We Make AUs Here, Sir...

Welcome to my castle. You can call me Mud. I make Warriors art and AUs.

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I finally have real actual time to draw and write and all sorts of things and.... I have no ideas and no motivation. :')

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TheOdd1sOut's Warrior Cat Wednesdays: #1-4

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Comics #5-9

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Comics #10-19

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Comics #20 and #21

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Comics #22-28

Comic #28 was captioned with the lyrics to Rory by Foxing, seemingly a nod to the beloved Ashfur MAP.

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Comics #29-38

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I know that "The Clans Decide" is non-canon, but I'm still taking this to mean that Firestar was apprenticed before he was six moons old.

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I was looking through the wiki when I found this gem:

I'm dead. lol.

Pouncetail you are two years old.

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HELP

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I may have to go against my own nature and make Firestar a classic ginger tabby in EoS to drive home some themes. The things I do for my specifically-catered-to-myself AUs...

But albino Dovewing is back in the house. Woo!

I'm still unsure if I'll keep Dove and Ivy as Sol's daughters, but we'll see.

[mud-castle]

Star's Eyes have to earn their signature starry eyes by completing whatever it is Starclan sent them out to do. So the cat themselves know that they're the specialest special to ever special, but their reward is that being made known to the clans themselves too.

Firestar gets his stars when he strikes down Scourge during the Bloodclan battle.

They're also given a Starclan cat to guide them and judge when they're ready to receive it. Usually someone who held some significance to the person. Spottedleaf is pretty much set up to be killed for this purpose. Since the clans are more explicitly cult-like here, she takes it as an honor. Though it does psychologically affect her down the line.

The Three are also not something that just happened. Starclan very purposefully created them to be powerful. Being in the territory of their Ancient ancestors gave them a jump in power (and the Dark Forest a jump too, but we'll get to that later) and they sensed a threat in the future (unknowingly confirming that threat by creating the Three to begin with, lol).

Usually they have enough power once every few generations to turn a cat with high potential into a Star. But suddenly they had a bunch more power and three highly potential cats right in front of them! And a whole prophecy with it! Yay! The Three just turned out to be less... controllable than Starclan expected.

Jayfeather's guide is Molepaw. I might need to kill someone to be Lionblaze's guide. Hollyleaf was a potential Star, but she fails in the end. I might need to kill someone for her too...

[mud-castle]

I could perhaps actually rewrite my EoS au if I made the changed the meaning of the au's name. So "Eye of Stars" essentially meaning "Apple of Starclan's Eye." Someone chosen. Someone meant to be of importance. Someone special. It is rare to be one of the star's eyes. Regardless of one's clan or personal feelings, all cats hold a Star's Eye in high regard.

Instead of the eyes over their body, they have literal stars in their eyes.

Also I could make it more interesting (to me) by rewriting the position from being miserable to something being extremely coveted. Special-est kitty in the forest.

Symptoms include: sensitivity to spirits, grandiosity, incredible amounts of sheer dumb luck, arrogance, a near-uncanny valley effect when placing one's full attention on another person, vanity, and recalcitrance.

And, as a result, giving Firestar and the Three some megalomaniacal tendencies.

As a bonus, I can keep the aspects I've had since the beginning and was concerned about having to throw away, like Fire being a former Bloodclan cat and a kittypet, EoS Scourge and Bone, Shadowclan Dovewing and Ivypool, my original concept of the Tribe as the result of a split between the Ancients with the other group eventually becoming the clans and "star-touched" cats from both groups having automatic beef with each other, etc.

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omg, Lion takes up so little of my brain space that it has taken me over a month to realize that I never put him in my mega!Po3 allegiances doc.

[sootfurlover]

My little Firestar glazer ❤️

Awwwww so cute

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I do like the idea of Princess's twolegs getting another cat and her not being happy about it. And I think she deserves her own mini arc. So I'm making it one of the driving factors that makes her join Fireheart and Longtail on their Skyclan journey (and I'm giving the dreams to her instead of Smudge).

Part of it is instinctive territoriality leftover from mom's side of the family, but most of it is just her not wanting to share the attention. She learns how to live in a group during the Skyclan journey and goes home more willing to accept the new addition to the household.

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I could make Cloudtail the kit of one of the city cats Fireheart befriends. It's winter and times are tough with all the fighting. Maybe he's the last survivor of his siblings and that's why his mother/father/whoever begs Fireheart to take him.

Cloudpaw doesn't need to have been a kittypet to have his whole questioning clan life arc. He just needs to be introduced to the concept at some point. Maybe even have him befriend some kittypets himself. Instead of him coming out of it being like "actually clan life is perfect and being a kittypet is the worst" he comes out like "both lives are valid but kittypet life isn't for me personally" + keeps his friends.

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I can't make Fireheart an F1 savannah cat and NOT do anything with that. And making Scourge the city's bad guy isn't really helping my issues with how Bloodclan is written and his backstory shouldn't be wasted by making him a godless heathen marked for death so:

What if I split Bloodclan into two (sort-of) so there's the city cats who were friendly with Brokenstar and stayed allied to Shadowclan which helped close off the Carrionplace to the rest of the city cats. And then there's the other half who weren't about that and were cut off access from one of their main food sources.

Then I can do some timeline rearrangement and make it so that Tiny/Scourge was attacked by Brokentail/star after being caught trying to get food from the Carrionplace. And even after Broken-era the city cats are still left with two fighting factions. Tigerstar promises the Shadowclan-aligned half help in eradicating their enemies if they join him.

If I were to write it out, the city plotline would be an ever-present thing in the background that we'd see hints of throughout the first arc until the formation of Tigerclan. Then the pieces are connected and it's finally shown just how badly Shadowclan messed things up over there. That Broken's effects were lasting, despite how much Shadowclan tries to forget them.

Fireheart goes into the city to ask for help when Tigerstar recruits the rogues. This is significant because, to the clan cats, rogues are pretty much a monolith. So it doesn't even occur to them that maybe not everyone in the city is onboard with this. Even if it did, rogues have the reputation of being untrustworthy.

The two sides battle. Fireheart and Tigerstar duke it out. Mentor vs Apprentice. Fireheart guts him.

[mud-castle]

Alright the Fireheart knew plot point is kinda killing part of the story for me. It's nice drama, sure, but it's a little too interpersonal and doesn't feel like it has anywhere to go. It's certainly upsetting for Sandstar, but I don't think she really needs more misery in her life being caused by family members.

So, let's turn things around.

BOTH Fireheart and Sandstar knew. Fireheart is the one who gets worried when it snows while Leaf and Squilf are out and finds them with the kits but he had already known (and had told Sandstar the moment he heard). He takes Lionkit to Riverclan. It's never outright stated that Sandstar knows but it's very heavily implied to both Squilf and Leaf.

Ashfur is still villainous, but he doesn't get a big fire moment where Squilf tells him that Hollyleaf isn't hers. Instead he sort of Uncle Scars Alderkit into sneaking out of camp (which indirectly leads to his murder). Sol is the one who tells Hollyleaf that Squilf isn't her mother. It's purely for shits and giggles but this causes the series of events that ends with Holly accidentally trapping him in the tunnels again.

Idk how Hollyleaf finds out that a lot more cats than she thought knew about this, but she does learn this and also implicates Sandstar and Fireheart. This severely damages Thunderclan's trust in the both of them (although Sandstar gets the brunt of this since Fireheart is...y'know).

The one person who doesn't get called out for his part in this is Brambleclaw. From the outside it looks as if Brambleclaw nobly forgave Squilf for lying to him even though they ended up separating. Hence why Sandstar entrusts Sparkpaw to him despite having her misgivings about him. I'm giving Ashfur and Lionpaw's mentor dynamic to him and Sparkpaw instead which is partially what pushes her deeper into the Dark Forest.

Having both Spark and Lion in the Dark Forest is a little ehhhh. I'm thinking of maybe having Lionblaze kill Fireheart and being like "oh shit I've gone too far" and realizing the destructiveness of his actions and how he's pushed people away. And Sparkpaw ends up getting recruited because the DF lost Lionblaze and she HATES him since he killed her father right in front of her.

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Y'know what, I could move the mentors around so that Sandstorm is chosen as deputy by Bluestar. I think the splitting of deputyship between Sand and Fire isn't working for me.

So:

Ravenpaw's first mentor is Redtail. After Redtail is killed, he's given to Darkstripe. Which is how he ends up around Tigerclaw a lot with Tigerclaw even giving him assignments despite not being his mentor.

Dustpelt's mentor is Mousefur.

Graypaw keeps Lionheart.

Firepaw is mentorless for the first two moons and is mostly trained by Whitestorm and Tigerclaw before officially being given Tigerclaw as his mentor.

Sandpaw gets Bluestar as her mentor.

Which means that, yes, Sandstorm has not had an apprentice when Bluestar appoints her as deputy. Whitestorm acts as an unofficial secondary mentor whenever Bluestar is busy

Ends up in a dynamic where she essentially becomes leader as Bluestar isn't in the right state of mind to lead and Fireheart somehow ends up as her unofficial deputy.

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Gonna be honest, I didn't think of Onewhisker and Fireheart as particularly close friends before the latter half of TNP. I always thought of Morningflower as Fire's Windclan bestie since she was the one he thought about the most in TPB. Onewhisker, to me, was just a guy he was friendly with.

Which makes one-sided OneFire a lot funnier in my eyes. bro is going through his inner turmoil of falling in love with a cat from another clan, the deputy no less, and the moment Fireheart turns up he's just like "oh hey Onewhisker... where's Morningflower?"

Y'know that meme with the girls talking and someone off to the side says "me too" and they turn their heads in surprise with a cracking sound like "why're you still here?" That's Onewhisker hanging out with Fireheart and Morningflower.

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mega!OneFire in a nutshell

Onestar: *confides in his friend for the twentieth time about how he feels unfit to lead and he feels like his clan still hates him and is just waiting for the chance to stab him in the back but stepping down isn't an option and he hates that he's been forced into a position he never wanted and was never prepared for*

Fireheart: *puts a paw on his shoulder* Have you ever tried locking the fuck in?

[mud-castle]

This is quite possibly the most important image in the Midnight graphic novel:

SQUILF HAS PINK PAW PADS ON HER WHITE PAW <333333