so... cats, huh?

warrior cat,,,

[rookflower]

i should probably make a pinned message here. hi welcome to my cat world. this sideblog used to be a character fan design blog but has now mostly turned into a place for slightly pretentious ranting (and, occasionally, art!) about the Warrior Cats book series (2003 - ongoing). i post here when im bored.

i am an adult and i use she/they pronouns. yes i like this book series yes i hate this book series.

you can see my art here. i drew every character once a few years ago! it's now an incomplete list because the series never stops, but you can see my work for that challenge here

[rookflower]

scared I’ll get slimed for this but I feel like you may understand what I mean

very very sorry if you don’t want people ranting abt wc in your inbox!! I like to debate cars but I don’t want to bother anyone 😓

(cw: grooming mention, I’m very sorry if that’s too heavy for you so feel free to skip/ignore this ask)

I think it’s completely fine and good to find age gap relationships in wc and to explore the implications that would have:

BUT

I think people need to remember that I’m pretty sure the majority of those were just like the authors didn’t give a fuck about the ages and were an accident. Again, completely fine to explore but I just think it should be kept in mind it’s not usually intentional

TO REMEMBER ACTUAL ON PAGE VICTIMS OF ABUSE AND GROOMING

as an example:

pinestar and leopardfoot have an appalling age gap. Pinestar *is* toxic to her, but I don’t think the extreme age gap was an intentional part of/used overly in the text of their relationship or why he was portrayed as a bad partner (in the text of their book specifically)

Spottedpaw and thistleclaw is a very overt example of grooming that, on page and in canon, the age gap is vital to why that relationship is deplorable. Another example is ivypool and Hawkfrost, which while unlike the other 2 is not implied romantic books, is stillan example of grooming

Again I do like how people explore the bad implications created in the text, but I just have seen a lot of people try to deny characters like spottedleaf or ivypool are victims, while at the same time making hcs for how other characters are, and I suspect it’s because they are flawed and have their own faults which I think is a bad mentality to have about victims and it bugs me how often I’ve seen it but idk maybe I’ve just gotten a skewed perspective on how often I see this 😭

this is just a discussion/debate topic from me so curious on ur thoughts LOL (sorry I’m very paranoid to be interpreted as trying to fight 🥲)

yeahh partially agree. i think a lot of people tend to either dismiss the possibility of the writers accidentally creating unhealthy relationships outright, OR take everything extremely literally without accounting for weird cat aging rates or timeline inconsistencies and then apply a strict moral judgment on that. the "apprentice = teenager, warrior = adult" thing is something i don't think is universally and consistently accurate through all of the series, especialy earlier on. i think the naming system and how fast cats age flag up a lot of alarm for some people but to take a canon relationship as an example i don't think, say, feathercrow are written like or intended to be a grown ass woman hanging out with a teenage boy, despite the technicalities of the timeline pointing to that being the case.

there is nothing wrong with picking up on details like age or power gaps and exploring that in your own interpretations or opinions, but with the way a lot of these things are written there clearly isn't any intention for most contentious relationships to be predatory/unbalanced and this tends to reflect in the narrative and characterisation that form the canon so i don't blame anyone for engaging with these things earnestly. "authorial intent" is not the end all be all to be clear but yknow what im saying? i think a lot of takes on the topic are made in bad faith or come off kinda silly

i'm also not even the biggest shipper but it is frankly really difficult to pair up these cats if you need everyone to be within a moon or two age of each other and completely unrelated via all possible retcons. LMAO

[rookflower]

i dont really care much for tigerheart because i find him inconsistent and frustrating but the wc twitter posts that get through my feed whenever i occasionally check that stupid site are always acting like he just killed their family or something

[rookflower]

Thoughts on Jayfeather??

mixed feelings!

on po3 revisit, i do quite like him in that arc. i like that he has a distinctive personality. i like that he's prickly without necessarily being unreasonable. i like reading his struggles with disability in an evidently ableist society, i can relate to him having a temper when he feels condescended to and needing to learn to measure an appropriate response. i like his relationship with leafpool in theory, how there's a deep care for each other there even though they're not always a great mentor and apprentice to each other and i find that relationship very tragic if i apply enough headcanon and personal reading to it

following po3 however i think jayfeather falls off pretty hard. he gets into situations through the series where his abrasiveness stops feeling reasonable given his circumstances and rather that he's just being written as mean because he's jayfeather and that's how he is which i personally find frustrating particularly in certain scenes where he does actually have power and responsibility over the situation (how he treats twigkit, how he talks about leafpool at her funeral, i swear there's scenes where he just. mistreats patients for the hell of it ???) and it's hard to talk about because his initial characterisation comes from that place about ableism and i know he's a pretty personal and relatable character to a lot of people for that reason. but alas. personally i tend to really dislike snarky asshole type characters when there isn't enough to make them interesting outside that facade and theyre not ridiculous enough with it to be funny instead, and jayfeather kind of loses a lot of the parts that make him interesting over time and he also sure isnt funny.

he also is just, inevitably, super overrated by proxy of being one of the most popular warrior cats characters and not one i have the same attachment to that i do squirrelflight and leafpool. he's like the charizard or lucario of warrior cats yknow, id maybe like him better if he wasnt everywhere.

[rookflower]

Hi! I was wondering what your thoughts on Berrynose might be? I know there are mixed opinions on him, so I am curious to see how you view him.

truth be told i don't think about him much. i don't hate him? i find a lot of the minor bully/arrogant/just an asshole for no reason characters (foxheart, skyheart, socks & ruby, shrewclaw etc) kind of funny honestly because of how one-note black and white dislikable they're written, which is amusing next to warriors' tendency to have their protagonists accidentally come off as kind of mean and judgy themselves sometimes so when a character is SUPPOSED to seem like an asshole they really hammer it in. it's also nice when a side character has a set, consistent personality. berrynose is kind of like those guys i think, you're supposed to either be annoyed by him or find him funny, and i toe the line between the two a bit, depends on the scene. he's also part "stock background conservative" especially in the later arcs from what i remember, and i appreciate when that role is filled in a consistent way by a character who has nothing better going for them i guess. i'd like him less if the series or fandom played up how he was Actually Really Deep And Sympathetic but they don't, really, from what i've seen so he's inoffensive to me.

rip bozo. i think poppyfrost deserves way better and i think honeyfern deserved better than dying while thinking about having his babies.

[rookflower]

i appreciate the uk bird species in the warrior cats graphic novels thanks for the research guys it makes a fun birdspotting game for me

[rookflower]

you see when someone takes a straight ship I already like or am generally neutral on and says "what if they were lesbians" I'm like awww, hell yes, I see the vision etc but when someone takes a straight ship I actively dislike for some reason or another and says "what if they were lesbians" then steam starts coming out of my ears and that's just how it is

[rookflower]

thoughts on Hollyleaf?

i love hollyleaf but she's one of those characters whose fanon is often frustrating to me. i'm not really fond of takes on her that interpret her as this noble seeker of justice, that blame leafpool for hurting her or that inexplicably frame her killing of ashfur as something she did to defend squirrelflight. she's a tragic character to me but not a positive one- clinging to a system that hurt her and wildly swinging it around to hurt others in response. just doubling down and spiralling worse and worse until all she can do before being able to perceive the consequences of her own actions is run away. yes girl !!!

killing her to then bring her back to then kill her again like a book later in a self sacrifice for the clan after a hasty make up with her family sucked real bad LOL. what a waste of a character. there's definitely an argument to be made about the misogyny of it but i've known the whole picture of her character for so long that its hard to envision it as a real time accidental sequence of events (with shit like them having her snap and die because they couldnt think of a power for her or whatever) which is where i think most of those issues exist, at least when it comes to hollyleaf specifically.

i like the idea of her living past oots and having to come to terms with her actions and mend her life but not in an AU that just positions her as clan leader and assumes she worked through all of her issues about law and justice and religion offscreen and is just a chill person now with perfect mutual forgiveness with leafpool and squirrelflight who is going to be totally responsible with the power. let the guilt eat her alive as the anger that drove her still lingers and festers to some extent but she's forced to reckon with the irrationality and broader perspective of it all. where does she even go from there? theres a pmv i wanna make sometime. maybe we'll see. ideally she probably shouldve stayed in the tunnels, or rejoined only to leave as a loner again because nothing's the same anymore and she needs to work on healing herself elsewhere, something in between, yknow

[rookflower]

can i be real and say that the character graystripe has grown on me recently not because of literally anything in the actual warrior cat books or fandom or any kind of wc specific fan project but rather because of this fuck ass graystripe card in the crossover trading card battle game god game on tabletop sim that prevents all cards from attacking and brings the game to a screeching halt for a bit and it sucks so bad and isnt fun and its so fucking funny to me

[rookflower]

thoughts onnnnnn yellowfang?

i think i have the standard consensus on her, very concise and unique and enjoyable character in the first arc who has since been recontextualised as far less likeable in her post-death cameo appearances. i don't think starclan being deeply shitty and messy and inconsistent and unethical is even necessarily a bad thing textually. but it's both a shame for every character who gets dragged into being a part of that, and it's endlessly frustrating that the books dance around the idea of starclan being flawed without ever doing anything too meaningful to address it, because of the series' whole general "radical change to the status quo is Bad" ethos defeating anything more thematically interesting or progressive it might possibly ever have to say.

anyway ! i appreciate that she's a female character who's distinctly grizzled and rough and old in description/common fanon depiction, it makes her stand out but god i wish we had more of these in this series called Warrior cats about mean feral cats who fight in the woods. i think the anti-superpower retcon in her super edition is really stupid and that it's really funny that no one ever brings it up on account of it being stupid. i love her dynamics with fireheart and cinderpelt. i think leafpool and squirrelflight should be allowed to burn starclan down on account of the shit yellowfang helps put them through. i dont think literally any of these are remotely hot takes

[rookflower]

Do you have any thoughts on Sorreltail? She's a background character I've always had a soft spot for

love sorreltail! but she's very much a supporting character to me so i maybe don't have the most interesting or insightful thoughts on her LOL. i like her friendship with leafpool a lot, i miss when protagonists had more solidified and dynamic social lives and the conflict with them naturally drifting apart a bit and leafpool feeling isolated and depressed about it feels very real. i can easily admit that her relationship with brackenfur is pure cardboard but it is one i inexplicably have a bit of a soft spot for because they're both pretty generically nice characters and i like the idea of this one fairly genuinely happy and consistent relationship amongst all the other drama and toxicity going on in the clans- i also think it makes the aforementioned conflict with leafpool more interesting if she wants to be happy for sorreltail but cant and simultaneously wants to resent her or her stupid boyfriend but doesnt have a good reason to without feeling guilty about the jealousy

i feel a bit conflicted on her death, i strongly believe in the importance of thinning out the cast and the concept of her dying from her wounds bc she goes to check on the kids in the nursery before getting her injuries seen to is very tragic (especially if you parallel it with the horror of what happened during her first kitting and how there was also a battle and how her medcat slash sister in law died by protecting her/putting her and her children first) but i do also find "woman dies for the sake of her children because of her Maternal Instincts and her husband is still alive to be sad about it" frankly a bit shit, simultaneously.

[rookflower]

could i ask for your thoughts on crookedstar :]?

For sure fond of him, though nostalgia's a big factor. His SE was my favourite book in the series when I was younger, and it wouldn't be anymore but I'm not sure what is. I've been soured on a few aspects of it like the whole dead wife thing or general overabundance of suffering just due to how prevalent certain patterns are in the series, but it still makes me very emotional nonetheless. I don't think the Amen MAP's ever not made me tear up?

I like that he's a relatively well meaning leader and on the kinder end of things (by wc standards) but he's still flawed- he can be cowardly, he can be vindictive, he can be selfish and these things don't necessarily contradict who he is, in either political or interpersonal relationships. I think his range of characterisation is a good balance compared to a lot of modern leader writing which can often be either much more flat and boring or frustrating and inconsistent. Or maybe I'd find out he is actually like that too if I were to reread everything he's in, I dunno it's been a minute.

I had ideas for Crookedstar AMVs/MAPs set to This Modern Love by Bloc Party and Once In A Lifetime by Talking Heads when I was younger but I'm never gonna make either of them LOL

[rookflower]

thoughts on the terrible horrible no good very bad gray wing?

i never actually finished DOTC but one of the main reasons why is that i didn't really get attached to any of the POV characters so that's already an L on this guy. i have a couple friends who really like him so i respect there's gotta be some value there, and i can't comment anything definitively for lack of full context, but my main impressions of the guy are high school memories of him being kind of boring and annoying, the conversation a couple years ago about how horrifically he treated bumble, and the whole DOTC fridged wife thing soooo it's not looking good at all for mr gray wing's optics i gotta say

[rookflower]

Thoughts on Cinderheart?

ok where to start. i kind of temporarily fell off of reading WC after starting TNP, but when I stopped I looked Cinderpelt up on the warriors wiki to see how much further she made it into the books because she was my favourite. i was sad to see she died soon, breathed a sigh of relief to see she never got a male love interest so my lesbian headcanon could stand uncontested (i didnt know about the cinderfire stuff) only to be BLINDSIDED with "she was then reborn again as Cinderheart" and opening up this new wiki page to find this character who lived way longer and had a whole different life. my gut reaction was "THAT'S NOT CINDERPELT WHO THE FUCK IS THIS" and once I started reading again it took me a couple years to become accustomed to her.

In the big picture, on paper, I do not like the Cinderpelt reincarnation plotline. I think it's stupid. I think it's ableist to take a disabled character who all things considered appeared to live a pretty happy if short life and say "no she was constantly miserable actually" and in fact so miserable that she's "awarded a second shot at life" that pretty much no other character is given, as though the first life didn't count. I've seen some people express confusion or disappointment that it shifted from being direct reincarnation into more of a possession deal but I much prefer them being separate characters and the reincarnation ultimately being temporary. I find the idea of Cinderpelt's entire erasure in favour of Cinderheart upsetting and strange, especially since I prefer the former LOL.

That being said, there are elements of the whole thing that I find really interesting, on both -pelt and -heart's ends and I've come around to enjoying her quite a lot over the past few years. I don't think the way canon does it is always good but I enjoy the idea of Cinderheart coming to struggle with the identity of her life being predicated on someone else entirely who she never even knew in life. I like the theory/interpretation of StarClan only really doing this as an apology for effectively manifesting Cinderpelt's demise in order to keep Leafpool in ThunderClan and fulfill the prophecy because I think it's a delightfully fucked up and messy thing to add to the already fucked up and messy situation. I like the idea of Cinderpelt regretting her participation but not really being able to do anything about it and having to double down about possessing her niece and somewhat hijacking this baby's life.

I enjoy that moment where Honeyfern dies and Leafpool and Cinderheart are desperately staring at each other wondering why the other isn't magically saving her. I love the scene where Cinderheart confronts Hollyleaf at the gathering and is like why the fuck did you just do that and it's implied it's Cinderpelt talking but there's enough ambiguity and shared emotion and it's not like HOLLYLEAF knows that anyway so it's just a heartwrenching grounding moment that pushes her even further into her spiral. I like Cinderholly a lot in general it's pretty high up there for me in favourite WC ships bc of all the shit those two characters have going on respectively about StarClan and fate and prophecy. I feel completely neutrally about Cinderlion it's one of the most nothing hetslop ships the series has on offer but there's still enough potential going on there for it to not be an active detriment but it shouldve been one of his siblings instead. It's really funny that all six of their adult children are alive and they had to take Snap and Fly out of the clan to lessen the ramifications of this but we're still already seeing the effects LMAOOO

[rookflower]

Hi, hello!

Any thoughts on Monkeystar?

<3

I have nothing bad to say about Monkeystar! I think Warrior Cats is often at its most charming when it's exploring a closer proximity to the world of humans and kittypets and I think WarriorClan is a very fun example of that! It always kind of requires the writers to step away from the overly anthropomorphised and black-and-white world that exists in the clans sometimes when they write characters who DO like being around humans, who do appreciate the benefits of being pets, who view the clans from an outsider's perspective. and "group of young kittypets who are into Live Action Roleplay about pretending to be clan cats" is just such a wonderfully novel concept and feels like a love letter to fans of the series in a genuine and creative way.

Not to bring up gender like usual but I do also like that Monkeystar is a girl because I feel like that silly and rambunctious type of role is often reserved for male characters. A lot of the way she's written has to do with her being characterised as someone who is very young and enthusiastic so I do wonder how they'll choose to write her if they ever visit WarriorClan again, seeing as she'd be a grown adult by now. because of the fact that the impression in Graystripe's Vow is surprisingly strong I kiiind of hope they don't come back just out of worry they mishandle things somehow? like oh god i hope they never come and join the real clans no girl stay out of here they suck please enjoy your social freedom and warm dry home and cat biscuits. live it up on sunningrocks and then go home for dinner and be very careful about being an outdoor cat ok

I love that her name is Monkeystar. it's very funny and also monkeys fucking rule. my profile picture on here has been monkeystar drawn in the style of a rhythm heaven monkey for a while now because it's #awesome

[rookflower]

been thinking about wc more again lately. ask me about a character and ill tell you my thoughts on em

[rookflower]

was born to complain about fandom misogyny online cause I've been getting pissed off at gender norms since I was like 5 years old and a lot of shit in the world just has not changed about it has it