-safe-

It's nearing half past three and I can no longer see straight don't blame me for any typos kay?

Ahem, just a shabby sketch of a little headcanon I got into my head today for... no apparent reason. 

So, during Tawnypaw's earliest time in ShadowClan, she felt very lonely, and often homesick, and when it got worse, she'd camp with daddy in his den~

EDIT: I promised a little extra info, so here you go; firstly, their designs follow my new redesigns so no bitching about it, Tigerstar's merely a solid black, and Tawnypaw's an amber classic tabby. Yeah I know she started out black tabby and canon cats are named shortly after birth but I personally headcanon the idea that the cats, you know, actually LEARN some patterns and colours take time coming in, and so wait a good while before naming them, heck they might even wait a moon?? A kitten isn't like, able to respond to a name or do anything but mewls and squeak until they're a few weeks old and their senses are pretty weak too until the first month-mark. It makes sense lol don't fight me. 

And if this picture doesn't tell you, I can add that I love both these characters?? Unreasonably so?? And when I say I love Tigerstar, let me say I DON'T love that predictable mess of a maniac the canon books whippped up, but rather... the idea, that in a well-written series, he could have been a more conflicted, less basic, antagonist with actual feelings?? One that perhaps didn't mean to go as far as he did, who shows regret at turns, who has a hard time living with his crimes that aids his cycle of madness?? One that, even after he gets ShadowClan, still misses his old life no matter how hard he tries otherwise, so when his awkward little daughter comes stumbling in the door it's not so much that he wants her as a tool that he lets her stay, but actual relief that now he gets someone to be close to, who isn't a faceless ally or henchman, and like... actually sees him?? Not this saviour leader, not this cruel case of murder and plotting, but just family. 

This makes it sound like I excuse his every action, but I don't. I just like to think that some things are more complicated than they seem. And, honestly, Tawnypelt's every action since her moving to ShadowClan SUPPORTS that idea. She runs out of her own clan, leaving her kind mother and brother behind bc she can't settle in a world that denounces her for her father's crimes - and instead of leaving the world entirely, she runs to said father, whom she barely remembers, whom she's grown up hearing only bad things about? But still she like, she wants her daddy and she goes to him and I'm sure she didn't blind her eyes to his crueler actions but then we never see anything from her POV so what do we know? He could have doted on her in SC and we would be none the wiser. And she stays even after everything is over, so obviously the bad things couldn't have outweighed the good things that came from her relocation. 

And then the most important bits. Firstly, in the second series she denounces dark forest Tigerstar immediately. I think this plot is extremely hilarious, cuz here we initially have two sons, one who hated his father but then went ooc and thought his evil specter was helping him (lol u dumb much Bramblebutt??) and another who never even met him but for some reason only idealises his evil persona, so if anyone's a born psychopath in this family it's Hawkfrost. 

Then there's Tawnypelt but she like, "nope you boys are so stupid you're being tricked" and while the Erins used that boring argument of "Tigerstar's evil, stop this" in a better plot universe I see it more like... Tawnypelt KNEW her father, she knew him while he was alive and at his most murderous. She knew the truth, but she also knew everything else, and it's obvious she sees nothing of said 'everything else' in this specter. Dead!Tigerstar isn't her dad, final. It's just this evil ghost that looks like him. Not the father she's got this complicated fondness of. 

As the final part, there's Tigerheart. Canon reasons that Tawnypelt named him cuz she thought "Tigerstar was a great warrior" which is like the default reasoning behind every name pick the Erins can't find other reasons for. "Great warrior" has no real meaning, it's just this vague term that seems to apply to absolutely everything. Lol. So I like to see it more as Tawny choosing the name in spite of the great warrior argument, but rather to showcase that she knew he was something else too. 

Maybe this is just garbled nonsense but I don't seem able to stack my opinions rn sorry about that. uwu;

(c) Dearly disliked Erin Hunter
Art: Me