A Retrospective on the Warrior Cats fandom

 

Right off the bat, you may be confused. Warrior Cats? Maybe you've heard of the series. Maybe, like me, you're a childhood fan with a lot of nostalgia and fondness for the series, even if you think it went off the rails later on. Or, maybe you're scratching your head, unsure of what I'm going on about.

Warrior Cats is a long-running series about feral cat clans living in the wild and dealing with decidedly non-cat problems, such as racism, abuse, religion, and magical powers. (No, that last one isn't a joke, though I kind of wish it was.) The books were originally written by three creators under the pen name of Erin Hunter. Victoria Holmes, who came up with the ideas and wrote a few side stories, and the writers Cherith Baldry and Kate Cary, both of whom are still involved in the process to this day, despite Vicky retiring and the creative decisions now being made by Working Partners. 

The first series, retroactively known as The Prophecies Begin, follow a kittypet (house cat) named Rusty, who becomes an apprentice in the struggling ThunderClan. He makes friends, makes enemies, rises to prominence, and gets entangled in trying to defeat the evil Tigerclaw, conspiring against their leader Bluestar to gain power. From there, the books follow Rusty's (now known as Firestar's) bloodline, Tigerstar's bloodline, and later on, the viewpoint in cats from the other four clans- the sinister ShadowClan, the swift WindClan, the graceful RiverClan, and the recently rebuilt SkyClan. The Clans follow a very strict code of laws (aptly named the Warrior Code), worship their ancestors in StarClan, have xenophobic tendencies toward outsiders, and practice archaic herbal medicine based on old British apocathary guides. They have specific naming systems involving prefixes and suffixes, with rules that boil down to "must be things the cats know". The names range from Graystripe, to Runningwind, to Twigbranch, to Billystorm, and all are valid in-universe. The exceptions are kits, apprentices, and leaders, who all have the -kit, -paw-, and -star suffixes, respectively. 

Sound complicated? Are you following? No? I wouldn't blame you. Actually reading the books is a much different experience from having them explained on a random blog, and for the kids who read it, we all understood these things perfectly. Well, sort of... Enough to create our own stories, at least.

The first arc ran from 2003 to 2004. At this time, the internet was starting to boom, and kids were beginning to meet up on various websites. I've already discussed the phenomenon that was Neopets, but other websites were beginning to pop up, too. YouTube wasn't far behind, and DeviantArt already existed. The earliest recorded appearance of the official forums was captured in 2009, and at that point, the book series was incredibly popular. Kids all around the world created fan art, fan videos and animations, and now had a place to talk about the books together. But they didn't just talk. Roleplaying was a very prominent part of fan culture, and the roleplays existed on those forums. But what was the fan culture even like?

Like every fan culture back in the day, people made their Original Characters, and the edgier the better. We all had our edgy warrior's OC phase. They all had a very distinct style and backstory- from spiky, dyed, human-like hair, to unrealistic fur colors, to names like Bloodclaw, Deathwish, and Shadowheart. Hilariously, the books themselves sort of encouraged this behavior with the introduction of Scourge. Scourge was a former kittypet named Tiny, who was bullied by his bigger siblings into running away. He was almost killed by an apprentice Tigerstar, but eventually rose to prominence in the Twolegplace, creating an army known as BloodClan and wearing a distinct collar studded with dog's teeth. Scourge was the poster child for the edgy fandom culture, so it's no surprise that so many of these OCs also made use of BloodClan. Some of them were Scourge's mate, other were his kits, and others still were his even-more-evil successor. 

The thumbnail to Bright Guardian Akira's Edgy OC video, a brilliant and hilarious parody of the whole concept.

The other common OC trend was the Mary Sue. A despised phrase nowadays, the Mary Sue is a character so overly perfect and shilled that they become unrealistic and unliked by the audience. I'm not making fun of kids' character creation skills, because so many of my characters also fit into this model, and I'm instead just looking back on the trend to laugh and reminisce. Now the subject of universal fan parody, these OCs were well loved by everyone in their Clan, often had special powers reminiscent of the cats from Power of Three and Omen of the Stars, became the leader, became the mate of canon characters (often Firestar or the aforementioned Scourge), and suffered severe hardships to make people feel bad for them. All of them were "shy, but loyal when you get to know them", and so many of them were apprentices, because kids identified with apprentice characters and everyone liked to RP as them.

While I never dabbled in using canon characters, I had several characters who could be considered edgy Mary Sue types. There was Smallpaw (I think) who, despite being tinier than your average kitten, was the Clan's undisputed best hunter who rode around on a talking eagle named Streak (Streak was my friend's OC, who later became a cat somehow). There was a super-powered time trio with my characters being Waterpaw and Largepaw. (Again, I think.) These two had teleportation and future-vision powers, if I recall correctly, and Water was a bully to Large for no particular reason. Their sister had a name I forget, and she could do something involving the past. I had a blind character who got bullied but then later managed to gain their sight through some weird shenanigans, and a leader named Sootstar who gained the attention of several she-cats before dying spontaneously to a Coup D'état involving his unknown kits and some caiman-infested waters. My crowning moment was Ghostshadow, who was being tortured by an evil she-cat in his dreams thanks to a prophecy, was driven completely insane, and started murdering his former Clanmates until being murdered by his sister in self-defense. Ghostshadow was a character I used to be legitimately proud of, and while I now cringe a little at the sheer amount of overblown drama, I can defend the fact that he made the roleplay way more interesting.

A serious artistic rendering of what I remember Ghostshadow looking like.

So, everyone in the RP fandom seemed to do these things, so much so that there was a pushback against unrealistic characters. Some people policed everyone else, with rules like Traditional Naming (i.e., if the name seems too weird for us we don't like it), and rules about what color your cat's coats could be (as people really liked making their characters look bizarre by cat standards). Looking back in hindsight, so many people got suckered into using these rules in their roleplays and fanfics, that the modern push for more diversity and creativity seems like a direct response to the traditional rules of old... not that it stopped me from making Gemclaw, the black cat with rainbowy specks. 

There were other weird RP things, as well. People would set up kit adoption shops for other people to, well, adopt kits and add them to their roleplays. Similarly, people would go on kit-stealing raids, invading Clans, taking kits, and running. Back then, these things were a big deal. The infamous MegaboneClan wouldn't just steal kits, but eat them, and it spawned a war with "kit savers", who became just as infamous as those they fought against. These things were so problematic that MegaboneClan was eventually banned to the shadow realm, and people weren't even allowed to talk about them anymore. Kit stealing remained common for a few years, however. Looking back, I can't really understand why people played along with these things. When people came to try and steal my Clan's kits, we continued to use said kits because we had storylines we were attempting to write, and had no time to play along. I did, however, adopt a kit once or twice, and might've even set up my own adoption thread.

Clans would also have borders and disputes, much like in the books. However, each Clan would be played by different people, and those Clans would very often die out, leaving some Clans with nonexistent borders and conflicts that petered out entirely. My Clan once had a war with some Winged Cats from the north (Winged Cats being another very common archetype), but the Winged Clan RP died out quickly, leaving mine isolated, and with no other Clans to interact with. InterClan drama could be a lot of fun, but more often than not, my roleplays would go on forever, while others would only last a few weeks, so I could never quite get people to keep up with me.

Nowadays, that the original forums had been closed and moved, and the original website completely revamped, a lot of the charm of the original fandom had been lost. Unlike Neopets, however, that doesn't mean the fandom is dwindling. Warrior Cats is still super popular. The current website boasts a host of quizzes, articles, and credited fan art, as well as one or two scandals, but what website doesn't have those? While I do miss the original website, with its weird RPG-esque flash game and simplistic charm, the current website reflects the current fandom pretty well. The heyday of roleplays seems to be over from my knowledge- now its all about discussing the books proper, creating wonderful animations, and making fanfic. It's often said that the creative side of the fandom is more talented and interesting than the books themselves are, and while I don't want to get into the quality issues with the books (that can be saved for another blog), I do believe that the fandom's passion and creativity is what got me back into the fandom in the first place.

Of course, fan animation and fanfic has always existed. So many of us remember watching ancient YouTube videos, some of which are still memes to this day, like the old Demonslyr videos, and the classic Firestar Doesn't Like Waffles. Creators like Moonkitti are keeping the funny animated short format alive while offering great analysis pieces, and other creators like TennelleFlowers are making beautiful animated music videos, while also showing the art-creating process, but the general culture isn't the same. Before, the YouTube side of the fandom was dominated with things like sad Ashfur videos, "music videos" that made use of stolen fan art, and gag videos similar to other YouTube comedy videos. Now, while the comedy and music aspect is still there, people are way more talented and creative and willing to explore the darker side of the books in a way only people on various forums had done before. 

Warrior Cats shows no sign of slowing down, with new books still being produced. The fandom itself has survived various twists and turns, and while I'm still a bit nostalgic for the golden age of RPs and OCs, I have to say- I'm still along for the ride, and I'm still invested in the series, for better or for worse.