Accusing and Sympathizing with both Appledusk and Mapleshade by Addertail

Addertail shares their opinion on Appledusk and Mapleshade.

Wow, these two are a pair that seem pretty controversial… I see a lot of people don’t like Appledusk and love Mapleshade. I understand that. And, on the other hand, I see a significantly smaller amount of people sympathize with Appledusk and dislike Mapleshade. I understand that too! But the issue is that neither of them are perfect.
First of all, let’s look at Appledusk, since more people seem to dislike him heavily. I totally understand why; I mean, after seeing that his mate has more or less drowned her kits – THEIR KITS – and then being humiliated in front of the entirety of RiverClan… I’d probably want nothing to do with Mapleshade either. His reaction is expected, as are his choices, and they’re absolutely awful. It WAS incredibly harsh of him to do this. After all, this is the cat he said he loved, and these are his drowned kits. But at the same time, isn’t it kind of expected? If you’re pressed under the thumb of the clan you’re loyal to with the threat of exile over Mapleshade, while you’re also more or less falling in love with Reedshine, what would you do? I’d probably stay loyal with RiverClan too. I don’t know exactly how his words were phrased, but you have to look past the “growled” and “snarled” and think about the fact that he was having to pick his poison: be exiled and probably killed somewhere, or stay with his Clan and suffer some lack of trust. At least he had Reedshine, right?
Now onto Mapleshade. Oh boy, shady Mapleshade… admittedly, I’m one of the few people that do not like her at all. I mean, she crossed a river while it was clearly dangerously swollen, and with three kits! If I were a mother, no way would I go about doing that! I’d just wait another day somewhere where other cats wouldn’t find me. But then again, she was horribly desperate, wasn’t she? After all, she had just been cast out of her clan for having the kits of another clan’s, and she really had nowhere else to go except to Appledusk. The problem with that is that she should have cleared her mind enough to realize that she absolutely could not cross that river with her three newborns; that’s just incredibly foolish. And then her reaction to Appledusk blaming her for it? I’d be heartbroken too, but seriously, it WAS her fault. Her quest for vengeance afterwards, however, is admittedly both expected as well as understandable. If I had the ability to, I might go after the guy who said he loved me but then refused to take care of me after my kids had just died. It just rubs salt into the wound that he immediately went with Reedshine afterwards, too.
Anyway, that’s all I really have to say! I hope my pro-Appledusk bias didn’t show through too badly?? I mean, I don’t like either of them too much, but I guess I sympathize with Appledusk more. Let me know what you all think!