#bb!robinpaw

Fear not, kittens. The woman beam is aimed at the wretched beast. Watching the Arc play out is just a matter of if the woman beam is going to be set to "gentle spiro shower" or "UTTER ESTRADIOL ERADICATION." Is the result a girl, or a smouldering pile of femme dust? Stay tuned!

Another thing I'm considering is, at some point, giving her the name Shrikepaw. Great Gray Shrikes are small, monochrome birds which have distinctive markings that resemble a badger.

But, more relevantly, they're called Butcherbirds because of their gruesome habit of impaling dead rodents on thorns, the same way leopards "cache" their kills. I think it would be fitting if, after her father's death, Shrikepaw requests for her name to be changed so that she's not always reminded of the fact it was her appearance that got her dad killed.

"Starling" as a prefix being an attempt at comfort, not a straightforward description. Starlings are in an odd space culturally-- both hunted due to their size and abundance, AND considered sacred songbirds which carry the shine of the stars in their feathers.

At the same time, I don't want to leave Robinpaw out in the dust, either. There's actually two kinds of shrikes in the area-- the Great Gray, and the Woodchat.

SO I'm thinking that they might have both changed their names, originally being twins matching their respective shrikes. Now they're gentler songbirds, with Robin swapping hers to consistently match her sister.

I'm thinking Shrikepaw and Fiscalpaw, since Fiscal is another name for certain shrikes (though mostly in Africa), since Butcherpaw is a bit on the nose. In Clanmew, the Great Gray Shrike and the Woodchat Shrike will have two totally different names, so it's going to be a rough translation either way.