Firestar But Like A Bunch Of Different Kinds

omw to hug you.

This is the first time I make a gif! hopefully it doesn't look too scuffed...

mhmm…moonypaw

Riverstar! I listened to his super edition recently and actually liked it quite a lot. I know there have been a lot of critiques of it as having undermined his character in the Dawn of the Clans but idk I thought it was humanizing and kind of funny to see him swimming around in the dark pretending to be wise haha. As a founder he was the one that received the least characterization, and knowing he came from the park cats it was always a story I wanted to see more of. I like the idea that he is so spontaneous that he mostly repeats back what cats share with him and then they think he is special because of it, but doesn't actually have a lot of clairvoyance beyond a normal cat.

I gave him a bit of mane hair, similar to tree to try to capture a yoga teacher vibe in combination with his face stripes mimicking facial hair ha. His body type is based off of a Norwegian forest cat, and I think for the 'breeds' I'll be modeling Riverclan from will be Norwegians, Turkish Van, Bengals in the case of leopardstar ha, Bobtails/Manx, and wild fishing cats. This isn't because I think clans are purebreds, but characteristics of these breeds lend them toward water. I specifically am excluding Maine Coons however, because their size is their breed trait and in my mind that's the Sisters haha.

Beechkit

I know I did the right thing.

- Hollyleaf, Sunset

another pass at the girl

Needletail! I've always had this idea that Needletail needed to have a long needle like tail. Beyond that though I just generally wanted to capture the rebellious spirit she had, while maybe giving her a pixie cut and lesbian eyebrows. Canonically I know that she was not a 6 on the Kinsey scale but I can always believe it in my heart that she was gay for Sleekwhisker and or Raven.

She is Berryheart and Sparrowtail's first kit, but never had a strong connection to them anyway so I based her look and coloring more on her grandparents Snowbird and Scorchfur. Yes I'm aware that pedigree warriorcats is silly but let me live in my chinchilla Needletail fantasy. I'm still a little surprised we never got a Needletail POV, even in a novella. In my mind she sounds like Moonkitti, (I hope that's a compliment haha).

Redwillow! First listed in the eclipse allegiances with Whitewater as his mentor. He has some appearances in the first few omen of the stars books, but mostly is a generic background character. By Night Whispers however he is in my opinion characterized as a seasoned warrior, even though he is very new to the books. He is put in charge of leading a boarder patrol, and is seen after the battle of the border covered in wounds. Later in the book however he is part of the group that plays on the frozen lake, skidding across the surface on his belly. I love this segment because he is mentioned alongside senior warriors Crowfrost and Ratscar who yowl in amusement at his antics.

There is some of what I'm going to call fan interpretation of Redwillow that he is a loner in Shadowclan, but in the books his moderate regard by his own leader and senior warriors suggests to me instead that he was well liked, and integrated into the clan, even though it's never established who his kin is. That's why to me he becomes an example later on of a cat who's ambition is used to radicalize him to the Dark Forest. He doesn't start out a traitor to Shadowclan, on the contrary Redwillow spends his time in the dark forest close to his living clanmates. It isn't until the Forgotten Warrior that Ivypool points out Redwillow specifically multiple times when she's looking for cats that may have loyalties outside their clans. He never says anything to that point, rather his body language and exchanged glances are what makes her think so. Within the Last hope he makes several remarks in the Dark Forest about becoming the best warrior he can be, and that training in the Dark Forest makes training with Shadowclan feel like working with kittypets. Ivypool confronts him in a conversation with Hollowflight asking if he would let his weaker Clanmates die and he says "O-of course not" just that they had a lot to learn from the Dark Forest Warriors. Even with that I remember finding his final moments in the Last Hope a departure from his character, where he declares the Dark Forest his new clan, and that Blackstar's time is over.

Idk I just wanted more out of the radicalization of the clan cats while it was happening. I guess as someone who grew up with the internet I'm not a stranger to what anarchy and rebellion look like behind closed doors and personally felt that the concept of being isolated in a toxic in group extremely interesting, I found the the non-committal conversations of the dark forest trainees to be much more innocent than the showy posturing of competitive vitriol I've known such spaces to inspire. The fact that Redwillow and Breezepelt at the end of the battle were the only two warriors we know by name that sided with the Dark Forest to the end seems like such an underestimate to me. All I'm saying is that while I do love Redwillow for being an example of this, Clan cat rebellion to the Dark Forest could have been much more catastrophic than it was, and especially for the amount of plot and hype that it was given in universe. Add to all that the possible reading of Redwillow as a transmasc character that is radicalized into toxic masculinity and I want it to be known that i do love this character, but that most of that love comes from meta analysis and not from the text itself. He shouldn't have died twice in the Broken Code because truthfully he just didn't deserve it.

may i humbly request sunfish? (i’m #1 sunfish fan)

me too

YOUR DESIGNS ARE FIREEEEEE OMG I LOVE THEM!!!! could u do squirrelstar?? :3

Squirrelstar