#a2 ask

So! The Patreon members already know about this, but I've been waiting until Squirrel actually arrived in the story to discuss it properly.

Squirrelflight is being split into two characters in Iterum. There's Squirrel, the kitten we just met in the latest chapter, and then there will be a young warrior in the second arc named Cherry(?). The two of them will split Squirrelflight's canon roles - Squirrel will be Brambleclaw's mate, have the appearance of book!Squirrelflight and be an introduction of new blood into the Clan, and Cherry will be a young main character who goes on the journey to find a new home for the Clans with the other members of the scouting party (who we will not spoil yet). We have a sizeable timeskip between the end of this book and the start of the second arc; by the time arc two starts, Squirrel will have had her warrior name for a while, and Cherry will be just starting out in her adult life.

Tiger and Golden adopted Fire. Tiger and Golden also had two kits making them siblings to Fire. One of those kits is Bramble. If the theories are correct and Fire ends up adopting Squirrel, that would make Bramble And Squirrel uncle and niece. Dullard has confirmed that Squirrel and Bramble would be mates.

I either need to completely revise my theory of Fire adopting Squirrel, realize the clan cats don't care as long as it isn't blood, or just take it in stride while mentally chanting to myself "At least it isn't the Family Tumbleweed like canon, atleast it isn't the Family Tumbleweed like canon, atleast--"

(this is all completely in jest and something Waxing Blood Moon posted on RustingAU brought this to my attention)

Happy Pride, and there is! Two of the main characters - one trans, one bi - will have a romance next arc. I won't say who, but you could likely guess. Folks have before.

The gap isn't really a big factor in our splitting of Squirrelflight, though I do consider the closer age range a mild benefit. Our main reason was that having new blood in the Clan in the form of Squirrel was going to be a plus in the long run for ThunderClan, but Cherry(?) and her sister were already characters for the second arc since the Redux had ended and they were the versions of Squirrelflight and Leafpool that were planned. To make things easier, and to give us more characters to work with, Squirrelflight became Squirrel the loner kitten and Cherry the native-born ThunderClan protagonist.

Squirrel fulfills her canon self's roles of being Bramble's mate (and eventual mother of his children) and having that characteristic ginger coat, as well as being a new bloodline. Meanwhile, Cherry fulfills canon's main character status, being an important POV that goes on the journey to find the Clans a new home and has an equally important sister back in the forest who provides an eye on what's happening in the territories. Squirrel won't be as major of a character, but we'll be seeing a lot of Cherry to make up for that.