StarClan's Chosen
| Vid | |
|---|---|
| Title: | StarClan's Chosen ☆ Complete Warrior Cats M.A.P. |
| Creator: | Nifty-Senpai |
| Date: | January 21, 2023 |
| Format: | YouTube video |
| Length: | 6:07 |
| Music: | Hand of God (outro) by Jon Bellion |
| Genre: | Alternative/Indie, Pop, Rock |
| Fandom: | Warrior Cats |
| Footage: | on YouTube |
| URL: | |
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StarClan's Chosen is a Warrior Cats Multi Animator Project (MAP) hosted by Nifty-Senpai with over 160 contributors. After 10 months of work, the MAP was posted in January 2023 to celebrate the 20th anniversary of the series' publication. The MAP is notable for its ambitious scale and splitscreen format, showing up to 7 unique pieces of animation simultaneously.
Content
StarClan's Chosen spans most of the series (The prequel novellas/Super Editions, plus the first six arcs, minus Dawn of the Clans), rather than exploring any one character or storyline.
It mainly focuses on the eight leaders of the Clans: Bluestar, Tallstar, Crookedstar, and Raggedstar/Brokenstar, then their successors Firestar, Onestar, Leopardstar, and Blackstar. Yellowfang of ShadowClan also receives a lot of screentime by virtue of being Raggedstar's mate and Brokenstar's mother; much of their parts are seen through her eyes.
The video begins by showing Bluestar and Tallstar's lives side-by-side, mostly focusing on their struggles with right and wrong and the deaths of Bluestar's daughter and Tallstar's father. Next, Crookedstar and Yellowfang get similar treatment, both of them struggling with choices they made as young cats coming back to haunt them.
The MAP places strong emphasis on both death and "God," or StarClan. Every leader faces the death of loved ones, sometimes by their own fault, and all of them struggle with their faith. In these initial leader pairs, one side gets a positive or reassuring reading of the lyric "Your whole life's in the hand of God," (Tallstar, Crookedstar), while the other gets an angry or foreboding one (Bluestar, Yellowfang).
After the lives of the first four leaders have played out, the video has an "Intermission," of about 12 seconds, where the music quiets and a series of still images flash faster and faster on the screen, depicting more key moments from their lives. After the intermission, the leaders' deaths are shown, followed by the ceremonies granting their successors their nine lives and leader titles.
In its second half, the video is slightly more chaotic than the first, but as one Tumblr user theorized[1], some of the events shown are events that connect the new leaders to each other. While the previous four leaders' stories were mostly self-contained, these ones overlap and bleed into many different political conflicts and battles, for good and bad. This culminates in the Clans' journey to the lake territories together.
After a few more scenes of key moments in leaders' lives, particularly Onestar and Blackstar, the leaders' deaths are shown one by one, with important ancestors (likely the ones that are known to have given them their nine lives) framing each death scene and lipsyncing to the song, as if speaking to the dying leaders. Finally, after Firestar dies, there is a shot of the sun rising over the next five leaders of the lake: Rowanstar, Harestar, Bramblestar, Leafstar, and Mistystar, promising that the story will continue.
The splitscreen format of the MAP is not one that is often used, and requires multiple viewings in order to get the full scope of the storyline. However, it was an incredibly creative choice that allowed for stronger emotional impact of seeing certain scenes simultaneously, as well as allowing more content to be shown in only a few minutes.
Production
The original MAP call was posted on March 20, 2022, and included a storyboard video with descriptions of each part as well as a text-only MAP script. Sign-ups moved quickly, and by the end of MArch the particpant list was finalized. All participants were required to join a Discord server and communicate heavily with the creators who had parts around the same time as them to ensure the animation flowed smoothly and every piece worked with the whole. Almost exactly ten months after the call was posted, the video went up on Warriors' twentieth anniversary.
Artists
In order of appearance
(Note: Many artists collaborated on parts, and a few worked on more than one part.[2])
- DarkMoon RAY
- KindaDweebish
- Murkbrew
- ehy
- Ashtrall
- Koheina
- flecks
- softmio
- siykey
- Garbage Of Eden
- Tangletail
- Puddleface
- starrylupid
- Larkingy
- RainingMountains
- ThatScruffyDuckling
- EraMinkie101
- feathraly
- CosmicDiamond
- mimebop
- Cat-Vomit
- Mochi
- LettuceBettuce
- Felitt
- Bluemaroonanimations
- MikNic
- Sodapoptops
- outsock
- Cherivinca
- voideitii
- ForestWhisker
- Amelia B
- Shatterwing123
- EGGPRIEST
- Marshukitty
- Dark Tale
- REXASAWRUS
- DreamydrawS
- Wiggles-the-Tuff
- Bumbletus
- Martletwing
- Eqqnoq
- owlipoppen
- Validitty
- centauri
- Cameron Collar
- HiusLanka
- Chai Tea Draws
- Sketch
- mata schmata
- Icefelis
- RavenLunatic
- drememe
- grimxing
- relli
- DatSpeedyTurtle
- raevei
- FireTheWolf
- QuirKrash ‘
- StarCat Galactic
- Didychu
- Nymitri
- candyheart
- eighthsun [HITA]
- chadisms
- mya 0767
- HJ7
- Kelpie Calamity
- Sundyr
- Maplespyder
- Cheesecake Witch
- Sagutoyas
- meow 286
- Gekkozilla
- Coffeely
- IvyBall
- RivstarS
- CheetehZ
- Sqwid
- HarvestBrook
- lambhop
- puppiekit
- Aethira
- SadieGleason
- flamierrr
- Yeshika
- ScooterScones
- Shelly Key
- Mayartimations
- Moggie
- Outkorp
- VT
- AvorenGryphon
- IcarusInked
- sailorr
- SirKupo
- Faded Kat
- CheekyTiger
- SistarStarly
- Glitch Sixxle
- birdsmin
- Mochi Kohai
- beffalumps
- Lonely night
- LenisLynx
- Gothfrog
- Riin
- Aspen Shadow
- SolarSparky
- Kittson
- Tastyeggos
- Bok Bok Choy
- Stasik
- Finchwing
- artisminerva
- Mudshadow
- Chikki
- XxHimmelxX
- Winterpelt
- Jaspergleam
- Sha
- Galaxy Mew
- Sparroet
- WolfHarmony
- TheWisestDino
- kstarling
- Aridarchen
- MANCHKIN!
- ursiday
- VeloCira
- rookruff
- Nifty-Senpai
Reaction & Influence
StarClan's Chosen was highly anticipated from the beginning; its host is extremely well known in the Warriors fandom and was easily able to assign parts to 161 people in less than two weeks. Additionally, many of the participants were also well known in the MAP community, and promoted it as they worked, drumming up more excitement. Because the MAP was also meant to celebrate the twentieth anniversary, it dropped at the perfect time to garner a lot of attention from all kinds of fans who were already feeling excited and nostalgic about the series. In its first 10 days on YouTube, the video received over 216k views and 24k likes.
Many fans immediately began to compare the MAP to The Five Giants, a famous MAP made for the 15th anniversary with many of the same themes and story beats.