Sl Spoilers - Blog Posts

Can I ask what Ravenheart's sort of story and personality is? Does he have a connection to Ashcloud?

YEAH :D i welcome any distraction from school assignments

Ravenheart founded Alpine, he was guided by a much older StarClan cat to do so (who has now disappeared, funny). He was leader (though didn't take the suffix 'star', that came in after his death) and was close friends with Night. I wouldn't say he was really friends with Ashcloud, she was just his medic and therefore an official point of reference with StarClan later on, as Peace-Keepers had not yet been introduced.

in early SL, Raven is not on starclan's council, he mostly withdrew from authoritative positions straight away after his death, pretty shocked by supposedly being politically assassinated by his best friend. So he's mostly standing by watching StarClan get pretty corrupt. he sort of views morality in a very direct, certain way, like this is Good and this is Bad. maybe i can see what starclan's become but what's the alternative? rewarding murder?

Raven takes leadership of starclan after its fall (mostly because most of starclan's ranks begin to agree with his ideas of unity over war/divisions etc)

Ash doesn't like it, she thinks StarClan should take a much more violent approach to defeating the rebellion, like an all-out war. Raven, instead, offers Night and the dark forest a full pardon (im sure that won't backfire at all)

Ooh, can I have some info on Ajcloud please?

Does she play a part in Starclan kicking Night right back to the curb?

yeah :D assuming you mean ashcloud lol

so she was Alpine's first medic when it formed, and was killed at the end of its civil war along with Ravenheart, allegedly by Night. StarClan has like a council which makes up its main authority. Ashcloud is on it as well as a few others (so when i refer to StarClan, a lot of the time im mostly referring to those guys as they're in charge).

Ash's ‘job’ mostly consists of things like the security along the barrier between starclan and the dark forest and handling security-like issues with the living clans (like stopping revolts/conspiracies/wars etc).

to avoid revealing anything too much, Ash obviously gets pretty mad when she fails at that and Night destroys everything. so yeah while StarClan’s later return is attributed more to Ravenheart (and that certainly didn’t help) Ash’s actions, which i wont explicitly say, are the ones that really cause Night’s whole thing to fall apart :] like the final straw kind of thing, which is why i said Night's response was more directed at Ash rather than StarClan as a whole here:

Yah, that was about night, sorry about how esoteric I decided to be, but I saw your posts about her and I just got to thinking about the... logistical problems with trying to fight a bunch of dead people, let alone the fact it's a religion.

HI. HIII. THANK YOU. I TOOK THIS AND I RAN. I warned about me spewing a really lengthy response and I did oops

(so StarClan isn't really a religious aspect of the colonies at all. in-universe this is because when Alpine was founded, it was made out of cats who either already had established religious beliefs (gods, basically, it’s not very fleshed out because it’s not important), or weren't religious at all (for example, Night). Personally, I just don't find interest in exploring religion lmao. A lot of wc oc stories have already done it, and probably done it better than I ever could.)

So, StarClan's very much a more government-ish figure for the colonies BUT YEAH obviously there’s gonna be weird stuff going on with it even if it’s not a religion, they’re dead cats in an afterlife lol.

Silverpelt refers to the afterlife here basically, and StarClan/dark forest are only one part of silverpelt. It’s only specific to the colonies. Also present everywhere in the Clans’ territories is silverstone - a green coloured mineral that is believed to give the Clans a greater connection to silverpelt, and subsequently StarClan

I love the eldritch takes on StarClan, but in my story that stuff’s more rooted in silverstone. StarClan is just a bunch of normal dudes lmao

StarClan might have power in influence, but in terms of physical, real, tangible power they can’t do much. They have no control over silverpelt, no control even over the dark forest, and the only control they have, really, is of the colonies through the codes and stuff

In terms of experience, Night's as old as the oldest StarClan cat, as established above, so she's at the very least equal in combat and strategic experience to Ashcloud, who I would say is in charge of the cat equivalent of '''''military''''' activities in StarClan (not much, they don't have a need to fight).

I can make the argument that she has more experience, considering she was the second-highest-ranking authoritative figure in Alpine's early civil war, and the clans haven't had anything close to that extent of fighting since. Their modern training probably isn't cutting it anymore.

(Like, if most of StarClan is a) made of cats who haven't ever experienced active conflict, and b) commanded by cats who think the dark forest will never be a problem, how would they really fare against a dark forest army that Night's essentially been training for war for literally over 400 years, when the barrier between them and the dark forest inevitably fails? Spoiler™: they don't fare well lol)

The key is that StarClan's arrogant. They don't think the dark forest will ever be a real problem for them, so they don't prepare for it or try to prevent it. Of course Night's going to win (initially)

Night later 'loses everything' as Silver implies, it’s not because StarClan had all the time in the world and had more experience than her. It is technically because of StarClan returning, but it's tied much closer with Rainpaw's involvement (not relevant rn) and a rooting in Night's internal struggles at this point (becoming what you hate). 

a lot of Night's character after she destroys starclan (into part 3 of SL)  is very much involved with like. a character caught between what's defined her existence for a long time to the point she cant remember who she was before, and the certainty that she can’t get back to that person even though she needs to, and she needs to because becoming something equal to or worse than her enemy is an unbearable thought..? if that makes sense

It's complicated, but this essentially culminates in a fall out between her and Finch. Then enter: the destructive cycle metaphors that this whole story is built on.

StarClan ‘working so great as an enemy because fighting them is something that is only ever going to hurt you more than them' is SO TRUE AND YOU WORDED IT BEAUTIFULLY.

exactly what happens with Night. After everything, they didn't really change, while she lost a lot. But it’s one of those situations where it can’t have gone any other way. She can't get what she had back until starclan's defeated, but defeating starclan renders it impossible for her to get. Either way she loses. 

Your point about StarClan being eternal and therefore the colonies being eternal also is also very true and very fun.

I might even say, in this instance, that StarClan and the colonies are eternal through silverstone, and by extension so is their destruction.. :]

Sorry for word vomiting so many words in a tumblr post. I doubt anyone will read this all but. I had fun.

#5 and/or #26 for the wip ask game? :3

woah i ended up rambling

5. What are the main themes?

I would say the main big one would be good+evil/moral ambiguity? I really like looking at morality in stories.. because of this reason I could name very few genuinely 'bad' cats in this story lol

plus whatever theme goes with some sort of corrupt system :] I love those (fictionally) :]

smaller themes like power, death, war, hate/love etc and these are all looked at specifically in context/influence of their little corrupt cat society

26. What do you still need to plan?

a whole bunch of stuff! there's many little plot issues that annoy me that I'd love to fix, the main two big things however are Rainpaw's character arc and the entirety of Part 3. um lots of text under the cut

Rainpaw's my main protagonist, he gets pov throughout all 3 parts but. idk what he's really doing. its hard to get him to the end point of his story because I'm not really sure what would change his mindset to get there? His ultimate job is to restore StarClan after like a year of anarchy (a plot problem in itself because I don't want to portray the downfall of a corrupt government-ish figure as bad lol that's a good thing) but he starts SL totally anti-StarClan in comparison to his Clan. Right now I'm kind of passing it off as the inter-faction conflicts he faces after StarClan's fall make him want to restore the Clans as they were supposed to be when they were formed, but I also don't want anarchy (? for lack of a better word I guess) = chaos because that's boring and kinda shallow in my opinion

WHICH LEADS INTO part 3 because I have the end of it etched into my soul but the rest of it is just everyone. existing. totally unplanned I have no idea what will drive the plot of part 3 yet. I want to explore the conflicts between the different factions that are created after the Clans fall apart so that may drive the plot for Petalclaw and Rainpaw/storm but as for Night? I need to plan what she's doing because her one goal is to destroy StarClan. Once she's done that (end of part 2), idk what will lead her to everything I have planned out for her at the end of part 3, which is again her vs starclan :/ it's like when Night is there but StarClan is not there is nothing driving her actions so I need to figure that out...

WOAH SORRY FOR ALL THAT BUT IT WAS FUN. sorry if it makes no sense... it distracted me from the worst history assignment of all time from hell itself so thank you for the ask! :D

Me: Omg! He said it! He said the word! Lore! It’s LORE!!!!!

Jimmy: yeah the fallen just sit up there in the sky. watching

me: oh my god he said the word