calitraditionalism

[calitraditionalism]

Practically Saints by Star Anna reminded me of this fic (heartmoji)

(Is a more indie singer so may have to look for it)

“We’re practically saints / just ask the god that we made / he loves us more every day / so long as he’s getting paid”

“We’re not the big cheese /we’re just the hungry mice / caught in our own trap / of little paradise”

This is such a fascinating one.

[calitraditionalism]

Love the concept of Bad Thing that provides protection from Even Worse Thing. This villan has dibs on killing me someday, so they’re not going to let anyone else do it. Person has a permanent illness that’s super hostile to any other type of infection. Lawful evil tyrant absolutely PISSED at chaotic evil invader killing their subjects. Person has been cursed by the gods but the curse supersedes all other hexes and magical ills. This shit absolutely charges my batteries.

[calitraditionalism]

Last night I had music on shuffle as I was falling asleep and while listening to the song Eyes by Rogue Wave I suddenly was seein an amv of this verse

But not like plot narrative, it was slice of life, showing generic background cats doing various things in daily life

It was super nice and calming so I wanted to share!

That is so lovely, man, thank you for telling me. It's been a long time since I've come back to this setting, and that's a nice way to think about it again!

[calitraditionalism]

Ok I unmelted my brain a bit

So like, for the longest time I thought that having peace between the clans, or having the clans unified as a big group instantly meant boring story. Because how can you make that interesting? Everyone’s getting along right? There’s peace? All the conflict in warriors comes from battles and death so these no possible way to make an interesting story where everyone is supposed to be in a big group the gets along

(see me slowly slipping into sarcasm as I criticize these ideas bc I was taught them as middle school age by warriors and never bothered to really examine them)

AND THEN AND FUCKING THEN

I got bored waiting for the redux to upload and looked to see what other fics Dullard had posted on ao3

And I found this ABSOLUTE GEM

the clans have unified! But there are distinct groups of cats with cultural identities! StarClan exists in a clear tangible way! Everyone is provided for! There’s no reason to every leave or be upset - and here’s where the plot and intrigue START

I’m just, instantly hooked, from the lore and worldbuilding, to the plot, to the characters, I’m melting my brain again getting excited ahhh

I can imagine Plague on the beach and I wanna know what’s actually at the Marish lake!

With cats coming in and out of Clast so often, do loners and former kittypets see and hear about the abundant life - literal startouched prey and cats with nine lives- and sometimes choose not to stay?

How does StarClan keep large predators and humans out of the territory?

(which aspect is Runagate? Where they affecting the wind in some scenes?)

Thank you so much for writing and sharing this story and the lore behind it and answering people’s questions about it!!! It’s become one of my all time favorites

You're makin' my brain melt with joy! Thank you for such kind words and a wonderful ask. Such a delight when someone sees Steorra and likes it, especially as much as you do. Golly.

For the questions: there are outsiders that stay in the Territory, though some choose to just visit because out of the two families that are completely fine with loners/kittypets, one of them is full of punch-rowdy rabblerousers and the other is right on the edge of the land seeing off outsiders all the time. For keeping unwelcome parties out, StarClan has a spiritual border around the Territory's lines that allows them to keep out whoever they so choose. That's generally predators and humans. As for the Runagate...they don't have an aspect! They're not a god, just some weird spirit/ghost that everyone is convinced is some kind of devil figure.

[calitraditionalism]

I just binge read this entire fic and holy shit this is such a hidden gem?! I’m so glad I stumbled on it and the blog I don’t really have coherent words but please take my melted brain

I didn't expect anyone to find this fic when it's been so long since I wrote for it! Thank you for reading and enjoying it, man, that's absolutely wonderful.

[calitraditionalism]

I totally understand your concerns! If I'm honest, and I think I kind of voiced this opinion in a past ask, I truly don't see a happy ending to this either. I would honestly still read a bad ending because I do love suffering but it would, deep down, feel undeserving for your characters. The theme would also... Idk, be something along the lines of "known evil is better than unknown evil" (do you guys have a saying like that? It's translated from Spanish). I mean to say, they rebel and in doing so free themselves from a known evil that has been feeding off their loyalty, faith and pasiveness (which feels familiar and seems like a good thing to happen! A good message!) still, no good comes of this, they enter an even darker age because, even if their situation was bad, the known evil was necessary. Ultimately, the characters would have been better off if they had remained obedient (uh oh bad message! Is that a real life analogy? A political one?). I don't know if I'm making any sense. I actually ADORED reading this fic, I had so much fun! But, like you, I'm not sure how a continuation could work in a meaningful and satisfying way. I'm not sure how to fix it either, I just wanted to give my two cents! I love your work a whole lot and, whatever you do, I will support your decision.

I appreciate your two cents, my friend! You brought up an issue I hadn't even thought of in regards to the overall message.

I've been turning over how to make this ending at least somewhat positive for a while now, and every time I think I've got it, the rest of the factors of the ending make themselves heard, which brings it down again. I do have the basic story outlined, at least, but that doesn't mean much when it's such a bummer to go through and write for.

Whatever happens, whether this gets written or not, I'm trying hard not to disappoint anyone. I might have already done that with this outrageously long hiatus, but hearing feedback helps a lot. I need to do more thinking, painfully aggravating as it is.

[calitraditionalism]

There's nothing wrong with writing a characters-pulled-something-out-of-their-asses kind of ending, if moving away from the obvious might save this for you. I think that one needs to find a balance with it of course, so that everything feels plausible-but-unlikely, but maybe that's a way to think at it?

Also, maybe revisit not just the plot, but some character arcs and overall themes of the story in general? What would you like the tone/message/takeaway of the story to be, not thinking about events at all but thinking just in terms of theme? Maybe that'll push a certain direction?

If it's any consolation, I thought the writing was quite good throughout. Maybe you can see things that you ought to have done better, but you're your worst critic. It's a thoroughly enjoyable story. I hope you can find the right ending.

Thank you for the input, compadre. It's been a long time since I've properly read Steorra over again, to be honest. I've been afraid that I'll be even more self-conscious about the writing. I'll have to revisit it and see if there's anything I can glean from it.

Your suggestions are extremely helpful, also! I'll see what I can do with this.

[calitraditionalism]

An Elongated Update

Extremely vague spoilers for the fifth arc ahead.

Work on the next arc has slowed to a stop, I will freely admit this. However, the main reason is not what you think it is.

There are multiple factors at play - I have two other, much larger projects going on, both related to a Patreon so I need to work on them consistently, I’ve been busy in the real world, I’ve gotten sick and experienced burnout multiple times, reflection upon the written story so far makes me embarrassed at its quality and kills game mad crazy, so on and so forth - but the biggest factor is simply that, as I’ve been planning chapters, I’ve come to the realization that the most logical end to this story is not the one I want to write. This end is not a happy one. Not a satisfying one. Not one that I feel the characters deserve to experience. But it’s the most obvious conclusion, and I as a writer can’t ignore that.

In knowing that, it’s grabbed me by the throat and stopped me from wanting to write for Steorra. It’s a weird sort of mentality similar to a ragequit; if one quits the game, they don’t lose. If I never get to that ending, if I never even start properly writing the fifth arc, I can save the characters. They can stay happy, frozen in that moment of victory the fourth arc ended on. They don’t have to suffer the consequences of their actions, which are significant enough that I don’t know how to wrangle that into a happy ending.

Generally, I’m not averse to tragedy, or even a bittersweet or ambiguous conclusion. One can read my comic to understand that. But something about this story’s ending upsets me. I suppose I never considered how the results of the fourth arc would manifest until I got to the fourth arc itself. I had been totally content with that ending because I believed it was the proper one. But, as I got to thinking, chatting with Comet, I realized there was a lot more to say. It’s just not what I want to say, if you get me.

So what I’ve been doing, in lieu of outlining chapters, is thinking hard on how to at least shed a hopeful light on this ending. It requires some wrangling and possibly even a bit of betraying my sensibilities as a writer, and it’s for the sake of an ending that I don’t even know if people will like (and as much as I support writing for yourself, an audience does matter). There’s a lot of doubt and worry and self-consciousness going into this project at this point.

I say all of this so that you all know the, in retrospect, very absurd reason I’ve been silent here and busy on other blogs. I don’t know if you’d like a logical, unhappy ending or if you’d prefer, like me, to leave it somewhere satisfactory. Any feedback is appreciated at this point. I won’t give spoilers out, most likely, but I can respond in vague ways.

Anyway, that’s about it. Apologies for the silence and long-ass dearth of work on this series.

[calitraditionalism]

Take all the time you need!!! Also longer only means more content and lore!! And I'm!!? So happy!!! I'll patiently wait in anticipation

Asks like this make the work worthwhile, thank you. I hope you'll enjoy the final product!

[calitraditionalism]

Work on the fifth arc is coming along! Comet’s helping me plot it, and I’m starting to realize this is going to be a much longer arc than I had anticipated, so it’s taking us a bit to arrange things and keep it cohesive. I hope y’all are alright with that!

[calitraditionalism]

I'm losing my shit, I love this.

I made some incredibly bad fanart for the incredible @calitraditionalism. It's bad and a joke but beware!

Spoilers for chapter 12 of Steorra, Arc four: For All We Hold Dear.

With that out of the way:

I'm an idiot, anyway it's a reference to this video

[calitraditionalism]

Now that I've finished the whole thing (it was SO good!) I want to ask questions! When grayleaf explains why their living situation is too good to be true he makes a bunch of very good points: without starclan's prey they all would have starved long ago because prey may live in trees but not like that. So.... What now? Most definetly some of the groups will have to leave the territories or starve! Also! I had this question while reading, are the paragons real? Characters like meliclight which belonged in the fake starclan, are they a part of normal starclan now? Or were they puppets all along? And the aspects!!! Ahhh I'm so excited for arc 5 this is going to be amazing. Last one! Why do the renegades need to tell everyone what happened with starclan? They aren't going to believe any of it and if they do they simply will be scared or even suspicious of normal starclan (I would!), or, even blame the protagonists for what is probably going to be some terrible living conditions from now on. Certain cats are going to adhere to "what does it matter our souls got eaten? Our life was good!". I'm worried about them! They are still being followed and on the runaway from the law! They deserve to be happy. Specially beetlefoot, let beetlefoot be happy please.

There are so many questions here that I want to answer and can't because they'll be answered in arc 5... it murders me. I've been reading your comments on AO3 with pure delight, by the by, and it's helping fuel me work on arc 5, so all the thanks in the world for that! I am sorry that I can't give anything back just yet.

[calitraditionalism]

I hope it's OK to ask this! I've started reading this fanfic recently (I'm in arc 2 no spoilers!) and, because I found some of your prefixes curious, I decides to check some more. I've realized you use a lot of insect names which is interesting. I'm not native to English and my OC clans happen to be in Spain, most often than not, when I search any particular animal name I enjoy, I find that English has turned them into boring ass names (every single nocturnal bird is an owl to you guys!!! Same with beetles!! There's so many of them surely you guys need a way of differentiating them!), since you seem to use many different insect names I was wondering if you could maybe advise me on how to find more diverse names to various animals (beetles specially). Do you search for obscures common names? Simply use genus names? Jump over the noun and use the adjective used to describe the animal? Thanks in advance!

Hello to you! I totally get the frustration on the English names - there were so many animals I had to bullshit and come up with something for on the fly because of how their name worked (two-parter, or used for a lot of different species, or extremely long and in dire need of shortening, etc).

As far as I can remember, I never used a genus name, though I wouldn't begrudge anyone who did. My advice would be to go with sub-names for different species. For example, you have two beetles that don't look similar, but one's called "Stump Beetle" and the other is "Black Beetle", or something. You already have Black- as a prefix, so Beetle- can be used for the black one, while Stump- can refer to the beetle that's more brown or multicolored.

As you suggested, obscure common names are also extremely helpful, which you can generally find on sites dedicated to cataloguing whatever animal you're looking at - and if not, Wikipedia's your friend! That bitch almost always has every single nickname the animal could have, which means more variety for you if you decide to use more than one name to refer to the same animal.

I don't recall if I did this myself, but cutting off a two-part name is also a good solution. Like, Bufflehead- is not really great for a prefix, so Buff- or Buffle- can be used instead. If there were two types of Bufflehead birds, Buff- and Buffle- can mean different things.

I'll be the first to say that I did unfortunately make a couple prefixes unbearably vague because the animal that it was based on had so many varieties and no good secondary names (RIP Goose-). But that doesn't mean you have to! There's plenty of ways to go around that issue.

Hopefully this helped!

[calitraditionalism]

Quick note on progress: Plotting is being done, but I��ve come to realize there’s a lot more in this arc than I previously assumed I would have to deal with, so I’ve been stuttering to a crawl while I try to wrangle this all together. Comet is helping, thank God, but it’s still slow progress. Apologies for the long wait.

[calitraditionalism]

Story: Don’t Bother Saying Goodbye

It was silent, and it was dark. The moon hid behind the crowns of the pine trees. Not even the wind stirred. The sun was gone, and night had claimed the sky.

Took long enough.

Beetlepaw’s ears, still too large for his growing head, swiveled back and forth. No one was awake – every breath was slow and deep. There was no movement in camp except for his own soft steps. He didn’t allow for the slightest shift of soil or stray pine needles to give him away.

Someone sniffed in their sleep. He froze, anticipating a shout of anger and an order to return to the punishment den. Neither came. He held in a sigh of relief and continued sneaking.

It had been a bad day. Several bad days, really. He’d been punished for something that wasn’t his fault, even though he had tried to make his case and pinpoint the real culprit. His mother and the leader had exchanged annoyed looks before he’d been escorted to the punishment den, and left there from last evening to just now.

How could they possibly think it was him? He didn’t know anything about plants. Catcherpaw was the one who’d been talking about wort. Why hadn’t anyone put together the tampered woodrat and her spitefulness towards his mentor, and punished her?

Because you can’t argue for anything, he answered in his head. And she’s just as horrible as everyone else is. She’s one of them. They won’t hold one of their favorites prisoner.

He clenched his jaw to stop himself from baring his teeth.

Focus.

He kept moving, passing by his snoring deputy and a twitching Cloverface. He spared a glance at the rest of the cats, sprawled out in the clearing of camp. They were all breathing audibly and shifting to the crunch of needles.

It was a marvel how loud these idiots could be. Brae cats prided themselves on their silent stalking and noiseless tree-climbing, but Beetlepaw could testify in the court of the leaders and high deputies that every single one of the Brae always brushed something with their tails or their claws scraped off a flake of pine-bark. He had never bothered with sneaking – he was fast enough that he’d catch whatever he was chasing, and climbing was unappealing. That was an unpopular choice. The family would scold him and look down their noses and rave about how “we need to be softer than soil” and “you’re causing this family great shame” and “you need to overcome your circumstances”-

Beetlepaw’s claws flexed outside of his control. He thanked StarClan that he was currently standing on clean dust.

He paused only for a moment, looking over the sea of ginger and brown and tortoiseshell pelts, every face more identical than the last. He knew well enough the rumors that the Brae was a pile of inbreeding in a knotted family tree. He’d heard vagabonds wandering too close to the border joke about how everyone in the Brae was related. Whether it was true or not didn’t matter for Beetlepaw.

After all, his mother was a strumpet.

No one knew who his blood-father was. His mother had a mate, fluffy and brown like everyone else, but Beetlepaw had come out with short hair and a pale face that grew darker and darker as he aged. He was a sprinter, not a hunter, and his body grew unevenly – his ears, then his paws, and hopefully soon his head and body. Comparisons could be drawn to a gnat among flies.

And in a place like this, appearances really were everything. He was screwed from the start.

Not anymore.

Beetlepaw’s eyes swept through the clearing again with a final, very profane farewell snarled in his head. He turned away, creeping through the entrance to camp. As soon as he was a few body-lengths away from that hellhole, he took off at the fastest he could sprint.

Which, he might have said with a touch of smugness, would leave any chasers in the dust in moments.

The slope’s decline was just gradual enough that he could keep up a good speed without tripping and rolling down the mountain. He ran just fast enough that he wouldn’t suffer that particular humiliation, and he didn’t look back.

And, starting from the most important day in his life, he never would.

[calitraditionalism]

Apologies for the silence! I’ve been quite busy with other stuff and haven’t gotten to sit down and work on the next arc. I hope some of you are still interested in seeing where this goes!

[calitraditionalism]

And that is that for Arc Four! Thank you to all who read along. I hope you enjoyed our journey!

However, this is not the end of Steorra. We have two arcs to go, expanding on the effect of these four arcs and the characters within them, as well as new ones. I didn’t think I was going to write more for this setting, but, as it turns out, there’s quite a bit left to say!

If you’ll stick around and be patient (I have no idea how long it’ll take this time around to write and plot the story), there’s more to come!