#AndI think a large part of what makes YS such a miserable read is just that

[bonefall]

Are you doing anything particularly interesting with Sagewhisker or Raggedstar?

(also I love somebody else who appreciates Stormcloud, should've been a pov, I mean the Firestar parallels-)

Erins stop neglecting your side characters challenge. Stormcloud gets done soo dirty ://

Anyway!

Yellowfang’s Secret is getting redone into Brokenstar's Cataclysm. Much as I love Yellowfang, Brokenstar is getting suuuuper reduxed in BB and he needs to be the POV so I can tell his story. She has the opening and the rest is him.

What I want to set up in that opening, though, is at least a little bit of how hard people have made Yellowfang’s (Shroompelt at the time) life. Raggedstar isn't AS bad as he was, but their relationship was still pretty volatile. Sagewhisker pressured her into the role, just like canon.

I don't regret gutting YS though, to be honest. The original book is pretty freakin' miserable exactly because of Sage and Ragged, without any catharsis for how much torture the main character goes through. I think it works a lot better as an opening, thematically.

"Here's the culture which Brokenstar is being born into. See how his mother is absolutely miserable under this system, being forced to give up her child, pressured into her position. Happiness is offered between friends but there are deeper issues here that love won't fix."

So even though I'm pretty fascinated by Sagewhisker and think the fandom really sleeps on how terrible she is, I'm planning to use her as a minor but emotionally significant character.

And RAGGEDSTAR is going to be explicitly used as the father who Brokenstar loved very much, but someone he is willing to kill in the end. His enabling is also going to get exploited by Runningnose and his schemes. He's a major supporting character in a different way from YS.