Raves and Reviews for A Starless Clan
I just finished up my journey since June to reread the entire series, finishing up with A Starless Clan #2: Sky! I was lucky to get it delivered early from Indigo, and I've got to say, the newest arc is shaping up to be juicy. Spoilers under the cut!
So, I will admit I haven't fully read through River and Sky. Once I finished TBC, my uni semester started up, and I've been a bit busy. However: Nightheart is one angsty boy. I feel like it's a bit crass of Bramblestar to have named him Flameheart, initially, because we all know how he struggled with being named Brambleclaw. This whole series has revisited the concept of legacy and familial burden a lot through the years, and I just thought Bramblestar would've had more sympathy for poor Flamepaw. I guess not.
I was a bit taken aback by the Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde transformation we see Finchlight go through. In River, she'd been defending Nightheart at his warrior ceremony for rejecting the name, and in the first few chapters of Sky does a complete 180 and starts belittling him. Way to be a supportive sister!
Something I have noticed, though, as I've been in the business of naming cats for 4 years, is we're getting up there with -heart suffixes all around. We have Brightheart, Cinderheart, Lilyheart, Alderheart, and now Nightheart. I already thought having Cinderheart and Lilyheart as sisters with the same suffix was... interesting, it wasn't totally brand new, we'd seen it with Bluefur and Snowfur way back when. But it can start to get confusing, with the sheer number of dialogue-less background characters. Not to even mention the other Clan cats with -heart names: Berryheart and Grassheart of ShadowClan, Blossomheart of SkyClan, and Breezeheart of RiverClan. Don't get me started on the number of cats with -tail suffixes.
Can we appreciate for a second how cute the names Finchlight and Sunbeam are? My middle school oc-creating self is dying of happiness.
In Sky, I was surprised by the ending, when Nightheart asked to join ShadowClan and become Sunbeam's mate. I saw that coming a mile away, but I didn't think the Erins would do something so easily predictable. In this house we dislike Blazefire.
Imo, it's not Lightleap's fault that Blazefire chose her over Sunbeam, but she could be less... snotty about it. In Sunbeam's chapters when they're first travelling to the twoleg nest for catmint, some of her internal monologue is downright snotty too. These cats need therapy.
Frostpaw my beloved. I know Mothwing doesn't believe in StarClan but it isn't fair to put all that on Frostpaw's shoulders. All this "oh we can't let the other Clans know we're weak. We must be strong" garbage is too much for an apprentice to handle. It's okay to admit you need help, RiverClan. My god.
I hope Frostpaw's full name is Frostwillow, in honour of Willowshine, and cause Frostwillow sounds banger. Here are my thoughts:
Frostshimmer/glimmer (a bit out there for Warriors, even though we've had names like Ambermoon and Billystorm)
Any suffix starting with s, -shiver, -stone, -storm, etc (the sts sound can be a bit hard to pronounce)
Frostpebble (sounds super cute but unlikely)
Frostbite (imagine the pun potential)
Frostfern (sounds super cool but I doubt it as we have two living cats with the Fern prefix, Fernsong and Fernstripe of ThunderClan, and one cat with the -fern suffix, Fallowfern of SkyClan)
Frostfur (SEVERELY DOUBT they would do this, but we've had cats with the same names before, ie Ashfur of ShadowClan vs Ashfur of ThunderClan, Larksong I and Larksong II, both of ThunderClan, but the former being an elder in Bluestar's Prophecy and the latter being Sparkpelt's mate)
I can make some more of these analysis posts if they're your thing, let me know!