ive never heard of a clerc before, first thing that comes to mind is a store clerk lmao
Also you're lucky people for some reason arent getting mad at the leader and deputy age gap whenever I play clangen and get an age gap like that I'm yelled at by others to forcibly break them up or change their age in the code ☹️ wish I had your freedom lmaoooo
English isn't my first language so I thought clerc and cleric were basically the same thing because of DnD 😔
Also warning, big block of text incoming, I hope my English is good enough so you can understand everything !!
TW for talking about age gaps
I am very sorry you had such experiences. :( I am actually very anxious whenever I post as I fear I might get yelled at. Actually, posting this very post makes me anxious because I know talking about this subject can be very difficult. I actually rewrote his post like three times already😭
For now thankfully, everyone commenting on this blog has been very nice and kind :)
If it helps here is how I treat age gaps, maybe it can help you solve some of your issues with your public ?
I try my best to have the age gaps as small as possible, I only allow larger age gaps if the cats both meet as full grown adults (which is the case for Silversight and Spectralstar ! I actually have a little backstory post for the founders in preparation !)
I usually let the game do its own thing when it comes to couples, I mainly use my mediators to strenghten family bonds (mainly with adopted kits, because the game doesn't automatically strenghten these relationships)
If the cats are both colony-born, I will break the couple up if the age gap is equal or superior to 6 moons and the younger party is less than 30 moons old. Otherwise it makes me feel uncomfortable
I can make an exception for colony-born cats, as an example if the two cats only start being attracted to each other when the oldest is 90 moons old, and the youngest is 80 moons old ? It feels less weird to me, like they had time to experiment around with their feelings and everything before settling together you know ?
For a colony-born cat and an outsider, I can allow larger age gaps as long as the outsider joined when the colony-cat was already a full grown adult. I usually allow the game to make them an official couple when the younger party is at least 30 moons old. This means that Valleyfall x Oddspots is forbidden !!! It's just a one-sided crush on Oddspots side !
Generally I will ignore a lot of the romantic feelings the cats have for each others in-game if it makes me uncomfortable lol. You don't have to make everything that happens in-game canon in your comic if it makes you feel queasy !
These are just personal rules I give myself, otherwise I feel uncomfortable when playing and drawing my cats !
(The following part is just me rambling about canon Warrior Cats issues and how it influences Clangen and therefore most playthroughs of the game)
I think the age gap issue is due to the general canon Warrior Cats Clan setting, because if you do follow the classic Warrior Code™, you aren't allowed to take in domestic cats and loners; which means you can't add new blood, but it also means that all your cats know each other since birth. :((
In the canon books, it leads to weird ahh relationships like Thornclaw and Blossomfall, Onestar and Whitetail, Ashfur x Squirrelflight or even Brambleclaw x Squirrelflight (we often forget that both Ash and Bramble were warriors when Squirrel was born lol)
The one way the canon books found to remedy to this issue was to add a lot of useless background characters, so that they could reproduce more and regularly, giving a steady flow of new kittens of similar ages to ship with the main characters. This isn't really a good solution in the long run, seeing how incredibly big ThunderClan has become, but it's also not solving the big "everyone is related to each other" issue. :(((
That's why I decided to create the Colony instead of a Clan, so that I can change the rules, so I can integrate outsiders and domestic cats with no issue, introducing both new blood and characters who don't know everyone since they were born :)
I hope this helps you a bit ! :)
