Did she escape captivity, or did they release her? Would she have been deemed unreleasable by the research team
It was a field procedure, and she was immediately released afterwards to Whistlepaw who was hanging back and watching. The biggest dilemma on their end would be if they're going to record it for the scientific record or not.
The team is there to observe-- they learned long ago that the Clan cats fear humans, and that's good for their research. They don't want to influence the culture any more than the Destruction of the White Hart Woods did, they are here simply to document.
The tools they keep in their truck are for taking samples, biopsies, recording weight, tranquilizing. The Clans are wild animals, to them.
So... what do you do, when a wild animal is dragging itself towards you, making a distress call? Not just a distress call-- the same exact meow that you have, on video, from individuals when they're asking each other for help.
It's language. Your test subjects are making contact with you.
But then dreadful reality sets back in. If you help her, you're interfering. This will alter your results from here on out. You know there's some kind of power struggle going on in the western group, and there is a chance that this is going to have ripple effects on that.
...that's not going to stop you, though. The vets on the team are already moving her onto a sterile tarp. She asked for help directly, what are you even doing this for if you let her die?
You're reminded of a lot of things. The cheetah who left her cubs with a camera crew. The seal who jumped up onto a research vessel to escape an orca. The elephant who approached a vet to treat a bullet wound.
Man, citing those incidents would be an ACE opener for your thesis paper. But it would be admitting that you possibly overstepped a boundary. Then again, it would totally get the sanctuary more interest, and maybe you'd get more funding...
You'll think about it later. Nancy is telling you to find the tincture of iodine. Dang it must be SERIOUS.
i just thought of something about frostpaw’s design having a wolf motif and her huge autopsy scar - it reminds me of how in multiple fairy tales (particularly ittle red riding hood, like you mentioned in the design post), the wolves in those stories have their stomachs cut open. i just thought that was cool :3
I hadn't even considered that, but it makes it work even better. The fairytales don't even just have the wolf get their belly cut open-- they also get filled with stones and tossed in the river.
There's a clear image in my mind that when Frostpaw is put under the human tranquilizer, her mind falls backward and plunges her into liquid void. A dream takes hold, bubbles forming in the dark, her body cradled by clear water as far as she can perceive.
The unspoken knowledge of her dream tells her that she's in a raindrop, the river, the lake, and Riverstar Himself. The embodiment of water. And He is endless.
Her problems are washed away by the sheer vastness of his being, and she's just beginning to wrap her head around the marvel of it all when she opens her eyes in a den. Warm, comfortable, surrounded by hay.
The vision sloshes in her mind like dancing waves. She has a boiling desire to understand what it meant-- and the only thing that comes to mind is the Tribe of Rushing Water's philosophy that all things are connected by the river. That living by the Lake, fed by the southern delta, which rushes down from the mountain's waterfall, makes their cultures kin.
She decides to start there, and will go further south if need be. Thus begins Book 3 of BB!ASC, The Source of the River.
I’m in love with your “Frostpaw meeting King Arc” concept, and I really want to make a comic out of it at some point. For now, have some sketches from today:
Thank you with all my heart, I cannot be normal about it either. Something drives me absolutely crazy about the idea that two, intersecting themes of BB!ASC are "echoes of the past" and "love was there, it was not enough, but it was still there."
Small recap for others; In BB!DOTC, the Park Cats are now a cultural group with a king. King Arc leads a massive group of refugees up from the south and establishes a kingdom by the river. The First Battle is caused when Clear Sky takes his prince, River's Ripple, as a hostage to hurt Thunder Storm, not respecting the political value of his son's friend. King Arc dies in this battle, and Riverstar continues the River Kingdom until his death, kicking off Riverstar's Heir.
I'm unsure if it came across, but something I intend with the Arc/Frost meeting during Frostpaw's Sabbatical is that King Arc is seeing his son Riverstar in her. The way that the ambition and responsibility that he put on him as his prince, is reflected in the stress and confusion that Frostpaw herself is now going through.
He, too, died saving his child, much like Curlfeather did. It's still a terrible burden to put that on someone you love so much.
I still need to tweak her siblings (thinking in my next draft for Mistpool, I'm gonna use blue merle dog markings and give her the same shape as Graysky), but this absolutely validates Frostdawn's design in my eyes lmao <3
There's a scene in my head during the first book of BB!ASC where Frostpaw is shoved up the tree by Curlfeather. Curl looks up at her and everything is moving in slow motion, her eyes full of love and sacrifice. She tells her daughter to trust no cat as the teeth of the dogs sink into her, softly, gentle as a kiss.
...And the camera cuts quickly to Frostpaw, up in the tree, the "wool" pulled off her eyes for the first time, the screeching, violent agony of her mother's bloody death reflected in them. Her grip falters as her body trembles with nausea, but she catches herself. Tears her face away from the horrible sight, and pulls herself up further out of harm's way.
I'll be making sure to write it down in the upcoming post too, but, preview <3
Do you have any plans for Frost’s littermates in ASC?
It's odd that Canon!Curlfeather is portrayed on the screen as a scheming character who was fully willing to manipulate her daughter into a position of power, and smart enough to know that she needed lackeys to carry out her dirtywork... and yet, seemingly had no plans for her other two kids.
On one hand, I can understand her wanting to "use" her family as little as possible. You could say she's willing to make a sacrifice with Frostkit's comfort, but wants to spare her other children from it.
On the other hand... I just don't feel like that works. I want to portray BB!Curlfeather as someone who truly believes every choice she made was good for her children. She might reconsider some of her beliefs based on her closeness to Morningstar while in the Dark Forest, but in life, she is absolutely the sort of person who would have a use in mind for her kittens.
I'm not super proud of these quick designs I made for Mistpaw and Graypaw, but here's a first draft;
You probably notice that they're all dog-like, and that's because they are direct descendants of Bluestar in BB! WOLF MOTIF BABEY
In fact, this is going to be a massive contributor towards their characterizations. I may be shuffling my tree in some other ways to make for better faction drama in RiverClan, but BB!Curlfeather priding her lineage, especially as it connects to Crookedstar and Stonefur, is very important to how it shapes her identity.
DESIGN AND DRABBLE BENEATH THE CUT;
On the wolf motif as a whole;
To begin with; note the apple-leaf eye markings! They are subject to the Mapleshade Curse.
Something I like to play with a lot is misconceptions about wolf behavior. For Bluestar herself, where this all began, I use the myth of the "lone wolf" as symbolism that she never truly acted alone.
At every turn, she had friends and family. Her sacrifices, her ruling style, everything she's ever done, is based on her love for both ThunderClan as well as the cats in other Clans.
The symbol of her friend group, the Forget-Me-Not, comes to symbolize Fire Alone as an ideology.
So... the Curlkin.
What I'm playing with is the idea that wolves are perfect, ferociously strong predators from birth.
Curlfeather wants to eventually give her children strong, respectable positions in the Clan. For Frostpaw, that's the Cleric position.
For the other kids, she was still assessing them as they were growing. Deputyship would have been for one of them, but she hadn't planned so far ahead that it would have been unreasonable.
"When you see a fish upstream, you don't race ahead to catch it downriver."
So, she wanted Mist and Gray to be strong and always encouraged them to achieve greatness. They were battle training as soon as they could, and never missed a day.
But it wasn't really their interest, and they weren't really "naturally gifted" or anything. They just do what their mom tells them is good to do for their future.
As a result I want all of them to look a little goofy in some way, except Curlfeather herself.
Frostpaw herself is the softest of the lot, but I want to make sure Gray and Mist are pretty obviously sweeter than they seem too.
Unfortunately though, I don't think I captured what I was going for. I'm definitely gonna give the Frost Siblings a second pass, while Frostpaw will just get refined a little.
Graypaw
He's naturally huge. Even as a newborn, people would comment about him being a big fat kitten.
As a result, he was probably the most "promising," early on.
Understand though; this wasn't necessarily nefarious. Having accomplished warriors as offspring is a sign of a great warrior, it makes a strong family.
It didn't mean she only saw her largest child as an opportunity. He just had great potential, which she would nourish.
He's a little bit entitled as a result. He's big, he works hard, his family's a big deal, he knows it.
And that's sort of his "issue," if you want to call it that. He's not really interested in honor for honor's sake, or improving himself for the sake of the Clan, the way his mother would expect a great warrior like herself to be.
He likes the tangible rewards of strength and is motivated by approval.
...which causes him to be a bully to those he considers weaker.
That ear got shredded in a fight somehow, I haven't decided yet if there's going to be another set of apprentices around the time, if it was Splashtail or his sister, or if it was a cat from another Clan who got tired of his shit lmaoo
(In any case it was NOT his mother.)
Since him and his sister have "obedient to their mother" as major personality traits, I decided to give them both domestic dog characteristics. Graypaw has a german shepherd "stance."
I really like when people give Gray some cream in his design, so I made him look kinda like how I imagine Stonefur.
I don't really like it, though, especially since he's usually described as "silver tabby."
In my next draft, I'll probably make him look more like "Swansong if he had the wolf motif."
And also fatter. They are not fat enough. These are RiverClan warriors and they are all too damn skinny.
Frostpaw
Since this arc began, I've imagined that Frosty has a sort of "little red riding hood" vibe. It's been mixing in my head with the wolf motif, the phrase "wool over the eyes," and the idea of a wolf in sheep's clothing to result in a sort of wooly cloak idea.
Something about a wolf cub who doesn't know who to trust-- the Big Bad Wolf, or the Lumberjack with a blood-soaked axe.
Lost, confused, their whole world turned upside down.
(hmmm.... maybe I'll do a thing where, before their mom's death, the wool covers her eyes. When she sees her die, the look of shock and horror is etched into her face forever.)
In BB, the Clan cats are monitored by scientists. They wouldn't be spaying or neutering the subjects of their investigation-- so I made her iconic "scars" MUCH bigger.
In fact, they're autopsy stitches. I'm going for a sort of "BROUGHT BACK FROM THE DEAD" vibe there.
Real "there is no way you would have survived those injuries without modern medicine" hours
I'm satisfied with this design, so I probably won't be changing it much besides tweaks. Though, I might make it so her "belly" wasn't exposed before the scientists shaved it to stitch her back up.
NOTE: If you wanna see more Frostpaw Plans, go check out this post where I jotted down a ton of ideas, it's also got further links to explore on BB!ASC thoughts I've been sitting on
Mistpaw
This is the one I like the least. She looks waaaaay too much like an Ivypool.
In my next pass I need to make her look cuter and goofier, give her some curls.
Like Graypaw, she only has one particularly unique scene in ASC so I'm building her personality around that.
Graypaw was a bit of a bully, so Mistpaw's got her mom's silver tongue and sharp wit. She can give a Mistystar speech if she wants.
She's a natural thinker, very curious, willing to question. It's something Curlfeather encourages in her, always coming in with the right answer to keep her satisfied.
"Mom, why do we train so much harder than everyone else?"
"To outdo them, of course."
"But... why train so hard when there's no threat? The impostor is gone, we're at peace."
"Oh, my love. You cannot pack a week's worth of training into the minute before a battle. They come hard and fast, and your attacker will have the advantage of surprise. Only practice will compensate."
Though Gray was a really big kitten and naturally imposing, Mist would be the one Curlfeather would ultimately decide was most fitting as a deputy.
If they'd gotten to that point, the siblings probably would have gotten in more fights as Gray started desiring the position for its benefits.
He'd see his mom was clearly giving Mist more opportunities to prove herself, and demand equal chances.
Mist would start thinking of Gray as a stupid bully who thinks he deserves everything because his shoulders are big.
BOTH of them would probably start trying to get Frost to support them over the other.
It would have been a MESS.
BUT, they never did get to that point. Curl was pretty equally focused on them at the point where she died.
When Graypaw got his ear shredded, Mistpaw thought it looked painful and horrific and "decided" to crop her own entirely, so they could never be shredded in battle. For reasons I covered in this Hearing Loss guide, RiverClan relies very little on hearing while hunting anyway.
I wanted Mistpaw to look extremely practical, and reference the cropped ears of a domestic dog. Give her a sort of "doberman" vibe.
Something struck me that Curlfeather could have talked her daughter into getting her ears cropped, both to show visually that she's politically grooming her just as much as she's politically grooming Frostpaw.
But... I'm unsure if I'll stick with it. I might have both Gray AND Mist get their ears cropped, or neither.
I also batted around the idea of a cropped tail, too, but THAT would definitely be too far since a tail is very important in swimming.
In fact, I made her tail waaaay too short and her build too thin, in the pursuit of that "doberman" idea.
Again; not a fan of this design. I will probably re-use it later or just give it away. Maybe I'll wait until I have a couple of "Rejected BB Designs" and do an adoptable batch lmao.
