#THAT'S what mothpool and leafcrow look like

[luxrayz64]

rereading crowfeathers trial. I do think this one has some of the best writing of all the super editions - I have a very clear sense of who crowfeather is. I like that he's mostly just fucking standing there silently. he's evolved from an angry yelling at everyone teen to being just. a quiet and kind of grouchy reserved guy. I appreciate that he's aware he's fucked up with breeze and night and wants to not only make amends with night but do better with breezepelt too. I love that everytime he compliments breezepelt the book notes that breezepelt is visibly surprised, and frequently responds by affirming his bond with nightcloud instead of really recognising crowfeather. the way crowfeather often says nothing, just kind of hoping breezepelt can read his mind, or when he does compliment breezepelt he says it so matter of factly like it should be obvious. he's so bad at vulnerability it's insane

i haven't gotten up to the part where he tries reaching out to jay and lion but I like that he thinks of them too and wishes he could've known hollyleaf. he didn't raise them but recognises some kind of responsibility towards them (and still wishes he'd had that life with leafpool) but accepts that they don't and will never view him that way. his life didn't turn out that way after all - he chose the life he chose after all.

i quite like watching him struggle to try and connect with and defend breezepelt. without nightcloud around, he's stepping up to protect his son from the rest of the clan. I wish we got more of an explanation for how/breeze went from wanting the clans gone to not that, but the rest of the clan (crowfeather included) not forgiving him immediately feels realistic.

it's also just really nice for once to see one of the erins darling shitty guys get called out by the text. repeatedly they talk about crowfeathers shitty attitude getting passed down to breezepelt, how he fucked up and neglected breezepelt, how he's often a hypocrite and kind of unpleasant. it's probably because the person he abused was another man instead of a woman - but it ends up giving crowfeather a lot of depth most of the shitty guys in wc tend to not have. he actually gets to work on his flaws here.

idk I just really do like this one so far. when I first read it I found it really engaging - most of the newer SEs are really boring to me, but this one grabbed me from the get go. it's nice revisiting it knowing what im getting into and better able to analyse it.

also sorry lesbians but crowleaf is so cute (;- _-) im a sucker for them ok. crowfeather still having a soft spot for her is so sweet. I love the flashback in the prologue where he's thinking about how he always knew it would end with her returning to her clan and how he admires and loves her for it even if it means they were doomed from the start. the idea that even after so long he still respects and admires and loves her and though the puppy crush is long burnt out he still feels this way mannn. feathertails death happening when it does and having the effect on him that it does has Bad implications for his fling with leafpool but it was real man. he wasn't just projecting feather onto leaf he wasn't just rebounding with leaf. there was something real there. god

[wc-confessions]

I have a few,, that are on my mind, so im just gonna put them here

I wish the Erins actually went in depth about why Frecklewish's status in StarClan was changed. that would have been SO COOL to see if maybe she was framed, or maybe Mapleshade trapped her there, or maybe she was just annoying in StarClan and knowing StarClan they just banished her without a second thought. none of this wishy-washy "oh well she didnt do anything when the river was flooded, its not like that would have just added another dead body into the mix ig idk", yeah she's a character that has done some things that are not morally right but she doesnt get excited when kits die ffs.

I like seeing Mapleshade, she's our only long-standing female villain and it makes me really happy to see her. except when she's with thistleclaw. I hope she mauled him to death in the dark forest when she found out about Spottedpaw.

I wish warriors had more non-conforming characters. characters that directly challenged leaders and didnt give a fuck about clan order. SkyClan is really cool to me for that because they have weird names, have an interesting new role that would be so helpful in the other clans, and they just... I love them. I also love Squirrelflight because she fights Brambleclaw about all his shitty decisions. fuck anyone who says that she was in the wrong for that, Brambleclaw needs to get his act together.

Erins stop getting young female characters together with older male ones i will eat your shoelaces.

it always confuses me when people say spottedleaf continued thistleclaws cycle of abuse because like... in the books where she was alive, she barely talked to Firestar. like... the rest of it was a retcon. a dumb retcon that made her look creepy but a retcon at that. she didnt at all show any affection towards firestar. they were like coworkers.

I wish we had more cats that were a) willingly healers and b) were EVIL healers. IMAGINE THE POTENTIAL...

I hate to admit this but for some really odd reason I do like LeafCrow. not in the "oh hes done nothing wrong!!" idea, but because I have this really specific fanon idea of Crow in my brain that's just... idk, i have no idea why i like it, idk why i like crow, mothpool is better, but its just in my brain and it wont go away.

i liked bluestars prophecy, squirrelflights hope, and yellowfangs secret. maybe its because i read them when i was a little younger and i have an attachment to the characters but minus sandstorms comment in SH that ruined my perception of her I liked reading them. Yay bluestar being a character thats mentally ill and has had a pattern of this thats really really relatable, yay squirrelflight fighting brambleclaw and choosing what's right, YAY yellowfang, just yay yellowfang.

and finally, transmasc Hollyleaf and transfem Lionblaze. i love them dearly.

.

[mallowstep]

i’m not sure if you’ve done this already or something, but what would the three look like if they were mothpool kittens instead of leafcrow? by the way, i really like your writing and aus!

As always, it depends. I’m answering on my phone bc Reasons so forgive me for not doing a a super detailed breakdown but.

If you think of lionblaze as a golden tabby, he’s fine. If you think of him as a cream tabby, you’ll need to adjust.

(If you think he’s a variation of ginger, you think he’s cream. Just to avoid confusion. Or maybe you think he’s ginger and something. I say cream as a catch all and it being a lion-y color but.)

Anyway.

The only one who Doesn’t work is Jay. He’s a silver tabby, and neither moth nor leaf are silver, and it’s dominant. So he’ll have to be…ig a blue tabby. It works! I’m just a big fan of silver tabbies and like making cats silver. But some designs for Jay skew blue over silver anyway.

But like — you can always change designs to make them different, if you want. You’ve got Options.

[overcareful]

gives u a kiss tell me about...... mothpool

xo anon u know my fave ship

001 | send me a ship and I will tell you:

when I started shipping it if I did: like as soon as leafpaw met mothwing.. im not sure if she was ever mothpaw?? i feel like she got her name first, but literally their first interaction leafpaw was all “her golden fur” “amber eyes” etc etc

my thoughts: absolutely my fave ship. its so wholesome and it makes me super happy

What makes me happy about them: how close they were right from the start, how leafpaw/pool never once second guessed going down to riverclan when she knew mothwing needed her help. 

What makes me sad about them: different clans i guess. also that while mothwing admires leafpools dedication and confidence in starclan, they could never really bond over it. like will mothwing have a place in starclan with leafpool???!?!?!?! this keeps me up at night

things done in fanfic that annoys me: read below

things I look for in fanfic: ive never read warriors fanfics !!! where do i even find those ? i tried looking once on ao3 but i think most of the wc fandom is on fanfiction.net ???

Who I’d be comfortable them ending up with, if not each other: no one? i did like leafcrow a bit but as soon as i saw the trans!mothwing headcanon and the original three were mothwings kits i fell in LOVE with this ship. it just makes so much more sense

My happily ever after for them: 

who is the big spoon/little spoon: is this a question.. leafpool is always the little spoon

what is their favorite non-sexual activity: gathering herbs and exchanging ones they dont have. mothwings favourite thing to get from leafpool is lavender, the smell reminds her of leaf. also when they go to the moonpool they exchange a piece of moss that smells like them for them to add to their nest, since med cats never really sleep near anyone and they couldnt sleep in the same nest anyway. (when leafpool would visit riverclan i swear to god they curled up together.)

[mallowstep]

Any ships you think should've happened in the WC series?

"should" is a tricky word.

(i will get to an actual answer, i just have a bit of a preamble.)

should is a tricky word: what does it mean? do i think a given couple is more realistic? that it would have caused a more interesting story? that it would be a "better" ship?

because all three of those are subjective, and all three of them deserve more explanation than just me throwing a ship on a list.

like, what is a good ship?

i love jaypoppy, but should it have been canon? i don't know.

when i was but a wee babe, shipping didn't have much to do with canon. that's not to say that lupin and sirius aren't hella gay, but like, did i think...idk, ginny and luna should have gotten together? no, but i still liked reading fic for them.

so like, answering this question is hard, because it isn't what it looks like. or at least, i don't think you were trying to get me all philosophical about fandom and shipping and changes over time.

maybe you were, lmao.

okay, but. i don't think it's news to anyone that i don't have a problem with "bad" things in warriors, as a general rule. so like, in that regard, i'm not going to tell you, oh, we should have had (some other squirrelflight ship) instead of squirrelbramble. we should have had a better executed squirrelbramble, but like, the existence of it is something i'm fundamentally okay with.

yeah, it pisses me off that he treats her so terribly...but? that's okay? if he didn't, it wouldn't piss me off.

squirrelflight isn't real. squirrelflight being abused in warriors for Drama and Conflict is not like a real person being abused.

you know?

so. i keep trying to find like, a way to list ships. do i want to list noncanon ships i like? i don't know! like, i don't think that i think jaypoppy should be canon. i don't think it really works, canonically. i wouldn't be unhappy if i found out it was canon, but it's not a change i would suggest to warriors canon.

like, really, i don't mind ships being non-canon. i would rather have better executed canon ships. i want squirrelbramble to remain canon: i want his treatment of her to be acknowledged by the narrative.

and if i just list "ships that are hinted at but don't follow through," really, all we're doing is getting a reminder that warriors refuses to be gay.

which, like, yeah, i guess i do think mothpool should be canon. that's the first ship on the list, mothpool.

but uh...what about hollywillow? i don't know! should it? wouldn't that change hollyleaf's arc? and do i want that change? would that change be better? maybe!

and that leads me half tempted to list out memes like squirrelflight/self-love, my only true squirrelflight ship.

deep breaths.

i don't have a ton of "leg-room" with this ask, in terms of answering what it says, but should has two meanings: "should" as in this makes for a better narrative, and "should" as in if the characters were people, this would be better for them.

the first question is hard, maybe impossible, to answer, and the second question doesn't matter all that much to me, on a personal level.

but! it is a question i can answer. so without further ado, here are some ships i think about a lot:

bluefur and thrushpelt as qprs (I/II) i just think they're neat meme. but, uh, i think this fits into type I and II, in that we already have an idea of a relationship between them, and i would like to see it extended. but also, emotional support is important! i want them to be nestmates and love each other and just. yeah. okay.

squirrelflight/self-love (II) i made my point pretty clear about this. that said, it's not a very satisfying end to specifically tbc. we've kind of let the squirrelbramble ship sail, and now, i think the only satisfying ending for them, narratively, is to "work out" their issues and stay together.

i don't like it, squilf deserves better, but from the perspective of the narrative, that's kind of what needs to happen. like, warriors is a kid's book, and kids deserve somewhat neat endings, you know?

as much as i argue that kids can handle complex ideas and stuff, i think like, there's not a lot of satisfaction to "squirrelflight goes through all of this to save bramblestar and then she breaks up with him."

there's a place for those stories, don't get me wrong. a central theme in my squirrelstar au is the tug she feels between her existing relationship with bramblestar and what she wants.

but i don't think that's a good resolution for the actual text of the thing. personally.

(it's also possible i don't trust the erins to pull it off.)

mothpool (I/II) considering i consider this canon, this is kind of cheating.

but like, i meme a lot about it, but leafpool is so terribly in love with mothwing every chance she gets to be, that it hurts. you change nothing by making it official, in terms of how the narrative plays out—

but wait! what about leafcrow?

well, heck, people are complicated! have you never been in love with two people? maybe so. that's alright. but i have. i know what it feels like.

leafcrow are a thing, and they're this rebellious teenage infatuated bad idea, and it's completely compatible with canon mothpool.

in both "if you love me any, let me know it now" and "it's been promised to another," i addressed this from leafpool's pov.

—and it just. they deserve each other.

minnowmouse (I) that's right, the first ship on this list that i think should be canon but isn't strictly better for the characters.

it's not type II because we just don't know enough about them to make an informed guess about that.

but! i can say that it would in fact make a better story for them to be together.

dovewing/tigerheart (I/II, debatably) what, nothing said i could include canon ships.

their relationship is good for the narrative, although it could have been executed better. i have a lot of thoughts, but like...i unironically loved all the tigerdove scenes in oots. sue me, i still love them.

as for whether or not it's a "good ship," i'm...willing to admit it's debatable. certainly, they're not a perfect couple.

but...reading tigerheart's shadow really affirmed something for me: tigerheart loves his wife. he loves her so much.

the scene i think about every damn day is when he describes dovewing and the kits sleeping. the level of detail he shows comes from the kind of overwhelming love that makes you want to memorize every single atom of a person.

(yes, i understand love =/= treating someone right, just...let me have this. please. i don't feel like writing a tigerdove essay atm.)

and like! they had a rocky start, but from tigerheart's shadow on, they've been doing pretty good. i love them.

now, as a lightening round of ships i like:

dove/briar/hollow, because acaciapines infected me (love them)

goldenflower/tigerclaw. love it.

dysfunctional leopardstar and tigerclaw.

hollywillow, hollycinder

cinderheart, hollyleaf, and lionblaze in a love triangle. it's really funny to me, okay? it's just. really. funny to me.

jaypoppy. love them. so much. my beloved <3

jaybriar. in a romantic or qpr sense, i don't have a preference, both are loved.

rushtail and troutstream. uh. you'll see?

mossyfoot/dovewing. again. you'll see?

thistleheart/hollyleaf. kizulu is to blame for this one.

platonic/found-family stormfur, brook, and squirrelflight. comes up in one of my fics, i just...idk. i started writing it and now i like it?

and probably more, but hey! that's a wrap.

<3

[mallowstep]

I wanna hear about the PO3 au's the anon left out! skyclan, loner, po5. Im guessing loner is Crow/Leaf raising the 3 outside of the clans. I love hearing you talk about your au's!

aww thanks! okay, same plan as before, details below the cut.

skyclan po3: it's, uh, pretty on the nose. crow and leaf run to skyclan with their kits.

loner po3: this is a catch-all term for three aus with similar premises, but i don't have a clear/short title to differentiate them. one is leafcrow, one is mothpool, and one is just leafpool. i'll talk about each of them.

po5: this is my internal name for the jaywing au. this, if you don't remember (and why would you), is a bit of a parallel to the dovefeather/med cat dovewing au where jaykit and dovekit are siblings.

skyclan po3: "they move on tracks of never-ending light" (title song)

the au title for this in my notes was "whitewater," but i think i'm going to save something else for that. (if you're confused why i have two titles for all of the aus: when i make a big au, it usually gets a temporary title that's short and easy to search, but i replace it with a permanent title later. sometimes they stay the same, like ashes, but usually i change it.)

so my only notes on this is

crowfeather and leafpool make it all the way to skyclan with a trio of newborn kits.

and like yeah, that's basically all i've figured out.

uhhh i know skyclan will come to the lake sooner, obviously, and i know that jay's character arc plays out really differently because there's less ableism.

(even in the windclan au, jay is intertwined with ableism: in that case, it's "either you're the same, or you're not capable." but leafstar is a sensible leader who doesn't have that problem.)

otherwise, yeah, i don't really know where i'm going with this, other than i think it'll be fun to explore, since leafpool is firestar's daughter and named after leafstar.

loner po3: the common thread in all of these is what happens to thunderclan's medicine cat after leafpool leaves?

(tbf, that's a common question in quite a few aus. but it makes itself a central conflict in these three.)

loner po3 I: leafcrow. "on and on we run in loops"

uh, yeah. they run away, and stay away. this one isn't supposed to focus on the kits that much, but rather, leafpool's struggle with duty and desire.

i've got this:

“There’s a loner,” the kittypet said, her voice languid, claws extended, but with an air of ease, “named Leaf. She’s been helping out loners for, oh, a season or two.”

as a quote from it. it's my least favorite of the loner po3 aus.

loner po3 II: single mom leafpool. "between us, i'd trade you for them every time"

i've talked about this one actually quite a bit, but it's probably going to take me a while to write it. it's inspired by "butterflies and hurricanes," but instead of leafpool dying, crowfeather dies.

also, the chapter titles come from "marjorie" which is basically 90% of why it's going to take me a while to work on it, that song makes me cry a lot and uh, things are a lil Much right now.

i've got a few scenes sketched out, from holly running away, and leafpool panicking, to leafpool worrying about bringing her kits to thunderclan.

loner po3 III: mothpool. "to make a choice in all this mess"

this is the au competing with divided po3 for next po3 au to write, and i'm...i love it. (as a note, i won't write two aus for the same time period at the same time. that's why i was waiting to finish wfmisus before i got back on doahins. now it's all messy. but i get confused lmao.)

anyway, i have the least written for this, but i'm very excited. in my first warriors fic ever, "if you love me any, let me know it now", leafpool thinks this:

(Leafpool should have left. She should have found Mothwing and told her and left. Maybe pause to say goodbye to Squirrelflight. Mothwing would have gone with her, and things would be alright. Not like they are now, all tangled and impossible.)

and well. i'm weak.

i don't have a ton of concrete stuff to say about it, especially considering it's so high on the list, but i mean, i'm excited.

po5: "wing and feather"

alright, this is an old one. since it's also high on my list, i want to explain where it came from rather than what it's about, because that will cover what it's about in a broad sense, without tempting me to give away the details.

(also, w&f is a working title. much like "feather take flight," i may change my mind.)

anyway. i started getting into warriors with "cloudtail's daughter," an au where dovewing and ivypool are brightheart's kits.

in a post so old i had to go to my main blog to find it, i said this:

i also want him to be dovewing’s brother. but the au where brightheart gives birth to dovekit, anxiety child, and jaykit, blind, and feels like a failure despite the fact that its not like her half-blindness is genetic, is not this au. that is another au.

and the seeds were planted.

so right, i'm writing up ctd around when i'm first reading "flightless dove, poison ivy," which will go on to inspire dovefeather (med cat dovewing au, but as you'll see, dovefeather is the assigned working au name. after i decided i didn't like feather take flight, i reverted back to its initial working title, dovefeather.)

so i've got these two things rolling around in my brain.

dovefeather comes first, because i reread fdpi so many times and i just. i want dovepaw to stay in riverclan. i don't want her to leave. i want her to be happy. (also please! i'm still finishing ch 2 of fdpi no spoilers it's taking me embarassingly long to finish.)

but anyway, consider this a bonus au talk because explaining what po5 is, imo, requires me explaining what dovefeather is. like, in an au talk scenario. they're unrelated aus, from a reader perspective.

so i come up with this list of "things i want to be different in oots":

dovewing should be cloudtail's daughter

dovewing and jayfeather should be siblings

dovewing should be a medicine cat

dovewing should go to riverclan

ivypool should be the fourth cat (but i'm not revealing which aus this applies to bc big time spoilers)

and this creates a bit of an au matrix. pick and choose, you know? ctd is (1).

dovefeather is (3) and (4).

but i still wanted (2), and so it seemed pretty natural to make a (1), (2), and (3) au.

but that's a retrospective analysis, what really happens is, i get like fourteen "what ifs" deep, until i'm writing fic for my fic for someone else's fic. kind of.

dovefeather diverges pretty sharply from fdpi, especially based on what i've read of ch2. it takes the same core idea, and because my idea of riverclan was inspired by fdpi, there are plenty of similarities, but i think it's functionally very different, and superficially similar.

(also, hollowflight ends up in a completely different trio lmao dovepaw hangs out with rushpaw, troutpaw, and mossypaw.)

but anyway, i'm trying not to write another au of the same time period, but i just finished writing out the full outline for ashes, and the next chapter (i.e., ch 12, which i'm hopefully posting today if all goes well) gets me thinking, and i can't let it go: i want (2) to happen.

so i look at my outline for dovefeather, because the rule is, it has to be very different from this.

since dovefeather is like 70% drafted (altho that number seems low, because i suspect i'm going to end up adding a lot into the fourth chapter), i now know that was never going to be an issue, but at the time, i was very worried.

so i was like! well, that means i'm going to fuck with every part of po3, and we're going to get ivypaw and hollypaw roped in, and jaypaw is always going to be a warrior, and i think i made squilf his mentor? or maybe sandstorm lmao.

either way, it ended up being defined by jaypaw, which i didn't initially plan on. but that's po5: squilf's litter lionkit, hollykit, ivykit & brightheart's litter dovekit and jaykit grow up together.

it's got a similar vibe to ashes IMO.

okay wow that ended up being a lot i've been hyperfocusing on dovefeather all weekend, and in my head, it's inextricably linked to ashes, ctd, and jaywing/po5, so uh. yeah.

hope this was what you were looking for?

<3