No Fever in this Fortress

I greatly enjoyed Patrick McHale’s Over the Garden Wall, though I admit his style is not my first choice for a Redwall adaptation.

However, his writing is suitable to reach the darkness and understated MAGIC in the Redwall stories, in a way I fear other cartoon creators would’ve paved over with something more sugarcoated.

Evil Races

This is a problem for traditional fantasy as a whole, and it’s been awesome to see a conversation finally starting to take shape and effect some change around the concept, subverting and remaking it better. The problem is—and of course I never thought of this before, I was a little kid when I was in the thick of my Redwall phase and I’m white besides and never had to have any hard conversations or thoughts about race topics growing up—that the Evil Races in Redwall are pretty much central to the architecture of the world. “Vermin” (rats, stoats, ferrets, weasels, foxes, the occasional wolverine or wildcat or snake or other predator animal) are evil, and “woodland beasts” (mice, moles, otters, voles, shrews, squirrels, hares, badgers, hedgehogs) are good. Birds and fish are usually neutral, reptiles usually evil, et cetera.

There are in-universe exceptions to the rule, and in-universe failures to subvert the expectation of the rule (Outcast of Redwall, anyone?), but I can’t see how the Redwall series can pass muster without making huge changes. All the Redwall villains are great—Cluny the Scourge is a major badass, and the Marlfoxes are dangerous and cool and mysterious, and a dozen other warlords and manipulators and tacticians—but it does follow that Racial Moral Dichotomy, and that’s problematic. As mind-blowingly excited as I am for this, I am also uneasy. Because if they don’t address it and keep true to the source material, that’s a failure to adapt to its audience and overcome the inherent weakness in the Redwall world. If they try to justify it or over-correct, it could fall really, really flat, or worse, be even more problematic.

I would totally be up for a TV adaptation of Redwall close to the tone and style of the Game of Thrones TV series.

A lot of content in the Redwall books were left unexplored in the Nelvana adaptation, due to the show being marketed towards children, and also time and budget constraints.

I would love to see a Redwall TV adaptation with: Large-scale battles, scrumptious food design, songs and poetry performed in-story, and the addition of missing supporting characters that added wholeness to the world.

Why? Because the creator of Over the Garden Wall is adapting Redwall books into a animated TV series and movie for Netflix

Basil is an Actual Jackalope. He chills around the abbey after shedding his antlers and mysteriously disappears the rest of the year. In the the early months of his growth he can sometimes be spotted wearing random hats (or bowls. Or flower pots.) to hide the nubs.

Matthias’ cottage is loaded with sheds. The abbey has a chandelier of them. No one quite knows where all these antlers are coming from, but they all have their own ideas.

Basil is an Actual Jackalope. He chills around the abbey after shedding his antlers and mysteriously disappears the rest of the year. In the the early months of his growth he can sometimes be spotted wearing random hats (or bowls. Or flower pots.) to hide the nubs.

Matthias’ cottage is loaded with sheds. The abbey has a chandelier of them. No one quite knows where all these antlers are coming from, but they all have their own ideas.

I- am that cold.

week two was absolutely amazing- well done writers!! week three starts on the 18th! any late additions will be added, just tell me when you post yours. these fics are so wonderful, here they are:

week one of redwall fic month is officially over and week two has begun. below are all of the wonderful fics written for week one! this list will be updated as more week one fics are posted. 

Song #118: The Abbey Walls Based on: ‘Redwall Theme’ by Jack Procher & Daniel Fernandez Album: Covers Originally Created: October 2014 Duration: 01:21

2014 was a slow year in music for me. Due to not having access to a MIDI keyboard in my dorm, there were a few months when I didn’t have any practice at all. Then, during sembreak, when my best friend introduced me to the Redwall series, my parents got me a portable keyboard.

Put the two together. This was the first song I made with the mini keyboard, which I used to make all succeeding songs from then.

@gryphonfingers @walk-in-sunshine @hebrewprincess91 @melly1 @redwallthoughts @scary-grace @sneakymistermustelid

Thank you for signing up! just a reminder that there are only three days left to post your week 1 fic (themes can be found HERE and the AO3 collection to post them to is HERE).

If you’re daunted, remember that it only has to be over 100 words, which isn’t long at all. I wrote mine in one sitting!

So, as I type this, it’s the last day of July! August is upon is and I wanted to do something special in the fandom during the upcoming month. There are less than a hundred Redwall fanfictions up on AO3, and I think we should change that.

August will be Redwall Fic Month! You can sign up to be a writer HERE, and the AO3 collection is up HERE(or just search ‘redwall’ when looking for collections, run by me - the account is under the name of my main tumblr blog, belkittykelly.

Everybody who signs up will be writing five fics, one per week. The dates of the weeks you have to write your fics are here:

1-5

6-12

13-19

20-26

27-31

The fics do not have to be long, just over 100 words each.

I think this will be a great, fun opportunity to increase the amount of Redwall fics up on AO3! Please sign up, it won’t be a lot of work and there’s absolutely no pressure- if you don’t finish in time, just ask for an extension and I’ll keep the collection open. But, if you really don’t have time, I completely understand. Please reblog this even if you can’t sign up, because some of your followers might want to!