68DO NOT READ THIS FIC
Kestrelpaw had an idea. Wait, you ask, who's Kestrelpaw? Kestrelpaw is Barkface's apprentice, for those of you who don't know. His dream is to become WindClan's greatest medicine cat ever. Now, an even better question is, why does Kestrelpaw appear to be the star of the show? Well, the reason is simple. He has a freakin' awesome name.
Anyways, about Kestrelpaw's idea. You see, Kestrelpaw was a very curious apprentice, and he figured that medicine cats shouldn't only be educated in medicine; he wanted to know a bit about psychology. You know, the way cats think, react in different situations, etc. It would actually be very useful for a cat to know these things, so why not Kestrelpaw?
One day, while Kestrelpaw sat grooming himself in the sun by the abandoned badger set pondering psychology, his excellent idea came to him. Why research psychology, when there was a similar subject so much easier to test: reverse psychology! And he knew exactly how to test it.
Kestrelpaw padded back to camp with two small rabbits in his jaws. He stopped outside camp and quickly burried one of them in the dirt and picked up the other. And just in time, as his first test subject was emerging from behind the large stone that sheltered their otherwise vulnerable camp.
"Hey, Tornear," he called to the senior warrior.
Tornear had obviously been intending to go in the opposite direction, but turned around to reply to the medicine apprentice. "What is it, Kestrelpaw?" he asked, though he apparently didn't want to be bothered with his inferior.
"Do you want this rabbit?" asked Kestrelpaw enticingly, displaying the little plump rabbit for Tornear to see. "I'm not hungry; you can have it." He paused, then added for good measure, "It's yours if you want it."
Kestrelpaw could almost feel Tornear's mouth watering, but in the end the brown warrior unconsciously went along with the apprentice's theory. "Thanks, but I think the elders'll appreciate it more than I will," Tornear meowed kindly. And with that, the older warrior turned and ran out to catch up with his patrol.
Kestrelpaw grinned. So far, so good. But he still wasn't done with his first experiment. So he devoured the first rabbit as his reward for his cleverness, then he retrieved the other rabbit from where it lay burried in the dirt. Just as he did, Webfoot emerged from camp.
"Hey, Kestrelpaw," he greeted. "Have you seen Tornear? We're going on sunhigh patrol."
"He already left. He just went by," meowed Kestrelpaw. "Don't bother. He'll be fine. Why don't you go get something to eat?"
As if on cue, he heard Webfoot's belly growl. As usual, WindClan's fresh kill pile was near empty, and Webfoot couldn't afford to take anything from it. However, the fat little rabbit at Kestrelpaw's paws looked real juicy... Webfoot mentally smacked himself. It belonged to the apprentice. If he was offered it, he'd reject it.
"Nope, can't have it," Kestrelpaw meowed smugly. "I'm going to devour it's juicy, tasty, delicious, wonderful flesh all on my own."
Webfoot suddenly bristled with anger. What right did the apprentice have to keep his senior from food?
"GIVE ME THAT RABBIT!" yowled Webfoot. He lunged at Kestrelpaw, grabbed the rabbit, and ran away.
Kestrelpaw grinned. So far, so good.
-:-:-:-:-
Reedwhisker was a very insightful young warrior. He clearly remembered the day where he was seconds away from death, but the young apprentice Leafpaw had saved his life. Ever since then, he'd been grateful for every waking minute, every breath he took, every step of his paws.
Reedwhisker wasn't evilly ambitious, but he always thought it would be fun to be deputy of RiverClan. Maybe just for a day. To have authority and respect like Mistyfoot seemed beyond belief. But as I mentioned, he was greatful just to be alive, so he didn't really care that he didn't have a great chance of ever being deputy.
One day, however, he accidentally stumbled on an important bit of knowledge: reverse psychology. It was about a certain she-cat that made every hair on his pelt tingle: Stonestream. The pretty she-cat was light-gray furred with darker gray flecks, and stunning blue eyes. Reedwhisker had always wanted to talk to her, to hunt with her... or to just interact with her. But on this one day, his opportunity came, and he nearly missed it, but was saved by the effects of reverse psychology.
Stonestream had padded up to him timidly with a shy look in her blue eyes. "Uh... hey Reedwhisker," she'd meowed quietly. "Do you... do you wanna go hunting?" Before Reedwhisker could answer, though, she'd started backing away. "Actually, I just..."
Reedwhisker wanted with all his heart to say yes, but he wasn't stupid - he knew how to take a hint. Stonestream obviously regretted asking him to hunt, and therefore was getting awkward and trying to back out. So, to spare her further awkwardness, he simply replied, "No, I was actually going to go for a swim."
He'd thought this would make Stonestream relieved, though the minute the words left his mouth he regretted it. That had been his chance...
The words didn't have the effect he'd thought they'd have on Stonestream, however. He was initially right: she hadn't been sure about asking him to hunt, and then once she had, she'd felt awkward and tried to back out. Had he said yes, she would have made up an excuse. But the second he said no, she was filled with an anger she didn't know she possessed. What right did he have to reject her? Why couldn't he just spare ten measly minutes to hunt with her? Was he that lazy and self-centered... and so cute? Well, she'd show him.
"You will go hunting with me," she ordered fiercely. She started to walk out of camp. "Well, are you coming?" she called back the stunned, frozen Reedwhisker. He nodded numbly and hurried after her.
Now, as we mentioned, Reedwhisker was not stupid. He quickly realized how he'd won Stonestream over, and tested it with great results. He was now a master of reverse psychology, and believed himself to be the only such master in all the Clans.
-:-:-:-:-
Smokepaw was a very special cat. Why? Because he'd fallen off a cliff and died, but then somehow been brought back to the Clans on a typo by the Erin Hunters. Or, that's what it actually was. Everyone else believed him to be reincarnated.
Of course, Moonstar of FireClan wrote a brilliant story on what really happened to Smokepaw, but for our purposes, he died and came back. Which, by the way, makes him special.
Now, Smokepaw knew a lot of things: he knew that he didn't actually die and come back to life, that it was just a freak typo; he knew that the sky was blue; he knew that ShadowClan was the best Clan in the forest; he knew that Warriors rocked Harry Potter's butt, no matter how many spells he had up his sleeve, and he knew that Moonstar was making a very pathetic attempt to be funny in writing a humorous story about reverse psychology an failing. The pathetic thing was, he also knew that that was probably the funniest line in the entire story. Actually, that probably was. Quite pathetic, really.
But Smokepaw knew all about reverse psychology. When he'd first been asked how he'd come back to life, he'd told his Clan that StarClan had deemed him future leader of the whole forest and he couldn't die because of his destiny. By the way, this also made him immortal. Initially, the cats had laughed at him and decided he was insane. In other words, they didn't believe him.
However, as soon as Smokepaw changed his tactics, the thoughts of those around him changed as well. He started to pretend he was real modest, and his new reply to how he came back to life was: "I didn't come back to life. I must have been unconscious. I mean, how else do you explain my survival?" Of course, prompting many explanations of his survival, the most prominant of which being his original story. Reverse psychology was wonderful.
-:-:-:-:-
Now, this is the part where there's supposed to be a ThunderClan cat educated in the ways of reverse psychology, but I'm going to be mean and exclude ThunderClan. Hey, don't say that's not fair - they have a whole series totally revolving around them!
So instead, there's a brilliant author who is very bored at 11:11 PM (yes, it actually says that right now on my computer. Make a wish.) and feels like writing something. Too lazy to update any of her stories, she fetches her tennis racket from the garage so she can deflect tomatoes thrown by readers wishing she'd update her existing stories so she can write a new one. A new one about what, though?
No ideas come to her, but as her mind wanders, she wonders if anyone would actually read a story with a summary of DO NOT READ THIS FIC, and with a repetition of those words to begin the fic. Well, only one way to find out. Chronicalling the adventures of the Clan cats smart enough to discover the effects of reverse psychology (and coincedentally the ones with the coolest names), she put together a ficlet, and posted it on fanfiction dot net. She attempted to be funny, but failed miserably.
Of course, no one should have read the fic. Besides the DO NOT READ sign, reading it would have been a total waste of time. Anyone who reads it is probably a salad bowl with no life. Wait a sec... if you're reading this, that means you read this fic, unless you're a cheater and scrolled, but you still count as a salad bowl with no life. Why a salad bowl? I don't know. Maybe because it's comparable to you in its lifestyle. Actually, it's probably more comparible to me, the insane author with no life and enough boredom to write this to begin with. I must not be in my right mind. Especially because the last two and a half paragraphs are in third person, even though I'm writing about myself. Wow... I really am beginning to sound insane. Darn caffine.
And beginning to rant. I tend to do that. Well you know what? Stop reading. But of course, you aren't going to stop in the middle of this sentence after those words, simply because you can't. Because of two wonderful words, called reverse psychology.
No, I can't find a way to connect the three brilliant cats. I already tried. But maybe I'll think harder with incentive... like you brave people who have endured this story telling me I should. Otherwise, you've come to the end of this waste of time. Go find better wastes of time now. And that is not reverse psychology.
A/N: yup... beware of my mind when I'm bored. And I might delete this story once I reread it when I'm in my right mind... so beware of a mysterious disappearance... (the room becomes shrouded in mist) dun dun dun...