Warrior Cats Enjoyer

This is a blog where I talk about and reblog Warrior Cats content. 

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Warriors Canon I Choose to Ignore

Hey, you know the meme?

Well, sometimes I simply choose to Ignore parts of the series that add nothing meaningful to the story while vastly overcomplicating things. Here is a list of various unhinged things I Do Not See U_U.

Nobody has parents from the first arc generation. Sandstorm was sculpted from sand. Dustpelt: dust. Ravenpaw: .. .the stork got lost so a raven brought him.

Flipclaw is still at the ToRW with his boyfriend Feather of Flying Hawk.

Moonpaw's moms are Plumstone and Thriftear, not Thriftear and her first cousin Bayshine.

StormClan's Folly

Raggedstar is not a horribly abusive mate and closer to his depiction in the first series

Actually, Yellowfang's Secret whomst

Stumpytail is not in the Dark Forest. Who put him there. I will fight them.

Hollyleaf and Fallen Leaves are a couple of besties with severe codependency problems and not mates in any way whatsoever

Spottedleaf's Heart whomst

Shadowsight is not reduced to a punching bag for the universe in The Broken Code and only Lionblaze is irrational towards him (because he is Lionblaze)

Brambleclaw and Squirrelstar ended their relationship after Squirrelflight's Hope after realizing how toxic the relationship has become

Bumble becomes so big and powerful that she simply eats the other settlers and the Clans never exist. The end.

Redtail's Debt whomst

After realizing how pathetic and sniveling her mate is, Whitetail ends things with Onestar and joins the Sisters

The Darkstripe-Sorreltail-Graystripe half-sibling situationship does not exist. Willowpelt was a first time mother with Sootfur, Rainwhisker, and Sorreltail.

Ferncloud and Dustpelt are not aunt and niece. This is because Dustpelt was formed from dust.

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One of my funniest headcanons is that Crowfeather's rizz towards women is inherited, except Hollyleaf has it, and is a magnet for sapphic cats.

"Her bifauxnen stare and androgynous looks have captivated me" says half the feminine population from PoT and OotS.

[beauisokfornow]

i am at peace

[doomedcousins]

character development

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"Her only fault was that she loved too much"

Not the Ashfur quote! But yes, I'm serious. Curlfeather's fault is literally that she loved too much.

But you can also love deeply without understanding, and this is Curlfeather's fatal flaw.

When does love become a vice?

I get a bit annoyed at the fandom as Curlfeather's nuances are often not spoken about in favor of a more clear-cut story. She receives the Draco in Leather Pants treatment, which isn't common with female villains in media and literature. There are countless fanarts drawing Curlfeather as an edgy wronged woman out for revenge that remind me of the Hawkfrost and Scourge fanarts of the 2000s. She's got the anime cat hair and everything.

And you know what? A friend of mine has helped me see that honestly, that's fine. Women in Warriors deserve their moment to be seen as an Ashfur or Scourge, especially a woman who is also a mother in a position of power. Let her be 2026's Warriors tumblr sexyman. I'm rooting for her.

But also, I want to give my thoughts about the nuance of her character, and how her love ultimately destroys her.

She loved RiverClan, and wanted to stop the stagnation that Mistystar had allowed RiverClan to experience. She wanted change, to make RiverClan better. And the reality is that she would have done it. She has the qualities of a good leader.

But her plan entailed removing the obstacles in that path to RiverClan's rebirth. She did not feel regret for her role in assassinating Reedwhisker. This is because she treated Reedwhisker as an object to remove.

She did not feel regret for pulling in Splashpaw to her plans, grooming a teenager to become her right-hand. Splashtail was set up from the beginning to be a tool to "repair" RiverClan.

She did not feel regret for using Frostdawn as a tool to legitimize her position as leader. She groomed her for this position since she was a kit.

She loves her Clan, loves her vision of a better future, and loves her daughter. But what does she love most?

It's her daughter. When she is there, on the path of victory, she is given a choice. Her vision, or her daughter. And she chooses Frostpaw. She gives her the tools she needs to solve her murder and Reedwhisker's murder, but in order to do so, she is treating her daughter like she herself is an object to use.

And therein lies the tragedy of Curlfeather. She loves so deeply and purely, and yet she cannot comprehend or realize how she has hurt the cats around her.

She does not understand Frostdawn's feelings about being used as a pawn, nor does she understand Splashtail's feelings about being seen as a weapon. Her objectification of others is what kills her, and is the obstacle to her place in StarClan. She cannot leave the Dark Forest, because she has no regrets. She cannot see other cats as people outside herself. She loves and loves without understanding that the love she feels is built around possessing things.

She regrets she was killed. She regrets Frostdawn got almost killed. She regrets trusting Splashtail and wants to see him humbled. But she does not regret the emotional trauma she has inflicted by the cause of her actions.

Frostdawn loves her mother and will never understand her, and Curlfeather loves Frostdawn but will never understand Frostdawn. They will never reach an understanding or find closure, because to Curlfeather, there is nothing to find closure for.

[clanslist]

Non-canon fanart of Brambleclaw and Squirrelpaw by graphic novel artist Sammy Savos. How cute!

(Link to original post via X)

[carboniila]

pollitos

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has anyone in wctumblr done this yet

[harriertail]

high in the halls of the kings who are gone, jenny would dance with her ghosts

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There is a certain type of misogyny in this fandom where female characters who have ascended to a leadership position have their accomplishments dismissed through denying their suffix of "star."

"I don't like this woman, so I will belittle her and deny her status."

When I see people dismiss Squirrelstar's position by refusing to call her by her rank of leader I find it very hmmmm.

"But BC, we don't even know if she has her nine lives"- She. Is. Leader. Of. ThunderClan. We never did this with Nightstar of ShadowClan who didn't get his nine lives.

(And before it is said: I refer specifically to the intent to call a female character by their warrior name because they do not like that character. Calling her by her warrior name and leader name interchangeably is perfectly normal.)

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Brambleclaw vs Squirrelstar is the new Ashfur vs Hollyleaf

I've been in this fandom since 2010. I was there in the trenches on the old Warrior Cats official forums message boards when you had multiple threads about who was better: Ashfur or Hollyleaf. And this is because of a simple reason:

Ashfur did wrong to Hollyleaf. Hollyleaf did wrong to Ashfur. (It's more complex than this, but place yourself in the mind of a mentally developing teenager from the 2010s.)

People developed different communities based on who they hated more. Did you like Ashfur? Then Hollyleaf was the worst character ever, deserved to die, and in some peoples cases, Ashfur should have burned her alive with her siblings.

Did you like Hollyleaf? Then Ashfur was the worst character ever, deserved to die, and Hollyleaf should have killed him more painfully.

"BC", you might say, "This sounds like a strawman." And it is. But it serves to explain how these groups began to form around not just liking one character, but hating the other character in the equation. The people forming these groups were mostly teenagers who were deeply passionate about a character and would direct that passion outwards, both positively and negatively. I like to say if you cringe at your younger self in your online days, then you have grown as a person. :P

(There was definitely Ashfur vs Squirrelstar groups, but back then Squirrelstar was far less liked than she is now.)

This is a tried and true method of online discourse and debates. You join a "group" and stick to it, as it provides a sense of belonging.

The "Hollyleaf vs Ashfur of the late 2000s is the Dovepaw vs Ivypaw of the Omen of the Stars era. And Squirrelstar vs Brambleclaw is one of the newer iterations of these social groupings.

The entire debate around Squirrelstar and Brambleclaw is complex and nuanced where you have to take into account authorial intent vs interpreted reading of the characters, but group mentality is not about nuance. It's about social acceptance and community. It's an emotional reaction.

You will have your groups that love Squirrelstar, and may not have even read the books at all. It is because the community they are in love Squirrelstar, and because of what they have been told by senior members of the community they look to for guidance. And as a result, the other half of this equation, Brambleclaw, becomes the devil incarnate.

Consequently, you will have your groups that love Brambleclaw, and may not have even read the books at all. It is because the community they are in love Brambleclaw, and because of what they have been told by senior members of the community they look to for guidance. And as a result, the other half of this equation, Squirrelstar, becomes the devil incarnate.

What needs to be understood is that nuance is lost in favor of group thinking. "I am on this team, so the other team is bad." And it is often younger fans, usually teenagers, making these black-and-white inferences.

The truth is: they are fictional characters that make us think and feel things differently. We interpret each character differently. The solution to group-based mentality is to talk to other people outside that group. You might be like me, friends in the same server with someone who I would have been sworn enemies with in the Ashfur vs Hollyleaf flame wars. Or find an interpretation of a character you hate so much (Millie) that you definitively love that interpretation over your own reading of the character.

I'll probably never be able to like Brambleclaw/Bramblestar. But I have a dear friend who does, and whose interpretation of that character I respect. Online groups are helpful in establishing community and socialization. But you should still always be aware that the other person on the side of the screen you are disagreeing with is a person like you.

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A Particular Changing Skies Spoiler

Is it really a spoiler if the whole of Tumblr has access to the PDF now? My thoughts below as I ponder my orb.

Brambleclaw's final moments were very bittersweet. I think knowing that Cherith's cat, Bramble, whom Brambleclaw was named after, passed away, makes it so much more heartfelt from the writer and a final sendoff to her beloved cat. Old man Brambleclaw was quite lovely, and honestly I think retiring was the best choice for him, mentally and emotionally.

I personally cannot separate the Brambleclaw/Bramblestar I know from the majority of the series and how he was written, but I can appreciate Bramblepaw, one of my favorite characters from The Prophecies Begin, and cool off a little at Brambleold™, who was pretty chill after he no longer had authority over other cats. I think he's more well adjusted outside a leadership position, and perhaps happier.

However. It does not escape me he died of sepsis. He died of poopy foot. That's terribly funny (haha poop) and also terribly realistic. Do not play around with sepsis folks, our ancestors often died of it.

I'm not entirely happy with how a lot of focus shifted to Squirrelstar's faults in their relationship, but I do see the characters themselves making those connections and inferences, and it's poor taste to piss on an old man's corpse (though watch out for Shinepaw). The reality is that the authorial intent was never to make Brambleclaw abusive, the characters don't think it's abusive, and it's good they didn't try to "course correct", but instead just made him stop doing the things that were abusive patterns of behavior. It was the best way they could have handled that, honestly.

However. I have experienced a tad bit of schadenfreude. There is a certain subset of Warriors fan that makes hating Squirrelstar their entire personality. And seeing these melodramatic reactions to a fictional cat's death is really. really. funny.

Farewell, Brambleclaw. May you not be assimilated into the StarClan Collective and retain some semblance of personality in any future books you're in.

[ewwww-what]

The childhood warrior cat oc is a parasite that inhabits in the brain

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Adding my Two-Cents on Curlfeather

I 100% agree that DotC is rife with misogyny and I strongly disagree with how women are treated in that arc and in the series in general. Clear Sky to me is a product of his time in that he existed before DotC, and before his various crimes against catkind we known to both us and the ghostwriters.

However.

Curlfeather is not a misunderstood morally gray character. She knows exactly what she did. She is proud of what she did. She sees herself as a martyr for doing what she had to to make her Clan prosper, and has gladly taken upon the mantle of a Dark Forest cat. She does not feel remorse or regret, so she is not able to find redemption. She knows this.

And I think denying her that satisfaction and lack of remorse removes her agency of choice. She chose to commit treason and killed Reedwhisker. She chose to save Frostdawn, both for selfish and altruistic reasons. She and Frostdawn will never have closure because Curlfeather has no remorse for her actions or how it hurt Frostdawn, and that's the tragedy of it all.

Women's wrongs in stories are equally as important as women's rights when it comes to their agency and ability to choose. I support a problematic morally complex mother who both loves her child and wants to control her child as an extension of her will.

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Warriors is a prison, and I am the prisoner and warden. I can leave the dungeon any time. I have the key. But then I see the lost potential The Broken Code could have been and suddenly I am dramatically crawling on the sand, watching in despair as the sand slips through my fingers. Nooooo, it was so close...

So I have a theory. I think a lot of warriors fans years and years later still remain in this fandom because of the potential this series could be. "I'm stealing this character", Hollyleaffan2001 says, because the actual story dropped the ball so hard. "What if I rewrote their entire religious system" says another, and turns StarClan into an unknowable eldritch abomination.

We love and stick with this series because we have grown attached to the idea of what could have been. And there is no greater passion for a fan than sharing their thoughts and ideas and visions with equally excited and passionate fans who just wanna know: what can I do to make this universe my own?

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AU where Firestar adopted Darktail because I thought it would be funny

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Twitter is a hellscape. But sometimes, I can find a really funny post amidst the pile of dung.

Being infested with the Warriors brainrot that I have, I had to make a low effort WC shitpost with the shirt I saw.