A Mutt And A Bone

A Mutt and a Bone

Currently playing around with Mutt’s concept entirely due to my tastes in how I write characters like her changing. Definitely gonna be a minor/side character in the SC2 rewrite but ultimately her background is a lot more simple; she’s one of Princess’ kits + one of Cloudtail’s littermates who joined Bloodclan on a whim not knowing of the consequences that would happen later (she got love bombed and groomed into joining essentially - because I am characterising Bloodclan as a cult), she befriends Bone, who is more akin to his canon counterpart and a “nicer” contrast compared to Scourge and Tigerstar’s cruelties in the rewrite, but even then, Bone has his own flaws and is very selective with who he considers family and friends.

More rambling under the cut which I also implore people to read:

Bone’s design being based off a husky had been my suggestion to Bird and also because Bone and Mutt having a mentor/apprentice dynamic was in mind, so they were both going to share themes of having dog-like designs. Unfortunately, it was just another idea I wasn’t credited for (and mocked) along with Mutt being one of the many ideas scrubbed out despite even Bird themselves coming up with a lot of ideas for Mutt of their own.

Mutt was designed to have dog-like eyes. Her appearance would work as exposure therapy for Swift’s trauma around dogs, leading him to eventually adopt a dog (Lynxbite). She was meant to be in the border scene but was replaced by Brick. Which is incredibly obvious if you think about that scene enough; Swift was meant to recoil from Mutt because of her eyes, but instead recoils back from Brick for no real reason. It also made more sense for a lower ranking Bloodclan member, like Mutt, to watch over Darkstripe and retrieve Swift rather than the second in command. Plus, Darkstripe talking back to Mutt was more reasonable than doing so for Brick.

Original thumbnails + sketches before she had been replaced:

I plan to talk more about the border scene when it comes to critique of SC2 stuff.

Mutt’s earlier design - I’ll probably reuse this design for one of her and Cloudtail’s littermates; for reference - Mutt is Livy, then there’s Taylor and Nami. Who are canonically listed on the family tree for warriors.

Her most earliest design: