#skinwretch

Allmother

Shenanigans

Bee Balm: What is your favorite Super Edition or novella?

it's a very hard tie between goosefeather's curse, dovewing's silence, and tigerheart's shadow. like the first two really put the spotlight on characters that i think should have an endless amount of spotlight on them and ts is populated mostly by good characters and nonclan cats, making it a superior super edition.

also like! a non violent resolution with the acknowledgement that many "villains" are just trying to exist and survive? nonclan cats being portrayed as the smarter and nobler characters??? good, great, 10/10 spiresights getting taken out by a drawbridge.

Iris: Name your top three favorite ships and your top three least favorite ships.

goosehawk/feathermedics is such a comforting and fleshed out ship that i legitmately have a hard time expressing the story of them and what they mean to each other to other people. aha it's mostly just like two messy bipol's in love who eventually tell god and country to fuck off.

sasharusset is another one that is just constantly revolving in my brain. i just love the idea of two lovers who /could/ have been wonderful for each other but the circumstances are off /just so/ and so they never work out. it's tender and glorious and i love it.

darktail/spiresight is a very recent development and kinda crafted arbitrarily on two character with endless potential who got killed prematurely. from there it's just spiraled out of control... but like i don't want to give away too much aoe content >:}}c

on the reverse side:

thistleclaw/snowfur is the most weirdly overrated "she believed he lied" het ship. like they have no real chemistry in the book, snowfur is clearly doing all the romantic pursuit and thistleclaw really only regards her as a weakling and a reason to get mad/take control (the same way he used sweetpaw's death as a way to get mad and take control. wow seeing a pattern here ://c)

lioncinder is the ship everyone knows is cringe and strange and yet??? people still like it? there's nothing there. it's bad and weird and only exists to give lionblaze a late oots stage conflict. also cinderheart likes girls, if you haven't already heard...

tawnyroawn-- like it's so COOL when a headstrong and untethered female character gets saddled with someone she has zero chemistry and zero in common with just so the ladies at erin hunter inc can push "all strong women want kids" rhetoric. these cats do nothing together, they agree on nothing together. it's only in avos that they like acknowledge each other at all. it's bad and the "they're t4t" headcanons only make me hate it more :}}}}}}}}}

this is more than 3 but leafcrow doesn't make the spot because like, i think leafpool deserves to kiss whoever she wants even if she realizes later that making out with walter white was a mistake.

additionally graystripe/anyone and gray wing/anyone are also the worst ships.

Violet: What do you think is the worst trope in the series?

i don't know what it is about white people and writing forbidden het romance and awful men who /change/ because they lose their gfs/wives but aha. it certainly is a thing we have to put up with every fucking arc ad nauseam. like the only time it's ever made sense, had proper build up, and not resulted in the girlie suffering exponentially more than the m a n is dovetiger.

but yea, any character centered around their man pain or like how straight people are oppressed in this fictional setting can actually be deleted and the series will only be better for it.

ahhhhh thank you, m8! i'm glad that you're enjoying aoe and all the sopping wet darktail it has to offer :}}c it's definitely fun getting to write him completely out of his element and having to acknowledge that, well, well, well these are the consequences of his actions

as far as tadpole is spiresight is tadpole is spiresight goes: i'm never going to outright state it in the text but there are going to be a lot of not-so-subtle nods to it-- specifically their water trauma and the way they feel about what they remember of sasha/their perspective on their own perceived "abandonment". so less of a spoiler and more of a some-readers-will-notice-and-some-won't-but-correctly-identifying-spiresight-as-tadpole-isn't-a-big-plot-bending-reveal-it-just-adds-another-layer-of-meaning.

favorite thing about them: his ability to body check ivypool into a tree for being a vapid little snit. seriously, though, i really, really love this guy. the fandom for years was trying to scramble to find a himbo, to find a "bad boy with a soft side", to find a complicated and realistic "forbidden" relationship and yet, And Yet all along tigerheartstar was Right There! he's such a wonderful character because he's always been a male li who also manages to have his own arcs, his own struggles, and never failed to just be himself. and that is what makes him so enjoyable as a character: he is not afraid to stand up to tigerstar in the df-- not afraid to train there so he can make sure he knows what the df is planning, he isn't afraid to call out poor leadership or make friendships across clans. and, against dovewing's pressure to fill roles, tigerheartstar is looking to break, rules and break rolls and do so with a wink and smile and maybe a brawl if he's feeling pissed off enough. and i love that! i love him

least favorite thing about them: the fact that he didn't actually kill ivypool when she tried to permakill flametail for attention

favorite line: "spire, even though you are dead, i want you to be my kids' godfather so i performing a post humous conversion on this river where u died. please brace yourself to haunt me and my family forever ;}"

brOTP: he and fierce still private message on discord like "how's it in ur socialist commune, bro" and "idk, dude, how is being a cog in an unfeeling cosmic tyranny" and then they play fallout 76 together for seven hours or something

OTP: dovetiger supremacy!

nOTP: tigerivy, obviously

random headcanon: i imagine his resurrection as incredibly awe inspiring: like he and dovewing both rising up in a pillar of light, circling each other as tigerheartstar ascends into his position of leader through the power of his family's love and their unwillingness to let the circumstances of their life define them. and afterwards, he has one of dovewing's eyes and she has one of his. also he's a he/him lesbian, but that's more of a canon fact

unpopular opinion: tigerheartstar was literally only hated because people hated dovewing and therefore hated him by proxy (because he was the one character who was actually good to her). if he had been ivypool's li, i gaurentee people would have adored him and treated him the way they treated brambleclaw for years

song i associate with them: lean into life by petey

favorite headcanons:

-- haha obviously goosefeather and hawkheart having romantic history that went sour. "killed anyone lately, you old herb muddler?" like guys that's gay that's two gay old men who used to date running into each other at brunch -- spire(sight) is tadpole, who survived the flooded basement, but blocked out most of his childhood b/c of the traumatic incident and never knew and never will know who he is related to in the clans. -- darktail kills onestar on the shore but is then dragged into the lake by the ghosts of his victims, including onestar's ghost. all of these spirits task themselves with keeping darktail's ghost at the bottom of the lake for all eternity. -- mothwing and hawkfrost reconciled before the end of the great battle, dammit. also, hawkfrost, barring the undercurrent of typical hawkfrost schemeing, legitmately did think he was doing right by mothwing when he planted the sign. -- goosefeather, dovewing, spire(sight), and shadowsight are all psychotic rep. this isn't a headcanon, tho, its actually canon sir erins hunters whispered it in my ear last night -- clawface and nightstar reconciled on the border of their respective afterlives and nightstar saves clawface from blackstar during the great battle and pretty much takes his brother back to starclan with him so he can be renuinited with his family. -- jayfeather is the actual father of poppyfrost's kits, but the two immediately realized they weren't compatible as mates-- take this secret to their graves. pretty much i hc each of squirrel's kids briefly dated one of sorrel's kids: lion/honey, jay/poppy, and holly/cinder. -- rock was originally a leader and healer, whose pursuit of medical knowledge led him to do some pretty unethical things to those in his care and eventually landed him in the sights of a cosmic entity he had no business messing with. said entity then stuck him with his current curse: to be endlessly alone, vastly knowledgeable, but unable to change anything.

popular headcanons you can’t stand 2.0:

-- trans rowanclaw. especially people who aren't trans masc who insist its somehow good and interesting and progressive to make a trans man's entire narrative how he /can't lead/, /nobody respects him/, /how he tries to be big and strong and assertive but nobody will ever see him that way cuz he sucks at it/ and /he eventually throws such a temper tantrum he steps down and dies/. just uhhhh sits wrong with me. -- smoke giving darktail like "warrior training". like pls, she just shit talked the clans on wine night, she wasn't a fighter and darktail reflects this in that he, completely by himself, is not that capable of a fighter.