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Post by sylveon on Feb 26, 2020 4:58:43 GMT -5
Sometimes I feel deeply disappointed in the route warriors has gone with StarClan. They had potential to be an interesting part of the story but fell flat. Instead of seeming like gods, they're just dead cats. It's obviously a little more complicated but not in a good way. It's made me wonder how others would write StarClan given the chance. So here are some prompts.
1.) StarClan remains distant and mysterious like they appeared in the first arc. How would you write them throughout the series, building on canon. How do they influence the living? Do they truly know the future or change fate? Can they punish the living?
2) StarClan is more involved like we see in later arcs. They can communicate to just about any cat and appear in the living world. Can they actually control weather? Can they punish the living? Are they all powerful, or ordinary spirits?
3) Rewrite StarClan however you see fit, but try to stick to the plots of existing canon. (keep prophecies, weather phenomena...)
StarClan was always interesting to me and I was excited to see how things worked in a dead cat's view. Seeing the way StarClan in canon somehow has powers but no control of fate and can't but also can control who enters their ranks is just confusing. So many fans have better ideas for the series and I would love to see what y'all come up with, so be as creative as you want!
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Post by Flamefrost on Feb 26, 2020 11:01:45 GMT -5
*minor The Good Place finale spoilers*
I always liked the idea that interfering with Clan affairs actively COSTS something to StarClan. I'll refer to it as lifeforce. The first time we see it is when Firestar loses his first life and sees a pale wisp of himself in StarClan.
Speaking to cats, sending signs, controlling the weather, reincarnation, and giving lives all takes lifeforce to varying degrees. Losing lifeforce makes spirits fade faster, and thus many cats choose to avoid expending any. What's the point in talking to your living mate if it just shortens the time you have together in StarClan?
However, some cats like Yellowfang, Bluestar, and Silverstream care not about that and continue to help cats to their own detriment. This is why they're seen interacting so much.
I would also like to posit that certain "holy spots" like the Moonpool make it take little to no lifeforce to communicate, thus why they're so important. And perhaps becoming a medicine cat further lowers the amount of lifeforce needed as they are more in tune with it to begin with.
Its been established that StarClan does not create all prophecies, but rather receive some. I would like to think that when cats eventually fade, they become part of an overall lifeforce source where these prophecies come from (sort of like in the Good Place).
Likewise, Yellowfang mentions that cats fade faster when they are forgotten. I'd like to extrapolate that to belief in general (like Tinkerbell), which is why worshipping StarClan is so important. It not only ensure a better afterlife, but also allows for living cats to receive omens and other magical interference. This is why, when the Clans start to lose faith in their ancestors in OOTS, the StarClan hunting grounds begin to experience leaf fall.
This could also be why Raggedstar needed the Three to fake a sign to Littlecloud and Blackstar in Long Shadows. He may not have had enough lifeforce on his own after ShadowClan lost their faith.
This brings me onto the rise of the Dark Forest. The Dark Forest also has lifeforce, however had little to no one to worship or belief in them for most of the Clans existence. They also had no way of communicating with living cats. Id like to think that most spirits in the Dark Forest were brutish and violent and thus kept to themselves, and didnt try to interact with living cats in order to selfishly retain whatever lifeforce they had left. Cat hell was effectively decaying alone and hungry.
It took manipulative, truly vengeful cats like Mapleshade, Tigerstar, etc. to enter for them to start organising themselves properly. Mapleshade figured out a way to communicate with living cats (at the cost of a lot of lifeforce, which is why shes so faded in OOTS). Eventually they garnered enough living cats to believe in them for them to become a real threat. This is also why StarClan was so scared - the rise of the Dark Forest could lead to the their demise if the Clans stop following the code (ie. Worshipping them).
Finally, ghosts and non believers. Its shown that non believers get some different form of afterlife, and Id say it works similarly. However, the lack of organised faith makes them fade faster, likewise with ghosts. However, ghosts remain on the mortal plane due to unfinished business, which saps a lot of lifeforce from them (which is why StarClan cats do so so rarely). This is why by TST, Bramblestar is already fading. It does seem that spirits can bring nonbelievers into StarClan through visiting (like Jake) so maybe thats another way to get in.
Then there's StarClan's judgement process. SqH really messed up my original headcanon but I'll work with it. From what we know there's a panel of cats that have something in common with the newly dead who judge. It could be that this costs lifeforce, and that cats offer themselves to be judges, thus resulting a higher likelihood of them having a personal reason to be a (such as Moth Flight and Leafpool. Perhaps leaders and medicine cats get special rights too, and immediately family is forbidden. The panel are judge, jury, and executioner. Its a terrible system imo, but oh well.
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Genderqueer
mrnnki
I do not think, therefore I am not.
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Post by mrnnki on Feb 26, 2020 12:19:49 GMT -5
I’d go one of two routes:
— StarClan’s existence is completely ambiguous. Heck, they may not even be real. They deliver prophecies that can tie into future events, but they can also be completely wrong. Both villains and heroes can believe they have the support of StarClan, when they may not at all. Basically, StarClan is written as if it’s real, but it could easily not be.
— StarClan is greedy and manipulating the clans to gain power. The more supporters—and members—they have, the more powerful they get. They set up situations where they can save the clans (hence cats being born “evil,” sending dreams to Tallstar to replace his deputy which caused a civil war, giving Tigerstar/Brokenstar/{insert other evil leader here} nine lives, etc), but are still powerless in the face of an actual threat. There wouldn’t be anything above StarClan in this. The StarClan cats make up their own prophecies based on glimpses of alternate/current futures, purposefully trying to make them vague to make the living keep thinking about them and said prophecies. The Dark Forest is composed exclusively of cats that reject(ed) StarClan. This means that not only would cats like Mapleshade go there, so would cats like Mothwing and Cloudtail, and possibly even Bluestar (I can’t remember if she ever bounced back from the “StarClan is horrible” thing before she died).
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Post by Skypaw13 on Feb 27, 2020 0:03:10 GMT -5
I'm one of the few who likes how StarClan was portrayed in the Po3-OotS era. I like the idea that the Clans worship this group as gods, but when we actually see the "gods" through the priests (medicine cats), they're a disorganized, tangled mess that's basically just made of the same cats as the living world. Half of them just want to live out their afterlife with their family and don't care about the living Clans, another percentage are more looking out for their living relatives than the Clans as a whole, there's a couple cats who actually find entertainment in watching the Clans go through... inconveniences, and only a small percentage are actually worried about and actively involved in the living Clan's fate. Basically, every single cat is still an individual and StarClan as a whole doesn't really function as one unit. They can't see the future with perfect accuracy, but every cat does get feelings, and the few who do actually care can get messages from supernatural locations like the viewing pool, or supernatural beings like Rock.
Most medicine cats see just the few cats formerly of their Clan who actually care, and since MCs are (generally) the only ones who can see StarClan, this keeps up the illusion that StarClan is a great force that has a will and should be listened to. Only very, very rarely would a cat like Jayfeather come along and be able to not just visit with certain cats who appear to him, but actually be able to access the territory itself and talk with whomever he pleases, seeing just how disorganized it truly is. (If we're rewriting plot elements as well, I think this would tie into his destiny as the cat that unites both StarClan and the living Clans)
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Post by Cheetahstar on Feb 27, 2020 2:03:34 GMT -5
I've said it before but
A key aspect was why would anyone side with the dark forest???
So why not give them a reason
when a cat joins star clan they submit themselves to the stars...so while they are themselves they're also part of a hivemind
think like the hivewings in wings of fire
Cats who are considered unwanted 'murderers etc' by the hivemind are sent away... but some cats catch onto this while about to enter and so they flee... so the dark forest isnt all bad cats
Paint both sides as more grey instead of black and white as no one really knows the hiveminds goal besides itself
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Post by Jaysnow on Feb 27, 2020 19:24:57 GMT -5
They'd only interfere when absolutely necessary. It's a really bad idea for the Clans to become too dependent on them so they freak out and stuff when they vanish, like in the current arc. In AVOS they were getting prophecies like, every other chapter. I wish they stayed the way they were in the OG arc: mysterious and wise ancestors.
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Post by unfilteredangst on Mar 21, 2020 20:06:19 GMT -5
In the rewrite I'm working on, I'm rewriting Starclan to where they all aren't just a bunch of cats in one place and seem like godly figures that can make big changes but just refuse to for plot. Instead, the afterlife is run by 4 cats, (Also Skyclan is removed from the equation since tbh it's just Thunderclan 2.0) 4 cats for the 4 clans, the founders. The afterlife is Silverpelt, the founders don't know that the dark forest aka Starless Abyss exists. Only medicine cats and leaders can receive dreams from the founders, and only they can get prophecies that the founders gain. The Thunderclan founder is Sunpride, a boastful and proud leader that is basically a jab at Thunderclan being overrated in the actual books. (Kinda to be self aware) Starflower is Riverclan's founder, sweet, not much of a fighter and a bringer of peace. Tigersight, a selfless and strong founder of Shadowclan, mostly independent and works better by himself. Lastly is Stargazer, the creator of Silverpelt, Windclan's founder. Smart, hard working, a bit too brutally honest, but is the reason that Windclan is the source of knowledge in the clans.
These cats are just like the clan cats, flawed people but are able to receive signs and prophecies which they then send to Medicine cats immediately. They actually want to help the clan cats, not watch them fall apart. I made this system so that the readers get more insight into how the afterlife works, but still keeps them mysterious. (One last thing is that in this rewrite all clans act as one unit now) (If y'all want more context, I'll gladly elaborate)
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