#barleyraven

[clanslist]

In honor of pride month, James L. Barry posted a sweet picture of mates Barley and Ravenpaw under the rainbow flag. 🌈✨️

[warriors-ideas]

au where barley and ravenpaw are Squirrelflight and Leafpool’s parents

🍃🍂

[fallingstarsau]

RavenBarley for the ship bingo 👀

[Image ID: A picture of a shipping bingo card. The four squares colored in are as follows: Couple Goals, Are you sure it’s not canon, free, and They’re married. End ID.]

Not my OTP- I like Ravenpaw/Firestar more, but it is good.

I will be going back and making Barleytooth/Scourge and Ravenpaw/Firestar the main ships, buuuut Barleytooth and Ravenpaw definitely had a fling

[pigeonclaw]

All done! I tried not to use anybody more than once but some repeats were just unavoidable. If I reread the entire series again right now, I'm sure some of these would change, but here's who I thought of.

My reasons and a blank template under the cut.

Berryheart & Sunbeam: I was so stressed reading about them lol. But I appreciated how complex their relationship was, especially on Sunbeam's side. Berryheart loved her kids, and she hurt her kids quite badly because she thought she was doing the right thing. And that was a tough thing for Sunbeam to cope with. It's not a positive relationship but it is compelling, and I enjoyed that!

The Three: This is more for Lionblaze and Jayfeather (mainly since we've had more time with the two of them) but it would be wrong to leave Hollyleaf out! Most siblings in this series have some sort of strife between them, and these three have had their moments too, but they cared deeply about each other.

Rootspring & Shadowsight: I liked their friendship in TBC. Particularly I liked how insecure they both were, but how they admired each other for the very traits they were insecure about. It was sweet. Perhaps they should kiss.

Tree & Rootspring: This is largely just because Tree is the most supportive dad ever. I like that he stuck by Rootspring and helped him get Bramblestar's message out while still keeping his secret -- even though it was really inconvenient, his son's feelings mattered to him. I like that as soon as trouble came, he was ready to pack up and get his family out of the Clans, but he listened to their wishes and stayed and supported them.

Nightheart & Frostdawn: Their friendship was very sweet in Thunder. I love how Nightheart supported Frostpaw when she was at her lowest point, and how Frostpaw learned to rely on him, which helped her start trusting others again.

Brightheart & Cloudtail: A classic old pairing. I guess I'm a sucker for stories of one character being terribly wounded and at the worst point in their life and then another character supporting them through it and them bonding. Whether that's platonic (like Nightheart & Frostdawn) or romantic like Brightheart & Cloudtail, I'm a fan.

Tawnypelt & Birchfeather: I probably don't need to explain this one since everybody's talking about it. But Tawnypelt's support of Birchfeather when his own parents refuse to acknowledge him is sweet.

Fireheart & Cinderpaw: It's been a while since I last read the first arc, but I remember enjoying these two as both mentor and apprentice and as friends. Nothing too deep here, they were just fun to read about.

Sunbeam & Lightleap: It's a shame their friendship broke down so early into ASC. I enjoy a ship between someone who's calm and sensible and someone who would commit arson on a dare. They could balance each other out, or they could stress each other out. Either way would be interesting to read about!

Please talk to me about your favorite relationships of various types as well! I always enjoy hearing what kinds of characters, tropes, etc appeal to other people.

Here's the blank template!

[carelesscuriosity]

… there is so little spottedtiger art out there im realizing imma either have to draw it myself or commission it :/

[wc-confessions]

Thank god it’s not just me uncomfortable with the sudden influx of inappropriate talk about BarleyRaven. I assume because of the graphic novel because everyone using that inappropriate talk keeps using screencaps of the graphic novel pages, but even then it’s so bizarre that fans think this behavior is okay? It’s disgusting, they’re feral cats, and calling them certain terms feels heavily fetishy on gay man which reminds me of yaoi fangirls. Can we please not talk about gay cats like this?

‎

[leafpool-loves-ashfur]

gay boi trio

it’s my favs!!!!! Feathercloud my beloved <33333 Ravenpaw my scrunkly <3 and Barley

They’re all Homosexuals™!!!

More about Feathercloud (he is Dappletail’s canon kit Featherkit) here

Ravenpaw is also demi in my eyes :)

“Why does Ravenpaw have those scars?” WELL that’s because that’s him in Burning Thistles. Spoilers if you plan on reading it but after Tigerclaw attacks him, he’s rendered mostly mute, but, thankfully, his ex Feathercloud was deaf and they used sign language!! now the struggle is teaching his new bf (and his new clan) what the sign language means lol

also Barley is a baby in Burning Thistles. like he’s younger than BT!Fireheart lmao. by 2ish moons but still. he’s got Old Man Beard but he’s such a baby when I wrote his POV. he’s just so 😇💕

[disaster-bi-leafpool]

Quick guys, kiss! Harper Collins isn't looking! Honestly I love these two so much <3

[pigeontoez]

until i make a new art blog here i am posting the gays on main!!!

[mallowstep]

bleary rambling on barley/ravenpaw in stolag

specifically, a very short bit on why i chose to have them…okay, there’s no way to do this without spoilers.

spoilers (major) for “putting roots in my dreamland,” and spoilers (minor) for events after that. you can read the list of cats i’m covering in stolag, rest assured, if this was coming up again in a fic in any significant way, i wouldn’t talk about it unprompted, but it’s 2am and i’m once again thinking about how solacefruit (the solacefruit! that one!) left a kudos on it’s mere assignment and i need to calm down.

right so. i’m not usually a fan of ravenpaw and barley go to thunderclan aus.

barley’s backstory (and i don’t remember why/when i read it, except that i do know i did at some point) is intensely compelling to me. i’m not cagey about the fact that i like exploring those ideas.

anyway.

barley is a compelling character, but…i (personally) feel sending them to thunderclan is very reductive. it assumes that the right way for them to live was in a clan, when that’s very clearly not true.

ravenpaw and barley are happy together. ravenpaw’s farewell makes that all very clear.

(aside, but all throughought primd, i forgot ravenpaw was older than cinderpelt. ‘tis the power of a suffix.)

anyway, their lifestyle makes them happy. i don’t like changing that.

bothers me less in one-shots, or if it’s just ravenpaw, but ravenpaw + barley feels like…barley’s personality and history is inconvienent to making a surface-level “fix” to what happened to ravenpaw. which uh…i doubt people who do this are thinking about barley very much. i don’t hold it against them.

i just also know that it’s really easy to inadvertently look at how a traumatized, mentally-ill, and/or neurodivergent person lives their life and label it as wrong, because it doesn’t look “normal,” despite it being functional. this isn’t about not being accepting, this is about unintentional tasks that say, “i don’t care how you view the world”

so i don’t usually like that, and i don’t generally plan on doing that to r&b.

but…why now? there’s no real reason to have them stay in shadowclan. they’re only gone for, max, three months. but…in those three months, cinderpelt gets folded into their unit.

because when cinderpelt goes back to thunderclan, a big theme is “i no longer belong here”

a big theme for her, i should say.

and yeah. she’s closer w/ b&r than her kin by now. by circumstance and bonding. so…they stay with her?

but it’s more than that, it’s also…thunderclan puts all the warriors in one den. which, uh, wow there’s a lot to unpack in the context of barley’s backstory, but i’ll start with: yeah no, i think he would hate that.

shadowclan, i’d imagine, is smart enough not to do that. it’s also a quieter clan, with a more predictable schedule: great for anxiety, and for a coming from a home with a predictable schedule.

shadowclan also has a habit of taking in rogues and loners. there’s a better cultural awarenes of the idea that different cats need different things.

and lastly…ravenpaw isn’t returning home to the camp someone tried to kill him in.

right.

it’s late, i just wanted to ramble for a bit.

[gatertots]

!!Raven n barley for the hypo kits 🥺🥺 I am soft for the gay farm cats

the gay barncat’s butch lesbian daughter

she flirts with every she-cat that passes through the farm

she probably falls in love with a clan-cat at some point

[squirble]

its so lovely loving you

reblogs > likes

[thedoodlefox]

Husbands

[blakysart]

Local farmers say gay rights @slimybeepatrol

[qrowpilled]

two Good Cats

((okay to tag as kin/me))

[curlychell]

Barn Mates or Soul Mates, am I right?