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Post by dahliadove - #1 nightpelt fan on Mar 14, 2024 6:13:23 GMT -5
I don't care much about the Bumblestripe discourse so the only thing I really have to say is that he should've asked that question later
Like it was the worst possible time to ask that question... I understand what Saint Ambrosef said about his reasoning and him rethinking their relationship, but I just think it was a bad time to ask that question and he should've apologised because he clearly upset her
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Post by valleylight on Mar 14, 2024 11:58:56 GMT -5
I honestly wasn’t sure what my opinion was, so I took some time to just read through all of their interactions together.
One thing I was really surprised by was how healthy their relationship is in Dovewing’s Silence. I’ve often heard a running joke that Dovewing is hanging out with Purdy to avoid Bumblestripe in this novella. But their relationship is actually really refreshing and wholesome. Both of them are portrayed as quite mature in ironing out the problematic tendencies in their interactions. They discuss and work through larger controversies from the plot, and support each other throughout the narrative.
Bumblestripe grows more respectful and quick to listen to Dovewing, and she even convinces him to rethink his stance on the Dark Forest trainees. Instead of trying to monopolize Dovewing’s time and neglect his friends and family, he asks Dovewing if it’s alright for him to sit with Blossomfall during the Gathering so she won’t be alone. This makes Dovewing happy, and helps her feel that they’re achieving a healthy balance in their relationship.
Meanwhile, Dovewing recognizes her own tendency to take her anxieties out on Bumblestripe, when he hasn’t done anything wrong and is just trying to be supportive. She apologizes and works towards processing her worries and communicating them honestly.
Really, the novella sets up what seems to be a caring and supportive, two-way relationship.
But ultimately, the writers decided Dovewing wanted to be with Tigerheart. And that’s absolutely fair. Honestly, in Bramblestar’s Storm, Bumblestripe handles Dovewing calling off their relationship with surprising acceptance, even as he feels pain and deep grief. He consistently wants to support her and be understanding of her struggle with losing her powers. But Dovewing has started off on a different path, and that’s okay— it’s just the way things are.
As to the bonus scene, I think Bumblestripe realizes that Dovewing is at a crossroads with Tigerheart. He recognized their relationship during a battle in Bramblestar’s Storm, and I don’t think he’s unaware of her feelings towards the ShadowClan tom. Lots of cats have been gossiping about it throughout Tigerheart’s stay in ThunderClan.
So in Chapter 1, he feels like they’re finally communicating and enjoying each other’s company again for the first time in who knows how long. And he’s ready to suggest starting over and trying again with their relationship. We know Dovewing does not want this, but Bumblestripe doesn’t know. Yes, she’d established boundaries since their break-up, but Dovewing seems open to hanging out again.
So after Purdy’s death, the urgency he feels in making one last attempt at a fresh start prompts him to throw caution to the wind and confess his love to Dovewing, including the possibility of kits and new life for the Clan. This is reckless and unthinking, but I don’t think he was being intentionally insensitive or creepy. Throughout the series to this point, Bumblestripe is not a complicated cat— he’s always just said what he feels. So he lays his heart out to Dovewing, in a way that honestly reminds me of Nightheart at the beginning of Shadow— clumsily, in a very untimely manner, and putting the cart before the horse, but earnestly and sincerely.
The problem for me is the way Bumble reacts to Dove’s response. He comes across as condescending and unwilling to listen to or value her thoughts, feelings, and frustrations. He should realize that he’s misunderstood how Dove is processing trauma and grieving for Purdy. He should channel DS Bumblestripe and communicate care about her perspective. He should realize he has badly timed his proposal for Dovewing, even if he didn’t mean to. But he doesn’t. That’s what I think the biggest issue with his actions in the bonus scene is. Dovewing, for her part, was yelling at him in a way that clearly hurt him, taking her frustration out on him once again. But she was also grieving. Really, both of them are acting in an emotionally-charged manner, which is understandable.
With all things considered, I don’t think Bumblestripe deserves too much hate for the way he and Dovewing treated each other. They both struggled with emotional maturity, not just Bumble. Their relationship was flawed, but it showed real signs of growth, and ultimately fell through because Dove was in love with Tigerheart and not him. I don’t think it was anything Bumble did, at least not from what we can see as readers.
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Asexual
#A3E4D7
Name Colour
🍄🎶✨Brambleheart✨🎶🍄
its april which means its time to bow down to the 'tism
Pronouns: She/her, they/them
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Post by 🍄🎶✨Brambleheart✨🎶🍄 on Mar 15, 2024 19:19:28 GMT -5
Giving my own two cents here as someone who was in a similar situation to Dovewing-
When I was in high school, I had a friend. We'll call him Stoattail, as that was the warrior name Ravenheart (my best friend to this day) and I gave him. Stoattail and I met in grade 9. We shared several classes together. We bonded because he was disabled, and I am as well (although I didn't tell him that). We also shared similar interests such as memes, Marvel, and a similar sense of humour. We were really just classroom friends, in the sense that we sat near each other when we could, paired up in group activities, and did worksheets together. About halfway through the semester, my friend Honeyfrost ghosted us when she switched schools and never told us. Ravenheart and I were upset since we were in a friend group for about a year. I told Stoattail when he asked where she was.
After that, Stoattail weaseled his way into eating lunch with us at our lockers. He had some other friends there that we sat near, but he had stopped eating in the cafeteria to eat with us. He framed it as a one time thing but then ate with us every day. We didn't think much about it. Ravenheart and I still had time together on Thursdays in the DnD club, and while walking to and from school. The DnD club was very exclusive as it wasn't announced like other clubs; we only knew about it since Ravenheart's guidance counselor ran it. Now, we didn't mind Stoattail's presence. He was funny, liked talking to us, and really helped fill the hole in our hearts after Honeyfrost left. Then came Christmas.
During Christmas, one of Stoattail's friends had a Secret Santa. Stoattail, knowing I like playing detective, asked me to keep an eye on a suspect of the friend's partner. We were in the same LINK crew, which was basically a small group of grade 9s who met every once in a while to aid with the transition to high school. I didn't really like the kid but still made small talk about Secret Santa. After Christmas I thought it was done. It wasn't. Now Stoattail wanted me to continue spying on this random kid I didn't like. It got to the point to where in grade 10 he convinced me he was a CIA agent/cadet thing and he had gone to the school to specifically make a file on the kid.
Now here is where the Bumblestripe stuff started happening (Ravenheart and I literally called it a Bumblestripe situation back then)...
I did not want anything to do with the spying. All I signed up for was to keep an eye on the kid to see if he was our friend's Secret Santa. Not literally seeing everything he was doing. Stoattail had convinced me mot to tell abybody as the work was classified. At the end of grade 9, I told my parents though and they said he was full of it. I told Stoattail that this thing made me uncomfortable. He at first respected that, but then went back to it once grade 10 started. That's when he told me the CIA stuff. He started making weird comments then, too. Once he said he was reading through his great-grandpa's journal. His great-grandpa fought in the War, and apparently someone in his crew shared my last name. I wasn't even related to that guy, and my great-grandpa who did fight in the War doesn't share my last name. But Stoattail tried to convince me that our "shared history" means we were meant to be friends. Another time, during technology class, he just casually showed me his house and address on google maps. He talked about what it looked like, and said things like "when you come over", when we had never talked about coming over, and quite frankly, I was uncomfortable with that. He was fixated on me coming over, though, but he never asked. He was being weird with me when I was trying to do classwork, he always looked at my stuff without asking, and he pathologically lied to make himself seem impressive.
Stoattail also developed a habit into being really possessive towards Ravenheart and I. He found a way to join our DnD club, and joined a space club that Eagleheart and I were briefly in in grade 9. This made me uncomfortable but I couldn't do anything. Ravenheart and I then tried to join a magic club, and we purposefully didn't tell Stoattail our whereabouts, just that we wouldn't be eating lunch with him since we were busy that day. Even though Stoattail knew about this, and that it was just for Ravenheart and I, he still decided to look throughout the whole school, and even asked our mutual friends if they knew where we were. he told them that we had "abandoned" him, and that he was "running through the whole school" looking for us. This made our mutual friends develop a mild distaste for us for awhile. They told Ravenheart and I off for abandoning the disabled kid and making him run through the school with his walker. They did believe is when we told the truth but still were iffy for awhile. Another time, he yelled at Ravenheart and I for being a few minutes late. In reality we were walking and just came in like 3 minutes later. We weren't late for anything, and these kinds of things happen. We told him that but he was adamant that we were hiding things from him and that we were keeping secrets.
But I stayed friends with him because when he was nice, he was really nice, and he was fun to be around. And we were kinda pressured to stay friends. My mom said that we should stay friends since he probably had nobody else (he had plenty), but my dad was more skeptical on whether he was actually a good friend. Our mutual friends, as stated before, were iffy with me after the magic club incident, and they would definitely take Stoattail's side if we were to go our seperate ways. Also Stoattail knew about me being autistic, and I didn't want him to spill the beans to the school as revenge, since I tried to keep it a secret to most people at the time. The only reason why we stopped being friends was because of COVID, and him switching schools after.
Stoattail affected me quite a bit. I'm more firm with boundaries now, which is good, but I get more paranoid when someone comes close to breaking them, even by accident. It's harder for me to invite people over since even the thought of new people coming over gave me the ick after him. I don't like people looking through my stuff. I didn't before, but I really don't now.
Bumblestripe did to Dovewing a lot of similar things that Stoattail did to Ravenheart and I. He was possessive, pressuring, disrespectful of boundaries, and was able to gain sympathy by the society around him to the point to where Dovewing felt uncomfortable standing up for herself. He used inappropriate timing and subjects when trying to get Dovewing to be with him, and often assumed that she was on his level. He never saw that they didn't click, and always reverted back to his ways when things seemed good. So, in my opinion, he does deserve a lot of apprehension from Dovewing and the fandom.
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