September 24th
I'm Listening to: Bring Me Back a Dog by IAMX
I'm feeling: motivated
I'm playing/watching: Splatoon 3 - team fun for splatfest!!
Very quickly sitting down to throw out these thoughts because boy! I have energy and inspiration to write this all down. This may because long because I wanna give loads of context to new readers...
So, i used to be pretty into Warrior Cats - though from 2020 to April 2022, i was specifically in it for the RP circle I got into. A bit before that though I had written a whole outline for a fan story though, and I did it more as an exercise. I always felt i was bad at following through or finding endings to stories, even if just outlined. Its hard for me to tackle anything if i dont know how it will end. This was The Moon's Talon (MT) - there is an 11 page outline you can read, with a full clan allegiance, and the canon had some altered roles. And I am still very proud I finished this whole story outline! It really is the first thing i thought of and wrote a whole idea for.
But I did that, and then hopped into Rping during most of the pandemic. I won't go on about that for too long, but eventually I ran my own server called The Astronomers (TA) following a Warrior Cats story with clans and various very original ideas with lore. It was meant to literally force a reality between the real outter space beyond earth, and the more "magical" side of warriors typical beleifs. The two clans were to start as polar opposites- one beleiving strongly in more scientific views of stars and space while the other beleives that stars were personaifications of their loved ones. I had numerous arcs planned up to the "end", about 5-6 arcs, but we only barely got into arc 2 before I closed it in early 2022 for reasons outside of my control.
I had to take some time away from all that due to the stress and upset that led to the server's closing, and I hyave much enjoyed my time since. I wasn't into all that RP stuff because of warriors, really. I do xenofiction like Warriors! But i was there for the stories to tell with others more than anything.
BUT where am i going with this article you are wondering... well, its been some time since all that and I am feeling better about looking at those stories. When someone messaged the Moon's Talon blog about the outline, I was like oh! Yea I am still pretty happy with that. Maybe I can rework it to being non-Warriors? It might be refreshing, i just havent done much OC stuff lately that isnt by complicated world Cryptolalia that is so much of a WIP i cant show much for.
I have seen quite a few people rework their Warriors stories into original universes, and I have considered it before, but that was when I was in the middle of by server, and then after that I really thought I just wasn't going to pick any of that up. And on top of reworking MT, it occurred to me that I could rework all of the stuff I did for my RP too... it hit me and it made me feel kind of emotional I think. I had to give up on it in a way I couldn't change, and it sucked. I don't like to think back to all that, but it sucked. And it hurts that I never got to live out that story in the format I intended- and while I can't recreate everything as it was (either due to being too Warriors-esque, or because it was RP format specific), I feel much better about look at all that again, and reclaiming it, and rebirthing it into something new!
I can't say I have any idea where this may go. It will probably take some time as I need to take out all the Warriors stuff, and also likely redesign SO many characters. I need to figure out how to get these two stories to work with each other, because in their existing canon, MT occured in the far far past before TA. It relied a bit on the Warrior's expected "reincarnation" ideas and things related to the stars. I think I will have to do away with much of that, or do it in a way that isn't so tied to "stars are our dead relatives". I will probably shove these two stories together and not make them a huge timeskip. Which means other ties need to change, converge, whatever.
I don't even know how I will shift all this- I do look forward to getting rid of the 20 member large clans... thank god, no more random ass background cats I will never touch. I look forward to it, because both stories were actually way more inspired by Felidae- in the sense that that book treats cats as much more intelligent, capable of some human things if they learn it, etc. I don't think I will have any issues changing it up- it'll just take time.. and I am way more eager to make my own ideas not tied to the strict rules of Warriors now too.
I have lots of ideas I wanna work on, and I don't actually plan to draw as much for this as I did for my past Warriors stuff- I really forced it. But I will certain be writing stuff! And eventually I will have a section on my site for all my OC things...eventually lol. For now though, follow my tumblr!