#firestar loses so much personality in the following arcs it hurts

[the-owl-tree]

Thoughts on Firestar? :)

firestar is an honorary girly to me

i think i've gone over my bigger issues with him not doing anything to the series despite him being THE character who is set up to bring about change (he's FIRE why is he not changing!! why is he just becoming the same stagnant xenophobic leader the others are!!) soooo fire alone discussion

the prophecy of fire alone is sooo something! it's the entire reason firestar is allowed into thunderclan, why bluestar even takes enough interest in him to mentor him, and, in the cosmic sense, why he is victorious. The individual defeats the evil through hard work! No need to pay attention to the structural issues at play, all we gotta do is beat the One Bad Guy and everything will be okay! Warriors is plagued with this writing but it's so interesting to me how Firestar affirms it. He's written to be in the right for it....but it's so boring!! Fire alone does NOT beat shit, he literally should rely on others that's GOOD

rewrite/au firestar in my head heavily internalizes fire alone. he's meant to do everything alone and it ends up throwing him into these nasty spirals of self-doubt and isolation until someone can pull him out of it. I imagine he tries a lot to settle battles via duel because he's fire alone, that's what he's supposed to do! It costs him a lot of respect from his Clanmates who want to fight.

ty for the ask :3c firestar....so much wasted potential

[maplewind-au]

Retrospective Author’s Notes

I just crossposted this note to the Wattpad and AO3 copies of Maplestar’s Light, but I’m going to post it here, too.

Hi there! My name is Razeru. First of all, thank you very much for reading my story!

I think, if you've read my story, you can surmise that I love Mapleshade. She's grown to be one of my favourite characters in Warrior Cats; her story, narratively, is written the best - in my opinion - out of most of the super editions and novellas.

Keep in mind, these words are coming from someone who grew up with these books, and also gets big mad about the things the Erins have pulled on other characters, like Squirrelflight (specifically Squilf, actually. They keep doing my girl dirty, and I'm so angry).

I took a read through my story again recently, and passed through the comments both on this Wattpad copy of the story, and the AO3 mirror. I really and truly appreciate all the love, but some people did seem to misunderstand the intention behind some things in my story, so I feel like I owe a bit of an explanation to you, my readers.

I offer this explanation because I've chosen to abandon the MapleWind AU entirely. There's too much in retrospect that I'm unhappy with, too many story ideas that don't connect narratively - it just makes a poor story. So, this is basically a big spoiler chapter for what would have happened, if I continued.

The remainder of this letter is just going to be me giving a word vomit about this story, so feel free to skip down to the bottom if you're only curious about closing remarks or projects surrounding other upcoming warriors works.

Alright. First and foremost, I want to address something specific. Mapleshade's story, as it was in canon, is a multidimensional story that a lot of people see as black-and-white. I, personally, see it as a fantastic narrative where not a single character is in the right, at least not in the context of the Clans - or morally, in some cases. This being said, a lot of the arguments about Mapleshade are usually "she's absolutely terrible and deserved what she got" / "she did absolutely nothing wrong and everyone else should be suffering" - both of which are... Very, very dangerous views to take on any person or character. When I wrote Maplestar's Light, my intention was to explore the idea where a few cats stepped out of the norm that seemed to affect this specific generation of the Clans and offered sanctuary.

WindClan has always felt like the most lax Clan out of the four, to me. With their history of welcoming in strangers and making kindly bargains with the other Clans in their times of need, it made sense to me that if a wandering cat passed out on their territory, they would reach out and help them. I chose Heatherstar specifically for this story because she was such a revolutionary, and wasn't afraid to shoot down any cat's words if she felt someone was going to get hurt.

Moreover, this AU explores the idea that instead of sleeping in Myler's barn and then going on her rampage, Mapleshade simply collapsed into grief - so Ravenwing, Frecklewish, and Appledusk all survive. Temporarily.

While Mapleshade is taken into WindClan, Mapleshade's kits are restless, and it's their turn to be angry - assuming StarClan spirits know everything (and it's heavily implied, in the first series, that they do), they pull strings just like the canonical iteration of their mother would. Ravenwing, Frecklewish, Appledusk, and - moreover - Oakstar, all suffer painful deaths as a result of the angry StarClan kits. To add insult to injury, all four lose their lives to the river while patrolling it - or are tricked into falling in. The kits drag them down until they drown.

Ravenwing and Oakstar are the only two who are able to make it to StarClan themselves, if only because of the good acts they've done to balance out the karma. The kits, however, are able to swing judgement on Frecklewish, who attacked their mother, insulted them, and was fine to watch them die, and Appledusk, who was willing to have them to begin with, who failed to save them.

This is unhealthy point of view, but they died as kits. All they know is the anger and betrayal.

On to the future.

Maplestar and Palebird have the three kits; Finchkit, Larkkit, and Firekit. Some people didn't seem to get it, and I thought I wrote it to be obvious, but Firekit is supposed to be THE Firestar in the future. With Maplestar at the helm of WindClan, ShadowClan is unable to drive them out. ThunderClan, however, is much weaker after their constant battles with RiverClan and the loss of not only Redtail, but many other great warriors. ThunderClan is driven out instead; WindClan, in their graciousness, would allow them to share the territory until something can be done about ShadowClan's terrible leader, and three Clans would unite against the one to protect their way of life.

During their time in WindClan's camp, Firepaw would grow close to the ThunderClan apprentices Ravenpaw, Graypaw and Sandpaw. Following the battle against Brokenstar, not only do Firepaw and his siblings get their warrior names, but so do the ThunderClan apprentices who participated (Sandstorm and Dustpelt included). Fireheart realizes during the night of his vigil that he doesn't want to lose his ThunderClan friends, and while meeting his family on the battlefield would be painful, he would feel worse fighting Graystripe or Ravenflight - the latter tom being the only cat Fireheart has met that makes his heart flutter.

The following day, as ThunderClan returns home, Fireheart goes with them. Yellowfang, in turn, has joined ThunderClan, having been a crucial asset to getting them in and out of ShadowClan. In return for the WindClan warrior, Spottedleaf stays; Spottedleaf had been attacked by a ShadowClan warrior the day before the battle, but Hawkheart protected her with his life. Feeling indebted, she swore to finish training Barkwing and serve WindClan just as she did ThunderClan.

The rest of the story would have gone similarly to canon, with a few minor changes; for one, WindClan and ThunderClan would forever have a close bond, not only through the blood of their Clanmates, but also through Bluestar and Maplestar, who exchanged each other's stories and bonded over how similar they were. Cinderpelt would have still gotten disabled, but through saving the ShadowClan apprentice Littlepaw from a monster; while she picks up healing from Yellowfang, she remains a warrior in spite of her leg. Swiftpaw narrowly survives, and Brightpaw lives with her scarring still, taking inspiration from Cinderpelt. Fireheart and Ravenflight become mates and have kits - Squirrelflight and Gingerpool.

I had further plans for TNP and PO3, but they're sort of lost to time at this point. The general ideas surrounded Brambleclaw - renamed Brambleflower - taking after his mother instead of his father, and being close friends with Squilf, but not mates. Gingerpool and Crowfeather do have kits, and Squilf does take them, but claims they were loner kits that she chose to raise. Bramble was their nursery parent, having chosen to be a queen instead of a warrior, and took care of them while Squilf went about being a warrior, only tuning in to feed them and sleep with them. Jay would have become a warrior named Jayclaw and Holly, an albino in this AU, would go on to be Gingerpool's apprentice and become Hollysnow. Jay is blind, and Holly is a selective mute. Lion would still have his powers of strength, but use them unwisely, and he would be the one to wind up having a crisis and revealing the secrets of his origin before disappearing into the caves.

The general idea for the OOTS arc of this AU was to give Ivy powers and still have her train in the Dark Forest, under Lionblaze - who is very much still alive, but misaligned. Dovewing would be given the opportunity as well, and only take it when she learns Tigerheart is also training there. Their struggles would surround a constant sibling rivalry, one that would deepen once Jay and Holly figure out Ivy is the third cat. I also threw around the idea of a deaf Ivypool, either from birth or caused by something much later - just to complete the "See/Speak/Hear No Evil".

The underlying, long plot to the AU was that Petalkit, Larchkit, and Patchkit effectively replaced Canon Mapleshade. Maplestar recovered, then seemingly forgot about her previous kits and replaced them with Fire, Finch and Lark. Petal, Larch and Patch want stupid, special Firestar and his bloodline to suffer for being their replacements. Technically, they were still spirits of StarClan, but pulled the strings in the Dark Forest.

Oh, boy. Those sure were a lot of words, huh.

I hope I'm not disappointing anyone by discontinuing this story. Again, looking back on it, I'm very unhappy with the way I was handling certain subjects and aspects of the story - and I'd rather kill it before I get carried away again. I've always held the belief that taking time and writing a more consise and well-placed narrative is much better than writing it quickly and breaking characters and morals. Mapleshade is a character I do want to do justice by, and Warrior Cats is a great sandbox to play in!

All that being said, I am still writing Warriors works. On AO3, I've published a couple smaller one-off stories that explore the idea of Tigerclaw not getting twisted up by Thistleclaw, and getting Scourge to join ThunderClan instead. You're welcome to read them if you haven't yet!

And I'm not done with Mapleshade, either. I'm currently working on a new, seperate Warriors rewrite based on the same time (with better allegiances); the working title for it, right now, is Falling Petals. I don't want to give too much away, but if there's enough interest, I might post a teaser excerpt to this story! There's no telling when I'll be finished with it, but I would much rather publish a finished work in full than post it by chapter and run the risk of losing interest or being unhappy with what I've put out.

A final project I'm working on is a personal Warrior Cats story called Rising Storm - it'll surround some OC Clans and Characters instead of rewriting canon material, and I'm looking for a main platform to post it on when I crack into it! If you're interested, I could use some beta readers when I start working on it, so please get in touch if you want to help out! If you know any non-Wattpad or AO3 websites I could publish the story on, please do let me know. I'll likely crosspost here, but I don't actively post on here too often, so I'd rather it not be the primary host.

I think that's everything I wanted to say! Again, thank you so much for your continued interest in my work. If you'd like to see more of what I do, look for the user 'ghastimafrix' on Tumblr, Twitter, YouTube, deviantART, AO3, and toyhou.se! I do a lot more than just write Warriors, and I'm always happy to chat.

Stay frosty, y'all!!

[thornquillthefiendish]

A little thing (actually very big thing woah) on the three even though I haven’t really gotten anywhere near their designs yet.

Though I’m not fully caught up on the series due to being a bit lazy and also getting into the actual books really late since no bookstores near me sold them, I’ve seen enough amvs and read enough of the books to know the basic gist of things, especially since I got into warriors around the same time of omen of the stars coming out and weirdly enough one of the only books (and the first warriors book I ever got) I physically own is night whispers which was weird to get into because it wasn’t even the beginning of that arc damn it, but that’s not the point. The point is that from what I’ve read, seen, and heard of (still reading through the series damn it, do not even care for spoilers at this point) I kinda wish things had gone differently.

First off, in this AU I want ashfur to instead have fallen in love with Brambleclaw, who in this AU gets a slight name change to Bramblepelt, mostly so he has a connection to his sister, Tawnypelt, no matter how far apart they are. Ashfur is originally good friends with squirrelflight (renamed Redflight after Redtail) and this friendship is severed when her and Bramblepelt begin seeing each other. Redflight never really gets into relationships with other toms in this, it’s just an off and on relationship, with her going to her friends and family for comfort, this including Ash for awhile until he distances himself completely from her. The plot against firestar, or in this AU, Ravenstar, is actually so he can gain Bramblepelt’s favor in some way, as he believed when Bramblepelt became leader after his death, he’d be able to admit he helped Hawkfrost and that Bramblepelt would be pleased with him. It didn’t work though, and Ashfur slowly began to blame the object of his affections.

Meanwhile, Leafpool still has her thing with Crowfeather, who is developed a bit differently in this AU and not as much as an Asshole as he is in canon. I think their relationship spurred after Redflight introduced her to him at a gathering, as ofc one of the toms who went on the journey with her since I think they’d be close buds here. The relationship spirals out of control and ofc leafpool decides she can no longer continue this relationship and the two amicably decide to end it. Then leafpool finds out she’s pregnant.

Now we can get into the main bbs, Lionblaze, Hollyleaf and Jayfeather. These three will have parts of them swapped, though overall their personalities are unchanged, except for Lionblaze. Lionblaze grows up to be a softy, he originally wants to become Medicine cat, but the stars instead have him become a warrior. His suffix doesn’t match his personality at all, and most are very confused as to why he isn’t in the medicine den, almost just as confused as to why he’s so damn strong. He’s not amazing at tactics, but has amazing brute strength, which he hates. He’s really close with Leafpool, and loves his parents dearly. He also sees himself as close with Ashfur, who constantly wants to distance himself from him. He instead loses his powers due to the following.

Jayfeather remains the same, but instead of lionblaze being the one to train in the df, it’s him. After he is eventually judged rather forcefully into becoming a Medicine cat, Jaypaw awakes in the dark forest, where the cats there train him to hone his fighting skills beneath everyone’s noses. Eventually, he realizes the dark pull the dark forest has on him and abandons it completely, though most cats are very suspicious as to why he has noticeable muscles and scars on him. He’s mostly unchanged besides that, and secretly being a great fighter despite his blindness. He got a lot closer to Redflight than he did to Bramblepelt, though he ofc still loves him. Redflight also consistently tried to get him to become a warrior no matter what, and was heart broken for him when he eventually had to become a led cat.

Hollyleaf barely changes, but her better qualities are more exaggerated. She’s a deligent warrior who knows the code word by word and has amazing battle tactics and a good head on her shoulders. She’s the glue that holds her siblings together and the mediator, very calm and logical. She’s a daddy’s gal, Bramblepelt would always cheer his kits on, no matter what they chose to do, and he could tell Holly wanted to become something greater as a kit, so he always incouraged her. She gains her own power in this, which is basically very similar to a Sherlock Holmes thing, she can observe small, insignificant details to anyone else and eventually piece together the entire image rather quickly, she may also have the ability to see into the past in brief flashes, but only of the place she currently stands in.

This is where the even bigger changes happen.

So the fire scene happens, Ashfur gleefully ready to let the kits of his beloved and their mate die in a fire so that he can further torture Redflight. Redflight forces herself to act as if she doesn’t care, because the kits aren’t hers. Ashfur, shocked, and equally pleased, let’s them live, planning to eventually tell Bramblepelt and turn him against his own family.

Instead of Hollyleaf being greatly distraught, it’s Lionblaze. Lionblaze, who trained for moons with Ashfur, who loved and trusted his parents, and had known nothing, but being kind and gentle, felt an immense hatred build up inside him. This is what leads him to kill Ashfur. Hollyleaf stumbles onto the scene, and though horrified, helps her brother cover the murder up so that he would not be blamed. Lionblaze becomes a wreck, unable to quite forgive himself for what he’s done, and inevitably regretting it, as if Ashfur haunts his every step.

Hollyleaf grows weary as she watches her family fall apart, and her poor brother grow sicker and sicker with the stress of what he’s done, but she also grows angrier. She eventually is able to piece together everything she currently knows about her family, and is able to get information from cats outside of her family, piecing together that her parents are actually Leafpool and Crowfeather with what some would call very little information. She is disgusted by this, and begins to blame Leafpool and Crowfeather for her family’s pain.

Jayfeather attempts to move on, he attempts to live the life he’s been given the best he can, only distancing himself from his family. The glue that was Hollyleaf is running dry as she becomes more and more obsessed with justice, with finding someone to blame, anyone. Jayfeather falls into a silent depression, he hides his feelings on the topic and focuses on the prophecy.

Eventually Hollyleaf reveals that Lionblaze killed Ashfur and that her and her siblings parents are Leafpool and Crowfeather. Chaos ensues, and Hollyleaf quickly comes to realize that everything has been made worse. She blames herself, but still not as greatly as her biological parents. She still tells Leafpool to eat the death berries, but her reasoning is instead due to the pain and grief her family, her real family has gone through all leading back to her. Leafpool expresses that she had no other choice, she couldn’t be a mother and she knew it, and she couldn’t leave her duties, and now that everything was said and done, she’d rather be dead than have put all of them through this. Hollyleaf has a brief moment of clarity, of sympathy for Leafpool, not quite sure how to feel at all about this, and when Jayfeather walks in on them, she panics. She runs off, towards the tunnels, the self hatred in her building up as she comes to the conclusion that there wouldn’t be this much hurt if she hadn’t opened her mouth.

She runs into the tunnels, and it of course caves in, Lionblaze and Jayfeather watching as their sister dies (but not really), and instantly turning against each other, Jayfeather blames Lionblaze, arguing the only reason she did any of this was to defend him, and that he did not once attempt to lift the weight off her shoulders, Lionblaze, enraged, attacks Jayfeather, and is interrupted by Bramblepelt and Redflight breaking up the fight. Redflight begs for them to apologize to each other, that they’re all that they have now, and Lionblaze, still heated and angry snaps back that Redflight isn’t their mother, that they aren’t family. He marches off, Leaving his adoptive parents with a slightly scratched, but alright Jayfeather, who attempts to comfort his mother as he breaks to her the terrible news.

After the fact, the entire family is mostly split, Leafpool and Redflight comfort each other, Bramblepelt has no real clue on how to feel and what to think, and Jayfeather and Lionblaze completely distance themselves from each other and their families. Eventually, very slowly, the two brothers become close again, just as Bramblepelt and Redflight forgive each other. They start to heal. Lionblaze figures out he’s lost his power, and Jayfeather and him become very confused. Though lionblaze is glad, but this means he’s no longer apart of the prophecy, which begs the question.

Who’s the third and second cat?

In their minds, Hollyleaf is dead, meaning the second cat is dead as well, and Jayfeather takes this to mean the prophecy might be dead too. That is until Dovepaw comes around, and adds even more questions to the entire thing. If the prophecy isn’t dead, there’s another cat out there who’s going to join them. Even though Lionblaze no longer is apart of the prophecy, he helps Jayfeather since he was for so long.

Meanwhile, Hollyleaf is spending time finding herself with Fallen Leaves, and basically mothering a Fox kit. This gives her time to think about herself and what she’s done, and eventually, forgive herself. She thinks she’s no longer apart of the prophecy, but is proven wrong when she is able to see into Fallen’s past while in the tunnels. She then realizes she needs to go back home to help her clan.

I think everything basically is very similar to the books up until the battle, where Hollyleaf lives because fuCK YOU. Instead of dying, she gets lots of heavy wounds before Bramblepelt swoops on to try to save her, but gets overwhelmed quickly. Surprise though, Ashfur (who joins the df instead since before he died in this au he might’ve been involved with them via Hawk) turns against Hawkfrost, dies during battle, and before things can escalate any further, Tigerstar is killed and everyone retreats.

After the fact, the three lose their powers, and StarClan makes it known to Bramble and Leaf that Jayfeather and Lionblaze can now follow their wanted paths in life. A ceremony is held where Jayfeather becomes a warrior and is named Jayfire after his grandpa, and Lionblaze becomes a Medcat and is named Lionflower, after his grandmother Goldenflower (also technically Lionheart). Redflight still becomes dep, but I plan to make holly her dep for when she becomes leader. Also CinderHolly or Hollycinder is real here and Lionflower is the surrogate father which is allowed since he won’t be raising the kits. Jayfire becomes a great fighter, and becomes really popular thtoughout the clans to his own dismay. He’s still a grumpy lil shit, just the way I love him.

Spark and Alder are still born, ofc, they have a more sibling esc relationship with the three since bramble and red don’t just drop their adoptive kits out of their family because they’re not theirs and that’s how family works. Alder becomes med not due to being a bit behind, but go geniunely getting into Medicine cat duties by being really close with Lionflower. Bramblestar encourages his sons choice because he’s gonna act like an actual fucking father and not an idiot please.

Holy shit this post is long. I’m not even done with the first and second arc what am I doing.