YAYYYY VINEEEE MY GUY EVER Recently I did an icon like this as apart of a trade and I had SO much fun working on it, so ended up deciding to do one of my own characters!! This was a super spur of the moment piece when I started it but still really happy with how it came out in spite of that!! Also I haven’t drawn Vine as of late so even more reason to have done this icon I honestly LOVEE this cat so much he will forever be such an interesting character to me. I’ve mentioned and shown him quite a few times by now, but I haven’t really loredumped about him so here we are!!!! Also beware there are a few nuances I need to mention about him so this is gonna be a little lengthy Vine’s story really starts with Cricketcry I think, specifically when he spread the lie that. got them demoted from being Chosen. Which was when their life began to really get bad. Before I go any further though I do want to make note of the fact that Vine wasn’t ENTIRELY to blame for the demotion. Was it still extremely horrible of him and shows his morals to be less than great? Oh absolutely. Howeverrr there is also the fact that, no matter what, they likely would’ve been demoted sooner or later. It’s a long story but tldr Moth / NCC’s leader / Cricketsong/cry’s mentor has this habit of ‘punishing’ Chosens (essentially their apprentice, also a long story) the moment they realize the false ideologies of New CrystalClan since oh yeah ncc is also a cult!!!! Again extremely long story but in short, Moth knew that one day, Cricketsong/cry would’ve realized the truth, and therefore they’d need to demote them, hence them appearing to buy into Vine’s lie, which they knew wasn’t true but went with it anyways. NOW. This was kind of a massive oversight on Moth’s part since Cricketcry ended up being probably like the most devoted cat to ncc + their beliefs ever and wouldn’t realize how false everything was for a good 15 or so years, BUUT BESIDE THE POINT BACK ON TOPIC After the demotion occurred, Vine was made the new Chosen, which was his whole motivation for what he did in the first place. Also like a month later the supervolcano eruption happened and everyone had to move underground so we are moving to that now!!! (Also he got renamed to Vineblaze since only Chosens get a suffix buut I’ll probably still refer to him as Vine since I already refer to him as such 98% of the time unless I’m writing in-universe scenes) Fast forward again to a year and a half in the tunnels, and remember how I said that Moth ‘has a habit of punishing Chosens when they express doubt in their teachings’???? YEAHHH Well long story short Vine began to realize that everything he was being taught wasn’t lining up and that it was all false, which then led to him losing his eye (the one covered by his fur, which you can see the scar of in certain drawings of him) at the paws of Moth. After this everything ALSO began to go downhill for Vine since he was already trying to deal with some horrid guilt about Cricketcry (since while his actions towards them WERE incredibly selfish, he never really counted on them being treated as bad as they were by their clan, which again very selfish but I digress), he’s now having to deal with mistreatment from Moth too all the while trying to keep up the act of a professional public figure seeing that he *is* still Chosen!!! Fun!!!!! He ended up finding refuge by suggesting to Moth an expedition to the surface, as it had now been around 2 years since the eruption. Luckily enough they agreed to this alongside the neighboring clan’s / MothClan’s leader Wren, soon afterwards sending out four cats to the surface, that being Cricketcry, Vine, Shamrock, and Solstice. Cricketcry and Shamrock went solo, meanwhile Vine and Solstice stuck together, which ended in them meeting a cat called Stag, who apparently was on the surface this whole time (alongside her deer which had raised her but again LONG STORY I’ll explain her whole deal some other time) The plot from here on out IS kind of messy since new lore has been added since I made the official tcc arc 9 timeline, but two major things happen between now and the finale, so I’ll get into the thing that likely came first. At some point, Vine actually manages to reconnect with Cricketcry, albeit under less than ideal circumstances. In short, they began to live with him at Stag’s camp, which was where he and Solstice were also living at the time (and for most of the expedition in fact). This was mainly because of Seraph unfortunately, as they mainly began to live at the camp in order to get away from him. [ CONT IN NOTES AND CREDITS SINCE THIS GOT TOO LONG SOMEHOW OOPS ]
[ CONTINUED FROM INSTRUCTIONS, READ THAT FIRST ] It was also during this period that Vine and them began to become frenemies almost, as by this point he had LONG realized how messed up what he did was by kickstarting their demotion. So with them now living at the camp, he began to attempt to grow what little bond he could with them in hopes of being on better terms. This was a VERYY large thing to try and achieve though, as Cricketcry still barely trusted him, much less forgave him for what he did, which was of course within their right honestly. This came to a halt when oh no turns out Seraph is BACK and he uh!!!! Attempts to actually take Cricketcry out!!!!! This event, what I like to call the river murder attempt or river attack, is another VERY long story but tldr Cricketcry thought they saw Vine essentially leaving them for dead during the attack, leading to them fully turning on him and ending what little frenemyship they had. Now, this wasn’t at *all* what happened as him ‘turning tail’ was just him trying to run to get help from Stag, but in Cricketcry’s defense I can not blame them for thinking otherwise considering the circumstances of the attack. Not only did they get ANOTHER tbi / traumatic brain injury from the event, but they were already like very unstable, very untrusting, their c-ptsd probably got worsened tenfold by the event, it was SERAPH attacking them, and so many other things. Oh and the attack sort of caused a months-long mental breakdown for them but that’s a story for another day!!! Also not too long after this Cricketcry dissapears camp but Vine sees them one last time when they attempt to murk him. After that though they don’t really appear in his story a lot so I’ll leave it at that OK jumping back to the second major thing that happened in Vine’s story before the finale. This is also really not ironed out so I’m gonna be a bit less descriptive here, but he ends up learning of Stag’s plan to essentially destroy the clans, which he at first disagrees with HEAVILY, but eventually agrees to the idea after learning of the very lengthy and very messy and VERY not great history of the clans, both the old clan and the current clans of MothClan and ncc. This destruction of the clans, or the raid, is the finale of not only The Clan Chronicles / tcc arc 9, but tcc as a whole. The raid happens (primarily with the help of Stag’s deer), and that sort of marks the end of Vine’s story, as well for everyone else in tcc. Well ok except for. Cricketcry since afc happens not too long after the tcc finale but again story for another day!!!!!! OKKK THAT WAS. VERY LONG MY GOD. I didn’t mean it to be that lengthy but I have a lot to say about this cat so whoops!!! Also on that note if we like the longer and more in-depth loredumps then lmk and I will be sure to try and make future ones be similar to this ^_^ Also at some point I might make a project for you guys to vote on certain characters I should loredump about sooner rather than later so keep an eye out for that if I do end up doing it!
