#textwall

so in my oc world, humans are dead dude to global warming, marine animals, become the dominant species and evolve to look more humanlike, and species are basically treated like races right ? this is just like basic info ok

here are my oc designs btw (in order these are thalassa, skyler, and angla ok angla's the main one remember that now)

so basically anglerfish were treated like black / darkskinned people, which obviously led to racism and shit

and this led to skyler creating a political party where everyone would be treated equally, this goal was achieved, and skyler had alot of power in the government, unfortunately, this sense of power made the party slowly deteriorate into communist stuff, and eventually became a cult, skyler exploiting others through her power and appearance (by appearance, i mean stuff like "oh i have two antennas that means im the chosen one) and revolved around the belief of "everyone is equal but me"

due to this, some other powerful dudes *OBVIOUSLY opposed this, however, the debate had gotten so bad that it ended in a huge war, in this war, people launched nukes and caused genocide to the anglerfish, so no other anglerfish were alive other than skyler and her sister, again skyler had gotten insane from the feeling of control so she murders her sister, steals her kid and forms a plan

said plan is, if she raises those kids to kill specifically people like criminals and bad people, the people in charge of the world will forgive her, she rises in power again and WORLD DOMINATION !!!!!!!!

so angla and thalassa's life is pretty much just staying hidden and killing others assigned by skyler over and over and over again, until this happens

turns out, the people in charge somehow knew about skyler's plan, and they were planning to wipe out all three of them

so they send a raid to angla, thalassa, and skyler's shelter, skyler and angla manage to survive, killing everyone in the raid, but as for thalassa....she got shot in the neck and died :(

after this, angla and skyler IMMEDIATELY find somewhere else to shelter, skyler already knows that her plan has completely failed, she sends angla on a mission, just for angla to come back and find skyler hanging herself

furthermore, angla flees that shelter after seeing skyler's body bound on the ceiling.

angla now, gathers police evidence and collects names and addresses from lists, hunts those people down, and kills them, because that's the only thing she ever knew how to do, all while staying hidden from the government so she doesnt get shot down,

BONUS INFO

thalassa knew about skyler's actions, she was a worse assassin than angla on PURPOSE, told the government in secret, and died just to spite skyler

skyler is middle-aged, angla is 14-15 and thalassa is 18, although angla acts like a child due to the circumstances in when she was raised

angla sometimes will get so starved, that she eats her victims after killing them, she maybe could've eaten thalassa's body after she dies

thalassa and skyler exist sort of like tulpas (NOT WESTERN TULPAMANCY) or souls inside her mind

there is no reincarnation after the tenth realm, that's it. when the tenth realm resets, and it will eventually, everyone in it is erased.

there is hope... after the reset. before then things are too stuck in their ways unfortunately

ive spoken abt this with reed i think but sinners do have influence, and can give the same knowledge and power of the virtues, but there is a hefty cost to going the route of the sinner in that department. aka being blasted with secrets of the universe and possibly causing your mortal vessel to implode and degrade

there might be other creators. perhaps ;)

the almighty did create every realm, yes

well if the almighty made the world who made the ulmighty? theres a thinker for ye /ref

how many gods exist in folklore, how many temples to them have been erected? also yea they're sentient

the human realm is the basis, so ig it has the most free will? think of it more as generational trauma. your past life did a bad, so you are affected by the bad and can choose to propagate it or break out of it

:shrug: idk abt a karma system yet, think more for ur placement as a game score. did good thing, score goes up, bad thing score goes down.... ig it is like karma. huh

tldr: I think Yangchen did what she could while with a human bias & u can’t criticize Yangchen’s approach with the spirits without criticizing Kuruk’s.

While I do recognize that Yangchen’s approach with spirit matters was flawed, there wasn’t inaction on her part: she was actively mediating spirit-human relations and had policies to curb humans. While it was said she favored humans I believe it is more so she would protect humans when spirit activity turns violent (like saving people from a tsunami that was the result of environmental deterioration)

the decision she made was ultimately human-centric. There are a lot of parallels between her way of handling spirit-human relations and irl policy around environment-human interactions & she to me is inherently a flawed figure of power who is to an extent idolized and falsely idealized.

could she have done more? yes. However to me she did what she could as a single entity of power without inciting uprising or inviting disdain —— which will interfere with her doing her avatar duties, since people will definitely accuse her of being unfair if she were to dole out harsher sentences even if she was being fair to the spirits. those in power would not be above assassinating an avatar if it comes to that if the novels r any indication

also a personal hc: I think she largely managed spirit unrest during her time with compromise & negotiations with spirits + suppression & management of human activities that caused it. after she passed the human activity went unchecked due to her absence and that’s y when Kuruk’s time came spirit unrest was greatly exacerbated and about to boil over into the human world.

Kuruk’s approach with the spirits was essentially slash salt and burn, but the fact that his first instinct in dealing with spiritual matter was that has to do with him being a hunter and possibly his northern water tribe heritage them sexist mfs could only be teaching Kuruk, a male bender, combat focused bending

still, my point with that is: it boggles my mind how quickly people blame Yangchen for Kuruk sustaining spiritual damage from the way he dealt with spirits. Both dealt with spirits in flawed ways, but the problem with spirits has been a long running one; the cause of this problem imo has always been humans being careless and entitled with spiritual dealings. Both wanted to protect humans, one went with trimming and guiding, one went with ripping out the root

Before I get into the nitty-gritty, I want to briefly talk about my personal relationship with Warriors - not because I want to talk about myself necessarily, but because I want to provide some relevant context. You see, I was first introduced to these books in 2004, about when I was nine years old. You could argue, in some ways, that these books defined a large part of my childhood, and were extremely influential into my teenage years and early adulthood. When I wasn’t fantasizing about colonies of talking feral cats, I was gleefully writing fanfics and roleplaying online. Those were my first tentative forays into writing, and would ultimately set me on the path to refine and hone those skills in the years to come. I was obsessed with the mythology and lore of this world, with the sprawling cast of characters, with the steady publication of new entries into the series.

Now, kids tend to not have the best critical thinking skills. Which is why it took until my late teenage years to realize that my cherished books were really, really not that great. The mythology and lore that I’d praised were starved of any creativity, steeped in the cliches of the fantasy genre, and prone to collapsing under their own weight when subjected to even the smallest amount of scrutiny. The characters that I adored? They were blighted with similar cliches, lacking in any sort of growth or development or depth; sustained only by archetypes and whatever retcons the authors thought would sell the most books, either through hype, drama, or fanservice. Exacerbating all of this was the publisher’s insistence on milking the franchise for whatever profit nostalgia could still yield. They weren’t writing more books because they had new, interesting ideas they wanted to explore - they did it because this series was (and still is) fucking lucrative. As I thought about these things more critically, and became more informed on social issues, it became impossible to unsee the uglier aspects of the franchise - the ableism, the queerbaiting and lack of representation, the depiction of minors and adults (Dustpelt and Ferncloud, Thistleclaw and Spottedleaf) having romantic or sexual relationships, the blind nationalism and eugenics/persecution of minorities (non-Clanborn cats) and characters of mixed descent (half-Clan cats). People far more informed and far more eloquent than myself have discussed those issues in-depth elsewhere, but suffice to say, I was understandably upset by these things. No amount of nostalgia could blind me to those flaws.

And yet, for some reason, I never really stopped loving Warriors. Or put more accurately - I never stopped loving the potential of Warriors. That was the thing that I kept coming back to. The wasted potential of a series depicting the lives of feral cats, and their brutal struggle to survive in the wilderness, all the while deeply immersed in their own complex societies and cultures. It became painfully clear to me that the thing I loved about Warriors was the sandbox nature of the franchise, and all the ways fans were able to explore that untapped potential. With that realization now achieved, Warriors slipped into the back of my mind, accruing cobwebs as the years passed. Occasionally those dormant thoughts stirred whenever I saw a piece of fanart on my dashboard, or I passed a new release while browsing the local Barnes & Noble. Sometimes I even entertained the fleeting thought of writing AU fics again. But by and large, Warriors had been retired from my thoughts.

And then, in 2017, I found the Redux.

While writing this segment I had several false starts, in no small part because I didn’t know what to talk about first. It was like someone had gone through my thoughts with a steel-toothed comb, and took every disappointment, every what if, and turned it into a reality. Holy shit, look at this blog! Look at the meta commentary! Look at all of the worldbuilding! I could clearly see just how much passion and attention to detail was put into developing the plot and the characters. How many hundreds of hours went into correcting the broken genetics of the canon characters. Suddenly, the Clans had culture - real, living, breathing culture! There was a pantheon of deities and demigods. A deliberate intention behind the naming tradition beyond slapping two words together because they sounded pretty or made for a trite pun. This. This was the story Warriors should have been. This lone blog managed to conceive an original lore for the Clans, while further developing the canon plots beyond their base elements. What three authors failed to do, one person achieved on their own.

You made forgettable characters interesting. And you made interesting characters unforgettable.

I lived for every scrap of content you created - the asks, the deconstructions, the amendment posts, the art, even the fucking shitposts (because they were just genuinely wholesome and funny). The Redux wasn’t just a source of entertainment, either - it introduced me to the idea of writing an AU that was sustained by meta-analysis, and grounded in critical reception of the series’ flaws (both technical and social). Your work eventually inspired me to create my own Redux-style worldbuilding/AU blog for a series that has similar issues to canon Warriors.

The Redux deserves all the praise it gets, and you should be extremely proud of what you’ve accomplished. Even if the Third Arc wasn’t finished or the Fourth started, it was still a helluva ride, one that I’m so glad I got to participate in.

But, of course, you asked for feedback, so I can’t spend the entirety of this post throwing roses at your feet. So, onto the constructive feedback.

I think a lot of my thoughts are going to echo what other people have previously said, but for me, the biggest setbacks in the Redux were the following:

[1] Pacing. This is going to sound weird, but this isn’t a criticism of the Redux’s length. Rather, it’s more about how that time was spent. While I really like how you adjusted aspects of the Redux’s plot in order to still tangentially align with the books’, it sometimes felt like the chapters were there just to connect points A and B. I knew this was a retelling of the original series, so I already had a vague idea of what the general storybeats would be. What appealed to me was how the story would get to those points. Let me give you an example: in Arc 1, we’re told in chapter 10 that Murkpelt is roaming the territories, and poses a threat to the Clans. Immediately in chapter 11 we’re taken to the scene where Firepaw finds her while escorting Spottedleaf. We’re told about ThunderClan’s efforts to track her prior, and about the looming tension in the wake of this invisible threat. But that’s the thing - we’re told that by the narration in just a paragraph or two. We’re not shown what that looks like. The setup is supposed to be everyone being on edge, but Bluestar’s lounging by the stump when the scene begins. It’s a little dissonant, and it has the unfortunate problem of contradicting the narration. It would’ve been so cool to see a chapter or two where Firepaw’s still trying to immerse himself into Clan life, and his questions are met with terse answers or impatience. Undercut his (and the reader’s) learning with other characters being brusque with him, or short-tempered, or something. And then that could lead into Greypaw or Ravenpaw consoling him and explaining why the situation is so serious. Then Firepaw could ask something like, “Have there ever been instances like this before with rogues?” Which could organically lead to a conversation where Greypaw or Ravenpaw bring up relevant lore/worldbuilding. It’s little stuff like that which would’ve helped with immersion and pacing. I think it would have balanced the two out, by providing pseudo-downtime where the audience experiences the world as the characters do. (If that makes sense.) Or, to provide another example: we never get to see Tres Idiots mentoring Snowpaw. In chapters 5 and 6 of Arc 3, we see Raventhroat struggling to develop a signing system he can use with his apprentice; and then, after a few chapters he’s perfectly narrating the Bright-Eyed Crow to Snowpaw. I think that showing us scenes where the two were actually working out the kinks would have done more to develop Raventhroat’s character arc. He went from being a meek, timid apprentice to an eloquent warrior, and him becoming a mentor is supposed to be a definite part of that journey. It would’ve have been so cool to have plot-relevant scenes broken up by smaller ones where we watch Raventhroat gain confidence through each small success he makes with his apprentice. I’m not sure if I’m conveying exactly what I want to say, but I guess the TL;DR would be something like - I would’ve gladly welcomed either more chapters, or longer ones, if it meant we got more scenes like this.

[2] Utilization of the worldbuilding. You mentioned this already in response to another ask, but if you could go back and change anything, it would be incorporating more lore/adhering the Redux to its lore more strongly. Your worldbuilding is perhaps the strongest part of the Redux by far. You gave us a conlang, traditions, folk stories, Clan stereotypes - so much fascinating material - but it feels like its integration was based solely on whether or not it was relevant to the plot at hand. Unless there was a reason why it was brought up, then we’d never get to see a ThunderClan cat freaking out near a ShadowClan seer and refusing to approach them at a Gathering. Or listen to Mistfoot share a poem with Greystripe and Fireheart (after being goaded into it by Silverstream). Or watch as Redtail politely interrupts the elders and asks for their opinion on an important matter. Or listen to the Clan getting together after a loved one dies and share stories about their life. Or watch as Sandpaw/Dustpaw use their age and seniority over Firepaw to terrorize him with stories of Yrrun and Terror. On one hand, I absolutely understand why a lot of lore was relegated exclusively to the Amendment section - it’s important to strike a balance between what’s interesting versus what’s relevant. You don’t wanna just throw worldbuilding trivia at the audience apropos of nothing. On the other hand, I really wish I’d seen a much larger integration of your worldbuilding into the story, because it’s so fascinating and so god damn good.

[3] Utilization of the characters. One of the things you tweaked, that I absolutely loved, was choosing to introduce Silverpaw in Arc 1 at a Gathering. Not only does it create a realistic basis for her friendship with Tres Idiots, but it fixes the canon’s issue of her saving Greystripe out of nowhere and then developing a relationship on that alone. That was fucking great! Same thing with Rainpath - it was so awesome for Fireheart to get a friend in another Clan (ShadowClan, of all Clans). It broke the mold, and their interactions were just delightful. But outside of those examples, sometimes it kinda felt like the side characters didn’t really exist? I remember an old piece of writing advice, but I can’t recall who it’s attributed to: “Treat your side characters like they think they’re the main characters.” Because they absolutely are. I might be some passing stranger in another person’s life, barely a blip on their radar, but I have my own vibrant story. Everyone does. In the Redux, it sometimes felt like minor or side characters weren’t living their own lives outside of their interactions with Fireheart and his friends. Mousefur’s the most fluent speaker of Fang in ThunderClan? Cool. How did she learn that skill? Who taught her? Does she have a friend in WindClan who’s been teaching her new words at Gatherings, or whenever they happen to cross paths while on border patrols near Four Trees? Not only is that character trivia interesting, but it could provide foreshadowing/become relevant later on. When the Clans meet to discuss how to deal with the dogs in Arc 3, perhaps someone suggests having their most fluent Fang speakers act as interpreters/diplomats, and try to broker some sort of peace/understanding with the dogs. Things like that. Basically, it would’ve been nice if Fireheart’s life intersected more with the goings-on of his Clanmates, or if his own goals/agenda were sometimes inconvenienced by the goals/agenda of others.

I think those are my major criticisms. More integration of lore, a slower/steadier pace that accommodates showing over telling, and finding ways to have the personal lives of minor characters interact with the story. Maybe adding in some additional subplots that are congruent with the main plots, and occur simultaneously, in order to keep chapters busy. That sort of thing. I hope what I provided wasn’t overwhelming in any way, and ends up being useful for either the Redux or any of your other writing projects.

As an aside, thank you. For creating this humble niche community within an even larger fandom. For asking for feedback from your readers. For being someone who makes mistakes, but eventually endeavors to learn from them, and ultimately, become a better person. I know this sounds kinda sappy, but I really do mean it. <3