#this is a very dark episode but that's par for the course. henry wrote this one.

[kingmakerpod]

The gang goes down the rabbit hole.

Content Warning: Sexual noises (7:40-8:04), gunshots (27:29-27:37), fire, gore, discussion of human trafficking, discussed and implied animal abuse (10:30-10:50), implied sexual abuse.

Transcript link

[staircasttext]

Ep 07 Transcript: A Lawless, Bloodly Time

Episode 7

PAZ: Hi everyone, welcome back to Stairway to StarClan, a Warriors Cat reread pawdcast. I'm Paz.

JULIAN: I'm Julian.

LIZ: I'm Liz.

PAZ: And joining us today, we have a special guest.

ALIX: Hi, I'm Alix.

PAZ: Very excited to have another Warriors expert, Alix, on the podcast.

ALIX: I'm so happy to be here. This is my favorite podcast.

PAZ: Why, thank you. Yeah, so we're all here today with a guest to do like a wrap up episode on Into the Wild cause I think it would be fun, and love to hear from other former Warriors fans and--

ALIX: I'm a current Warriors fan. Excuse you.

PAZ: Yeah. We're-- I don't know. What's the word for when you get back into something? I don't know. We're in it again.

JULIAN: Returning fans.

ALIX: The lapsed fans. Reformed. Reborn.

PAZ: Mm... no?

ALIX: Born again.

JULIAN: Resurrected.

PAZ: Baptized in the waters of RiverClan.

JULIAN: We've done it again, everyone. Fireheart has become Catholic.

PAZ: No. How does this keep happening? We've only been recording for like, two minutes. God. Okay. Um, yes, this is our Into the Wild recap, retrospective episode. But to start, I think we should, you know, get to hear from Alix, like what your relationship to Warriors is.

ALIX: Yeah, so I read these when I was a kid. Probably from when I was something like eight years old. So I don't actually remember how I got into these books. But they were my first major obsession. And I would, you know, tell anybody who would listen about them. I would draw little family trees. I would play Warrior Cats with my sister in the field near our house. Yeah, I love these books. And I started reading them again because of the podcast. And they're good. They're like, legit good.

LIZ: They are.

PAZ: Yeah, yeah, it's like beyond even just the nostalgia factor. Like I'm very much enjoying these books.

ALIX: Yeah, these were the first thing that ever got me to go on fanfiction.net.

PAZ: Wow.

LIZ: Wow.

ALIX: Although I never posted any Warriors fanfiction, I read a lot of it and commented on various, you know, like OC adventures. And I got, you know, a random kit named after my second name, which was fun.

JULIAN: Aw.

PAZ: I also read some Warriors fanfic on fanfic.net. And it was always like, OC. I never read any fanfic, like, featuring just the original characters. I don't know.

ALIX: I don't think I did either.

PAZ: I'll have to look back on.

ALIX: But you know, that's how I kind of got into fanfiction and then I started posting Maximum Ride fanfiction eventually.

JULIAN: A natural transition.

ALIX: Yep. You know, from cats to kids with wings.

PAZ: I also, yeah.

ALIX: And then, you know, I've been in fandom for like 13 years now. And it's how I met all of you guys. So I think it's a good thing that Warriors has done for me.

PAZ: Thank you, Warriors.

ALIX: Thank you Warriors.

LIZ: Warriors, bringing us again together in these dark times.

JULIAN: In this, the darkest hour.

PAZ: In these unprecedented times. Well, I'm very excited to have you on the podcast. But, you know, since you're our guest here, I thought maybe we could quiz you on the book to make sure you're really like up to par for the--

ALIX: To be on the show?

PAZ: Yeah, to be on this show, this very like, well-researched, dedicated show.

ALIX: Well, thank god, you know, I was hoping you wouldn't just let just anyone on the show. Only verified Warrior Cats experts.

PAZ: Yeah, we have to vet you. So luckily there is a quiz on warriorcats.com. An official quiz, How Well Do You Know Into the Wild? So get ready.

ALIX: Do you want me to take it, or do you want me to answer it and then you can put in the answers for me?

PAZ: Yeah, you can answer and we'll read it out.

ALIX: Okay.

PAZ: Okay, you ready?

ALIX: I'm ready. I have my copy of Into the Wild here, but I won't cheat.

PAZ: No cheating. Please, book away.

JULIAN: This is a closed book test.

ALIX: Of course.

PAZ: Who first received the prophecy about fire? A, Bluestar, B, Oakheart, C, Rusty, D, Tigerclaw, or E, Spottedleaf. Oh,

ALIX: I believe it was Spottedleaf?

PAZ: Okay, I think you're right.

ALIX: It's between that and Bluestar. I think they talk about it for sure.

PAZ: Aw, I think you only get to see at the end.

ALIX: Well, okay.

PAZ: We'll see. I think you're right. What was Firepaw's name when he was a kittypet?

ALIX: Okay, quiz.

PAZ: A, Smokey, B, Smudge, C, Henry, D, Rusty, E, Blaze.

ALIX: I'm going to say Rusty.

LIZ: Blaze...

ALIX: God I wish his name was Blaze.

JULIAN: Justice for Henry.

PAZ: Who becomes deputy immediately after Redtail? A, Lionheart, B, Whitestorm, C, Tigerclaw, D, Firepaw, E, Mousefur. That'd be incredible.

LIZ: This baby is my deputy.

ALIX: It is Lionheart.

PAZ: Yes. Okay.

ALIX: I feel like Mousefur only shows up in one scene.

PAZ: Yeah, Mousefur is not really in this book. What happens when Bluestar's patrol passes through the barn on the way back to camp? A, Barley betrays them. B, rats attack them. C, the dogs get loose and attack them. D, they pass through the barn peacefully. E, Firepaw stays with Barley and lives as a loner. That's some AU fanfic.

ALIX: Yeah, that would be a twist. Well, the answer is that rats attack them, and Bluestar loses a life.

PAZ: They sure fucking do.

ALIX: Barley would never betray them.

PAZ: No.

ALIX: This quiz offends me.

PAZ: That's homophobic frankly.

ALIX: Honestly.

PAZ: Who does Ravenpaw claim killed Redtail? A, Oakheart, B, Tigerclaw, C, himself.

[laughter]

D, Bluestar.

LIZ: Tigerclaw wrote this quiz.

PAZ: He did.

ALIX: Is there an E?

PAZ: E, Whitestorm.

ALIX: It is Tigerclaw and I would just want to say, claim? Like what is this, like a news headline?

PAZ: Tigerclaw wrote this quiz.

JULIAN: It's important to show both sides.

PAZ: Snopes.com article. Number six. What are Firepaw and Graypaw's warrior names? A. Aw, there's some good ones here.

ALIX: A, Bananaear and Susanclaw.

PAZ: Firestorm and Graycloud.

ALIX: Ooh.

PAZ: Fireleaf and Graystream, Firedusk and Graycreek, Fireheart and Graystripe, or Firefur and Graytail.

ALIX: Wow. I'm going to say Fireheart and Graystripe but these are all have really powerful energy.

JULIAN: I'm really partial to Firedusk and Graycreek. They have like really chaotic energy.

PAZ: Yeah, Graycreek is hard to pronounce. I just want to say gay. Gaycreek.

ALIX: Gaycreek.

PAZ: Cause with the two R's in there, it's too much.

ALIX: Yeah. It is Gay Creek.

PAZ: Well, Alix, you got six out of six. Well done.

LIZ: Wow.

ALIX: Wow.

PAZ: You can count yourself among the true masters of all things warriors.

ALIX: Wow.

LIZ: If you get a six out of six, I think you just become the new podcast host. Sorry, guys.

ALIX: Yeah, welcome to my podcast, Stairway to Starclan. I have three guests this week.

PAZ: Oh shit.

LIZ: It's an honor to be here.

JULIAN: Alix has pulled a Tigerclaw.

LIZ: That's why. They're a real fan.

ALIX: I'm so glad all my studying paid off. I'm still laughing at that centrist question. I wonder how well I could have answered these questions before I reread the book recently. I feel like I might have gotten tripped up on the prophecy one.

PAZ: Yeah. The official website is so hard because you can't just sort by, like quizzes or anything. Maybe you can. It's tagged quiz, but I don't know how to see tags. I don't know. The website is a mess. It loads like, so slow also.

JULIAN: It's very slick looking. But I feel like they put a lot of effort into the design and not a lot of effort into like, the back end.

LIZ: No.

PAZ: Yeah.

ALIX: Too bad.

PAZ: It's too powerful, too, and not, like--

LIZ: Done?

PAZ: I forgot the gamer term I was gonna-- well-optimized. Yeah, so now that we all know we know Into the Wild very well and by heart, yeah, like, in retrospect, like, what do we want to say about it and like, what-- I don't know, like, what new things did we learn? Like, I guess to the returning fans.

ALIX: I thought I was-- I had this idea in my head that training took like, he started at six moons, and it takes exactly six moons, but I forgot that it's just like, whenever Bluestar decides you're done.

PAZ: Yeah, it is like that.

JULIAN: Yeah, I also remembered training being a lot longer, I think because like, when I was doing roleplay, training was such a big part of it. And it was such like a structured-- because you had to get like a certain number of posts to become a warrior. So there was a lot of just like, Oh, I'm gonna write my training posts. I hope my friend who's already a warrior will pretend to teach me to hunt.

PAZ: I feel like maybe some of the later books spend longer on the training. I feel like there's a lot of like, timeskips off screen during this. Because it was at least a couple of months.

ALIX: I think you guys are saying like, they originally planned this to be one book.

PAZ: Yeah.

ALIX: And you can definitely tell that they were, you know, they're kind of trying to sort of usher Fireheart through the whole, like, warriors process fairly quickly, even if it's six books instead of one.

PAZ: Yeah, cause I don't know, maybe I might be misremembering, but I feel like in the Power of Three, they're apprentices for, like, at least more than one book because they, I mean, they start out as kits.

JULIAN: Yeah, I definitely thought that Fireheart didn't become a warrior until book two. So realizing that he's like a warrior at the end of book one was a surprise to me.

PAZ: Yeah, he feels so small.

JULIAN: He's just a little guy.

ALIX: And justice for Sandpaw and Dustpaw.

PAZ: Oh, my God. I know.

ALIX: Like, sure, they're kind of bullies. But like, that doesn't mean you get to like fail them out of high school.

PAZ: They're super seniors now. You know, yeah. Honestly, though, it seems like a lot of clans it's just like, whatever the leader wants is how the rules work, apparently.

ALIX: Yeah, damn.

PAZ: I don't-- no, the leaders don't get elected either. It's just like, whoever fucking was deputy.

ALIX: Yeah. They get elected by the former leader through nepotism.

PAZ: Through nepotism. Yeah, the society. It's unreal.

JULIAN: Feral cats, I have concerns about your societal structure. I think you should get a parliament going.

ALIX: Truly.

LIZ: And the nepotism that we're presented with is better than the straight up just like monarchy in ShadowClan, right? The options you have here. They're so-- they're grim.

PAZ: Well, I hope ShadowClan gets over that monarchy thing. Get well soon. But I guess what I got out of this book is I like Firepaw more than I did as a kid when I thought he was too boring and didn't continue reading. I think he's endearing as like a dumb little little guy. You know, I have appreciation for like, like, loves their friend shonen protag archetype now.

ALIX: Yeah.

JULIAN: I feel like I came to these books off of Redwall as a kid. And so I was so-- Redwall is full of like, really, really stupid protagonists. So I was primed to appreciate like a little himbo who loves his friends and wants to do what's right and good. Yeah, but I love him. I was worried I wouldn't like him as much the second time around, and I do. He's a sweet little boy.

PAZ: Yeah, yeah, I'm excited to see how reading the first series in which he is the protagonist will color my rereadings of the later books, because when I was reading the series for the first time, he was just like another NPC essentially. And like I vaguely knew, like, what was up with his story, but I think I'll be more emotionally attached to some of the scenes he gets in like later books now.

ALIX: I do think like this, this book reminded me like how extremely appealing they make the whole Warriors way of life. Like it really is something you want to fantasize about being, even though they're like a bunch of like stinky cats in the woods. I still, like as a 23 year old, I'm like, damn, I wish I could get out there and sleep in a bush and walk on a log. You know?

PAZ: Yeah. I remember loving the descriptions of the camp in the later books so much. And it's like yes, I do want to sleep in like a little cave with moss. I do.

ALIX: Every time me and my sister would go camping or something or just, you know, go to some area that had like, that was natural, we would always try to find a cat camp and be like, Okay, this is like where the leader would make announcements. This is where the medicine cat would sleep.

JULIAN: Aw.

LIZ: Aw.

ALIX: It was a very fun activity that I recommend anytime you're in the woods.

LIZ: All right, make a note everybody.

JULIAN: Next time I go on one of my silly little walks.

LIZ: We're gonna get to a Patreon tier, and it's called going to camp in the woods and be cats.

PAZ: We're gonna LARP for money?

LIZ: Yes.

ALIX: #makeCrabClanReal.

PAZ: Okay.

ALIX: I'll pay for it. Listen, I'll sign up.

LIZ: We will set up our own society.

ALIX: And just live there?

LIZ: Yeah.

ALIX: Great.

PAZ: I think we're just reinventing like utopian communes of the 70s.

JULIAN: I was gonna say, yeah.

ALIX: But were they based off a middle grade book? I don't think so.

JULIAN: Patreon tier, Staircast invents a cult.

PAZ: Oh no.

LIZ: Oh god.

ALIX: Liz, I'm so like, curious if there was anything that you thought was going to happen in this book that didn't?

LIZ: I thought that they were going to get Tigerclaw like instantly at the end, and that would be it.

ALIX: Right.

LIZ: They did not. Understandably. I just felt like they would. But um yeah, I know that he's like, going to be around for a while, just given like--

PAZ: Yeah, sorry.

LIZ: --name changes that I've seen.

PAZ: I haven't censored his, uh, yeah. Look away. Cover your ears.

LIZ: Alright, closing my eyes. Someone has to stop the Audacity file for me. Um, yeah, I don't know. I went into this just knowing nothing, except that there would be little guys and I liked it a lot. And yeah, I was-- saying I was surprised that it was so engagingly written sounds condescending. But like, I just didn't expect to be so invested. And it is like, storywise very, like solidly crafted. There's some good plot beats. Course I love the characters because they are just little guys. I do want to just take a nap in some moss even though it's probably real stinky.

ALIX: Here's my question. When do you think they are going to get Tigerclaw? Like in what book out of six? Or like, you know, I don't know, if perhaps he continues on past the first series?

LIZ: I don't know. The way you phrase that made me real suspicious. At the end of the next series?

ALIX: Whoa.

PAZ: Oh.

JULIAN: Ooh.

ALIX: Interesting.

JULIAN: Some real longevity on this guy.

LIZ: Well, I'm putting a real slow, slow game here. Like a slow bet. None of these terms are real, I think. I'm getting safer with the predictions because just right away did not work.

ALIX: Yeah, I mean, that's a good point. Like he could have, really easily been like, villain of the week.

PAZ: Yeah, he could have. Yeah, that's kind of what-- well I guess Brokenstar wasn't really onscreen that much. But he had more of a villain of the week vibe. But I don't know. He's still out there somewhere. The ShadowClan stuff is very off screen, which is kinda funny.

JULIAN: Yeah, I liked it. But I kind of wish there had been more focus on it. I know it's hard to kind of keep two antagonists going.

PAZ: Mm-hmm.

JULIAN: But it felt like it was very, like it was all at the end there.

PAZ: Yeah. I guess I tried to, like, weave it in through Yellowfang. Which was like an interesting choice. It wasn't totally out of the blue, but definitely like it felt like-- you'd like expected it to like-- the climax to like center on Tigerclaw. And then it swerved and it was like actually, ShadowClan's like, fucked up monarchy situation.

ALIX: It's-- okay. I can't say this because of spoilers, but I'm mad about it.

LIZ: Hold on. I'll close my ears. And then you can say it.

PAZ: No.

ALIX: I will not say it. I will say it in our Warrior Cats spoiler chat later.

LIZ: I'll get in there someday.

JULIAN: You will.

PAZ: I think we can let you in there once we finish the Power of Three because that's up to where all of us read.

JULIAN: There's not really-- like, if there's spoilers for later books, it's not because we read them.

PAZ: I've been spoiling myself for later books. I don't care. Just clicking around.

LIZ: Reckless.

PAZ: I mean, I guess a pleasant surprise for me was finding out there's gay cats, canonically.

JULIAN: Yeah, that was really nice.

PAZ: I didn't know that.

LIZ: Yeah.

PAZ: I mean, even if it's kind of like, wink wink, nudge nudge because the publisher won't let it be explicitly said, I guess, from what I've read, but it made me very happy.

ALIX: Yeah. I think this book has really surprisingly complex characters in at least like Yellowfang and Ravenpaw.

PAZ: Yeah, they're definitely my two favorite characters of this book.

ALIX: The gay ones.

PAZ: Yeah. Love Barley, too. Of course.

LIZ: I did quickly google, are there gay owls in Gahoole, and the answer seems to be no. So Warrior Cats, you've got one thing. You've got several things over that right now.

ALIX: I mean, the cats aren't blacksmiths, which is a disappointment, but I guess, you know, if you're gay don't have time to be blacksmiths.

LIZ: You don't need a blacksmith if you're gay.

PAZ: No, you don't. It's just vibes.

ALIX: Just vibe.

PAZ: I'm excited to get to the other gay character so we can talk about him also.

ALIX: Oh, yes. We need lesbian cats.

PAZ: Yeah. That seems to be lacking. I hope they get on that.

JULIAN: Some wlw representation please.

PAZ: Please. I am excited for the New Prophecy where like the Leafpool and Moth... Wait, who is it? God.

ALIX: Mothwing?

PAZ: Mothwing, Yeah, I know lots of people shipped them, and I think as a child I didn't--

ALIX: You got the vibe?

PAZ: --notice anything so. I want those vibes on that reread.

ALIX: Yeah. Another interesting thing I think is that, um, I think it becomes very explicit later that StarClan is real and tangible. But like, I was surprised that in this book, like, I mean, there's like the whole like, Moonstone prophecy thing, but like StarClan seems much less like, there, if that makes sense.

PAZ: Yeah, like, as Julian noted in the first episode, I feel like it gets more magical, like with each passing series.

JULIAN: Yeah. My memory of like, the first episode, or the first series is very much like StarClan is there but like, as a religious force, and not as like an actual entity with power in the world.

PAZ: Yeah, yeah. I mean, even in this book, it can be kind of ambiguous because like, with, like the Bluestar nine lives things, it could reasonably be read like she just got injured really bad.

ALIX: She's just cool and strong.

PAZ: But yeah, StarClan gets real involved later.

JULIAN: Her nine girlboss lives.

ALIX: All girlbosses have nine lives.

LIZ: The StarClan thing is surprising to hear about as to what happens later on because, like, for me going in, it seems to be just like placement as religion I guess. It's like the system of spirituality for me. That's the impression that I got from this book. So seeing that it's-- I'm assuming like, actual StarClan cats are gonna show up. That's like, very interesting.

ALIX: I mean, even I haven't kind of gotten to where it becomes way more of a plot point, I think.

PAZ: From what I've read of spoilers of the later seasons, it really just escalates. Which is very funny. But I guess they also like, built in a system in which to have characters come back, if you just have this like dead cat group hanging around.

ALIX: Like Spottedleaf, who dies so fast.

PAZ: Oh, my god, that was another thing.

LIZ: I mean, it was very sudden. I also didn't expect that.

ALIX: People kinda die left and right in this book.

PAZ: Yeah, that's so true.

JULIAN: Yeah, that's one thing I didn't remember is like, I remembered them being like, very, you know, battle-focused and whatever. But I did not remember how easily characters die, and how many characters die, and like how violent they are. Which I think is partly like, as a kid you don't really conceive of violence as like a real thing as much. And then, like, you're reading about these cats, like tearing each other's throats out as an adult. It's like, Oh, geez.

PAZ: Yeah, and this book was not even, like, nowhere near that levels of violence that show up later.

JULIAN: Oh, yeah. No.

ALIX: But they just like introduce and kill characters so fast and this and I feel like that doesn't really continue.

PAZ: Yeah, that might be like a byproduct of them thinking this would be the only series or even like, initially one book. Cause I think even after this expanded into a series, they thought it'd just be like one standalone series. They didn't think it would keep going. So they're probably like, way less precious with characters.

ALIX: Goodbye, Lionheart. Goodbye, Spottedleaf.

JULIAN: Pour one out.

ALIX: Do we feel-- I forget if you guys talked about like whether or not Spottedleaf is like fridged wife trope.

PAZ: No, we didn't. Partially because like in this book, it really doesn't-- I mean, it doesn't feel like a romance. And I don't think it should. It feels very much like baby's first crush on like older person who is not getting involved in any way.

ALIX: Gives him herbs.

PAZ: Gives him herbs. Yeah, classic trope.

LIZ: Yeah, it feels like, when she actually dies, it's like a kind of a growing up moment, almost like, oh, something got real. And this person who I just had like a regular crush on, got caught in the crossfire. Not that cats have guns.

ALIX: God, I hope not.

PAZ: It doesn't linger on it very long. Although from what I know of Fire and Ice, I think it revisits that plot point. But yeah, in this book, it felt very like unimportant, in a way.

ALIX: He doesn't spend a lot of time going, oh no, but if Spottedleaf had lived, then we would have been mates. He's just like, this is sad.

PAZ: No, yeah. Which is fine. Because she was definitely like, presented as an older figure. I don't know.

JULIAN: Yeah. I think we get more into, like, how he feels about that in the later books, where he does some processing. He also hasn't had any time to really have any feelings. Not that I think of him as like a real emotional cat. But, you know, it's been-- he's had a busy couple days.

ALIX: He hasn't had time to tell Bluestar.

LIZ: Oh no.

PAZ: I was gonna say, there's not much like internal self reflection, or like thoughts in this book. And yeah, there's no thoughts going on in that head at all. Also, just like, I don't need to tell Bluestar.

ALIX: He is no thoughts head empty.

PAZ: I mean, that's like one of the ways you can like-- if you've read other books, you can kind of like feel how this is like the first book because I do feel like, in some way the characters have less like, complex inner lives, in a way where like, personal drama and angst becomes very central in later books.

ALIX: Yeah, if this were a later cat, I feel like he would be way sadder than he is at any point in this book.

PAZ: Yeah. For sure.

ALIX: He's just happy to be here.

JULIAN: He's just vibing.

PAZ: He really loves being a little wildcat. He loves that he kept his balls.

JULIAN: Okay, yeah, no, that's the main thing that I don't remember from when I was a child.

PAZ: Oh god, yeah.

JULIAN: Revisiting these is like, Oh, yeah, okay, there's a lot of focus on whether cats are intact or not.

ALIX: You said intact like as if they were a virgin.

JULIAN: That's what they call it with like horses. Where it's like--

LIZ: Do they? Oh my god.

JULIAN: Yeah, where it's like an intact stallion.

LIZ: Oh my god.

PAZ: Ugh, that's weird.

JULIAN: I know, it's really awful.

ALIX: I never was into horses. So.

PAZ: I was, but not-- I didn't care about that stuff.

LIZ: I also was, but I didn't know anything about them, and I kept not knowing anything about them the whole time I was interested in them. I read Black Beauty and like, the book said that he was like a gelding and I was like, what's that? I'm not gonna pay attention.

ALIX: I read a lot of different horse books.

LIZ: Must be a different horse.

ALIX: And they'd be like, oh, this is a gelding. And I'm like, is that a type of horse? Cool. Smiley face. Let's move on.

JULIAN: I had a lot of friends who actually rode and like, either owned horses or like, lived on working farms.

PAZ: Yeah, my aunt owned horses, but I don't know. I wasn't that involved. She didn't like teach me horse facts or anything. I just got to ride on a horse sometimes.

LIZ: We really are just like, wow, cool horse.

PAZ: Yeah, the ball focus is so funny. And it really truly is the basis of the entire series.

ALIX: Yeah. I cannot wait for you guys to get to a specific point in the next book which relates to this.

PAZ: Oh boy.

JULIAN: I feel like the reproductive politics of these books are very interesting. And I'm like--

ALIX: They are.

JULIAN: --interested or like, excited to like, talk more about their whole situation.

PAZ: Yeah. Yeah, there's a lot of points that I am, like, I guess excited or, like, look forward to talking more about or like, like, being able to do that. Also like ableism in Warrior Cats is a topic I know I want to be able to address later like, once that comes up, cause that's a big issue. But also like--

ALIX: Good news. Comes up very fast.

PAZ: Whoo. Oh boy.

JULIAN: Yay.

PAZ: But yeah, also just like to continue to look into the, like, gender, family, reproductive politics going on here.

ALIX: At least it isn't fully like a you got to be married with kids type thing. I feel like it's more than anything emphasizing letting people make their own choices.

PAZ: Yeah, for sure.

JULIAN: Yeah. Like, there are a lot of like, female cats who are like, medicine cat or warriors or whatever.

PAZ: Yeah. It is very funny though, that one of your roles in society is just pregnant.

ALIX: I was thinking about this. I was like, I know that there's some queens who just like stay in the nursery to help out the other queens, even if they don't have kits at the time. And I was like, do they let male cats do that? Because I feel like they should.

PAZ: They should. I mean, I guess in that way, there is an aspect of communal parenting, like it's not as focused on nuclear families, which is nice to see.

JULIAN: Everybody cares for the kits.

ALIX: Yeah, it's really not at all, because like, I think they retconned a lot of people into being siblings and related. But I think the whole point of the first book is like, you know, find your chosen family. And people care a lot more about their mentors than their parents.

JULIAN: Yeah, like people's parents-- at least in the first book-- kind of don't matter.

PAZ: Yeah, they're non-existent.

ALIX: It's also the like, middle grade thing of like, we want to make young characters but then just get parents out of the way so they're an orphan or they're a cat. The two genders, orphan or cat.

LIZ: Oh since we like mentioned medicine cats as a status? Role? Whatever, just now. I want to say like, I wasn't surprised that there was only one because that tends to be a thing, but I think that they should have more than one doctor for their whole society. Seems like a-- they're taking some risks here.

PAZ: Yeah, as a kid I did not question that. I never had one thought of like why aren't there more doctors?

ALIX: I feel like there should be like five, right?

PAZ: Yeah.

LIZ: Yeah.

JULIAN: Yeah. Like your whole society is based around fighting other cats.

ALIX: Mm-hmm.

JULIAN: You need to have more healers.

PAZ: So weird.

JULIAN: Your party's wildly unbalanced.

LIZ: Everyone is DPS but Spottedleaf.

JULIAN: Oh, yeah, I didn't think about that till you brought it up, Liz. But that is an important point. It's also like the medicine cats are like both doctors and like spiritual leaders. Um, which is like, you know, not that uncommon, I think.

PAZ: Yeah, I think I saw an interview or something somewhere where they mentioned medicine women and like, that, like that kind of trope tying into like medicine cats. Yeah, but you can see that I guess. I mean, as like with the problems with that trope and stuff, but yeah.

ALIX: But there still should be like five.

PAZ: There still should be, yes.

LIZ: Did Spottedleaf even have an apprentice?

PAZ: No.

ALIX: No.

LIZ: Cause she was kind of young, right? So like hey, your society already has a problem with dying young, so I don't know. I think some more thought should go into this.

PAZ: I don't know what they were planning to do if Yellowfang hadn't happened to be there.

ALIX: I feel like-- yeah. No, this is from fanfiction. But maybe it comes up later, but like I was reading a fic where again, like the medicine cat dies and there's no apprentice, and like, they just like wait for like a sign from StarClan as to like which warrior now becomes the medicine cat.

LIZ: Oh my god.

PAZ: But I feel like you would miss out on so many... like so much knowledge. What are you going to do, go ask another medicine cat like, which herb does what? Just rely on dreams? What's going on?

LIZ: Well, can you imagine sharing vital medical knowledge from other cats with other cats?

JULIAN: Well, and they can't write anything down. It's all oral tradition. So like, if you don't have that continuity of oral tradition, everything is lost.

LIZ: God.

PAZ: Right?

ALIX: I guess they don't lose anything because they're around forever in heaven. But also, do you just get trained at night by a dead medicine cat in your dreams?

PAZ: Oh god.

LIZ: You get like a dream DM and it's just like, the ghost of Spottedleaf being like, Hey, wake up.

JULIAN: You up?

ALIX: I'm just thinking of that one meme where somebody is spraying somebody with fire to wake them up. Hey, wake up. Fire will save the clan.

JULIAN: I feel like, you know, even if you can have your ghost mentor, there's some stuff it's helpful to have a hands on demonstration of, or pawson.

ALIX: Yeah. How do you know the technique for fucking biting tit. Ticks.

[laughter]

JULIAN: Yeah?

ALIX: But also, wait, hold on. Like why if they all remember everything, have they not made great strides in medical advancement?

PAZ: I don't know.

JULIAN: Because they don't have opposable thumbs.

PAZ: Yeah, that limits them in a lot of ways.

ALIX: I guess.

LIZ: They technically know everything, but their memory is really bad because they're cats. So it's all there.

ALIX: Right?

LIZ: But it's passive.

JULIAN: Okay, real question. Why hasn't StarClan told Bluestar to stay the fuck away from Tigerclaw?

PAZ: Right? StarClan has a problem being--

LIZ: They're really bored. They're just like, oh no, I want to see this play out.

PAZ: Yeah, what else do they have to do?

ALIX: They gotta watch the drama.

JULIAN: There's some sort of StarClan Prime Directive, where they can't interfere too much.

PAZ: There probably is. I don't know.

ALIX: Also, it's not clear how much of the future they actually know.

JULIAN: I mean, not even the future, just the present.

ALIX: I don't think they can read Tigerclaw's mind.

JULIAN: But they can see he killed Redtail.

PAZ: StarClan says I pretend I do not see it.

LIZ: No, there's someone in StarClan just being like, you know, I never liked Redtail.

PAZ: Meanwhile, Redtail's right there.

ALIX: Yeah, why doesn't Redtail's ghost show up and solve his murder? Hold on.

PAZ: Right? Oh my god.

JULIAN: The real Hamlet.

ALIX: Yeah!

PAZ: Yeah, Redtail should have been like, I don't know, haunting Ravenpaw and I don't know. That'd be a cool different book.

ALIX: There has to be a whole reason why they can't just say things because otherwise there would just never be any mysteries.

PAZ: Yeah, that probably gets addressed later, I assume.

ALIX: Redtail showing up like, hey, uh.

PAZ: Alix, I'm just thinking of that fic you linked where Redtail and Tigerclaw were exes.

LIZ: [gasps] Oh my god. Oh it makes sense.

ALIX: I wanted to bring this up because it was such a fucking powerful concept to me.

PAZ: I know, I love it.

LIZ: Oh my god.

JULIAN: I love some murder exes.

PAZ: Right?

ALIX: Because it was basically being used as cover for him. Like he was like-- you know, even if you report the murder that I do, they won't think it's because I want power. They'll think it's because I'm jealous.

LIZ: Oh my god.

ALIX: He's like trying to come up with like fuckin like different like defenses in Warriors court.

LIZ: They should have Warriors court. They should have other professions.

ALIX: Where's the lawyer cats?

LIZ: Of course Tigerclaw would be gay and homophobic.

ALIX: I think that's exactly what Paz said.

PAZ: Yeah, I think I did. But yeah, that's his vibe. He also like goes to the gym a lot.

LIZ: No.

JULIAN: God, he's a fucking gym rat.

PAZ: He is.

ALIX: Oh my god. Tigerclaw's Grindr.

JULIAN: He posts his like abs down picture on Grindr and is like stealth.

ALIX: I liked that fic though because it was just like everybody was like, You didn't know that? It wasn't like a torrid secret. It was just like Tigerclaw is bi and has a fraught ex, and I'm like, honestly, this is great.

JULIAN: Firepaw walks into this incredible queer drama just like, (high-pitched) what's up?

LIZ: What's going on?

ALIX: Oh, you didn't know?

JULIAN: Out here in the forest cats are gay.

ALIX: That fic is just so galaxy brained.

PAZ: Yeah, that was a humongous take.

LIZ: Imagine Graypaw expositing all of this in like his usual fashion, but it's just everyone's list of previous breakups.

JULIAN: Okay, so Whitestorm and Lionheart have some beef because they used to date until...

PAZ: God.

ALIX: This is incredible.

JULIAN: And like they're mostly fine, but they shouldn't like sit next to each other.

LIZ: Firepaw voice, what's dating?

ALIX: I'm six months old.

LIZ: I didn't know what hunting was called.

PAZ: Oh, boy.

LIZ: I just got here. I love the dirt. Hi, I'm Firepaw.

PAZ: Wow, what an accurate impression.

JULIAN: I'm sure this has been written where-- because I've seen a lot of like AUs on AO3 where they're all human. Um, and I'm sure that someone has written-- or I hope that someone has written the AU where the clans are just like different queer student groups on campus, and Firepaw is like the baby freshman who's just discovered like queerness as a concept.

PAZ: People definitely write high school AUs and I'm too scared to click to find out if they're still cats or humans.

LIZ: I hope they're just cats but they go to cat school and they take cat studies, like meowthematics, and... That's the only one I have.

PAZ: Oh perfect.

ALIX: I hope it's like the My Little Pony movie where there's an alternate universe where they're all humans, but then sometimes they can Magical Girl turn into ponies.

PAZ: Oh my god.

JULIAN: That's so good.

LIZ: I'm just picturing that going like Animorphs, like the covers. Human boy to little guy.

JULIAN: Shoop.

ALIX: I keep realizing I'm imagining like human Fireheart as KJ Apa from Riverdale.

PAZ: Is that the main guy? I don't--

ALIX: Yeah, it's Archie.

JULIAN: It's just the guy who plays Archie.

ALIX: I'm just like who's like a redhead and plays a himbo?

PAZ: A dumb jock.

ALIX: Although Archie's not nice enough to be a himbo. Anyways.

LIZ: You know, these cats are British. Do you think if we go back far enough in like the Wayback Machine, we're gonna see like, here's my fancast for human Firepaw. It's Rupert Grint.

ALIX: Yes. Yes.

PAZ: Absolutely.

JULIAN: Honestly, it's probably somewhere on Tumblr, like if I do some digging. I'll report back.

PAZ: You probably wouldn't even have to look that hard.

ALIX: That fully exists.

LIZ: Here's my fancast for older Firepaw, so I guess Fireheart, and it's Ed Sheeran.

PAZ: [groaning]

LIZ: [laughter]

JULIAN: Noooo.

LIZ: I couldn't think of that many red-headed dudes. And that was the only one I got.

PAZ: Oh, I'm picturing Ed Sheeran in my head right now. It's so scary. I don't want to.

LIZ: It's a scary image.

ALIX: Oh my god.

JULIAN: Do we want to, as a palate cleanser, move on to the questions?

PAZ: Yes, sure. So, you know, end of book wrap up, I figured we could also do some more questions, and we have gotten some. So we're gonna dive into those. And let's do the first one.

JULIAN: Um, I can read it out. It's less of a question and more of a--

PAZ: Yeah, anecdote.

JULIAN: --reminiscence, which I also love. "Hello Staircast, when I was an elementary schooler in 2009, there was a big community of Warrior Cats roleplayers on MIT Scratch for some reason, despite it being a platform for a block-based programming language designed to teach intro computer science, like people would roleplay in the comments. Anyway, I have brought these vintage cat OCS I submitted to coloring contests." We have Rainkit, "a small hyper kit who likes to run around and jump on things. She wants to be the best hunter ever." Rainkit is a gray kit with a little blue heart mark around one of her eyes. And she's saying hi.

PAZ: Beautiful-- it looks like a photo of the Grand Canyon?

JULIAN: I think it's the Grand Canyon.

LIZ: Oh my god.

PAZ: In the background. I love that setting.

ALIX: Cat is not wearing pants.

PAZ: No.

JULIAN: No. And then the other submission is Chaosfox. Oh, it's--

PAZ: Oh wait, music. Oh my god. It's so loud. How do I make it stop?

ALIX: I had to mute the site.

PAZ: Oh my god.

ALIX: This is so powerful.

JULIAN: "Chaosfox lives alone in a secluded area of the forest. She used to belong to a clan known as BoneClan but was turned out when it was discovered she had killed another cat. It was an accident."

LIZ: Oh my god.

JULIAN: "But she was framed by her brother Longclaw. She avoids other cats and will likely attack you if you come near her. She's very thin because prey is scarce where she lives. She'd never reveal it, but she is lonely."

PAZ: Wow.

LIZ: Oh my god.

ALIX: Oh my god.

PAZ: What is this song?

LIZ: I don't know. I'm afraid to turn it back on. It's very loud.

ALIX: It's so loud.

JULIAN: And then when you click on the little play to get this animation going, Chaosfox is like rainbow, like has little shards of rainbow color that make up her body. It's really good. It's really incredible.

LIZ: It's animated.

PAZ: I feel like I can see her bone tail, like?

ALIX: Oh, yeah. It's powerful.

JULIAN: Oh, yeah.

LIZ: The colors are oscillating. It's very beautiful. I have so much respect for this artist.

ALIX: I feel like-- like the audacity of BoneClan for kicking someone out for doing murder.

PAZ: Right?

ALIX: You're called BoneClan.

JULIAN: Oh, thank you for sending that in, Ruby.

PAZ: Thank you. These are beautiful. If you remember what this song is called, I guess, @ us.

LIZ: Yeah, we'd love to know and then we'd love to just make that our new theme song forever. Same volume.

JULIAN: No slow ramp.

PAZ: Okay, I have to close that tab.

ALIX: That's incredible. I love that so much.

PAZ: And that was from Ruby. Thank you, Ruby.

LIZ: Thank you so much.

ALIX: I can read one if you want.

PAZ: Okay.

ALIX: "Dear esteemed cat scholars, in the last episode, you mentioned how cats should broaden their horizons and establish more roles and jobs for cats and their societies. My question is, could, should, and would cats unionize?" And that's from Maayan.

JULIAN: Oh my god.

PAZ: I think they should unionize.

ALIX: They should.

JULIAN: Right, everyone should unionize.

PAZ: I don't know if they would.

ALIX: Maybe.

JULIAN: They seem to be very attached to a hierarchical structure right now. So I think they would need to do some like-- you'd have to do some real consciousness building.

PAZ: Some workshops.

JULIAN: Among the cats to like encourage them to think as a group. They do think about the wellbeing of the clan, but like, you would have to frame it so that they could see that, like, when warriors have better working conditions, everyone benefits.

ALIX: I mean, to be fair, leaders aren't like bosses because they actually do like hunt and fight. Like they do work. So it's not 100% like they're exploiting the labor of the other cats. But I still think collective bargaining would be good for them.

PAZ: Yeah.

JULIAN: I think the apprentices should unionize.

ALIX: Yeah, yes, yes, yes, their labor is exploited, I would say.

PAZ: For sure.

LIZ: They should unionize so they get like, you know, some safety protocols, like not being sent to snake hell while you're an intern by your evil mentor.

JULIAN: Yeah, I think they should unionize and fight for a better mentor selection.

LIZ: Yeah.

ALIX: Literally.

PAZ: Have some say in that process.

LIZ: There should be a review board, right? Like some sort of approval process.

ALIX: Like any accountability.

LIZ: Uh-huh.

PAZ: Ratemymentor.com. Tigerclaw has an F.

JULIAN: But he does have a chili pepper.

ALIX: According to Redtail, at least.

PAZ: Oh my god.

LIZ: What's Ravenpaw's review? Just like, 0/10, tried to kill me.

ALIX: I got stabbed here.

PAZ: Would not come back.

ALIX: Good sandwiches, would come back.

LIZ: Also, just lectures. Does not teach.

PAZ: Well, I guess that's our answer. They should unionize--

ALIX: But they won't.

PAZ: The apprentices especially, but they won't. Who wants to read this next one?

LIZ: I'll read it. This is from-- I don't know who it's from.

PAZ: Oh, whoops.

LIZ: There's no-- is it signed?

PAZ: Let me go look in the email.

ALIX: This is a dream from StarClan.

JULIAN: It's from Nat.

LIZ: Okay. So this question's from Nat. The header is The Proboards Experience. "Hi Staircast cast, loving the show. I know it's been mentioned, so I'm sure you would have got around to answering this question from me eventually. But do y'all remember the Proboards RP golden age? I cannot count the amount of Proboards I created or joined, many of them for Warriors. And most of them seeing participation for an average of four weeks, after which they died forever."

PAZ: Yep.

LIZ: "I'd love to hear if any of you were part of the scene. And if you have any strong emotion--" sorry-- "any strong memories. Here's the only one I remember. At some point, I knew the creator of it. Now I don't have any recollection of how." And there's a link to the Proboards. "Look at all the work that went into the architecture of this thing, only for a small group of internet kids to never use it due to moderating and advertising being hard." Aww. "I've also attached some fantastic 2009 fanart of it, which I found recently and unlocked my memory of that particular forum. Thanks again for letting me re-experience these books in your podcast." And attached is just a stunning, beautiful piece of art that I wish I could blow it up on the screen and show everybody.

PAZ: Yes, so it has the name of the forums on it, which is Moonlight Dreams. And "Dreams" is in beautiful rainbow font, very atmospheric. And it looks like there's five cats in a cave around Moonpool, maybe? I don't know. Yeah, three of them look very astonished. One of them looks really angry. There's a story going on here.

LIZ: There's a little kind of orangey brown cat on the far right with one black paw, and I think that's just-- mwah. That's adorable.

PAZ: That's character design, baby.

ALIX: Oh my gosh.

JULIAN: I mean, like I obviously have a lot of memories of the Proboards Golden Age. Um, my best friend in elementary school's older sister set up a forum for us to RP, starclan13.proboards.com. And it was a weird mix of like our friends, and then the older sister's group of friends, who were about three years older, and then at some point I got my little brother, who at the time was like six, and all his friends into it. So we ended up, because obviously at the time you needed to be 13 to create an account anywhere that you could post, because of child safety laws. And my parents knew about this law. And so I was like, well no, it's different. Proboards is different somehow. I managed to convince them that it was okay for us all to be doing that. And it was because we knew almost everyone who was on the board.

But I spent-- I had 45 minutes on the computer per day and I spent every one of those 45 minutes RPing as my OC Pinestripe. I didn't realize that like most Proboards apparently weren't very active because ours was incredibly active, maybe because we all knew each other in real life and could yell at each other to get online. But like now that I'm looking-- I like pulled it up, and I'm looking at it, and there's a total of 45,000 posts on this website.

PAZ: Jeez.

LIZ: Oh my god.

ALIX: Oh my god.

JULIAN: Yeah, part of this is after we stopped or I stopped RPing as actively, there was kind of a second wave in like 2010 of people that we did not know in real life, who I guess found the site. We had done some like cross advertising on different RP forums. And I guess they found it via that and kind of took over and were super active. So I was not around for all 45,000 of those posts.

PAZ: That's wild.

JULIAN: But it was very active. We had a total of like 300 members total.

PAZ: Wow.

JULIAN: Of like very elaborate plot.

LIZ: Amazing.

PAZ: Yeah, just for comparison, the Proboards that our listener linked has a total post count of 125.

LIZ: Aw.

ALIX: There's also-- 50 of these posts are in the Advertising Other Sites.

JULIAN: Yeah.

LIZ: Oh no.

PAZ: Yeah, I was definitely on Proboards, but not for Warriors Cats ever, I don't think. That was mostly confined to Neopets for me. I think-- so I was in a guild on Neopets that did Invader Zim role play. And we eventually moved to Proboards.

ALIX: Incredible.

PAZ: So that's what I was roleplaying on Proboards.

LIZ: I didn't know that about you, not the Invader Zim part.

PAZ: I don't like to talk about it.

LIZ: Cause you--

ALIX: Yeah, I never-- oh sorry, go ahead.

LIZ: Oh, no, you go first. I'll wait for after because it's very important.

ALIX: I was just gonna say I was never on Proboards. I RPed Warrior Cats on Gaia Online.

LIZ: Yes.

JULIAN: I knew a lot of people who did Maximum Ride there. But yeah, I don't know. It was um, I was like a site admin for a while, which was really neat, because I got to learn how to do some HTML and CSS.

PAZ: Hell yeah.

JULIAN: You know, I moved from doing my Neopets shop to-- unfortunately, you can't see the site as it used to look because a lot of the-- we used to have like a really big top banner, and, like special graphics for everything, and custom emoticons. And a lot of those were all hosted on Photobucket.

[chorus of aws]

JULIAN: Along with almost everyone's RP signatures, so unfortunately, many of those are gone.

PAZ: Tragic.

ALIX: Wow.

LIZ: Lost history. Like that genuinely makes me sad.

JULIAN: I am gonna see if the Wayback Machine ever archived this.

PAZ: Yeah, that'd be good.

LIZ: It was a pretty big one, it might have. Yeah, I guess I never like did any Proboard stuff, and I stopped using Neopets after my friend at the time tried to teach me how to bank on it. I was like, well, I can't do this. Yeah, so it's interesting to hear like, everyone's different, like, experiences with it, because I just like-- it just passed me by.

I do want to look at the Proboards that was linked in the question because there's some interesting little descriptions here for like-- there's a folder called Calm River. And it says, "this is a small part of the river that is very calm. It is good for catching fish and wonderful for swimming if you have some free time. On the sandy banks is where warriors like teaching their apprentices battle moves." And it's all very sweet.

ALIX: Yeah, it's so empty though.

JULIAN: Oh, great news. It is on the Wayback Machine.

PAZ: Oh perfect.

LIZ: Yay.

JULIAN: And you can see many of the images, although not the big header.

PAZ: Perfect.

LIZ: There's gotta be someone with that saved on like some external hard drive.

JULIAN: Our affiliate link is like a little cat running across the-- there's a lot of gifs.

LIZ: Wow.

JULIAN: It is all in Papyrus font.

LIZ: Of course.

JULIAN: Great news for everyone.

LIZ: Listen, Papyrus is where it was at. I definitely used it for just like school reports, as a middle schooler, because who's gonna stop you?

ALIX: I remember doing it as well.

PAZ: Yeah. Well, Julian, I'd be interested to see if you could find any posts of yours in the Wayback Machine.

JULIAN: Oh, yeah.

PAZ: But that'd be like--

JULIAN: I think that's probably--

PAZ: A project for the future.

JULIAN: A project because it'll take me a little bit to navigate this. But yes, I'll try to see if I can find my death post when I killed off my character.

LIZ: Oh my god.

ALIX: Oh my god.

PAZ: Oh please.

JULIAN: Cause it was very dramatic.

LIZ: Um, can we just read a few of the names on your old site?

JULIAN: Oh, yeah.

ALIX: Oh my god, sorry.

LIZ: Because they're really good. Just in the current cat section, just to pick a few out, there's Vengeancestone, Diamondpaw, Pookystar, Saberkit, Rainbowkit, and separately, Rippedkit and Ripplekit.

JULIAN: Oh, great news. I forgot that in WindClan, we do have a Suepaw. So Susan, Susanclaw.

PAZ: Wow.

ALIX: Wow.

LIZ: There's also just a Garfunkel, which is perfect.

ALIX: Oh yeah, Garfunkel.

JULIAN: Oh, I forgot about Garfunk-- wait,, which clan is Garfunkel in? I don't remember Garfunkel.

LIZ: Uh, WindClan.

PAZ: Garfunkel.

ALIX: Kushaclaw?

LIZ: Suepaw.

ALIX: Wow.

PAZ: Others: Loner, Amberfeather (go Amby!)

JULIAN: That was my best friend.

ALIX: Aw.

PAZ: Aw.

JULIAN: She used to be the leader of RiverClan but then decided to become a loner.

ALIX: [gasp] The drama.

PAZ: Wow.

LIZ: Wait. There's a loner called Mirage. Shout outs to Emily.

ALIX: Oh my gosh. Mirage is here.

PAZ: Wow, Mirage Apex Legends.

LIZ: Oh, and the very last name in this whole entire list is Cody.

JULIAN: Yeah.

LIZ: God bless.

JULIAN: Cody was like a rando who just really badly wanted to play a kittypet. And it's like, well, I mean, you can if you want to, but...

LIZ: I respect that. You've got to have some different perspectives in here.

JULIAN: I think you would have really gotten along with Cody because Cody's whole shtick when role playing was that they would just like pop into RPs and be like, hey, you should all come be kittypets with me.

ALIX: Y'all heard of medicine?

LIZ: Do you want to get vaccinated? Do you not want to have ticks? Well, have I got the lifestyle for you.

JULIAN: Yep.

LIZ: Anyway, thank you for this. These beautiful links.

ALIX: They're really incredible.

LIZ: And this beautiful image. And this beautiful question.

JULIAN: Yeah, thank you so much, Nat.

PAZ: Yeah. And I hope we can dive into the Proboards experience more in the future.

JULIAN: Yes.

PAZ: But Alix brought us something very special as well, speaking of the distant Warriors past.

ALIX: Yes. So I've basically had access to the same email account since I was nine, ten years old. So I found an email exchange between my middle school best friend and me about Warrior Cats. So I linked a Google doc. And if somebody wants to be my best friend from middle school, I will be me, and we can read this little exchange

JULIAN: Yeah, I'm happy to do it.

ALIX: Okay. All right, obviously don't doxx her.

JULIAN: Right, of course.

ALIX: So, "Dear Rainface. I got Warriors Field Guide, Secrets of the Clans, and it includes, ta-da! the story of how the clans started. Here is a summary. Many minutes ago, there were only cats who lived in small groups. They fought for no reason at all. It was a lawless, bloodly time for the forest.

One night, they agreed to meet at Fourtrees and talk. They ended up having a battle. Many cats died. The living ones slept at Fourtrees. When they woke up, they saw the slain cats as starry cats/StarClan. 'Unite or die,' said StarClan. Four cats wanted to lead the cats, a black female, Shadow, a silver gray tom with green eyes, River, a wiry brown she-cat, Wind, and a ginger tom with amber eyes, Thunder.

A dispute broke out. Suddenly, 'Silence!' a StarClan tabby yowled. She told them to find cats like them. For Shadow, night hunters, for River, water-loving cats, for Wind, fast runners, and for Thunder, strong hunters. 'If you do this,' said a white tom, 'we will reward you with eight extra lives that you may lead your clans many moons.' A tortoiseshell said, 'we will watch over you from Silverpelt and visit you in dreams.' The white tom declared the full moon truce. The tabby yowled from the great rock, 'you will be warriors.' All the cats agreed. And so began the age of the Warrior Cats." I just want to say that I did write this summary.

PAZ: It's so good.

LIZ: It's beautiful.

ALIX: And I put an ellipsis, then "isn't that scarily like A Place Before StarClan by us, with the white tom and everything? Let me know. Bye! Hawkear."

JULIAN: "It is. But there is no Moonstone coming down to earth or little cats blowing off to the north, south, east or west. Their version is way too boring."

ALIX: "There is a Moonstone story that I will tell you later. But I admit it is a little boring."

JULIAN: "Okay."

ALIX: "We talked about it."

JULIAN: "Oh. Yeah."

ALIX: "Please give back the books if you are done. I need Harry Potter Seven Guesses book before it comes out."

JULIAN: "Sorry I couldn't give it back to you sooner."

ALIX: "'S okay." Spelled S, apostrophe, okay.

LIZ: Aw.

JULIAN: "Good."

ALIX: Then I said, "Hey, now I suppose there was a Sky too?" End exchange.

PAZ: Beautiful.

JULIAN: I love that in 2007 it was totally fine to send a one-word email.

ALIX: Yeah.

PAZ: This is-- I did not email my friends like this. This is fascinating.

ALIX: You know, I would have said that I didn't either, but apparently I did.

JULIAN: I super did, so

PAZ: I love your summary so much.

LIZ: It's so good.

PAZ: "It was a lawless, bloodly time for the forest."

ALIX: I do love "bloodly."

LIZ: That's innovation.

ALIX: I do think this is the canonical lore. But also like, I love that I just sent it up in such a like-- it's like a vaguely poetic way. But I'm just like, "they ended up having a battle." Absolutely no reason why.

PAZ: I love that you were like, so this is the official thing. We did it first and way better.

ALIX: It's a really, really powerful energy.

JULIAN: Oh, to have the sheer confidence of like an 11 year old hyped up on Warrior Cats.

PAZ: Oh, right?

LIZ: That's the confidence you need to send a one word email.

ALIX: Yeah.

JULIAN: That just says "good."

ALIX: I feel like I'm putting way more energy into this exchange than my friend. I'm writing paragraphs. And she's like, good, thanks.

JULIAN: Yeah, I tried to bring as much to the role as I could, but I didn't have a lot to work with.

ALIX: Thank you, you did a great job. Also, wait. Sorry, I just realized the difference-- how much time was between these different messages, because I sent that "'s okay" one on July 31, 2007, and she responded, "good," on August 14, 2007.

PAZ: That's about the rate at which I reply to emails.

ALIX: Yeah, there's five days between almost all of these emails.

LIZ: God, if this was now, it'd be like, hey, just checking in for an update. Have you had a chance to look at my Warrior Cats summary yet? Okay. Let me know. Thanks again. Bye.

JULIAN: Just wanted to touch base on this. Do you have any thoughts?

ALIX: Circling back on this. Isn't our fanfiction better?

LIZ: Best wishes.

ALIX: I hope this email finds you well.

JULIAN: Let me know if you have any questions.

LIZ: Hope to hear from you soon.

JULIAN: Email was a mistake actually. Except for this, this is the only valid use for email.

LIZ: We should have never moved on from this.

ALIX: Thank you so much for letting me read this.

JULIAN: Thank you for sharing it with us.

ALIX: It amused me very much when I found it.

PAZ: It's very good. Thank you. That's kind of what we got-- what we have to bring to the table today. I don't know. I think we did a good, like retrospective talk. Oh, okay. I know what I wanted to do. Liz?

LIZ: Yeah?

PAZ: Would you like to give us your prophecy for the next book?

LIZ: Yes.

JULIAN: Yeees.

ALIX: Yes [clapping].

PAZ: What do you think will happen?

LIZ: Um, they're going to almost get Tigerclaw. But he's going to get away at the last minute, I think at the end of the book. And sorry, did I say Tigerclaw? I did, right?

ALIX: Yeah.

LIZ: All right. And Fireheart is going to be like, rats, if only I had not been wracked with indecision, and also just brainlessness because I'm a dumb little cat. So he's going to have that kind of like, you know, Hamlet hubris moment. And he's gonna get a promotion. Maybe they'll have different jobs now.

You might see more of the other apprentices. Graystripe will develop a personality. I say that with affection. Because there's going to be less exposition to give, I think. They are going to have a fun little jaunt into the barn while they're on a patrol or something. And they're going to see their good friend Ravenpaw. And he's going to be fine with his new boyfriend.

Bluestar is going to have like-- there's gonna be a subplot with Bluestar. She's gonna be like, oh, I'm getting so old, I need to start thinking about me. Like, what have I done for myself? All these years and I don't even know myself. And that is like her slice of life older person romance plot with Yellowfang, who's like re entering the workforce as an older medicine cat. Yeah, that's pretty much my prediction.

JULIAN: I would watch this drama.

ALIX: I love this so much.

JULIAN: Bluestar's self care journey.

ALIX: I love how hard you're manifesting that Ravenpaw is okay.

LIZ: Yeah. He is. I don't know what you mean.

PAZ: The aggression in your voice. Thank you so much. I'm excited to see if your prophecy comes true. Well, that was it for Into the Wild. We're done with it. And now we're moving on to Fire and Ice next week. Very excited.

ALIX: I'm so excited to listen.

JULIAN: Hell yeah.

LIZ: I've had the book on Libby for like a few days now. And I'm like, chomping at the bit to get into it.

PAZ: Now is the time.

JULIAN: Oh, Alix, do you have anything you want to plug?

ALIX: Yeah, I have two podcasts, Hot Taking It, where I watch classic MTV sitcom Faking It, which is about high school lesbians fake dating. And also a podcast that I finished, I guess, although it's kind of ongoing, which is Across the Loonaverse, which is explaining Loona lore. Julian was on that at one point, so if you're a fan of Julian--

JULIAN: Oh, I was. I forgot.

ALIX: --you can go listen to that. And then that will pretty soon be replaced by a Riverdale podcast where I can talk about KJ Apa some more, although not in the role of Fireheart. Yeah, Across the Loonaverse, and Hot Taking It, which I think you can find if you go to my Twitter, which is @kismetnemesis, and then I have them linked. Probably the easiest way to do it.

JULIAN: Hell yeah.

PAZ: And as a reminder, you can find our show @staircast on Twitter. And if you want to send in any questions or anecdotes like the ones we read today, you can send them into stairwaytostarclan@gmail.com. And we'll check those periodically.

LIZ: Yeah, I want to thank everyone again, for the really good questions. They're just, they're very cute and sweet. And I had a good time listening and reading them.

JULIAN: Yeah, it's really nice to hear what this series means to other people.

PAZ: Mm hmm. Yeah. And I am just having a blast revisiting it. So thank you, everyone who's doing it with us as well.

ALIX: Yeah, thank you so much for letting me be on the show and also making the show so that I can listen to it. It's genuinely like the highlight of my week. Like every Sunday, I'm like, Alright, it's time to listen to Staircast.

PAZ: Thank you.

JULIAN: Aw, Alix.

LIZ: Thank you for coming on because you're, one, a seasoned podcaster, and also per the rules of the Clan, the new podcast host, so it's in your hands now.

ALIX: Yeah, um, although I think next week I might be busy, if you guys could just be interim hosts for a little while.

LIZ: Yeah, of course.

PAZ: Okay, yeah. We'll figure it out.

JULIAN: We'll be podcast deputies.

ALIX: Oh yes. And if I die, you all have to fight it out.

LIZ: Who has to wait for that? Listen. You've read about Tigerclaw. He's doing fine for himself.

PAZ: Well, uh, I think that's gonna do it for us this week. Tune in next week for Fire and Ice and until then, may StarClan light your path. Bye.

JULIAN: Bye.

LIZ: Bye.

ALIX: B-bye?

LIZ: I'm never sure if I should do that one with you guys.

PAZ: Yeah. I keep it in.

[outro music]

PAZ: Okay, let me put away these covers.

ALIX: These childish things.

JULIAN: No, we're taking out childish things

PAZ: Oh, whoa, it got translated into Latvian. Wild.

ALIX: Only two books, though, so they don't get to know the whole plot.

PAZ: No, Latvian at least got to The Darkest Hour, so three books.

[black-wolf066]

Darling, I’ve Got The Cold Christmas Blues

[FF.Net Link]

((((A/N: Hey guys, so I’ve been really shipping Wish Hook with Regina this season, (Not to mention a few people I’ve been following within the OUAT fandom have totally gotten me hooked to the idea.... you all know who you are *stares pointedly*).

Anyway, I hope you enjoy this piece, I’ve had a general idea of what I had wanted to do for a while, but then the ideas multiplied and escalated and wouldn’t leave me alone after watching the promo for 7x09 (and than finally watching said episode... i’m still screaming with how much these past episodes have given me life... seriously, still screaming). So I wanted to do my own little take on a few things even if it’s gonna be AUish.  

Tagging @killianmesmalls (to celebrate her 100 followers, you go girl!) and @killian-whump considering both of them asked me too for when I finally wrote this Hooked Queen piece. Also tagging @theonceoverthinker because YAY for new friends!))))))

Darling, I’ve Got The Cold Christmas Blues

“--When I don’t have you by my side.”

Words: 2814

rating: pg-13 to be safe (cause language...)

Summary: Everyone has a place to be for Christmas Eve, whether volunteering at the local soup kitchen (Tilly and Rogers) or spending it with family and friends. Everyone that is except Roni/Regina. Not when she can’t afford to have her bar closed for even a single night.

Warnings: Feels... hopefully… also for the sake of this one-shot, just pretend that Henry and Regina didn’t go on their road trip just yet and despite Regina’s meddling, Henry and Jacinda can’t stay away from each other, not to mention Lucy (and Sabine because she refuses to put up with Jacinda’s moping any longer) won’t allow them to remain apart. (Also warning for AUish ideas and my own head canon that Rogers’ first name is Logan... until it is stated otherwise, he will forever be named Logan to me lol)

~~Bells will be ringing,

The sad, sad news

Oh, what a Christmas

To have the blues

My baby’s gone,

I have no friends

To wish me greetings

Once again.~~

The Eagles’ somber tune stopped abruptly as Regina turned the radio off a little more forcibly than was probably necessary. Generally she would have allowed the music to play as they worked, but the song had struck a particularly sensitive cord that she didn’t want plucked any farther as she moved to wipe down the long counter (hell, even the band name dredged up unwanted thoughts of him).

Last call had been announced over an hour ago and the few lonely stragglers, still out and about past 2am, were gradually being ushered out to celebrate their Christmas Eve turned Christmas morning elsewhere. She was exhausted and cranky and not at all in the mood for the holiday spirit; not with everything weighing heavily on her soul. Like the pressure of finding a loop hole around Drizella’s clause. The forced solitude of her being the only one awake out of everyone she loved and cared about. The frustration at knowing Rumpelstiltskin was aware and always irksomely up to something. Or the whole fiasco between her and Rogers. All because of that infuriating bitch parading around as poor, victimized, Eloise Gardener.

“What is your problem Roni?!” Rogers seethed, his patience with the bartender starting to wear extremely thin as he stood from his stool and glared at her.

“My problem, detective?” Regina shot back with a mocking laugh. “Is you.”

“Me?!” he asked incredulously.

“Yes, you.” she threw the rag down into the bucket and leaned her hands onto the surface of her bar, matching his glare with equal fervor as she continued. “Are you truly that blind to see what’s right in front of you?”

“For the love of—” he cut himself off, his hand automatically going up to pinch the bridge of his nose as he took a second to collect himself. “Roni, she’s the victim here!”

She snorted in derision. “The victim, right.” He threw his hands up in exasperation and she cut him off before he could retaliate. “I’m telling you Rogers, something’s really off about her. I can’t prove it and I wish I could, but I just… know there’s something not right about Eloise.” She couldn’t help but spit the name out in repulsion, her face scrunching up and a spike of anger causing her spine to go ridged. “I can feel it, Rogers; and my gut is never wrong about these things.”

“Do you hear yourself right now?!” he asked. “The girl was kidnapped and held against her will all these years. She’s got no family to lean on. No friends to turn to. She’s just trying to integrate herself back into society and you think she’s got an agenda?!” the good hand went up to roughly run through and pull at his hair; while the gloved, modern, prosthetic swiped down his face in irritation. “God Roni, I thought you better than this!”

“Rogers I’m just concerned abo—”

“Shove off!” He all but roared, his patience completely gone as he slammed his fist against the counter in a moment of blind rage. He watched as she snapped her jaw shut with an audible click, and when she made no farther move to speak, he pulled back and continued—quieter, but with no less ire than his earlier outburst. “Maybe you’re right about me being blind because clearly I’ve had the wool over my eyes when it comes to my judgment with you.” his indignation dissolved into disappointment as he regarded her. “I thought you were a good person, Roni; truly I did. I thought I could trust you, call you a friend. But evidently I was wrong.”

“Logan—”

“Just—stop.” He shook his head and pivoted to leave with a final parting word. “Until you can be an adult about this, or your moral compass starts working again; we’re done here.”

That had been a little over a month ago, just before Thanksgiving. And true to the detective’s word, she hadn’t seen nor heard from him since their big pow-wow.

Her jaw clenched and she scrubbed vigorously at the bar top to vent out some of her frustration.

She was too prideful to let it show just how much their argument had bothered her, but it did bother her. It was on par with the pain and the stress that she had been feeling since being awoken. The fear of her loved ones getting hurt if the curse were to break before she could find a solution (of her loved ones getting hurt before then too).

It hurt more than Regina ever would have thought possible, for this had been a man she had come to feel a kinship with (even more so than his puppy dog twin back home); their similar dark back stories, their love for their children urging them to give up their revenge, the struggle of being a single parent. It all had been the starting foundation for forming an easy going friendship between them. He was a man she had spent almost eleven years fighting alongside with. A man who had always had her back as much as she had always had his. And a man who had caused a whole train of confusing thoughts and feelings to derail inside her mind and heart.

To have that thrown back in her face, even if he wasn’t truly aware of what he had done, it stung.

And of course, no matter how much she tried to hide it; Tilly and Henry saw right through her. Often times during their visits, they’d not so causally drop updates on how the detective was doing. She would pretend she didn’t care, throwing a snarky comment or two out with a roll of her eyes before conversation would veer elsewhere.

Tilly had also been coming around more during the last two weeks than Henry did (she tried not to let that hurt her either); often times with her jaw ticking, biting her lip or bouncing from foot to foot while debating her next course of action. It always reminded Regina of a skittish rabbit when she’d see it, and she’d even begun to stock up on a jar or two of orange marmalade the longer Tilly came to vent to her. She too had begun to grow wary of Eloise, but mostly she worried about Rogers himself. Tilly was afraid to ask or push him, not after the blow-up (and not after the guilt Tilly still felt), but he hadn’t been looking as good lately; paler skin and prominent bags under his eyes. The younger girl was worried for him and she didn’t know how to approach him about it.

Everything was just wrong, it was the curses doing of course, but it was still very much wrong. She felt utterly helpless, and she certainly did not like feeling helpless. But without proof, without magic, there was only so much Regina could do without getting herself arrested in the process.

It all just made her desire to clean up and head to bed that much stronger.

To hope for sleep to come and unburden her dreams for a change. To forget for a moment that everything wasn’t fine. To forget that she had spent the entire Christmas Eve holiday with nothing but her two workers and the patrons with nowhere else to go for company.

She wanted the comfort that bed offered, the solace it would hopefully bring her even for a few short hours. Support that would end the moment she would get up and have to do it all over again.

To act like it was just another ordinary day.

A very lonely day.

And whose fault is that? Part of her subconscious argued while the other part firmly and stubbornly squashed it for its insubordinance.

It wasn’t her fault that the curse made him so trusting and gullible.

Yet she still felt like it was.

“Boss, want me to start bringing the cases out to restock?”

Startled, she blinked up from the glossy counter and over at Adam; the reminder that she wasn’t working alone preventing her from getting lost in her irksome melancholy thoughts again.

“No,” she answered and with a sigh—realizing the counter had been clean for some time now—she bunched the rag up and tossed it down into the soap bucket at her feet. “You and Mia go home, I’ll finish up.”

“You sure?” Adam asked; pausing mid-stride to the keg room, while Mia glanced up from putting the last of the chairs on top of the tables.

“I’m sure,” Regina urged; forcing the small smile as she finished. “Merry Christmas you two; just lock up when you leave will ya?”

“Sure thing! Merry Christmas, Roni!” Mia chirped cheerily for someone who looked dead on their feet at this late an hour.

“Merry Christmas, boss.”

As the two moved to grab their things and brave the December chill, Regina moved toward her keg room with the list in order to restock the mini fridges underneath the bar. She was just pulling down the 32 count case of Bud Light when she heard the front door again. She didn’t think anything of it, knowing Mia had a tendency to leave things behind all the time, as she moved to pull a few Smirnoff flavors and Angry Orchard cases onto the handheld trolley.

The moment she had everything, she left the room; pulling the trolley behind her and rounding the corner only to freeze at the sight before her. Rogers stood by the bar top with his back to her position, elbows cocked out in a sign that his hands were shoved in pockets and shifting occasionally from foot to foot. She inwardly smiled at how similar father and daughter were, even when cursed, before everything came crashing back to attention.

Taking a deep breath and keeping her expression blank, she pushed forward.

“What are you doing out so late… and here of all places? The door should have been locked.” She asked.

She could see him turning to face her, but she didn’t directly look at him as she passed; sparing a glance toward the dead bolts on the door to find them facing the right way.

“Adam let me in.”

She snorted in derision as she parked the trolley and bent to pick up the first case to unload. Couldn’t people just mind their own business for a change?

“Yeah, well, what are you doing here?” she repeated, too tired and grumpy to care how harsh the question came out. “Thought you weren’t speaking to me?”

Hearing one of the stools scrap against the floor, she finally looked up to acknowledge him fully as he sat down; the slightly pale pallor of his skin and the dark blotches under his eyes that Tilly and Henry had warned her about, doing nothing to ease the shock. Her jaw clenched, her teeth grinding in her anger as she once more wished she had her magic to blast the bitch into next week. Wished she had proof that Gothel was slowly killing him too. Wished the man wasn’t so infuriatingly naïve and stubborn; that he would just freaking listen to everyone and go to the damn doctors already.

And damn it all she refused to lose someone else!

“About that,” he began, and Regina focused back on him, watching as his good hand went up to scratch behind his ear; the nervous tick causing an ache that was getting harder and harder to stomach. “I’m sorry.” He stated sincerely, his eyes, made even bluer by the dark patches underneath, boring into her own. “For yelling at you and,” he reached into his zipped jacket and pulled out a thick stack of rolled papers, setting them on the surface of the counter and pushing them toward her as he finished. “For not trusting your judgment.”

Pausing in her task, she unfolded the papers and regarded him with a bit of trepidation; almost afraid to know what happened, afraid to shed light on truths she already knew.

“What’s all this?”

“That,” he sighed and gestured for her to look at them. “Are my discharge papers from the hospital and proof that I should have listened to you and your gut sooner.”

She began to flip through the sheets, trying to decipher the chicken scratch scrawled in the doctor’s notes. She didn’t get much farther than ‘small traces of poison’ before she was glancing up at him with a scowl.

“And here I thought you were volunteering at the soup kitchen with Tilly.” She shook her head and leaned against the bar top. “If you were discharged on the 23rd, you should be home resting, Logan. What possessed you to come here?”

“Like I said, I wanted to apologize…” he shrugged; his fingers on his good hand tapping against the counter as he stared at the papers. “Wouldn’t have been able to sleep otherwise.”

“Well, I’m just glad you finally listened to everyone and got yourself checked out.”

“Well…”

She glared. “It wasn’t your idea?”

“No,” he shook his head sheepishly. “It was Weaver to tell you the truth.”

“Weaver? Really?”

The expression on his face said he couldn’t believe it either. “Weaver did some digging; managed to find out that Eloise Gardner wasn’t her real name; from there he managed to find everything else. According to the birth certificate, her real name is Gloria Williams, sister to Victoria ‘Williams’ Belfrey.”

Regina could do nothing more than stare in astonishment, her eyebrows shooting up in her surprise and wondering just how in the hell Rumpelstiltskin managed to accomplish that; not that she wasn’t grateful. Nor should she be all that surprised either.

Always up to something that one.

“He found plenty of lawsuits and worker complaints for the William estate,” He continued. “Gloria had been kept a family secret after an incident with rat poisoning left a maid hospitalized when she was five.” He ruffled his hand through is hair and leaned farther against the counter, and Regina moved to grab a water bottle from the mini fridge for him while she listened. “There had been a few other incidents over the years—which explains the lawsuits and complaints—but the one when she was thirteen threatened to have her sent to a psychiatric hospital. Hence why she ran away.” He shook his head. “How she managed to go that long without anyone in the foster system questioning it, I’ll never know. My guess is someone in Victoria’s family found her eventually and forced her back home. I don’t like how it was all handled but I’m starting to wonder…”

“You did what you thought was right, Logan. You’re a good cop and a good man.”

“And blind evidently.”

“Well, I’m not going to argue with that.” She teased before leaning over to touch his arm and get him to look back up at her. “You’re human, Logan, a human with a bleeding heart that I both admire and feel compelled to worry about. But that’s why you have friends to look out for you.”

“I’m so sorry Roni, for everything.” he told her remorsefully.

“I’m just glad you’re alright, but please tell me she’s locked up and not hiding out somewhere.”

“Weaver went and got her himself.”

“Good.” she nodded, patted his arm once, and leaned back to finish her earlier task.

A comfortable silence descended upon them and a weight on her shoulders lifted. It felt bizarre with how much she had come to rely on his presence, not knowing how much she truly did until she didn’t have him to turn to. She was just glad it was one less thing to worry about now, and she hoped it would allow her to focus on the important tasks ahead of them if they were to survive.

“You know,” she piped up as she emptied the last of the cases into the fridge. “You really ought to be home resting.”

“I should.” he made no move to stand. “But… I also don’t want to spend the rest of the holiday alone either.”

Breaking down the cardboard boxes, she regarded him carefully; seeing the open honesty on his face as she mulled over how to respond.

“I guess the floor can be mopped tomorrow.” She breathed out, her eyes clashing with his and causing a shiver to run down her spine. “Care to join me for a glass of Eggnog?”

The easy, almost shy smile he gave her as he responded with an “I’d like that,” mirrored itself on her own face as she led him up the spiral stairs to her apartment.

Maybe she had a little holiday spirit in her after all.