A Young Fireheart

i’m feeling tempted to do more with this 0-0 i think the clans need fire so bad

imagine Warriors but they have fire

Here is where I dump or information on the idea but I had to make these realllyyy fast sketches before I lost the idea. Fire and the coal they keep is sacred to them becasue it mirrors the Sun. The coal is especially used in festivals during Winter and Spring but they are also used during special ceremonies.

How the coal is treated also acts as a characterizer of each Clan. Wind Clan is more communal so apprentices and warriors can carry/place the coal. It is kept in a tunnel in the center of the clearing wall. For this reason, they all have general knowledge on how to create and fix masks. Rabbits feet may be used to decorate them or dried flowers.

In contrast, River Clan is more private and prioritizes keeping the coal sacred. This resembles how they interact with Star Clan believing that each cat has a more personal relationship with Star Clan, fesivals are more quiet and focused on calming and centering oneself. The coal is stored in an unmarked area which is moved if any other clan finds it on accident or on purpose. Medicine cats exclusively can touch or place the coal. The mask is equally sacred and can only be properly mended by a medicine cat although leaders can fill in if necessary. The making of a mask is taught to medicine apprentices.

Thunder Clan keeps the coal in the leaders den becasue they believe much of Star Clan's power is funneled through the leader. Leaders are expected to move and place coal, however, medicine cats make the masks. The coal is kept in the leaders den in a nook in the rock. Thunder Clan is known to have loud crackling bon fires.

Shadow Clan is more communal in terms of coal handling as well, however, masks are extremely sacred and can only be made/mended by medic cats. A charred and hollowed tree near the entrance is where they keep the coal. Clan specific festivals are completely exclusive and secretive unlike Wind Clan which is known to invite friendly members of other clans if they feel inclined. Bon fires are not common but they often cremate bodies on a small island that is surrounded by bog. Cremation is also common in River Clan.

Star Clan must bless a mask before it is used, this contributes to how long lasting they often are (the oldest being from Shadow Clan going back 10 generations). The coal, although it mirrors the Sun, is contrasted by the blue light glow of the moon stone so the fire of coal represents life while the moonstone represents soul and spirit.

In many ways, the coal makes the Clans somewhat dependent on eachother because if coal somehow goes out there is an obligation for any Clan asked to share. If, for whatever reason, this does not happen there is a small eternal fire in a cavern said to be located far beneath the moonstone, however, no one has had to travel here for a couple generations. The knowledge of this cavern is held by medicine cats.

Theyre talking cats so I don't feel too bad making a crazy ass fire society head canon

When you ask to join the local forest cult 🔪

Firestar misses Bluestar at the lake territory.

Firestar misses Yellowfang at the like territory.

At the lake… he has a den that Bluestar never slept in. He bathes in the sun, glistening like flames, on rocks their paws never knew. He thinks of them more because there are no things that they shared here. They never shared tongue beneath the Highledge, or on Half rock. There are no memories of them there.

He can’t visit where they’re buried. He can’t put his paws there they once stood. There’s so hint of their stale scents on the stone. There’s nothing of them in this place. Fewer and fewer cats remember them.

He misses Lionheart.

He misses Whitestorm.

He misses Ravenpaw.

He misses his first true home in the forest. He dreams of a it. He dreams of them.

points and laughs at my mutuals getting famous posts while i remain safe in my relative obscurity

Dotc is awful and I think its fans have never actually read it

ㅤ

I walk the line of disliking the musical Hamilton (don’t like Lin Manuel Miranda, American propaganda, too spectacle for my taste…) and rewatching it to satisfy my Hamilton craving.

I’m a proud American for 2 1/2 hours once a year.

I'm getting tired of the sly remarks to Cinderpelt becoming a medicine cat instead of a warrior. Fifth book in and I'm still getting the usual line, Fireheart couldn't shake off how Cinderpelt could no longer be a warrior or have a mate or have kits. SHE CLEARLY IS A GREAT MEDICINE CAT. So yea, maybe she was a fail queen two books ago when she had to learn to live with this disability, but she did learn! Yellowfang was a mean ol' granny, but clearly understood how well she adapted to the new role. It's not the worst depiction of becoming disabled, since you know in warrior cats society every able cat aspires to be a warrior and to lose that is everything and to find a new role that aids the entire clan in more ways than one is a great success story. Fireheart stays whiny for too long about Cinderpelt, imo.

so I've been thinking about it

and I think

DotC would've been more interesting if it explored more on the family aspect of things

Clear Sky, Jagged Peak, and Gray Wing are brothers who fall apart

Thunder is rejected by his biological father

it would be so cool to see DotC being about found family and what cats defined as family, for cats to choose who they belonged with and the Clans not forming from petty grudges and teaming up against Clear Sky

but by realizing that these were the cats that made them happy to be around

we get so many little tidbits of this, but that's not the overarching theme of the story and I think it'd be so much more fun if it was

Wind Runner, famously abandoned, learning that she's allowed to trust cats again and make her own family with Gorse Fur by her side. That she's allowed to have a family that won't hurt her.

Tall Shadow losing loved ones - namely her brother Moon Shadow - and making her family something safe that she could protect and that could, in turn, learn to protect each other

River Ripple having once known a proper family, but losing and and turning his group into a loving home, one where cats are welcome no matter how their paws brought them there and turning it into a community like that he grew up with

and then getting to the biggest missed opportunities;

Thunder, being torn so many ways, learning that family isn't always blood. Family is who you want to be around, those you want to protect, but also laugh with, learn from, and teach in turn. That just because Clear Sky sired him doesn't mean that he has to be loyal to his father.

And a Clear Sky redemption arc where Clear Sky learns that family isn't something you control. That family doesn't mean you can hurt those you care about, even if you believe it's for the 'greater good'. That all cats are their own person and trying to strip them of that doesn't make you good family and that you can lose the ones you love.

/

or at least

those are my feelings

Does anyone ever think about how the clans used to actually have differences in culture and lifestyle and how all of that got erased in the newer books?

Imagine how cool it would have been if the Erins had explored these cultural differences between the clans even FURTHER because that would have given the series so much potential.

Here are some examples of just how cool cultural differences can be:

RiverClan

I want to see RiverClan using their skills in swimming way more than they do currently, let them swim to the gathering island every full moon, let them attack other clans from the depths of the lake and drag cats down into the water to drown them. Let them still have their easygoing and relaxed attitude but show how formidable they can be in a fight and make it clear that they are not to be messed with.

Give them their own traditions too, let them celebrate the coming of spring each year because of ice melting and the river thawing so that they can fish again. Let them collect pretty flower petals on this day to decorate their dens and have them celebrate it by all going down to the river to fish.

Show their clan’s love for pretty trinkets and have them gather pretty shells and pebbles from the river. Let the apprentices play games this way by seeing who can find the prettiest shell for their den and boasting about it later. I imagine the other clans would view them as relaxed and easygoing, always having a ready source of food thanks to the river but at the same time they know to fear them for their almost unnatural fighting skills in the water.

WindClan

Imagine WindClan still keeping their old tradition of tunnelling even at the lake territory, imagine WindClan tunnellers accidentally discovering the old forgotten tunnels that run under the forest and finding out pieces of their history this way, possibly even before Jayfeather does. I wish they had kept the tunnelling tradition alive because that was what made WindClan so unique.

Show just how fast WindClan can be, let them use the tunnels to invade other territories and let them be almost impossible for the others to catch up to. They might be considered scrawny but show that they have an advantage in battle because of their uncanny speed.

In general let them have a closed off and cold approach to the other clans. Show that they think they are closer to StarClan than the others because they live and sleep under open skies. They might seem almost mysterious to the other clans and deeply rooted in their traditions. Let them have oral storytelling nights and let them chart constellations in the night sky, keeping alive the tales of their ancestors.

The could even believe that the wind which blows over the moors is holy, the echo of the voices of their ancestors. I picture them as a religious clan, even more than the others. Perhaps they pray by listening to the wind and leaving offerings to be blown away in the breeze (usually the feathers of birds of prey)

ShadowClan

Next up is ShadowClan, the stereotypical bad guys. I would have loved if ShadowClan had been shown to follow a more nocturnal lifestyle, being active mostly at night. They would be masters of stealth, blending into the shadows and coating themselves with mud and leaves for camouflage due to their territories limited undergrowth. This might be what gives them their stereotypical bad smell, that ThunderClan always complains about.

Their territory is very marshy and due to little undergrowth it would be harder for them to stalk prey. This has caused them to be the stealthiest out of all the clans and the best hunters. But they are also able to use this stealth to their advantage in a fight. They attack without warning from the shadows and rely on surprise, always striking at night when it’s hardest to see them.

Their tradition could be the celebration of the winter solstice, the longest night of the year.

ThunderClan

And finally we have the main protagonists ThunderClan. This clan has always felt bland to me in terms of tradition because they don’t seem to have anything that really makes them stand out. I imagine they are probably the best trackers due to having to hunt and track prey in thick bushy undergrowth.

But honestly I would have loved if they had been given something to make them special and unique. Any ideas?

God I love the idea of cats in position of power being decorated with herbs, flowers, etc to show their statues from everyday wear to gatherings.

But the specific intimate aspect of their closest clanmates/kin helping them get ready is what really appeals to me like thinking about

Yellowfang braiding specific flowers and trinkets into Cinderpaws fur before going to the moonstone to gain her medcat name.

Bluestar gifting Redtail some feathers after his promotion to Deputy

Mudfur naively weaving a moth wing into Mothwings fur before giving her name.

And so on

Idk I'm just thinking out loud :p