#and i'm going to arbitrarily blame a random background character for this

[multi-lefaiye]

Shag anon but im putting on a warrior cats mask rn. THERE STUFF U MISSED!! First off, Cats cant taste sweet stuff, but im pretty sure medicine cats use honey to hide food bc its sweet. And i wanna actually expand ur reach rq bc we have Midnight and Rock hanging out who just feel extremely weird even in the context of the series. Maybe its just power creep but theres a whole fuckin badger that is meowing out there. Theres even foxes!! Im still pissed about hollyleaf and the fox cub bc she 100% couldve raised the cub BUT theres a short story out there i swear. where graystripe is in charge while firestar is gone and a fox is hunting prey so the clans get together to chase it out, but by the end graystripe realizes the fox A) understands them, B) has cubs, and C) sorta tells the fox to leave and the fox NODS and leaves??? Idk if im imagining it i could be. I thought ivypool met a cat who speaked wolf for the LONGEST time but it was kid me reading fanfic and taking it as fact and my friends had to tell me that, no, there was no cool wolf cats. Anyways i am gonna touch on cat behavior real quick, arent male cats suuuuper aggressive about mates? Also there is a throwaway line about leafpool getting plump so she did grow a stomach while pregnant but ig everyone just thought thunderclan was eating well (theres problems with THAT too since theres be other signs but, like you said. no cat sex ed). Theres also the fact that humans would 500% find out about the clans some way or another. You're telling me that no one thought it odd that literally hundreds of cats were in the forest? Or that they made structures and dens? or saw then travelling and grouping up and shit??? Anyways cats are aliens thats why cat heaven is called StarClan

SCOOB AND SHAG ANON U AND I ARE BROTHERS IN ARMS- unless you don't like that term in which case I will respectfully high five you and say we are Besties. Or something. The point is that I think you're cool and I love reading your thoughts-

But yes THANK YOU FOR SUPPORTING MY THEORY. MY COMPLETELY LEGITIMATE AND CORRECT THEORY ABOUT WARRIOR CATS. (context: [link])

I'm going fucking feral holy shit you're so right about all of this. I've always been so intrigued and confused by Midnight tbh--it's been a while since I read the books, but there's never any real.... canon confirmation on like Anything about her. I enjoy her existence for narrative reasons, but what's happening here. Millie speaks dog, Midnight speaks cat.... whadda hell

Also that Greystripe story and Hollyleaf with the fox cub.... there's a lot of potential for interesting dynamics with this series regarding the idea that the cats aren't the only sentient animals, but the series just doesn't address that most of the time. Though honestly that's kind of just a point with the series as a whole--lots of interesting concepts get brought up that are just never elaborated on.

(Also as a side-note, this reminds me of a story arc we did in a Warriors RP group I used to be part of. Long story short, it was about the foxes fucking unionizing to take out the clans, and it was really intense but also super interesting and had a lot of interesting fox NPCs who showed up. My favorite was the one-eyed vixen and her gay son <3)

AND ALSO ON THE NOTE OF THE HUMANS FINDING OUT, THAT ALSO BOGGLES MY MIND... THE CATS LIVE SO CLOSE TO CIVILIZATION. HOW HAS NO ONE FUCKING NOTICED. This was actually one thing that was addressed in that rewrite I mentioned that I liked--it suggested the concept of the humans being aware of the clan cats and like... making the clans' territory a protected national park of sorts, b/c imagine how amazing it'd be for tourism to show off these wild cats living in societies and having complicated rules and religions.

God what I wouldn't give to be an anthropologist in the Warriors universe studying cat societies

Anyway on the note of behavior as well, that was actually the thing in the rewrite that put me off reading it ASDFJKL;. It had a moment where Firepaw was super aggressive towards a kit b/c Instincts and it established like... a canon thing that toms aren't allowed nearthe nursery b/c they will try to harm kits that aren't theirs. I don't know how true that is to cat instincts, and I can definitely see that as an interesting concept to explore, but child death is like one of the three things that actively puts me in a really bad headspace when I encounter it without warning so I noped the fuck outta there.

Also man. Fireboy wouldn't do that. Not my orange man. He's built different.

Anyway I think you're 100% correct and I'm going to stand by this theory forever actually. Gonna rewrite Warrior cats but with the context that the cats are aliens (I am not going to do this).