#crowpool

Been obsessing over Crowpool and the new addition, LeafHawk lately 😼✨️

I'm honestly mixed on it. I prefer MothPool's chemistry and being FirexTiger, but CrowPool has a bigger effect on the plot in TNP and PO3.

Personally, I feel like this is a hard comparison for me to make because in a lot of ways, this feels like comparing apples to oranges. Like, Crowpool is canon, so the story of Crowpool is the story of what we've got— the good, and the bad, and the everything else. While because Mothpool is non-canon, I can more-or-less make up any which story I want for them (which is sort of what I'm doing in Shaken Roots as you said lol.) So I feel like it's hard for me to be totally objective when it comes to comparing the two. My heart overall definitely says Mothpool, but like I said, I think in this competition Crowpool is starting with the deck already stacked against them.

I first read TNP in 2006 (side note but: omg this is making me realize that I've been a Warriors fan for 20 years now... holy shit. I'm never going to escape these cat books.) And I can say that even as a kid, I was never very invested in Crowpool as pairing. Don't get me wrong, I can see the potential, and there are things about it that I like: specifically, I enjoy tragedies, and obviously their pairing led to PO3, which gave me Hollyleaf, and I adore her. So in that way, I really appreciate Crowpool.

But even when reading TNP for the first time as a kid more amenable to romantic pairings that come out of nowhere, I still remember feeling surprised by Crowfeather's love confession when it happened (I don't think it has great build-up.) But I ate up the drama of it in Twilight (like I said, I'm a tragedy fan and was even as a kid lol, so I liked the angst of their forbidden relationship and ultimate breakup.)

But I don't think I ever full saw the draw or chemistry as you said that really brings Crowfeather and Leafpool together, which makes it hard for me to get invested in the ship. It's always read as sort of shallow to me from both sides. Almost like Crowfeather is subconsciously looking for a replacement for Feathertail in Leafpool, and in Crowfeather, Leafpool is looking to experience love/romance like her sister has (especially because Leafpool is scared of missing out on that part of her life because she's a medicine cat.) But what is it about Crowfeather himself, as a person (cat) that draws in Leafpool...? Even now I kind of have trouble answering that.