i used cradles for this. not sure why Me: i can't post this yet i wanna get the animation just right The animation: hahaha smoothness go brrrrrrr ...is smoothness a word it doesn't sound like it should be a word *stares pensively at animation* the tails are stiff and the two cattos very clearly copy-pasted but I suppose its OK because Brambleclaw and Tigerclaw are clones or they would be, were it not for their scars ... oh SQUIDS, i forgot their SCARS now you will never be able to tell which one is which *cough* ANYWAYS, THE AU This is my Flower AU, aptly named by my kid brother. I explain my AUs to him you see And this one was very hard to explain, seeing as it makes very little sense. Basically it started with me daydreaming up a Hunger Games-type situation for random warriors. I've read Warriors Hunger Games things before but I made up one that's not run by DF cats but... by me... lol it didn't need to make sense for me, so I didn't work on the premises at all, I just focused on the scenarios and interactions :P I'll try to make sense of it for you. You can skip and go to the story in the N&C section if you like, 'cause I explain some things there too. -> I call this place the Game or the Arena. it's very similar to the Hunger Games arena but there are way more cooler features: traps and spontaneous disasters and genetically modified, extremely dangerous organisms. Special potions are scattered across the Arena and are eXTREMELY valuable. -> Certain people in the Game have benefits or handicaps. Some will have greens bands that will repel gmedos in a certain radius of the band, depending on the brightness of the band. -> gmedos = genetically modified extremely dangerous organisms, pronounced jimeedos -> A person with a red band will ATTRACT gmedos in a certain radius, depending on the brightness of the band. -> Guess which people have green bands? Kittypets. *bursts out laughing because my ingeniously cruel irony cracks me up* -> People with red bands are known kittypet-haters! Tigerstar's is bright red and - oh no I didn't draw it - Imagine an extremely bright red collar on the neck of the cat on the left. It really really ticks him off that he's wearing a collar that attracts monsters like fleas and I really like putting him through this kind of torture. -> Green-bands don't have to still be kittypets, they just have to have been born kittypets or died kittypets. They wouldn't be here if they didn't have relations or any sort of significance in the Clans. (If they do, the relations would be in the Arena too.) -> SkyClan is not in this AU and I'm only including characters from the timeline up to right before SkyClan joined the lake. I don't like SkyClan. I dislike Leafstar greatly. -> aight, so all the characters in the Arena start off in pairs. these include: Squirrelflight and Tigerstar, Pinestar and Tadpole, Crowfeather and Hollyleaf, Mothwing and Tawnypelt, Hawkfrost and Scourge, Sasha and Goldenflower, Brambleclaw and Firestar, Tigerheart and Alderheart, Jayfeather and Leafpool, Ivypool and Brokenstar, Lionblaze and Breezepelt, Yellowfang and Raggedstar, etc. (I'll admit I'm a LITTLE obsessed with the DF cats and Firestar's fam) And there we go, that's the end of the setup! did any of that make sense? I hope it did.. I really want someone to notice how I made Bramble's claws retract in the animation, I mean I thought that was a cool little detail because his job is to heal and not fight?? 'cause he's just a tiny little Nectar of Life-dispenser now- it's everyone else's job to protect him- really just Tigerstar's because that vine in his side is super OP
Now we're going to quickly skip ahead to the actual Flower part of the AU because there simply isn't enough room :) The biggest group in the Arena is now Tigerstar, Squirrelflight, Brambleclaw, Firestar, and Hawkfrost (he lost Scourge somewhere along the way). Tigerstar, Brambleclaw, and Firestar leave the other two alone at their temporary camp while they scout for a new, gmedo-free place to stay. They come across a place... a greenhouse. Tigerstar wants to go inside, reasoning that there may be food there. Firestar, too, is very curious. Brambleclaw has a bad feeling about it, but he's not about to desert them. They go inside. The greenhouse is alive with oversized plants. Enormous aloe vera ferns cast a shadow over Firestar as he peers inside a bromeliad large enough to swim in. Surrounded by suspicious looking berry bushes- really hedges, with how tall they are- Tigerstar wrestles with the thorny vines in the way of a cluster moonfruit. Brambleclaw is admiring a light pink flower that looks a lot like a lotus crossed with a carnation- and is just as tall as he is. He's not an idiot. He knows that even in normal greenhouses, plants don't grow this big. Something else- some strange, unspoken force present in the whole Arena- is making these plants grow so much. Brambleclaw stares at the plant pensively. The bad feeling from before intensifies and he turns his head to call out to the others. And comes face to face with a humongous Venus flytrap. Without thinking, he dodges to the right as it snaps on the space where his torso used to be. His foot presses something- a switch. A strange feeling freezes the three of them, as if the world flipped upside down-- wait, hang on. why am I writing this like a story?? I don't have room to do that :[ anyways, the switch, before Bramble stepped on it, made everything grow abnormally fast- because time moved abnormally fast, fast enough that Firestar's joints creaked when he stood up. When flicked, the switch reversed time. Now, instead of time moving forwards abnormally fast, time is moving BACKWARDS abnormally fast. Everyone's growing younger now, including the plants. Speaking of the plants, that giant carnation-lotus (carnotus, now) is growing younger too. Young enough that it's now dripping with its magic nectar. Young enough that it can do its special propogation-functionality. Basically, the carnotus is a very valuable plant. It is also known as the Fountain of Youth. It's nectar is similar to the nectar of life that the mythical Greek Gods used to drink. Its petals and nectar have healing properties when ingested in small quantities and de-aging properties when ingested in large quantities. Naturally, a flower like this is very very very sought after by creatures of all kinds. How did it get into the Arena? idk :v But it's a very rare flower- extremely endangered- and it must have a way to propogate it's species, right? Well, that's what it's going to do. It's going to put one (or more) of its seeds into the nearest host in the hopes that the host as well as the baby carnotus can defend themselves so the little carnotus can have seeds too. This procedure is usually activated when it senses danger. Wow, this is a pretty smart plant, huh? Back to the story. Youth nectar is dripping on Brambleclaw, speeding up the de-aging process. By this time, Firestar and Tigerstar are trying to leave the greenhouse, sensing something is very wrong. They got a bit lost, though, and their surroundings have changed quite a bit. Brambleclaw is now, say, a teenager when the carnotus sudenly bends down and engulfs him within its petals. Muffled, painful screams come from it, then they quickly go silent as some sort of sedative nectar is poured into his mouth. In the meantime, Firestar makes it out. He looks back and realizes that the other two haven't come out yet, then runs back to camp to get Squirrelflight and Hawkfrost. (alright, this is a work in progress because I can't finish the entire freaking thing in a single project's description. also this is a very rambling description and it will need editing :'] so I'm going to end this here, and if anyone wants to know what happens next I'll post the new and improved explanation in a separate project. Capisce?)