#sparkkkkk

So the thing with Darkstripe, as Fireheart pointed out, is that he’s always miserable. And he’s been that way his whole life. From the womb, he came out unhappy. I don’t think he ever really experienced true joy the entire first six months of his life. Why? I can’t say. I never wrote him with a specific personality disorder in mind, but it wouldn’t shock me if he had one.

The important thing is that this King Haggard-esque joylessness caused him to act out in the vain attempt to feel something other than anger and misery. He bullied the other kits, he got into fights, he threw tantrums, everything, all in the hope that it would bring him any kind of release from the vice grip his negativity had on him. It didn’t. There was no satisfaction in his behavior, except perhaps the small feeling of power he got by eliciting an angry reaction from adults and a fearful one from younger kits. His family loved him, but I don’t think anyone liked him, including them. He isolated himself socially, making himself more miserable and angrier, and he scorned affection from anyone. It wouldn’t do anything for him. Why bother?

So why did he cling so hard to Tigerclaw, then? There’re a couple reasons.

For one, though he isn’t aware of it, he saw Tigerclaw as an ideal self: stoic to the point of coldness, strong and fearsome and distant, and completely loved by everyone in the Clan, and even highly respected outside of it. Tigerclaw was everything Darkpaw wanted to be in the deepest recesses of his fantasies. Darkpaw admired him for that to the point of hero-worship, and that was the main thing that kept him in line when Tigerclaw was around to tell him to stop being a dick.

Secondly, when he did chastise him, it wasn’t with anger. Darkpaw couldn’t see how embarrassed he made Tigerclaw when he acted out because his behavior would shift the instant he was aware his model was around to watch him and judge him. He also didn’t see it because Tigerclaw, as he so adored, was stoic and didn’t give off a vibe of “by the Three, my apprentice is awful” the way another mentor likely would have, even if he was thinking it to himself. As far as Darkpaw knew, he was just as loved by his mentor as any other apprentice and mentor loved each other (which, as we’ve established on this blog, is like family most often). He wasn’t, but he didn’t realize that at all.

Third… well, honestly, because of those two first factors, Darkpaw felt something akin to true joy when he was around Tigerclaw. He felt lighter and stronger and more determined with his mentor. He felt like he wasn’t just hated and disregarded and avoided (not that he wasn’t these things out of his own making, but he lacks an incredible amount of self-awareness). Here was the cat who shone a light in the pitch-dark of his world, who made him feel something positive. He almost mourned when he got his name, because he couldn’t just be with Tigerclaw 24/7 for the rest of his life. This cat was admirable. This cat was amazing. This cat gradually became, in his mind, his true father. Patchpelt didn’t matter. His brother didn’t matter. Tigerclaw was the only cat worth following in the territories. He was everything to Darkstripe.

And then here comes this kittypet, with his stupid naivety and his stupid scrawniness and his stupid, stupid, stupid ability to hypnotize everyone into liking him. And here he is, stealing what’s rightfully Darkstripe’s: Tigerclaw’s love for a son. Here Darkstripe has to sit, seething as Fireheart is looked at by Tigerclaw with fatherly pride and fondness, and here Fireheart is, so smug and sincere and idiotic, looking back at Tigerclaw with immense love.

And then he fucking murders him.

Now, to be clear – Darkstripe knows, objectively, that Fireheart did not physically kill Tigerclaw. That wimp is too weak to do anything but sit there sadly and watch his father go to his grave. He knows that he wasn’t at the lead of the investigation into Tigerclaw’s crimes. But his sheer hate and resentment over everything else about Fireheart is so powerful that he genuinely forgets that, technically, it was his nephew that did this to him. Ravenwing is the source of his pain, and yet it’s all Fireheart’s fault.

It's Fireheart who stole Darkstripe’s father away. It’s Fireheart who everyone loves when he didn’t do anything to earn it. It’s Fireheart who everyone comforted and cared about after he fucking murdered Tigerclaw.

And it’s Fireheart, the one who ruined his life, that has the brass to try and make friends with Darkstripe, tries to extend sympathy and understanding like he could ever grasp just how much pain Darkstripe is in.

And the most ridiculous thing about this whole insanity is that Fireheart gets rewarded for his crimes! He gets to be leader! He gets everyone’s support! He gets to be close to Tigerclaw’s real family and let his apprentice run around in the Houses and be listened to despite how young he is and be loved by everyone and-

Stars above, Darkstripe hates him.

How can he be at fault for that? How can everyone be so angry at him for lashing out, when he’s suffering more than they could possibly understand? It’s not fair! It’s not right! It’s bullshit!

All Darkstripe has at this point – the one thing keeping him sane and his overwhelming fury barely contained – is the belief that Tigerclaw loved him. He’s managed to convince himself that he was Tigerclaw’s son and Tigerclaw was his father, and what they had was perfect until a kittypet came along and ruined it. He was loved. Tigerclaw loved him. He was proud of him. He cared about him.

And as if he was psychically aware of what would hurt the most, Fireheart takes that one shred of hope and comfort and rips it away from him. Tears it into pieces. Stomps on the tattered remains. Forces him to acknowledge that it’s not true. That Tigerclaw was embarrassed of him. That he didn’t love Darkstripe at all. He loved Fireheart.

Objectively, on some level, I’m sure Darkstripe knew this too. But his lack of self-awareness and desperation to cling to his only source of semi-joy convinced him otherwise. To have realty confirmed by the cat he hates the most was just too much for him.

So of course he leaves. He has to. There’s nothing in ThunderClan for him. No friends. No family he could win the love of. No Tigerclaw. He just.

He has to go.

Does he think there’ll be anything out there? No, probably not. But it’s infinitely worse to live in the same space as the architect of his misery and see that piece of shit be rewarded for everything he’s done. And he’s not going back, ever again. Not to those idiots, not to their murdering, stupid, ugly, cowardly little leader. Let them all starve to death. Let them all die of a torturous disease. Let more dogs show up and snap all of their necks. He doesn’t care what happens to them.