We just wanted to share a comment and our reply from AO3 about chapter 3, because the importance of kin comes up a lot in our writing and you'll see this more in future chapters. We're planning on a write-up about the importance of kin in the Clans to post later on too!
Absolutely_flabbergasted commented:
Shadepaw is being mentored by her dad? I thought that was frowned upon! And was Stonefur mentored by Oakheart or was that exchange just acknowledging Oakheart is Stonefur's father? *Is* Oakheart out as Stonefur's father?
I do love that Shadepaw's mom and aunt come to the rescue to get the pike! Though all this 'refer to family by their given names' shit is confusing for me.
We replied:
In our canon, generally the cat who does the nursing (typically the queen/mother, sometimes a foster mother) is NOT considered as a mentor (unless absolutely necessary) - Stonefur didn't stay in the nursery with the kits so he was still a candidate for mentor. It also largely depends on the leader and the Clan.
Stonefur was actually mentored by Crookedjaw/Crookedstar - but he's very close to Oakheart. Greypool and Oakheart raised Stonefur and Mistyfoot as their own kits, so as far as any cat in RiverClan knows, they were born a short time after Greypool's first litter.
We so feel on the family thing, but in the Clans, all of the Clan is a big family basically, so we decided it made the most sense for all cats to refer to each other by their names. Shadepaw is the most inclined out of our four protagonists to refer to them in her thoughts by their relation - she's very family-oriented!