Don’t Let People Get Between You and What You Love by Willowpaw

Willowpaw shares a message to all BlogClanners about their love of Warriors.

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Hi everyone! Some of you may remember me, but its not likely considering I was never popular or consistently active on blogclan though I hope to be now. My name is willowpaw (or willowpaw is BACK!) This article isn’t about a certain character or arc, in fact this article is about my experience with being shamed for my love of warriors and how you should never let anyone else’s judgment get between you and your passions.

Ever since I started reading warriors in second grade, Warriors was my life blood. The characters, the plot, I even loved to draw everyday in second grade. (though my art is still horrible) I couldn’t stop thinking about it during school, summer, winter, spring, fall. It was always there, making my life better and more exciting. I started collecting all the books and filling millions of notebooks with my strange cat drawings. And as I got older, I started to be more interested in the community, watching maps and pmv’s, joining blogclan here, even getting a cheep drawing tablet (30$) that I still use today. Years of warriors experience helped me get a couple friends into the books and answer all their questions. But around 5 years of warriors being the one thing I lived for, my brother started making fun of me for my Warriors obsession. At first I ignored it. He’d done it before, he made fun of me for liking the game animal jam, calling it a ‘baby game’. But then everyday he would taunt me and tell me that warriors was immature and dumb, and that nobody would like me if I continued liking it.

Everyday he would pester me and make fun of me, until I couldn’t take it. I threw away the notebooks, I took my book collection and put them in a plastic trash bag and hid it in a large cabinet in my desk. Every time my brother mentioned warriors I would scoff and say how dumb and stupid warriors is and how I cant I believe I was ever into them, though the whole time I wish for nothing more than my warriors books. This went on for almost a year, until I snapped.

I saw the Celeste map that featured apprentices. I watched it sneakily when my brother wasn’t around and realized how much I missed that part of my life. It took me a while but I finally mustered the courage to go and confront my brother I told him.

“—–, I like warriors and its time you started accepting me for who I am and stop trying to change me to be somebody you like better.” He looked at me funny and then said.

“Okay, I understand.” and walked away. And then the next day, I walked out of my room with into the wild in my hand.

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The message is, to never let somebody else get in the way of your passions. Its time to stop worrying about what other people think and start loving what you love.
With love -Willowpaw

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31 comments

  • Wow Willow, that was beautiful! I think this is a great message, and totally agree.

  • Yeah, my parents hated warriors and whenever I talked about it, they would just tune it out. That’s probably the reason I came here.

  • OMG that is literally my life story!!! I even play Animal Jam!! (yah, I still do 😛 ) and I started reading it in the second grade because me and my friends played this Warriors game it was really fun! and for about a year I didn’t know it was a book series 😛 until they told me and thats when I got hooked for LIFE!!! Except I don’t have a brother who teased my about it, but my classmates do sometimes! Really good article! 😀 🙂

  • Never let anyone tell you what you like is stupid or dumb or childish.
    My senior quote in my High School Yearbook was a quote pulled from Doctor Who’s Tom Baker ‘What’s the point in growing up if you can’t be childish sometimes?’
    I am 21 years old and I’ve loved Warriors for 11 years now, all because I spotted into the wild in my elementary school library when I was in 5th grade and thought it looked interesting. I’ve been up to date with the series for a long time, I own Firestar’s Quest, as I’m pretty sure that was when I became completely current with the series.
    Every time a new warriors book has come out I’ve read it, even if I waited and two came out before I noticed (cause school/life got hard), and I’ve been pretty current with the series.
    I enjoy the culture that Warriors cats presents, I love the naming and I’ve written crossover fanfiction between Warriors and Transformers. And I love rping in warriors rps. It’s what got me really out there online in the first place. XP

  • I started reading Warriors in Grade 4 and I used to bring the books into school and read them at break. Now I’m in Grade 9 and I’m afraid to even tell people that I like warriors becaus “Cat warriors are stupid and for little kids”. I hate it when people ask me what my favourite book series is because I’ll always get these hostile stares when I don’t say “Harry Potter of cause!” Or “Obviously the Hunger Games!”.

    Reading this article has really helped me see that I shouldn’t feel ashamed about this and next time someone asks me what my favourite book series is, I’m gonna stare them right in the eye and say:

    “Warrior Cats; murderous cats in the forest thank you very much.”

  • Wow this was an amazing article, Willow! I loved it so much! I felt the same way about it too. I was obsessed with it and couldn’t get it out of my head (and still can’t). I pretended I was a cat so many times and when I was living in San Diego, CA for a year on our sailboat, I pretended our Marina was territory and I made (in my mind) borders and how this side would be one Clan and the other was the next. I’ve never been teased about it but people usually don’t take me seriously when I talk about it (like my sister) or they just shrug it off and change the subject. Warriors is like another part of us here. And I agree we all shouldn’t be ashamed of it. 🙂

    This was very empowering! Wonderful job!

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