#ths liveread

Glitch - He/She - 24

General xenofiction sideblog ^^ was originally a Warriors blog but while it's still that, I wanted to branch out. Other topics include Wings of Fire, The Underneath, Several Indie Cat Comics (What Lurks Beneath, Waves Always Crash, I Didn't Know, The Exiled, etc) aaand trying to expand my pallete beyond that, always appreciate recommendations <3

Main Blog: @glitchfang

Design Blog: @batsight (currently inactive sorryyy)

I will not lie. Dovewing was there and it boosted my ranking by a lot

To be honest, I think I'm a bit of an outlier when it comes to WC fans, cause I actually sorta like the travel books. I dunno, I always kinda enjoy a little adventure where the cats interact with human stuff. It's cute to me, it reminds me of pet xenofiction and it's the closest WC ever gets to this sorta thing. They definitely have a pacing problem, and I felt that in this book, but they're not the worst things ever to me.

I liked Tigerheart getting stuck on a train and all the cats needing to deal with the train tracks (and calling trains "thundersnakes" was really cute) and I liked a lot of the city stuff. The guardian cats were a really neat group and I'm glad we spent a lot of time on them, they're lovely. I also really enjoyed Spiresight as a character. Sometimes you just gotta enjoy a weird girlie with visions (and I've subscribed to the theory that he's Tadpole btw. That scene where he grabs Pouncekit while she's hanging over the ledge with such ferocity, mirroring how Tadpole died pushing Moth up the ledge in canon... aughhhh)

The entire first part of the book with Tigerheart in ShadowClan was also really good. I love the parallel between him and Dovewing where they both felt suffocated by their clans' expectations of them and cracked.

Dovewing's treatment will always bother me but I did like her here a lot. You go girl get OUTTA there!!! Everyone acting like she just had a goofy little anxiety dream when she was literally a prophecy cat... Grrrr bite bite grrrrrrrrrr. It really puts into perspective how despite what her sister and the fandom preaches, no one actually respects Dovewing and her feelings and they're quick to dismiss it all as being "stuck in her own head". Her interactions with Tigerheart and their kits were really precious and I loved most of their scenes Besides the ones where Tigerheart was being weird, which brings me to...

... Erins "learn how to have clan cats be normal about outsiders/at least come to respect them" challenge. Failed immediately. Why does Tigerheart feel suffocated by his clan to the point where he decides to join Dovewing super quickly and looks for a reason to join when he feels forced to stay in ShadowClan, only to get to the city and be like "well let's go back to ShadowClan honey. What, you didn't actually think I wanted to come out here, did you?" And then the ending has him like "No wait I kinda wanna stay dead because leading ShadowClan is scawy" and like he's allowed to have conflicting feelings but it read like he just swapped motivations when the plot needed him to. Not to mention how rude he is to the guardian cats and forcing his customs onto them (and this being portrayed as a good thing and evidence he's a fantastic leader) I think it'd make more sense if he wanted to stay in the city with Dovewing and felt comfortable with the guardian cats, but he felt restless and guilty for ditching Rowanstar, and when Spiresight gives him the warning then he suddenly folds. Like cmon, at least PRETEND you respect outside groups for a moment before turning your main protag into a spokesperson for how superior this dystopian- i mean euphoric society he llives in is and how everyone ever should shut up and conform to it or else you're an idiot who deserves to get beat up.