#frostsplash

What about villain Frostpaw AU?

Inciting incident being some combination of the following:

1. Mothwing either dies or leaves or something else happens to her, meaning that Frostpaw has to continue being a medicine cat. I’m truly confused in canon as to whether she wants to be a medicine cat rn or not, but for a villain AU she wouldn’t want to be but is forced to.

2. Manipulation by Splashtail into helping him become leader or outright appointing him as leader. Honestly wouldn’t need much if any manipulation for Frostpaw to do this, but having continued vaguely evil or at least disruptive voices in her ear would help.

3. Anger/Revenge against ShadowClan for their hostile RiverClan takeover. I’m thinking something which initially starts as a “free RiverClan” movement but after they win that battle, it morphs into “RiverClan STRONG”.

Groups trying to take over everyone else is boring at this point, and it’d be hypocritical of RiverClan to be trying something like that after being so upset about ShadowClan doing that to them. I’m talking more like the leadership style (or implied leadership style, I guess, considering their lack of on-screen time) of older leaders like Hailstar or Heatherstar. A Clan which picks battles just because, isn’t abusive or cruel towards their own; but are vicious. I don’t think Onestar fits this bill because he was kind of “separatist” in a sense; I’m speaking of a highly patriotic and aggressive Clan which has no issue sticking their whiskers in other Clans’ business — they’re just not interested in outright conquering, you know? I’m thinking having Frostpaw as the right-hand-man to this, almost, would be neat. A little bit like Hawkheart or Goosefeather? She could even fake or intentionally misinterpret signs to encourage war.

4. Anger at… StarClan? I’m sure Frostpaw has SOME. This could also be inverted into essentially hero-worship of StarClan (or specific StarClan cats like Curlfeather) taken to the extreme.

I feel like Frostpaw as a villain would be really interesting, and especially if she takes protecting her Clan too far. Having Splashtail as Splashstar and Frostpaw as the most senior medicine cat would leave all of the pressure of taking care of RiverClan on the shoulders of two wildly inexperienced young cats.

But instead of associating incompetency with their youth, you could associate it with extremism, black-and-white thinking, and an us-versus-them mindset. This would especially hit harder if they go with Splash/Frost as they’ve been hinting at, because you could morph that even further into a vaguely codependent and toxic us-against-the-whole-world bond.

I don’t know. I kind of just want to see two young people put in charge of a Clan, and proceed to put that Clan ahead of everyone and everything that stands in their way. Frostpaw, someone forced to take care of RiverClan over and over again in her youth, saying, “Oh you want me to protect RiverClan? I’ll protect RiverClan, alright.”

So there's something I want to say, and I don't fully understand it, but I'm going to try to talk my way through it.

I've struggled for a while now because I think the line between 'proshipper' and 'dark fiction enjoyer' is sometimes a bit... Blurred? And warrior cats does not have the best history when it comes to glorifying pedophilic relationships.

I've been very vocal about my enjoyment of the manipulative Splashtail theory. I like that Frostpaw has a crush on Splashtail because I think it makes the series more interesting. I enjoy it because of the dark fiction aspect, and not because I like the ship.

The reason I say this is because I've previously made the mistake of saying I like the ship. I don't think this was an accurate thing to say, and even at the time I didn't really understand where I was going with it. Like I said, I think the line between 'I enjoy these two characters together' and 'I enjoy the plot drama that comes from putting these two characters together' is muddied. I'm not entirely sure where the difference is.

But I do want to clarify that, no, I'm not a proshipper, nor do I (knowingly) support anyone who is. Fiction can be harmful, it has real life effects on the people consuming it, this is something that's been proven.

Let me compare this to the most famous example of warrior cats pedophilia, Spottedleaf's Heart. I do not like Spottedleaf's Heart, but not because it's a story that contains pedophilia. I don't like it because it handles the topic of pedophilia very poorly. If Spottedpaw had told someone about Thistleclaw, they reacted appropriately, Thistleclaw had been properly held accountable for his actions, and Spottedpaw realised how inappropriate and scary the situation had been, then I might actually think it was a good book. But that very much did not happen, Thistleclaw wasn't properly portrayed as a bad guy, and Spottedpaw never realised that their relationship was wrong.

There are already signs that Splashtail and Frostpaw's situation is being handled properly, and I believe it will end appropriately. Frostpaw's crush on Splashtail is actually a source of frustration for him, the book makes it clear that he doesn't reciprocate, his friendship with her was a manipulative tactic, he is using her, he doesn't want what's best for her, and- this is a big one- when she confesses to him, he rejects her, and states that their relationship would be wrong because he's an adult and she's a child.

My point is, Thistleclaw and Spottedpaw is a pedophilic relationship, and so is Frostpaw and Splashtail. But the difference is that Frostpaw and Splashtail is outright portrayed as bad and wrong, while Thistleclaw and Spottedpaw was not.

So I've said in the past that 'I like Frostsplash as a ship because it's interesting' but I think that was the wrong thing to say. 'I like Frostsplash as a plot device because it's interesting' would be more accurate. So yeah. No one's really asked me about this, or even mentioned it, but I wanted to bring it up because it's been on my mind lately. IIRC, I voted for Frostsplash on Pigeocore's shipping poll a while ago, and I shouldn't have done that. I don't like Frostsplash as a ship, I like it as a plot device.

Bestie if you actually read my posts you would know that I like frostsplash because it is problematic /nm

I enjoy the potential of frostsplash as a problematic relationship. I don't like it because it's cute, I like it because it's dark, and that's interesting to me (assuming they actually follow through with the manipulation plot)