Written by SlyShy. Posted on Mar 2, 11:48 PM.

Constructive Sporkism: Vol. 1

The Text

(Note: Slyshy said I could submit a piece for sporking, and here it is. It’s a very, very old – my first – fanfiction, based off of Warriors by Erin Hunter. The first two chapters are listed here, and if you’d like more, I’ll be happy to share. That said, here it is. My God this thing is so horrible…have fun with the sporking. I’ll be waiting…watching…try not to stab your eyes out reading it.)

Night lay upon the shadowy forest. There was no moon, but Silverpelt shone brightly across the sky. The night air was cold and frosty with the heaviness of bareleaf.

Water trickled over the rocks near a grassy clearing. At the edge of the clearing, the grass parted to reveal a majestic blue-gray cat. She looked around, and gave a yowl that echoed through the dark forest. Seconds later, many more cats appeared, silvery warriors with stars in their fur.

They came to sit around the blue-gray she-cat, and waited for her to speak.

“A new prophecy has come!” the blue-gray she-cat announced, her eyes glittering like stars, “The forest is going to be destroyed, and we can do little to help. A great storm has come.”

The word storm echoed through the clearing, and it was taken up and passed around the group like thunder.

“Darkness, air, water, and sky will come together, and shake the forest to its roots…” she continued. Many of the cats looked at each other with fear glittering in their starry eyes

“I too, have seen this foretold in the stars,” a small tortoiseshell she-cat padded up to the front of the crowd, her sweet scent filling the clearing, “Twolegs are destroying the forest, and the Clans are helpless against them.”

The blue-gray cat spoke again, “To help guide the Clans to their new home, they need someone who can protect them from the dangers they will go through. A twoleg.”

Gasps shuddered through the starry warriors, whispers were heard through the clearing.

“A twoleg?” A bracken colored tom parted his way through the crowd, until he came to face the blue-gray she-cat, “Bluestar, are you sure this is the right choice?”

“Yes, but not any twoleg, Oakheart,” Bluestar answered, “One that I have been watching for many moons past. She is not a usual twoleg, and has been granted powers beyond anything you have ever seen. I am convinced she can help the Clans make the journey to their new home. She will be a great help.”

“I trust you Bluestar, but I don’t know if I can trust a twoleg,” Oakheart meowed, “How do we know that she will help us?”

Bluestar sighed, and for the first time you could see the fear in her eyes, and the tiredness, “I don’t know Oakheart. But I think this is the right choice,” Raising her voice, she yowled, “Do StarClan agree?”

The starry group yowled as if they were one, “StarClan agrees!”

Bluestar stood up and look at StarClan warriors, and she announced, “I will go to this twoleg in a dream, and instruct her in what she must do. The fate of all the Clans lies with her.”

With this, Bluestar turned back and disappeared into the fronds. The rest of StarClan followed her, disappearing into the sky like they were never there.

And far away, a young girl of 14 years tossed and turned in her bed, not knowing of the journey she was going to take…


Chapter 2: The Dream

It was still night in the town.

Ari woke up in a cold sweat, panting hard and thinking about her strange dream. Her blue-green eyes glittered with fear. She had never had a dream like this before. Ari closed her eyes once more, and fragmented images of a forest came to her again. And those eyes…shining eyes like cats, except they had stars… Ari let herself become immersed in the dream once more…

…She was in a clearing, cold and dark except for the shining of the stars. It was deathly quiet, until a big blue-gray cat padded out of the ferns.

“Where am I?” Ari asked, not expecting anyone to answer her question.

“You are with StarClan,” the cat meowed in a commanding tone. The voice scared Ari more than anything, with its cold tone. Then the cat spoke again, this time with a softer voice, “We have brought you here to ask for your help.” The cat came out of the shadows, and Ari saw her much better. She had silvery blue fur, and clear, crystal blue eyes. She was beautiful and intimidating all at once. Ari could not take her eyes off the cat.

Ari looked at the she-cat with wondering eyes, “Help? What do you need help with? And what am I supposed to do?”

“We know you are special, Ari, and we have chosen you to fulfill the prophecy.”

Ari’s head started to spin, and she sat down on a rock, “How do you know my name? Who are you? What prophecy?”

The cat stepped towards her on silent paws, and for the first time Ari saw other cats hiding in the shadows behind her.

“My name is Bluestar, and I am part of StarClan. We watch over the cats that live in the forest, and we know many things. But, unfortunately, we cannot do much to help them, except send dreams and such. The cats that live in the forest are in trouble, their homes are being destroyed by twolegs,” the cat answered.

“Twolegs?” Ari asked the strange cat.

“Humans, like you,” Bluestar answered, “They come with huge machines and are destroying the home that the Clans have lived in for so many moons. So we have to send help. You.”

Ari remembered her mom talking about the construction in the forest, and how bothersome it was. Her family lived right by the forest, and Ari used to go in there all the time, in owl form. But lately she had stayed away from there. It was too dangerous, and she could be seen. She turned back towards the cats.

“Me? Why me?”

“Because of your powers, Ari. You can talk to them, and help them make the journey to the new territories beyond the mountains,”

A bracken colored tom entered in and sat down by Bluestar, his tail curling over his front paws.

“Who are you?”

“My name is Oakheart,” he answered.

Ari turned back towards Bluestar, “So you want me to help your Clans-“

“ThunderClan, RiverClan, ShadowClan, and WindClan are the four clans that live in the forest. They all have separate territories, and they are rivals most of the time,”

Ari paused, confused,”What Clan are you two from then?”

Bluestar purred,”I am of ThunderClan, and Oakheart is from RiverClan,”
“Then how did you both end up here?”

“StarClan is made up of all four Clans, and we watch over all of them,”
“This is all so confusing! I have so many more questions!” Ari replied, her eyes growing wide.

“All will be answered in time, young kit,” Bluestar meowed, “All you need to do is find the Clans.”

“How do I find them?”

Bluestar glanced over to Oakheart, her tail twitching. Unheard by Ari, she whispered, “I think it would be best if Ari was found by ThunderClan. I know Firestar will understand.”

She turned back to the young twoleg kit, “Go towards the forest-in cat shape, and you will find a group of cats. They will be ThunderClan. They will take you in.”

Bluestar and Oakheart started to disappear, along with all the other shadowy cats.

“Wait!”

It was too late, the strange cats were gone, and all at once Ari found herself back in her own bed…

Ari shook her head, trying to drive the pictures from her mind. She had never had such a dream, even before she discovered her powers. And she remembered every detail, down to the color of Bluestar’s the dream true? Or was it just her imagination? She would have to find out, tomorrow.

Lying back down, the strange girl fell back to sleep, unawares of the starry shapes watching her from outside.

The Spork

Night lay upon the shadowy forest. There was no moon, but Silverpelt shone brightly across the sky. The night air was cold and frosty with the heaviness of bareleaf.

SS— So Silverpelt is capable of giving off light? That could come in handy.
K— What’s a bareleaf?
SS— It’s like a leaf, but naked.
K— Oh my.

Water trickled over the rocks near a grassy clearing. At the edge of the clearing, the grass parted to reveal a majestic blue-gray cat. She looked around, and gave a yowl that echoed through the dark forest. Seconds later, many more cats appeared, silvery warriors with stars in their fur.

K— Cool mental image, I guess.

They came to sit around the blue-gray she-cat, and waited for her to speak.

“A new prophecy has come!” the blue-gray she-cat announced, her eyes glittering like stars, “The forest is going to be destroyed, and we can do little to help. A great storm has come.”

SS— Actually, this prophecy is very refreshing in that it is direct and to the point. Unheard of in fantasy.

The word storm echoed through the clearing, and it was taken up and passed around the group like thunder.

SS— Sure, if you have a habit of picking up and passing around the waves of compressed air formed by lighting, this simile works perfectly.

“Darkness, air, water, and sky will come together, and shake the forest to its roots…” she continued. Many of the cats looked at each other with fear glittering in their starry eyes

SS— In a purely Platonic view of the elements, sky and air are the same thing?
K— Maybe ether. I dunno.
SS— Ether didn’t exist until later.
K— Nitpick all you want…

“I too, have seen this foretold in the stars,” a small tortoiseshell she-cat

SS— Huh? I guess that is a color?
K— Actually it is, I can tell you’ve never had a cat.
SS— Yeah, my parents have allergies.

padded up to the front of the crowd, her sweet scent filling the clearing, “Twolegs are destroying the forest, and the Clans are helpless against them.”

K— HOOOOOMAAAAAAANS
SS— This reminds me of Princess Mononoke, except less brutally hilariously violent.

The blue-gray cat spoke again, “To help guide the Clans to their new home, they need someone who can protect them from the dangers they will go through. A twoleg.”

SS— To be specific, one pair of twoleg!

Gasps shuddered through the starry warriors, whispers were heard through the clearing.

SS— Four legs good, two legs better!
K— Now wait and eventually they’ll start to play poker!

“A twoleg?” A bracken colored tom parted his way through the crowd, until he came to face the blue-gray she-cat, “Bluestar, are you sure this is the right choice?”

SS— Bluestar…ahh.

“Yes, but not any twoleg, Oakheart,” Bluestar answered, “One that I have been watching for many moons past. She is not a usual twoleg, and has been granted powers beyond anything you have ever seen.

K— Eeeee…I’m gonna go get a soda.
SS— It’s too bad this unusual two-leg isn’t around. Her special power is to create soda!

I am convinced she can help the Clans make the journey to their new home. She will be a great help.”

“I trust you Bluestar, but I don’t know if I can trust a twoleg,” Oakheart meowed, “How do we know that she will help us?”

K— Now there’s a replacement for “said” you don’t see every day.

Bluestar sighed, and for the first time you could see the fear in her eyes, and the tiredness, “I don’t know Oakheart. But I think this is the right choice,” Raising her voice, she yowled, “Do StarClan agree?”

SS— Sounds like a StarCraft clan to me.

The starry group yowled as if they were one, “StarClan agrees!”

Bluestar stood up and look at StarClan warriors, and she announced, “I will go to this twoleg in a dream, and instruct her in what she must do. The fate of all the Clans lies with her.”

K— Sounds so nonchalant. “Brb guys, gonna go into someone’s dream.”
SS— “Kk.”

With this, Bluestar turned back and disappeared into the fronds. The rest of StarClan followed her, disappearing into the sky like they were never there.

SS— If they were disappearing into the sky, they couldn’t have followed her very well, because she disappeared into the frond. :C

And far away, a young girl of 14 years tossed and turned in her bed, not knowing of the journey she was going to take…

SS— Author’s Age: 14. ;)
K— Damn, how’d you guess?
SS— If you study her writing closely, you’ll see that she has a habit of overusing prepositions, but only when describing maternity scenes. This is highly indicative of the teenage mindset— Wait, there was an easier way?

Chapter 2: The Dream

It was still night in the town.

Ari

K— O RLY?
SS— Author’s Name: Rebecca.

woke up in a cold sweat, panting hard and thinking about her strange dream. Her blue-green eyes glittered with fear.

K— Whaaaaaaaat
SS— Sigh. My mind has been in the gutters for too long.

She had never had a dream like this before.

SS—Yeaaaah…

Ari closed her eyes once more, and fragmented images of a forest came to her again. And those eyes…shining eyes like cats, except they had stars…

K— Stars on their what?
SS— They just had them. Probably kept them in their desk drawers, or something.

Ari let herself become immersed in the dream once more…

…She was in a clearing, cold and dark except for the shining of the stars. It was deathly quiet, until a big blue-gray cat padded out of the ferns.

K— Hello kitty!

“Where am I?” Ari asked, not expecting anyone to answer her question.

SS— I too, frequently ask questions I don’t except anyone to answer. Like, “May I please go? At least could you undo the shackles?”

“You are with StarClan,” the cat meowed in a commanding tone.

K— I can’t picture a commanding meow, but then, my cat is kind of a pussy. Pun intended.

The voice scared Ari more than anything, with its cold tone. Then the cat spoke again, this time with a softer voice, “We have brought you here to ask for your help.” The cat came out of the shadows, and Ari saw her much better. She had silvery blue fur, and clear, crystal blue eyes.

SS— What’s with creatures in fantasy having such uniform color scheme? Must have taken centuries of inbreeding to produce that.
K— More importantly, not all crystals are blue, and I am damn sick of “crystal blue” as an eye color. Too many bad fanfics have ruined, simply ruined, that color.

She was beautiful and intimidating all at once. Ari could not take her eyes off the cat.

SS— Most women are, when you are a lonely, lonely nerd. :C
K— The hell are you talking about? [points to the entire female population of II]
SS— Shhhhh, you are foiling my cleverly formulated mix of egoism and need-for-loving.
K— Cleverly formulated, my foot. You and I both know you stole it from an 80s sitcom.

Ari looked at the she-cat with wondering eyes, “Help? What do you need help with? And what am I supposed to do?”

SS— Sometimes I think characters are too verbose in their questioning.

“We know you are special, Ari, and we have chosen you to fulfill the prophecy.”

K— Protagonist is special. Protagonist is special.
SS— The word special always has silly connotations in my mind these days. Oh well. Blame it on the society that thinks its condescending use of the word “special” is any more dignified than “mentally retarded”.

Ari’s head started to spin, and she sat down on a rock, “How do you know my name? Who are you? What prophecy?”

K— She is channelling Harry from Silent Hill 1. “What? What’s going on? What are you talking about? Have you seen a little girl? 7 years old, short black hair…”
SS— Yeah…too many questions.

The cat stepped towards her on silent paws, and for the first time Ari saw other cats hiding in the shadows behind her.

“My name is Bluestar, and I am part of StarClan. We watch over the cats that live in the forest, and we know many things. But, unfortunately, we cannot do much to help them, except send dreams and such.

K— “Yeah, send in dreams. Nothin’ much, yo.”
SS— I love their nonchalant approach to screwing with people’s minds in their dreams. It’s a refreshing countercurrent to the professionalism with which I approach screwing with peoples’ minds.

The cats that live in the forest are in trouble, their homes are being destroyed by twolegs,” the cat answered.

SS— You must destroy both of the legs! But be warned, they are armored in trouser.

“Twolegs?” Ari asked the strange cat.

SS— Protip: protagonist should always be at least as intelligent as the reader. Or, at least, don’t use their lack of knowledge for exposition.
K— Protip: to kill the cyborgs, shoot at them until they die.

“Humans, like you,” Bluestar answered, “They come with huge machines and are destroying the home that the Clans have lived in for so many moons. So we have to send help. You.”

SS— Oh, sweet! Giant Mechas against leopards? Awesome!

Ari remembered her mom talking about the construction in the forest, and how bothersome it was. Her family lived right by the forest, and Ari used to go in there all the time, in owl form.

SS— …Construction workers? :’(
K— Say what? If there’s construction in the forest, chances are high that they’ve already cleared out a good chunk of it, rather than just clearing a chunk of it out of the middle of the trees.
SS— Personally, I like the idea that there are roves of dangerous she-lion-thingies right on the edge of suburbia. It gives a rustic edge and charm of trying to survive to suburbia.
K— Also, ‘owl form’…?

But lately she had stayed away from there. It was too dangerous, and she could be seen. She turned back towards the cats.

SS— If she’s seen in owl form it’d hardly be a problem.

“Me? Why me?”

SS— “Because of your remarkably ability to question everything!”

“Because of your powers, Ari. You can talk to them, and help them make the journey to the new territories beyond the mountains,”

A bracken colored tom entered in and sat down by Bluestar, his tail curling over his front paws.

“Who are you?”

K— “My name is Legion, for we are ma—” oh.

“My name is Oakheart,” he answered.

Ari turned back towards Bluestar, “So you want me to help your Clans-“

K— Yay, she’s catching on finally.

“ThunderClan, RiverClan, ShadowClan, and WindClan are the four clans that live in the forest. They all have separate territories, and they are rivals most of the time,”

SS— Oh lawd.

Ari paused, confused,

K— What else is new?

”What Clan are you two from then?”

SS— “QuestionClan”

Bluestar purred,”I am of ThunderClan, and Oakheart is from RiverClan,”
“Then how did you both end up here?”

SS— They are in your dreams, girl! They can do anything!

“StarClan is made up of all four Clans, and we watch over all of them,”
“This is all so confusing! I have so many more questions!” Ari replied, her eyes growing wide.

SS— Srsly?

“All will be answered in time, young kit,”

K— Hm. I don’t know if that’s a canonical word for a young cat, or if the author’s just making it up—either way, a young fox is a kit, but a cat is a kitten. … Sorry, that’s just bothering me, I’ll be quiet now. /biology nerd

Bluestar meowed, “All you need to do is find the Clans.”

SS— “All you need to do is go into their dreams. You know, easy stuff.”

“How do I find them?”

K— “SCREEEEAM.”

Bluestar glanced over to Oakheart, her tail twitching. Unheard by Ari, she whispered, “I think it would be best if Ari was found by ThunderClan. I know Firestar will understand.”

SS— Her tail twitches when she is annoyed.

She turned back to the young twoleg kit, “Go towards the forest-in cat shape, and you will find a group of cats. They will be ThunderClan. They will take you in.”

K— Okay, she can shapeshift into other animals, but she asks so many questions. I’m not sure whether to be annoyed or not.

Bluestar and Oakheart started to disappear, along with all the other shadowy cats.

SS— It was never stated that she saw the other cats.

“Wait!”

SS— Whew. And here I thought she was going to say, “Wait?”

It was too late, the strange cats were gone, and all at once Ari found herself back in her own bed…

K— It was all a dream? Awwwwww.

Ari shook her head, trying to drive the pictures from her mind. She had never had such a dream, even before she discovered her powers. And she remembered every detail, down to the color of Bluestar’s the dream true?

K— Wow that last sentence blew my mind.
SS— Hehe. It’s not really that hard to remember a detail like, “she was blue all over”.

Or was it just her imagination? She would have to find out, tomorrow.

SS— Hell of a way to set up the next episode.

Lying back down, the strange girl fell back to sleep, unawares of the starry shapes watching her from outside.

SS— EDWAAAAARD?
K— They must be simply covered in stars, and maybe the stars should have swallowed the Earth by now.

Analysis

SlyShy:

Honestly, it wasn’t that bad. For a first fanfiction I was pretty impressed. I made fun of ‘twolegs’ because there really wasn’t anything else to go off of. The writing was good. Of course, there were issues.

Yeah, obviously you had a self-insert. But I’d like to state at this point that self-insertion isn’t a crime, but it becomes a crime for undisciplined authors. When an author truly imagines herself as her character, and is literally living out her dream through the character, then it is pretty hard to imagine the author willingly harming the character. Or, if the character does come to harm, the consequences are not permanent. You see this in Inheritance, after Eragon is magically healed. A crippled hero isn’t exactly the kind we like imagining ourselves as, and thus, Eragon stopped being a cripple. Self-inserts are forgivable, in my mind, for first stories. You have be able to imagine yourself in new and alien situations before you can imagine someone completely different in those situations. Writing a character is very much a simulation of their thoughts and reactions to an environment, so I think it is good training to picture your own reactions. To a limited extent, anyway.

Now, the whole question asking thing drove me up the wall. I recognize you are trying to convey that sense of bewilderment, but not only are the questions annoying and redundant, they aren’t the correct response to the situation. Instead of going right up and asking what exactly it is she has to do, she should be either 1) freaking out completely, 2) questioning Bluestar’s authority and what the hell she is doing in her dreams, or 3) witty retorts!

Tagged as Ari, Constructive Sporkism, Fanfiction, Kitty, Slyshy, Spork, Warriors.

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