i don’t care much about the onestar x whitetail thing because it explicitly states that he never saw her as anything but a clanmate until a while after she became a warrior.
that's...okay so like. woe be on me to tell people what is/isn't okay to ship. i'm not gonna sit here and tell anyone whether or not a ship is """bad""" and if u ship onestar and whitetail y'know go for it.
my problem w them has never been the age gap? i always assumed they got together around tnp, when that wouldn't have mattered.
my problem is that i really, really, really don't like mentor/apprentice. bc i see it as a parent-child relationship. as a general rule, i don't ship anything that's mentor/apprentice, and as a more nuanced rule, i either write it in an au or try to make it clear it's not a cool and normal thing.
("what about misty/moth?" i started shipping them before i read a shadow in riverclan and it's either not stated in tnp or i didn't read it. either is possible, i've missed lots of details. anyway, now i only ship them in aus where mistyfoot wasn't mothwing's mentor. that's why in principles, misty is a medic.)
so personally, that doesn't erase my issue with onestar/whitetail. but again, i'm not telling anyone what they can/can't or should/shouldn't ship. my current tirade has everything to do with: (1) it was already canon and (2) [nebulous thing i can't say concisely].
anyway idk where i'm going with this i'm just rambling