This is a bit silly, but I thought it would be interesting to explain through the story of A Starless Clan how I came to adopt the “Nightheart is nonbinary/genderfluid” headcanon.
Start: Nightheart is unhappy with their name of Flameheart, and unhappy with their life in ThunderClan. So they intend to move to ShadowClan to be with Sunbeam where they will feel accepted. (While this is only from their PoV, and in reality they have a skewed idea of what the other cats think of them because of their trauma, they do want to feel like they belong.)
Oh, and Fringewhisker is trans and there's an allegory hidden there about Berryheart and transphobia.
Symbolism: Nightheart starts transitioning from MtF
End: Nightheart thought they would be happier in ShadowClan, but they keep thinking back to ThunderClan. They decide to go back to ThunderClan, but on their own terms and with a better understanding of themselves and what they want in life.
Symbolism: Nightheart is not transfem like they thought. However, they aren’t masculine either. And so they come to accept who they are from ThunderClan, and the self actualization they have gained away from ThunderClan, and come to a complete understanding that they are on a genderfluid spectrum.
Bonus Symbolism: Sunbeam joining ThunderClan means she realizes she’s bisexual :P.
You ever think about how a lot of the Warriors cast are really not mentally okay? Yeah, I have.
TW: Trauma, abuse, and neglect mentioned below.
Jayfeather is a disabled character in a system built for the abled, where he is seen as pitiful and helpless despite managing just fine, and frustrated to be seen as pitied. He internalizes the prophecy is important above all else, which can especially be seen after the “death” of Hollyleaf. It’s only speculation, but I think he threw himself into the prophecy as a coping mechanism, and to not address his feelings. He puts the blame on himself when he can’t save a cat, which I think he has subconsciously taught to Dovewing as well. His difficulty being emotionally open is a direct consequence of Power of Three, where he learned that being emotional openness leads to suffering. He can only see Dovepaw and Ivypaw as tools, like how StarClan viewed him and Lionblaze as tools, because to be emotionally open he would have to experience all the trauma he has repressed from Power of Three.
Lionblaze’s trauma starts with the Dark Forest and Tigerstar verbally and emotionally abusing him since an apprentice, as well as terrorizing him in his dreams with deeply disturbing visions. Unlike Jayfeather, he deals with trauma with distraction, throwing himself into whatever thing, as if he does it hard enough he’ll forget what has happened. This leads to him dismissing other cats’ feelings in favor of his own, because to empathize is to feel, and to feel is to remember. He can make Ivypool go through hell because he has been desensitized to the violence and on some level, may view the Dark Forest’s violence as something normalized. He can let Dovewing shoulder the burden of the prophecy by herself because he's too wrapped up in his own emotions to try.
Hollypaw more than anything wanted to be important, to be known in history as a hero. In contrast to her brother’s being put on a pedestal, she experiences the alienation of being forgotten. She needs a code of conduct to follow that will tell her right from wrong. She experiences perhaps the worst thing someone like that can, and it is to have the very foundations of her sense of reality upheaved, and be told her very existence is taboo. She’s not only unimportant, but she shouldn’t even exist. And how she deals with this trauma is to make it go away. She needs the memories to disappear, even if it means killing to do so. Her response when completely overwhelmed is to run away, bury her head in the sand and remain stagnant in time. If she hides far enough away, maybe those memories will fade as well. She is a product of a system that rewards strict adherence to societal expectations and punishes those who fall outside its boundaries. I firmly think this way of thinking started in Dark River, when she was punished for doing what she thought was right in breaking the code to aid RiverClan.
Dovewing is forced to grow up quickly because the entire fate of the Clans is being hoisted onto her shoulders by two mentally unwell men who do not take her feelings into account. She is disconnected from her sister, feels guilt and regret for being unable to stop events that no cat could control, and blames herself for these events because of her powers. This is because she is part of an unhealthy system where her autonomy is superseded for the greater good. She is forced to be a paragon of virtue and place her wants and needs as secondary to saving the world. This does not help her at all, and after the loss of her powers, she struggles to adjust to a society that essentially threw her away once she was no longer useful, so now she must learn to be an individual.
Ivypool is a victim of grooming and child abuse where her perfectly normal childish feelings about feeling left out and abandoned were manipulated into something far darker, and by the time she realizes how deep she is in, it’s too late to back out. She is subjected to verbal and physical abuse every night, and must somehow retain her sense of self while also being seen as a tool of espionage by Lionblaze and Jayfeather, who were also seen as tools. She has to hurt cats, torture cats, and kills a cat because the other option is that she dies instead. Ivypool ceases to exist and what she must become is a killing automaton that does not think or feel. And after the source of her trauma is gone, she must learn to be a real person again, while also carrying all that trauma with her. She is a suit of fur and flesh pretending to be the shape of a cat.
Darktail’s Judgement Preview Stream of Consciousness
I’ll be honest. I expect this super edition to Whelm me. So I’m not expecting anything great. However, I love a good shitpost and so here are my various unfiltered thoughts about what I’ve read so far.
Spoilers below.
Darkkit waits for Onewhisker to return with milk. Any day now. Aaaaany day now.
Mapleshade is smoking an old fashioned cigarette, aura farming for no reason. She has a contract that says she must make a cameo in every villain’s book about them.
Gay people do, in fact, exist
Smoke has done nothing wrong, ever, in her entire life.
“Suddenly, Onewhisker shoved Smoke roughly away from the hollow.” :unyay:
3 chapters of those wacky kittypets trying to describe human inventions in cat terms
Ravenpaw steals a teenager’s lunch
Dudley is actually Dudley from Harry Potter
Darkpaw is already 15 and yearns for violence
"We should kill these humans", says Darkkit.
Polyamorous Darktail???
“Only Clan cats can speak with our gods” Ravenpaw you’re not a Clan cat and have used the moonstone before
Somewhere there is a compelling story hidden about how loss of connection led to Darktail doing all he could to maintain the connections he could, even if by fear and control. To be weak is to be alone.
Hey, how come my neglectful father gets to go to heaven while I’m being dragged to hell? Is it the whole drowning cats thing? It might be the drowning cats thing. Said cats are looking at me disapprovingly.
Something that drives me a little unhinged is the potential parallels between Crowfeather and Onestar. My literary writing weakness is breaking the cycles of abuse and the realization of carried generational trauma. To better yourself and change is a choice, even when remaining in that cycle might be easier.
Which brings me back to Crowfeather and Onestar. I love the idea of them being mirrors to each other in how they handle their biggest vice: their pride.
Crowfeather and Onestar are both pathetic, immature men who cannot admit their own shortcomings. Crowfeather cannot be emotionally open because he fears being seen as disloyal. Onestar cannot be emotionally open because he fears being seen as weak. They bury and bury their emotions until it seeps out the sides and becomes everyone else’s problem.
Where the two differ, and what my ideal super editions for them would be, is that while Crowfeather realizes the cycle he is in, and chooses to face his feelings, Onestar does not. And in that ideal “Onestar’s Confession”, he ends the series full of regret he refuses to face, having lost everything, unable to admit that he was the problem. With his dying breaths, Onestar confesses his true feelings, long after it’s too late to change anything.
And it contrasts Crowfeather, who is only able to admit he was the problem after he lost everything. His kits' respect, his wife divorces him, his mom is ashamed of him, and he keeps spiraling further and further to get to the point he realizes his emotional constipation is why he has lost everything. He has to earn his dignity back, and he isn’t likely to be forgiven.
And this goes back to breaking the cycle. Both Crowfeather and Onestar realize they are abetting the abuse of others. But while Crowfeather can eventually take accountability, Onestar cannot accept he is the cause for his own misery, having to find someone else to blame.
I run across the clover fields shrieking like a madman as I rend my white victorian shirt in pure emotion at the doomed accountability straight man yaoi
(Meanwhile, Nightcloud and Whitetail are making kissy faces at each other)
I am going to say something brave (really really obvious) yet controversial.
I do not like when people dislike Squirrelflight's Hope and Squirrelstar because she somehow "challenged" or undermined Brambleclaw's authority in that book. It reads very uncomfortably to me like "she should have just been a good wife and kept her mouth shut and supported her husband, right or wrong." That's not who Squirrelstar is. She's headstrong, stubborn, questions authority, and will go against the popular opinion if she feels what she is doing is right. You can't have Squirrelstar exist as Squirrelstar and her not undermine and question authority.
And it just. The complaint is riddled with misogynistic subtext, whether that is realized or not.
Ranking Warriors Villains by how Progressive They Are
Is this a bad idea? Absolutely. Is this shitpost bound to backfire? Absolutely. Is analyzing progressivity through the lens of several different Warriors villains who veer hard right kind of fun? ...Absolutely.
Shitpost (sort of) taken seriously at an attempt at character analysis. Spoilers for the entire series below the cut.
Brokenstar: 2/10. He hates children and old people. He wants to use child soldiers and old people who don’t get tax benefits or healthcare in his government. However. He does have a gay male base of support. It’s mostly Blackstar, who has bad taste in men, but I’ll give Brokenstar a pity point for that small crumb of progressiveness. Although gay henchman killing old ladies is not a win u_u.
Tigerstar: 4/10. Tigerstar does not care what gender or sex you are, as long as you are useful to him. You are a business asset, and Tigerstar does not believe in using bad assets. However, he also is a tyrant who wants to remake the Clans into his own image and achieve his own vision of what greatness is because he is a malignant narcissist who cannot conceive of someone else above him. This is how Scourge got a 1-hit kill. He would totally do corporate pride until it wasn’t profitable.
Scourge: 3/10. Like Tigerstar, Scourge doesn’t see cats as individuals. They’re pawns. Frankly, I don’t think he cares at all in general, and even less about his group. It’s about power to him, to make himself feel the biggest threat out there. Unfortunately, Scourge is not running a proletariat uprising, but a mafia built on fear and despair.
Hawkfrost: 6/10. Hawkfrost is much like Tigerstar in that he sees cats as pawns, but his style is more psychological. He would use progressiveness as just another tool. It’s no problem for him to use his bisexuality to manipulate toms (like Mudclaw) into recruitment for his ambitions. He doesn’t care if an impressionable minor like Ivypaw develops a crush on him, because he can use those emotions to further his agenda against the Clans. But do I think he would have progressive tendencies? ...If they suited his goals. I think he’s a people (cat?) pleaser, and if the tides went swimmingly (hah), it would be useful for his path to power.
Sol: 5/10. Sol is dangerous in that he is the “so-called” liberal who wants to change the structure of society and rebuild it from the ground up. But this is a bald-faced lie, and the mysterious guy who’s talking about class consciousness you kind of agree with is actually running a cult. This promise of change built on a lie shows the ugly truth that Sol is yet another wannabe dictator who only cares about destroying the institutions so he can become the new institution. This is why you must always beware liberal men. However. He makes a good point with the power structure that StarClan holds over the Clans. And the whole thing with Blackstar. This is because Blackstar has bad taste in men.
Hollyleaf: 5/10. As a person with a degree in Hollyleaf, I regret to inform you that she’s not as progressive as people want to believe. In fact, I’d liken her stances in PoT to Christian fundamentalist ideology. Do I think she stays this way? No. But she’s not making a hard pivot from far right to far left. She’s a pretty centrist character who builds her beliefs on order and stability. However. I do think she has a capability to embrace major societal change so as long as it abides by those principles of stability. If returning to the status quo means more instability, she will make the radical decision instead (see Dark River and Eclipse). She operates by logic and what makes sense to her.
Ashfur: 2/10. Ashfur is the guy who claims to totally be "woke" to date women, but as soon as they say something to him he doesn’t like, the mask slips off very quickly. He’ll tell you he loves Squirrelflight, except the part where he’s so obsessed with Squirrelflight that he’ll suppress her personality to keep her close. He loves the idea of her, not her as a character. He’d rather possess her than love her. And eventually, that obsession turns to rage, and that rage becomes entitlement. And that entitlement becomes mental instability.
Mapleshade: 3/10. Mapleshade is a classic case of "the victim becomes the perpetrator", and the cycle repeats. I regret to inform people that I don’t think Mapleshade is very progressive. She brutally tortured Frecklewish, Appledusk only died because he was in the way of Reedshine, her true target, and she almost drowned Ivypaw. She is much more malicious towards women in both her story and later books. Just as well, her abuse of Crookedstar as a kit was a form of grooming. Instead, I think she is shaped by the attitudes of her time, and has never grown as a character as she is too stuck in her cycle of abuse and hate to let go.
Thistleclaw: 1/10. This guy is a fascist. I’m not even being facetious. He is as far right as you can go. I’m trying to think of any point he shows any smidge of progressiveness. Uh,,, he’ll mentor girls and teach them to disembowel their Clanmates. Gooooooo girl power… .
Slash: 1/10. This fucking guy…literally one of his biggest character traits is he wants to kidnap Star Flower because she’s pretty and he’s entitled to her. It’s like they made the most misogynist character possible that yells “I AM VERY EVIL” at periodic occasions.
Darktail: 5/10. Darktail is a lot like Tigerstar, Hawkfrost, and Sol in how he operates. That is: he has sociopathic traits. I don’t think he sees his group as anything beyond something to maintain hegemony over. He’ll easily turn on them if they become a liability or no longer useful. He’s not above using cats’ affections to manipulate them, such as Sleekwhisker. He’s not above getting his paws dirty either. However, he does have the capability to feel some form of familial affection, such as with Violetpaw, but that affection is quickly lost when Violetpaw is no longer loyal. Darktail strongly values loyalty in his cats, to the point they are all marked the same as a sign of unity (and possession). So any progressiveness from him is likely a strategy to retain his followers and that feeling of loyalty. The ShadowClan apprentices wanted radical change, but Darktail never cared about that. He just wanted to see the Clans perish, and maybe create a pseudo “family” (who can only leave him through death).
Curlfeather: 7/10. The thing about Curlfeather is that her plan was going smoothly, until Splashtail ruined it all. I genuinely think she would have made a good leader, and could implement the change she wanted that wasn’t seen under Mistystar. She’s smart enough to recognize her vices and reign them in to achieve her goals. However, I don’t think this golden age would last long, because of her manipulative tendencies. She sealed her fate to die when she indoctrinated Splashpaw into joining her plan. So yes, she could create a RiverClan utopia. But it would crumble as soon as her subordinate no longer wanted to play her game. She also is unlikely to grow or change as a character because she has no remorse for her actions, only that her plans failed and Frostdawn got hurt.
Berryheart: 3/10. Barbara here is several Republican stereotypes all at once, but what gets me is that she does have a point about Tigerstar. The rest of the Clan really don’t have a say in the leader’s decisions. So even if her decision is as horrible as “I wanna ban foreigners from dating my son”, there is no choice besides Tigerstar’s decision. Her motivations are terrible, but her logic is sound in how the Clans are monarchal in structure. I’m not sure what changed for her to become who she is, but I strongly suspect the events of aVoS, which was led by an outsider cat who led her Clan to ruin. A group she was part of that killed her fellow Clanmates. And it’s tragic, because she had so many chances to change. But she couldn’t let go of her hatred and the trauma of that event. Hurt people hurt people.
Splashtail: 3/10. This guy…he has no values. Nothing. He’s chaos incarnate, a beast unleashed that Curlfeather created that becomes Frostdawn’s problem. He exists as entropy itself, and the only grounding factor against him is death. He doesn’t care about anything or anyone, not power, not glory, not status. At most you could say he doesn’t like to be beneath others or thought lowly of. Progressiveness to him is just a Thing. He wants to be a Hawkfrost, but even Hawkfrost can’t be a Hawkfrost. Darn :(
Morningkit: This is a fetus, she’s too young to vote.
The moral of the story: Blackstar has horrible taste in men.
Well, sometimes I simply choose to Ignore parts of the series that add nothing meaningful to the story while vastly overcomplicating things. Here is a list of various unhinged things I Do Not See U_U.
Nobody has parents from the first arc generation. Sandstorm was sculpted from sand. Dustpelt: dust. Ravenpaw: .. .the stork got lost so a raven brought him.
Flipclaw is still at the ToRW with his boyfriend Feather of Flying Hawk.
Moonpaw's moms are Plumstone and Thriftear, not Thriftear and her first cousin Bayshine.
StormClan's Folly
Raggedstar is not a horribly abusive mate and closer to his depiction in the first series
Actually, Yellowfang's Secret whomst
Stumpytail is not in the Dark Forest. Who put him there. I will fight them.
Hollyleaf and Fallen Leaves are a couple of besties with severe codependency problems and not mates in any way whatsoever
Spottedleaf's Heart whomst
Shadowsight is not reduced to a punching bag for the universe in The Broken Code and only Lionblaze is irrational towards him (because he is Lionblaze)
Brambleclaw and Squirrelstar ended their relationship after Squirrelflight's Hope after realizing how toxic the relationship has become
Bumble becomes so big and powerful that she simply eats the other settlers and the Clans never exist. The end.
Redtail's Debt whomst
After realizing how pathetic and sniveling her mate is, Whitetail ends things with Onestar and joins the Sisters
The Darkstripe-Sorreltail-Graystripe half-sibling situationship does not exist. Willowpelt was a first time mother with Sootfur, Rainwhisker, and Sorreltail.
Ferncloud and Dustpelt are not aunt and niece. This is because Dustpelt was formed from dust.
Not the Ashfur quote! But yes, I'm serious. Curlfeather's fault is literally that she loved too much.
But you can also love deeply without understanding, and this is Curlfeather's fatal flaw.
When does love become a vice?
I get a bit annoyed at the fandom as Curlfeather's nuances are often not spoken about in favor of a more clear-cut story. She receives the Draco in Leather Pants treatment, which isn't common with female villains in media and literature. There are countless fanarts drawing Curlfeather as an edgy wronged woman out for revenge that remind me of the Hawkfrost and Scourge fanarts of the 2000s. She's got the anime cat hair and everything.
And you know what? A friend of mine has helped me see that honestly, that's fine. Women in Warriors deserve their moment to be seen as an Ashfur or Scourge, especially a woman who is also a mother in a position of power. Let her be 2026's Warriors tumblr sexyman. I'm rooting for her.
But also, I want to give my thoughts about the nuance of her character, and how her love ultimately destroys her.
She loved RiverClan, and wanted to stop the stagnation that Mistystar had allowed RiverClan to experience. She wanted change, to make RiverClan better. And the reality is that she would have done it. She has the qualities of a good leader.
But her plan entailed removing the obstacles in that path to RiverClan's rebirth. She did not feel regret for her role in assassinating Reedwhisker. This is because she treated Reedwhisker as an object to remove.
She did not feel regret for pulling in Splashpaw to her plans, grooming a teenager to become her right-hand. Splashtail was set up from the beginning to be a tool to "repair" RiverClan.
She did not feel regret for using Frostdawn as a tool to legitimize her position as leader. She groomed her for this position since she was a kit.
She loves her Clan, loves her vision of a better future, and loves her daughter. But what does she love most?
It's her daughter. When she is there, on the path of victory, she is given a choice. Her vision, or her daughter. And she chooses Frostpaw. She gives her the tools she needs to solve her murder and Reedwhisker's murder, but in order to do so, she is treating her daughter like she herself is an object to use.
And therein lies the tragedy of Curlfeather. She loves so deeply and purely, and yet she cannot comprehend or realize how she has hurt the cats around her.
She does not understand Frostdawn's feelings about being used as a pawn, nor does she understand Splashtail's feelings about being seen as a weapon. Her objectification of others is what kills her, and is the obstacle to her place in StarClan. She cannot leave the Dark Forest, because she has no regrets. She cannot see other cats as people outside herself. She loves and loves without understanding that the love she feels is built around possessing things.
She regrets she was killed. She regrets Frostdawn got almost killed. She regrets trusting Splashtail and wants to see him humbled. But she does not regret the emotional trauma she has inflicted by the cause of her actions.
Frostdawn loves her mother and will never understand her, and Curlfeather loves Frostdawn but will never understand Frostdawn. They will never reach an understanding or find closure, because to Curlfeather, there is nothing to find closure for.
