#also despite how much he wants to retire from the clan leader role he's always here for lxc

[robby-bobby-tommy]

There are some of my headcanons about the relationship between the past generation Lan bros and this whole family drama, cuz I have nothing better to do.

Now these might not be fully compliant with canon.

We know almost nothing about Lan Qiren's and Qingheng-Jun's relationship. It is implied that LQR sympathizes with his brother, but that's all.

My headcanon is that when they were young, they were very similar to LXC and LWJ. LQR was very devoted to the rules, so he had a pretty difficult personality and didn't have much friends. QHJ was more easygoing and nice. Yet he was more restrained and calm than LXC. And although he tried to get LQR more of the friends his age, he didn't always succeed. We also have no age gap between them, so I hc that it's 3 years.

Sometimes, when QHJ was 18-19, he met Madam Lan and fell in love at the first time. LQR initially didn't have anything against her. They even met at some point. QHJ was head over heels for her, but she saw him as more of a friend. Her and second master Lan were on good terms and sometimes talked for hours about music cultivation ect. They even considered each other friends.

LQR and QHJ had one teacher. I didn't think much about him, but let's just say he had his secrets. While he was nice to his students and they respected him, he had a beef or mb just somehow mistreated Madame Lan's family. He did something that forever left her family in the shadows. Madame Lan's family was shunned for a long time. Ofc ML hated this teacher's guts. It was never her intention to use QHJ's affection to avenge her family, cuz she wasn't that kind of a person to be so cruel. But when she found out, she started to carefully plan her revenge. The pg Lan Bros actually didn't know about teacher's secrets and had no idea about what was going to happen.

Since MXTX loves stuff going downhill during or after someone's 17th b'day, I imagine this whole drama happened right after LQR'S 17th birthday. A few days later their teacher was killed and ML was gone. QHJ went looking for her immediately, kind of leaving shocked and grieving brother behind. Once his brother was gone for a few days with his presumed friend, the Lan elders went on a search and found QHJ and ML in wedding gowns. As stated form canon, QHJ decided to save his love by marrying her and declaring, that if anyone wants to hurt her, they'll have to go through him. Elders were completely unimpressed, but they couldn't do anything because a) QHJ was already a clan leader at this point; b) the wedding already happened. Before this QHJ had never broken any rule, especially not as serious as this.

Due to the conflict of marrying his teacher's killer, QHJ decides to go into seclusion and lock ML with him. He orders the houses to be built on the neighboring mountain, but before he locked himself in his own room.

At this point LQR had his world turned upside down two times: firstly, his friend killed a teacher, who (in his opinion) did nothing wrong, secondly his brother disappeared and came back married to culprit. And he tried to talk to his brother, but before he could discuss anything, his bro is already secluded in his own room. When he found out that his brother is going to seclusion and doesn't plan on ruling the clan, it broke the camel's back. LQR was also very devoted to the rules and never broke them, but this day, merely a week after his birthday, he went of the rails. He asked to see his brother, loudly knocked on his door, desperately trying to talk with him. Even when the elders started to scold him and get him away from the door, LQR escaped their grip and continued to act "inappropriately" (Being rightfully upset and wanting to get some answers). Sadly, QHJ never let LQR in, despite all of the pleadings, for he believed he doesn't deserve to speak with anyone.

LQR receives his first ever serious punishment and is shamed for his "indecent" Behavior. He gets beaten with those wooden sticks pretty hard and is locked up in a room to rewrite the rules 200 times. At this point, LQR is literally broken. Two of his dearest friends abandoned him with a whole lot of new responsibilities and unanswered questions. His dreams were also shattered. He liked to teach and explore different clans, regions.

LQR never got the chance to speak with QHJ, cuz very soon his bro left to the seclusion with ML. I want to believe in good in this world, so QHJ never forced ML to have children with him, yet they had to produce the heirs. So a year or two after the whole ordeal, LXC is born. At this point LQR is still very young and totally exhausted due to the clan leader duties, and he wasn't really excited to get another brother's problem on him. LQR grew resentful of his brother and ML, he became pretty jaded and closed, disliked troublemakers. Tho, when he first held little LXC in his arms, he was smitten. He vowed to raise him properly and help him live a happy life of a clan leader. When LWJ came to the picture, LQR promised to teach them both to be good people and to never let them become what he and his brother became. To never let LWJ get all of his brothers problems and deal with them with no help. Ofc his methods were far from good and he was sometimes emotionally unavailable, he loved them very much.

This all I've got for now.

[recurring-polynya]

Hi Polynya! I’m curious and in the spirit of Ginrei’s birthday, what do you think are his opinions of Rukia and Renji separately and together?

Ha ha, this is such a simple and straightforward question and my answer is going to be so long and so complicated and have almost nothing to do with Rukia and Renji because Ginrei's feelings toward Rukia and Renji have almost nothing to do with Rukia and Renji.

So, I want to start out by saying that Ginrei is a lot like Hisana in the sense that he's a canon character, we get the idea of him and what he's there for, but there's no actual characterization of him, which gives fanfic writers a tremendous amount of leeway to do whatever they want with him. I'm not going to try to justify anything I say here, it's just my ideas and how it goes in my fanfiction. I love it whenever a writer tries to take on the Kuchiki clan and I'm always interested to see what other people's takes are, even when they vary wildly from my own.

I love the fact that "Kuchiki" means "dead tree." We meet Rukia first, and it's sort of a delightfully spoopy name, very appropriate for this salty, overdramatic, grim reaper girl, but it takes on additional meaning when we meet Byakuya, the noble and powerful scion of a dying house.

The thing that makes Ginrei interesting as a character to me is that he is the one who ruled over his house as it fell. I tend to regard filler episodes as semi-canon, so I like the idea of Kouga, even if I don't want to acknowledge the rest of the Zanpakutou Rebellion shenanigans. I think that the main line of the Kuchiki was already running a little thin, Soujun's health was a big concern, and so they marry in this guy who is a scholar and a powerful shinigami. They never say what Kouga's previous social status was, but given that they emphasize what an accomplished dude he is, I think he was chosen for his skills, not his lineage, to strengthen the Kuchiki bloodline, except it backfires. Then Soujun dies, too, a few years later.

Ginrei strikes me as the type of leader who thinks he can control everything. He manages his clan with an iron fist. He is pragmatic, not sentimental. He’s not bad or mean, but he can see that he does not have a lot of room for missteps, and he takes his role very, very seriously. Despite this, he’s lost the generation under him, and all that he has left is Byakuya. There are cousins and branch families, but to the pride of the Kuchiki is its main line, descended from great generals and heroes and the very founders of Soul Society. Byakuya, in a lot of ways, hearkens back to the great Kuchiki of old, and Ginrei sees that he has the potential to reclaim the power and glory of his house. He’s hard on Byakuya and has high expectations for him. Ginrei loved his son and he loves his grandson, but after Soujun’s death, he often wonders if he was too soft on him because of his health, if Soujun would have lived if Ginrei had just expected more of him. Byakuya is the last hope of the Kuchiki and Ginrei knows he can achieve great things, and Ginrei is determined to do everything in his power to make sure Byakuya achieves his full potential.

And some ways, Byakuya is the perfect Kuchiki. He’s strong and he’s hard-working. He’s principled. He’s working on his self-control, and he’s very good at when it comes, to say, sword practice, he’s just not so good at in when it comes to interpersonal relations, but he’s coming along. Then he meets Hisana.

Hisana is absolutely unacceptable to Ginrei. Byakuya needs a marriage with a woman with strong spiritual pressure and a noble lineage so that he can gain some alliances from the marriage and then she can pop out some strapping young heirs while also managing his social life for him, just like Ginrei’s wife did for him. Hisana obviously isn’t going to check any of these boxes.

I headcanon Byakuya as demisexual, in the sense that he doesn’t experience sexual attraction very often, and if he does, it’s only to someone he’s already got strong feelings for. He was sort of okay with the vague idea of marrying someone for the purposes of procreating until he met Hisana and realized how much that would pale in comparison to actually being married to the love of his life.

Up until this point, Byakuya has had some minor rebellions against Ginrei, but they’ve never really gone at it, but this is one time that Byakuya stands firm. Ginrei is super-pissed. He lets Byakuya marry her because he figures she’s going to die soon anyway, but he’s mad about it. He never comes around to Hisana and he’s mean to her and this is really the nadir of Byakuya and Ginrei’s relationship.

Finally, we are getting around to what you asked. Hisana dies and Ginrei softens a little toward Byakuya in his grief. He retires and turns the clan and Squad 6 over to B, hoping it will be a distraction and that Byakuya will finally turn his focus over to what matters. This seems to be going well for about one year and then BAM! Byakuya acquires an orphan.

I am guessing that Ginrei didn’t know about Byakuya’s promise to Hisana to take care of Rukia, but even so, I think if you asked him, he would have regarded Byakuya’s duty to his clan and promise to his parents as more important. It’s not that Ginrei isn’t an honorable man, it’s that his concept of honor doesn’t necessarily extend to a dead peasant in comparison the Noble and Ancient House of Kuchiki. So Byakuya adopts Rukia and Ginrei’s immediate reaction is panic. What is Byakuya doing? Is he going to marry this girl? Is he going to name her his Heir? Has he cracked? And it turns out to be none of those things, he’s just going to keep her around as this sad ghost that haunts his house, but Ginrei’s initial reaction toward Rukia is that of interloper. He thought this Hisana nonsense was overwith, but no, we’re still doing this.

When Ginrei first meets Rukia, she is in her overwhelmed, lonely stage of first becoming a Kuchiki. Ginrei also criticizes her for being small and meek and basically useless. She’s a mediocre shinigami. She’s not beautiful or talented, so Byakuya can’t even marry her off for political gain. The real issue, though is that Rukia is just emblematic of the fact that Byakuya doesn’t intend to move past his grief and remarry. He works his ass off as Captain and Clan Head, but other than that, he’s just gonna be a sad widower and sit in his big house and write letters to his dead wife and the Kuchiki are going to die off. There is really nothing Rukia could do, no way she could be different that Ginrei would approve of, because it was never really about her in the first place.

Fast forward a few years, and now we come to Renji. I also headcanon that in his retirement, Ginrei has moved out to a scenic portion of Rukongai, so he doesn’t interact with Byakuya much on a day-to-day basis, but he hears stuff through other family members that come out to visit him. He’s never actually met Renji, all he knows is that Shirogane retired, and Byakuya hired some tattooed goon from Squad 11 instead of one of the dozens of Kuchiki cousins that are lying around. In my fanfic Call Me Back When the War is Over, Byakuya explains to one of his aunts that the reason he did this was because he didn’t have a relative who was capable of passing the Lieutenant’s Exam. She replies that he just should have pulled some strings so that someone (preferably her own son) could pass, assuming it’s a mere formality. Now this is exactly what Ginrei would have done. This is a problem, though: it involves choosing sides. I’ve got the top seats of Squad 6 set up as follows:

- 3rd Seat Ohno is the Heir to the most powerful Kuchiki branch family. His father is arguably the next in line for Clan Head, based on power terms - 4th Seat Kuchiki Choei is an actual Kuchiki, but he’s a younger son and he’s a clown, meaning that he got bored standing in line for Clan Head and wandered around the corner to vape - 5th Seat Kuchiki Takehiko is the actual closest of Byakuya’s relatives to him, and is arguably the next in line for Clan Head, strictly on family line terms

Pulling strings to help any of these three become the next lieutenant would be a very political move on B’s part, tantamount to anointing his successor. Ginrei assumes that B picked an outsider for the purposes of recusing, of saying “I shall simply refuse to die and remain Clan Head myself, forever’, with the addition fuck you of picking the Actual Worst Person Byakuya Could Find for the job, instead.

This really isn’t the case at all, it is literally that Byakuya feels that you shouldn’t be a lieutenant if you can’t pass the exam. He’s basically a rule-follower, and also it’s a good rule, and also his dad died as a lieutenant and I think he thinks a lot about how that could have been avoided through actions, whereas Ginrei tends to think of it more of a thing that could have been avoided if Soujun was better.

So, that gets us up to the beginning of canon. I am (in theory) working on a fanfic that takes place in the 17-mo timeskip where Ginrei comes to visit and actually gets to know Rukia and Renji and (spoiler alert, but is anyone really surprised) he ends up liking both of them a lot. Part of it is just Ginrei has chilled out somewhat in his retirement and realized that it’s okay to have parts of your life that are not completely devoted to the Good of the Clan. Part of it is that Ginrei loves Competence and Rukia and Renji are so, so competent. Part of it is that Byakuya is obviously doing a lot better than he was, and it’s just really obvious why. Like I said, Ginrei does and always has loved Byakuya, he just wants what’s best for him. It’s just that if there is one thing Kuchiki are terrible at, it’s expressing their love for one another in a positive and healthy way.

As to Ginrei’s feelings about Renruki as a ship, he’s for it, actually. Conniving family members have been trying to marry Rukia for years in hopes of getting an in with Byakuya, and I’m sure they’re setting their sights on Renji, now, too. Ginrei likes them well enough, but he can imagine what a shitshow this could turn out to be, and he finds it very convenient if they were to just marry each other.

I’m rather fond of the idea of Byakuya appointing them as a branch family to the Kuchiki, because I’m not super keen on them going full-Kuchiki if Renji married in, but I think Byakuya would be upset if Rukia married out and he wasn’t able to provide her with the lavish lifestyle he thinks she needs (she does not). It’s a nice compromise that lets them be a part of the family, but out of the limelight. In any case, I think that was Ginrei’s idea, thanks Granddad!

[problems-of-immortality]

[🪀] what was your muse’s childhood like? how did their upbringing affect them? (for Sahren)

Oh wow, this will be a lengthy one, still one of my favorite questions for him, so thank you! I'm going to write this with a lot of detail so even people who haven't played can understand, as the lore is very extensive and convoluted and it is some chunky sections of that lore that shapes his upbringing and his entire personality. Also a fair amount of it takes up heavy content, so check the tags before reading to make sure you are comfortable reading. Sahren grew up in Dalish culture, essentially nomadic clans that live away from human settlements because of major cultural disagreements. Most of Thedas believes that mages should be locked away because of their power, and their ability to reach their minds across the Veil when they sleep makes them susceptible to being influenced or possessed by the denizens of the Fade. The entire world and all of it's cultures have some degree of fear of mages. Dwarves don't have them, but Qunari essentially enslave their mages, the Tevinter Imperium is run by mages that are too power hungry, and humans trap theirs in tower colleges. Dalish clans don't like interacting with humans for a multitude of reasons, but the main reasons are: Dalish clans consider mages to be a risk but also necessary to lead the clan as Keeper, the clan's diplomat, the leader, and the mage healer of the clan. They are the only group besides the Imperium to give mages freedom. But because they wander Thedas with no homeland, they have to avoid humans for long periods or else risk situations where humans under the Chantry deem them to be blasphemous to the Maker and try to convert them or kill them. The Tevinter Imperium still has a slave trade, and elves make up an overwhelming majority. The Dalish in the long forgotten past used to rule all of Thedas as a magical utopia with an advanced culture of people that never died and all were mages, but for mysterious reasons the humans came along, and the Dalish believe that the fall of this nation made them lose their immortal lifespans to become mortal, and then enslaved, which caused them to lose most of the knowledge of Arlathan. (The name of their nation) Different clans take different approaches to humans, but most are wary of them. Sahren's clan had bad experiences with the Tevinter Imperium because they lived much farther north, closer to the border with Tevinter. There were skirmishes with his clan twice in his life, and both he ended up losing a loved one, to. His mother was his clan's Keeper, Thalia, and his father Athras the head ranger. It was expected when Sahren was born that he'd become her First when he developed magic, and eventually succeed her. When he was four, she gave him a large book in which he would write all of his knowledge, but he passed the age where he would develop magic without so much as creating a spark. That same day came a kid his age that Sahren grew to love dearly, came into the clan after his own was destroyed. Feladara, with auburn hair and honey gold eyes. Feladara ended up developing magic instead. Sahren really tried not to be bitter. His mother let him study longer, even though only the keepers could really study all of the lore they had. But then tragedy happened- Some bandits came along while Thalia was out with just Sahren and Feladara at 10, gathering herbs with her. She convinced Feladara to run back to camp just as she heard them nearby, but Sahren refused to go.They tried to demand that Thalia tell them where the clan was camped, but she calmly tried to diffuse the situation and convince them to go elsewhere. They call Thalia a knife ear, so Sahren runs up and kicks one of them in the shin, and ends up becoming a hostage. His mother had a different opinion than the normal views on the denizens of the Fade, because she actually understood their nature, and was friends with a Spirit of Loyalty. So she fuses with the spirit and together they fight off the bandits, killing all of them to defend her clan and her child. When she does, she goes to hug Sahren, and because she secretly taught Sahren the ways of the spirits, he isn’t afraid. But then Feladara comes back with Sahren’s father, Athras. A more superstitious person than his wife, he immediately assumed she was a typical abomination, and thought she was going to kill Sahren, so he struck her through the heart from the back with an arrow.  Sahren never forgave him for that. After her death, Athras more aggressively tried to make Sahren learn how to be an archer instead, going down his path instead of his mother’s. A retired Keeper from another clan became the new Keeper for Clan Lavellan, and Feladara became her First.  So Sahren would skip his lessons to hang out in the Keeper’s aravel with Feladara, learning whatever Feladara was learning. The new Keeper enabled it for some time, but eventually Sahren’s father found out where he was going and forbade him from entering the Keeper’s aravel, grounding him to staying in camp for a week. It was then he noticed all the stares, and the whispers. “Abomination’s child”, “he’s going to end up like her even without magic”. None of the other kids wanted to hang out with him, and Feladara was too busy with lessons. He quickly found that the rest of the clan didn’t like him, and that ended up souring his opinion of most of them. It made him a really angry teenager- When the week ended, Sahren took to hiding in the woods outside the camp instead of sleeping in camp. He refused to bunk with anyone, instead sleeping in the trees. It led to quite a few falls at first, but then it became impossible to knock him out of a tree.  Feladara found him first, and then they began to hang out together at night, talking for hours about nothing and everything- magical theories and theories about the stories that remained of the Creators, the Forgotten Ones, and the Dread Wolf. In return, Sahren teaches Feladara how to use daggers. (The elven pantheon) Sahren picked up a lot of words from these exchanges that belonged to the old language of Arlathan. He laces them in Common often, like “Ma serannas” as thanks, “Ir abelas” as I’m sorry. Learning the meaning of family names: Feladara’s simply was the old name for the herbs they gather the most (elfroot), his own name meant “One who commands respect”. His father’s meant “Half in shadow”. He picks up many more words and names during the events of the game, and when he drinks from the Well of Sorrows ( Vir’abelasan ) he sometimes speaks completely in the old language because of the voices of the elven scholars who placed their knowledge in the Well. (There’s a person who created an entire lexicon on the language to fill in the gaps that the actual games left, I reference this and the game all the time) They end up falling in love over time. Eventually, when they both turn 18 and receive their vallaslin (tattoos on their faces, right of passage for Dalish elves. It means “blood writing”) Sahren and Feladara end up confessing their love to one another and marrying each other privately in the Dalish way, by exchanging hand crafted gifts and then tying each other’s wrists together with a ribbon. When Sahren told his father, there was an uproar. Sahren assumed it was because his father was homophobic, but in reality, Athras didn’t want him to marry a mage after what happened to his wife, worried the situation would repeat itself. About a year or so later, tragedy strikes yet again. This time, slavers attack the clan because they got too close to the Tevinter border for too long. Athras gives himself up to them after some fighting so they leave the rest of the clan alone. Sahren comes to the clan, smelling blood and ash. Feladara convinces him to save his father, but in the fighting when they catch up, Feladara dies in Sahren’s arms. Sahren becomes incredibly distant and unapproachable, always sleeping alone on the outskirts of camp whether he’s hunting or not, and begins to drink alcohol often to numb his feelings. The worst part: he gets drunk in trees and high places. He never falls from the trees, though- he considers them places of safety, away from other people who see how bitter he is and avoid him anyway. Over the course of the game he gradually mellows out, makes friends, drinks less. But the game just gives him the worst luck based on his choices, and the backstory I wrote myself for him gives him reason for those choices. So he’s surprisingly open about spirits, interested in learning new lore about his own culture from Solas, even becoming friends with him, and with nearly everyone else, even Cassandra and Cullen, who are very Andrastian in their faith.

He goes from being blamed for the explosion to being praised as the Herald of Andraste, sent by the Maker Himself to save Thedas. The worst part is, he doesn’t even believe in the Maker and hates the Andrastian faith, but no matter how often he forces himself into a Dalish figure and acts deliberately blasphemous while denying that he is the Herald people still praise him as Inquisitor and later on, ask him who should lead the Chantry. He absolutely loathes the role, and the way people look at him because of it. His inner circle is full of interesting, loyal people of all races and walks of life, and somehow, despite his prickly nature he ends up befriending them all, while successfully saving the world for a time. I’m going to cut this short before it turns into an entire biography, haha!

[fencesandfrogs]

an abridged history/explanation of warrior cats if you didn’t read them as a kid and have questions (a primer)

welcome. i’m going to keep things to the point, this is not a plot summary, just, well, its a pandemic and people are seeking items of childhood comfort and its come to my attention that a lot of people didn’t read these books as kids and then they come up in conversation and they act shocked so! i felt compelled to write this.

[2.5k words, 10min read. section headers, no pictures. not a ton of helpful formatting. i don’t want to say don’t read this because obviously i wrote it and think it’s worth reading, but i’ll be honest, this is a lot.]

section one: about me

i was an avid reader as a child, most of which fits solidly into “stories for another time,” and some of which would necessitate me adding tags onto this post that are, well, not necessary. so i will skip over that backstory but for those aware of lexile scores, i had one that was too high for literally any book that was appropriate to give me. so reading in school was torture and reading for fun was excellent.

now because i was a first-ish grader and my mom was trying to keep the fifth harry potter out of my hands, she looked desperately for something else to pass to me. her friend, who had a daughter a year or two older than me, was into these cat books, and my mom was like “here honey you like cats” without thinking too much about it.

which is good, because as i’ll get into, it was a really good fit for me. but like a dozen books later she asked me about the plot and well. i think at that moment she realized that it might have been better to just let me read harry potter.

but yeah i continued to read them long past the recommended reading ages and still as a Young Adult will return to them for nostalgia, and also as i will get into, some really good books. (see a list of books for “morbidly curious but i don’t want to spend 56 to 168 hours reading this”)

i’m not fully caught up on the series but this is not a plot summary so that should not impact my ability to discuss this

section two: content warnings

these books (not this post) includes the following:

discussion of castration (1.1 series 1, book 1, i’m not including this on every item/discussion because this is a complicated series but i want to demo how up front some of this is)

teenage romance/sex/pregnancy (1.1ish-1.3 or 4, continues throughout the series quite a lot, comes up again in 3.4/5, 4.4-5, and a bit in 5)

death from childbirth (1.can’t remember which book, many others)

unwanted pregnancy (se super edition, or a longer one off novel, discussed in 4&5)

sex/implied, discussed, and very very very heavily hinted but never directly said/shown (1.1-3ish, se, other)

murder (constantly, 1.1, 1.4, literally every book, 3.5, i’m just listing the ones i remember off the top of my head that were particularly graphic)

disability/illness, esp. the debilitating and/or deadly nature of it (1.3-5ish, 3.1, but all of 3, 3.4ish)

dementia (1.3-5, i’ve heard in some of the later series?)

abuse (7/8 this is reported i haven’t read these books but based on what i know it’s def there)

child abandonment (1.4-5, 3.4/5, it’s also all over the place but i think those are the only major character incidents of it)

treason (1.3-5, all over the place)

the horror/tragedy of war (background, but pretty constant)

disagreeing with an integral religion/tradition (3, based on the series title, 8, and generally scattered)

the corrupting influence of power (1.4/5, possibly 7/8, others)

racism (1, 3-5, possibly others)

sexism (se, background)

patriarchal societies (se, seems to be somewhat softened based on what i’ve heard but i’m not entirely sure about this)

and more! but it starts to get stranger and this is enough to prove my point

basically everything that could go wrong does

oh yeah! child abuse also child abuse that’s a very major theme in the first series as well as during other points. and elder abuse in the first series.

okay i’ve made my point.

section three: the appeal

look. so. i think we’re kind of pastel-ify children’s literature based on movies. see, parents have to watch children’s movies with their kids, so they can’t be gritty and intense because a lot of parents will say “not for my nine year old! they can’t deal with treason!” and that seems to be bleeding into children’s literature.

but warriors is not that. it’s intense, it borders on “too gruesome for children,” and it’s from a time where kids books got to be serious and heavy and dark because they were about animals. which was great because i couldn’t find books at my reading level that weren’t too thematically difficult, so i got to read something below my reading level, but thematically too hard, so it kind of balanced out.

and then well. so. the series grows with the audience, but the books don’t grow in terms of like difficulty so new readers start deep into it and it’s a complicated thing, the fandom history is complex, but.

the appeal is that parents don’t usually read the books their kids read and so they see a book about cats and assume it’s fluff, and kids who are starved of complex content get to read hamlet-for-kids.

section four: worldbuilding/lore

oh yeah also there’s some really deep lore to explore. so there’s two bits of appeal.

i’m not doing a full world/plot summary, but i’ll explain some common elements here.

thunder/shadow/wind/riverclan: harry potter houses for cats (gryffindor, slytherin, hufflepuff, ravenclaw, except this doesn’t work for the last two but that’s fine because no one cares about them despite riverclan being pretty important in most of the books)

-kit/-paw/-star: naming conventions. everyone has a two part name. (we’ll use cinder as an example because i like the two cinders we know, even tho neither of them get to be cinderstar.) babies are -kit (cinderkit), then when they’re apprentices, which is like being a student, you know, elementary through high school, you’re paw, so cinderpaw. then you get an Official Name from ur clan leader (cinderheart). if you become clan leader, you get to be -star (cinderstar). i know i haven’t explained clan leaders bear with me. this is kind of important because i have the names burned into my memory so i cannot simply always call firestar firestar if he was firepaw at the time of the events i’m describing. it won’t be ambiguous, cinderheart/cinderpelt are a special case. if this is tricky for you it’s fine just only read the first part of the name.

clan (leader, deputy, medicine cat, elder): roles with in the clan. leaders literally have nine lives. deputies are next in line and chosen by the leader. leaders usually go through several deputies, because deputies don’t have nine lives. medicine cats are doctors. they also have an apprentice. those are all one per clan. elders are just retired cats. they’re not a special category per say, but i wanted to mention them.

warrior: adult.

warrior code: laws.

star clan: dead cats. this ties into the religion which is pretty important to the books but for the most part if you understand that dead cats get to give guidance and send their approval, you have the gist of it.

section five: so um, what the fuck

so we start with a cat named rusty who runs into the woods to join thunderclan and then his name is firepaw and we all forget that he’s named rusty except for like that one time it comes up again. bluestar is a great leader with some corrupt deputies but fireheart eventually takes care of it and becomes clan leader which is a big deal.

then a bunch of other shit happens and suddenly ashfur is possessing brackenstar and being (more) abusive to squirrelflight (who is on the outs with brackenstar anyway for lying about their kits jayfeather, hollyleaf, and lionheart because they’re actually the children of firestar’s other daughter leafpool who had them with crowfeather after she fell in love with him but he’s from windclan and she’s a medicine cat so that’s double illegal and apparently hollyleaf is alive even though she yeeted herself into a pit and died because she killed ashfur when he threatened to reveal this but couldn’t live with being the product of an illegal meeting and then it was all pointless because leafpool stopped being a medicine cat out of guilt anyway and jayfeather is just an ornery bitch about everything but especially all of this)

i’m not explaining any of that.

section six: i repeat: so um, what the fuck

so the thing about these books is they’re soap operas and dramas about cats and that means they get just as strange and chaotic as anything else in the genre. i think a lot of people like me, who read them as children, regard the series we knew as a child (usually either the first three or the first five, plus super editions) as something good and warm and comforting (despite being dark and gruesome) because they made us feel good.

they were also a breeding ground for young fandom because of all the the drama that exists and the nature of the books providing that.

section seven: super editions

the simple answer to what a super edition is has already been given (it’s a novel length one-off about a single character, and its usually either a side character - bluestar, crowfeather - or a event/perspective we don’t get to see - firestar, skyclan, greystripe - and they’re generally more mature)

my favorite super edition is bluestar’s prophecy. i read it at like 16, slinking into the children’s library with a stack of other ya fiction and a “children’s book” which dealt with unwanted pregnancy, grief, forbidden love, and more. still not sure why that’s in the children’s section.

section eight: about the drama

so there’s been a lot of fandom drama about these books. i can’t tell you about the nuances, because i am an old fan, so i watched but didn’t partake. the highlights reel that i can recall goes as follows (please note i will refer to characters by name without explanation. it’s fine. the point of this section is to convey the pettiness of this drama):

tigerstar: did he do anything wrong? (the answer is holy shit yes, this isn’t discourse, it’s okay to like a villain)

scourge: did he do anything wrong, also what color is his collar? (also yes, doesn’t matter)

was the new prophecy (2)/omen of the stars (3)/etc good? (yes, eh, no, yes, no comment, no comment)

should jaypaw or hollypaw be medicine cat apprentice (neither of them, but jaypaw’s employment opportunities are limited because he’s blind, so its gotta b him)

uhh a massive tangle around this parentage drama between squirrelflight, leafpool, brackenfur, and crowfeather, which i used as the crux of humor for how batshit the plots can get, so i’m not even going to pretend i can make it funny, but just know that it’s batshit and the correct opinion is as follows: no one is right, but squirrelflight has done the least wrong, brackenfur is an asshole to her where it’s unwarrented, and hollyleaf is an idiot

and the current drama centers around brackenstar and ashfur and is tied directly to the point above, which is why i’ve kind of given up trying to make jokes about this because this is the culmination of like 35 novels.

section nine: i feel like i need to have some conclusive point to justify writing all of this

but i don’t have one, because this was really an excuse to ramble about an old passion for like half an hour. i mean i guess i can say, like, i think younger fans are sort of embroiled in this drama they don’t really have context for, because i’m not kidding, the current drama centers around the grandchildren of our original cast.

it’s kind of hard to know why, say, mistystar matters if you don’t know that she’s the child of bluefur and oakheart and if you don’t remember the drama that surrounded that when bluestar was dying and tigerstar and leopardstar were ruling a combined shadow/riverclan.

(i really hope that’s intelligible i tried to lay the groundwork for it. basically, there’s a biracial kid in a very segregated society who becomes the leader of one of the clans. which is obviously drama, especially considering that that clan was part of a weird supremacy movement a while back.)

& you know? i really hope one of the new series gets to be like, a soft reboot. just. end the current drama and pick up again with the latest generation. a) we’re starting to run out of names, and b) i think that it’s kind of tipped over the edge of sane.

the series also used to be very low fantasy. the cat societies are reasonably close to feral cat colonies (the biggest detail is that toms don’t all have their own territory, but there’s honestly in-universe discussion of this and it’s basically a culture thing), and while star clan/religion is a real and legitimate thing, there’s also a discussion of its abuse and most of the early books don’t really use star clan/related ideas as a physical force so much as a plot device, barring, like, when a new leader gets their nine lives.

honestly, i’ll always adore these books for serving the role they did, and a lot of the series is fantastically well written. but the fandom surrounding it can be, uh, not great because 9-14 year olds don’t really have good brains to understand this.

also, i’m very sad that i can’t find the flash game that was for the great prophecy. it was not very fun, but i enjoyed playing it, so if anyone knows the url so i can search the internet archive for it, please let me know.

section ten: i’m morbidly curious but there are 56 hours of books to read, assuming a very fast reading pace, so is there something i can start with to experience this without dedicating 4 days to it?

yes, there is.

it’s called bluestar’s prophecy. it’s standalone, and i should have given you enough of a background on the lore that you don’t need to know anything else. i’ve already given away the twist in series 1 that it would spoil, so you’re all good on that front.

if you want more, or want the original experience, the first series is self contained and quite good. i’ve given the broad outlines of the plot, but trust me, there’s a lot of surprises and all sorts of things i skipped over because while i like it, it’s not exactly fandom primer material

i also enjoy firestar’s quest and skyclan’s destiny for super editions, but you’ll need to read the first series to understand FQ and FQ to understand SD, so it’s not exactly a starting point. also, SD especially deals with a very different set of themes as the other books.

also, if you were to, say, search “readwarriorcats” (no spaces) on duckduckgo, and then click on one of the first links, you know, not the official site, the one hosted on one of those free website things, you know, not wix, not wordpress, the other one, you would only find lists of the books with hyperlinks.

;3

[jedicreed-fr]

Issak and Nuoenii were brought into the clan practically at the same time. Being Arcane Skydancers, the two were very close, and hardly ever apart. They had a thrumming Arcane energy between them, and always seemed to know exactly how the other was feeling. Issak was the more energetic of the two, and much more goofy and outgoing. His Arcane eyes were always bright, and he was always smiling. It was hard to believe that he, alongside Nuoenii, were going to be trained under the head knight to become Knights themselves. Having come from a clan that no longer wanted him, the moment he was born, Issak was eager to prove himself, and have a place in the Windcurrent Clan.

Issak and Nuoenii trained hard under the former head knight, Folant. They learned how to wield a sword, and use their Arcane magic in battle as well. Issak learned how to use the Spines along his body to attack, having them 'shoot' out of his body and towards his opponent. His Spines never left his body, though; his Arcane magic physically formed and made it appear as if the spines were shooting out of his body. His favorite thing to do was swipe his tail at his opponent's legs, letting his spines slice where armor doesn't cover. While it is a bit of a cheap move, Issak did get a kick out of wheeling arms to balance themselves, once they were hit. But wanting to fight fairly, like a knight would, Issak focused his attacks mainly with his sword, instead of his magic. His light-heartedness lasted through his training, making him quite the goofy knight.

Once he and Nuoenii had completed their training, they finally forged a bond between them that made them mates. They were already inseparable, so why not tie the knot so to speak? When they weren't training, sparring, or improving their techniques, they were practically glued to each other's sides. Despite Issak being more outgoing than Nuoenii, she was never once annoyed by his silly ways. In fact, she seemed to enjoy his outgoing nature, compared to her calmer one. They balanced out--Nuoenii could rein in Issak's outgoing nature, and sometimes quick temper, and Issak learned to enjoy the silence and calm of simply staying still and quiet, thanks to being with Nuoenii. The two worked hard together, taking their roles as knights seriously, while also staying committed to one another.

However, after it was found that former Plague Rep Plagueis was experimenting on his own mate, things started going south. Plagueis was locked in the dungeon, and Issak and Nuoenii took turns in keeping watch. One day, Mereda sneaked into the dungeon, casting out a poison that put Nuoenii and Issak to sleep. Issak was the first to wake up, and heard a commotion down by Plagueis' cell, only to find that Mereda had literally melted him from the inside out. She had committed murder. Even though Plagueis might've deserved it, Khan had a strict no-killing policy. Rushing to confront her and Cynfair, who was with her, Mereda whipped out a potion bottle from her pouch, and splashed it right in Issak's face. The liquid was a poison of her own making, and it started to burn at his eyes. The last thing he remembered was his screams reverberating off of the dungeon walls.

Upon waking up, Issak couldn't see. Thanks to the poison that Mereda threw into his face, his eyeballs were too badly damaged, and had to be removed. Issak was permanently blind. The attack shook him, and for quite some time he was lost. Shaken. Nuoenii, however, didn't leave his side. Thanks to being a Skydancer and sensing emotions and energy waves, Issak could 'see' others, but it wasn't the same as having sight. Issak stayed in recovery for quite some time, missing out on the Shade attack on the clan. He was too weak, and still not adjusted to being blind, to fight against the Shade. While there was a chance he could fight, he knew it was better for him to stay back. After the Shade attack, Issak finally retired as a knight, hanging up his sword and armor. Nuoenii was shocked, but she stood by Issak's decision, supporting him in whatever he wished to do. In this case, he became the Nanny for the Windcurrent clan. His blindness didn't take away his happy-go-lucky nature, once he recovered, and he always had a good bond with hatchlings. Putting a cover over his eyes, hiding his scars and empty eye holes, he went to take care of the hatchlings that came to the clan.

Issak sensed the shift in the clan, as it started to fall apart. He trusted that Khan would pull through...but he was mistaken. For some reason Khan had left. Him and Tarcy. They both left the Windcurrent clan, letting Janto and his Empire quickly take over. But before they left, Tarcy had stopped by the nursery, giving Issak a bundled package. Something alive. Gently touching over it, he felt that it was a hatchling. A Ridgeback boy. Khan and Tarcy's son. But before Issak could ask anything, Tarcy had left, and that was the last he'd heard of her. Once the Windcurrent Clan was destroyed, and they started moving to their 'new' home, Issak showed Nuoenii the hatchling that he had been given. Khan and Tarcy's son, whom she had named Alderoy. It was up to him, and the rest of the clan to raise the Windcurrent Clan Leaders' son.

Now in Loth-Ysalamiri Town, Issak has his own nursery again. Having helped raise Alderoy, with help from Nuoenii, Yomigami, and Domhnall, Issak now considers him a 'nephew' and he an 'uncle' which brings him untold joy. When he's not taking care of hatchlings, he goes with Nuoenii to 'watch' her train the fighters in the town, including Alderoy himself. While he no longer fights, he can still defend himself, using his staff, should he need to. He may be blind, but he's not helpless. When he's feeling up to it, he spars with Nuoenii's fighters. And loves hearing their shock, when he knocks them flat on their ass. Good times, good times...

[idkwhoiamanymorebutwtf]

I'd also like to point out that the level of choice cat's seem to have on their roles seem to heavily depend on the current state of their clan. For example Thunderclan seems to be the largest and most well off clan for most of the series (specifically throughout Firestar's life), always able to care for themselves and even help the other clans. That's how they got their reputation for being nosy and always butting into other clan's business. Because they're doing excellent, well enough to help others and the other clans find that insulting. This reflects on the bigger level of choice given to cat's when it comes to how they live their lives.

Disabled cat's, for example, aren't expected to work. Brightheart was a warrior, sure, but she was born back in the first arc, when Bluestar was in charge and Thunderclan was actually struggling, worried about their numbers. Aside from her disabled cat's usually aren't forced to work. Longtail was allowed to retire despite being capable of many more years of service, Briarlight lived a long healthy life without much of a role despite helping out when and how she can around camp. Other disabled cat's like Jayfeather and Cinderpelt simply became medicine cat's. But none of them became warriors. Meanwhile in other clans- or even in Thunderclan before Firestar's leadership- you barely see cat's given that luxury. Crookedstar, Brokenstar, Fierce, Oneye, Deadfoot, and other cat's all lived as warriors despite their disabilities. Strong warriors, many becoming deputies or even leaders. I've never really heard of a clan besides Thunderclan having their disabled clanmates just..not be warriors. And this does have it's downsides, like the fact that Thunderclan seems to expect their cat's to be medicine cat's, retire early, or just not work at all if they're disabled, but it stems from the fact that they're capable of caring for said cat's and therefore these individuals don't need to work so they shouldn't work.

Similarly, I don't think I've seen other clans (or old Thunderclan) allow for permanent queens like Ferncloud or Daisy. In Thunderclan these she-cats were seen as useful, almost necessary members of the clan. Their jobs were read as important. And of course I'm not saying they weren't. However once again this is a sign that Thunderclan is more well off than the others. They can afford to have cat's who don't hunt or fight, who only look after the kits. They can afford to deem this an important job. Because Thunderclan doesn't desperately need those cat's on the field hunting and if they'd rather care for the kits...why not?

Thunderclan also seems to end up with more medicine cat's. Since Firestar took over there was never an issue of not having a new medicine cat trained when the last one dies. Cinderpelt, Leafpool, and Jayfeather were easily able to train an apprentice by the time they died and there was no question of if they'd be able to handle it. The position also seems to be less exclusive in Thunderclan than the other clans. "I want to be a medicine cat" is reason enough. Before Mothwing was accepted as a medicine cat, her mentor waited for Starclan to send a sign. Many cat's like Goosefeather, Yellowfang, etc, in other clans or old Thunderclan were made medicine cat's because they had powers, not because they wanted to. However after Cinderpelt that system seemed to change. Leafpool wanted to become a medicine cat from a young age, Jayfeather decided to become one largely because of his disability, Alderheart simply because he was better at it than he was at hunting. It just seems...easier to become a medicine cat in Thunderclan. And while knowledge of herbs isn't exactly common knowledge in Thunderclan, more cat's are definately aware of them. Cinderheart, Briarlight, Brightheart, Twigbranch, etc all spent time in the medicine cat's den and have a basic understanding of herbs because of it. And there's that swap Jayfeather and Hollyleaf did because Holly realized she'd rather be a warrior and Jay decided he'd be better off as a medicine cat. Thunderclan has cat's to spare when it comes to healing. Like when Leafool was suspended from medicine cat duties and so Brightheart was asked to help out in the medicine cat den from time to time. Or when she was sent to Shadowclan to help train their new medicine cat. Or when she went to help Skyclan. It was fine because there were two more medicine cat's and multiple othwr cat's who knew about herbs back home. Thunderclan can afford to have more healers and to waste a little time letting cat's figure out where they really belong without waiting for Starclan to tell them the perfect cat. Most clans need all the hunters they can get and so can't afford that luxury Thunderclan has.

I think that the amount of choice cat's have in their roles are directly linked to how well the clan is doing. And that's based on numbers. Which is why "accept every kittypet or rogue who wants in" Thunderclan, who also happened to be lead by "Always help other clans and don't get into fights, which will raise our lifespan" Firestar manages to offer so much choice to their cat's. They aren't fighting as much as the generations before them and theyre bringing in new cat's, raising their numbers significantly, which allows cat's freedom to do things aside from hunting and fighting. Which funnily enough leads to them having more litters because she-cats can afford to spend more time in the nursery since they have more numbers and won't starve without her contribution, not to mention that more mouths to feed isn't as devastating to them because again, they've gor plenty of hunters. And more kits mean more future warriors which allow Thunderclan to continue to thrive.

In light of a response from Vicky, I must ask. Do you think that kits, maybe about five or close to six moons, would have a full idea of what kind of life they may want? Leafpool and Willowshine are both said to have shown signs of being good MC material…but what about those kits who want to be warriors like Cinderpelt and Yellowfang and Puddleshine?

Grey’s notes: Within Warriors, five-six months of age is approximately equal to something like ten-thirteen human years. It’s preteen/early teen at the most, I think, and because of that, I tend to view new apprentices as basically equivalent to kids finishing primary school and starting high school. A time of really big personal changes–socially, emotionally, physically, so on–and generally a lot of uncertainty around identity and what the future will be. 

In reality, twelve-year-olds don’t have enough life experience or maturity to know exactly what they want when they grow up–or even know who they are yet. And that’s normal and okay. You figure that stuff out as you go through adolescence. In fact, you’re always learning about yourself. You change so much between the ages of twelve and eighteen, and then you change a whole lot again between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five. Because of that, I can’t say new apprentices are always–or even most of the time–going to know for certain what they want to do.

However, it’s worth keeping in mind that the clan system isn’t the same as our capitalist system. In the clan, there’s two options of “career”: warrior or medicine cat. Nearly all kittens are going to expect to be warrior apprentices simply because that’s just how the clan works. It’s important to look at clan roles not as “jobs” in the sense we’re familiar with but as necessary community roles. We have aspirations about becoming artists, teachers, engineers, or whatever we want to be, based on our personal interests, our values, our priorities, and a myriad of other factors. Within the clans, cats might still have certain interests and values, but I suspect the major deciding factor is what the clan as a whole needs at the time. 

Most cats become warriors, regardless of how they feel about it: it’s an obligatory role that a cat needs to participate in (to their ability) in order to get the benefits of clan life. Likewise, I don’t think medicine cats are necessarily always the cats who have an active interest in medicine: if they’re capable and can commit to doing the work, that’s all that’s required. These things are done because they need doing. I personally think it’s far from ideal to force a cat into a role they hate and that it would always be preferable to take someone who’s willing (if not enthusiastic) to do the work instead if at all possible, but the fact is the clan system isn’t full of options and “doing what you love” just isn’t a clan priority compared to not dying out. 

I don’t think there’s the same weight of importance to individualism and personal choice within the clans when it comes to what you do when you grow up. Cats aren’t warriors or medicine cats for the job satisfaction: it’s for survival, first and foremost. If a cat is training to be a warrior and goes, “I don’t love this work, I’m more passionate about a different kind of work,” that’s not really an acceptable reason not to go hunting and perform basic duties to protect and support the clan. Basically, young cats might sometimes have feelings one way or the other about what role they’d like, but I think there’s a cultural expectation and pressure for them to make peace with whatever role they’re put into and just get on with it. I hope this answers your question somewhat!