Another small problem is mentor-apprentice relationships not being very important.

You know what would fix all of these problems? Rabies.

I wanted the character dynamics of clanlife so bad I went off to write fanfic with friends fixing this problem. *eyes StarClan Battles*

If the cats would just TALK to each other, half their problems would be solved.

These cats live in a relatively small space with the same few cats all their lives and realisticaly they should know eachother well. Cats should have noticeable personalities, friendships and "enemies". Protagonists dont even seem to have friends other than other protags/family members anymore!

dovewing: *moves to another clan* whitewing/birchfall: what's a dovewing

YellowFang should just stop eating kits and everything will be okay

My biggest problem is that they don't address the fact that Jake is everyones Dad.

Does anyone remember that Stormcloud was an abused kittypet? The erins can do so many things! They could give him a fear of specific things that relate to his twoleg hurting him. They could give him flashbacks. They could make him want to tell another cat, but he’s untrustworthy of them thinking they’ll hurt him! SO MANY THINGS COULD BE DONE YALL.

*There's a lot of problems with Warrior Cats that we don't talk about.*

TBH the biggest problem about "Twigbranch" is the fact that the editors changed it to that from "Twigshade", which is a much better and much more fitting name. It would've gone so perfectly with "Violetshine"! :(

I just wanna mention that Bluestar is my favourite cat because of how she let her feelings overwhelm her, and she was controlled by them. She got in a really bad state of mind and made bad choices because all of the really sad stuff that happened in her life, and well yea, I believe that seeing a character suffer is very much more interesting than a character that lives a simple happy life.

me: hey erins? i think the fans want flawed cats with real personalities. erins: oh? ok, another tigerstar clone who is being judged for being a decendant of tigerstar! :D me: NO WAIT NOT THAT

I couldn't have said it better, I always was surprised more time wasn't spent on the basic friendships between cats, that's one of the reasons I love the relationship between Firepaw, Greypaw, and Ravenpaw. The story followed them throughout their friendship, and for once it followed the idea of 'show, don't tell'. But then of course, Ravenpaw is sent to the barn. I really do wish there were more friend groups in these series, it could give the books a lot of depth.

*My exact same issue.* And lol I love how the Warriors fandom just absent-mindedly named it *the fire scene* 🔥

It’s actually SO UNREALISTIC tho. Like how does everyone get along the whole time?

I've read, watched, and played all types of books, films, and games with wonky and inconsistent world-building, "bad" or cliche plots, and odd or overdone storytelling methods and contrivances and saw each of them to the end because I believed in the relationship between the characters. If a gun were held to my head, I would probably agree that writing is the most important element of any story; however, I would add that characters are the reason most people come BACK to enjoy a series again and again. I can overlook a lot of things in the media I enjoy, but if I stop believing in the bonds the characters supposedly have with each other, I lose all sense of immersion and the narrative falls flat. Thank you for illustrating so eloquently how Warriors has failed in this regard, Moon! Always a pleasure to watch your videos!

Why was violetshine surprised when she got pregnant lol, like “omg I thought we used a condom how is this possible”

Actually, I think Thornclaw’s motivation is to join the dawn patrol

this is literally my ONLY problem with warriors too because in some capacity i can get behind all the silliness and half baked plots because it intentionally leaves room for some interpretive liberties but. goddarnit i want some REAL DEVELOPMENT. Its always Such a stab in the back when they implant this idea in your head and then Move on it from it/don't acknowledge it. And idk if this is because the authors aren't reading off each other... or intentionally sabotaging the plot points they don't agree with... but im losing my mind

It took literally one thing for me to like Sorrelstripe... Her naming one of her kits Myrtlekit.

If there is one thing I dislike the most about the warriors is the forced relationships/relationships that come out of thin air. A good example is Thunder and Violet Dawn, they literally talked to each other ONCE and BOOM, suddenly they're mates.

I remember a sweet scene between Cinderheart and Hollyleaf, it was after Cinder broke her leg and was doing rehab in the pool, and Holly came and spent some time with her. They gossiped and laughed as friends do, and it was honestly one of my favorite scenes

The thing that bothers me most it that there are only TWO paths a cat can take, the life of a warrior, or the life of a medicine cat. I HATE THAT SO MUCH

I think this problem is 80% of why I want half the characters to die. As if maybe if there were fewer of them, it’d be easier to manage and they’d have to do better. Wishful thinking, probably

So many people insist that the big problem with warriors is that theres too many characters existing. A criticism I have never seen in other series. This video illustrates the real problem with the clans. The erins don't know how to give them life. not every character needs to be an important side character, they just need some sort of life to them. But I doubt this will happen. My main pet peeve with the series is how nothing ever changes. Oh we had another forbidden romance are we ever going to consider the effectiveness of the rule against it, the quality of the results of the rule, and what things would be like if it didn't exist? never. Oh theres another tragedy that happened because we were all xenophobic and unwilling to help others? Are we going to start treating diplomacy like a normal thing in international politics like it is in the real world? no. Are we going to start treating people better? no. This is part of why we keep getting the same fascistic or generally leach like type of villains every other generation. no meaningful change happens in society so they will continue to be prone to these type of villains, and they never learn from the suffering that happens. It has gotten so bad that the writers have to tear apart their characters to get their creatively bankrupt ideas to work. The most egregious example is Tigerheart Who had perviously been a reasonable, creative. young guy who could look past clan boundaries to solve problems. This aspect of him is stripped in the raging storm to make him asshole leader of shadowclan who will callously drive out skyclan because hes an asshole and lacks the intelligence to see there is free real estate a block away. Had his character been kept from the previous books, the conflict would have either never started, or been over in 5 minutes. What we need is new stories. Not the same grandiose thing over and over. But After avos, I doubt this will happen.

i stopped reading the books just because i wasn’t invested after the last hope, and what i consider to be a mediocre, boring battle with a decent at best ending that ties up the loose ends without anything shocking, and after that i couldn’t get excited for anything else. i can remember being so excited to read the last hope, and after i did i just felt deprived and bored.

I just "loved" how in the fire scene (Since you were discussing it) Ashfur openly admitted to helping assasinate Firestar, right in front of Squilf, Hollyleaf, Jayfeather, and Lionblaze, yet after the fire, they just dropped it. As if they could drop Firestar being assasinated and totally draw a blank. I remember just thinking, "oookkkaaayyy then"

I feel like the recent books have been so hard to get through because they end up being so boring because theres nothing stimulating to read a lot of the time.

Wow, I’m just realized Warrior-based fan rp I’m in has so more realistic character relationships than the original series... dang.

This is why I like Acorn Fur. She's kind of a background character but is still given some development and personality.

I actually really like the idea of a friend group and for some reason or another, two of the friends get into a huge fight and the group ends up separating (like- the other friends don't know what to do, so they kind of separate themselves). Then the two friends - after they're done kicking trashcans over in anger - realize what their fight did to the group of friends and that they miss the good ol' days before deciding to come to terms with each other and get the friends back together. The rest are reluctant cause what if they fight again, before deciding "sure why not" and now they're good ol' friends! It's cliche, but it's a nice story. I don't remember this being done in Warriors, I hadn't read most the books in a while, so if this was already done, don't burn me alive please-

Yes yes yes and yes! Even in previous arcs, we at least had SOME kind of idea of who these background characters were. Our protagonists had friends and relationships with cats around their age! Leafpool had Sorreltail, Holly Jay and Lion all had some meaningful interactions with Poppy, Cinder, and Honey, Berrynose was an arrogant jerk, and Foxleap was peppy and annoyed everyone. Oots gave Briar, Bumble, and Blossom real characters too! But in AVOS, we don't get any of that! We know nothing about the cats who were kits during or born after the Great Battle, and yet some of THEM are having kits now! Entire character relationships have been thrown out the window. Why didnt Brightheart grieve for Snowbush when he died? Why did Twigbranch never interact with Lilyheart or her foster siblings?

I'm a simple person. Moonkitti uploads I stop what I'm doing and watch, comment, and like. Also, in terms of ThunderClan drama, the ONLY time we got cats arguing was when Dovewing returned with Tigerheartstar that one time and Jaybae was all "we wouldn't have this problem if cats remembered what LOYALTY was SQUIRRELFLIGHT" and she's all "DON'T BLAME ME FOR WHAT YOUR MOTHER DID!" and it was great and awesome and then completely forgotten about. I want more shiz like _that._ Alsooooo I _Swear to god_ if Yellowfang has as much screen time as a StarClan medicine cat guide person as she did in the previous arcs I'll throw The Broken Code into a fire. I want to see some Leafpool, Goosefeather, Featherwhisker, or hi CINDERPELT like hello she was kind of popular right? Come ON Erins Yellowfang sucks. No more Yellowfang.

Imagine if Softpaw, the RiverClan apprentice Twigbranch saved in 'River of Fire, and Twigbranch became best friends in the new series. I wish that could happen because I wanted to see a more fleshed-out version of Softpaw and what her character is like!

I also think there needs to be more political fighting within the clans like in the beginning of Tallstar’s Revenge, I really enjoyed the tunneler vs. moore-runner aspect of that book

One example they should go off of that I really like is the whole thing with Berrynose/Honeyfern/Poppyfrost. They were background characters but we saw their relationship sometimes with how Berrynose fell for Honeyfern, Honeyfern's death, how he struggled and moved on, choosing Poppyfrost, Poppyfrost's anxiety that she was a second best mate and betraying her sister, and Honeyfern coming from StarClan to tell her she accepted them being mates. And this was a plot thread that sometimes came up when Lionblaze or someone was just sat around watching. It didn't take away anything from the main story and it wasnt drawn out or too focused on it was just there and made these random background cats actual characters with emotions. Id love to see something like that again

i smell some “youtube is drunk” comments coming

How about this: ever since the clans moved to the lake, it seems like most of the traditional things, respect, and rules where left behind....now THATS triggering.

I swam to the notifications like RiverClan Clicked at the speed of WindClan Listened as quietly as ShadowClan (cause shadow) Punched the like with the strength of ThunderClan Jumped with glee like SkyClan and I love Moonkitti as much as the cats worship StarClan. This is terrible and it took 10 minuted to come up with but I listened to the whole video and loved it.

*THEIR ARE TO MANY PATROL AND HUNTING CHAPTERS!!!*

Excuse me?! Moth Wing smells better than Spottedleaf dude

The best way we could get another one of these is if Thornclaw becomes angry that Bramblestar made him an elder in the next series. And so Thornclaw sets up the murder of Bramblestar and he takes half of Thunderclan to his side and it becomes internal warfare!!

When you have so many characters, they can't give a personality to all of them without making it a huge chunk of the book, and when there are favourites, such as the three, Cloudtail, Greystripe, all those old classics, the authors want the focus and reactions on them because that's who we know, and that's who we want to know about how they feel. Instead of giving us that and moving on, these characters stick around, but for some reason they still write in new births and characters so we're left with overcrowding and cardboard cut outs for characters. Another example I think of is when Brightheat got jealous of Cloudtail training Daisy. That was an interesting point but we only saw it through Leafpool's eyes in her jealousy that Brightheart was helping her sister and saw no proper resolution other than a small apology from Daisy, but we never saw Cloudtail's side, or if Brightheart tried to bring it up and he just waved it off. All we saw was through the eyes of other characters, who were hardly interested in the story so we couldn't get much of it either. There are too many characters for the authors to care about where I honestly pray for some kind of meteor to just hit Thunderclan and wipe out half the cats so the others have room to breath. Give us something, Erin, anything!!

*Ashfur stood on the log, the storm raging around him. His anger boiled up inside of him until he felt it overflow. His long, luscious locks of gorgeous blonde hair streaming in the wind.* I dunno ;-;

yall ever be a part of notif squad just to flex on people who actually have lives

Normally don't comment on videos but... yes. You have caught the biggest warriors issue and, imo, the only one that really matters. Thank you. Perhaps this is why Ashfur went off the deep end. He was the only one with deep feelings. To the point it went out of control.

Whenever anyone talks in warriors I take a deep breath and pray that our protagonist might have some friends or enemies INSIDE their Clan. and then i let that breath out with all of those thoughts because it will never happen. TALK TO EACH OTHER GUYS

You know even when the plot is bad in warrior cats we're still gonna all read it my people

Moonkitti could never be more right. Background characters are forgotten and when I started reading the fifth arc I didn't even notice Hollytuft or any other character that has barely been mentioned and when they were mentioned I had to look them up. I'm sick of cats being important and then disappearing into the void of background characters. And I am especially sick of cats being born and dying offscreen. In your list of "blank slate" cats I only knew a few. I'm sick and tired of cats being forgotten and having no personality. The Erins could look at any school or work place and find quarrels between people; I don't see a Eason why this doesn't happen in the clans. Thanks for making this, Moon. I hope one of the editors finds it. Cats also forget who's related to who. There aren't favorite siblings, and no one remembers their uncle Jayfeather. Also I find that siblings don't have fights (despite Dovewing and a Ivypool, who I adore.)

Im glad you mentioned leafpool and sorreltails friendship because ive been rereading the books and i wish their friendship could have re kindled after the crowfeather mess. I wish they could have reconnected because leafpool needed support and given sorreltails character shed be very willing to offer it. But come series three theyre perfect strangers and its really sad. It was mentioned that they USED to be friends but they dont act like it at all

honestly, one of my favorite characters in the series is brackenfur. i always remembered his character from the get-go, because he was an apprentice singled out by fireheart when graystripe abandoned his mentorship duties. i always liked to imagine that brackenfur was a hard-working, veteran warrior who learned disipline from the two best warriors in the clan. he is quite a memorable character for me, as he was always the respectful one of two siblings (cinderpaw.) honestly, i really miss little character personalities like that. brackenfur was collected, resepctful and determined to do his best. you could see that in the text, so why doesn't every character have this kind of development? another point is runningwind. I REALLY LIKED RUNNINGWIND. he was smart, a little charming and logistical. he didn't get into clan skirmishes, and guides fireheart through his troubles in some chapters. man, all these little characterizations i really miss, because they were REALLY LOST in the second series. sorry for the long paragraph, but my love for brackenfur came out a little.

Twigbranch doesn’t want to talk to her apprentice. Darn you twigbranch.

Me: *finishes video* Me(to Moonkitti): *sigh* I love you

I've been slowly catching up with the main series books, and i noticed the further i got, the less i could remember the background cats... and I think this is the reason for it. You barely hear any of them say or do anything unique anymore, so the character just won't form in my head.

"The plots are bad." HAHA, COMPARE THAT TO SWORD ART ONLINE.

*Hey Thornclaw, wanna go on patrol?* _No._ *Why?! You're life purpose is to go on patrols!* _You scared away my rabbit and ate the last thrush in the fresh kill pile. And you know how much I love thrush._ *But that was yesterday!* _I don't care, I'm still mad at you._ (If only these things happened every so often in Warriors)

I think this might’ve been the reason I dropped Warriors after Vision of Shadows actually, I was BORED. I absolutely loved Alderheart and latched onto him as a favorite character, but they didn’t really DO anything with his character. He was different from many Warriors protags in his anxiety and self-doubt but I wish they would’ve developed him further. In conclusion, justice for Alderheart💛

This is why dawn of the clans is my favorite arc, I feel like cats characters are more flushed out and there’s actual family/relationship drama that doesn’t just end in nothing happening.

I love how in Vision of shadows Violetkit actually shows desire for friends, and needletail and the apprentices are like a clique.

To be honest, warriors is a very flawed book series, plot wise and maybe in different ways that I haven't noticed yet. But that's kinda why I like it. The same might be true for others. Most people have more flaws then good traits. I know I do. And maybe we look at these books and see ourselves. Maybe we read it, and we read ourselves. Oooor maybe we just like to read about cats fighting, having kits and dying. While slightly useless dead starcats watch and sometimes give useless warnings. I still love it tho.

at least we got the iconic duo that is mousefur and longtail tho

My theory about forbidden relationships is that the authors don't want kin and the main characters to be freaking married. But this theory doesn't make sense because they literally made one of the main character's parents hook up and had kids, even though they're like. . . siblings?

I remember one scene where Spiderleg says something insulting to Stormfur in one of the books of PO3. It was kind of eye-opening re-reading it in my 20s because it suddenly occurred to me that these cats have to work with cats they might not get along with. I wish there was more exploration of that.

Thank God someone finally said it HDKDHDK I don't need every background character to have a full arc or anything but some consistent character quirks/personality and actual chemistry (both positive and negative) between each other is something this series definitely misses out on a lot and the different relationships could definitely make a lot of plots more interesting and complex not to mention a lot more satisfying on completion because it wouldn't be just the main characters affected by these major events, they would resonate with Most of the characters around them as well. The clans bonds right now seem to begin and end with nationality and it shouldn't be considering that living in such close quarters and working with each other regularly to survive means that no two cats in the same clan should be complete strangers. This is a problem with the series that I've been trying to work towards fixing in the fanfic I play with every now and then and I didn't even fully realize it until now, thank you for putting it into words. You're a genius and I agree wholeheartedly.

I’ve heard the excuse for these problems is that there’s too large of a cast but my rebuttal to that is that if my eleven year old self was able to make an entire 39 chapter fanfiction with three entirely new Clans filled with a whole new cast of cats, each named and interconnected to the other cats and I was able to write (very poorly spelled and terribly paced) relationships between them and follow up on them why can’t professional published authors. Edit: also i wrote a cat then actually named violetshine (she was a ginger tabby with bright blue eyes and the med cats best friend) and someone on fanfiction.net told me that a cat would never be named violetshine bc cats don’t know what violets are (?????) so ha get wrecked random internet person

God your so RIGHT ABOUT THE FIRE SCENE tho, I've said it before but it's no surprise why everyone likes making content based on the ashfur love triangle and the fire triangle, it's so dynamic and interesting and it's just got the DRAMA I always look for and am constantly missing but God where is that drama!!! I want more drama!!!! I want characters who resent each other or like each other! I want drama. I wanna see some DRAMA

"25 books about fighting cats" Flawless idea for sure

One of the problems ive had with the newer books is how they focus on blood relationships so much. To me, the whole clan is your family so its not so important who is actually related to you. After all, one thing that makes family special is growing up together, but in the clan you grow up around all these different these cats- so why only talk to/care about your siblings, parents and mate? They make friends, but it's always with a cat from another clan or because they're gonna fall in love (or both). I loved Yellowfang and Firepaw. He cared for her and she saw him as the son she never had. I liked Sandpaw and Dustpaw bullying Firepaw and Greypaw. And just in general seeing how the apprentices benefited from caring for the elders, how it taught them honor and responsibility. Now its only mentioned as a punishment- a burden. What happened to kits/apprentices listening to the elders tell stories? Anyway, I don't know; I just kind of feel like the cats are so focused on drama they disregard the warrior code, have no sense of community, and disrespect their leaders and mentors WAY too often. It's annoying. I was a well behaved child so I don't identify with brats (cough that's why I hated Squirrelpaw cough I couldn't even finish that book she was so annoying coughity cough but I'm over it now cough sorry I have bronchitis cough)

darn cats, not being realistic and summoning god

I came at the speed of Starclan.

One thing that has been irritating me with the relationships as I read the newer books is that when two cats are mentioned interacting outside their immediate family they become mates by the end of the series. They don't interact with anybody else aside from being briefly mentioned patrolling with their clanmates. The characters talk to kin, their mentor, or their mate. No wonder everybody gets slaphappy when something happens now. They don't have friends to calm down with anymore.

My problem with Warrior Cats is that everyone seems to have the same voice tone and style which is really annoying. WOF is better at various voice tones.

You brought up a amazing point I never relized that is a problem with the books. Ashfur's story and that fire scene we all know and love is THE MOST if not one of the most memorable scenes in the entire warrior cats series. I remeber that scene FAR better than the final battle the cats had with the dark forest cats. Like that betrayal and shock is my favorite part of any of the books and thats why The Power of Three part of the series is my favorite! That scene held so much shock and horror and it was spectacular and we should have more drama like that because it obviously worked! Honestly too thats also why I liked Hollyleaf telling the clans about Leafpools betrayal and I loved it and it was great to see that emotional trama! It kind of reminds me of Loki from Marvel in a way and his being mad and struggling with the fact he's adopted! Obviously they are very different but I still love the idea of a very emotional personal struggle. Hollyleaf had trouble finding a way to cope with the news and her idea of coping was killing Ashfur. It's amazing honestly and I love how Hollyleaf was a cat with a love for the code and when she found out she was a product of code breaking it hurt her and her morals. Its stuff like this I relize is my favorite part of the book! And you're right there should be WAY more of this and I never relized that's what the series was missing. Another good and older excample is the relationship between Tallstar and Firestar. There wasn't any BIG drama but it was still a meaning relationship that effected WindClan and ThunderClan later. Or Onestar and Firestar's falling friendship could have had more and they could have done somthing special with it. (I haven't read the new books so maybe they did?). Either way you get what I mean hopefully.

Thank you for pointing this out, it helped me with ironing out my own storyline in my fanfic

I have TWO big problems about warriors. 1. It is SO slow. It takes several books for anything to happen and half the conflict is gatherings and battle training. 2. Personality is basically non-existent and when it isnt you cant even tell. In other franchises like wof, everything a character does reflects their personality, but in warriors, Every mother is just a caring mother who wants to take care of her kits... Except rainflower, every warrior is just a loyal warrior who wants to protect their clan, every kit is just a tiny child who likes to mess around. GIVE US SOME HECKIN VARIETY

They NEED to sometimes take fan suggestions! Not just polls. Ex. Someone said that an evil medicine cat killing off those they don’t like.

I'm actually happy you pointed this out. It was an element of the books that kinda flew over my head for years, and I never really paid attention to it. I only recently noticed after skimming through a few different books how the clan cats seem pretty dull, especially when interacting with each other; but I never went into detail like you did in trying to discover the core reason as to why. Seriously thank you for saying this.

This is going to help me a lot when writing my book, thank you I do agree with your points!!

Great video! I loved your video on everything Breezepelt has ever done, and I think it would be cool if you did one similar to it on Ashfur.

I’ve always noticed how in the books, Leafpool’s forbidden relationship was a massive uproar. Yet many others, and I’m sure everyone in the books knew about Spotted and Fire’s feelings, are completely okay. Like how Greystripe was just accepted into River, then right back to Thunder? Yet Mapleshade was exiled from BOTH Clans.

i love when you do video essays like this, your perspective is so interesting

Moonkitti: Everyone knows Ashfur! Me: eVerYOne HAtEs aShFur

This is actually..a really good analysis. There's always been something about Warriors friendships that bothered me that I never quite put my finger on, and you explained it perfectly

I agree with u, I knew there was something missing with the series but I didn’t know what it was until I watched this! Ty Moon :)

Cat: I’m gonna go speak to this other cat. Another cat: oh no you can’t tell that cat anything

I love looking back on this and seeing the list of "blank slate characters" and knowing they become half of the rebel group in TBC. Moonkitti, you gave them ideas

Love For Foxleap! Was I the only one literally sad when he died?

Ok.the clans problem is.... Windclan need more protection Shadowclan needs good leaders Thunderclan needs to stop loving cats outside there clan Riverclan needs to see what is happening outside there clan Srry that’s what I see so far in all the books I’m on the new prophecy book 4

2:07 Thank you sm I love Longtail and I’m sad that he had to go blind in a super edition that I haven’t read instead of the main series. I agree, he should have been made deputy.

I hate when blood relations are ignored bc the Erins forget about them. Like one scene from Moonlight in TNP, when Leafpaw saves Reedpaw of RiverClan after he almost drowns. Mistyfoot is there, and tho she is upset and worried abt him, they completely neglect to work in the fact that she's his MOTHER.

Someone: are you tired of seeing these commen- Me: -YES

My biggest problem is probably relationships being forced on cats when they'd be better off solo. For example, let's take Ivypool and Blossomfall. They've always seemed like the type of she-cats who would be kind of better off alone, like when Ivypool turned against Hawkfrost and the Dark Forest I personally determined it would be great for her to not take a mate, or maybe take a she-cat as a mate. But no, she got Fernsong thrown at her and had "Thriftkit". Just because her sister had kits. Same with Blossomfall, she got flung into a relationship with a warrior who was a lot older than her. Going back to possibly having LGBTQ+ cats, there have been tons of Warriors books now and the only implied same sex relationship was Ravenpaw x Barley. I personally feel like some other cats would be better off LGBTQ+, such as Hollyleaf, Ivypool etc. Anyway, thanks for listening to my mini rant lol, ty.

This is literally what bothers me do much in Warrior Cats, but I could never find the correct words to describe. THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR GIVING ME THIS VIDEO AA

YOU PUT IT IN WORDS :D even the warriors community i was in when i was 10 completely ignored the canon cats and everyone roleplayed their ocs in oc clans with actual personality lol now i'm off to read hawkwings journey!

As someone who aspires to be a fantasy writer and write books prob similar to warrior cats, I love hearing what people like and don't like in things they read and learn from others' mistakes on how I could improve my own writing :D

This is what's worrying me about Lost Stars, which is on the brink of release in just a few days. If this gonna be another arc filled with unnecessary characters for the sake of shipping fan service, plots that do nothing extraordinary to our main character's development, or conflicts that drag on in Shrek's swamp for way too long, I'm not gonna be satisfied. It's probably due to Harper Collins' strict writing schedule for pumping out 2 books a year, but until we get an official statement from Kate Cary, I'm gonna read the book and hope to not give up after 50 pages.

It's such a relief seeing this problem be put into words lol, I didn't know how to explain this problem until now

I think this is why we all like fan-made content (maps, parody videos, etc) so much, because it explores character relationships in ways the books never do. Also why fan-made content is so fun to make, there are so many blank slates you can pretty much make anything about any character you want.