just wanted to pop in and say that iāve come back to reread alterity many, many times over the years (i first discovered it sometime during highschoolā iām several years out of college undergrad now) and itās been incredibly fundamental in my appreciation for good worldbuilding. you guys have created a rich, fantastical world that still manages to feel grounded in reality. hoenn has always been very near and dear to my heart purely for how much time i spent running around exploring the region as a kid, and youāve really managed to capture that same feeling of wonder and intrigue in the lore youāve built here.
regardless of whether or not the comic is updated going forward, thank you for all the love and hard work youāve put into it over the years! truly one of the greatest pokemon fanworks out there, in my humble opinion.
Thanks so much for the kind words, they made my day. Iām so happy that Alterity was able to inspire you and still brings you joy. Thereās a lot Iād change about the pacing if I were to redo it from scratch, but Iām still proud of the worldbuilding. The Pokemon world has such rich possibilities and it was incredibly fun to explore and expand on them. Super happy that you enjoyed the outcome too.
Unfortunately I no longer have 15-30 extra hours per week to pour into comic-making, and weāre not quite to the point where I can magically transplant the story straight from my brain to the Internet.
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i know itāll be a second until this can be discussed publicly, but iām still so giddy after reading chapter 7 that i had to come yell into the void of your inbox just to get my thoughts out somewhere. i donāt know if it was intentional or not, but evoking the allusion to (canon) tigerstar with āi was darkstripe of thunderclan, and i have a proposition for youā in the prologue, setting the reader up for darkstripe to fill a similar role as his mentor did as an antagonistā only for him to die slowly, horrifically, and entirely offscreen? chefās kiss. beautiful. masterfully done. heās such a flop that he doesnāt even get to have page space dedicated to the iconic death scene that tigerstar had. he truly was destined to live and die entirely eclipsed by tigerclawās shadow. that is, assuming he *is* dead and not alive so we can kick him while heās down one last time.
either way, i bet taking orders from a kittypet was starting to sound like a reallll sweet deal there for him.
I saved this ask because I adore it. This speaks to Darkstripe's doomed destiny better than I ever could. I can't even top it with a snazzy response, really.
re: tigerclaw and potential improvements, while i certainly wouldāve loved to see more of him in the redux, i would also argue that we as readers were given a very similar view of him that his clanmates wouldāve had. heās silent, stoic and somewhat detached from the other characters around him, aside from goldenflower and then later fireheartā and even then, tigerclaw really only opens up to him near the end. there are moments where we can see his opposition to helping out the other clans, but itās always in line with the indifferent attitude of thunderclan as a whole. i personally think itās a very fitting portrayal given weāre meant to view this world through the perspective of fireheart, who was entirely unsuspecting of his adoptive father until he couldnāt deny the evidence any longer.
not to say that thereās no room for improvement of course, just throwing my own two cents in since tigerclaw and his motivations are some of what i love best about the redux. i also think itās a unique position to be in as a reader, since readers of the redux are likely already familiar with the source material and can piece together where things are going once redtail is pushed into the gorge by that ārogueā. iād be very curious to hear what someone unfamiliar with canon thinks of him and the whole murder mystery aspect of the story!
This is fair! It's something I don't really have an answer to when I think about Tigerclaw. I don't know how differently I could have written him when, like you said, he is a very stoic and quiet character. I know there's a way, I just can't find it.
As for that last comment: a friend of mine is reading Iterum as someone who has never read the canon books before and has only heard snippets of my social circle bitching about them. And...
in light of bluestar and oakclaw's reunion in the epilogue up on patreon and the implication that starclan has no ill-will toward their relationship; i wonder if firestar has earned horoa's blessing specifically *because* of his strong morals standing in stark opposition to thunderclan's isolationist ideals/the beliefs of the clans as a whole. little man really has the potential be one of the most unifying forces the forest has ever seen. he's got the stars on his side, at the very least
I'll say that Horoa took an immediate liking to Firestar as soon as that little kittypet hit his radar, and he's been keeping a close eye on him since. Firestar has no idea, obviously, but he's being observed and supported by someone much more powerful than him.
man. i really do love the way youāve handled tigerclawā heās still a bastard, but heās a bastard who GENUINELY thinks heās doing right by his clan, his family. the shift in motivation from āi want to conquer the whole forest as a tyrannical dictatorā to āi want to isolate thunderclan from its neighbors so it can be restored to itās former glory and flourishā is WAY more impactful, imo. i also think thereās something to be said about how heās (maybe) willing to exempt fireheartā whose entire character has been about BUILDING bridges between thunderclan and the rest of the forestā from his hitlist and make a hypocrite of himself because he and goldenflower have a fondness for him. i choose to believe that tigerclaw is still proud of the way fireheart stands up for what he believes in, even if it is conflicting with his own goals.
tldr; loving the direction of this so far. thank you guys for all your hard work!! looking forward to my heart continually being broken in the future <3
Figured answering these two together would be ideal.
Itās excellent to hear the enthusiasm and kind words, thank you! Iāve been stowing away this discussion about Tigerclaw and Fireheart for a while, and now I get to blather!
People have brought up that Tigerclaw choosing not to hurt Fireheart is unusual, since Fireheartās the one thatās soft to outsiders and has been on track to softening the entire Clan as well, and Tigerclaw is against that. The reason for this requires a bit of a tangent.
Tigerclaw initially was a bit emotionally distant with all his Clanmates, save Goldenflower (for the most part). Not in the sense of āI donāt care about any of youā, but more like āI care about you, but Iām not so attached that I canāt kill you to save everyone elseā. Heās had the thought in his mind for years that he could be a better leader than the one everyone already loves, that these cats had impaired judgement and couldnāt do what needs to be done, that he didnāt want to commit to having a family because that could get in the way of his silent and righteous crusade. He cared for his Clanmates, but his heart was careful not to get too close to anyone, even, to a very small extent, Goldenflower. What if he needed to put her out of the way too?
And then Fireheart happened.
Initially, Tigerclaw didnāt care about him. Itās some kittypet who has a tiny bit of potential. Big whoop. He was under the category of āto be Handled if he gets too uppity and does the wrong thingā, and Tigerclaw expected heād stay there forever. That was fine and easy, even if Goldenflower got attached to him. He could kill Lionface if he needed to, why would he be unable to take out a shrimpy outsider just because his mate likes him?
The thing is, Fireheartās got this annoying little talent of drawing out peopleās kindness and affection without even trying. Weāve seen his own gentle, broad love for everyone around him, even those he just met and knows nothing about beyond them needing help from a stranger. He is overflowing goodness and fondness and empathy in a somewhat compact ginger body, and you canāt break that or scare that out of him. And somehow, with that infallible bravery to keep being kind and polite, he manages to worm his way into the core of another cat and soothingly convince them, even unconsciously, to offer a nice word to someone they donāt like, or maybe ask a Clanmate if theyāre doing okay when they think they donāt care, or even just blink trustingly to calm a frightened and starving outsider they should be chasing away. Itās difficult to catch him doing it, but as weāll see in the rest of the series, itās a gradual, unstoppable infection.
This talent is what made everyone (well, except for Darkstripe, but he doesnāt like anybody) so fond of him, even if they preemptively think heās just a dumb kittypet who needs to toughen up. Frostfur is a good example: she went from apathy and disdain to offering him silent support when he brought Cloudkit home and actively partaking in conversation with him when he approached her, just over the course of this book. All he had to do was, like I said, be kind and polite, and he gradually broke down even her walls. Charred Legacy, the next book, will go more into this, so Iāll save the details for now, but my point is that Fireheart is really damn good at making his Clanmates and friends care about him and others.
How troubling (and mildly amusing) it was to Tigerclaw to find that he wasnāt exempt from this. And how amazed he was to find that coming to care for this little outsider his mate was eager to adopt opened up a whole new world for him. Maybe having kits wasnāt so bad. Maybe he could be a father and still do what he needed to do, and maybe his family didnāt need to get hurt in the process. Maybe Goldenflower was more precious to him than he realized, and maybe Fireheart was someone he could see as a son, and be proud to do so.
What Tigerclaw failed to account for is that attachment complicates things. You might have to kill someone ā but no, now you come up with excuses not to. Theyāre just misguided, you can fix them with a couple conversations. You donāt have to take them out. Theyāre your family! And your family is important! Surely you can let them live, just these particular cats. You can change their minds. Theyāll understand and appreciate your goal in time. Itāll be just fine, you know it.
And so it went, deeper and deeper, until his twisted mind was able to justify not hurting Fireheart ever, solely because heās his son, and his son deserves to live no matter what. In the same way he thought of his more ādangerousā Clanmates as a liability even if they didnāt really do anything wrong, he thought of his mate and son as essential to ThunderClan, even if they went against his ideals.
He never did see the hypocrisy in that. And even to the end, he never even dreamed of hurting Fireheart.
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