Petalkit's Shadow

A tumblr blog for the AU Warrior Cats: Shadows Reignited! header art by @lesbianambermoon :-]

[petalkitshadow]

📌 Hello! Welcome to the tumblr blog for Warrior Cats: Shadows Reignited!

Current Story: Petalkit's Shadow

Petalkit's Shadow is a part of the Warrior Cats: Shadows Reignited AU that focuses on a re-telling of Mapleshade's Vengeance.

After Mapleshade is driven away from RiverClan, they discover that one of her kits survived her ordeal in the river. Petalkit, now of RiverClan, must find a way to fit into her new home and deal with the shadow cast by her traitorous mother.

the wonderful header art for this blog was commissioned from @lesbianambermoon ! please check out their art and consider supporting them! :-]

the icon art as well as the pic at the top of this post were commissioned from @niftysenpai! please check out their work as well!!

Content warnings: Canon-typical violence, some descriptions of gore and corpses, character death, neglectful parents, abusive parents, transphobia, non-graphic mentions of past sexual assault, cannibalism, PTSD, cheating/breakups, oakstar

Read on Ao3 here!

And check out the AU neocities here!

Please note the neocities contains spoilers for currently released chapters. There is also information about this universe post-PkS, but any information that majorly spoils unreleased chapters has been omitted.

About the author:

Hi! I'm DIA! I'm 26 years old and use it/that pronouns. I love drawing kitties and I'm currently also working on a challenge to design every character from wc!

my other blogs: @iapislazuli (main) / @diadraws (gen. art) / @diaswarriorcats (wc design blog)

Tags for organization (currently a WIP): Chapter updates / Character designs / AU art

Thanks for reading and taking the time to visit the blog! Hope you enjoy your stay~ :D

[petalkitshadow]

ive been knee deep in my spreadsheet lately, trying to get things sorted out for the modern arcs (ie. post TPB)

working on OOTS right now. fellas how do we feel about going all in on evil dark forest turncoat ivypool

[petalkitshadow]

also, Hawkfrost is going to genuinely be her best friend. (of course he is a manipulative bastard so the feeling isnt exactly mutual) hence why she is willing to give so much to the DF. but being around him does bring her a level of camraderie and comfort she doesnt get in thunderclan

[petalkitshadow]

ive been knee deep in my spreadsheet lately, trying to get things sorted out for the modern arcs (ie. post TPB)

working on OOTS right now. fellas how do we feel about going all in on evil dark forest turncoat ivypool

[petalkitshadow]

are any of the birchstars named birchstripe in wcsr. or canon but idk if they have actual warrior names

in WCSR....

SkyClan birchstar is named Birchleg

WindClan birchstar is named Birchbite

RiverClan birchstar doesn't have a warrior name in my notes though. Perhaps hers could be Birchstripe?

[petalkitshadow]

Do you know if queens are listed by who had kits first or is it age like with warriors

if you mean in the canon allegiances, there's not really an order to how cats are listed there (at least, not one I've been able to discern)

in my own allegiances, i list cats within a rank from oldest to youngest. This doesn't apply in the PkS allegiaces on ao3 though since I hadn't decided on concrete ages for all the characters when I started writing. I'll probably tweak the allegiances again when im finished writing the story to be in age order.

for queens, the order is by the queen's age, not the kits' age.

[petalkitshadow]

What's the biggest litter in the books? Are there any 5+ kit ones or is that only in outside material?

four is the largest seen in the actual books themselves

Firestar and Cloudtail are both from five-kit litters, but outside of Princess, none of their littermates (or how many they have) are directly mentioned in the books

[exocynraku]

Hi ! Do you think you could draw Aromantic lesbian feathertail please ? Fine if not! :]

aroace pinestar reqqed by @iapislazuli (hi dia) butch mapleshade reqqed by @toefungusbrandchips bi mapleshade reqqed by someone whose ask i just deleted im so sorry butch lesbian squirrelflight and shadowsight reqqed by @pupcolor nonbinary bi and arospec squirrelflight reqqed by @vinxtry trans lesbian squirrelflight reqqed by @sunkistcoolatta nonbinary lesbian squirrelflight reqqed by @hehimejoshi headcanon (trans rainbow flag) feathertail and nightcloud (genderqueer romance repulsed lesbian) reqqed by @cheriri-rabbit romance repulsed nightcloud reqqed by @caterwally

[petalkitshadow]

Heyy some of the neocities links don't work anymore :((

I've been working on reorganizing the neocities behind the scenes so a lot of links I've posted here on the blog are broken as the URLs have changed! the navigation on the site itself should work. (a lot of links like on the allegiances page, are placeholders though since I haven't made the pages yet)

[petalkitshadow]

Huh, it seems like neocities as a whole might be down? (just went to try and edit the site / check links)

it does this occasionally, sadly it's outside of my control but it should be back up again soon hopefully X(

[petalkitshadow]

Heyy some of the neocities links don't work anymore :((

I've been working on reorganizing the neocities behind the scenes so a lot of links I've posted here on the blog are broken as the URLs have changed! the navigation on the site itself should work. (a lot of links like on the allegiances page, are placeholders though since I haven't made the pages yet)

[petalkitshadow]

When do you think cats were considered to be adults back in the DotC era? Mainly asking because I'm pretty sure that Clear Sky has kits before he's even a year old. And Moth Flight actually. I don't own any of those books so I don't know if anyone ever comments on them being too young or whatever If it WAS at less then a year (since that's typically when cats become warriors/adults in modern times), when do you think it actually changed?

Yes, Bright Stream is expecting Clear Sky's kits when he's about 8 or 9 moons old. Moth Flight has her kits when shes around 9-10 moons old. interestingly, when Moth Flight helps Juniper Branch deliver her kits, the latter does say Moth Flight is too young to know anything about kitting (not knowing Moth is already pregnant, lol)

Alder and Birch are said to look full grown at around 6 moons old, and are treated as full grown warriors. This makes sense since IRL a 6 month cat is pretty close to full grown, even if that's not how I or most WC artists draw them haha. Thunder rescues Moon Shadow from the fire when he's only 4-5 moons old, and kits regularly are given their first hunting lessons at 2 or 3 moons old.

My headcanon is apprentices were originally made at 2-3 moons old, and warriors at 8-9 moons old. (this is how i mark them on my WCSR chart up until the CotC story with daisytail) i think of DotC as being sorta like medival times where it was a bit more normal for people to Live Fast Die Young but as quality of life improved everyone realized oh you dont need to have a billion kids when youre 15 years old

[petalkitshadow]

oh and part 2 of the queen question, whats the LONGEST time between a queen's litters? im thinking brightheart but theres probably a bigger one im forgetting

Featherstorm and Brightflower of ShadowClan are about tied, I'd say.

Raggedstar and Scorchwind are 6 years older than their younger half-siblings, Mosspaw Volewhisper and Dawncloud

Yellowfang, Rowanberry, and Nutwhisker are nearly 7 years older than their younger siblings Mintkit and Marigoldkit

Sedgewhisker could also be a contender... she has Flufftail and Silkypod, who are probably about 6 years younger than their older sisters, Larkwing and Featherpelt.

[petalkitshadow]

what was the shortest time a queen went before getting pregnant again? does milkweed hold that record or what

It's actually most likely Quiet Rain. She would have gotten pregnant with her second litter (Jagged & Fluttering) only about 2-3 moons after Gray Wing and Clear Sky were born.

Milkweed is second though, she's only behind by about half a moon between her first and second litters.

[petalkitshadow]

Are there any cats outside of bluestars family tree that are described as blue/having a blue tint? Idk if that's a valid way to describe a cat or if it was just some arc 1 stuff that they had to work around

DUSKWATER!!!! THE IBS FUJOSHI QUEEN HERSELF!!!

... well, that description is only given on vicky's facebook. but still!!! SHE COUNTS TO ME!!!!

ngl i always interpreted the "blue-gray" description as meaning Bluestar was a russian blue breed cat, not that she was Literally blue

this is supported by the authors evidently, as victoria holmes posted on facebook in 2015 that Bluestar's character was conceptualized with russian blue ancestry (though, as with all erin hunter facebook posts, take it with a grain of salt)

this is interesting because it means Bluestar is one of few cats who has a named breed associated with her. in-text the only canonically purebred named cat is Tyr from Pinestar's choice, who is a burmese. there are two unnamed cats in ASC who are stated to have strange round ears, i was thinking they were meant to be american curls possibly. on facebook the erins also said Yellowfang might have british shorthair ancestry... which is interesting since I think most people draw her as being a persian.

but i am getting off task here so ANYWAYS

Cats who are called blue-gray IN-TEXT and not related to Bluestar

Darkfoot

Rainstorm

Cats who are called blue-gray in supplemental or non canon material like facebook posts or the website family tree and aren't related to bluestar

Duskwater

Hayberry

Wildkit

Mossheart (TC)

Cricketkit

Morningmist

Mossleaf

Emberstar (CotC)

There's some cats who are drawn blue-gray in the graphic novels like Tess, but they have no text description as they are GN-exclusive, and other cats like Ashfoot who are drawn as bluish-gray by james L barry aren't described as such in the books, so i dont know if they count.

interestingly, Darkfoot's only in text description is given in the Onestar's Confession allegiances, which came out after winds of change, where James L barry drew darkfoot as blue-gray. and the wiki described him as such. And we know the erins reference the wiki, so... Darkfoot being blue-gray might be a chicken and egg type scenario lol. But rainstorm is described as such with no canonical relation to bluestar.

(however facebook posts describe Rainstorm as Reedwhisker's son, which would make him bluestar's great grandson, so?)

Mossheart from TC was the main one that came to mind when i read this ask but i had to go and double check if there were others... I make her an ancestor of Stormtail! maybe she's vicky's imagined russian blue ancestry of Bluestar.

but tl;dr id say blue-gray is a totally fine way to describe a warrior cat since it's been used to describe several characters unrelated to bluestar. even if it's not a super common coat color lol.... they have yellow and "rose-cream" cats i think blue-gray is fine

[petalkitshadow]

hmmm how about crookedstar and oakheart?

Oakpaw crouched low, feeling his whole body quiver. "He's gone, isn't he?" Oakpaw barely managed to choke out. His pads were raw from tracking all over RiverClan territory for what felt like a hundred moons. He heard his father turn sharply to face him. "A fox got him, just like Rippleclaw said." "No," Shellheart replied, clearly struggling to keep his voice even. "Don't talk like that. We'll find Crookedkit. We just have to keep looking. Oh, StarClan, if only my mother were here. No cat could track like her. She would be able to find him" Oakpaw just stared at the snail shell in front of him. So many times, he and Crookedkit fought over whose nest it would decorate when they were warriors. He would give anything to have those arguments again, just to hear his brother's voice.

Ok, crookedkit technically isn't here... but I wanted to draw out this scene idea while Crookedkit has run away from RiverClan. His father and brother are the only cats who dedicate more than a day to looking for him. Most cats believe the tiny, malnourished kit must have been eaten by a predator. Some, like Ottersplash, Fallowtail, Piketooth, and Shimmerpelt, are sympathetic. Others, like Rippleclaw, and Cedarpelt, seem scornful, glad their clan is free of a burden. predictably, Rainflower seems entirely unaffected by the disappearance of her second son, trying to ensure Oakpaw that he can still be the strongest, handsomest warrior in RiverClan, words he does not want to hear.

[petalkitshadow]

tigerclones as that picture of the drooling cats because ive been obsessed with it all day

if you can name every cat you get a cookie

[petalkitshadow]

are there any important cats who are brown tabbies with GREEN eyes? or do all of them have amber/yellow eyes

Splashtail!

He actualy has a very unique eye color, "Gray-green"

Other cats who canonically are brown tabbies with green eyes: (probably not comprehensive) (and also not all important characters)

Skyheart

Gust Whistles Through The Mountain

Slash

Hop Scratch

Meadowpelt (facebook post description)

Wafflepelt

Greenflower

Frecklewish (SkC)

Cedarpelt

Marshcloud (facebook post description)

Tallpoppy

Bound Hunt

Runningwind

Willie

Swallowtail (RC)

Sweetbriar

Applefur (TF) (is called "mottled brown, which i interpret as a spotted or marbled tabby)

I went through my designs to check the ones I've drawn and wether or not the green eyes are canon which means i definitely missed some so if i did let me know!

but overall most of the brown tabbies with green eyes are PALE brown. dark brown with green eyes is pretty rare. it's a lot more common in the wildcats though since scottish wildcats IRL are usually brown tabbies with green eyes.

[petalkitshadow]

this is how i feel trying to explain what the stormclans folly excerpt reveal day was like for me