#i’m biased bc i refuse to believe needletail likes men

[needlepine]

I’ve been thinkin about Needletail again recently, so here’s her boyfriend Rain

He goes to another school

[swanbelly]

auughghg just finished shadow. some spoilers abt sunbeam and berryheart (and briefly frostpaw) below cut

i think berryheart has such good potential as an antagonist. she’s not a leader (atm anyway) just a respected senior warrior. sees what she did in the past and how it affected her and shadowclan and everyone and how it killed her daughter needletail. she’s trying to make up for her mistakes in the way she knows how, which is not... right. but she believes what she’s doing is what’s best for shadowclan and it is so clear.

with the prologue being her pov i think it really shows that she’s not using ‘whats best for shadowclan’ as an excuse. i think she really does think she’s trying to help shadowclan be the strongest, and refusing to see anything different. she respects tigerstar so much, but she doesn’t agree with what he’s doing - but i don’t think she’d try to take over shadowclan herself.

i’ve seen some ppl say she doesn’t care abt sunbeam and is just manipulating her, and while i do think she’s manipulating her i think she is doing it out of love. not that that justifies it, but it’s not out of malicious intent.

she loves sunbeam! she’s her mother! there was a scene where sunbeam interpreted her look as a “mixture of pity and love” and i think berryheart sees her young adult daughter making what she views as mistakes based on flimsy romance and misguided youthful optimism wants to help even if it’s pissing both of them off in the process. it’s so much more impactful because sunbeam agrees with berryheart on some things, but doesn’t agree with how she’s going about things. it’s so nuanced it’s so refreshing to see their relationship. yes she’s manipulating her but it’s her trying to get sunbeam to see her side of the story, to see why what she’s doing is right. she doesn’t want sunbeam to be her follower, she’s not evil, she just wants sunbeam to be on her side.

seeing sunbeam saying “don’t tell tigerstar, i will talk to my mother, she’s my mother” is so. AUGH. it’s so good. she loves her mother, even if she doesn’t trust her, but she does believe berryheart has the good of shadowclan in her heart. their relationship is SO nuanced and complicated and i love it.

it’s so reminiscent of things i’ve heard from my own mother, especially with our differing opinions. the huge divide between generations is so clear here, and it’s so like... prevalent in what’s going on today. it’s so Relevant. that’s what i think i love the most about it all. all of this feels so Real and Relatable. i think i’m a little biased bc i know mother relationships w/ their kids Get Me so bad, family shit GETS me.

and when nightheart leaves and berryheart comforts her, even though she says those choice things i think she did really mean it. and yknow how parents can be, when you break up with someone they don’t like and they’re like well i don’t think they ever deserved you anyway you’re too good for them and i have a list of some nice fine young men/ladies who are better for you--

and about frostpaw. oh god my baby girl. i think, even though berryheart doesn’t care about the other clans, she would be upset to find out about what happened to frostpaw. she told sunbeam they didn’t plan on hurting anybody, both sides just wanted shadowclan out of riverclan. but finding out frostpaw was killed? (or maybe almost, still not sure if they’ve full on Killed Her Off or if windclan will find her and patch her up before she bleeds out. chapter cut off before she saw starclan, she just passed out) idk maybe i’m holding out too much hope, but that’s still a young cat who had nothing to do with anything.

if anything at all i’d like to think berryheart would think that’s a tragedy, a pity for a young cat to die like that. even if she doesn’t care about riverclan’s business, she gives the vibes of someone who would still think that’s Fucked IDK. maybe relates it to her own daughter who got caught up in the wrong crowd and paid for it.

my hope for her is that while she’s an antagonist, she won’t be a villain. i’d love to see her and sunbeam working together in the future. i’m excited to see where this arc goes, so far i haven’t been disappointed, which i KNOW is an unpopular opinion but i do love this new writing team n where it’s going.