddd!redwillow

I liked him in alitm too!

I think he’d be both sad and glad to see bristlefrost show up at the duplex - sad that she died in the dark forest, but happy to get to see her again! she apologizes for not stopping him from falling in the water, he tells her she has nothing to be sorry for and thanks her for giving him hope and a reason to run instead of giving up. a bittersweet moment for them both.

his “sitcom”/show role would be that upbeat and friendly guy who’s secretly haunted by his past.

the two of them are friends! if any former dark forest cats try to give her trouble, he backs her up and tells them off. he dances around telling her how he died the first time.

but one day/night/time is weird there, they’re hanging out, looking out into nothingness out the window and a light goes off in her head. she’s heard the name redwillow before, before she met him in the dark forest. she’s heard it called out over a silent crowd. she remembers blackstar listing the casualties of the great battle. but how did he end up in the dark forest if he’d died protecting the clans from it?

when he confesses that he actually fought on the side of the dark forest, she runs. she doesn’t want to believe that there’d been something about her close friend she didn’t know, and that it was something so awful.

she warms back up to him slowly. he tells her that he knew her mother. she tells him that it was blackstar who read out his name every gathering. he’s too shocked to speak -- on earth, his last act was telling blackstar it was his time to die. he doesn’t know how to process the fact that the one who killed him was also the one keeping his name alive.

for frecklewish I’m thinking of her having venom like the snake that took her out and this might be too eye horror-y but maybe her tears are

bristlefrost gets into video and does those Cut-style youtube videos like “me and my murderer” with ashfur

redwillow is the sound engineer and antpelt’s the one filming

spottedleaf is the producer and snowtuft is in charge of crafty

(spoilers for alitm)

hi! I ended up writing a lot about bristlefrost’s power, so here’s my answer for juniperclaw: I think that if anyone would have any awareness of the after-afterlife other than some medics and maybe fading cats and I guess rock but I don’t want to write about rock it’d be juniperclaw!

maybe he’s the first one they manage to get a message through to since the fabric of reality and the barriers between afterlives is already thin and wibbly in his tunnel. I also just think he’s really interesting so I’d like to work him in!

I have an au/headcanon that he and his siblings each went to a different afterlife. I think it’s in my drafts somewhere, but strikestone went to starclan, sleekwhisker is going to the dark forest, and juniperclaw stands in the place in between.

for your first question: you know how starclan watches the clans through ponds, and they have some control over who they're seeing? well, bristlefrost gains enough control over her power that she can fine tune who in the living world she's hearing - and eventually when she's hearing. and so she and her friends in the duplex get invested in what's going on on earth. they support her while she figures out how to use her power, and it ends up being a "hey make popcorn, bristle's gonna see what they're up to" type of thing. (until they tune in to something that they have to Do Something About)

I really like the idea that the "higher power" that starclan gets their own omens from is just this patchwork group of double-dead cats. and now that I think of it, that would explain how some prophecies forsee things that starclan straight up doesn't know about themselves (i.e. the three)

also, once some more antagonistic characters find out that some cat in the duplex can still reach the living world, that's when the real trouble begins...

(read more because it’s getting long but I also figured out an “in” for redwillow which I’ve been thinking about for awhile)

I've been trying to fit redwillow into the dynamic and figure out how he'd settle in. and now I'm thinking that he could be a saturday morning cartoon villain-type who's the first one the protagonists befriend. like he originally seeks them out because he learns about bristlefrost's power. but he ends up siding with them and getting absorbed into their ragtag little family. which so far is bristlefrost, her sapphic aunts spottedleaf and later frecklewish, and her gay uncles snowtuft and antpelt. (ik I said spottedleaf is likea big sister to her, tbh idk the difference between big sister vibes and aunt vibes)

I promise I’m not making this up: this was the most recent thing in my drafts when I opened this ask

[Image description: a text post draft that says “I’m not saying this is “canon” to the au (if that’s even possible but: redwillow, antpelt, and snowtuft in an after-afterlife love triangle”]

I feel like if all three of them were together, they would’ve met through antpelt. I thought there was an in-book reason for that but I think it’s just what seems right. maybe antpelt noticed him fading in the dark forest and chatted him up and got to know him a little bit when they were both spirit dark forest cats

I’ll be honest: I probably won’t end up writing them as polya in these little au text posts just for personal reasons but they have potential! and don’t let me stop you from seeing them as bfs

what’s fun is that antpelt’s been double-dead the longest, but then snowtuft and redwillow show up at the duplex almost back to back. just a few days apart I think (possibly the same day? idk) so maybe antpelt goes from being bored in his bachelor pad to suddenly having two old allies around

I’m imagining something for redwillow where his time as a dark forest spirit (so I guess between the last hope and alitm) changes him a lot. and snowtuft is also around then so maybe spending time with someone who couldn’t remember his past let him confront his own past from a distance. I think snowtuft gets him to lighten up

redwillow is a shadowclan dark forest trainee in oots along with antpelt (windclan)

but antpelt is killed in the df twice before the great battle while redwillow is the one who gets killed by blackstar for standing with the df

so they’d probably know each other or at least recognize each other from training

also they both know ivypool especially since she got a position of power for killing antpelt

bristlefrost cooks at their place and shares it when ashfur won’t wash the dishes and she refuses to wash them for him. they don’t mind - more time to hang out!

sometimes spottedleaf comes along and brings place mats and flower arrangements and ashfur just sulks in the empty apartment while everyone else has a dinner party next door