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Post by ᵇ ʳ ⁱ ᵍ ʰ ᵗ on Nov 10, 2019 5:50:55 GMT -5
As you know, Dustpelt mentored Ashpaw until he became a warrior. Fernpaw received her warrior name: Ferncloud and was welcomed as a warrior of ThunderClan. Then the Erins decide to make them mates? The books say that Fernpaw liked her brother's mentor, which is just weird. Dustpelt is way older than Ferncloud if you look at it. This is comepletely my opinion coming up:
No. The Erins should've made a better choice with the mates. Even Sandstorm and Firestar was a little off putting (I'll touch on that in another thread)
Anyways, Dustpelt had so many different choices! Mousefur was most likely in my opinion, but they could've made it interesting in having a crush on Sandstorm.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 10, 2019 7:42:08 GMT -5
Dustpelt actually isn't that much older than her, he was still an apprentice when she was born, they're only about like 9-10 moons apart.
There are characters with MUCH larger age gaps than them
Snowbird was a warrior before Tigerclaw was even Tigerstar, and her mate, Scorchfur, is about the same age as Jayfeather
Ivypool is a couple of years older than Fernsong
Sneezecloud's mate was his brother's apprentice
Whitetail was Onestar's apprentice
Thornclaw is like six years older than Blossomfall
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Post by ❅Maplefrost❅ on Nov 10, 2019 9:10:10 GMT -5
I'm surprised you're more bothered by their age diff and not the fact that Dustpelt is Ferncloud's uncle. Ferncloud's mother was Brindleface, and Brindleface's parents were Fuzzypelt and Robinwing, who later had a second litter which included Dustpelt.
Personally I preferred Dust x Sand, and never paid much mind to Dust x Fern. I did think it was off-putting when he was so into her while she was only an apprentice. To the point, he eagerly volunteered to be her new mentor when he already had an apprentice at the time.
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Post by cowbird on Nov 10, 2019 10:02:49 GMT -5
Like mentioned before, there are weirder couples. I personally dont mind none of them (unless they are somehow closely related... like Dust being the uncle of Fern as he was Brindleface's younger brother is a bit creepy). I feel like the Erins made a mistake and then they backed it up by saying there was a lack of new kits so to keep the clan alive kin and kin seemed to have no problem mating together.
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Post by ᵇ ʳ ⁱ ᵍ ʰ ᵗ on Nov 10, 2019 12:07:51 GMT -5
i didnt even know that, i was just voicing how odd it was.
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Post by *Ottersplash* on Nov 10, 2019 12:10:30 GMT -5
Age...isn't an issue in the warriors series though? Pinestar was a LOT older than Leopardfoot, we have IvyFern
DustFern is easily one of my favorite ships. It's a super healthy relationship and they clearly loved each other.
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Post by ᵇ ʳ ⁱ ᵍ ʰ ᵗ on Nov 10, 2019 12:17:07 GMT -5
It is a nice ship if you don't consider that she was an apprentice when she crushed on him and they were related and stuff.
Yeah, I agree, it's healthy and stable but it doesn't seem like a perfect relationship despite how much the Erins wanted you to think that it was
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Post by *Ottersplash* on Nov 10, 2019 12:22:24 GMT -5
It is a nice ship if you don't consider that she was an apprentice when she crushed on him and they were related and stuff. Yeah, I agree, it's healthy and stable but it doesn't seem like a perfect relationship despite how much the Erins wanted you to think that it was Because teenagers never crush on adults. A lot of ships are also related in the Warriors community due to the closed nature of the clans. It's as perfect a relationship as you can get in Warriors. I don't see why people want to pick on the stable relationships instead of focusing on, you know, the abusive ones.
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Post by ᵇ ʳ ⁱ ᵍ ʰ ᵗ on Nov 10, 2019 12:25:38 GMT -5
Agree.
Cough Tigerstar cough Sasha cough Brindleface fvdsdfghf
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Post by Batchaser on Nov 10, 2019 12:51:10 GMT -5
Age gaps are shown not to matter in the books. Cats in the Wild mate no matter their age. The topic of age gaps in relationships is something that is not usually normalized by us, but in the society these characters live in it is something that is normal and not different than same-age relationships.
Besides, Ferncloud and Dustpelt do genuinely love each other, and was shown in Bramblestar’s Storm and The Last Hope (off the top of my head).
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Post by Card against Humanity on Nov 10, 2019 13:10:29 GMT -5
tbh the sheer amount of apprentice/warrior relationships make me think the erins see apprentices as like, young adults or university-aged kids rather than adolescents. ferndust is still kind of weird to me though bc wasnt he literally mentoring her brother?
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maggotpaw
named my son maggotkit because i hate him
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Post by maggotpaw on Nov 10, 2019 13:15:12 GMT -5
Yeah, I get that.
Even in the context of wild cats, readers are understandably allowed to be uncomfortable with an adult cat being interested in his apprentice's sister (who he is in a position of power over) when the characters in these books and their society are humanized to such an extent they resemble furry people more than they do cats.
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Post by vectoring34 on Nov 10, 2019 13:19:57 GMT -5
tbh the sheer amount of apprentice/warrior relationships make me think the erins see apprentices as like, young adults or university-aged kids rather than adolescents. ferndust is still kind of weird to me though bc wasnt he literally mentoring her brother? This has always been my position on the matter. Apprentices are old enough to be expected to die fighting for their clan if necessary, or at least put their safety on the line, as a matter of course. If they're old enough to do that, they're old enough to make their own romantic choices too.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 10, 2019 13:25:06 GMT -5
I didn't even realize they were related until recently, ack. I think it was most likely an error on the Erins' end. Still, if you take that aspect away DustFern is still a healthy and perfectly nice couple, I like them. I feel really bad for them though, didn't all their kits die except for Birchfall?
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Post by ᵇ ʳ ⁱ ᵍ ʰ ᵗ on Nov 10, 2019 13:27:51 GMT -5
I didn't expect this to get so much like, opinions I guess? I was expecting hate and backlash for my opinion but obviously not. Thanks!
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Post by ᵇ ʳ ⁱ ᵍ ʰ ᵗ on Nov 10, 2019 14:18:06 GMT -5
maggotpaw your profile picture is golden
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#a3c5e6
Name Colour
𝓣𝓲𝓷𝓾𝓿𝓲𝓮𝓵
Warrior Fanatic
All hail me, the flower-flushing queen of Prague
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Post by 𝓣𝓲𝓷𝓾𝓿𝓲𝓮𝓵 on Nov 10, 2019 18:02:45 GMT -5
Like everyone else already said, age gaps and relations clearly don't matter to the Clans. If you have a problem with this, then I have to assume that you have a problem with most of the other pairings as well. Of course this sort of thing would seem wrong to us, but it's very common for them, so it doesn't seem like that big of a deal.
Regardless of how humanized they are, the characters are still wild cats living in a society where they can't mate with outsiders unless one of them moves to join them. Mating with a relative or a younger cat is inevitable unless the warrior code is changed.
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Post by sylveon on Nov 10, 2019 18:53:20 GMT -5
It was weird, yes, but I honestly think the Erins forgot about the age gap between them. The first arc was weird in the sense that littermates were apprenticed at different times. Brackenfur and Cinderpelt are made to seem so much older by the end of the arc but Brightheart and Thornclaw barely get their warrior names in the last book. Cloudtail was also said to be around Ashfur's and Ferncloud's age iirc but suddenly he's older and apprenticed sooner. It's just a mess. As for being related, the Erins did say they never expected to go so deeply into family trees.
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Post by Deleted on Nov 10, 2019 18:56:07 GMT -5
It was weird, yes, but I honestly think the Erins forgot about the age gap between them. The first arc was weird in the sense that littermates were apprenticed at different times. Brackenfur and Cinderpelt are made to seem so much older by the end of the arc but Brightheart and Thornclaw barely get their warrior names in the last book. Cloudtail was also said to be around Ashfur's and Ferncloud's age iirc but suddenly he's older and apprenticed sooner. It's just a mess. As for being related, the Erins did say they never expected to go so deeply into family trees. I found the Ashfur, Ferncloud, and Cloudtail thing weird too. Like you said, Cloudtail was apprenticed first, and when Ferncloud asked why she couldn't be, Brindleface told her that she was too young, despite the fact that she was born in the first book, and Cloudtail wasn't born until the second book.
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Post by cardemis on Nov 10, 2019 22:01:04 GMT -5
Personally I preferred Dust x Sand, and never paid much mind to Dust x Fern. I did think it was off-putting when he was so into her while she was only an apprentice. To the point, he eagerly volunteered to be her new mentor when he already had an apprentice at the time. Eh, we did kind of get a taste of Dust x Sand. Sandstorm basically just pushed him around and handed him whatever opinion he was supposed to have. He never really started to develop genuinely until he got over her.
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Post by alphayamergo on Nov 11, 2019 1:30:15 GMT -5
I think it's easier to just ignore the family trees that aren't explicit on page (eg Brindleface being Dustpelt's brother) because they obviously weren't intended while writing the first arc, and to assume that apprentices are intended to be the equivalent of teenagers from about 14 to 18-20 ish. So using that, Dustpelt isn't really Ferncloud's uncle, and the relationship starts as someone in their late teen years dating someone in their early twenties (an age gap which could be iffy, but isn't inherently so in the way that a ~40 year old dating a ~15 year old would be).
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Post by ❅Maplefrost❅ on Nov 11, 2019 11:29:20 GMT -5
The only reason the Erins killed off so many of their kits was cause they deemed the relationship boring. It was pretty much along those lines. I guess it's a pretty dumb reason, but at the same time, it did help prevent too many incest related children in the clan. Also even if it's not explicitly written on page, at the end of the day we still know who is related to who. It doesn't change that Dustpelt is Ferncloud's uncle. Also last I checked, Fern wasn't crushing on Dustpelt as an apprentice, it was the other way around. While Dustpelt was a warrior, a position of power at that, eagerly showed romantic interest in Ferncloud while she was still an apprentice, it was so obvious even Firestar noted it. I remember many fans flew off the end when Thistleclaw was having an implied relationship with Spottedleaf as an apprentice, or at least showing some sort of interest in her and vice versa, yet when it comes to this situation with Dust and Fern is easily looked over. Or swept under the rug, just because of how their relationship turns out later, or because it's a pairing aligned with characters "good" in nature. Whether the Erins intended to do it or not, it can come off as "creepy" and off-putting to some fans, and I think that's perfectly reasonable. To this day, the pairing still didn't sit right with me, because of these notions, when I was a younger reader, and even more so now. In the end they're cats, but they're also described as small furry people. And even if we see apprentices as young adults, it doesn't change the position of power one character is in compared to the other, like Thistle and Spotted, when interest was shown. Nor does it change the heavy incest undertones with how closely related they are. People can ship what they want though, I'm not saying in any ways that they can't.
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Post by ❅Maplefrost❅ on Nov 11, 2019 11:53:43 GMT -5
Personally I preferred Dust x Sand, and never paid much mind to Dust x Fern. I did think it was off-putting when he was so into her while she was only an apprentice. To the point, he eagerly volunteered to be her new mentor when he already had an apprentice at the time. Eh, we did kind of get a taste of Dust x Sand. Sandstorm basically just pushed him around and handed him whatever opinion he was supposed to have. He never really started to develop genuinely until he got over her. When did Sand ever push him around? The two of them got along just fine, and were always noted to be around one another. However their friendship faltered, and pretty much became nothing later on, because of Firestar. Just because Fireheart saved Sandpaw she suddenly started having feelings for him, and gave him more attention, which in tern made Dustpaw even more hostile toward Fireheart. His jealousy was obvious. There's even the time where he's noted to show envy and amazement at the fact that she was sharing tongues with Fireheart. I honestly felt bad for Dust because of this. He and Sand used to be really close, and he was jealous when she started giving Fire more attention. It felt like to me that the Erins then just shoved him with a new interest later, and it didn't come off as natural either from a writing perspective. It makes me disappointed to see the DustSand relationship becoming non-existent down the story line in favor of other ships. They're not even shown much even in friendly circumstances. Heck, even when Dust started showing interest in Fernpaw, there were still some instances where he was annoyed and upset by Sand always taking Fire's side and defending him. From a writing perspective, to me at least, it felt that once the Erins chose Sand as a designated love interest for the protag, they decided to destroy her friendship with the only other rival tom. Before pacifying him with a new interest later. Personally I'm not fond of relationship logics like this in books, and boy do I see it a lot in media. The worst example being in Twilight, where they let Bella get with Edward, they have a baby, and then suddenly Jacob, the former love rival, and the new born baby are destined love interest. It was all types of gross and weird.
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#a3c5e6
Name Colour
𝓣𝓲𝓷𝓾𝓿𝓲𝓮𝓵
Warrior Fanatic
All hail me, the flower-flushing queen of Prague
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Post by 𝓣𝓲𝓷𝓾𝓿𝓲𝓮𝓵 on Nov 11, 2019 15:35:07 GMT -5
In the end they're cats, but they're also described as small furry people. To be fair, this statement applies to every talking animal story, and I think that's why I can't take it seriously. Yeah, they're "small furry people," but of course they would be, considering this is still a children's series in which most of the characters are talking feral cats living in a complex society out in the wild. That being said, the Erins clearly didn't think of the unfortunate implications that would go with the first code, which is partially why I'm hoping it'll either be removed or modified (along with other parts of the code) by the end of the series. Whenever that'll be.
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Bisexual
#ffc5c5
Official Queen of Fan Clans
Name Colour
ʀᴀɪɴʟᴇᴀғ 🍁
Official ThunderClan & ElmClan Leader
Easing back in
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Post by ʀᴀɪɴʟᴇᴀғ 🍁 on Nov 11, 2019 19:00:21 GMT -5
Wait, you don't like DustxFern for the age gap yet suggested Mousefur as an alternative, which would have been a bigger age gap.
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Post by Card against Humanity on Nov 11, 2019 19:11:21 GMT -5
the main reason why i have a harder time looking past the age gap with ferndust is that 1. he was actively crushing on her while she was still like 8 months old, to the point that the narrative mentioned it several times and 2. he was literally mentoring her brother and almost temporarily mentored her as well, which makes the power imbalance more obvious
i think we can all agree the worst offender for age gaps in warriors is spottedthistle though
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Post by morningflower on Nov 12, 2019 2:07:53 GMT -5
Honestly, I don't think it's a completely immoral relationship, but I totally understand why people don't like it. In fact, this is why I also didn't like Tigerheart/Dovepaw in the first few books of OOtS. Dovepaw just seemed at a totally different place maturity wise than Tigerheart, and I can say similar things for Fernpaw and Dustpelt.
To me that's kind of what matters more considering how wildly depictions of ages vary in the series, especially in TPB when they hadn't exactly figured out the internal logic of the series.
However, I think I'll be happier if they just bury warrior/young apprentice relationships. [I'm not a fan of Bristle/Root but I wouldn't cover them under that umbrella considering they were both apprentices when they met]
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Post by ❅Maplefrost❅ on Nov 13, 2019 11:19:17 GMT -5
Honestly, I don't think it's a completely immoral relationship, but I totally understand why people don't like it. In fact, this is why I also didn't like Tigerheart/Dovepaw in the first few books of OOtS. Dovepaw just seemed at a totally different place maturity wise than Tigerheart, and I can say similar things for Fernpaw and Dustpelt. To me that's kind of what matters more considering how wildly depictions of ages vary in the series, especially in TPB when they hadn't exactly figured out the internal logic of the series. However, I think I'll be happier if they just bury warrior/young apprentice relationships. [I'm not a fan of Bristle/Root but I wouldn't cover them under that umbrella considering they were both apprentices when they met] Not to mention Bristle got her warrior name earlier than even her siblings. She's a more so unique case like Fireheart and Cloudtail were.
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Post by KittyClearsight on Nov 13, 2019 12:03:36 GMT -5
I personally dont see a problem with it. They didn't actually get together until they were warriors, where they were on equal footing. I can see where you might have concerns, I just think the fact that they didn't actually get together till they were warriors helps.
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