#harespring wc

[lemnnshark]

"Harestar is a small, lithe, brown-and-white tom with sleek fur and blue eyes."

[simbasomba]

Small drawing dump

[firestarishomophobic]

i like this guy. and i love drawing windclan cats

[daily-breezepelt]

two years ago i got a request to draw “harespring and breezepelt hanging out in the dark forest” this is me fulfilling that request.

[raguma1504]

i decided to remake crowfeather's and harestar's designes because i didn't like those very much

[janadog]

GUYS NEW IDEA

Warrior cats object show with the dark forest trainees if they lose the challenge THEY DIE-

[troutfur]

José. My absolute beloved.

Unveil ALL your Kestrelflight lore 🙏 All of your characterization and headcanons and everything 🙏🙏🙏

RAMBLE ABOUT THE MEDDIE, MY GOOD MAN

Aye, aye, captain!

(Under the cut because length, predictably.)

So! Let's start from the beginning and let me tell you what are my family headcanons for him. I don't have well defined parents for him, I really have no idea what works best for him. But I do know pretty definitively who I think are his littermates: Antpelt and Harespring.

What really gave me this idea was the Only Child Lionblaze AU. Each of these three characters have a connection to the WindClan three and as such I thought making them siblings would be fitting.

Harespring is a rival to Hollytail for the deputyship. Both are ambitious, rule-following, and competitive. Harespring in particular resents Hollytail because he sees her as having an unfair advantage. He's both Ashfoot's apprentice and granddaughter, not to mention Onestar's grandniece. In his view she's coasting a lot on the nepotism and so Harespring decided on training in the Dark Forest as a way to gain his own advantage on her.

Antpelt is Breezepelt's best friend. While in this AU given that he has Hollytail and Jayroot to serve as a support net that keeps him in check and helps alleviate the pain of what they all suffer having Crowfeather as a father, Breezepelt still has a lot of aggression to him (not helped by getting to have Lionblaze's power). Breezepelt's firendship with Antpelt ultimately begun with them being sparing partners and grew from his need to have someone outside his family.

(Breezepelt also takes the role of Ivypool, the DF spy pressured to take the role by his siblings. His introduction was through Antpelt, and as you can imagine that turns out tragic.)

Finally Kestrelpaw who was a nursery friend of Jaypaw's who was devastated about how cold he turned upon becoming a warrior apprentice. He's very desperate to win his friend back over, fretting about whatever he did wrong, trying in vain to approach even though Jaypaw seems to want nothing with him, losing much sleep and tears over it. They end up reconnecting once Jayroot earns his full name and Kestrelpaw is unsure of what changed and is over the moon about it.

(What happened is that StarClan was trying to goad Jaypaw into sabotaging Kestrelpaw and replacing him as Barkface's apprentice. Jaypaw began avoiding Kestrelpaw for fear StarClan may play a dirty trick. StarClan only gives up once Jayroot becomes a warrior and only then can their friendship rekindle.)

I really enjoy this dynamic between the two litters a lot and even though the Hare & Ant & Kestrel litter doesn't work nearly as well without it, I'm still attached to the headcanon. If nothing else the thought of them working together as WindClan's upper rung of power and them having to contend together with the fact their brother was erased from existence is compelling. I bet it was a tragic conversation once Harespring could talk about it.

BUT ANYWAY! Onto his characterization!

His most consistent traits in canon, at least as far as Po3 and OotS are concerned, are that he's friendly and naive. A little bit stupid even. I really like to play into those first two in the way he interacts with Jaypaw. He's convinced that with a friendly attitude and a little persistence he can turn the grump around. He's not ultimately wrong about it, too.

Within the half-moon meeting gang dynamic Willowshine is deeply disapproving of his endeavor to win Jaypaw over. She met him before her, as we may recall during Jaypaw's first half-moon metting Kestrelpaw was sick back in camp, and it wasn't at all a good first impression. Willowpaw tries to dissuade him and acts antagonistic towards Jaypaw in an attempt to protect sweet, naive, little Kestrelpaw.

Eventually, though, when he makes progress with her, he acts as the ambassador. Willowpaw and Jaypaw have a rocky road to building a friendship. But in the end they manage to become verbal sparing partners. Argument and debate are how they pass the time and bond. Kestrelflight has to constantly reassure everyone they do, in fact, get along.

Another way I really like for the Kestrelpaw & Jaypaw dynamic to develop is what I did on this other fic that's been since privated but which I want to rewrite eventually. In this Jaypaw gets the meddie position by being an absolute insufferable BRAT to Leafpool because he thinks he's entitled to it over Hollypaw. When he eventually breaks her he's already made quite the reputation for himself.

Willowpaw is quite harsh and antagonistic to him from the get go over the slight to her friend Hollypaw and thus Jaypaw ends up quite isolated. He and Kestrelpaw begin interacting because he pities him, essentially. But soon enough the kindness brings about in Jaypaw a desire to repair his relationship with his siblings and better himself as a person.

In the end they end up in a clandestine meddie relationship. All because Kestrelpaw didn't like seeing him so alone and miserable.

Finally! With regards to the way I like to fill out the details of his ascent to full meddie. As I said before the story implied in how even though he's older than Jaypaw by all canon evidence but doesn't get named until the allegiances of the first book in OotS, the first chapter of which has an announcement of Barkface's death, fascinates me.

Being unintelligent is something that's commented on in the narration and the fact he does not have a full name until after Barkface is dead to me imply very clearly he was only promoted of necessity. Even if by Clan culture he would be adult aged twice over he was not ready to handle the responsibility on his own.

I hesistate to name any learning disability in specific, but I think it's a combination of that and a general immature personality. I like to think he cherished having an extended childhood/adolescence and didn't want to ever grow up. Even if he would have to eventually because Barkface is old and won't live forever.

The 6 month timeskip between Po3 and OotS really lend themselves to having these circumstances that necessitated his premature promotion be really tragic. This is why I pin Barkface's cause of death as a terminal disease. Alzheimer's is a really good suggestion I was given and I still have to research that some more before I get to write this fic.

I also like to think that in this timeframe he got to make friends with the other apprentice in their little grouping, Flamepaw. Willowshine and Jayfeather are already full meddies and in many ways dealing with a lot more responsibility than even Kestrelpaw's care of Barkface. I feel that Barkface's impending death would put the contrast between them in sharp focus and make him more likely to bond with someone still firmly in the "kid" camp of this liminal time he's going through.

And that's about it for my thoughts (he says, having written over 1100 words). Hope it was a fun peek into my thought process and why I rotate this bird boy so much in my mind.

[gigas-warriors-stuff]

Harestar

[warriorcatsdesigns]

Harestar

[letthe-skyfall]

Me when life - D: Me when eepy Harestar - :D

[gannetsplash]

Harestar

[magicdungeon]

always liked the idea of him having a floppy ear

[kittygirls1]

art of @buzzprincess1 's Harestar!!! the girl ever

[gougarpaw]

“He’s wrong to let cats die. The rogues harmed us, not ShadowClan. ShadowClan shouldn’t have to pay for other cats’ cruelty.”

Harestar is a brown-and-white tom with blue eyes.

[raguma1504]

[yumequeenbr]

178#Harestar

decided making as a cute bobtail and with a diferent color than his official one