I should have known if I brought up wc I’d have to talk about. But it includes of a lot of issues with feral/furry designs that use feathers in hair. I don’t necessarily know why the conversation only started and stayed in the wc fandom when horse/wolf/lion feral fandoms are still doing the same thing.
Now having feathers in the design isn’t a racial attack first thing off because there’s a lot of context around what feather’s are used, the shape, and where they are placed. If the look is anything like "rave Coachella looking tribal fantasy feathers and beads" it’s probably insensitive. I’m not to sure why it has to be feathers, I honestly think the wc fandom are holding themselves back when it comes to forwarding designs in a unique way. Tail feathers are also left out in this conversation as well, one or two feathers or feathers in the shape of a birds tail are fine but bunched together feathers are leaning to close to how we have our horses wear feathers. This is in the context of the design already looking like a "medicine cat" already its bad. it’s like those yt girls wear feather head bands but animal addition.
I’ve talked about this before but silhouettes are so important, like Native American stereotypes are on the global scale you cannot escape this silhouette you just have to avoid it. There’s no "but it’s in so many other cultures" no it’s not it’s totally unique to our people that’s why people flock to it because it’s so "mysterious, sacred" whatever their weird twisted up reason is. There’s so many unique ways to break this silhouette you just gotta be more creative. And I feel like instead of being more creative and coming up with totally different ideas it’s just easier to lean on these visual native stereotypes to get across "wild mythical nature fantasy"
I could get into the horse fandom and the weird situations they’re doing over there but that’s another crazy thing. I should say because someone will ask, ostrich feathers on like show horses or knights or puss in boots style is fine not the same thing (breaking the silhouette) they’re not related.
And it comes down to understanding what you are drawing and where this imagery comes from, I’m not gonna get my feelings hurt because of your design but I’ll question why are you drawing stuff like that. You cant remove that cultural/stereotypical imagery, and if you don’t care about it then you don’t care about the history or how it looks on your character and art.
I made it this far on the internet but if you want to be conscious about these things good on yea it doesn’t take much☺️👍
if you guys like my cat art check out my art blog @larkinarting (tumblr & deviantart) or @ larkin_arting (instagram)! I’ll be posting future fan art on my art blog and rebloggong it to here :)
thanks for all the support!!!
Shout out to all the Black ppl that can no longer participate directly in the fandom they love because of the stresses of racism 👍🏾 you contain multitudes of value and I'm sorry that the color of your skin and the power of your voice makes people not want to acknowledge that.
It would be cool if each clan had an ember or a small fire they always keep going so certain festivals or ceremonies can include torches. it would also be something that is super sacred to each clan and keeps them all interconnected; if one clans flame somehow goes out can another clan let you use some of theirs?
If it does go out and other clans won’t share for whatever reason then you need to wait until the next fire in the forest. And do pick up the embers maybe there is a leather made from prey that can be worn around the mouth kinda like an oven mitt so it can be moved with minimal risk.
I think a clan fire/ember would add to the self sufficient society aspect of the WC clans and could add to the depth of their spiritual lives. It makes it especially interesting when you think about how their religion is confirmed real in their world. Each clan may keep their ember somewhere different (ex. Thunder clan keeping theirs in a rock tomb, Wind Clan keeping theirs in a tunnel in the middle of their camp…) and they all interact with the ember in a different way. Maybe only medicine cats can move an ember in Thunder Clan but in wind Clan because it is in the center of the clearing it is more of a communal sharing and honor for younger cats to carry it to light torches on fire.
Maybe the Sun is like the ember of star clan so during fall when the sun is setting earlier they don’t use it but during the winter they use it more to bring back the Sun (the ember of star clan) and during the spring they use it a lot, and during summer they don’t use it as much because the Sun is already out a lot. This could then make interesting plots where winter lasts longer than usual and rather than simply questioning why star clan would cause this they feel it is because they have not helped the sun rise enough with their ember.
Idk whether this would be something started by the founders or maybe around Firestar’s time or maybe it goes back before the founders. but i think something like this with a sacred object could add a lot to the society aspect of the clans and make it a little more cohesive. It could make the clans relationships to each other have higher stakes because if they went out on their own they would for sure not have access to another ember for a long time if it went out.
When i was thinking of this i was like okay that isn’t at all grounded in reality enough to be a cool headcanon but then i remembered they’re talking cats who talk to cat gods??? so i think it’s fine. also they use random plants to help with sometimes fake illnesses so if my HC breaks the universe a little that’s fine
there are not enough festivals in WC. It’s a society of cats and their only ‘festival’ is a monthly meeting? no i need cat season changing festivals. I need cat festivals that bring prey from StarClan.
Ive decided that drawing the entire snats from scratch was for the best because it was very difficult to convert normal cats into snail cats and make it look... not... weird... Obviously the original credit for these still goes to the artists who work on Clangen though, as that is still my base for every single one of these patrol artworks and parts of their work is still left over in my edits <3!!
I love when Gmm does purposeful gifticalify ( rhett does this quite a bit but I just picked the times when it was very obvious haha) 🥺💕
Damn, he's pretty.
"It was a message from StarClan," she murmured. A distant look came into her eyes. "Fire alone can save our clan."
Spottedleaf's message from StarClan - The Prophecies Begin
Tumblr attempts to sabotage me again by making the image look a little blurry 0-0 RIP Spottedleaf. I'm trying to make a super small comic strip based on Dawn of the Clans but that's hard so I procrastinated with this instead. Enjoy!!!
Put the content in the bag.Larkin; they/them, 21Requests & Commissions: open!🍉free palestine🍉art account: @larkinarting
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