Willowpaw shares a message to all BlogClanners about their love of Warriors.
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
That’s great to hear you stood up for yourself! I’m in middle school, and still love to read Warriors and have an Animal Jam account that I play on everyday. In fact, I still like a lot of things that I did when I was younger. I’m just very different from everyone else at my school. I’ve gotten a few funny looks from my friends for it, but they’re my friends so they understand. Since my older sister is in college I’ve never dealt with teasing, but a few kids at my school would make some weird expressions when I walk the halls with my new Warriors book. But I don’t really care anymore. Ever since I joined BlogClan I realized I’m not the only one out there. Warriors is a great series! People who dismiss it don’t know what they’re missing, it’s their loss. Keep reading it, and don’t care what other people say! I’m with you, Willow. You’re not the only one XD.
WARRIORS LOVERS UNITE! XD
This is a great article Willow! I’m really sorry your brother treated you like that. You did the right thing and it’s great that you’re happily reading Warriors again. 🙂
My problem is that I can’t get any of my friends to read Warriors. They usually say that there are too many books and characters or they don’t think they’d be interested in it because it’s about cats.
Thanks Willow!!!! No one’s done that to me, but I can imagine it happening.
Wow, that’s such an inspiring story 🙂 Well done for standing up to your brother Willowpaw 😀
Thank you so much for this article, Willowpaw!!! I pretend I am a cat and roleplay Warriors every day after school with my friends and I get teased about it sometimes. I really enjoyed this article.
Ok, this didn’t happen with warrior cats, but with Glitter Force it did. Thanks though! This is a GREAT article!
Oh my goodness Willow. This is the best article I think I’ve ever read. So true true true! This is AMAZING!
Willowpaw, you wrote this story beautifully! I love how even if you were never a fan of Warriors, you still get the message. My sister acts in a similar way; absolutely “hates” Warriors, even though she’s the one who got me into the series. You are free! You shouldn’t be put down for what you like!
This was beautifully written and you made me love warriors even more and i did not know that was possible
This is so inspiring!
Wow Willowpaw. This is one of the best articles I’ve ever read. I’ll keep a watchout for more articles. I have an animal jam account which I go back and forth with. It must have been horrible.
I play animal jam too but the phone version
If he says warriors is dumb for having cats in it show him a drawing of some bloody fighting scene. That will show him. XD