#bb!nightcloud

[bonefall]

What would be Nightcloud’s name if she was leader? Since we have Nightstar, and we have Cloudstar,

StarClan would think of a good one for her, if she didn't have one in mind.

I feel like she'd want to call herself Sowstar. Hogs are the largest, strongest, most DANGEROUS animal in the 5 Clans. A boar might be dangerous on his own, but a sow fights with TWICE the strength to protect her little humbugs.

And I think that's the sort of name she would want to wear. She's proud of her strength, and is now finally realizing she can be proud of her commitment too. And even a sow, just for defending its babies, they can be hated and maligned by Clan cats.

She'd feel a connection to sows that would be a great honor to bear in a name.

[bonefall]

Do you have any plans for BB!Nightcloud's relationships beyond Crowfeather? Her divorcing him and marrying Leafpool isn't... feasible, unfortunately, but it would be the funniest possible thing she could do. Are there any WindClan cats she could wife/husband/spouse up while giving Crow the well-deserved finger?

I want her to have some friends, but the cornerstone of her character is that unfortunately she is quite lonely.

She doesn't want to be like Hillrunner. Hillrunner taught her about fear, she taught her to always have a backup plan, she taught her to watch her tone, her actions, the amount of space she was occupying at any moment. She taught her not to trust.

She doesn't want to be like Hillrunner. She lost a mother she doesn't remember to Crookedstar and Nightstar. She lost her Mi to TigerClan. She lost her sister to BloodClan. She lost her rebellion leader to StarClan's fury.

She doesn't want to be like Hillrunner. How do you not be like Hillrunner? What does it look like to be unlike her?

Keeping friends is difficult. It feels like everyone is just tolerating her. Nightcloud doesn't know the right things to say, or if they even like her or if they're just pretending. Crowfeather makes this worse; try to be genuine with him and he'll turn that against you. Argue too much and he'll accuse her of not listening. You can't play fair with unfair people.

Breezekit makes sense. This is the first time anything has felt easy since Tawnyfur died.

So I don't know if romance is really in the cards for her. She would like it, wants it, but Crowfeather has soured it badly. What she really needs is some friends.

I have a few interesting ones in mind;

Whitewater of ShadowClan: she is the secret parent of Harespring and Kestrelflight with Mudclaw, I think it's interesting if her and Night were close-ish as rebels, but now, looking at each other... brings up complicated feelings. Maybe Nightcloud can request to mentor Harepaw.

Addersong: A kit that Tallstar saved while he was a warrior, grew up into a happy and joyful adult. He was Nightcloud's mentor, but joins the Elder's den sometime after arriving at the Lake. I feel like he should always be someone Night can turn to.

Willowclaw: Background warrior who's getting a boost because WindClan needs more going on. Fellow fantastic warrior who likes to spar with her. Maybe when Nightcloud is out of the relationship with Crowfeather she starts actively trying to hang out with Willow, who's kind of secretive.

(Note: Leafpool x Nightcloud is one of my very harmless squicks. I mean no judgement to others, I know it's popular with other Nightcloud fans, but I strongly dislike it so it's never going to be considered in any way for BB.)

[bonefall]

i like the part about Mudclaw's rebellion in Nightcloud's bio, where it starts simple right - he is the rightful leader bc he was the deputy and it's sus that ThunderClan insists that Onewhisker should be blessed. and how both she and Crowfeather agree with Mudclaw is the right one, even thought they don't agree on other things (namely how much truth as ThunderClan speaking and all).

and then Mudclaw goes mask off when Hawkfrost joins and brings open Thistles with him in. and Nightcloud starts having some doubts, because.. 'wait is that actually right'. but she is a bit too deep in this shit to bail out. and Hawkfrost is using the ever present 'hypothetical massacre' that will definitely happen if ThunderClan gets what they want (crowning of their totally spy Onewhisker) and it triggers something what Hillrunner used to say when she was a kit. so surely there must be some truth in there, right. it's actually reasonable to kill Onewhisker, right..? yes, to prevent ThunderClan massacring and driving them out they need to kill those that side with them, that's the only way. Hawkfrost and Mudclaw are right.. until they werent. like she was already tiptoeing that thin line between hard traditionalism and outright Thistle Law, but that was really pushing her over to the right side.

at least that's how i interpret it! i dont want to say she was a soft Thistle, bc it sounds like an oxymoron lol, but definitely somewhere in the very short very thin middle between traditionalist and it, while still parroting the dogwhistles (thistlewhistles).

Thistlewhistles LMAO

Something I'm getting at with Mudclaw's Rebellion that I'm glad people are picking up on is that there's a point where the differences between them all don't matter anymore.

Is Mudclaw himself a true supporter of Thistle Law, or is he just willing to work with them to benefit himself? In the end, he's invited TigerClan cats like Blackclaw into his cause. He repeats all the same rhetoric, and exploits xenophobia to his own ends. He's organized an insurrection. He never states an opinion on the Queen's Rights, which is the "litmus" test for if they've crossed the line between Traditionalism and Thistle Law...

but it doesn't matter. The distinction is no longer meaningful. If it grows like a thistle...

Nightcloud, too. She was born under Queen's Rights. She felt suspicious when Mudclaw started bringing in those outsiders to the rebellion. She was too far in to back out. She had a sympathetic backstory and good, understandable reasons to be so paranoid about WindClan's weakness.

Didn't matter; in the end she fell in line, was complicit in the assassination attempt.

Cats like Crowfeather don't even believe that Onewhisker lied. He just truly felt that Mudclaw was the better leader, and Tallstar's last-minute madness shouldn't be considered legitimate. You don't have to believe the conspiracy to support its actions, you can just be a VERY useful idiot.

In the end, literally nothing good came of this conflict. It's the start of Onestar's downfall, several people died, they were fighting peat fires for weeks. Your good intentions mean nothing when you ally with hate movements.

[bonefall]

kind of long, but nightcloud’s metamorphosis? or nightcloud’s rooting if you wanna tie into some wild boar symbolism with how they till the earth to find food, which breaks up the ground but also allows for new growth to form. and also how she’s finally finding her place, her ~roots~ in the clan

Hmm... I do kinda like the boar symbolism. Though I wonder how relevant it will be, since I'd be working with stoats. Unless I changed the stoats, of course, to make them into humbugs that are lost all over the territory.

Maybe I could make it so Onestar is, as usual, blustering about wanting to reject ThunderClan help (even though their whole THING historically is boar-hunting) to catch and eat every humbug, but Nightcloud rightly sees that the sow is only on the moor looking for its children. Reuniting them would be easier.

Maybe I could tie boars and seasons together by calling it Nightcloud's Pannage. Pannage is an event where hogs are turned out into forests to root and devour the "mast" (acorns and beechnuts) dropped all over the floor. It's an important event because mast will poison horses and cows, and the pigs break up and churn the soil for new growth with their rooting.

Something about clearing the past, to prepare for a better future.

[bonefall]

what is the crow/night/breeze family dynamic like in this au? you've mentioned crowfeather being the one still emotional over leafpool so that would definitely affect breezepelt, but im curious of the wider scale of it. love this au btw!

I'm trying to infuse more nuance into all three of them like they're a cold brew tea.

HOLD UP THOUGH; let me be CLEAR!! I don't think Nightcloud has done anything wrong in canon (besides the rebellion which they forgor about anyway). I do not like how the narrative put a lot of blame on her in Po3/OotS/field guides when her greatest sin was... loving her child.

So in BB she is going to do bad things because we support women's wrongs <3

NIGHTCLOUD

I keep going back and forth on when she was born, if she was nabbed as a kit after the WindClan Massacre or if she was a young warrior during the BloodClan battle.

In either case, she is the sister of a cat named Tawnyfur, and their Mi is Hillrunner. They were born to Hillrunner's identical twin Downwind, but she was killed during TPB.

Hillrunner was incredibly traumatized by the horrors. She was obsessed with strength and phobic of ShadowClan for her entire life.

If you met Hillrunner, you'd think Nightcloud was a sweetheart in comparison (and she will be)

Tawnyfur was killed in the BloodClan battle.

Nightcloud hated Tallstar agreeing to trade with them, and she was easily recruited by Mudclaw based on her fury at Leo, Snapper, and Spagbol joining WindClan.

When they got to the Lake, Nightcloud joined Mudclaw's Rebellion. She spoke out against involving cats of other Clans in the cause, but fell in line quick.

The rebellion sabotauged a muirburn. The controlled burn became uncontrolled FAST.

I think she wanted to blame the cats like Hawkfrost for how far it went, but after the rain doused the flames and WindClan had to keep putting out smouldering peat fires, she realized it didn't look good to keep blaming others.

Plus how Mudclaw got smote. THAT put fear of StarClan into her

So it wasn't neccesarily out of regret that she apologized for her role and begged forgiveness, but a mix of guilt, fear, and genuine desire to fix the collateral damage.

I think she did take Crowfeather as a mate for reputation purposes, but she did also like him and want a mate. It wasn't an Honor Siring, for her it was more of an "arrangement" which she hoped would strengthen

She wanted to prove her loyalty, but also that she is a good and loving cat.

When Breezekit came around, she tried her hardest to be a good mom. She really didn't want to be like Hillrunner.

But she hadn't worked through anything else. Still had a distaste for Brushblaze, Snapstorm, and Cranberrysplash. Strongly valued strength and aggression. Only approved of Onestar when he pushed for violence and rejected the notion that you can trust cats of other Clans.

Breezepelt struggles with it for most of Po3, because he gets very close to the Three and considers them friends. But when the reveal drops, he believes she was right all along

I don't know how to preserve it yet but I do want Nightcloud to keep the housecat friend she makes in CT. Eventually.

Basically... she's dealing with a lot of anger of her own, not really knowing how to sort it, following along with what she was taught.

And Breeze inherits many of those problems.

CROWFEATHER

Significantly different from canon. Not aloof; dramatic

He's also a REALLY good cook. He was Mudclaw's apprentice and it shows.

I'm actually going to wrap him up in the rebellion. He endorsed Mudclaw's claim over Onestar-- and over the word of Brambleclaw.

But he snitched and fetched help on the night of the sabotauge.

After that and then Leafpool, he was also looking for a way to boost his reputation. Having kits was a way to do that, and he's a cat who was chosen by StarClan to go on a great journey, son of an old deputy and a new deputy, with an honor title, who ran to fetch help and thwart the assassination attempt.

He knows he is a bit controversial but also that he is undeniably a big shot. And he's not going to pretend like he's not proud of that. He's not even 5 and hasn't even had an apprentice but he's the most significant cat in WindClan

So when Breezekit comes along? He should be grateful. But he's not, he's a snot nosed little brat (child) who backtalks (child) to his own father (adult)

And he sure doesn't appreciate Nightcloud always trying to fight him. How dare she tell him how to be a Ba?

She won't let him BE involved in the way he wants, turning his kit against him, this is all her fault.

"If it wasn't for her, Breezepaw would know discipline!"

The whole world is out to get Crowfeather and anything bad that happens around him is someone else's fault.

So obviously the mateship falls apart fast.

He doesn't respect anything about Breezepelt, and blames all of his kid's problems on Nightcloud.

In a furious fight, he likes to compare Nightcloud to his other lovers. He says Feathertail, even if he IS talking secretly about Leafpool, because she is dead and can't confirm it, and it always hurts Nightcloud to be compared to an outsider.

This is an exhausting person to be around, and the boost in status and resulting ego makes him insufferable in contrast to the young warrior he was on the Sundrown Patrol.

After the Secret Reveal though, when Leafpool is stripped of her Cleric status and Crowfeather starts talking openly about his love, it is the LAST straw with Onestar. He rips his warrior name off and exiles him for a month-- begone CROW, NO SUFFIX. No you're not going back to CrowFOOT either. Not even an entire Dishonor Title. Just Crow.

He does start improving after that, but he needed a drastic punishment

BREEZEPELT

The kid was only born as a status symbol. Do you blame him for being a special kind of messed up?

He really cannot remember a time where his parents weren't fighting. Never liked it when Crowfeather did parental duties either. Kids are really sensitive to bad vibes.

Was, and still is, really close to his mom. But he always spent a lot of time with his buddies.

Harepaw, Kestrelpaw, Breezepaw, and Heatherpaw were the oldest apprentices in WindClan, the first ones born in the new territory. They all hung out together, except Kestrelpaw who was in Cleric training as soon as possible. Not even 6 moons.

When he's in a good environment, Breezepelt really shines. He isn't like Crowfeather says he is, he's actually fine at making friends and getting along.

When Crow or Night are around, he will often noticeably get more rude and xenophobic, eyes darting back at them like he's looking for approval. Night is always approving of this and giving light chuckles, Crow will engage in it too, but snap if he feels like Breeze embarassed him somehow.

When they go away it's like it drains out of him.

His worst choices in BB always go back to him being pretty desperate for approval, snapping between idealizing people or thinking they're the absolute worst.

So yeah. It's a screwey little dynamic. They hate Crowf, Crowf hates them, the arrangement was massively based on status, Breezekit was always in an unstable environment from the get-go, Nightcloud did contribute to Breezepelt's mindset especially post-reveal.

[bonefall]

did you have any specific inspiration for niclouds design? to me she sort of looks like an extinguished fire but im curious to know what you were thinking of while drawing her

In my head, I ALWAYS see her as an opera singer for some reason. Like this huge queen who used to dominate the stage with her presence alone, until getting into a toxic marriage with a hotshot playwriter who holds her back out of his own ego. Both of them truly talented as artists, but over time, the playwrite begins to ruin her career and reputation through his abuse.

She's also got long, thick legs, to stress she is still from WindClan. I wanted her to be a really good example of what they look like when they're buff, as opposed to ThunderClan who tends to be a lot lower to the ground, fat around the stomach, and low in the hips. Kinda like a boar vs a bear.

She also has a "tussock" of fur on the top of her head. Breezepelt is getting emo hair and some anime ass design progression as the arcs move on, lmao. I love when characters wear their hair differently for symbolism.