#feathercrow

Doodle week! Day 1!

Crowfeather mourning the death of Feathertail

Reason:

Heronfoot! Their name is a hint to both their parents clans!

In an au where Feathertail lives, Heronkit would be born when breezekit would be born in cannon and Crowfeather would probably move to Riverclan and it would be happy times from there.

But if we’re saying that Feathertail dies in the mountains then I reckon Crowfeather would be older in this au and already a Warrior and seeing Feathertail before the journey, Feathertail gives birth to Heronkit at the tribe and dies in the sharptooth trap, the rest of the group have to leave Heronkit behind with a queen from the tribe and pick them up on the way back.

I think Crowfeather would take Heronkit to Windclan but would still be a pretty distant father, Heronkit would have Feathertails kind and joyful personality. One fling with a medic and one marriage to prove his loyalty later and Heronpaw has four siblings but only knowing one.

(wrt my mothpool post because I’ve been paying more attention to fandom at large to observe the Onestar nonsense)

[Link to TLDR]

I think it’s very telling how pretty much everyone seems to have interpreted the simple statement “mothpool has an age gap” as “you shouldn’t ship mothpool.”

The reality of life is that most relationships have an age gap. Even excusing the fact that people exceptionally rarely date people with the same birthday as them, it’s common to date people who are more than a year or two older/younger than you. I suppose I can blame this one on this particular fandom skewing young? As in, most people in high school date people within a grade of them. It’s rare for a freshman to date a junior, and pretty much everyone agrees freshmen shouldn’t be dating seniors. So I suppose it makes sense to apply that logic.

I bring up Mothpool sometimes because it’s such a popular ship, but it has a larger age gap than, say, Feather/Crow, a ship which is often aggressively disavowed in more puritanical communities, explicitly on the grounds of the age gap. I have my complaints with that criticism of the ship, but my point remains: that age gap is likely around nine moons — using the fact that Crow is Deadfoot’s son, and Feather is supposedly around 7 moons old when Deadfoot dies, the first fact being present in TNP itself and the second being explicit in TPB — and they meet when Crowpaw is nearly a warrior — again, see the prologue of Midnight — so it would be hypocritical to dislike that ship for age gap reasons, and yet ship Mothpool, which has a minimum age gap of nine moons*, although likely more, and meets when Leafpaw is no more than seven moons old.

*Complicated by contradictory timelines. Using only TNP, we would infer an age gap of six moons, but that’s impossible because of when Tigerstar dies. Really, Mothwing has to be a year older than Leafpaw. The time skip between TPB and TNP is either a year or six months, and both options create major contradictions, but the series treats it as a full year. I used nine months as my stated minimum because if I let Mothwing be born around the same time as Crowpaw — she’s technically older — then they’re both approximately warrior aged, and both have the same impossible age problem, which feels appropriate. At any rate, even if you use the six month age gap, it is subjectively experienced as a larger age gap, because Leafpaw is younger than Crowpaw. Furthermore, the same age gap between Mothwing and Leafpaw exists between Leafpaw(/Squirrelpaw) and Crowpaw, which is again, the same as the age gap between Crowpaw and Feathertail, but experienced as a larger age gap because the characters involved are younger.

I think the fact that the simple statement of truth that such an age gap exists causes so much strife is telling because…well, I never intended to even imply that it’s an unhealthy relationship because of said age gap. I would argue against that quite effectively by pointing out that they’re both new (med) apprentices when they meet, putting them on equal footing, and they’re in different clans, which basically nullifies the power imbalance of an age gap. Leafpaw’s crush begins young, but they don’t grow close until Leafpaw is older, and that’s when you begin to get the sense that things are reciprocated and romantic…

…statements which are all also true for Feathertail and Crowpaw.

(Arguably, Feathertail shows less interest in Crowpaw than Mothwing does in Leafpaw.)

So really the only defense to “there is an age gap between Mothwing and Leafpool” is “no, there isn’t,” because any other argument would be applied to other ships that have been disavowed.

Not that I think anyone is doing this consciously. I’ve just been turning it over and over in my head: why are some ships criticized heavily for their age gap, and others ignored?

Someone once commented that they wouldn’t date someone who was nearly 18. I, being in my 20s, agree with that — mostly because I wouldn’t date someone who was still in high school.

But would I date someone who had already graduated high school, and was maybe in their first semester of college, but because of birthday nonsense, hadn’t yet turned 18? Provided they were, again, nearly 18 — probably? There’s nothing magic that happens on someone’s 18th birthday that makes them an adult when they weren’t before.

Crowpaw might not have “graduated,” because he still hasn’t got a warrior name, but he’s canonically very nearly a warrior, and implicitly over a year old (again, see prologue of TNP + reference when Deadfoot died with when the journey begins). He spends months with Feathertail — the length of the journey is unclear, but looking at the events timeline makes me think it took them a full season — and they meet as equals (prophecy cats). The fact that this ship is considered unhealthy, but Mothpool isn’t (when Leafpaw comments frequently that she’s nervous Mothwing, having her full name, doesn’t view Leafpaw as an equal), says to me that there’s some secondary, unstated factor.

I leave it as an exercise to the reader to determine that factor, but if you need a hint: I’ve seen multiple people criticize the Bramble/Squirrel age gap also ship Squirrel/Tawny.