Hello omg I'm obsessed with all of your cat designs and the lore world in your brain. This is so late but like almost a year ago you mentioned in a post that Softpelt is a bit of a parallel to Curlfeather to you, and I'm curious if you could elaborate some more on that?? I love the depth you give to background characters lol
Hiii thank you so much I sincerely love to hear these things!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :OOO So awesome....
Alright so I still think she works as a parallel [Foil??? My view has expanded from all angles but it was always supposed to be sort of foily] from Curl's POV, but specifically in her own story she works better compared with her brother Dappletuft.
Softpelt only has one line, and that line is a cry for help
In this scene she is, as stated, a young apprentice, and half her pelt has been burnt away by fire. <- This Fire was directly started by a lightning strike sent by Starclan to get Riverclan to open their borders while they're recovering from Darktail tearing apart their clan. Her life is really one bad event after another but this is the important one here.
Letsss reverse to just before the fire [AVOS RoF Bonus Scene]
There's a sickness running through Riverclan, and Softpaw already has it bad. Curlfeather, who is surely still recovering to some extent from the injuries she received as one of Darktail's prisoners- is also just starting to get sick.
[Recall: The injuries in question ⬇️]
So they likely would have spent quite some time in the medicine den for a while at the same time both before and after the fire. [With Willowshine and her whole 'That fire was a blessing! We really needed that :D Everybody we love Starclan don't we everybody? They always know just what to do (E']
Getting into my mindbrain now. This event is Huge and influential in both of their lives, though while Softpelt directs that trauma inward, Curlfeather projects it outwards, and the event itself, the way it affected the cats [Esp Softpelt and her family] around her, and how they reacted to it, all add heavily to her questioning view of cat society and religion.
Softpelt on the other hand grows up questioning whether there was something She Should have done that would have prevented what happened. Why was She, baby softpaw, hurt worse than any other cat in her clan? If it was truly Righteous of Starclan? How likely is it to happen again? Is Starclan watching her, always, waiting for her to do the wrong thing again? ? + Willowshine influence + series of unfortunate events all the time
Softpelt heavily internalizes all this and becomes incredibly god-fearing and devout. Canon again -> She dies fighting for The Imposter, thought to be the only cat fully backed by Starclan, before he's revealed to be Ashfur. Her brother dies fighting for the opposite cause. After she dies she isn't immediately sent to Starclan, but is taken as one of Ashfur's prisoners in the Dark Forest. <- Can we also acknowledge that Ashfur Is a Starclan cat, proving their fallibility and giving Curlf further reason to distrust them and their ultimate power even if he wasn't working with the higher population
Anyways. Where am I. Looks around. Also Softpelt mentored Splashtail until she died
I could make this post 1000 pages long and elaborate one million different ways but once again I refrain. I shant. I shant
Most of the parallel/foil stuff with curl and soft is just the extreme disparity in their views on religion throughout their lives stemming largely from the same events
