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richardsphere · 1 year

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How the writing accidentally “protag’d” Jaune, and how to prevent a repeat in V10

Look i’ll defend Jaune every day of my life, he’s a necessary grounding force in the story, a well written tragic figure and often an important voice of reason (as a result of being one of the more grounded figures in the show) and just generally a likeable guy. He’s one of my top 5 characters in the show even. But god you can see that even the showrunners are angry at how much he’s the only character they still really “know”how to write. and the worst part is that all of the choices are individually defensible and often even the right choice for the narrative. This readmore focusses on speculations regarding the doylist reasons behind jaune’s prominence in certain scenes, and how to make adjust their course-correction strategy to be more effective.

Like i made a post before about how S1-3 were light on characterising Team RWBY because there’s gonna be a roadtrip arc and we’ll give them their own arcs to flesh them out then. And Jaune was verry much crucial in the early game (because he’s simultaneously ruby’s foil, an audience exposition receptical and Pyrrha is going to die and as the regular “normal guy” in the show no one else is better at representing the idea of “a regular life of happiness VS a great destiny that ends in tragedy” for our Achilles paralel). Then S4 splits the party up to give us the chance to characterise Blake, Yang and Weiss with their own arcs, so you’d expect those 2 seasons to give them some depth? But now that these characters are spread across 4 seperate continents we need to set up so many new side-characters for them to interact with that we dont have the time for introspection, we need to flesh out the politics of Menagerie, introduce Fake!Spring maiden, introduce Willow and Klein and Whitley and Jaques first(?) on screen appearance, and introduce Salems other lieutenants and set up the mystery of Oscarpin.... and Oopsie thats S4 done, we didnt have the time to flesh out any of WBY. And because its hard to make Ruby mourn something as abstract as a physical location, we’ll substitute it by making her foil mourn an actual person. So S4-5 doesnt flesh out RWBY, (and strangely does little for Team Sloth, who should probably have been shown mourning Pyrrha as well) but does flesh out Jaune a bit more. (which tbh, is justifiable, he’s the OG exposition-hearer and we’re about to enter the part of the plot where none of our protagonists know whats going on. Being “the guy who doesnt know stuff” isnt a schtick they can maintain for the guy anymore so we need to give him a new thing to do and “grief” is a good-enough thing for now). But at least WBY can have their own arcs to flesh themselves out right? only this is where the writers realise, we cant resolve or explore Yangs issues with Raven too deeply, because the Raven issues are inseperable from the “fate of Summer” mystery so they leave that on a half-resolution.

Weiss runs away from home, but that doesnt deepen her because “doesnt want to be with Jaques” was one of her first known traits. but at least we know she’s got a brother (who is in like one scene) a butler and moms alcoholism. Which leaves us in Menagerie, where we get some nice exploration of Blakes loving parents, but this arc doesnt really deepen out what makes her tick because Adam isnt in this arc and it turns out that: No Blake does not actually have some deep-seated reason to join the fang, she was just sort of born into it. which sort of waters her motivations down from “freedomfighter trying to achieve justice in a cruel and unjust world” to “Inherited the family business”. (and while “family legacy” is a big thing in RWBY, what with Ruby, Weiss and Jaune all being motivated by that specific thing, there are no other characters in the Menagerie arc that can contrast/foil/emphasise this part of her character so this new reveal about Blakes core motivations is a bit mellow). So after S5, the showrunners look over their charactersheets and realise “dammit, Jaune is currently the most well-defined character?” and they do the first thing they can think of: They eject Jaune from the plot ASAP. They cut the train in two so we can finally have some time with just RWBY and give them a little arc and some characterisation... And someone in the writers room piped up and said “wait, isnt the traincrash the only part we can really justify making Ozpin drop the lamp” and suddenly the “reaching Ansel safely”arc becomes the “Salem’s basic motivations and Ozpin cant be trusted” arc. so instead of “characterising RWBY” we get Ozposition and Salem backstory. But at least we get to see the heroes react to the revelation that Ozpin is full of it right? Well sort of, because while we do get a Qrow Lashing Out scene, Maria pipes in and reminds them “we’re allready holding the lamp, dont get emotional right now we cant afford a second grimm-magnet in this undefensible wilderness position”. (which yeah, fair point i guess she’s making a valid point but also, bad for the writing) And while you’d expect “our mentor cant be trusted” to be the perfect inciting incident for some character introspection, our next destination is the Brunswick farm, where the apathy lives. Now i love the apathy as a concept, and its a well written mini-arc. But whichever writer thought it was a good idea to follow the “our heroes are at the perfect moment for some real character-drama” up with a monster with the power to make characters behave in manners they normally would not behave, needs to surrender their christmass bonus. Like i get that you could argue they’re trying to go for “monster as analogy” but if you want to deepen out the characters here you really want the characters to respond to the issue in different, specific ways that flesh them out as individuals. but instead they are all forced into the same emotional state, which serves only to homogonise RWBY and make them less distinctive and identifiable. So the apathy cuts out our first real opportunity for some RWBY together-in-crisis exploration, but we fix the bike and make our way to Jaune’s Sisters Place for a second “ozpins full of shit” reveal, except this time to characters who arent going to be forced into non-response by Maria/Magic Apathy, and OOPS we just gave JNR the characterbeat that RWBY should’ve had. This is also when someone in the writers room (justifiably) pipes up: “wait, this is our last stop before we leave Mistral isnt it, and we’re not coming back to Mistral ever again afterwards right?”, and someone else answers yes, and the first guy responds “why did our 3 seasons in Pyrrha’s home-place never once make us meet her grieving family again?” and the second guy palms their face and said “allright you’ve got a point” and we get the Pyrrha Statue Scene. Which moves Jaune from “actively seeking death” to “Willing to postpone his his Suicinder until there’s no one left to mourn him” We kill Adam while the plot prevents Weiss from ever seeing the weight of her family’s sins (yet again) as S6 comes to an end, and despite the writers taking active precautions to prevent it from happening, they’ve once again managed to flesh out Jaune without truly exploring the shows namesake team... And we get to S7, and they do the sensible thing and once again write Jaune out of the story by making him a traffic-cop who will not be involved in any plots or sub-plots for a while. But, We also brought back Penny, This is Watts’ only arc as a villain so we need to make him ominous and let him have his screentime, and we want to be interesting and make this arc Villain VS Villain with Ironwood VS Salem so the heroes wont actually get to interact with any of the antagonists for this plotline, allthewhile introducing Clover and the Aceops, setting up the Spear of Damocles and the Huntresses. So the heroes just spend a lot of time doing small fetch-quests that dont connect to anything too significant as the show tries to set the stage for S8. Also, this is our fourth? concecutive story about learning not to follow authorities blindly (Lionheart, Ozpin, Cordovin, Ironwood) so the show really struggles to sell the heroes trust in Ironwood when he introduces “operation world-wide grim-insurgence”. So a lot of this story-arc sort of falls flat as we spend most of S7 figuring out that, yeah the guy wanting to create a worldwide grimm-insurgence is probably not entirely morally right to do so. So S7 doesnt end up fleshing out anyone but perhaps Ren’s taste in bootleather, as it’s too busy setting up and fleshing out the villains to spend time on our heroes. Weiss does get to interact with her family though to flesh her out more. But the “confronting my asshole dad” thing is short and strangely low-stakes. (We havent seen verry much of Weiss’ homelife even during the V4 bit she was at home, and weiss has been largely sheltered from his “corporate crimes”, never getting to be in any scene that hints or adresses those victimised by the SDC. As a result his arrest at her hands lacks an emotional punch) S7 ends with Qrow broken, clovers death and Ironwood’s villain reveal as well as Penny as the Winter Maiden. S7 was so weak on characterisation for the main-cast, and semi-removed lessons learned in the last 3 seasons to a point where Jaune being largely absent ends up largely shielding him from the “did no one learn their lesson” feeling that permeates S7. And then we get to S8. S8 is still largely Villain VS villain, with our heroes forced to fight logistics of food-supplies and evactuations instead of dealing with any antagonistic force until Ironwood threatens the MantleBomb. This is also our last chance to characterise Penny. We get a little bit of “weiss loves her family” and Yang pining for Blake in the snowfields. But all the plotbeats go to Oscar, Emerald, Penny and the villains again until the team decides to use the spear, S8 is also largely a nothingburger for RWBYJNR is what im saying. Until the climax that is, where we dont get much in the form of characterisation beyond “the ones on the bridge grieve the fallen” but then Penny makes the sacrifice play, And Jaune screams. Now i understand why it couldnt be RWBY members to do the stab, (WBY have no real relation to penny and are already established as the sort-of-pragmatic castmembers who, while not happy wouldnt really “struggle” too much and Ruby needs to maintain her “innocence” for marketability purposes) so obviously Jaune was the only real option because as Ruby’s foil and with Penny being a maiden “ladykiller” has a sort-of second-hand connection to her. but goddamn could the show let the main four do SOMETHING important already without cutting away from their responding emotions for once? Then we get S9, the show realises again that it needs to get rid of jaune because they’ve overused him again, creates a Jaune-free window for the characters to interact in again but wastes it’s chance again as it focusses on setting up new characters and building the setting and mystery for this new story-arc. Again. So according to some basic patern recognition: when we enter V10, expect Jaune to disapear from the story for the first half-season as the writers will, once again try to give the rest of the cast the spotlight back, only for exposition and worldbuilding to steal said spotlight from the cast anyway. Then when the plot kicks off and its “all hands on deck” Jaune will return to the plot because All Hands includes his healing hands, and that means that Jaune gets to once again be absent for the boring logistics of the narrative, and present for the characterisation bits. so now that we have identified root of the shows current problem, how would I fix it? I’d suggest moving the “Jaune free” plot-zone back a bit. Instead of putting it at the start of the vacuo arc, move it back to the early mid-point. Hell make him extremely prominent during the “boring worldbuilding” phase of our Vacuo arc. Then his dissapearence from the plot the inciting incident for the mid-point of the arc. Put him in prison/coma/other state of not-in-the-show for a bit and make Jaune’s Absence one of the things the rest of the cast can react and emote to/about. For example: Tyrian shows up, Tries to stab someone, Jaune interposes himself and turns out oops thats a poison and jaune slips into a coma. (no jaunes aura did not heal him from Alyx’ poison, the paperpleasers did cause they’re literal magic) How does Ruby respond to possibly losing her First Friend, especially now that she’s already lost her second friend (sorry weiss, but you werent a “friend” until after penny, pre penny you were an aquantence at best) How does Yang respond to Ruby’s response, does she go back to Momsis mode? How does Weiss respond to the guy who saved her life at Haven? How do ReNora respond to losing the last thing that seperated Team Sloth from JNPR being gone, possibly forever if they dont get the antidote from [Medical lab] Does Oscar become the new leader of OREN? (pronounced Orange) just, dont only remove Jaune from the setup, remove him from the actual plot next season.

#rwby #rwby analasis #rwby critical #rwby critique #I do acknowledge that making a Jaune Coma the inciting incident for the mid-arc would implicitly make Jaune important #But also it'd just be the logical way to remove him from the plot WHEN it gets going #writing analysis #rwby analysis

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amirisqueer · 2 years

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OLD 2020 ART

A silly AU I made a couple years ago. I still think it's kind of fun. Here is the original description:

"So, first off, this is going to be pretty loose concepts for a Warriors AU I had in mind. I need to work on personal projects at the moment, so I won't go too into detail with this. Additionally, I should have reread Power of Three and Omen of the Stars before this, to make it more detailed and accurate, but again, I need to work on personal projects.

I may come back to this when I have time for it. As for now, it'll stay pretty loose. Unless some of you want to mess around with the concepts, and I fully welcome you to do so! It'd be really cool to have a bunch of people putting their ideas into this, and making it a community thing!

I've removed anything to do with Rock, the ancients, the stick, and the Tribe, because they're all pointless and irrelevant to the plot, and contribute nothing to the story. The undergroud tunnels remain, but they're left a mystery.

Anyway. On with the villainy.

PoT and OotS were disappointing, to say the least. PoT had a good build up, and had tons of potential, but, as usual, the Erins wasted it. OotS is a hot mess; like PoT, potential was wasted, the plot meanders, there are far too many inconsistencies and plot holes, character motivations are weird, characters are unlikeable and boring, a ton of important points in the story feel really contrived, and it's poorly written over all. I still enjoyed these arcs, though, just for how bad they were.

I think it would have been really cool if the Erins explored the potential for villainy Jayfeather and Hollyleaf had. Jayfeather expresses quite a bit of resentment and disrespect for Starclan, and seems to feel like he's above everyone else bc he's part of a prophecy (one that really never is used or explored meaningfully). He's also pretty interested in plants that harm people, which is unique for a medicine cat.

Hollyleaf is a stickler to the warrior code, though we see her twist it and her logic to fit what she wants, especially when she goes out of her way to murder Ashfur, and threaten Leafpool. She's also shown to be very ambitious, and wants to be leader one day. She wants to be important to her clan, and be respected.

Lionblaze, in this AU, is a lot softer, and much more caring and gentle. While he does want to be a great warrior, he doesn't enjoy fighting, which makes his power a point of angst for him, since it's one that enables him to hurt other cats without any physical consequences to him. Lionblaze in the books always stuck out to me as particularly bland; he was just another cat who wanted to be the greatest warrior, who loved fighting, and was aggressive. I want a soft, gentle hero. I want a hero who can and will fight for what he believes in, but would much rather take a pacifistic route.

Again, I need to reread PoT and OotS to refresh myself, but bear with me.

What if we explored this in a way that made Jayfeather and Hollyleaf villains? These traits certainly make it easy.

What if Jayfeather grew especially resentful of Starclan, and, upon learning of the prophecy and how much power he held, turned against them? After all, Starclan gets increasingly annoying, petty, and downright irritating as the series goes on. They act as though they know more than the living cats do (which they don't, and this is shown multiple times), and instead of actually doing anything to help the clans, they give vague omens and signs that could easily be interpreted as anything!

So Jayfeather, resentful of Starclan, plots against them. He wants them to hurt. He wants them to admit they're no better than anyone else. He wants them to stop being so pretentious and full of themselves. He also hates Starclan for making him blind, and, like he said in The Sight, he wishes he had never been born because of it. Jayfeather's bitter and vindictive nature is explored a ton here.

He comes up with a plan to wrest the clans from Starclan's control. He wants everyone else to resent them, too, so Starclan will lose what power they have over the living cats. And to do that, he'll need to take over clans and spread his ideology, much like Sol.

Meanwhile, Hollyleaf wants to be leader, as mentioned before. And Jayfeather sees this as an opportunity. He's the mastermind behind all this, as the most intelligent of the three; he's the one pulling the strings.

By the way, Hollyleaf has a power in this AU. Her power comes from her dedication to and belief in the warrior code; she can always tell when cats are lying, and when they have broken the code, as well as convince them to believe in her own convictions, too. The more she believes in an idea, the more easily she can persuade cats to take her side, and believe in her version of the truth.

And so Jayfeather uses her. Throughout the books, he'll help her become deputy, and then leader, by strategically poisoning clanmates (as well as cats from other clans) to help her gain power. He's also making up visions, too, and manipulating clan politics, trying to turn them against Starclan that way, too. He tells Hollyleaf the things he reads in other cats' minds to help her find weaknesses to exploit.

Hollyleaf believes that what she's doing is right, and that she's fulfilling the prophecy, and making Thunderclan strong. In reality, she's simply carrying out Jayfeather's attack on Starclan.

Lionblaze, meanwhile, is blissfully unaware of this. He does what he does best; fight and try to be a good warrior. The best he can be, in fact. While Lionblaze isn't very intelligent, Jayfeather is wary of trying to involve him, because Lionblaze is a genuinely kind hearted cat, whereas Hollyleaf isn't.

Also! Throughout the PoT arc, there are tons of bonding moments between the three; for Jayfeather, it's all manipulation, but for Hollyleaf and Lionblaze, it's genuine. I've always been irritated by how Warriors never actually shows bonds between families and friends; the books just usually go "they were friends" or "they were family" and that's it. It makes all the family/friend deaths so unemotional and contrived when they happen, because the bonds are never explored. I don't care that Feathertail died; you never showed me the relationship she and Crowfeather had. His grief feels fake, and I'm not invested, at all.

In addition to this, friendships between the protagonists and side characters are also more deeply explored. For example, Hollyleaf and Cinderheart would have a very deep, loving friendship, and Lionblaze and Berrynose would have a friendly rivalry, but are also there for each other. Lionblaze also deeply cares for his family, and loves his siblings, Brambleclaw, Squirrelflight, Firestar, Sandstorm, and Leafpool dearly. Hollyleaf is close with her mother and father too, of course, but not quite as close as Lionblaze. Jayfeather is too wrapped up in his hatred and fantasies of revenge to really bother with friendship or family, and thus is viewed as even more prickly by his clanmates.

Jayfeather makes sure to make Hollyleaf look like an excellent warrior and leader, helping her find opportunities to do so. He encourages her to use her power to persuade Firestar to give her an apprentice, so she could be made deputy, and it works. Eventually, she'll use this power on Firestar to convince him to make her deputy after Brambleclaw dies.

Also! In chapters from Jayfeather's POV, it's shown that he grows to hate himself, too, for his actions. He knows very well what he's doing is wrong, but he keeps doing it. He feels horrible for using Hollyleaf the way he does, and feels slimy and gross about it. He thinks he's too far gone, that there's no hope for him. So he keeps making things worse and worse, and hates himself every second of it.

This only serves to make him more bitter and resentful, and he lashes out at clanmates even more, taking out his anger and other mixed emotions on them. It's pretty clear he's developed some sort of depression. At this point, it's obvious that revenge on Starclan won't make Jayfeather happy, at all. But that's what keeps him going.

Eventually, Sol comes along, and Jayfeather sees him as an ally; after all, he's trying to dismantle the clans' belief in Starclan, too. With Sol, he helps spread disbelief and strife, leading to Shadowclan being reduced to the state it was in. Thunderclan is following lead, though a bit more slowly, because, annoyingly, Firestar and Brambleclaw are still there.

So Jayfeather sneakily poisons him, without any cat in the clan knowing. He, of course, does this after Firestar has taken a liking to Hollyleaf, and during his grief, Hollyleaf goes and consoles him, as well as giving him advice on who the new deputy should be, strongly hinting that she thought she would do a good job, by stating traits that she has, and that Firestar has seen in her.

So! She becomes deputy! Lionblaze is, of course, proud, but he's a bit unnerved by the fact that Jayfeather and Hollyleaf don't seem bothered by their father's death. The fire scene happens at some point, and they learn about Squirrelflight's lie. Ashfur is still killed by Hollyleaf to keep the secret. And this time, she doesn't spill it.

Sol is also eventually killed off, because when Jayfeather realizes he's also trying to destroy the clans, not just ruin their belief in Starclan, which isn't what he wants. He doesn't want Starclan or the clans to die; he wants Starclan to suffer. So, he comes up with a plan to kill Sol, and Hollyleaf executes it.

At this point, Hollyleaf too is becoming resentful of Starclan, and twists her version of the code to fit with that, silently vowing to enforce it when she becomes leader.

Thunderclan is starting to grow really angry with Starclan, due to Jayfeather's and Sol's influence. Firestar continues to have faith in them, and the clan slowly turns on him, seeing him as a weak and incompetent leader. Other unfortunate things start to happen as well, like prey being scarce in greenleaf, warriors being injured more, fights on the borders breaking out, etc. It should be noted that Hollyleaf also uses her power to help convince the clan of Jayfeather's beliefs, and it works really well, seeing as she believes them herself. The majority of clan starts to believe that Starclan has abandoned them.

But not all of them, which is key to the rest of this AU!

Hollyleaf believes this too, and believes that the clan would do far better being lead by her. She speaks with Jayfeather about this, and, of course, he's pleased by it. They hatch a scheme to kill Firestar in secret, using a lethal concoction of herbs and framing it as a sickness.

Also! As Jayfeather's ideology spreads, other medicine cats' connection to Starclan grows weaker and weaker, until, finally, at the end of the PoT arc, they cannot communicate with Starclan at all. Only Jayfeather can, as that's one of his powers.

Once Starclan is entirely cut off from the clans, Cinderpelt's spirit (in Cinderheart) is released; her link to Starclan has been severed, so the whole reincarnation sort of thing no longer works. Cinderpelt is instead stranded in some sort of limbo, and never finds her way back to Starclan.

However, Leafpool has noticed Jayfeather's interest in toxic plants, and grows suspicious of him... so she must be killed, too. While gathering herbs with Jayfeather, Hollyleaf ambushes Leafpool and kills her. Jayfeather has Hollyleaf injure him, too, so he can frame it as an accident with some rogues, which he just barely got away from. Hollyleaf is never mentioned in his explanation, so she's completely free of suspicion.

Two of the three never learn of their true parentage, and only Lionblaze ever really cares about it, because of his deep connection with his parents, grandparents, and aunt. Lionblaze later learns about it from Squirrelflight.

With Leafpool out of the way, they can finally kill Firestar. Jayfeather slips deathberry juice into some of Firestar's fresh kill, and, when the leader is unconscious and in the medicine den, Jayfeather poisons him with more and more herbs (like foxglove, water hemlock, deadly nightshade, etc), which prove powerful enough to kill all his remaining lives.

The clan doesn't suspect a thing, and grieves for him, despite his weak leadership. This further reinforces the belief that Starclan has abandoned them.

Hollyleaf becomes Hollystar. And, despite everything she's done, she gets her nine lives. This is because, since Hollystar and Jayfeather are part of the proohecy, and supposedly hold the power of the stars in their paws, they can force them to give her nine lives. Especially with Hollystar's power of conviction.

I'm not sure who her deputy would be, but it would have to be someone incredibly loyal to her. Perhaps Cinderheart, seeing as they were close friends. Maybe they even get to be a cute, villainous lesbian couple. You know what, they do. CinderHolly is canon in this AU.

However, Lionblaze notices how unbothered Jayfeather and Hollystar are by Firestar's death, and starts to suspect the worst. He has kept his faith in Starclan, by the way, despite his siblings' attempts to sway him. He has also gathered a small group of the clan together who still believe in Starclan, and they worship in secret at night, outside the camp. This group, critically, includes Whitewing and Birchfall, Dovewing and Ivypool's parents. It also includes Squirrelflight and Sandstorm, who were, of course, incredibly loyal to Firestar.

With Hollystar in her leadership position, and a blindly loyal deputy and mate are her side, she pushes her anti-Starclan agenda, and actually forges an alliance with Shadowclan and Blackstar. They promise to help each other in the coming days, seeing as Starclan has left the clans, and they can only depend on each other.

Windclan and Riverclan are horrified, especially the medicine cats (except Mothwing, she actually sees this as wise), but through Hollystar's conviction, these ideals infiltrate the other two clans. Each clan splits into factions: those who have faith, and those who do not. Consistently, the latter groups are larger.

Lionblaze is incredibly upset by this, and is torn between his love for his siblings, his care for his clan, and his faith to Starclan. Hollystar starts to weed out the disloyal cats, the ones who still have faith in Starclan, and makes them sleep in a separate den from the other cats. She keeps a close eye on them, and monitors their movements at all times, with the help of Cinderheart, Jayfeather, and a few other extremely loyal warriors.

One evening, Lionblaze manages to sneak out from under the gaze of his clanmates, and eavesdrops on a conversation between Hollystar and Jayfeather. He learns of their manipulation, and how they killed Brambleclaw, Leafpool, and Firestar, and, in fury, attacks Hollystar. This grabs the whole clan's attention, and during the battle, Hollystar loses a life.

Lionblaze, being the big hearted cat he is, stops fighting once his sister dies once, horrified at what he's done. However, the clan has turned against him, and he, as well as the other Starclan faithful, are driven out of Thunderclan territory. Hollystar has convinced Thunderclan that any Starclan faithful cats are dangerous traitors, and, at the next gathering, encourages the other clans to drive them out, too.

Lionblaze and his group, meanwhile, shelter beyond Thunderclan territory, and Dovekit and Ivykit are born. They slowly recover their strength, and set up a sort of temporary camp. Lionblaze tells them about Hollystar and Jayfeather's treachery. All the cats are bereft, and have no idea what to do. Soon enough, though, a group of Shadowclan cats find them, and reveal they've been driven away, too. The clans by the lake have all lost cats, and they are weaker now, which is critical for OotS. This is where the PoT arc ends.

Hollystar's regime is as strong as ever in Thunderclan, and the rest of the Starclan faithful cats in the clans have been driven out. The Dark Forest sees this as an opportunity to take advantage of, and starts recruiting warriors and apprentices to their cause to destroy/take over the clans, or whatever the DF was trying to do. Like. Seriously. What exactly were they trying to accomplish?

We'll just go with destroying the clans, due to their festering, bitter hatred for Starclan, and how the clans wronged them in their past lives.

Starclan is completely cut off from the clans, except for Lionblaze's group, which has become its own sort of clan. Each of the groups of Starclan faithful have found their way to him, and they live an unsteady, unsatisfying life outside the clan territories. They want to go home. They want their clans back. But if they dared set paw at the lake territories again, they'd be killed.

Enter Dovepaw and Ivypaw. Despite not really being a clan, the group has still continued clan traditions, and Dovepaw is apprenticed to Willowshine, while Ivypaw gets Brightheart. For extra drama, Brightheart and Cloudtail were split over the Starclan debate, and Cloudtail remains with Hollystar.

In this group, there's a lot of quarreling over who's in charge, as they don't really have a leader. They eventually agree to have a small council of four cats, one from each clan, to lead them. Lionblaze, Tawnypelt, Heathertail, and Mistyfoot are the leaders of this group, and they are trying to form a plan to take the clans back. Tawnypelt was also able to convince Tigerheart to remain faithful to Starclan, so he's here, too.

Squirrelflight, in a soft, emotional scene, reveals the three's parentage to Lionblaze. Instead of driving them apart, this makes them grow even closer, as they both understand what it's like to care for their siblings deeply, even when they've done something wrong.

The fourth cat from the prophecy remains, and it's Dovepaw. She doesn't have any powers, and yet she'll be key to turning the clans back to Starclan. During their time spent as a group, the borders between the clans here dissolve, and they become united and strong.

Dovepaw is actually trained as a medicine cat here, and is the only one in the group who can connect to Starclan. Her faith is particularly strong, given how her life began with being driven out of her home. This is how the connection between the clans and Starclan is slowly restored.

Meanwhile, in the clans, as the year progresses, things get worse. The draught happens like before, and a patrol is sent upstream to investigate the cause, like before. Leopardstar dies, and someone replaces her; possibly Reedwhisker. Perhaps he didn't go with his mother, and remained with Riverclan. This could be a source of grief for Mistyfoot, and affect her actions in the rest of the arc. Reedstar it is, then.

The DF keeps training and corrupting warriors in the clans, and as the arc goes on, some of them start to fear that Hollystar was wrong, and that they should've stayed faithful to Starclan. Of course, no one says this; anyone who speaks like that is immediately exiled.

Hollystar practically controls all the clans, given her power. Her propaganda has taken hold of the leaders' minds, and they all follow her suggestions. Jayfeather is both happy and dissatisfied at the same time; he is glad Starclan is suffering, and frequently visits them to gloat, but he feels that something is wrong. He isn't truly happy. He's still bitter cold and angry inside.

If I'm being honest, I barely remember what happened in OotS between the first and last books. The whole arc was a disaster, and, like I said, its plot was boring and meandering. I apologize for the stark lack of detail in this part. Like I said though, this is just a loose concept for this AU, and anyone can add their ideas to it, if they want!

Essentially, in the end, there are 3 factions fighting: the Starclan faithful, Hollystar's clans, and the Dark Forest. Jayfeather, once he learns what the DF is up to, is upset about it, and opposes it, simply because he doesn't want the clans destroyed, he just wants Starclan to suffer, and have them watch helplessly as the clans live perfectly well without them.

Lionblaze and his faction also, through the arc, spy on what the clans are doing, and learn how things are slowly falling apart. This isn't so much due to the lack of Starclan, but due to the Dark Forest taking advantage of that lack of faith. Had the DF not been an issue, the clans would have made it perfectly fine through that period of drought, and lived well w/o Starclan's influence.

Ivypool is also recruited into the DF like usual, but this time, she immediately knows something is up, bc of Lionblaze and the rest of the group having such firm faith in Starclan, and passing that onto the kits. However, since Ivypool is smart, she decides to spy there, along with Tigerheart, which give the Faithful an advantage. There, they finally have a name: the Faithful.

Hollystar's clans eventually learn of the threat from the DF, and things devolve into panic. Hollystar and Jayfeather are losing control, and both the DF and the Faithful take advantage of this.

Dovewing is especially gifted with speech in the AU, and is really compassionate and dedicated to what she believes in. She rallies a good portion of Hollystar's clans to the Faithful, and their numbers grow steadily. She is, in a way, like a cleric in DnD, and Lionblaze is a paladin. Dovewing does most of the speaking, while Lionblaze does most of the fighting.

Then, the battle breaks out. It's DF vs the Faithful vs Hollystar's clans. Like the Great Battle in the other books, this battle is chaotic, takes place all over the clan territory, and a ton of cats die. Hollystar and Lionblaze have an intense encounter, and Lionblaze pleads her to see sense and join their side. However, she is too far gone, and too convinced of her own flawed beliefs to listen. Hollystar is killed by Lionblaze in an emotional battle, and Jayfeather is eventually cornered, too.

Lionblaze also pleads with him to switch sides, and it is here that Jayfeather finally reveals what he's been doing all along, and has his traditional villain monologue. At the end of his monologue, he admits that he isn't happy with how things turned out, and feels hollow, numb, and bitter cold instead.

Jayfeather loathed himself as much as he loathed Starclan. He knew his actions were wrong, and hated himself for it, but he couldn't stop himself. He wouldn't. From his first kill onwards, he thought it was too late for him to change paths, that he'd always be a despicable, miserable cat. He sees no chance at redemption, and asks Lionblaze to kill him. When he won't, Jayfeather eats the deathberries he had kept with him, killing himself.

In the end, the Faithful are victorious, and take back the clans. Lionblaze, however, is completely devastated by all the loss. He had lost family and friends during all of this, and feels utterly swamped by grief. The loss of his siblings hurts the most; not only had he lost them to death, but he had really, truly LOST them; their personalities had completely changed, and the cats he once knew had vanished.

Despite this, he pushes through with Dovewing and Squirrelflight's help. Lionblaze becomes Lionstar, at the urging of his clanmates. He names Squirrelflight deputy, and Dovewing is his medicine cat. The clans are recovering from Hollystar's reign, and are turning back towards Starclan, for better or for worse. Either way, their faith has only strengthened during this time, and once again, the medicine cats can connect with their ancestors.

So! That's it! That's the villain Hollystar and Jayfeather AU! In my opinion, this is MUCH better than how things actually went in the books, and I would have rather had things go this way. Potential isn't wasted (as far as I know), and each of the three is more fully explored.

The OotS part is definitely lacking, because like I said, I've forgotten what happens through most of it. Lionblaze also gets a bit shafted, because I wanted to focus on Jayfeather and Hollystar, and also because I don't know his personality as well. I really wish I had given him more content, but my pool of ideas was a bit shallow for him :'D. If any of you have any ideas for him, or for the rest of the AU, please feel free to share them!!

I may come back to this in the future, after I've reread PoT and OotS, and add more details. For now, though, it is this.

Let me know what you guys think! I'd love to hear your ideas, too, like I've said a billion times before! As I've said many times earlier, I think it'd be really cool if you all contributed too, and we made this a community thing!"

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