Yeah the Shadowclan family tree is so messy, glad it’s been gutted
Some ideas and questions:
Maybe Finchflight is Lizardstripe’s father or brother, I’m not sure how to link him to Clawface.
With the Littlecloud thing, I don’t know why but Cloudpelt comes to mind. Maybe he had Newtspeck. With Littlecloud’s name it’s interesting honestly.
With marigoldkit and mintkit, Runningnose saying that Yellowfang wanted to do her sister a favor since Marigold is blind, saying how if she’s willing to kill her family, none of them are safe from her. Honestly maybe they try to have Yellowfang killed but she managed to escape.
However that could wrench the genepool so it would probably be better to swap NewtFrog to Poolcloud instead with Ash taken out. Foxheart and Wolfstep could have unknown unless you want to tie them to any of the older cats from Yellowfang’s secret.
How many kits would Fernshade and Wolfstep have aside from Ivytail?
Amberleaf seems pretty old if we’re going by Yellowfang’s secret. I think Ratscar and Snowbird are better as her grandkits from Appledapple. Honestly Battle torn Ratscar trying to help raise his little sister after their mom died makes me soft.
Depending on how old you want Darkflower, I think Darkflower would work fine as Crowtail’s daughter. Speaking of which, would any of Darkflower’s kits (Whitethroat, Wetfoot, Brownpaw, Cedarheart) have any descendants?
Finchflight could easily be Lizardstripe's father, that would work well. I could also make Finchflight into Clawface's mentor instead of Rowanberry's.
On that note, Rowanberry and Nutwhisker are probably going to end up being younger siblings of Yellowfang, by a few years. Yellow is going to be looking at 13 years of age in TPB, so it would work well if her siblings were just starting to think about retirement, around 8-ish
(i should make a guide to age in warriors, I have something like that in my drafts... but basically you're a senior warrior at 5, and the elder's den is for 10+)
(also while I'm mentioning age gaps, I'm trying to keep them in the general ballpark of 0 - 4 years; and NEVER between mentors and apprentices. Older than that and it's not romantic, but could just be surrogacy when I can't make the ends meet, such as with Pinestar and Leopardfoot.)
Yeah... I'm really liking the idea of Littlecloud being named after Littlekit somehow. I'm leaning towards moving Newtspeck and Frogtail into the Toadnettlepool litter, and then deciding if Night/Claw or Fox/Wolf get shuffled to someone else.
On one hand, Clawface would have kits with Rowanberry, which would mean Toadnettlepool is going to be inexorably mixed with the Bright/Bracken descendants. That doesn't have to totally be a bad thing though; Tigerheart's litter with Dovewing is 4 clean generations removed at that point, which is plenty separated to have them re-enter the ShadowClan gene pool without being too gross.
On the other hand, I think it would be neat if Wolfstep and Foxheart were actually descendants of Houndstar, only because the names are cool. They could be the children of Mousewing and an unknown queen.
On this note, Wolfstep might either end up younger, or Fernshade might end up older, just to fix the age gap a bit. Leaning towards Fernshade being older because it would be a nice dynamic with Blackstar, considering the changes to their parents.
Something about it doesn't feel like it clicks enough yet. The basic premise of Marigold being born blind works really well, but something about the details feels too... deniable. Runny is smarter than this.
I'm thinking that maybe Yellowfang was treating Marigold using some sort of red berry. Currants, cherries, razzberries, something, and Mint was coached into saying they were deathberries.
"That's ridiculous. No medicine cat keeps deathberries in their larder where small kits could get to them. I just use raspberries because Marigold won't take her medicine without a treat."
And THEN Runny accuses her of poisoning Marigold on purpose, acclimating her to taking berries with her medicine to poison her.
Does that work better? ...ignoring that cats can't taste sweetness. Maybe raspberries can be used as a sort of pill capsule, or a holder for a poultice.
Fernshade and Wolfstep's kittens
I considered having their kits be Whitewater and Ivytail like that Vicky statement, but ultimately decided I would like Whitewater to have been a senior warrior in TNP.
If there's another kit in the litter, it's probably Owlclaw. They're around the same age; I won't commit to it until my modern ShadowClan chart is complete though. Badgerfang, Owlclaw, and Ivytail makes for a good amount of kits for them.
Darkflower's descendants (and then i waffle about tangleburr)
Darkflower is definitely going to have descendants, the biggest question is going to be if Wetfoot stays in her litter or not.
There's a high chance that Cedarheart will be having kittens. Depending on how influential those kittens are, I might remove Wetfoot from her litter again to have more fresh blood.
I'm going back and forth on if Scorchfur is a son of Cedarheart, or Tangleburr. It would help fix the age gap between him and Snowbird if he was born during the TNP journey, but also, I'm not sure if I'd like for the xenophobe to be Tangleburr's child since she has a whole arc about rejecting the influence of Brokenstar.
So, if Scorch is the child of Cedar, I might move Wetfoot out of the litter (Giving him to Ashheart and Cinderfur) and make him older to be a viable mate for Tangle. Or even have Tangle invoke the Queen's Rights and have a sireless litter.
Boulder is also a good option, especially if I want to have an excuse to keep him alive and relevant, because I like him so much for some reason... Stumptail is also a possibility... WLW Tangleburr is also possible.
If Tangle isn't the mother of Scorchfur, she might have Pinenose and Weaselclaw, making her the grandmother of Slatefur and Puddleshine.
Yeah, it's shaping up that they're the children of Appledapple. I also do want this particular litter to also have a father, to have that father tragically die in the same battle and be buried together with Apple. It might be a fitting end and a good sendoff for Boulder, one of my background blorbos.
Amberleaf -> Boulder x Appledapple -> Ratscar & Snowbird
Plus, then I don't have to worry about surprise family, since Snowbird genetics are going to be so prolific.
I'm also very soft for the idea of big, battered, terrifying Ratscar raising his baby sister. Keeping it together through all the grief, eventually losing the whole forest together only about a year later. The sort of sibling relationship that really makes you understand why Snowbird still trusts him, even after training in Hell.
He'll be a great uncle to her early litters, too.