time to complete the family with Lionblaze. the least compelling of the siblings, i think, but i like him. I made him look the most like Leafpool while Holly n Jay look most like Crowfeather.
The thing about the Nightcloud/Crowfeather/Breezepelt dynamic is that all of it is told from other characters’ perspectives, which means we really can’t get an accurate read on each characters’ true emotions.
Which is really a shame because the whole thing really IS difficult to interpret.
But let’s try to analyze the scenes that we do get and try to come to a reasonable conclusion, shall we?
Breezepelt Thinks: That Crowfeather hates him.
This idea is backed up in universe by:
The three repeatedly noting that Crowfeather seems to dislike him - These scenes are in the book to serve as an ironic foreshadowing to Crowfeather being their father, and while they do show that he’s an /emotionally unavailable/ father, the worst thing he does in these scenes is scold Breezepelt when he misbehaves and not compliment his catch. That is hardly abusive.
The Dark Forest Cats literally lying to actively Manipulate Breezepelt, and then Breezepelt parroting back the words that they fed him - These scenes are unreliable because these are DARK FOREST CATS and they are LYING and Breezepelt is BUYING THE LIE. These things didn’t HAPPEN, and Brokenstar of all cats should NOT be the paragon by which we judge anyone’s parenting skills.
And a collection of other scenes where Breezepelt is scolded for misbehaving by Crowfeather - Which are in the book to establish Breezepelt as a Problem. Also, scolding your child does not mean you hate them or that you are abusive
Nightcloud Thinks: That Crowfeather doesn’t love either of them
It is, explicitly, true that Crowfeather doesn’t love her. There’s no arguments there. And while that sucks, and Crowfeather is in the wrong for taking her as a mate, he also doesn’t owe it to her to love her. You can’t owe romantic feelings to anyone.
But there’s really nothing to back up the idea that Crowfeather doesn’t love Breezepelt in Nightcloud’s eyes. The only scene I can think of is one where Breeze(paw) runs around to check the borders, and when he gets back Crowfeather double checks to make sure he checked the entire perimeter, at which point Nightcloud severely overreacts and accuses him of not trusting Breeze(paw). To my eyes this speaks more to Nightcloud’s extreme protectiveness than to Crowfeather’s abuse - literally all he did was double check that his son completed a task at a time of great importance.
Crowfeather Things: That Nightcloud is overprotective and that she is encouraging his son to hate him
This idea is backed up in universe by:
Several scenes of Nightcloud separating him from Breezepelt - Including the aforementioned border checking, and the Daylight Gathering incident, where he actively tries to help carry and tend to his injured son, and is not allowed to do so by Nightcloud. This scene serves no other purpose than to show Crowfeather’s care for his son and Nightcloud’s refusal to let him.
Nightcloud’s repeatedly demonstrated jealousy for Leafpool which - while justified on paper - literally leads to her clawing and Crowfeather and yelling at him in front of clanmates the moment he so much as glances as her. ~Which actually IS abuse~ ! Physical and Emotional ! And while these scenes are there to show that Leafpool and Crowfeather are still in love (which is awful for Nightcloud but does NOT justify her being abusive in turn), Nightcloud’s reaction is only there to show her character.
Breezepelt’s view is manipulated by the Dark Forest Cats.
Nightcloud’s view is clouded by her jealousy, which (again, justified on paper) leads her to literally abusing Crowfeather.
Crowfeather’s view is the only one which is backed up by scenes not serving an alternate purpose and is not clouded by an external motivation.
So the dynamic is:
Breezepelt hates his dad because his mother didn’t let them bond, because he scolds him when he misbehaves, and because literal cats from hell told him to
Nightcloud hates Crowfeather because he doesn’t love her (fair), so she resolves to set Breezepelt against him and physically and emotionally abuse him (unfair)
Crowfeather doesn’t love Nightcloud (which sucks), but he does at least try to be a parent to Breezepelt (he isn’t especially good at it) only to have every attempt thwarted by either Nightcloud or Breezepelt, only for the latter to turn around and tell him he was never trying because of the hell cats mentioned above
There is really no reason for us to believe that Crowfeather was abusive and didn’t love his son. What he /was/ is strict and snappy - which is and has always been his personality. What he /was/ is emotionally distant - which is awful, sure, but it isn’t abuse. He wasn’t a good father, but there’s nothing to suggest that he was an abusive father either.
What we can believe is that Breezepelt’s hatred of Crowfeather wasn’t justified (HIS IDEAS CAME FROM CAT HELL) and that Nightcloud was overprotective of Breezepelt and abusive towards Crowfeather.
“ Destiny isn’t a path that any cat follows blindly. It is always a matter of choice, and sometimes the heart speaks loudest. ” — Leafpool, Sign of the Moon
And it’s finished! This illustration took me awhile - although simple, I put a lot of thought into it! I wanted to make Leafpool’s omen of the three a little bit more dreamy than real looking, I hope I did it justice This is a remake of an old drawing I did a while back too!
I kinda like more the concept of the original, but I think the new perspective and colors help Leafpool to pop up more!
[image description: four drawings of jayfeather, lionblaze, dovewing, and hollyleaf, all from the warriors series, respectively. jayfeather is against a blue background, lionblaze against yellow, dovewing against green, and hollyleaf against red. all are lineless stylized forms with a chalk-like texture. jayfeather is walking to the right, lionblaze is standing facing the camera, dovewing has her back turned, and hollyleaf is walking to the left. /end id.]
Catching up on uploads here is another MAProject part… Community Gardens, Roughs by Thewisestdino, colours of the kits by twistedeerie and patchworktail
‘He’s been so different lately. Those new scars. Always tired and weridly happy. He doesn’t even talk to Poppyfrost anymore, I thought they were best friends. When we talk now, we just argue. His flowers are gone too. His whole philosophy has changed as well…’
‘We’re both changing… and I don’t think it’s good change.’
“You can’t expect forgiveness, that’s not why you apologize. Confronting him like that, it was simply selfishness.”
“You’re right…”
“You couldn’t have controlled his reaction, but you can control your actions. That overwhelming strength of yours… You need to control it. Or else the next time you speak to him, you might just kill him.”
Whewww that’s a lot of cats! I tried to stay away from repeats but what can I say, I love Sandstorm and her kids!!
Also was challenged to try and pick some less popular relationships and since I have so many favorites, I think they still qualify even if they’re not at the very top of my list. Right????? Because listen, it would just be full of FireFamily…
I love all the squirrel x crow AU’s, so here’s my designs for the family, all the kinds have the white paw that squirrelflight has and the only reason people believed that brambleclaw was the father was because of lionblaze and how big and stripey he was, still have no idea where he and jayfeather get their stripes from but we’re just gonna ignore that lol
First batch of pride icons!!! In order there’s Heathertail, Leafpool, Hollyleaf, Rosetail, Alderheart, Lionblaze, Brambleberry, and Firestar! Feel free to send in requests for pride icons, they’re open until the end of June!
voted sexiest man of the year in thunderclan… its buff baby lionblaze
ik lionblaze is a little dull in canon, but i still luv him
headcannons:
- his eyes are the same color as leafpools (except his pupils are slightly red due to the dark forest training he went through)
- literally the hot younger version of firestar. firestar is only a little jealous he was out voted in the sexiest man of the year competition
- he is vry big and vry fluff, but funnily enough hollyleaf is taller than him (but shes not as muscular)
- many cats in the clan wonder how lionblaze achieved his scar free complexion and his dewy morning fresh skin, they assumed he had an amazing skincare routine, but really he just didnt get boo boos because magic
To be honest, I’m pretty sure most of the people calling Crowfeather an abuser are just projecting on their own experiences and they don’t make the difference between a dysfunctional parent and an abusive parent anymore.
Did Sol even have a goal as a villain? Or did he just show up one day on SkyClan then the Lakes and was like “I’m here, I’m queer, time to ruin the lives of everyone here.”
Here’s the finished piece with and without shading! I will go back to designing the first saga characters soon but I just felt like drawing these three. Also added a wip picture of how they looked before I started lining. I really liked how Lionblaze looked without the lineart… The wip is lower quality because it’s just a screenshot taken in the middle of the process.
